 Go ahead and call the meeting to order at 6.03. Is there any adjustments to the agenda? Oh, there's JC, welcome. Okay, no adjustments. Then we'll go to the consent agenda to approve the minutes from November 6th and from Friday, November 17th. Oh, we're approving these endowment committee's minutes. We don't, as a committee, we don't have to approve them. We get to do it as the board. No, we should do that in committee. In committee, okay. That's what I was thinking. Okay, so then we will remove. I'll talk to Christie reminder. Okay, so 3-2 will be moved to the endowment committee agenda for their next meeting. So we are only looking for a motion to approve the minutes from Monday, November 6th. Last regular. Long move. Motion's been made by Bill to approve. Is there a second? Second by Robert. Is there any discussion? Great, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So moved. Is there any public comment? Do we have any public joining us virtually? No, okay. Great, we'll move on to board comment then. Okay. Great, well if there's no board comment either, we'll move right on to the celebration of learnings then. The best part of the meeting. So, I'd like to introduce Bonnie Bourne, our reintroduced Bonnie Bourne or SUI math coach and our kindergarten first grade teacher in Rochester, Miss C or Megan, to talk a little bit about Bridges' workplaces with you guys. Okay, thank you. Thank you for having us. The math program that the R.S.U.D. schools use Rochester and Stockbridge is referred to as bridges. It's a Bridges program. It has three major components to it. One of those components is problems in investigation. The other one is number corner and the third component is workplaces. And those three components are designed to work together in an integrated system. Last year, those of you that are on the board will remember that Hope came and did a presentation on number corner. And so tonight Megan and I will talk a bit about workplaces and then at some other point we'll schedule with Lindy a presentation around problems and investigations. And then at that point we'll have presented all three of the components. Just a little bit about sort of the goals of our math program before I move into speaking specifically about bridges. We really have two large goals. There are many sub-goals under that, but two large goals in our math program is to develop in youngsters this positive identity as a doer of mathematics. Someone who can do math, who can use math, who can consume math and have a very positive sense of that. The other goal is to develop in youngsters really a deep sense of math reasoning, which encompasses number sense, procedures, problem solving, those kinds of things. But those are the two things that we continually focus on when we're working with youngsters in the area of mathematics. The big one is the positive math identity. I'm sure a number of you have heard this before. We hear it quite frequently, people saying well I'm not a math person. I'm not a math person. I don't do math, I'm not a math person. And once that starts creeping into our thinking it almost guarantees that we're not gonna be particularly successful using mathematics as a tool. So one of the things that we try and do every single day is to help youngsters build a positive sense of math. I can do it, I can figure it out, I can use it. So that's sort of the big goals. Workplaces that we're gonna show a little bit of tonight, they're actually like math stations, math activities. They are little tasks, little problems, little games that give youngsters the opportunity to apply the math concepts that their teachers have shared with them in the problems and investigations units, the more teacher directed instruction. And the whole purpose of math workplaces is to give kids lots of opportunities to practice the kinds of skills that they need to be able to own in order to really see or use math as a tool. So the purposes of workplaces is to give youngsters concrete models that help them understand the concepts that underlie procedures in mathematics. I know it's often a debate about new math and math facts and I work into every time I'm speaking with a group, I really make sure I always say these three things. Right answers matter, math facts matter. Kids have to know their math facts. If they don't know their math facts, they're not going to be particularly successful in mathematics and there's no such thing as new math. The math is the math. The math that we're teaching now is the math that was taught 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or in my case, 40, 50 years ago. It's the same math. What we do now is we're teaching math more for meaning versus memorization out of context. That's what used to happen a lot. And it looks different because now we're engaging youngsters in different types of activities but rest assured answers matter, math facts matter and we're teaching the same math that all of us learned. The other thing about workplaces that I think is particularly positive is it gives us, it gives youngsters, actually not us, gives youngsters opportunities to develop skills outside of math. There's a great deal of sharing that has to go on. There's a great deal of problem solving. There's responsibility for getting out the materials, picking up the materials, making sure the materials are going back in the right place so that when I come and get that workplace station tomorrow, everything's not scattered hither-thither all around. And there's a great deal of both cooperative and collaborative work that is built into workplaces. Megan doesn't go around to her class and say, okay, Lindy and Jamie, you will get along and you two will get along and you two will get along. We just go to a work station and we have to figure out how is it that we're going to interact in a positive way so that we can both enjoy doing this activity or playing this game? That, by the way, is furthering my understanding of the math concepts that I'm learning as a kindergarten or first or second grader. The other thing that workplaces do is they allow teachers to be able to do what's called observational assessment. So if Megan's watching Amy do an activity and she sees that she's making the same error over and over and over again, that gives Megan the opportunity to sit down, kind of sit right next to her, point out, how about if we thought about it this way? Do you think we could think about it this way? What do you think would happen if we change this versus that? So there's an opportunity for on-the-spot correction of misconceptions. There are some misconceptions that are more deeply embedded that are more strongly held in a youngster's thinking. So workplaces also allows Megan to look at, around the classroom, look at who's doing the different workstations and say, okay, I need to grab this child and this child and this child, and I need to do more in-depth instruction with them. So for the next two or three days, while other kids are at their workstation, I'm gonna be at this workstation with these three kiddos straightening out this misconception. So before teachers are moving on and trying to build on top of not a particularly solid foundation, workplaces gives them the opportunity to say, okay, I need to do a little bit of reteaching right here. This is a moment when I need to grab these three kiddos and reteach. And then I think certainly an important attribute of workplaces that we can't overlook is that it just, they just provide a enjoyable, fun atmosphere on atmosphere in which kids are learning their mathematics. They're working hard to understand why do you group these 10 things together and leave this one thing over here by itself? Why do you need nine more to make these two groups a 10? So kids are working diligently. They actually enjoy. When you ask kids who have been in the Bridges Math Program for a period of time, what's your favorite part about math? They almost always say workplaces because they actually see these activities as games, as fun things to do, while at the same time strengthening their mathematics. So we're gonna play one. We're gonna take, let me stop for questions first. Is there any questions before we do a little play? Yeah. Is workplaces a format, a technique of Bridges or is it a way to make Bridges work for each one of our students? It's actually both, Bill. It's a component of Bridges and teachers can personalize the workplaces. There's five, six, seven workplaces that come out at any given time. Teachers can differentiate those workplaces for individual students, for individual students. So if you have a particular need, you might get assigned this workplace. If I have a particular need, I might get assigned that workplace. Is that a tool that we use in direct instruction and other academic or social-emotional instruction? It's during an instructional block. It's not necessarily part of direct instruction. So it's part of it. So if a group of kids is with Megan for direct instruction and literacy, another group of kids might be working on a targeted skill independently. And also during the lesson, so I'll teach the workplace during the lesson so you'll learn a whole part in the unit and then I'll teach the workplace. We'll work through it together, make sure that everybody understands it and then they can go back and do it and it's a choice on their workplace folder that they have to do three times. I think it's funny, because when you said that it's, that's their favorite part, is workplaces for sure. Because I love when they're like, is this almost over? Because I really want to do workplaces. They just have so much fun that they don't even realize that they're a learning man. I guess, for the kids, do you find it a big obstacle with their parents having identified that, oh, they're not math people, that there is there a big problem with the parental influence on the kids? There's still a good amount of that. And it goes something like this. I was never particularly good in math. I did okay. She'll be fine or he'll be fine. Some parents are a little bit scared of math. They're not sure they can help their children do the math and they can, but they kind of avoid it a little bit. So that is the piece. I certainly wish we'd send a different message that math is fun and everybody can do math. We're working on that. Any more questions? All right, well, we're gonna, do you want to step? Sure, should we use this little table here? Sure. All right, so I brought one that is very similar to, I have one from kindergarten and one from first grade and it kind of shows you how they move from one workplace to another the next year. So we have these little beans that one side is red and one side is white. So for the kindergarten workplace, this is the sheet that they receive. And what they do is you take 10 beans. I'm just gonna point this out. Numbers one through 10. And we're also working on correct number formation while we're at it. Oh yeah, seven, eight, nine, 10. I'll let you shake those up and see what comes out for you. So you're looking at the red beans that came up. So just for kindergarten, we're only looking at the red ones. So they will identify that they will count out the three red or just identify that there are three here and then they will find them on the board and trace that number. So once they fill three columns, they've finished the workplace. But as you shake up the beans, you'll get all different numbers and all different combinations. And then when you change to first grade, we'll do 10 because we already have the beans. These are hard to pick up. So they're counting, but they're also working on writing skills. Yes. And identifying what that number looks like. And correct number formation too. Yes. The other thing they work on, I'm glad you brought that up, Amy. The other thing they're working on is a fancy word. It's called subitizing, but it's important in mathematics. It's the fact that a youngster can look at that and tell me how many there are without going one, two, three. So it's teachers who are skilled and familiar like Megan is, they're interjecting these skills all the time in these activities. So I just wanted to point out that when you asked about the three red. Oh, look at that. I'm gonna shake them up. I gotta shake them up. Well, it's funny that you do that because when they start this one, they'll put a star at the top of the column that they think will happen most frequently. And that's how you win the workplace. Technically, we don't like to say who wins or loses. You're always winning when you're playing math, but. Right. So they have, they'll count out how many red. So that is the first number that they will look for. So they have four red. So we're gonna look for the equation that has four on the top. And then they will count out to make sure one, two, three, four, five, six. And they will look for the four plus six here. And then they will write it above. Write the answer or write the equation? They will write the equation above. And they will continue to do so in these columns. And you can play with a partner or you can play by yourself. And also there's a challenge version of this where when they play, someone can cover the white. So if you're looking at these, one, two, three, four, then you ask them how many more are under my hand if there are 10 total. Right. Very cool. The kids are picking which activity, like they have a list that they can do or you're telling them today we're gonna do the counting beans one. There's five or six workplace activities for every unit of study. I can pass this around too. So they learn them throughout the unit. And then they are able to choose the ones that are available that they have learned. So we'll go through the folder and they take their folders out and then they'll check off the one that they've done. So there are three boxes on there that they can check them off. Megan can also assign me to a workplace. She can say sometime in the next two days, Bonnie, I want you to hit that workplace with someone. And she's sending me there for a specific reason. She's seen some things, seen some misconceptions. She wants me to work out or straight now. What I also love about workplaces too is when they work together, sometimes they'll learn new things from each other. So they will learn to do certain counting or they'll learn to just look at a pile when their friends are doing it or they'll learn certain things that they didn't necessarily grasp from my lesson but they learned from each other, which is great. Just working together. And what the research tells us is that learning facts in this context comes more quickly and it solidifies more quickly than trying to learn them out of context. So in other words, today we're gonna work on our fours. So four plus one is five, four plus two is six, four plus. It doesn't, there's nothing in here to stick it to. But if I know that Megan and I are playing this game and if I know that yesterday three different times I miss four plus three, I'm really gonna be focusing on four plus three because I really wanna fill up this column. So there's a context, there's a reason for why I wanna hold on to four plus three. And just so you guys can see, this is the workplace bin. So kindergarten and first grade have separate workplaces and they will go to their specific bin to pull out in this folder, they have all of the sheets. I also put some in their individual workplace folders because they will have one of their own. I was just gonna show them. This is what one of the game boards looks like. And this is a race to the tower to get them filled in. And they have their own that they can fill in with a similar, so the equation goes in with the game. So there's a lot of building equations and using various math manipulatives. Youngsters are doing and seeing far more equations at earlier grades than they ever saw before. If they're starting to write them, they're starting to talk about them, they're starting to create them for different scenarios they see out of, you know, things like that. You can definitely tell they're having fun. They have indoor recess, they wanna play. The workplaces. They wanna do the workplaces. Which is very cool. That's great. So that's it. I don't know if there are other questions or, well, that's really exciting. And thank you so much for bringing that. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. That's wonderful. I love getting an insight to what's happening in the classroom and that's really exciting. So go ahead, Bill. Yeah, and you're making a difference. You're making a real difference when you look at our track my progress valuations from the spring of 2023 or the fall of 2020. Two, enormous gains in math. And math was one that we heard was the biggest hill to climb or swamp to swim, everything else like that. And huge, and not only was it impressive because the average for mathematics of the sixth grade was three years in a year was that the performance here, and our said was the highest of the supervisory union. We looked at the test this fall and there's issues about summer slag or a slag and everything else like that. But again, and those challenges don't just disappear, but you're doing it. And the results of the measurements demonstrate that. And that's really, really heartening because the core of it is that our kids need to be able to compute and if they can enjoy and then use and utilize and decide to go after those careers and that sort of thing all starts with what you're doing. And so it's very, very heartening. Thank you. Well, thank you for that. There's a whole lot of people in this effort. We have wonderful teachers in our district. No question about that. But support that Jamie and Anda and Lindy have brought to the area of math. We wouldn't be doing this kind of work without the support they bring to it and the board. It takes money to get the programs and the materials and the professional development. So it's really just everybody saying math is important. What are we gonna do about it? So. Well, you've been the key leader. Well, thanks. Pat or JC or Cynthia, do you have any questions or comments for our presenters? Well, I just think it's great. It's interesting to me because I'm watching all their come home and with some of the math and being and everybody's talking about before that everybody was like, the new math, the new math. So I was kind of like, what am I in for? But like, I could probably get it, understand it too. I thought I was in for a new, a whole new thing, foreign thing, but he really loves math. And so I think that's pretty awesome to have my kid coming home and just loving, loving. So it's neat and thank you for sharing. You're welcome. Thank you for having us. Excellent, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you guys. So, this is great. Thank you very much. Let's move on to the report to the board. We'll do the superintendent's report. Here guys, so I'll do this and I'm gonna jump in with Granville Hancock and then I'll be back. Okay. But you have my report at hand. We're gonna talk a lot about Act 127, specifically the impacts in a forecasted significant drop in the yield and what that's going to be forecasted to due to tax rates across the state. I did send out a community letter that had included an Act 127 fact sheet. That was great. And the Act 127 fact sheets also, you can't go to the SU website now and miss it. It's the first thing you see. Not the SU website. And so I would suggest that board members take some time to really review that. I do think that that helps break down each component of Act 127 in regards to how the, we are no longer in equalized pupils. It's long-term average daily membership in regards to a weight over two years. It breaks down how pupils are weighted different now. And then the thing I've been talking about was this notion of these 5% caps and what I was predicting it might do to the yield. And the yield is really looking to contribute, you know, double digit increases to tax rates at the moment. The governor came out last week and talked about an 18 and a half percent tax rate increase across the state. When he's talking about that, he's talking about the yield because that's the figure that funds the Ed fund. It makes certain the Ed fund receives enough funding. So we will talk about what we know now. We'll talk about how the long-term average daily membership weighting does equal, it does increase our pupils by quite a bit in our side. The problem is the yield dropped more than those increase in pupils contributed in regards to trying to provide more tax capacity. And so we'll walk through that tonight during the tax sheet within your budget. Lindy can talk to you about what the current budget already has in place. There's not really much personnel changes from the prior draft in this one, but Lindy and Tara started working on some changes in regards to your actual like supply lines and things of that nature and based on actuals and things of that nature. And then when we get to the budget tonight, we'll talk about we're carrying a 10% figure right now for tuitions because we don't know what announced tuitions will be yet, but we increased it by 10 and that number's not arbitrary. What we're hearing is baseline expenditure budgets are anywhere from 10% to 20% in surrounding districts. And so we felt like probably we needed to expect that folks are gonna increase tuitions by pretty significant amount to increase their revenue in order to support our students at those level of increases. One thing that's to our benefit is that by the time we go to vote on this, we will have solid numbers. We'll have real solid numbers in this district. I just, I wanted to put that all out there in case you started talking about the budget and I happened to be with Granville Hancock, that we are giving you what we, the best assumptions we have right at the moment, based on the figures that we do have. And so I would say that my report, the big thing aside of all the other good stuff we have happening across the SU that I talked about in here is really just budgeting and Act 127, my sense is that this is gonna be a very busy legislative session. And then finally before I take questions, the governor has had, the state board did forward three candidates for interview for the secretary of that position, those names were not released, they're not, they're not public. The governor can decide to accept one of the three finalists to appoint a secretary or he could reject all three and ask the state board to go back out. I did expect that we'd have an announcement prior to the holiday break, so stay tuned on that. And I'll take any questions folks may have. Did anybody have any questions for the superintendent regarding his report? We obviously will be talking about those other pieces a little bit later. I guess the question I had was when the governor hit back strongly on the December 1st letter and what that meant and it was just awful, but when I read the quotes from the legislative leaders they were saying it's early, we've got some tools in our backpack and so let's not throw in the towel to the extent that we're gonna lose the ability to provide quality education in the state of Vermont. And so have you heard anything at all from the tidbits from the legislature on how they're approaching this? Some of the legislative, our members of the legislature that I've spoken to, I think there was some folks that didn't fully comprehend what Act 127 was gonna do and the idea of these caps in not losing, I mean it's a bit of a perfect storm. Federal funding is going away. We put some arbitrary tax caps right on districts that we're gonna lose some pupils. Their budgets are projected to be up in the upper teens and so I don't think there was necessarily the foresight that what that meant was that the Ed Fund was gonna be underfunded. And so you know what I think the legislature is gonna need to look at is how could they diversify funding for the Ed Fund? And that's something they need to look at. One of the things that I would say, Bill, that I was disappointed is that the non-homestead rate did not even come remotely close to how much they dropped the yield for homestead rate. And so the non-homestead rate is only projected to be up like five and a half cents. And what you're gonna see tonight for a local tax rate or tax rate is up 22 cents. That doesn't seem right to me. And so I think that's something the legislature needs to take a look at to help balance out that Ed Fund. I think that's a significant step they could take. And you know, I was talking to a board member earlier today. And you know, and I think here's the thing is that health insurance is up 16 and a half percent. Federal funding's going away. The needs of schools around what federal funding was helping support across the state. I think some folks had done a better job of budgeting that in locally over time and some have not. And now they're looking, they realize they still need those resources. And so that's taking major hits to local district expenditure budgets. And we have school districts around us who settled some teacher contracts and saw pay raises go up pretty significant around like almost 24, 25% increases over three years. All that money has to come from somewhere. And we have a statewide Ed Fund. I think the key for us too locally is reminding folks that when we go to our district voters for approval that they, that this is a statewide Ed Fund, right? Like a big chunk of our dollars all go to Montpelier then funnel back out to us. And so when we, you know, we certainly are local voter support to educate our students. But beyond that, there are decisions made in all of our surrounding districts that can impact our tax rate. And the way we feel that is through the yield. You know, and then, you know, Bill, there's this whole other piece of infrastructure across the state in PCB testing. And that's the other thing I wanted to mention. We did complete PCB testing here at Rochester and Stockbridge this past weekend. Just Rochester. Oh, just Rochester. Stockbridge wasn't done. No, not yet. Okay. Well, it's upcoming. It's up. And we should have those results probably within the next six weeks or so. They haven't, I mean, that's the other thing the legislature's gonna take up is they don't, they have not fully funded remediation for that yet. If you remember, they put away a little over 30 million in Burlington, Burlington school district got 16 out of that 30 million dollar pot. And there's, there's what I'm hearing on, you know, from putting my feelers out, there's quite a bit of abatement that needs to be done across the state. Right. So anyway, it's gonna be a really interesting upcoming session. I'm gonna run to G-HUD and I'll come back. Great, thank you. Yeah, we'll move on to the principal's report. Do you have my report in front of you? He, I'd forgotten to put the PCB testing in there as one of the building things that had happened. That was Friday to Saturday. So it's done when kids aren't in the building they come and set up and then they, I don't know, it's like a camera looking thing. It was very interesting. But in other things that I'll just highlight real quick is the town of Rochester's public library won the cliff, one of the cliff grants for rural community libraries. We had our first author visit and illustrator visit last week which was Ashley Wolf who lives over in the Leicester area and she came and met with all kids preschool through sixth grade in Rochester. And then each grade group will get to like pick two free books by the end of it. So we'll have a couple other visits that will happen throughout the course of the year. Nice. But that was kind of the kickoff event. Plus quite in addition to things that go to the town library, more children's books, there'll be more books that come to this library as well, which is great. Nice, all part of that cliff grant. All part of that cliff grant, yeah. Nice. So that was exciting. Trying to think we just finished the first trimester and so our Supervisory Union wide proficiency based report card will go home this week for grades K through six. And other than that, if folks have questions. Will this be the first round of that report card? Yes, first trimester finished right before the Thanksgiving holiday. Okay. Yep. So it's a little bit of a revised version from last year's that went out based on feedback and some professional groups that did some work around the standards. Okay, so parents have seen this something similar to this before, it's just an improved version now. It's an improved version. Okay, great. Yeah, other questions? I've got a couple of comments. Yeah. It's okay. Yes, go ahead, Bill. One is, again, I just floored by all the things that are going on at one hand. I mean, it doesn't seem to drop in anything, Lindy, but my gosh, these schools are alive and well in Given. I was heartened by the last bullet on the second page of the process, mid-year progress, monitoring students in literacy. We are seeing many students making large gains, pushing them closer at grade level or above grade level instruction. As we know, they have to move, the gains have to be more than just one year or they are always going to be behind. And so this is something we saw in the test results last spring, also this fall. And that's just heartening. My son had problems with reading and stuttering. And the interventions, successful interventions, made a difference his whole life. Yeah, he's a game changer. Despite his death. So I'm just saying that's heartening. The other thing is, Nido started in January, the PICO skiing program is starting. It's just wonderful, you grew up in Vermont, you learned to ski. And that's a lifelong pursuit. So I think that's super. Thank you. And access to the PICO winter wellness is that sponsored by the fully grant funded and that's not funding that we'll lose in this turn. It's funding we had before Esther funds and it's funding we'll continue to have after funding. That's great, because then it can really be accessible to all. So do you get to go to? Yes, but I'm the boot person. There's just sometimes a little disconnect between those that work in the rental shop and how to get a little kid's foot in a ski boot. That's usually where, and I'm totally fine with just being the face on the bunny hill. That's more my speed. In last year, what was the percentage that you went to PICO versus stayed up? So it's a first grade through sixth grade program. So outside of that, we maybe have a total between both buildings of about 10 kids that stay behind. It's okay to do cross country skiing. Yeah, sledding, building forts, things like that. So we do give every family the opportunity to sign up and we follow up a couple of times. One thing we're trying to really share with families is it's a privilege to be able to do this at no cost out of their own pocket. We don't want the cost to deter anybody, but it's a commitment. You have to give it more than one go. It may not be fun the first day. Right, it's gonna be cold. It's going to be cold. We have to dress accordingly. And so that was kind of our big point of emphasis this year that we really want families to give it a try and not let kids back out after one session. So that was something, yes, going to be cold. We had some great weather last year though. So hopefully we will this year too. That's definitely exciting. I think it's something that skiing is not always attainable. Yeah, absolutely. For families of Vermont. I know it's expensive. And I think the great thing about the PICO program and why we've chosen to stay this direction instead of go back towards Middlebury way is any kid that participates in this has access to the pass and the rental equipment the whole season. It's not just for the six weeks. So I was wondering about that. It's quite the Vermonter deal, so to speak. And it's great what they do in conjunction with Vermont schools so kids can have that access. That's very exciting. Yeah, it is. That's wonderful. That's great. Is there any further questions or comments on? Facilities or heating system is? The heating system is up and running. We're on pellets right now. We had the official, what's called the turnover meeting where we learned how to use all the graphics and the technology that comes with the system and manage it remotely. It was Wednesday here and Thursday in Stockbridge last week, as well as just like a walkthrough. So we knew where everything was, when things need to get serviced, how to stay ahead of things and be preventative versus respond and just kind of like a general overview. We're still waiting on the lighting piece to complete. They're in Bethel now and I believe we're next. So that's kind of where it stands. So it's more on the right direction, I think. And are they going to continue to kind of help with the management of it for this year? Yeah, that was one of my big questions. So am I calling the company that installed or am I calling EEI because I've been, my contact person, Jamie's contact people have been EEI the whole time. So, and that is not going away. Good, okay, so you still have that support. Right, exactly. And they've put two and two together that like it's really important. I know where things are, Jesse knows where things are, Janet knows where things are, Erica knows where things are so we can figure stuff out and answer questions and like what to look for. Good, and they've taught you how to service like what needs to be done for the pallets for whatever cleaning it out or whatever. The pallets are pretty simple. Great. I don't know what. But like everything talks to you and like it's quite a game changer from where we were at this point last year. Wonderful. Everything tells you what to do when to do it. So that's pretty nice and everything's hooked up to a generator in both buildings so there's no worry about. That's exciting. Yes, so and even like if the internet goes down here like we can still access remotely like from my device at my home or like wherever there's internet it's still gonna send messages regardless of what that internet status is here. So that's exciting as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So just so you know, I guess there's a little more maintenance in the pellets stove than there is with oil that you need to empty ashes. Yes, yes. That's why we had a whole separate training on just the pellets stove. Right. So it isn't as simple as a oil burner as we would expect. Right now. But savings is so we should keep that in mind with you know the maintenance staff. Duties are a bit increased from that. It's very... Not a huge amount but it is one more thing. No, it's about 20 minutes total to every other day. Right. So it's very manageable. All right. Great. Are there any other questions for Lindy on her principles report? Great. But then we will move on to the business managers report but she's probably in with Hancock and Granville. So we can move on to the policy committee update or not. I believe most of it was around which policies are being reviewed in which order as we go about updating things. I don't believe anything new was on the table. There was a little bit of talk about after things had passed through each board what could be changed and what couldn't be changed like grammatically and if it changed meaning but other than that I don't believe there's any new policies being read through at this time. Okay. Based on what I've read in the minutes. I haven't... Can't say I have much more of an inside scoop on that one. Okay. Great. Then we'll move on to our said endowment committee. We met and you do see that the minutes are in this packet. We met on October 17th and we had some good discussions and we are going to continue to meet going into the future. We have another meeting already scheduled for December 15th but we did have a couple of recommendations that we wanted to bring to the board directly at this time and the first one is that we reviewed the names that are on the physical accounts, the bank accounts. And the endowment committee would like to recommend to the full board that going forward that the only names that should be on the financial accounts with these endowment funds would be the district treasurer, the board chair and the vice chair. So I would look for a motion to accept that recommendation. So moved. Second. Moved by Robert, seconded by Bill. Is there any discussion? Seeing. Yes, go ahead. I have a question, what is on it right now? So there is one, two, three different accounts and each one has some different names on it. I could tell you that one of them as an example has a previous on treasurer. It has the previous backup treasurer I guess. It does have Lindy Stetson, it has Bonnie Bourne and it has myself on it. So yeah, and so we also wanted to kind of make this as what we're also trying to do is set stuff up. So as we go into the future, this can be something that is just known and we know who should be on it and how to roll it over when we get new treasurers, when we get new board members. So that was our recommendation to the board treasurer and we felt that having three people on it just for accessibility was a better option. So, so there's, is there any more discussion? Robert. I just want to say that we are working towards in the future making recommendations as far as what funds and such because some of the funds are not in high, high re-healed accounts and we will be making some recommendations to the board to move some of the funds around but we're still gathering information. Yes, absolutely, I feel that the committee has a number of things that they'll probably be bringing to the board because this committee has no power to do anything on their own, we need to do the investigations and bring it to the full board to make a decision. Is there any more discussion on the current motion that is on the floor? Great, all those in favor? Hi. Hi. Why? Great, that motion passed. The next recommendation that the committee would like to bring to the board is that we would like to recommend that the full board makes available $2,000 for the principal to use at her discretion. And so I was looking for a motion to offer, offer's not really the right word, what am I looking for? That for $2,000 would be available for the principal to use at her discretion from the fund for excellence. So move. Second. Moved by Robert, seconded by Bill. Is there discussion? I believe that's the, isn't that from the requirements of the establishing of that fund was that there be monies available for the principal to use? Yes, yes, this fund. It can't be facilities, right? Yep, so I can. Is that the right one? Specifically, in the documentation from this fund, use this fund to directly benefit students. He does not want the money to be used for capital expenses because he believes the community should pay for brick and mortar. He is concerned that in such a small community, children don't have enough opportunities for learning and recreation. And that the person best able to determine the need and the good use of the funds is the principal. Any other, yes. Call the question. Okay. Is the $2,000 available, like is there a saying all the time? No, the. Or is it just $2,000 for a certain period of time, out of time, kind of period of time? Yep, so right now at this point, what we have looked into is we've determined that we feel we can recommend to the board that $2,000 at this time would be available for Linda to use and we're gonna continue to go back and look at the funds and what's available and it's something that we're going to come up with a protocol of policy, a procedure, of kind of how these funds, the amounts that we're gonna use gets determined. This is a one time at this point, not going into perpetuity right now today, $2,000. It's for this current fiscal year, a fiscal year for $2,000. The committee did not actually specify that? Oh, okay. So yes, you can do it, the money is there. The money is there, we'd like to offer that there's $2,000 that could be used. All right. Okay, so the question has been called, so the motion on the floor is to accept that to offer the $2,000 from the fund for excellence be available for the principal to use at her discretion. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. Great, so moved. As Robert had mentioned before, there is a, one of our funds is sitting in a low earning CD and we had hoped to bring that as a recommendation but this committee actually needs to go and get the financial institute, the actual term that the CD is gonna be and bring all that to the board for the full board to vote on, so. Excellent, well thank you. And again, we will be meeting again in December. I don't know if anybody else has any comments about, about the, any more comments that they need about the endowment committee? I guess one thing is we have over a half a million dollars in these endowments and if they're, and they've been, I believe, prudently effectively managed to this point, but we believe that the level of our responsibility is ultimately it's the RCEP board that's responsible for this. We should be more on top of what's going on and thanks to Amy's leadership and digging into and finding out this mysterious thing about what and why and where and how much and it's gonna pay benefits down the road if we manage these funds effectively. Part of the things we're gonna be checking out, we haven't met, is the management and professional manager we have. Management of these funds, they're not all the same and we think it's prudent for us to determine do we have the best manager to support this half a million dollar of combined endowments and I think it's safe to say we're gonna be investigating that and coming back. I happen to be a proponent that we don't want more than, we don't need more than one investment advisor to what we need a good investment advisor and to help us manage these funds and part of that is to kind of establish and articulate what our risk assessments are as board members so that and also the fact that these funds are meant given to the school board in perpetuity so that puts a little different buzz on things. So that's where an investment manager can help us and we hope to explore that and then come back to the full board with advice or counsel or to get your approval on where we think we should be going on that. And I think it's probably even though we are not voting to accept the minutes, it's probably very appropriate to have the minutes available in the packet so that as all board members can brush up on what Enredo has been going on. Okay, do you want to take over with the drafter of the budget or do you wanna wait for? I'm gonna use a little skirt. Okay. I'm not sure it's gonna change much. Here. Okay. So, let me just flip here because my packet's in a different order. Terror sent out, I believe yesterday or this morning and it's in your packet. Great. The budget drafted and this is all inclusive, a couple of things that I'll share or highlight. So like Jamie said before he left, we didn't change any of the FTEs in this. So any staffing that we've talked about previously and our student support or student services budget and then again in general education, we haven't changed. So this is kind of the whole kit and caboodle where everything is right now based on actuals. So things that we did work on was, you know, what do we need for supplies? What's been grant funded previously through ESSER funds and do we wanna make sure we keep all these curriculum initiatives going and funded? Absolutely. So that's kind of what you see in here. The other thing that Jamie mentioned so that if you look on page one of sex, like right at the beginning, under tuition, under regular ed instructions or tuition to Vermont LEA and tuition to 561 and 562. Yep. Could you explain what they're for? Yep, so this is how much we spend. This is what we spend on our seven through 12 students who go, the 561 is who go to public school. And then 562 is who goes to private, like the tuition required for those who go to private school. So that's like the Sharon Academy versus White River Valley Middle School. Okay. So that's where that 10% increase just is right now because we don't know people's announced tuition rates and we actually haven't gotten all the tuition bills in yet this year to even verify. We do know where everybody is but so that's, and it does include our current six graders that will be seventh graders next year in there. So they're in that head count money wise. So that's something that with each draft we'll be able to get a little more fine tuned. Absolutely. Okay. So that's one of the advantages of voting in May. So that's kind of one of those big difference me makers. Can you keep going down and tell me what all those different tuition are for? So tuition to a non, I can't do it, LEA. Yep, so that would be, we do have students who tuition to non remote LEA. Who tuition out, I'm going crooked and I know it. Hold on here. 20. Yes, okay. I was like, I'm not lining up right here. 20,000. So those are students who go out of state but we don't pay more than the annual tuition. The annual state allowed tuition for. Yeah, okay. Okay. Secondary out of state, private, we don't really have. Okay. And then that... Oh yeah, tech on behalf. I was wondering about. So this is that vocational money that like we get but then we also pay out and it's on a rolling average. So when a student enrolls in a vocational program, right? It's a six semester rolling average. It's not the same as just an annual tuition. Right, right. So it's a funky amount. Why would we have to pay that because aren't we paying that when we pay tuition to our kids to go? We don't pay them so we do not pay. So if a kid enrolls in a vocational school, we don't pay the full tuition for them at like, so Middlebury. So like Middlebury, the Hannaford Career Center is separate from, even though it's right next door to each other, separate from Middlebury High School. So we don't pay a full-time enrollment. To Middlebury High School. So Middlebury High School is part of our... Part of their, we pay their vocational enrollment and then... A sum of their, okay. Sometimes you can be part-time and it just depends on your program. Okay. Does that help? That does, because I thought I was like, I feel like the double-dipping. It feels like it's a double-dip, I agree. All right. Okay, and then same, the tuition for tech. So what's the difference between that and the paid on behalf? So we'll have to double-check this with, yep, with Tara, but I believe this is like, where money comes in on your revenue sheet. So if you look on your revenue sheet, you will see tech tuition under revenue from state and federal sources. Do you see that tech tuition on behalf? So tech tuition on behalf is where we just were, which is... So it's usually... Which is about the same. Right, it's kind of like you have to budget for it, even though you get some from the state. Okay. I don't know the why behind that, but I just know the way. Or okay, so 566, we receive most of it back in revenue. Exactly. What about 567? Tuition, that should be our vocational students. Yes. So kind of the same as 566, just we don't, there's no revenue? I don't think so. We should double-check that with Tara, but I'm pretty sure that's true. And then 568 tuition, public EALAs within the SU. EALAs within the SU. So I was... That is something new. Yeah. And I'm not seeing the note for it. Okay. And I'd almost think that they're talking about if our students go to the district. Right, it might just be the district. Right. That is a large increase. Okay, so all of these... Increased. Are a 10% increase. Right now. So that whole section from 561, with the exception of 566. From 561 to 568, that's all at a 10% increase right now. And that's what we'll be able to get pared down pretty well as more bills and things come in. Now, the number of students that we currently have versus what we're projecting for this budget, what's the difference? So I think it's the difference of about two to three when you figure out who graduates and then who's coming out. Two to three and that's a major increase then. It is, but what we have to keep in mind is we didn't add some more Granville Hancock students. So hopefully it's offsetting in our revenue side. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I was just, I really was just looking at this expenditure, this tuition expenditure of how much it's increased. It is, we have a large class of what will be seventh graders next year from Rochester and they're all Rochester residents. Right. It just comes in phases. Yeah. But you think that there's only two, you said there's only like maybe two compared to the current. The difference is about two to three, yeah. Yeah, so it really is just that 10% increase is that's driving that. Yeah, it's not enough body weight. Like it's not a change in number of kids enough to make it to some extent. Yes, yeah. Yeah, 568. Yeah. We can look at it at $129,000 and go, oh my gosh, we didn't pay that before. Or does that mean that in prior years, students went outside of the SU and we paid them on these other numbers and we're counting on them staying within the SU. So while we're supporting schools and districts within our Supervisory Union. A little bit of both. And so I think it'd be helpful at some point just to clarify that because I'd like to think it's good news. But I don't know. Well, so that's why when we do our town report, what's so important is that spreadsheet of where everybody goes to school. And that's really nice. That number of kids, seven through 12, right? And then it breaks down how many kids are in each building. And that really, that pie chart also that shows that a majority of our budget outside of salaries and benefits is tuition. Yeah, but it's a difference. If we start a trend and I sense that we are that we're gonna have fewer people tuition out of the SU. And within the SU, and we can start that pattern and that behavior and that assumptions and that can build on itself. And while we were still paying because our district only provides education K through six, those tuition dollars are going to SU and those SU funds help pay for the overhead of SU including the superintendent and his team and everything else like that. And it also includes, improves our cost per student. So to me, this number is very important. If you could just get clarification down the road. Yeah, I mean, I'll be talking about this earlier, but it really sounds good. I assume that probably just 61 is where our current students that are attending the White River Valley middle and high school which was projected to be seven for this year. Their tuition is in that 561 line. I think this is based on some newer. And they've broken it out maybe just to help identify the difference of what can be kept in SU units. But it is, I just wanted to clarify that when we are paying the tuition for the, for White River Valley middle and high school students we're paying White River Valley district. We're not paying the White River Valley SU. That's correct, but that also allows them to pay for the overhead and also helps them support their educational advances and saves taxpayers money and saves taxpayers money within the SU. So, and to the extent that they can do, have more resources to do a good job that should also help the trend to keep our student body within the SU because we're darn good at what we're doing. Yeah, and it's a continuum of the same programs that we're, we're, we're happy. That's the portrait of a graduate. Yeah. Great, thank you. So those are kind of the bigger chunks. Everything else is like some increase in supply of things and books, but for the most part those are the larger pieces. Right, because it, yeah, that, that increase is 400,000. Yep. For that 1101, general ed instruction line. Yeah. I do see a lot of minuses on the column, too, on other columns. Is there anything else that you want to specifically point out? No, on the expenditure side, there's nothing in particular. I mean, it's very minimal increases outside of health insurance. Okay. And, and. Right, the health insurance is 16.5, 16 and a half percent. Which is a large increase, for sure. So overall the budget is up 11.74 percent, if you look at the very bottom line. And I was just, you know, a big, another number that's a new number. Yep. In staff training, and I just wasn't sure if that was in some of our revisions before. Where are you? 2213, so page. Page four. Okay. Staff training, and it's tuition benefit. And I don't, didn't know if that was someplace else in the budget prior, or what that would be. Yep, so that previously would have been under, where is it? Under that tuition benefit under regular ed. So if you go on to page one, 1101, 250, line item 251. Okay. And so it is up, but that's per the master agreement. Yeah. How many spots you have to, how many credits you have to budget for. Excellent, so that's on teachers continuing education. Yes. For their licensure, other training opportunities. But they're each provided per the master agreement, the equivalent of six credits at the EVM rate. Okay. Which is to graduate. So they're all, they're like college level courses. Yes, graduate level. Okay, yeah, that's really exciting. I think that really, I think that really can benefit our students really. I think we saw that, and I'm not sure what grade she was teaching last year, but she was taking, she's no longer with us now, she's teaching at Yonkirkrest. Oh yeah. And they had just a huge growth. Yeah. And I believe it had a lot to do with her being, yeah, her being learning more and being in school. So. Great. Okay. So are there any questions? I know it's kind of hard for people on line, doing virtual, hopefully you have a copy of it in front of you. Does anybody else have any specific questions on specific lines or overall concepts of the budget and let's present them? And then just a reminder, if you go to page six, there's still the fund transfer into the capital improvement fund set up for Rochester Stock Ridge Unified District. That last line item, five, three, nine, zero. Five, three, nine, zero. Okay. And then you'll see some of that under five, zero, two, zero, some of that is from the work that we did this summer. Okay. That was one. That was lease payments and things like that, that's where those are. Okay. Part of this is our lease payments for EEI for this incredible amount of work that we got done. Exactly. Great deal. So those will continue to see those in the budget for many years to come. I can't remember the timeline on that. Okay, but yeah, that's a... Just, I don't want, it's not that there was a bond, right? Right. That's just a sell point. It's our lease agreements. Yeah. We didn't use our capital improvement funds or grants for to pay. And it was... Well over a million dollars. Over a million dollar project. For both buildings. That's wonderful. Yep. That's huge. Yeah. And I think that's a sell point and something people might ask questions about. Mm-hmm. And I like that. We're at this budget. We're continuing to put $65,000 away in our capital. So I just wanted to share. Those are kind of some other bigger line items. Yes. But that's important. That's a building block. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Does anybody have any more questions on the expenditure budget? Otherwise we can move on to the revenue budget. And if you want to send emails with more questions as you have more time. Yeah, you definitely want to. We only just got this this morning. So. I know it was tight. It was tough to sit with it. But we, it is December. It is nice that we don't vote until May. So that does give us a little bit more time to let the numbers settle out with the state, with the yield, with tuition, so. Yeah. Welcome back. Was it good timing? Yeah. We're just finishing up the expenditures. Oh, guys are already on that. We're on one. Absolutely. So we just really, we're finishing the expenditures. No, we really had any more questions. I don't know if you had anything specific you wanted to point out on the expenditures side. Just know right now, and maybe Linda hit this, that we're just using that 10% placeholder on the tuition right now. We will dial that in the long run by next one. Yeah. And like, okay. Great. Then do you want to speak to the revenue budget? Yep. So if you go to the revenue, a couple of things to note. One, there's no proposed balance carryover from our surplus in this draft of our budget yet. So that's the only thing that could change. And we will have. The auditors are close to being done. So, okay. Yeah. Okay, that's very good to know. That makes a big difference. Our sense is it'll be a chunk higher than what Tara originally forecasted. She's always pretty conservative with those. Now, wanting to overstate, but it's looking like we'll definitely have some funds that could be contributed. Okay, great. So that's probably the most important. Yeah. On there, especially when you get ready to go to the tax sheet. But there is pretty, what we haven't done to this is also gone through with our actual, we just kept our revenue the same around pre-k, well, excuse me, around our K through six students. So we haven't updated that. Okay, for the incoming tuition revenue. Tuition as a whole on both sides is something that will hone in. Okay, so. Date. And we'll do that based on who's actually enrolled. Right. Okay. Right above that, the interest, is that interest on our TAN? Is that? No. It's interest on our TAN. And that, we have so much interest because we didn't have to access as much funds so we had it in the bank for longer. So that's a nice. Our cash flow has been helpful. Yes. Much better cash flow place. Yeah, which is nice to get. It's kind of like free money, you know? Right. It's great. Okay. Other than that, rentals have stayed right around the same. I can't think of anything. Okay. We haven't spent a lot of time on this one. Yeah. I haven't touched these. I haven't either. Okay, yeah, it looks like for the most part, it was really just pulled over from. It does look like Tara updated the revenue from state and federal sources. Okay. So it's a little more on that. And based on tuition. And based on tuition. Yep. And of course the notable that the, we no longer have the small schools grant. Right. But there is, within the act. Yes. There's something in that equation about. If you look, we, Spend a. You get, you can't get small schools waiting and merger incentive waiting. We still get receive a merger incentive waiting. Okay. So our pupils count more. It's a better, it's a better for us with the waiting than, than the small schools grant. It's so early on. I can't tell you that for a fact, right? I can tell you that, that the small schools grants gone across the state now. Right. They increased the weights of students. But if, if our weights are worse than what our small schools, do we do the small schools instead? No. Small schools grants gone. Okay. I thought there was something in there about, about that. Okay. That is whether it's better to get these small schools weights versus the merger incentive fund weights. Oh, something totally different. And then agency will decide that. They give you that. Whichever one's more for your district. Because you, you had small schools and you had merged. So they still take that into account. Okay. You'll see it on the next page when we look at your pupils. Yeah, okay. Has the Stockbridge trustees voted? They vote at the end of the month. This month? Yep. Okay. So they've been asked and they're okay. Yeah, I'm no longer on the trustees. Yeah. I've met with Kim the other day. You have. Okay, great. Cause that's really important. Great. That is wonderful. Okay. Well, that doesn't seem like much to be said about the revenue. But at this time, it seems there's some updates that will need to be made for us to really dive into it further. Okay. So should we move on to the estimated tax rate sheet? And so again, we don't have updated CLA's yet. Right? So we're using last year's CLA's. I don't, I have what your long-term weighted average pupil would have been from FY24. Okay. So that provided us the FY25 yet because they just got done doing our child count. Yeah. Our average daily membership. So that number will be coming out by your next draft. We should have it here in December. Remember your equalized pupil would always change sometime in December. Right. Same place. I don't have that updated figure yet. Okay. So what we're using is your long-term weighted average. So you can see that your last year, your equalized pupil was at 180.84. Look up at that top box. Your long-term weighted average now is 325.43. Right. So we did increase our weight, which was supposed to provide us more tax capacity. Right? The thing that we have not going for us this year is that if you look to that right hand box, you'll see that the yield last year was 15,000 for 43 and the tax letter last week dropped it down to 9,0452. Let it drop. So that's a big drop. And so that will get dialed in over the legislative session, which is what Bill was talking about. And I would say one of the things right off the bat that I raised earlier is if you look at that Vermont non-residential rate that they're projecting at 1.4420 just under that yield amount, you'll see that that only went up from 1.391 last year. So they can adjust that to increase some funding for the Ed fund, which would then possibly increase that yield. Okay. Okay. And I think that's a, as it was quoted Vermont digger, they've got the legislature that has some arrows in their quiver that they can play. And that's just a logical one. We're not sticking it to anybody, but we're saying we want to pay their fair share. Pay your fair share. And in fact, the matter is the quality of education directly impacts the value of their property. So you'll see, I mean, if nothing changed, meaning your pupils didn't change, the revenue of the budget didn't change, that the expenditure part of the budget didn't change and the CLA stayed the same. And there was no 5% cap, which there is going to be a 5% cap on our tax rates. That the tax increase would be 22.5 cents at Rochester and 25.7 in Stockbridge, which is about a 14.86% change. You heard that. If you read what was coming out of the governor's office last week, he was projecting 18.5% increases. And so we are, we're not at that level. But what I would say to you is, is that there are still, you voting in May is going to be a very good thing. I would tell you, I am very, very anxious for my districts that we need to have budgets put to bed in the next six weeks because I've never felt like I've had more unknown data. Yeah, there just seem like there's so many moving parts right now. And there's a lot of moving parts right now. And so again, Lindy and I and Tara will meet. We'll dig in on the expenditure budgets more. We'll dig in on that revenue budget next month. And know that like this to me is our base. And I hope that we can continue to improve the outlook as we move toward February when you look to adopt. Okay. And like you said, the CLA's haven't been updated either. When does that come out usually? We usually have that in December as well. In the middle of December. Part of it, we're very early in the month. Yeah. So, you know, frankly, my districts that meet their third week in December, they will have the status data that we don't have yet. One thing that when I... Amy, last year the CLA letters came out on December 23rd. Okay. A Christmas present. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. One thing when I had asked in the meeting was how were they going to identify all the students and what their weights were? How do they know that this is an English second language person? How do they know? So, you know, what about with like income sensitive, you know, poverty of how do we know if they don't fill out any paperwork? They're either direct served or they fill out the paperwork. Meaning that through the state, they are on something through the state. They're Medicaid eligible or... Okay. Yeah, that's it. Okay, so any, if somebody, yeah. Just like me. Does not, and... Yeah. Because I worry about families that are kind of right on the edge that do maybe qualify for free and reduced lunch, but they choose not to fill out that paperwork. And in this situation, it actually is detrimental to our... That's great. Well, this and title funding and you name it, it's so important to so much funding. Yeah. One thing we'll have to do for next year, household income, places where our students are arriving, tuition, we've never had to do this before. They asked us to do it with three weeks left in the window. We actually got it done. And this is like a trial run, but next year they'll require it. So students who are at TSA would not normally be in this building filling out the forms. Right. TSA may not run a meal program, so they also are not collecting the forms. So one of the answers is to have, as part of the tuition process, the household income. That hopefully people fill out. Right. I mean, that's my concern about this is that there, I think there's a lot of potential for, you know, to slip through the cracks. Yeah. You know. We have seen a bit of an increase in those free and reduced lunch forms than previous years. So that's a good sign. But it definitely is not what it could be. Right, and I wonder, Yeah, and now it's of, you know, it has, at least now it's like directly affecting our weighted pupils. And so, you know, I'm trying to think of ways that would be a way for people to feel comfortable with accessing, it should fill out those forms. Yeah, no, I agree. Lack of it. Yeah. Have there been efforts to, for different ways of outreach to families, to phone calls or that sort of thing? Yep, there was quite a push both at the supervisor union level and local level at the beginning of school for free and reduced lunch forms, both online and hard copy, been sent home, it was emailed, it was robo-called, it was. Right, and yours is specific to the K through six. Correct. The seven through 12 still affects. Right, also as well. We have not done any outreach this year for seven through 12. For seven through 12, no. Right. We'll start that next year. So if a family, if a family who is going to, seven through 12th graders going to another district and they fill out that form for that school for free and reduced lunch, does that come back to, it gets back to us because they are part of our equalized pupil. That's what Ray was just talking about. Right. So I think you're asking about in this case if the student is attending a public program. Correct. So we do not report them. They would be reported on our behalf with those eligibility and I'm assuming the state is going to use that information as part of the long-term wait because they're not asking us for that. They're asking us about independent schools. Yeah, okay. So they're using the student's address as like as Rochester's, they're the town then they're going to, they should be reporting back to our district. Yes. Yeah. It seems pretty complicated to make. That was our foolproof. I mean, at the SU level when we've been talking about the data manager, this is part of what we're talking about. Like Ray has, this is all Ray has done over the last five weeks is trying to make certain we're counting all of our students across, even just counting them. Right. Right. On top of making them all these other factors. Right. Because we rely on the other 50 schools to help us with that. Like we don't get, yeah, it's a dance. There was a student, not this district, but attending another public school in the state and they had been reported with a different funding source. So that receiving schools reporting them, they're being counted and given zero ADM credit and they didn't show up on our list just because the receiving school about who was paying for that education. Interesting. So you have to work backwards and know where the students are, the invoices come in and we're either reporting them, attending an independent school where the public school is reporting them on our behalf. You gotta work in both directions. I see it's important to have somebody's eyes on that. Absolutely. And a lot of that, absolutely. It's all coordination with the building too, right? Lynn actually knows where these kids are. We started off with a bang. Amy, as you may remember, five or six years ago when our count was wrong. And then, yes, right, right. So we have very tight ranks on that. That's my confidence, the level is. No. I hear you, it's why we know where every kiddo is. But you mean Erica, Janet, and myself. Great. All right. Is there any further discussion on the estimated tax rate? Yeah, I had a suggestion. And it's based on the fact that this whole page reflects a very early estimate. Yeah. Very early estimate with this. All sorts of things in the air for what the tax rate, school tax rate, may be for Rochester and Stockbridge for one third of our taxpayers that pay the school tax based on their property value. And I think it's still the biggest secret in Vermont, the two thirds of the people that pay their school taxes in Vermont pay their school tax based on their income if their income is $95,000, plus or minus or less. And I guess I'd like to suggest through you, Jamie, that this, we have about a third or space on this page, very powerful page can articulate an estimate based on income sensitivity and the income sensitivity yield, how things might be looking for these two communities here. Going back to my presentation at the last annual meeting, people paying their income sensitivity by their school tax based on their income sensitivity since the merger have had a reduction almost of 3% a year. Those are my numbers, plus or minus. And those paying by the property tax value have had an average increase of a little over 1%. And meanwhile, inflation has been considerably higher than that. We're looking at a tough, tough season. And so I'm not saying that these numbers don't matter. Even if one taxpayer has to pay it, but I do think it helps for our taxpayers to understand that the vast majority are gonna have a different impact. And if we can share that information throughout our districts, I think when we're at the point where we need to tell and explain and educate, we're in the education business, we can, we can, we have some numbers here that we can work with. So that's my suggestion. Excellent. Thank you. That does make sense. Any more questions, comments on the draft three? Tara, I did, we were going over the section within the expenditure budget of the tuition to all the different entities. And I just wanted you to clarify in the regular ed instruction 1101, the tuition for tech 567 and 568 tuition to public LEAs within the SU. If you could just give me a brief description of what those two lines are. Universal chart of account changed from the agency of education. We have to classify districts that we're paying tuition to within our supervisor union. So in your case, that's why we reunified district. Okay. Separately from other public Vermont LEAs and then the tech center tuition or tuition tech, that is what you pay your six semester average to students who are enrolled in vocational technology centers throughout the state of Vermont. Okay. Well, then can you go back to the line above 566 and tell me what that one is? Above 566? No, no, 566. What was that? I'd like to know what 566 is. So that you will see is both an expense and a revenue. And what that is, we do not pay the full amount of tuition for a vocational education. The agency of education through the education fund pays a portion of that. So the tech paid on behalf of is what the ed fund is paying to the vocational centers on where we have. So it zeroes itself out on both expense and revenue. As part of the set six semester rolling thing too. Right. It's all part of that equation. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Is there any further questions on the budget draft three? If not, we will move on. I don't see any questions. Let's move on to community survey update. Yeah. So we have a digital survey ready to go out. So we will get that shared out electronically and we'll have hard copies in case folks want that. And we'll also put some information out in the communities at different posting places as well. So we'll be able to share out the results from that in time for our board retreat. Okay. Just kind of waiting to set a deadline based on. Yeah. Yeah, we set a deadline till we kind of. So it hasn't gone out yet. Okay. Just because I, yeah. Wait to put deadlines. Thanks. Okay, great. I figured it would be good to have. Yes. For the retreat. Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Move on to 8-3, board goals for 23-24. JC and Bill were working on this. So I'll let them take it away. Yeah, we had a great meeting. We tweaked the draft, the initial draft some more. We think it's something that's goals that are worthwhile pursuing goals that we think that we can achieve even though that they're going to be challenging. And so I don't know, Justin, if you have something you want to say or we just open it up to questions, comments before we go forward on this draft, the changes, basically the additions are bold and just highlights. Goal number one, last year we had a very strong academic performance goal that goes with the SU's performance goals. And this year we're going beyond that to talk about measurable goals and attainable goals for social and emotional. So we would be, this goal would be in concert with one of the superintendent's goals for this. That's on that. On number two, we've added strategic plan because a budget we need and want, how do we define that? Well, one of the best ways to define it is to go back with SU's strategic plan. And that's one of the measures. And if we fall short, we should be aware of it and analyze that and whether or not that's the way we want to go. Also under financial management, we've added under budget that we can afford the major uncertainty due to Act 127 and upcoming yield impacts. And Jamie's been hammering us on this. These are huge uncertainties that we've talked about a lot tonight. We think it should be in here. And help remind us of what's going on. The new one is last year we had an enrollment and tuition growth goal. But we didn't really tie it directly to enrollment. And we think that increasing enrollments can lower our cost per student and help us get the job done. If we tuition out kids beyond the SU, it's gonna have the reverse effect. I was looking at Ray's report that he gave the SU and us last December. And it showed that from 2017 to 2022, I believe, that our enrollment, SU enrollment was roughly the same, but there was an increase in tuition. Students tuitioning out of our SU. And that was over 100 students. And if you take 100 students and you multiply by an average cost of 20,000 a student, you've got yourself $2 million for the whole SU. So there are huge dollars here. And so what we're trying to do here is to focus not only on marketing and thinking about how we can tell our communities and our parents what's important and how well we're doing, but we can look for other opportunities to see how we can more effectively impact parents, families' decisions to join our educational community. That's recruit and also retain these kids. So they stay with us. Not only K through three, but K through six and K through 12. So that's kind of new. The other thing is that we had under three, capital facilities. We had capital facilities within the financial management section. And we just thought it made sense. It's so important of maintaining our facilities that we should have as a separate bullet. So it's not necessarily new. It's just stands by its own in a separate goal. And then finally to highlight under board governance. And we've got some things here we've already talked about having our own handbook, our own calendar and the importance of having retreats. We thought that should be articulated. And the other thing is that there's a big vote coming up sometime in 2024 about the future of the high school and the repurposing of that high school. That's gonna have a huge impact whether it's a yes vote as far as potential assets, community assets for the whole Valley. If it's a negative vote, it's gonna have a potentially really negative impact on just our ability to focus on all the educational goals that we have going on if we've got to figure out what we're gonna do with this building because it's ultimately ours unless it's the towns. So we thought that was worthwhile to highlight in under board governance and both Justine and I are available to answer your questions about what we're trying to do here. I wanted to bring up if I can to add to what Bill said in this overview is that we also mentioned that it's one thing to have all of these goals and all of these details within the goals. What we wanna bring forth tonight and moving forward is an opportunity to hear feedback from the board. So then we can add another section which is what we're gonna do or we're actually gonna do about it each year. So it's not just setting the set of goals and without any specific way to attack it right now. So that was something I just wanted to piggyback on there that one thing is, so how? How are we gonna, this year how are we gonna market our school to increase enrollment and keep enrollment? So as you formulate your questions and feedback, that's something that we wanna do next. I think that's wonderful. Yeah. I think that's great that really puts I understand. Boots on the ground. Yeah. Great, Robert go ahead. Just with regard to your enrollment and tuition growth, I understand marketing and such is important but the other thing is in attracting kids to stay within the SU, you really have to compare what the SU is offering compared to surrounding schools. Absolutely, and that's why we really need to focus on this. And it's beyond marketing and how we're doing everything and it's a targeted market but also is the kids within our schools are what are we providing? What are we, what's the competition providing? Do we need to do more relative to what they're interested in and what the competition is offering? That's part of the whole thing under that bullet. Absolutely, absolutely. And that's where we think we're gonna need big time SU support. And one thing I wanted to mention too is marketing isn't just like putting stuff on Facebook, it's also like targeting what is actually going home in backpacks and what parents are actually seeing. Parents are really busy, they may not be going to events, they see papers and things coming home. That's one way to kind of hold on to folks and keep our enrollment up in a way that's not as like let's sell the school kind of thing. It doesn't mean just marketing like sales but it's just presenting a picture that we are intentionally creating. Is there any other comments, questions for on this? Okay, well, being none, my guess was this, were you guys looking for a motion to accept the mission and vision? Well, it's actually the board goals is what we're looking for. And we're not perfect. Yeah, we're not touching the goals, excuse me, the mission and vision at this point. We were actually, that was slated for in our retreat to review that. So we were just looking for a motion to accept the board goals as presents tonight as our goals for the 23-24 year. Well, I'll move. Okay. Bill's made a motion. Robert's seconded it. Is there any discussion? Great, being no discussion. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, pass unanimously. I said that wrong, that's great. Sumbler right over that. Okay, great. So board goals, great. Let's move on to eight-four. Tax implications. Before we move on, can I just, so it's my understanding that we're just gonna meet again and work on the how piece or is that, we haven't gotten any feedback so we just run with what we're doing already and bring more back? Is that the plan or what's next? Yeah, that's a very good question. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody agrees with the work that you guys have done and I think the how is a great place to start. Now, whether you want the, you guys want to meet and start just formulating some ideas or maybe even bring a specific portion of it to the retreat, that would, if that works for you guys, I would say that, yeah, you run with it. I do think it should be in a retreat. Yeah, I think it would be good for us to kind of hash out a how section to these goals and then focus on a little more talk during the retreat but also the mission vision and how that applies in. I think that's a great tie it all together. I think that would be great. Good. The mission and vision could be part of our marketing once we work on that a little bit more. Absolutely. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, great. For tax implications since the merger of the district's actual versus initial projections and Bill did a little work looking back at our original projections of what, since our, what if emerged district our taxes would look like and it was really great news what he found. Yeah, it's, we have articles of agreement and where our merger this year is going to be for five years and one of the nuggets in it was and the appendix was projections of what the school tax rate would be with or without the merger and it showed that the projections were that they would be saving money if we went with the merger. What they didn't express or over was that, yeah, we saved a lot of money and if you look at those numbers, percentage-wise, it's just huge. And to me, this is a message that we need to just talk about and just get across. It's more than money. It's the quality of education and the opportunity that every one of our kids get to the maximum and we've been working on that with the huge leadership of Jamie and Lindy's and the team making huge progress there. The other thing is are the taxpayers getting the benefit of this merger? Not only the quality of the education but the cost of that education and according to, and this is pre-CLA before the, which is a good way to compare. Because we don't have any control about that. It shows that other than the first year, which makes sense because there's initial startup costs of the merger. We've done phenomenally well and I wouldn't be surprised that that might be the case throughout the SU. And I think it's a story to be told, understood, especially going into this tough budget year. Right. Yeah, the projections were down at one, last year was 20, 27%? Is that correct? The projection for FY23, our actual tax rate was down almost 28% below what was projected. What was projected. That's great. Thank you, Bill, for pulling those numbers out and I believe, that's great. Okay, let's, well, there's a question. Sorry, but I just wonder if there's anyone on the board or I could do it. It just feels like it could be a good letter to the editor of communication in the Herald. Yeah. I don't know if that's anything, Bill, you're interested in writing or... Let me draft something in there. Let me share it with... Yeah, feel free to share so you can make it out of that. I can write something, but... Well, you're busy up to the year. Well, and I also think sometimes I do think our public, I do think some folks may read something from you. They see a lot of stuff from me. Yeah. And I worry sometimes folks don't always read it up. With your okay. Yeah, I think that would be great. I'll draft something and then I don't think it should come from me. Quite honestly, I think it should come from our chair. Okay. And but I'll be more than happy to draft something for your consideration, your consideration. Yeah, that'd be great if we kind of work collaboratively on that. I think that's a great idea. We've got to do a good job and then we've got to... People have to understand. Yeah. And so this is... And I would think there's social media things that you could take out and run with it, which I'm not an expert on at all. But let me give that a shot. Thank you. Great, thank you. Okay, let's move on to our book club. Did you know Tara's business manager report? Oh, you're right. Thank you. I'm sorry, I did not realize it. Forgot we skipped over it. All right, Tara, sorry to keep you here. You should have spoken up. We're going to loop back to the 7-3 to the business manager's report. Well, I'll have my report. You can see what's happening in the business office throughout the month of December. It's a busy time of year for us along with building budgets. We are in the midst of our administrative and procurement review with the Child Nutrition Program. They will be out at Bethel and Stockbridge campuses to do physical monitoring on the 13th and 14th. So we'll be out doing that next week. And then the Child Nutrition Monitoring Team will come and meet with me and go over my roles and responsibilities that I do on behalf of my role as the School of Food Authority. And then the last part that's not on my actual report because I got the update after my report went out is in regards to your fiscal year 23 annual audit. And we are in hopes of having the first draft financials end of this week, beginning of next week. So we'll have those to review. They are coming back here on Wednesday to do the supervisory union single audit. And they are auditing all of the ARP ESSER funding as well as our 21th century grant and our Title I and IDEAB. So we will go through that. And that's all required based on the federal auditing single audit standards. So that's my business manager report and I'll answer any questions. So any questions for Tara on her report? Okay. Thank you very much, Tara. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And I hope everybody got their book. And I thank you for putting the, what? You like that on that stationery? You stole it. Nice. Well, thank you for putting it in here because it's nice to keep track of what the date is and what we're reading. So I'm excited to read this book. Yes, it started off really good. I'm excited that we're gonna hear real specific scenarios that have and situations that boards have done. So I'm excited and reliant a whole bunch of things. So. Yeah, I thought it had a really interesting forward from an educator from Australia who does not like the idea of having school boards, whether they're for a whole supervisory area or a town or a city, whatever the case is. And I wanted to quote him because this book answers, I think very effectively in our prior book and what we're doing now and we did last year to disprove what the four words, language, but here it is. Many of the chronic obstacles to continue sustained improvement of certain learning and performance in schools can be traced to the dysfunctions of local governance structures including highly fractionalized boards, members more interested in building their political careers than in learning the complexity of the work, instability and leadership caused in part by the short electoral cycles of school boards in comparison to the longer term work of school improvement and seemingly arbitrary shifts in the temperament, focus and purpose of school boards accompanying shifts in board membership. And I read that I'm saying, does that reflect us? And I don't think it does. But I also believe that it's not only because we've got six wonderful people on this board and we're working with a wonderful superintendent and administrative team, but we really believe in what we're talking about. So my question to, I was interested in your comments, what do you think we're doing right to counter this abysmal take on school board governance? And that's what the author tried to highlight, I think in that first chapter or two. You do have to look back at history of what this board looked like not that long ago. And it was fractious and it was, it was, I wouldn't say dysfunctional, but it was, it had its problems on focusing on education. So, you know, that's, so we have gone through a cycle where we're doing things right, but hopefully we can continue that in the long term, but it's, you know, things can come up, crop up. You know, it's, a lot of it will be contingent on being able to attract school board members, especially, you know, younger generation. Yes. Because we're gonna die out, Bill. Yes. Oh boy. But I, you know, I think the message of the first chapter is, you know, what we do makes a difference good or bad, you know? Yeah. You know, and that's, that we are so focused on student achievement rather than, you know, trivial budget items is, is, is to the students' benefits. Absolutely. Other comments people would like to make, share with us on the, on the board about. Yeah. And reading this, you know, like the other book, it kind of like helps me like realize what we are doing right, you know, without like, oh, like, oh yeah, I guess that is a good thing we are doing. And just the fact that we're continuing to go over this stuff, really is the foundation of the good work we're doing and it's more obvious in reading that first chapter is like, oh, you know, we're doing this work to, to look at ourselves in a different way and, and, and try to educate ourselves in how to better govern and by doing that, we're already a, you know, a more effective governing body. So, yeah, work just for that reason. Excellent. One thing that struck me, I don't know what you, is that the author, and this was in the introduction, talked about changing the mindset of school boards, relative of easy V, they're superintendent. And the traditional way is that we oversee the superintendent. And that's part of our job. We have to make sure that the superintendent is following our guidance and, and, and lead and carries out those roles effectively. But the author also talked about and changed it, said that the board role has changed from overseer of the superintendent to co-leader with the superintendent. And I thought that's very interesting. We still have that oversight role. We, we evaluate his record and at accomplishments and goals and everything else, but we're doing this together. And I think one of the powers that's making our boards, I like to think effective and contributing to the overall effort is that we have that sense of co-leadership. And I happen to believe that we need to not forget that and we need to keep that strong as we go forward. So that's one of the things I learned. Thank you. This is a good book. Okay, next January 8th, we've got chapter two, Building and Foundation for Student Success. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Okay, let's move on to board retreat planning. Did everybody bring their, their calendars so we can plan another retreat where we're going to specifically look at the mission and vision statement and then also look at these goals that we've approved tonight and dive into them a little deeper as to the how. We're going to accomplish that. So if we, we definitely want to look into the new year, I would say. And does, we did it Saturday last time. Saturday worked okay for people. I don't know how other folks feel. A little. And I don't want to speak for Lindy, but I think it gives. Yeah. Fresh. It's not like the end of a school. I just felt like it. It's not the end of a work day. It's great. My January calendar is quite a wide open for the weekend. So, so I was like, I mean, what does, let's see, what does the 20th look like? I think the 13th is a long weekend. So that would, yeah, the Martin Luther King on the 15th. So I don't want to take that one if people want to go away. I have one. And it's probably the 20th, but then I looked at my husband's work schedule. So it's probably not going to happen. So we're good. So you don't have anything. No, I don't. I mean, the 20th. No, I don't. We were trying to go away to watch a basketball game, but he's, there's no way he's leaving works. Okay. Cause if we could look at the 27th, I sure don't want to like. We were trying for the 20th, but he hasn't looked at his work schedule, I did. Okay. So it doesn't matter to me. Okay. We're not going. No, we're not going. Okay. Okay. Well, like I said, we've been together long enough that I know that you just not leaving work. He's in trouble is what Lindy's trying to say. Well, I like so kindly asked. And then he was like, it just depends what else is there. And he listed like three sports and like, you know, we're not going. Okay. So what is the 20th look of January 20th? This is Saturday. What does that look like on J.C.? What does that look like on your calendar? It's great. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Okay. How about Patrick? I'm good with the 20th. Okay. Cynthia. Let's go. Let's do it. What time? Here. Yep. We'd be here. Okay. So we can do it in Rochester. What do we do last? We did nine. Nine to nine. That was good. Like nine to one. And have sandwiches or something. Yep. Great. Okay. January 20th, nine to one. Our, another board retreat. Yeah. And we can work on a draft agenda. Yeah. And bring it at the January meeting. Okay. Like we did last time. Yep. Nine. Okay. Any new hires or resignations? Nope. Nope. Great. Do we have any public comment? I am seeing none. Can we change our next meeting? Yes. So, that's okay. Come back. Okay. So our next regular schedule meeting was for January 1st. I would like to change that. So, Does the meeting work? The following Monday, the 8th? Yeah. For some reason I don't have any of. Cause I think it was Tuesdays that didn't work for our board, right? There's not a lot of board meetings on the calendar for January yet. They're probably just not on there yet. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's just say it looks very empty. So the 8th? So does January 8th for our regular scheduled meeting at six o'clock in Stockbridge, January 8th on Monday. Does that work for everybody? Robert's E.S. Cynthia's E.S. Justine. That gives us another week to dial in a budget. Perfect. And Patrick? Is it yes? Okay, perfect. Super. Great. So we'll have our regular meeting Monday, January 8th at six o'clock at the Stockbridge campus. And future agenda items. There'll be an updated draft of the budget of course. Bye. Oh. Hi, Jenna. You get a social-emotional data report. Okay. Yeah. You wanna say hi real quick? Hi. Hi. Hi, Jenna. Hi. Hi, Jenna. Oh, what a sweetie. Okay. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and of course there'll be an update from the Endowment Committee as well. There'll be some policies if possible. Okay. Great. If there's any other agenda items that crop up between now and then, email me and Jamie and Mila. Okay. Great. If there's no further business, I look for a motion to adjourn. So move. Second. All in favor. Bye. Have a good night, everyone. Yes.