 First of all, what is your preference? Do you want to do that in case Lindy doesn't show up or? I can do that since her slides are right before mine. Would it feel a little bit smoother than like you going, me going, and then back to you? And they kind of mesh with the ones that I'm presenting as well. Okay. Thank you both. Okay, six. But there's Lindy. Woohoo. Lindy. All right. Okay. Okay, it's six o'clock. Welcome, everybody. I see a lot of the board members are here already. And we have 27, well, 27, including board members, participants. It's exactly six o'clock. And we'd like to welcome you to our forum, our community budget forum. It's an informational forum so you can learn more about the budget. The expectations for today, for conduct, as we always say at this community forums, there are no wrong questions. Please be inclusive of everybody's opinion. And we're going to keep it brief because we're going to have a long meeting today. So let's just be kind to each other. And let's get started, Mark. Mark, are you with me? Do you want to start the presentation? Sorry. I'm getting a few too many things on one screen. No worries. No worries. It will give time for other people to come. Are you able to see that? Okay. Yes. Okay. There we are. Thank you, Mark. So as I was saying, this is our budget forum for 2223. And our budget was built on student needs. We want to underscore that every budget should be grounded in our mission statement. And budgeting is really a year-round process. We are still working on getting there. But all the numbers in this budget tell a story about what we believe is important. Next slide, Mark. As I was saying, this budget is grounded in our mission statement. And Washington Central exists to nurture and inspire in all students the passion and creativity and the power to contribute to their local and global communities. Next slide, please, Mark. So this budget reflects our commitment to meeting our students and staff's social and emotional needs and to highlight the quality instruction and interventions. As the staff presented through the fall to us, we continue to experience different performances between various groups of students, such as students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, and students who don't, and students who qualify for IEPs, and students who do not. We are addressing those concerns in this budget. Common priorities across all the three groups for 2022 and 2023 include full-time counselors and nurses. We are focusing on equity in a common understanding of our multi-layer system of supports. Next slide, please, Mark. Here are our school board parameters. And as you can see, you can see the alignment between the leadership team and the staff and the common priorities. We've been working on this budget process since the fall and through the winter. And this budget that you're about to see meets all of the board parameters. We continue to support our multi-layer system of supports, and we are increasing in this budget the leadership intervention in Calis and our rice position at U32. We are also, you can see the checks there, we are also under the penalty threshold. What you won't see here is that we also have a, we have created a contingency plan for the general fund reductions in case we needed it so far. We do not need that. Next slide. Jonas. So first, we're going to, first thing we're going to take a look at is enrollment in the schools. And the reason this is important is because Vermont's education funding formula is based on the cost per student or equalized pupil. So a decrease in enrollment can negatively impact the tax rate before we make any changes to the budget. So on this slide, we're looking at the last five years of enrollment in each of the schools. The total district enrollment over the last five years declined by 88 total students. In Berlin, that decrease was eight students from 217 five years ago to 209. Calis has decreased from 126 to 108, Doty down from 80 to 79 over those five years. East Montpelier from 229 has increased to 239 this year. Rumney went from 176 down to 142 and U32 has decreased in enrollment from 766 five years ago to 729. And so we'll look at the next slide at what that looks like by percentage. And you can see all the way on the right there that total district enrollment has gone down over five and a half percent from fiscal 18 to fiscal 22 Berlin down about 3.7 percent. Calis down over 14 percent, Doty with just that one student about 1 percent down East Montpelier is the outlier with an increase in enrollment of about 4.4 percent over four years. Rumney down close to 20 percent and U32 close to 5 percent. So again, all but one school in the district has seen enrollment decreases in the last five years and East Montpelier is the outlier. And again, this is important to understand the funding formula and why taxes could go up even if you know, even if the district approved a flat budget. Next slide. So on this slide, we're looking at the budget expanded services and what has gone up or down. I believe they're all increases, but the additions equal 4.1 full time equivalent increase of teachers and the full time equivalents equal a person point one. So four people plus a point one. And you can see the various categories there across the board. It also has the technology needs and the deferred replacement of building equipment down on the last two bullets. The other ones all indicate personnel changes. So the next one shows that U32 adding a social studies teacher of a point six FTE pulling the 39,546 and that will allow greater flexibility within their scheduling and more opportunities for students to achieve proficiency in the global citizenship standards, which is the what we now call social studies is global citizenship. The current department FTE is 9.24 because of a one year temporary contract. Next year have to scroll down on my screen down here. So hold on a minute will be 9.0 permanent positions in East Montpelier. The music teacher is increasing by point two, which when you're looking at those FTE is point two equals a day. So that increases the 20,398 and this allows the music program to continue providing music band chorus instrumental lessons to students weekly and they are anticipating the increase of two more classrooms and this FTE will support adding two more classrooms into the schedule on a weekly basis. On this slide you can see additional position changes and the leadership team established consideration such as the number of students, number of buildings, number of classes per week, half days between buildings to provide a robust programming for art and music. So you can see there's an FTE change from point three FTE to point four FTE for callous as music and it'll allow a full day in one building instead of traveling between buildings and there's a similar increase in art increasing from point three FTE to point four FTE at callous and point five FTE increasing to point six upper one. Next slide on this slide you can see even more position changes. The addition of the two classroom teachers in East Montpelier is to allow classrooms to meet our school board's approved sizing. Right now the classrooms do not they have with ten classrooms six of the classrooms are at maximum or above what we recommend for our classroom sizes. And so with eleven classrooms four out of the eleven classrooms would be the maximum or above. And so the extra two teachers would allow them to spread those students out and meet our board policies for classroom sizes. The special education increase of one FTE they're working on a assessment across the district for special educators should be completed in the near future. And it's going to help them ascertain both the needs of the students and the needs of the educators and where like the capacity of the educators in our district. And this is just going to help us meet those needs. And we are going to continue the equity scholar in residence. We're using the fund balance to offset this because it's still a model that's changing how we use it and how it's helping us is changing and we haven't we're working on it. So we're going to keep it another year and it's coming out of the fund balance. So the slides in Ursula illustrate more clearly the impact of new program and service requests on the budget on our local education spending and the tax rate as well as a proposed use of fund balance and grant funds. The leadership team is requesting $263,526 in funding from the general fund for new programs and services which has no offsetting revenue while the leadership team is also requesting an additional $180,449 which we are recommending the use of the fund balance. Regarding the recommendation of use for fund balance for these two expenses, there was some rationale that was included in the previous slides. We know that historically the board has been inclined to use fund balance for expenses that are clearly one year. We also want to balance the impact on our communities. And you will see shortly that in our communities the CLA has been changed a little bit and so the tax rates in our five towns will be different due to that. Next slide please. The team is also proposing to utilize $59,397 of ARP ESSER funds and ARP ESSER means American Rescue Plan, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief. And so they want to use those funds to support additional time for a paraeducator at DOTI and another .5 literacy interventionist at Calis. It's important to remember that ESSER funds are a temporary source of funds. $91,760 of Title IV funding would be used to offset the cost of a new educator for the high school rise program at U32. And this program is similar to the current SPARC program in the middle school. The slide demonstrates the impact of Act 173 legislation on the delivery of special education services illustrating the changes from the current funding model to the new funding model that will be effective on July 1st of this year. The mainstream block grant and reimbursement model for students under $60,000 have been replaced by one census block grant with funding based upon the district's ADMs averaged over the prior two years. The result is a decrease in funding of $498,000 in 820 or 13.6%. The reimbursement model for students over $60,000 remains. However, the formula has been altered to provide additional funding to the district. The total increase in extraordinary cost funding is $590,000.32 or 94.2%. We should note that some of this increases a result of an increase in the number of students and the overall cost of the services provided for individual students. There's no change over last year in the method of funding state-placed students or pre-kindergarten students who receive special education services. We're anticipating a reduction in state-placed student expenses, which results in a decrease in revenue of 205,850 or 55.1%. Total reduction in special education revenues is $133,587 or 2.8%. Hi, everybody. My name is Kari Bradley from Calis, and my role is to share the summary of the proposed budget and show how the numbers come together to affect our tax rate. So a key point we want to stress is that our district spending plan is really just one factor that will determine our tax rates. We're going to talk about the other factors in a moment. But on this slide, we're going to look at the education spending. It's the one factor that we can control. So expenditures are the amount that the district plans to spend, and our plan includes additional monies for the new positions that we just discussed, updates to current staff salary and benefits, negotiate items, cybersecurity hardening, facility improvements, and many other things. The revenues that we expect to receive from the state and federal will partially offset these expenditures. And the net of the expenditures, increased expenditures, increased revenues, is an increase over last year of a little over a million dollars or 3.7%. So next slide, please. So the next factor that determines the tax rates is the number of pupils. And we saw before that there's been a general downward trend in the number of students. So equalized pupils is the two-year average of the daily average enrollment adjusted for several factors, including the number of students living in poverty or those with limited English proficiency. Our equalized pupil count decreased from 1,431 to last year to 1,413 this year. So this decrease in the number of equalized pupils combined with the increase in the net education spending results an increase of spending of $977 per pupil, which is just about 5%. Next slide, please. So this slide talks about the common level of appraisal. This can be a challenging factor to explain, but it's very impactful and it explains the tax rate differences between our towns. I'm going to try to give a succinct overview of this. So the CLA is a comparison of each town's total property value on their grand lists relative to what the state estimates as the current fair market value of those properties. So the greater the fair market value of the properties relative to the value that's on the town's books, the lower the CLA, all right? And as the CLA decreases, the tax rates go up. And just to spell it out, this year, a decrease in the CLA of 0.6% is equal to 1 cent on the tax rate. And one of the reasons this is so important is that we all know that property values have been increasing pretty rapidly lately, and that's happening more in some towns than in others. And since towns can't do reappraisals every year to update their grand list, the CLA is a way for the state to account for these differences and come up with an equalization each year. So this table compares the CLA's for each of our towns in the district year over year. And we saw decreases in CLA across the board, but it ranges between a 4.2% decrease and a 13.9%. And the most significant decreases are in Worcester and Berlin. And that means that those towns will have the higher tax rates. So, you know, I know this is complex. And if you want more information, I invite you to reach out to myself or to Floor. Suzanne would be happy to discuss it with you more. So next slide, please. So now this slide combines all of the factors that determine our tax rates. You've got the education spending, the pupil counts, the CLA. And then the last factor is the property yield, which is the rate that the legislature will set later in their session. Right now, we're using an estimate for the yield. And that was based on the tax commissioners' estimates from December. So one thing to note is that good news is that the state is holding a surplus from last year. And these numbers that you see here, they assume that none of that surplus is going to be used to reduce tax rates. So likely it's believed that the legislature will allocate some of that amount to tax relief. So the final outcome should be more favorable than what you see here. So taking all of this into account, the projected tax rates range from an increase of 8.4 cents in Berlin to a 7 cent decrease in East Montpelier. That's quite a spread. Worcester will see a small increase. And Middlesex and Callis would see modest decreases. Okay. Next slide, please. And then this slide translates out of those tax projections actually affect property tax increases. Berlin, as I said, will have the most significant increase in the scenario that we presented. Berlin homeowners would pay an additional $84 per $100,000 of home value. And on the other end of the spectrum in East Montpelier, taxpayers would see a decrease of $70 per $100,000. So in East Montpelier, a $300,000 home would result in actually a decrease in taxes of $210. Again, one stress, this is that we're using the most conservative assumption about the yield and we do expect better outcomes once the legislature finishes its work later this year. And also, it's important to point out that this analysis does not assume any savings or decreases from income sensitivity. And many homeowners actually see a reduction because they earn less than the state's threshold. So that's the summary of this part. I want to thank the staff for all their good work and everyone's contributed to the budgeting process. And I'm going to turn it over to McKaylin to talk about the ballot. Hi there. Wow. I am so glad that Kari dealt with that so that I didn't have to. So I am here to say here is the sample ballot that you all should have received in the mail. And don't forget to vote. With the ballot, there was a description of how and when to vote, but you can mail it back in. And I believe the date for mailing it back in is next Monday. So try to get that in the mail or you can drop it off at the town clerk or go in person on town meeting day. Next slide, please. You will see on the ballot that there is an article that includes a request from the town of Berlin that our school district convey 3.8 acres of land that's associated with the Berlin Elementary School to the town for the development of its new town center. The land is used for new town offices, recreation spaces, and a new ingress, ingress into the development adjacent to the Berlin Mall. They need to change the road to get to the back side of the mall. So as a school board, we have not taken a position on this request, but it's on the ballot for all of us voters to vote on. And I encourage you to learn more about it in in the packet for tonight's meeting, which you can find on our website on page 37. I believe there's a bit of a more detailed description and a link to some more resources. And if you really want some entertainment, you can pull up the work of recording of our meeting. I think was January 5th on that topic. So don't forget to vote. That's it. Thank you, everybody. So this is pretty much our last slide. And in here, we just want to remind you that you're going to be getting have to request a ballot separately for the Vermont Central Vermont Career Center. The career at technical location, as you'll know, is usually an afterthought. But in the past two years, we've had been reminded of the importance of career and technical education. And as act 77 reminds you, we it encourages flexible pathways and the career center is a great way or an other opportunity for for our secondary students to have a path to graduation and also to pursue higher education. Just a couple of weeks ago, Governor Scott declared February the career and technical education month. So we need to invest more. This changing governance would allow us to have say in all the different districts. We have six districts that send students to the Central Vermont Career Center, 18 towns that are going to be voting. So if you had any questions, please visit in our package today, too. The frequently asked questions are posted there. The articles of agreement and the whole report that we presented to the state board of education is posted in the center of Vermont Career Center. And there's also a great little video right in the middle of the website that shows the exciting things happening right now. We have had over 350 applications are ready for next year and we are beyond capacity. So please ask for your ballot or get it when you go to vote at your local town. Next slide, please. So here we are before we before we move into questions, I just wanted to take a minute to just pause and think about all the wonderful things that have happened this year for us to be able to be here and how the staff, the community and the and everybody involved with the schools have come together. And it's been a really hard year. And I know that it's not over, but we just want to make sure that we appreciate the staff at Central Office, all of the staff, our schools from bus drivers to, you know, everybody contributes and makes a difference for the life of our kids. So with that, I would like to open it for questions for everybody. So please raise your hand if you have a question and see any. Oh, do you guys see any hints? Am I missing? You must have been really clear. So no questions. OK, since we have one more minute, I'm going to take advantage of that one more minute before we move on. First, to thank Jen, our interim superintendent and our leadership team for all the work in helping us be prepared to for this presentation and for all your collaboration, really, so and always keeping our kids at the center of everything you do. So we are really we have so much talent in this district and we're really, really lucky. And the next thing is to my fellow board members. I know that, you know, this past January of celebrating for members. But thank you for all your work has been have quite a lot of meetings. And we have three board members that are leaving our board. So I will want to take a minute to just appreciate Scott Thompson, thank you for your work and for your education for the kids. And I want to thank Jill also for your dedication and for your contributions in the past two years for us could, you know, we're going to miss you. Well, and Stephen, Luke is not here with us today. I couldn't convince him to come. He is a pretty private guy, but he's contributed many, many, many, many years, as you know, so we owe him a great deal and we appreciate you all. So we're we wish you the best. Remember that I still have your phone number, so I might be calling. So thank you. So if we don't have any questions, maybe we should jump in early into our meeting unless four members have or unless everybody needs a five minute break, we could wait for a break in at the hour. But I think keep going, keep going really. OK, this keeps growing. I'll make sure I have the right agenda. Recording stopped. Meaning so this we already called the meeting to order. Reception recording progress. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Let's start with student reports. Hi, everyone. I'm not sure if my wife is going to hold up. I really hope it does, but I do live in Berlin now, so it's a little touchy. Starting off tonight, very recently, I am a senior representative on the senior committee and we have finally figured out that we're going on a senior trip this year, which will be right before graduation. We are going to Lake George and we're staying in the Fort Henry Hotel, I believe, for a night and the next day we're going whitewater rafting. So we've been able to get about 40 out of the like 130 students to go. So that's very, very exciting for me. And on the same note, problem will also happen this year, like a real problem in May, and there's already a committee working on it. And we're really hoping that it'll be amazing for all the seniors who have missed a lot in the past few years. So with that, so sports are happening. Of course, when our sports are going on after this, I'm actually going to the boys basketball game in the past week. There have been a bunch of hockey games, basketball, the Nordic. And because we've been able to have people coming to watch, the student section has really grown and we've been able to have really, really strong school spirit this year. So it's very, very nice for all of our athletes to have all the support from them. And then this Monday was Valentine's Day. And every year we try to do a flower sale, which we continued this year, as well as a table run by the Conversation Group, which we have a Conversation Group in Montpelier and here. And I think I have mentioned it before, which had a bunch of resources about consent and some stickers and candy as well. So that was really fun. If you look at the newsletter and check that out online, I believe Jess Wells, our assistant principal does send that out every so often. There is recognition of our CBL programs are branching out and our pilot programs. And very recently, we've had two of our students who are juniors in that group who are studying music. They have actually released a new song on Spotify that as of tonight has 50 views, which is pretty cool with that. And within, I believe it was with CBL program, two students were able to study Japanese cuisine and actually work with an actual chef. And as well as that, someone has been working with owls. And it's a really, really good way for students, especially during COVID to learn and experience things that they are really passionate about. And also starting this week, a lot of students started coming up with their schedule for next year. And I know that a lot of people are planning on early college or dual enrollment, we're juniors now. So that's really cool. And yeah, another semi fun happening, also stressful happening for juniors and seniors in our English or any AP level English classes. Currently, I'm in World Authors, and I am starting to do an author study, which we do for, I believe it's a couple of months and we choose a global national international author. I chose Mashaan Hamid, who is a Pakistani author, and we read two main major pieces of them, and then we read smaller pieces of them. And we've created, we're creating multi-genre projects. So this gives students an ability to show together research standard for graduation as well as have some fun with the project. So it's not all, you know, a 20 page essay for, I believe, Advanced Expo, which I took last year, students are starting to do the iSearch, which is the less fun of the research projects. And you choose a conflict, last year I chose the impact of electronics on the functioning society, and you read a bunch of sources, you grab a couple of books, you do a bunch of online sources, and you end up creating a big TED talk at the end of the project. So students are all starting to do their big projects for the end of the year right now. And finally, we do have February break coming up next week, which is a week and a half, and all the students I know are really looking forward to it. And I'm sure the staff is as well. So yeah. No, thank you both. And I want to take this opportunity to also thank Anna for her service as a school board member and for being willing to join us. I know you're going to be moving on and we wish you the best in your next journey. I failed to call it for public comments. So I'm going to ask, or members have questions from our students. Are there any public comments? I just jumped since we didn't have questions after the other one. I just assume, but any hands? I'm just giving it opportunity for people to raise hands. I don't see any hands. Am I missing something? No. OK, good. Any agenda revisions? I'm so excited to hear about the students that I know. OK, so we had student reports. So let's move right to you, Jen and Maria. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, everybody. So, Maria and I are going to do our best to explain to you somewhat succinctly what's going on in terms of the covid context. And we'll welcome any questions that you have as well. So, you know that each week I report the case count with Maria's help in the community letter. I'll give you the official numbers tomorrow. When I took a quick cursory view, we have we've had about 15 cases or so since last week across all of our schools. I think that a big piece of news, as you know, is that the state mask guidance is changing. And so the current requirement for universal masking indoors will expire at the end of this month. And and after that, schools that have achieved an 80 percent vaccination rate of their eligible population do not need to require masks. Right now, you 32 is the only one of our schools who's achieved that rate. They're just under 85 percent. And we have a few elementary schools, Calisthenics, Montpelier, that are approaching the 80 percent mark, but they're not quite there. The state is going to release the numbers. So we've been calculating. Maria has been working hard to keep up with that vaccination rate number as the data in the immunization registry are updated. And the state has announced that they are going to be and providing the official numbers. We are looking at moving from sort of this whole pandemic transition to endemic gradually and thoughtfully. And I think that that's important. We know that historically, after times of a break away from school, we've come back and experienced higher case counts for a period. We know that over February break, some folks will be traveling, some folks will be socializing in ways that are different than they socialize when school is in session. And so we will make sure that we're universally masked for the week that we get back so that we can just sort of have a little bit of buffer and then take it from there. I think a few other things that I will mention, and then I'm going to ask Maria to fill in everything that I missed. Another thing that's happening is the state, you know, by the end of January, they eliminated PCR surveillance testing in its place. They now started staff assurance testing, which means that every staff member has access to one testing kit, which provides two rapid antigen tests per week. And so those we have them in the district and we've been distributing them. And we also, the state is offering post break testing. If you recall, during the December break, the state announced these big distribution sites. And that was an exercise in how to how to operate more smoothly the next time around. And so this time they're going through the schools and and so we're getting those shipments. And any family that has signed the consent form or spoken to the school nurse in the case of the the elementary schools will have access to take home a kit so that they can take tests on February 28th and March 1st in anticipation of the return to school on the second. We're going to be looking at the gradual sort of lessening of other mitigation strategies bearing in mind that the weather will be getting warmer and we might try to enact more pre-pandemic practices. For example, lunch at the elementary can be less restrictive. It's important to note that it has been less restrictive at U-32 all along. And we have seen no evidence of transmission of COVID-19 through the cafeteria at U-32. So that should be something that this way just folks concerns. So it's important to know that based on our current understanding of the guidance, because pre-kindergarten students are not yet eligible for the vaccine, they will still be masked even if the rest of their elementary school achieves that 80 percent rate. And we know that these changes are going to be welcomed by some people and they're going to be viewed with some deep anxiety and fear by others when we get to a place in any one of our schools where masking is optional. We're going to just embrace the mission statement, those verbs nurturing and inspiring and hope that we approach that with kindness and caring and respect for choices that people are making. Maria, will you fill in what I'm missing and or ask for questions and answer them more technically than I possibly could? I think that was extremely thorough. So if anyone has any questions, we can take it from there. Maria, do we know? I hope you'll indulge me with a couple of what I hope are going to be quick questions. Do we know if there has been any transmission, any cases that began in the schools transmission in the school? So there's a couple of different kinds of transmission, right? If if let me give you an example, the the one case that we thought that we had secondary transmission. So there's primary transmission. That means that a child who was infected in the community comes into the school and infects somebody in the school, right? That's a primary transmission. If that child who then was infected infects another child that becomes secondary transmission, we go all the way through to tertiary and then we we worry about that our mitigation strategies aren't working. We have had one case that we're aware of at Berlin where a student was at a funeral that was a super spreader event. The child came to school and we recognized within four days that there were three other cases in that classroom that came from that student. That was our first case of primary moving to secondary transmission. And we closed that classroom down immediately. So that is one of the few cases that we're aware of where we did have spread within a classroom. The rest of the cases that I'm aware of have been purely primary transmission, meaning somebody came in from the community that was positive and gave it to one or more of the people in that class or in school. We have had no what in doing tests to stay and doing tests at home and in surveillance testing. We have not seen more than what we think is one or potentially two cases of in school transmission. I don't know if that answers exactly your question. That answers exactly my question. Perfect. Extremely detailed. Maria, would you say that masks and masking have been an important component of preventing further spread and infections in the school buildings? In my professional opinion, I think masks are an important part of our mitigation strategy when worn appropriately. And one one more question. And this is also for Jen. Are if one elementary school, you know, if one school, you know, if one school begins to have optional masks in another school, does not yet. Are we concerned about an equity issue between schools? Are there are there inequitable factors that may make one school optional mask and another not? I'm going to do my best to answer that question. Right now, the guidance is talking about when somebody when a school achieves 80 percent vaccination rate of their eligible student population. And in terms of, I mean, I think that some of your question is why we want to wait and see what is happening in terms of next steps and to continue to communicate with our communities and our staff members to I think that's the best I can do right now, Jonas, with that question. I mean, we've been working with, as as you all know, we've signed a memorandum of agreement this year with our association related to COVID. And it says right in there, we'll be talking about masking. We've initiated those conversations right now, too, so that we know that as we're moving forward, guided by the science, which is something that we've been doing all along, we can make those decisions that are going to continue to keep our community safe. There's been a lot in the news around mental health as well, which is another factor overall to be considering. So that's the best that I can say right now. Maria and I will continue to meet and talk with folks and get smarter and smarter as we, you know, as we've needed to do all along. Maria, what would you add to that response? Nothing except I love it when you say that. It sounds so funny to me when Jen says, I got to get Smada. That's how I hear it in my own head, because it's so unlike Jen. It really amuses me. Well, yeah, that's all I want to say. So thank you guys for those answers. I really appreciate it. I want to say I did not have Nathan show up here as a prop. That was not timed. But for it's been heartbreaking to see the vaccines for the kids under five pushed farther and farther back. I really appreciate that we are keeping our mask mandate until after the break. I would really, really encourage us to think about continuing that until a couple of weeks after the little kids can get vaccinated. They are going to be in the building. They don't wear masks all that well. They are not well fitting. Little four year olds are not wearing N 95s, right, in the school buildings. There are lots of families out there with little kids. I would really encourage us to think about keeping the mask mandate, making not making it optional until enough of the little kids have had a chance to get vaccinated. I know my kid is going to get it. I want him to be vaccinated before he gets it. One thing I just want to add to that is I we did talk to the admin team. And from what I know from working in several of the schools is that pre K is generally pretty separate from the rest of the population of an elementary school for several reasons, right, but they tend to have a separate playground. They tend to have a separate classroom. They eat separately. There's very little mixing of pre K and K and above, which I think is the only saving grace for the potential of optional masking in a school that hasn't has a population that's ineligible for the vaccine. And I definitely would encourage if we do start moving in that direction, those principles to further that divide and make sure that we can keep that vulnerable population, that vulnerable passion as safe as possible. Thank you, Maria. Chris, you have a question. I do, Maria, this question is first view. Did you say that you think that masking is an important part of our mitigation strategy? I did. And does that belief end on February 28th because the guidance from the AOE is changing? It does not. I will tell you that I also believe, although I haven't been asked that directly, that an exit strategy is absolutely necessary and that one of the things that I have been, I've had the luxury of as a person who spends eight hours a day doing nothing but researching COVID is that many people who don't have that luxury of watching the science evolve spend a lot of time mired in the guidance we had in 2020 and even 2021 and even the start of this school year. Things have changed really, really quickly and have continued to change quickly with COVID. And I think that that U32 is in a really prime position to make this move to remove masks. I'm an opinionated person. Anyone who works with me will tell you that I'm very free with my opinions. And if I thought that this was an extremely unsafe move, you would hear it loud and clear. I'm going to take another step without making any accusations at all and tell you that elementary student, elementary school students, we think that they're not as good at wearing their masks, but they are way better at wearing their masks than any teenager. U32 spends a great deal of time trying to keep kids to keep their masks on appropriately. And they don't because they're so sorry, this is Coco because they're teenagers and their job primarily is to be teenagers. So I would say that U32 has shown us that even without wearing masks with fidelity, which teenagers do not do, we have not had transmission in that school. We discussed at the admin meeting that U32's biggest struggle this year has been lunch. There are anywhere between 100 to several hundreds. Stephen knows the numbers better than I do in the cafeteria every single day, even spreading out to three or four. I can't remember lunch bands. And we've not had any transmission within that. And that's that's supposed to be six kids to a table. It's routinely 10 kids to a table, 12 kids to a table. Again, teenagers and they have we have not had transmission. So I think that we are learning that a lot of our our mitigation strategies work best when they're piled on top of each other. But taking off masks, I think is the correct first step at this point. One of the things that people are still panicked about, I got an email today that said, you've not managed to keep transmission at zero wearing masks. How can you keep transmission at zero, not wearing masks? And without sounding disrespectful or uncaring, our goal is not to keep transmission at zero. Our it's unrealistic and impossible. Our goal is to keep people as safe as possible as we negotiate this pandemic. So as this pandemic starts to move closer and closer to the endemic, we have to take some steps to see what we can do to get back to pre-pandemic practices. I'm not saying that in a month we won't get another variant and we won't pop those masks right back on. But I do believe that while masks have been extremely important for us at this point, U32 is at a stage where I think it's appropriate to start to loosen those restrictions. So let me ask you to follow up on that. Is you talked about having an essentially an exit strategy from the pandemic into post pandemic times. If we're going to go through and have a no mask, get rid of the mask mandate, should there be incorporated in that process a trigger point where masks are then required again rather than so that we have a goal and say, OK, if we see a level like this, masks are back on until we go under the level again. Or is it just going to be just kind of rolling with what occurs as it occurs? One of the things I've found the most interesting about this job is people have continually asked me, can you give me a flow chart of exactly what happens when someone tests positive? Can you tell me what at what level we can take masks off in sports? Can you tell me why you wouldn't take masks off on the night? There's been very little black and white with this pandemic and I hesitate to say that there is a black and white answer to that. I think, one, we're going to continue to follow state and federal guidance, which is at this point to start, we're making assumptions based on last spring and the fact that our numbers have plummeted since last month. And I am a safer rather than sorry person. If I felt like numbers were rising precipitously or another variant comes into play, I think that we would start that conversation earlier rather than later. I think masking is here to stay to some extent to the point where we're discussing next year, if kids are coming back with mild symptoms from any illness, we're discussing perhaps they can't come back unless they're masked, right, because we know that masks help with not spreading germs. We're toying with how masks are going to fit into our future in general. But we don't have a set point in terms of when we would automatically put masks back on. Part of that is because we have no idea what's coming down the pike. We so far, we've never had any idea what's happening next with COVID. And the next step is I'm sorry, my child just made this crazy face. I mean, I don't know what she wants. Can you wait, please? Thanks. And I totally spaced where I was going from there. So sorry. So explain for us, please, what the masking policy will be for the elementary schools? Since it seems to be a clear divide between you, 32 and the elementary schools? There is a clear divide. You, 32, is at eighty four point seven five percent vaccination rate. And the elementary schools are not at this point. So in moving forward, you, 32, we're looking at having them go mask optional on the ninth of March, which would give us a seven day buffer to balance the the knowledge that we tend to have a spike after any kind of a break. And the elementary schools at this point are going to continue as is. They're going to start loosening some of the tighter restrictions, as in not talking during lunch, as in having lunch in classrooms. We're going to start letting them come back together in the cafeteria, again, moving slowly towards pre-pandemic practices. And we're just going to monitor the data that comes from all of these small changes so that we can, when the time comes to lift the restrictions all together, we feel confident that we have sort of walked our community through this in a way that can help people feel comfortable with these changes. Thank you very much for your answers. I appreciate it. Thank you, I don't see any other hands up. So I just want to thank you for continuing to be our North Star. And this is really hard. And thank you for continuing to guide us. We support both of you and thank you for all you do and for sending that letter today. Let's continue to move on. I'm going to assume that Chris's hand is an old hand, so four operations. Let's move into more self-evaluation, Carrie. I'm going to let you guide us through this. Sure. So thanks. So thank you, everybody, for taking our survey. Since this is the final meeting of our board year, I want to take this chance to reflect on how the year went and see what we might learn from it, what we might want to focus on in the coming year. So the thought here was to do a go around and get your response to the questions in the packet, what's your reaction to these results? And are there one or two topics that you'd like to carry forward in next year's work? So, Florida, how do you want to do it? Do you want me to call on people? Or would you prefer to do it? No, go ahead. You can you can call on people. OK. So does anybody want to volunteer to go first, Jonathan? OK, and then I'll just go in the order I see. So after Jonathan, Chris and then Jonas, go ahead, Jonathan. Yeah, I just wanted to add just quickly that I hope that I know the federal government has largely picked up the expense for free meals for all kids during the pandemic, and I hope that we can in our budgeting going forward, continue that if the federal government stops funding lunches and meals for children post pandemic. Thanks, Jonathan. Chris, Jonas and then McKaylin. Chris, are you on mute? I'm sorry. Thank you, Kari. So I will admit to not respond to the survey just due to oversight. But in looking at the responses, what struck me is it seemed like a desire for more board discussion before decision making, which seemed to be a very good thing for us to have more of. And yeah, I think that I think we've had good discussions over the past couple of meetings that I think would do well for us as a board to continue in that line. Thanks. Thank you, Chris. Jonas and then McKaylin and Maggie. Yeah, so the things that the things that stand out to me are the low ones. Our policies identify measurable outcomes or objectives. The board adopts and monitors policies related to budgeting and financial oversight and I guess not so much this one, the code of ethics. I think one of the things we need to work on is measuring things, measuring outcomes, setting goals and holding ourselves and others accountable for meeting those goals. I think that's really, really hard. But when I filled this out, that first one, our policies, identify measurable outcomes or objectives where appropriate. Definitely something we need to work on. Great. Thank you, Jonas. McKaylin and Maggie and Flor. What do I want to say? I guess as a as a brand new member who, you know, filled the vacancy halfway through the year, I'm just personally excited to, you know, learn more about, you know, everything that goes into this. And, you know, I found some of these questions I wasn't for the answers to frankly, because I was thrown in. So I'm excited to do some more training and just learn more on the job. Great. Thank you. So Maggie, then Flor and Diane. I'm going to echo what McKaylin said and had a like experience answering the survey questions. Although I'd say in general, my responses were really affirmative. I think that the board has a really high level of integrity. And I'm also in, you know, coming in halfway through filling somebody, some big shoes, someone who'd been involved for a very long time in Dorothy. And yeah, it looking forward to being able to better respond to those questions next year with greater experience. And this is an aside, I would just say I appreciate the additional educational opportunities that come through the School Board Association. Those email updates and the materials that we received as new board members certainly makes this less daunting on that level. And, you know, I'm, I really like to see us improve our community engagement. And I think the low turnout for tonight's public forum is exemplifies the fact that we really need to work on this. And I happen to have a young man visiting my house this weekend who is writing his thesis, master's thesis on front forum. And one of the big conversations that he and I had in this visit was that while it can be a very useful tool, it really can be self-limiting. And I'm hopeful that we can do a good job of reaching everybody in our community in terms of helping them pass through participation. Thanks, Maggie. Floor and then Diane and Ursula. Thanks, Gary. So when I saw the results, I saw that we are all over the place in most of them. So what came to mind and you won't be surprised is, you know, more training, some more retreats. Just we haven't been able to really be in person, especially with this new board. The other day I was in town and I saw McKaylin for the first time in person, right? Like it's just, so I think we need some time to continue to align our goals. I think that we have been operating pretty good as a board, but I feel like we need to get smarter about policies to meet. Like we really need to get smarter both in in our budget. We had that conversation on our finance committee. So we should, that is the way that we can drive and monitor our outcomes too. So that's all I had to say. I just need to get smarter at policies. And I think we just do it like we're doing with the quality committee, like we're reviewing it. Maybe we can think about doing that with our policies too, because I think the more we learn our roles and responsibilities and how we can affect change is the better that we are. That's it. Okay, let's get smarter. All right, Diane, you're next. And then Ursula and Maya, if you want to go. Yeah, what I was struck by was that, well, my takeaway from it was that again, it's around to me, it's around that orientation and how do we, there are those of us who are kind of farther out in the water because we've been here over a year. And then when we have new people come on board, we haven't quite figured out how to get on the same page to be at least aware of where we're at and why certain things might be the way they are, so that when the dialogue happens, then we can expand, change or grow. However, it needs to as a board. So I think we're still figuring out what is that orientation and bringing on board members so that they feel that they're having an authentic engagement and involvement with the conversations and not that they're trying to play catch-up because we might not be explaining things very well if we've been on longer. So working on that part. Great. Thank you, Diane. So Ursula, go and then Maya and Lindy. Thank you, Kari. So one of the first things I noticed when I was looking at the ratings was the fact that the policy questions are the ones that had the lower ratings. And it struck me as interesting. I didn't necessarily know being new. I don't know where that comes from necessarily and like that first one where it talked about outcomes or objectives that are measurable. I left me the question on whether or not that was something we can do with policies, whether our policies really have like a measurable outcome or a measurable effect. And so I'm interested in learning more on that. And I also noticed in the general, where we could just put in the general comments, there was definitely a common theme of more discussion time, especially on bigger issues and more training and being able to learn more. And I identify with that being new. I definitely want to learn more. And I'd like to see, I don't know, I want to learn more about policies and policy generation, I guess. Thanks Ursula. Maya, are you still here? Looks like she might have dropped off. Lindy, then Scott and Jill. Well, I'm coming from a different perspective when I hear the scores are all over the place, because they're all in the above the 2.5 and into the threes and only eight people responded, I believe it said. So I think I thought they looked pretty good. I, one of the things about the public reaction or public participation is there were what in my years of being on the board, whether it was at the Eastmont Piliar when we had carousels at U32, we have not had a lot of public participation at board meetings. So I'm not sure that that's new or different. And I like to think of it as the community trusts what's going on. We get a lot of participation when we cut a position, especially an arts position at Eastmont Piliar. I remember years ago when Spanish used to be taught there and then it wasn't, we had a lot of participation. So the public participation is usually over an issue that people feel deeply about personally. And Act 46 obviously was like that. But those meetings were separate from board meetings. We had them at board meetings, but they also had the Act 46 meetings for the consolidation. So I'm not sure as far as how to get the public involved or if things are running really well, we don't hear from public in a lot of the areas of public jobs and public service. The policy parts, I've been on the policy committee and I think of them as more about rules and how things work versus the outcomes. So that one was interesting to me as far as policies on student, I don't know if it's really student outcomes or what those outcomes, that question was a little odd. But those were my observations. Great. Thanks. So Scott and then Jill, I guess our departing members, can you get to tell us what we should focus on next year? That would be even more hubristic than I'm capable of, but no, thank you. Maggie spoke of filling very big shoes of Dorothy's and poor Daniel, I'm just leaving him a pair of worn out shoes with holes in them. But I think this past year was really tough. A rocky road if there ever was one. But my own sense of it is in the long arc of my school board history, this board actually does pretty well with the mechanical parts, with the machinery of what we're supposed to do. What I would love to see and especially as I graduate into becoming a member of the community is, I think it would be great for the board to be interesting and ambitious and inspiring for people, that there's nothing wrong with that, especially if it can somehow be coordinated with others within the school community, especially with staff, so that we don't risk running out ahead of where people are prepared to go. But I think, to hark back to something that Deborah Taylor said two years ago, so much potential and it's really very, very good as it is. I'd love to see even more and I know that we're capable of it. So I look forward to the rest of you doing more than I could in this and I'll be rooting for you all the way. Thank you. Thank you Scott. Jill and then Jen, if you want to go, we'll invite your comment. Thanks. First, I actually want to just say that I do feel a little bad that I was not one of you who could be a long-serving board member and as many of you know, I went out on medical leave for a while in the fall and I just discovered that I could not get on my plate spinning again when I came back. I had so many spinning when I went out and I could not figure out how I was doing it and so just really felt like I had to make a little more space in my life and so I wanted to share with all of you that that's really kind of the process that I went through. In terms of this board, you know, I want to say that I actually am amazed at the extent to which this board has been able to come together as a group to work functionally together considering the newness of the board as a district, considering that we quickly went into a pandemic, considering the transition of superintendent. There's really, we've been through quite a lot in my short tenure and I think this group is actually really well positioned to move into what I hope will be, you know, a time when you can return your attention more to the things that I think we all, you know, run for school board to do like focusing on student outcomes and what's happening with schools in our community. I think this group is really well positioned to do that and I feel really hopeful for the future and I am grateful to have been able to serve with all of you even just for a short time. Thanks Jill, very nice. Jen, do you want to go? Sure, I will say I think from my experience serving you in this way this year so far I would echo some of what Joe just said in terms of how much we have been through and how much your support of this school system and me in the interim role and of each other has meant and has served the school community overall. I don't doubt that for one minute. I think that when we're fully functioning as a system it helps us all do our best work in service to the kids which is exactly why we're here and I look forward to the day as I look through this data that we can continue to put at the board level the systems and the structures, the routines, the predictability that are going to help us flourish so that there are things that are routine practice so we're well poised to then deal with the unexpected or the things that are challenging. It's what we seek to do in our work here as administrators and when we can do that then everything else comes into place. I think about even back in my teaching days or in my principal days when something unexpected and hard happens we lean into the routines and practices that we know already work. I remember being an elementary principal and thinking about morning meetings being the place that that's where we could come and have those conversations. I think the same thing here so when we have a system for policies, when we get in that practice of budgeting year round on a regular basis or viewing our student learning outcomes all of those things that just feel like we are right on the brink then I think we're going to do even better work together. I look forward to it. Thanks Jen. Did I miss any board members? Do we get them all? Anybody missing? So I'll go. I actually so I've agreed with Lindy. I thought the scores were quite good and I was really encouraged by some of the comments that just the reasons that people do the work and the value they see in it. I thought it was kind of touching and encouraging. So thank you. One of the things I took from it thinking about next year was that a couple people mentioned training and mentorships so development and I know it's really hard to imagine like where would we find the time that maybe if we're not doing a public forum every month next year maybe we could think about scheduling more trainings whether it's in how we use our policies measurable policies or community outreach. There's a lot to learn and we could spend some time doing it. So thanks everybody. Hopefully this was valuable and we will work on how we might use this in the retreat or in next year in general. So floor back to you. Thank you Kari and thank you for doing this. I thought this was really valuable for all. Okay let's move 5.222 officers. The steering committee wanted to bring this up today to just make sure if there was any transition or what people were thinking. So our officers are as you know the chair, the vice chair and the clerk. So I open it to conversation. What we want to do I am still hoping to continue to be your chair and serve you as a chair but if we thought it would be just proper to you know bring it up for conversation. Chris? You know I think since we're going to have new board members this is better left to then to discuss when we have all the board to new members just to the sense that they will have a fair share in the vote rather than have the sense that it's predetermined and their vote doesn't matter. So I think we should table this discussion until I mean just just for the new board members and it just seems like that's when it should happen when we reorganize and have because we have a couple new members. So just a thought. Yeah totally. Kari I probably didn't do a good job explaining it anyway so do you want to just share some of our talk because we brought it up our steering committee and I think Chris's approach is a fine one and often boards will do that. The reality is that we show up on March what is it second third and the very first thing we do is elect officers and the new people they have nothing to base it on and basically they start nominations and you start voting. In my experience on other boards we're not deciding anything tonight we're just letting each other know what we're thinking if anything if there's any questions people have like what does it mean to be the secretary. This is a chance to learn about it and in my mind it's just healthy to have a little conversation and you know if people don't want to that's fine too and as far as it goes I'm happy to continue serving as vice chair. I have no plans to be the chair and I wouldn't do that role so if we want the vice chair to be you know sort of stepping stone to the to the chair we might consider somebody else but I'm happy either. Thank you Kari. Any other comments? Jonas? Chris do you have? I was going to I was going to I think a discussion is fine but my concern was new board members feeling excluded and thinking that it's a already done deal which in practical terms it may be but you know it's just kind of the the perception as well that we're starting off in a clean slate and Kari's right new board members come in they go I don't know the who I don't know who I'm gonna vote they would have no basis really for for voting but it's it's still you know just that was my concern of them feeling excluded and you know Kari almost sounded like Putin for a minute there in his Ukrainian Ukrainian atmosphere always Ukrainian comments Kari said with all good humor because I enjoy you so much okay well if should we move on then to wait Chris Chris Chris did you just compare Kari Bradley to Vladimir Putin? Oh my god oh only in terms of saying I have no intent of doing anything blah blah blah Chris I sentence you to be clerk I sentence you to be clerk that's terrible send it to the gulag instead yeah I think we should I was I was trying to get that Jonah so okay Chris put your hand down and mute yourself please and let's move on because this is not so in any event let's move forward we look forward to March 2nd and of course all of the members would be included and we'll have a meaningful conversation school we're back vacancies on 5.3 it just wanted to let everybody know that as as you know it was just not official but Scott Stephen Luke has officially stepped down at the end of you know basically the beginning of February as you can see and he wanted us to be the one selecting the superintendent he's been a long-serving member and he's not going to be with us so we have an opening in East Montpelier for a year so we would be having to appoint unless there is a writing candidate that we don't know about yet and then we the same for for for middle sex we didn't have somebody in the ballot so there is an open position with jail living so also keep keep in mind that and ask your friends and other than that those are the only two open positions right now and then we have members the new members that are running right so we are going to bring we're going to finally have three members from Worcester and you have a hand up again Chris I do I'm just in middle sex Dennis Hill is staging a writing campaign and he had previously applied to be a representative from middle sex so he's the only writing I'm aware of so please pass the word along okay that he is he is actively campaigning on front porch forum thank you Chris okay so let's move on unless there's any questions and that we and we we're going to have a new member from call us obviously running but every so it's just we want to talk about the vacancies which is the two positions that we don't know who's there so that we can all actively if you talk to somebody or hear of somebody please let them know if central Vermont career center there was a small update on page 30 of your packet and I'm wondering if there's any questions we had an informational meeting last night that is recorded and on the website too and we talked a little bit on the presentation so I'm not I don't want to spend a lot of time on that unless there's questions okay so thank you for voting on that sorry sorry for one question about voting for the career center if one has already received and submitted their their mail their mail-in ballot their absentee ballot can one go to their local polling place on town meeting day and just request a ballot for the career center yes yes yes you can yeah you can in all 18 towns you can do the same and have a bit mail all the ballots to to everybody because they're so small and okay upcoming community forums so we wanted to talk a little bit about the and Carrie just mentioned a little bit about changing too but Jen I'm gonna let you speak a little bit to the community forums so the ed quality committee had not met for a while and we were talking about the at least two of the student learning outcomes that we need to finish up to go through and achieve that goal one is artistic expression the other is global citizenship and we were wondering if those would be appropriate topics for a community forum things that are of interest and student centered and the ed quality committee is currently scheduled to meet on March 2nd we'll review artistic expression and and that's your reorganization meeting anyway so it doesn't see and you will have just had the annual meeting on February 28th two days prior so it didn't necessarily make sense to do artistic expression then on March 2nd as a community forum I know that there's been some conversation with some of you and floor has taken the lead on some sort of forum I've been out of the loop on it but are on the prevention stuff that and floor I don't know if you can speak more to that the woman that you've been talking to a little bit yeah yeah so we she is going to be completely separate from from from us she's going to come to our next board meeting on actually on the 16 is when I had invited her to come and talk more about it and it's combined with the five towns it's going to still be a remote if a remote meeting but she had been trying to coordinate which each which just doing one at East Montpelier one at Callas and coordinating directly with the town the town administrators and she reached out to us and actually Stephen was the one Stephen Luke was the one that said you know maybe we should have a coordinated effort so she Olivia is going to come to our next meeting and and let us and explain more about the prevent it's just a prevention in drug and alcohol use and I don't have all the documents she's going to give us the documents the friday or prior so that they go into our our package but we won't be leading it we can't we can participate but it's something that helps also our communities at large so we decided we were not going to take one of our community meetings to do to do that it's going to be on the april 12th I believe I don't have it right in front of me but we will have it in our package so let's not concentrate on that one right now but if you're okay with us on the second doing we want to continue to have that flow of community engagement and it seems like if we do it with purpose and have some of the quality we also learn more and the community knows what you know what our values are and what our student outcomes are to and understand them better so is that okay with you guys on the second and on the second we no the first wednesday so it'll be the it will be march 2nd right Jen which is our reorganization meeting yes yes yeah so we would do uh we were reorganized quickly and then have the forum or we can have the forum and then reorganize it doesn't you know it's it's a community forum so okay I just managed to get myself confused I'm sorry so in lieu of the ed quality committee meeting on march 2nd the community forum topic would be artistic expression got it yes so I there's no need to do it twice right is that okay I think the quality committee can participate and it is a community forum and then you're not presenting first to the committee and then we would do uh it's I think that's what we had talked about Jen and Carrie right okay that's what makes us right okay did I miss some okay oh yeah I'm sorry I have something going on at 7 30 yes and he's gonna try to be back okay so let's move 5.6 the annual meeting there was oh sorry Diane sorry sorry agency uh so just being mindful of the fact that we're going into February break is it um it and we'll come back on the second is that a realistic ask of Jen enough staff to have a presentation that would be in for the whole community forum idea I had um before the superintendent search process had got the timeline had been updated we were I was aiming for February I did a fair amount of it in preparation I have some snippets from some of our art and music teachers I will admit I put it on the back burner and I just need to put it on the front burner so I can enjoy a few days off next week also but it's completely doable okay thank you Jen yeah we did uh yeah thank you Diane for the next question if any other questions about that and again you know it's part of trying to get into those routines like if we know when so but but yeah totally want to be respectful of staff a preparation for the annual meeting on page 36 if you guys had a chance so in the in the past the annual meeting was a matter of the bigger event right we were from the floor doing the moderator and all this we have moved to doing everything through Australian ballot so it's really just another informational meeting because it has to be 10 days so today the it doesn't it just doesn't count the so that's why we have the informational meeting we I put a little bit of a proposed agenda there it's just super simple call to order remind that it's really just an informational meeting and then discuss the proposed budget which is basically what we just did a presentation but when we were brainstorming brainstorming the other day as the steering committee we were saying maybe we should just open it up and see depending on how many people show up it might be that some people show up and we just have a conversation just like Lindy was saying sometimes our past experiences that just one or two people show up right so no need to do the full bloom presentation maybe what is more interesting is to have a back and forth with the community members that come and you know obviously have the information and make sure that we ask that question because it is an informational meeting and see if they want us to run through the presentation is that thumbs up or Lindy I guess I could have done thumbs up but I think that's all we need to do because we're we've shown this budget with the mail-in voting everybody pretty much will have voted so I think if people had questions and they showed up to ask we're there to answer them but otherwise I wouldn't do a full blown presentation thank you Lindy Ursula so I noticed tonight that we recorded the budget presentation that we did separately from this meeting and I was curious if that recording was going to be posted like on the district web page and maybe I don't know links to it on like I know most of the schools have a Facebook page I'm just trying to like can we hit all of the communication methods you know share links to like from Portorum Facebook pages for the schools so that we try to hit a wide variety of people yes yeah we're hoping to share it why but we hadn't thought about Facebook but we can yeah we can have Melissa do that and then yeah so is there anything else that the board would feel and if some other board members want to participate and redo the presentation I can also redo the slides for others to present but I was going to just leave it as it is for now yep okay so let's move on to the finance committee I'm trying I was actually going to give us five minutes if if that's okay will you get Kari just before we move on there's a piece in the packet about the Berlin town land request and the thinking here was that I had the thought that we kind of we voted to put it on the ballot we have some responsibility to communicate the voters about what it is I don't think we can rely on the town of Berlin to adequately communicate you know why should people should vote for it so this was just a very sort of neutral intended to be a neutral summary of what it is and I wanted to check and see does this work could we could we communicate this out via you know our various channels or does people have any thoughts on how it could be improved Chris I thought we voted in favor of this as opposed to a neutral we voted to put it in the ballot Chris that's that's how we did it at the end because when we first started to have the discussion we did not know that it needed to go into ballot it was until we started working the in the MOU in the memorandum of understanding is that it came is that came up that you know it needed at that at that meeting so so we when we voted at that we had that discussion Nick brought it up I can't remember if it was Diane that said it best it one of you said it and said you know like I feel so much better now knowing that it has to be built it has to be voted by the entire electorate and it's not so it helped with the members voting am I interpreting that or I'm not quibbling about that but I thought the board took the position that we were in favor of the transfer just because we thought it was a beneficial for us and beneficial for the town as opposed to not caring whether it goes through or not and and maybe maybe we shouldn't stay to position on it but I thought we had but it but those bullet points are there Chris you know that I thought it was so so the bullet points of why it makes sense are still there right did you see that okay that just so it's not I I don't think that we are being I don't care I think the facts are there we don't need the land I don't have the the right in front of me right now but but but those bullet points they stay there I believe Aaron was able to to me actually being interviewed as the principal you know so like we continue to be factual just putting information out if so I think that's what we can best do okay I'm just I okay seem to me that we've taken a position a positive position rather than no position and what we say here is the board has not taken a position on the request and we I understand that the voters as a whole we could have to vote to support the transfer but I just I I thought we'd taken a position so that's just my opinion so thank you I think are you right the points are here in terms of the benefits for why it should happen but I thought we're pretty affirmative about it you know I guess what we're trying to do is put the information there because as a board we can make people vote one way or another right that that would be we wouldn't that's not our role especially in this we have to put all the information so they made an informed decision so it's just a very thin line I'm not trying to disagree with you it's just a very thin line of our I don't know our ethics as a board a McKaylin and then Diane um I mean I think my recollection presses that we did when when we thought we had to decide this question I think we did take an affirmative position but then it came to light that we didn't have the illegal authority to do that in the Denise or the voters I think it was kind of like a a false position because we didn't really have that power but I but you're not crazy I think we did ultimate initially vote yes at least on that point right thank you Diane yeah I mean I don't agree with it but I but you know I think that the language should be changed to say that should the voters agree the board I mean basically more so that we don't take a position but the board did agree that should it be passed by voters then we would enter into the MOU and so that to me is an affirmative that that I I wonder if the wording should be changed that instead of the board not having um an opinion on it we do you know the board as a whole did approve entering into an MOU should it be passed by by the electorate I mean I don't agree but that doesn't mean that so I'm like happy with the generic language but that isn't what we voted on we did vote on um entering into an MOU should the electorate agree okay if I'm going to let or so I go and then you carry I was just going to point out that we have a statement on sorry his letter I don't know who's the letter the list of statements that says that if the transfer is approved it will be subject to the stipulation of this memorandum of understanding and it I assume linked I didn't follow the link but it links to the memorandum of understanding and it wasn't until Diane explained how she saw us like affirmatively agreeing to this that I understood where people were coming at where we said that we affirmatively agreed to it I heard we came to a memorandum like if the voters decide this is a thing that they're okay with we will then do this that's neutral to me but I mean that's semantics and I think that we need to stay factual like flora said because otherwise it sounds like if we got the board has decided that we should do this it sounds way too much like telling people what to do and it would go the other way if we said that we disagreed with it it would feel like we are trying to influence how people vote so I think sticking with the facts and I thought that this was a very factual document I thought it it read very just factual which I liked um I think I guess that's all I have to say thank you where's the curry um yeah so I'm glad we're talking about this because it is an important distinction if we if we don't have a position or are are we actually recommending that the voters vote for this I didn't hear that in the discussion and I think that's the distinction if we either are recommending or we're not I'm looking at the minutes and I don't I don't see that yeah lindy just hold on a minute yeah I'm looking at the minutes too okay I was just going to say for clarity instead of the school board has not taken a position um this decision has to be made by voters in the five towns of wcu usd and that is why you're you'll see it on your ballot or something like that so something like the board decided to to let the voters decide we didn't decide it's the legal requirement but we didn't have to I guess take it to the voters when Berlin I think we did I think we did I think that's the reason we it's on the ballots that luke said that we have to it's a voter decision not ours well I know it's a voter decision but as a board yeah it's a board we have to ever agree to even take it to the voters yeah if we haven't taken it to the voters isn't that the same as us making a decision without taking it to the voters sorry yeah I agree I think it should say that this decision has to be made by voters of the five towns yeah okay I'll make that change thank you for the future my understanding from what luke said is that since we're transferring land that's a voter decision so we couldn't have transferred the land without the voter saying yes yeah is that true yeah yeah we can't transfer the land without the voter saying yes okay we could have said that we needed the land for educational purposes right so so we could so that's why we are yeah let's just keep it simple I don't want to spend a lot of time and as we have an mou we agree I don't want to revisit the entire we have an mo you will make sure that it's as clear as possible that here's the mo you make a decision here's the information yeah I'll coordinate with Carrie okay thank you for helping me with that Carrie now let's have four minutes or five minutes break is that okay with you guys and just get a quick five yeah yeah we're sitting for over okay forum with the ones here so let's moving to the finance committee you got some informational reports I'm gonna we we gained some time because we didn't have as many people but I still would love to be able to get everybody out of here at 830 and the package was really informative so I'm just gonna go super super quickly in the not for any disrespect because it's really it's a great meeting Suzanne and Chris did a lot of work especially for this for this meeting and hey I hope you all have a chance to read the monthly reflections those are really great and gets us a great insight as board members into what is going on in the district so are there any questions on the monthly reflections where was I'm gonna move on I don't see any so I'm looking for a there's the capital improvement project update you know oh Lindy go ahead it wasn't that important but I just wanted to say I had reached out during the week when I was looking at the board um warrant packet whatever that is and I wanted to thank Suzanne for how quickly she got back to me with a question I had and I appreciate the work that's done and put into this and the staff being so responsive and thank you Lindy and then the same for the capital improvement project update there was a great memo from Chris O'Brien thank you Chris for being here with us at this meeting too I wonder if there's any questions on his memo there's a lot happening at the school right now I don't see any hands up so I what I would like to do is maybe get a motion for the clerk of the works contract I'm looking for a motion I can I can read it myself if somebody doesn't have it in front but I want to read it I'm constant to read this motion that's his last one of his last acts and deeds yeah but he's not with us he had to leave otherwise oh he did yeah yeah he had to leave at 7 30 he's gonna try to be back but it's not that's why I thank board members in the early part but he's gonna try to come back but if you don't mind making the motion you have I'll move I'll move that the board authorizes superintendent to sign the contract with WF project inspections for his services as owners project manager and clerk of the works through February 9 2023 not not at a cost not to exceed $78,467 thank you seconded okay so Chris and Jonas any questions any discussion see none all those in favor please say aye hi hi any oppose the motion carries okay so I'm gonna pass it on to you Chris policy okay thanks okay good morning good afternoon or evening everyone we have two policies for first reading and these are basically updating policies that are already on the books based on changes that the Vermont school board association has proposed for us and its policy C4 and which is much more as you can see it's page 51 is the revised policy and it's just much more detailed than what we had had on the books and the second policy for first reading is B5 which is also just a refurbishing by the Vermont school board association so any questions on we'll go with first with C4 which is the English learners policy okay and any questions on B5 which is the prevention of employee harassment Chris just real quick I didn't see any red line changes in C4 that means it's unchanged since the we did not make any changes in it from the Vermont school board's recommendation okay so here we know we'll bring these back for final vote next time okay the other the other um question for a potential policy for the board's consideration is was attached to the memo I sent out and this arose because of a naming question that had arisen and is going to come before us at some point in the future we we think and there's apparently a petition that is circulating to name the gymnasium after Dan Gandon who is former coach and teacher at U32 uh and because we don't have a policy on it and we've already had a a naming for the track for Kathy Topping and Mark Chaplin we thought that we might have a developer policy just so that when questions about naming parts of the district for individuals arises we have a basically a framework for deciding it and so this is really I'm throwing this out we're throwing this out for discussion and comment uh which can occur now or you can just email the policy committee any thoughts on on this um this proposed policy just to guide our decision making on this just a clarifying question so this is a proposed policy that you would that you're putting forward for us to read this doesn't exist currently correct does not exist and you know Dan the initial question is do you think we need this policy um you know for the board to consider is do we need a policy like this uh and if we if we do then what should it look like you know the the in putting this together I had in mind the uh flag raising policy that we have which has very specific criteria by the group that is it is requesting that a flag be raised on a flagpole and so it's just mirroring that somewhat and also incorporating a timeline for the amount of time that the naming would occur but those are all I mean those are just suggestions of course and um for Harry has his hand up Harry uh yeah two two things one um I thought this was good and I thought that it might be more explicit to say what criteria the board would actually use to make the decision I think that's implied by what the um is requested of the person who's making the nomination but it doesn't actually say I don't think that the board will use these criteria to evaluate and make a decision I think that's important and and there might be some additional things in there too like the absence of bad acts or um disqualifying you know that maybe the the nominator doesn't know about okay so that's one thing and then I'm just going to throw this out there and just uh people think about that maybe we don't want to be in the business of naming parts of our district after people me and I say that as a person that was involved in the naming of the track but um there's a good example of sort of not knowing where these things lead you you know that we could be or the our future board probably not this group of people but could be considering all kinds of different parts of the and just not wanting to make those decisions I mean it's just not worth it um so anyway I throw that out there that and that's that's a great point I mean do we want do we want to be in the position I'm doing that um and you know because we the uh the track was named um by the U32 board and when we merged we just adopted that but we can as a as a different board just take the position that we are not going to uh name uh aspects of our district after after individuals Maggie let's see your hand is up oh I I already unmuted myself how about that okay um so as a parent of callous elementary school where there was some naming and honor outside the building that um didn't have enough context to really to know that person I was struck in my many years as a parent there who is this person and you know um a plaque on the wall with some very limited information so I just wonder how if we are going to name how we can ensure that people can appreciate how the person really contributed substantially to the to the school communities um because I'm I'm not sure that that's that's been done successfully um through the generations I mean your your idea about a plot I mean it could be a plaque I mean part of the proposal here was that um a naming that would only be for a short period of you know for a period of time I think there's no definitive um amount of time identified but just having the class name this is named after so-and-so uh for these reasons uh and will be in in um it will last until whenever we anticipate the deadline would be um so it would be something along those lines just um in informational plaque lindy is there oh sorry go ahead Maggie is there a finite time for the the memorials the student memorials like in the U-32 um atrium hallway there and is there a way that you know extends the period even if the person isn't currently being honored as the gymnasium or the traffic some questioning like for posterity sake how how there's going to be a record in the long run um that's a good point um I wonder if if the combination could be because I think there's a showcase at U-32 anyway um that has certain memorials in there so maybe we have a separate policy for that right so this was going to be a separate this was going to be a separate policy I think we have a separate policy for the memorials themselves I don't know I don't know about the showcase though I don't know does that extend to the showcase that we have where they have the there I know there's some memorial like plaques that are in that showcase along with trophies and things like that so it's wondering if me if if we're going to name something and use the plaque as a description that after the time is up that the plaque would go into the showcase if if there's a concern about a long-term recognition yeah dindy uh one of the points that Maggie brought up about the plaque at palace came up a little bit in our meeting because two of our elementary schools are named for individuals with Dodie and Rumney and during the policy meeting I realized I don't know who these people are um and with all that's going on nowadays of people's past and things being named for them it was a little bit it can be concerning of who these people were maybe if people went back in their past or something so that plaque at callus I don't know the history but these kinds of questions are what we were discussing at the policy in what rabbit hole we're going down or what these policies might create and I think that was part of putting this out here for people to discuss but not for us to really make a decision but it to be on the front burner of our decisions and where we're going as a unified board and when the policy is made because I know the memorials are different than the trophies um at u32 and they fall under the policy with going forward what we can do if someone dies who is currently a student or a teacher during their time at the school so um this policy would be a little bit different than that and separate but I think the input is to keep in mind where we're going with it and if we want you know oh we're eating in the such and such cafeteria and we're going to the such and such library and we're going to the such and such basement all of those as we're moving forward I think we need to keep that in mind as we write a policy yeah I think everybody has brought really good points so maybe if this goes back to the policy committee and they you come back to us with a policy either to not name nope wait I'm going to step and let Jonathan stuff and then yeah just just really quickly I mean I was part of the decision to uh honor um you know Kathy and Mark on the naming of the track um but thinking about this more long term I think one of the best ways to honor people would be to plant a tree and include a plaque with their name or a shrub or do some landscaping or it doesn't have to be a building necessarily or part of a building it could be a tree that will be there for depending on the species potentially hundreds of years so longer than a building will last let's put it that way thanks thank you Jonathan yeah so I think you guys have lots of ideas but I think we do need a policy whether we whether that policy says we're not naming buildings after people or a policy that has a you know similar to what you just gave us Chris but I think one thing that is missing in that policy is just tying it in like the flag policy does into our our mission and vision as a as a district there some of those it has to be a little more clear the attributes but I think if people have other ideas to email yes the policy committee a Jonathan a Jonathan I mean Jonas you have your own muted so I do you want to share you better know if you were sure but you are muted oh you're muted okay is that enough can we have a straw poll as to whether or not um we want to have a naming policy that actually does name things as opposed to we don't want to have the name we don't want to do naming and develop a policy along the lines of saying it's going to be our policy that we don't name parts of the district after individuals who have served us you know just so just so I have a clear we have a the policy committee has a sense as to how the board is leaning on that that fundamental question I'll just try and having now successfully unmuted myself I'm okay with having a policy for for naming things or places after people who have served the district contra memorials right which is a very different thing I would just want the threshold for a petition to be brought to the board to be very high right like a significant portion of the staff or really you know a significant petition from members of the community do you have any sense on what significant means or high means no I would just be pulling numbers okay thank you I also thought in the draft that that choice of words was a little vague what defines I think it says significant yeah I'd want to put a number on that okay yeah it sounds very subjective thank you very helpful for moving forward I really appreciate it thank you okay all right if we're back here thank you Chris it's a consent agenda could I have a motion to approve the minutes of 119 and 22 22 I saw move but there's a correction needed to Diane moves hold a second thank you Kari and can you edit it for us Diane yeah so on page 63 it's part of that Berlin vote it says that there was one no vote but there were two thank you I'll change that thanks thank you it's Jen yeah I saw two corrections as well let me just get to them on page 66 for the the COVID-19 update and the discussion it's the it's the second line address artistic expression not student expression that was specifically related to the student learning outcomes and then the other change was on the minutes from February 2nd I'm listed as being present but I was not present on February 2nd thank you Jen I'll do some favor of accepting the minutes please say aye as edited hey hi hi any oppose any abstain hearing none the motion carries okay lindy or orders all right um right here I make a motion to approve the wcu usd board order of 216 22 in the total amount of 602 242 dollars 97 cents thank you lindy could I have a second second I think Ursula be you that right yeah all right any discussion or questions on the board orders okay all those in favor of approving the board orders please say aye aye aye aye any oppose any attention oh one oppose no it was just delay I think Maggie you are okay with me yeah okay the board orders are approved now moving right along we have one resignation and lindy do you want to do the honors to or somebody else have it right in front of them it two resignations I make a motion to accept the resignations of mary creedon and emily fair and airs fair near I don't know if I got that right speech pathologists at callus and eastmont pealier okay lindy moves in a second second thank you Ursula okay all those in favor oops diane you have your hand up so is this for next school year or is it for now Jen it's for next school year so they'll they'll see both be with us through the rest of this year mary creedon is retiring to step by eye she's been a long time slp in another district mary and I worked together at union elementary school elementary school back in their early you know late 1990s early 2000s and emily is taking a job I believe closer to her home well we're going to miss her so okay does any updates on vacancies Jen yeah overall no significant changes from last time so what we still have our three para positions one's upper land one is at callus one's at eastmont pealier a student services position at rumney that has been open all year to support behavior we will have or currently have a few long-term sub needs but we're working through those again u32 drivers ad which has been vacant we've had that mlu all year we have the social worker position that's currently vacant at u32 and then the special educator position that's been at berlin that is at this point I think just staying put that was that instructional coach position but we'll revamp and and think through things for next year so those are the current vacancies thank you Jen Diane is your hand up yes did we vote on accepting the resignation oh no you're right yeah I've moved right on on to yeah so moved by lindy and second by ursula approve the resignations please say aye hi hi hi thank you any oppose hearing non-demotion carries should we um uh note with appreciation to mary since she's retiring retiring yeah yeah so that's what we had for the meet for agenda we have a bunch of future agenda items that we would try to tackle at our steering committee meeting we've been trying to make them smaller but we continue to work on that before we move into the into the board reflection I just wanted to do a quick update but you all received the email from me we did a press release on February 8 after your hard work on the second we have a superintendent and we want to you know officially welcome this is the first time that we're getting together as a board and Megan if you're listening to us or if you get the news we're extremely excited to have you become part of our team she accepted we signed a contract we're still waiting for AOE as usually they do the fingerprinter fingerprint but they do all of the background check and when that comes we signed electronically when that comes we would have an official signing a central office in person once it's clear by by AOE but AOE gave us the okay to put out a press release and to sign electronically so good job everybody and and we heard from Zach not heard but he posted that he's taken a job in New Hampshire in person oh he did good yeah he posted recently and everybody wished him well and it's so okay board reflection I think we did our board evaluation and we reflected but I don't know if you guys have anything to share or appreciate it Jonas real quick they're not here none of these three people are here but that was the best student report we've heard in a long time I really appreciated the the way they put a lot in and got through it quickly and in a really nice presentation and he's not here but we really oh Scott a lot you know he guided us through the first year we're in a very different place than we were in June 2019 and you know that has Scott's fingerprints and influence all over it I did not agree with Scott a lot of the time but I respect the heck out of him and his dedication to the district to children to education into process is just hugely helpful to getting us to where we are now so I just wanted to make sure that even though he's not here that we all had an opportunity to say nice things about Scott thanks Jonas Chris here have your hand up before we do that I just want to share that on behalf of the board and the entire district we did drop off you know a card on behalf of the district and I give certificate for them to be able to have dinner with their families so in behalf of everybody so we did thank them all too on your behalf Chris yeah and I just want to echo what Jonas says about Scott and his dedication and you know we're not going to be as linguistically challenged anymore without Scott on the board and I also wanted you know I didn't know Steven was resigning Steven look so I want to give a public thanks to Steven for he I saw him as kind of being a ballast at times very plain spoken bring us back to the the question at hand when we would sometimes wander in our discussion and finally for Jill Olson I hope she will send her gaffa to us every so often because it was a joy to hear her first out and laugh her every so often at the meeting and that will be missed maybe she could she could record it and then send it in every so often yeah I'll do that for you Chris no problem but thank you push your button you can just push a little button and it'll yeah it'll come out yeah my husband would love that actually we're gonna get a letter of complaint from Todd saying wait now she's here all the time but thank you thank you um I just wanted to say a thank you to Jen and Maria and whoever else is closely involved in all this COVID um you know daily changes um that we just so appreciate what you're doing and um it's one of those things where it's impossible to make everyone or even probably most people happy um but I just appreciate how professional and and steady you guys have been about this and um you know just as as the doctor in the room at the moment um I fully agree with what Maria said you know I think masks are super important um you know at certain points of the pandemic and I also think that you know it's important to um to have an off ramp with plans to ramp back up as needed so thank you for all you're doing it's it's not an easy job I'm sure um and I also wanted to confess that it was my class at Dodie who got the name changed to Dodie Memorial back in like 1993 I think I was named after the family who donated the land for the school thank you Mika any other board reflections okay I guess we can we can adjourn the meeting I I want to say thank you again to all the administrators that came to the meeting today thank you Chris and Suzanne for still being here and Jen of course you're always with us so thank you for your support uh oh Diane before I continue in my blah blah Diane isn't there a public comment still on the yeah but there is yeah I I checked on the okay but let's give them a let's give them a chance before any any members of the public that want to say something they've been kind enough to be with us through I can give you an affirmative yes I'm paying attention but I have nothing to say thank you David thank you for being attention and for being here with us yeah and then again I just wanted to say you know goodbye to to to gel and because she's still here with us and we're we're gonna miss you I'm gonna miss your you know like just say it as it is and bring us back in track of what it needed the accommodation of you and Steven was what we needed at times to just bring us back in track and Scott and Steven are not here with us but I could say before I I've served with for many years with Steven Luke and I've learned a lot from him too and he carried us when we were you know six different boards and we had an executive committee and you know it was it was a lot it was a lot and it was not always appreciated as much as he should have been back then and I'll miss a and I'll miss him terribly in the board he gave a sense of the stability to the board and I feel the same way about you Jill and I hope that someday you know I know that you're just a phone call away but you'd be there and I you know Scott and I didn't always agree but I respect his opinion we have been working together for for for years and he has devoted a lot of attention to to our schools for many years so I respect that and wish him well too so with that let's adjourn this meeting it's even nine minutes before 8 30 a motion to adjourn move to adjourn thank you very thank you okay all those in favor please say aye and leave hi