 Good evening, and thank you for coming. I'm Kate Rader with the League of Women Voters of Central Vermont. We are having this tonight in part to explain the complexities of this upcoming election. It took Susan 10 minutes to get it through my head. So I agree that it was a good idea to have this little explanatory session before we get to the candidate form. It's kind of interesting to have a candidate form with five different districts, 10 positions, and only one being contested. But it does give everybody in the audience and out there in television land a chance to get to know the candidates from the towns that they are not living in. So tonight, Matthew DeGru and Channing Waterhouse from the transition committee will explain some of the background and possible future of this new organization. And they will be followed with the candidate form with Gus Selig, who is moderator for the town of Calis and executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. So Channing and Matthew, would you take over? I know a lot of you. I'm Channing Waterhouse. I'm actually not on the transition board. I'm a member of the Worcester School District Board and have been since 2011. And so I'm going to talk just a little bit about the context and where we are. And Matthew's going to talk about the election and the timeline going forward. So I'm going to do really a high level overview and not go into a lot of detail. And hopefully, that'll be helpful. And please stop me if I'm going too fast or not making as much sense as you would like me to make. So this will be a review for a lot of folks. But I just wanted to offer the real basics. In 2015, the legislature passed Act 46. It had incentives for school districts to merge and disincentives for districts that chose not to merge. And it had stated goals around improving educational outcomes and equity and affordability of education in Vermont and very explicitly favored merging of smaller districts into single, larger districts. And so in 2015, the boards of the Washington Central Supervisory Union Farm to Merger Study Committee to try to come to agreement around the terms for a potential merger. And let me just actually back up and say one of the things that I find people in my town are confused about a lot is what it means to be talking about merger. And people think about mergers of schools. Act 46 actually doesn't talk about merging schools. It talks about merging districts. And so right now, we have five towns that operate six schools, the Sixth School and SU-32, and one Supervisory Union. And we have actually seven boards that function under our current structure, the six school boards plus the Supervisory Union Board, and each of those boards oversees its own budget. So there's seven budgets. So under merger, we still have five towns, six schools, and the Supervisory Union. But we have one board and one budget that oversees one board that oversees one single budget to operate all of these. So a merger study committee with representatives from all the towns worked to try to come to agreement around the terms for a potential merger. They were not able to come to agreement. That committee did lean toward merger, but they didn't have a super-majority favoring merger. And so they disbanded without recommending a merger. In 2017, the Washington Central Supervisory Union boards formed a committee to put together a proposal to the Agency of Education to basically maintain the current structure. And under the law, that's called an alternative governance structure proposal. So it was basically a proposal that said the best way to achieve the goals of Act 46 was to maintain the status quo. So that was submitted in 2017. In 2018, the Secretary of Education, having reviewed the proposal, came and alternative governance structure proposals from many other communities, did recommend merger for Washington Central and for many other communities. And later in 2018, the Board of Education ordered Washington Central to merge. And so that's the order that's still in place now. So then in 2019, well, actually late 2018, four of our six boards joined as plaintiffs in a lawsuit with a good number of other districts that's challenging the forced merger. And that case is still ongoing. There were six claims made by the plaintiffs. The judge in April dismissed three of the six claims. And the three that were dismissed were focused on constitutionality. So there's three claims that are still sitting there. And the judge said he wanted to hear more evidence of arguments related to those. But the judge didn't issue a stay. And a stay would have essentially paused the merger process. But without a stay, there is no pause. And the process is going forward. And there's a lot more to say about the lawsuit. But I think that the big takeaway is that it's ongoing. It's complicated. And there are a variety of ways that it may unfold. And it's probably going to take a while. It may be quite a while to come to full resolution. And then the other important piece of the current context is that the legislature has contemplated a couple of different ways that they might delay merger. And the House passed one bill. And the Senate passed a different bill. They came together in conference committee. And my understanding is that they actually got farther apart in the conference committee process rather than closer together. And it's not clear whether they're actually going to come back together to continue trying to come to agreement or compromise. So again, that's ongoing for the time being, but we'll know much sooner, probably just in the next few weeks, whether the legislature does try to take that any further. So that's the piece that I was asked to explain. If you have questions. Actually, I wonder if it'd be better if you do your piece first and then we see if there are questions. Sure. So I am Matthew DeGrode. I also serve on the Worcester School Board since 2008, except for a two-year break in the middle. And I was asked to talk a little bit about the timeline of all of this and then talk a little bit about how this election that we're here to discuss tonight is supposed to work because it's a little bit unusual or confusing, especially when you're doing something one way for the last however many years. And now I'm proposing to do something a little bit different. So essentially, as Chani described, there's a lawsuit ongoing. The legislature still may do something in this session that would provide a kind of off-bramper alternative to this merger process that's been set in motion. But unless those things happen, the state board's order is in effect. And it basically says that these seven boards that we have now have operational authority over the schools and our school districts until June 30. And then starting on July 1, we will become one union school district, encompassing all five towns, six schools. And then we would have a new single board that would then take over operational authority for the school system. So as of right now, these boards are still functioning, still meeting, still taking decisions, and so on. In order to prepare for and be ready for a July 1 start date for this new entity, the union district, we need to elect a board obviously before July 1. Otherwise they aren't going to have met or know where they're heading. So that is what this election is about. On May 21, we will come to the voters of all five towns that form our SU currently will vote on new board members for this board that would take over on July 1. That board would then theoretically would probably meet very soon after the election. In fact, the plan, I think, tentatively is for that board to meet the very next day because there's also a very important piece, which is that we need to have voters consider and vote up or down on a budget for this new entity that will begin operating on July 1. And because of the requirements for warning and meeting, X number of days in advance and so on, if we want to have a vote on the budget before July 1, we have to move very, very quickly after the May 21 election. And the budget vote tentatively has been discussed maybe June 25 if we can possibly make that happen. So that's basically the timeline for this process of moving from here to here, again, unless the court or the legislature takes an action which permits a different path. So that's the timeline. In terms of how this election will work, most of you have probably heard. I guess, first of all, this is a 10-member board. It's unusual to be voting on every position of a board or a body, a board especially, in any given election. That's unusual. Typically, you would want to have a third or so of the positions up for election in any given year so that you don't have huge amounts of turnover with every election. In this case, obviously, there are no board members. But one important thing to understand about this election is that some of the terms that will be electing people to serve in are for one year, some are for two years, and some are for three years. And the point of that is to basically set up a cycle where going forward, roughly a third of the board members would be up for election in any given year after this election. The other piece that's important to know is that of the 10, it's required that at least two board representatives be from each of the five towns. So two from Worcester, two from Berlin, two from Ismapele, or two from Calis, and two from Middlesex. So that means that petitioning to get on the ballot was done in each of those towns. So the folks that are on the ballot have petitioned in their towns, submitted their petitions to their town clerks, and that's how they got their names to appear on the ballot here. However, the people who serve on this board will represent the entire electorate of the five towns served by these schools in this school system. So all of the voters across all five towns will have the opportunity to vote on every position that's available on the board. So I have a sample. This is a kind of sample ballot. I don't want you to think that the ballot's going to look exactly like this, but I understand that this came from one of our town clerks, and it seems reasonable to me to expect that something like this is what the ballot will look like. And you'll see that there's basically five articles on here, and each article basically asks voters to vote for one each of two different positions from that town to serve on this board for the Union School District. So yeah, that'd be great. You don't have to take one. You can. It's a sample. It's a sample. Yes. Do not vote with this ballot. So the last thing I'll say is there was a question that came up in the Worcester front porch forum a few days ago about because nine of the seats on this board, there is only one candidate on the ballot for those nine positions. So you may write in another candidate, but there will only be one name for each of those nine positions. And then there is one contested election where there are two candidates running for that particular position. There was a person on our front porch forum who asked, well, if there's a contested election, does that mean that somehow one town's going to get three members? Or it's the 10 people who get the most votes overall? And the answer is no. No matter what, you're voting on each position one at a time. And so one person will get elected for each of those 10 positions and for sure two from each town will be serving on the board ultimately. So are there any questions about that a little bit of? Yeah, Carl. Thank you, by the way, for giving this presentation. And I probably could have followed previous meetings better. But how was it decided which towns would have which term duration on this first ballot? I don't know the answer to that question. I think there was a kind of like a sample table that was laid out in the default articles of agreement. But I don't know. I actually do not know how that got filled in, to be honest with you. It was in the default articles of agreement. It was, OK. So the town itself, or our default article? Our default article said. So basically as part of the state board's plan, there was an appendix that had literally the default articles for the Washington central system. And it must have included this particular layout of. Thank you. OK, if there are no other questions, yeah, Dell. I'm just curious whether this is what is going to happen every year then. We'll have goodness knows how many people coming to each town, or we're all going to have to go to one town for those subsequent elections. Well, everyone will vote at their normal polling place. So they'll be able to vote in any of the towns at the places that are typically designated for that purpose. And it's in the warning for this election where that is in each case. And as I said, going forward, there won't be 10 positions open. So it would just be three, three, or four, depending on the year. I should also say that the electorate and or the board, I believe, can alter the number of positions that there are on the board. So 10 is kind of what we're basically told we have to have for the first year. But we can change how many board positions we might have in future years. And there's been some discussion about that, Joe. Thanks, Matt. So for clarification, these are one, two, or three year terms commencing on the day of the vote or July 1. July 1, yeah, correct. But subsequent votes would occur, we would hope, at town meeting. On town meeting day. And there would be votes that would be prospective to the next July. Well, because they would be effective the day of town meeting. Well, then these are not one year terms, right? That's for the initial round. That's right. That's right. We might want to clarify that on the ballot or something so we don't get like, they're not one year terms. I'd have to talk to them. Or two year terms or three year terms. They should be one year. But that's what their seat is. The seat is a one year term. Right. I know. They just would have a one year. It should be a footnote or something so people understand. Especially we can't pass that along to the town. It's not giving it up after a year. I'm not leaving. My question is just, it seemed, my recollection is that there was a choice to do it this way or to do it sort of the old way. That the point was that it had to be one person, one vote. So it could be that like, the bigger towns had more members on the board and the smaller towns had fewer. And then each individual town would elect theirs. And the decision was made to do it this way and said, the relative merits of those, am I right? Well, you are right. Yeah. So to try to explain that in the briefest possible way, there is a provision in the US Constitution that representation on any democratic body like this has to be proportional to the population of the entities being represented on that body. So at first, when we were talking this through and looking at what that would mean for our school system, for example, for an 11 member board, I think it was Berlin and East Montpelier would have three members each on an 11 member board. Middlesex and Calis would have two members each on an 11 member board. And Worcester would have one. And that's just based on the proportion of voters out of the total across all five towns that each of those towns has. It was actually the state, either agency of education or the state board of education or both, that somehow identified this, they call it like a hybrid model, where as long as all of the voters across all five towns are voting on every person, they're considered to be kind of at large members even though they're required to be from these specific towns. So it's a way, and this model has been used in many jurisdictions across the country and it's never been challenged or if it has been challenged, it's never been kind of thrown out or said to be invalid or not combined with the constitutional requirement. So the state, for whatever reason, and I couldn't tell you for what reason, but they felt like this was a way of kind of addressing the concern that small towns especially had that their voice would be limited or constrained or ground out entirely by a strictly proportional system. So that's how that came about. Yes, sir. My question goes back to the one, two, and three-year terms using the model articles of incorporation, is there surely like Berlin's the first one, they have a one and a two-year term? Yeah. That's not continuous, I mean at some point they'll have a three-year term for, I mean how is that gonna work out? Every term will be three years after this initial term turns over, yeah. So the idea is that everyone will serve for three years once the next election happens, yeah. Just on staggered, staggered situation. I have a question. Yes, sir. We were talking about the one man, one vote. Is there a reason why the current board members feel that this way is the better way when 48 years it's worked for you 32 the other way? I would just say that this is dictated to us. Who has the authority to change that? The electorate and the, I think the board could recommend and warrant a vote to the electorate to change the structure of the board. And I believe that both the number of board members and the proportionality of the representation would both be open to change by the voters. So when do we look at that possibly happening? Yeah, so there are a couple of different ways to answer that. But the first one is that there has been a committee of existing board members that has been discussing for many months possible amendments or changes that we would not wanna put before voters before July 1st so that they would become effective on July 1st. And one of the changes relates not to the proportionality of how members are voted on, but to the number of board seats to change it from 10 to 15, three from each town. Basically for providing more representation and to have an odd number of board members to prevent deadlocks and stalemates when it comes to voting. But that would change how each of our towns are represented. No, it would not. So that would, that would be, that change is possible, but it has not been contemplated by this committee that's been working on the issue so far. So it would require the new board or petitioned by voters or something like that. I'm just kind of curious as to why it hasn't been contemplated because U32 has been done the other way for 48 years. And our district always worked very well until this merger started. And now all of a sudden we don't. So, you know. This issue of representation is also complicated because every single member of the board has to be voted on by every single town. And I think that's one of my problems with it because I'm a town clerk. And my representative is my representative. Your representative from your town is yours. It always has been. And that's the old fashioned way we've learned it. For 48 years we've done it that way. And it really worked for us in our district. I never heard of any issues that the small towns had against the big towns or the big towns against the small towns. We all worked together very well. And now, since this merger started, there's all these little things going on that one town's against the other town for this reason that ran. And is there any way we can all get back together on the same page like we always have been for U32? I would encourage you to go to a board meeting and make the case with the state of our business. That's what happened. Yeah, you're right. That's the bottom line. Keep the state of our business. I was not involved in the decision that the state took to take this approach. I would say, I think it's fair to say, I'll ask my fellow board members that we actually were happier with this system than we were contemplating a strictly proportional system because it felt like the smaller towns would be disadvantaged in a way, more disadvantaged, I should say. Although that danger, I think, still exists in this system as it would in any democratic system. But again, it was the state's decision to basically implement that across the state, not just in our case, but across the state for districts that it was compelling to merge in this way. Thank you very much. Thank you. OK, so those of you who are candidates, assume your positions. OK, so as a matter of introduction, I'm Gus Selig. I'm the moderator in Calis, and also the moderator of this new school district. Which doesn't mean that I should necessarily moderate this discussion tonight, but I was asked to, and I'm happy to do that. There are several disadvantages for me in this role. One is that I don't know probably half the candidates and their names are turned away from me. They're in a struggle with that. And, Katherine, you're going to have to help me with the format for this thing as the lead organizes it, but I think the general idea is that you're going to put questions on cards. Is that the plan? There are probably some questions I can start with. If you can start with. And what we're going to do is we're going to start with one candidate who have what's the amount of time they'll have to answer a question in two minutes. And everybody else can then respond to that question as well for one minute. Is that? No. Is that? No, I'm sorry. No, I don't. We won't. Did you get the email I sent? You have some. No, I didn't. Everyone responds to the same question. To the same question and has the same amount of time. That's right, two minutes. If anybody from the audience has a question, they can write it on a card and give it to, I can be the runner and pick it. You can have me. I do not have those. So yeah, we're starting with some questions that the league generated that were also generated by the candidates. And then if you folks have questions, jot them down. And Kate will just make sure that they haven't already been asked and then give them to Gus. And sometimes people have a question for just one candidate. And if they do, those are the ones where other people get one minute to respond. So that's the format. And whoever gets the first question, the next person, will be first to answer the next question. Start on the left. So Scott, you'll get the first question to begin. And the question is, could you introduce yourself to describe why you've chosen to run for this new school board? So Scott, you're up. Thanks, Gus. Can everybody hear me? Good. I'm Scott Thompson. I live in Calis, actually right on the Calis-Whister line. I'm on the U32 board from Calis and was on the Calis Elementary School Board before that. The reason why I'm running, I'm certifiably insane, one thing. But more than that, I've been an opponent of the forced merger. That's because I believe strongly in maintaining our schools as viable, high quality places for our children to learn. Now that we have a system being imposed on us that I believe will make that a whole lot harder, it's just going to take a lot of effort to make something good out of this, what I consider to be defective situation. I'm very heartened because the people who are running are great people. So my hope is that if it comes to that, if the courts don't step in, if the legislature doesn't, my hope is that with great people on a defective structure, we'll still be able to keep things going for our schools. Hi, I'm Mary Lynn Fraken. I am a mother of two daughters at Romney in pre-K and second grade. And we've been in Vermont for just five years. I'm new to the Romney board this year. And I joined the board because I just feel like this is a critical time point. And I wanted to be part of that decision-making process. And I really wanted our staff and our students to be heard. They have voices that really need to be encouraged to be listened to. I am a nurse. So just by default, I am always asking questions. I ask a lot of questions. I really want to have an understanding of what's happening so I can make an informed decision. And I'm a Bostonian. So I am a straight shooter. And I don't hesitate to ask these hard questions. I think these are all really valuable assets to have at this point in time in our more support. So thank you. My name is Jail Holzkamp. I'm a resident of Worcester. I have two daughters, one that is now going into ninth grade but went through Dodie Elementary. And I have another daughter who is in Dodie right now. And I had some strong opinions about Act 46. And I was, I guess, going around talking too much about it. And people got word and then asked me to run for more. So here I am. I am an organic farmer. And I've been selling vegetables to Dodie for years. And I really want to see more local food in our school system. So that's an important issue to me. And I also think that we need to listen to the children more. In terms of Act 46, I feel like the children weren't really considered in that decision. And that it was just a bunch of adults looking at numbers and thinking about budgets and not thinking about what was best for our children. No long bus rides or the various things that could happen because of the merger. And so I want to be that person that gets down to the level of the children and really listen to them and hear what's best for them and make school a place that they want to go. And right now, Dodie is a place where my daughter wants to go. She loves going to school and doesn't like to miss it at all. And I wanted to remain a place like that for her. I'm Dorothy Miller from Calis. And I lived there for 50 years. And I was here when U32 began and at the same about exactly the same time. The Calis decided, as I know towns can decide exactly how to take care of their own schools, they decided to merge their three two-room schools into the one building that we have now, which was increased slightly in the early 90s. So I was here for that. I've been very involved first by just coming to meetings to the Act 46, Kerfluffle. And then I ran for the board in Calis and was successful. And then Scott and I spent many rides together going to Vermont school board meetings and in-house Senate Education Committee meetings and so forth. So we have many of the same ideas and dreams. My big thing about Act 46 is that I think it statewide is that it destroys or can destroy towns. Just across what would be my desk nowadays as my computer, I got this from Bill McKibben. And I think it says it all. Vermont small towns are its glory. For centuries, they have been independent and resilient and able to reproduce themselves generation upon generation. But school is obviously a key part of this process. And so they have been maintained in centuries far poorer than this century. Those who would now close those schools would kill those towns. I really, really want to work to keep the towns viable in many, many ways, not just the schools. My name is Chris McBend from Middlesex, Vermont. I've been on the Romney board for many years. Some say too long, but I keep plugging away. I've had three children that went through Romney school and then on 32 and are now scattered about the country. This is a pivotal moment in our district. If this merger holds and the indications are at least currently that it will on July 1st, this new board has the opportunity to set a new tone and create a new environment for participation. And I would be interested in trying to broaden the decision-making. So it's not a top-down method. And preserve as much local impact and input as possible. And I think the new board can do that. It's a matter of what policies we set. It's a matter of what tone we set with a new superintendent. We'll have an interim superintendent for the first year, but then a new superintendent. And it's a matter of setting the Articles of Agreement. Because the Articles of Agreement are basically the Constitution that will govern our unified district. And that holds up. That will govern our district. I am also just interested in preserving our schools, maintaining as much democratic input as we can. And I'm worried about the tendency of, when times are hard, looking to be more efficient, which means to me potentially closing schools. And I don't think that should happen. So I would be working hard toward that. And I think this is a really wonderful opportunity to just change the way we do business. So thank you. I'm Lindy Johnson. I'm from Eastmont Peelier. I've lived there over 20 years. And my two sons went through Eastmont Peelier Elementary off and on, because we moved once and came back. And U32, they both graduated. They're both fairly successful for young 20-something. And I think part of that is the schooling that they had. Maybe the family had a little to do with it. Why I'm running is I've been on the Eastmont Peelier Board. I ran for the Eastmont Peelier Board. So I was attending meetings and not seeing a lot of community involvement in board meetings. The school itself has tons. I worked in the Washington Central District. I worked at Eastmont Peelier. I'm an educator. I currently work in the Berry School District. And I felt like sometimes board members would say, well, I'm not an educator. So if you say that, it's OK. And I thought I'm an educator. And I live in the community. And I'd like my two sons in there. So that was part of getting on the board. And I really just feel like our schools are vibrant. I worked in all five of the elementary and U32 when I was the literacy coordinator for the district. If you have a family night, the parking lots are full. It's not going to change in Act 46. Our schools are the hub of our communities. I personally don't believe Act 46 was about closing schools. It's about governance. And I truly believe that, like Chris was saying, the right tone moving forward, we can make this a positive experience and be a governing board, which I think school boards are. They're not micromanagers. But keeping the involvement in all the towns is what I personally want and I think is very vital for our schools. Laura, you're going to go down a slide, girl. She said Laura. She said Laura. And then Laura, Laura. The joke when I was growing up, I am not from East Montelier. I grew up in Guatemala City. I've been in Vermont for 20 years. I lived in East Calas for five years, six years. And then I lived in East Montelier since then. I became a citizen to become a board member. It's crazy how that sounds. I've been involved in school. I've been a elected volunteer before. I've been elected for members since 2009. And I've served in many different things in the different school boards. I did spearhead the renovation at East Montelier, which I'm very proud of. I believe the built environment really helps our kids and affects us all as grownups. My background is in architecture, so that's part of the reason. Why do I want to run for this board, even though I've been at this for too long, is because I think that education is the most important gift we give our children. And strong public education is the basis of your democracy. And many other countries don't have that. So I'm deeply involved. That is the core reason of what we do and that's why I'm running. And the second part is that I think we're at turning point. It is the beginning of a new journey together. I believe that we wanna do this leap of faith together in a positive way and build the culture that we wanna see in this new organization. And it is not easy to represent all the voices in the community, but I try to be a patient listener and a good communicator as best as I can. And that's why I'm running. So I thought it was gonna be easy going last, but holy cow. So, my name's Chris Katerat. I'm running as a representative from Calis. I got recently elected to the school board in Calis. I was appointed to a position that was vacated from somebody who left their term early and then I recently was elected. So if we don't have to go through the merger, then I'll be able to sit on the Calis board. Otherwise, who knows what might happen. As you might have guessed, I'm running in one of the contested positions. So there it is. I grew up in Calis. I went to Calis Elementary School. I went to U32. Some of my best memories are from growing up and going through those schools. After college, I moved out of Vermont as most out of college age people do. And then I got married and had started having children and realized how amazing the Washington Central Organization the school district is. So I came back and I convinced my wife to come back to move back to Calis. So I was gone for a couple of years, but now we're back. I have four daughters, three of which go to Washington Central Schools. I have a seventh grade daughter in U32, a fourth grade daughter and a preschooler and my fourth daughter is two years old. So if you think about why I'm running, I mean, I'm not sure I could give a better reason to why I'm running than the fact that I have kids that are currently here and I have a vested interest in the community. I have a vested interest in making sure that we do the best by our kids, making sure I do the best by my kids and trying to always keep that in mind. So when I think about why I'm running and what the plan is for me running, it's to have a kid first mindset, have a mindset that's dedicated to success in all of the supervisor union and I think that this board is gonna be amazing to be able to do that and I hope that can be a part. Thank you. All right, second question and we'll begin with Maryland this time is, what do you feel is the role of the merged school board? So, and let me just add maybe people will want to put what's the role of a good school board merged or not. So if you were to go by what the Vermont school board situation says that we should do, it is to act as a trustee on behalf of the community and to provide strong oversight of public education. So adopting policies, setting vision, establishing priorities and finance, but not necessarily to oversee the daily operations of the school and inside the school. That's task to administration and teachers, but this is a sticky time in our district and we're being forced into a murder that much of our community did not agree with. We have to hire a new superintendent and I think two of our schools are hiring in principle. So this is not normal time. Our job is to really step back, take a breath and reevaluate what our common goals, our mission and our values are. And when I say we, I mean all of us as communities, communities, central office, sure, but the teachers and the students, their voices need to be heard in this process. And so our role as a school board right now is to wade into that gray area and make sure that we are all involved in this successful path moving forward. I think we need to redefine what our leadership looks like and really the goal of all of us in this room is to make sure like all of us have said that our children get the best education, that they are successful people coming out of our supervisory union. They're kind, they're contributing to the society and that they are able to achieve their goals and aspirations. A lot of what she said. She stole a lot of words from my mouth. Yeah, it's, I definitely agree being a liaison between the community and the teachers and the school structure, but really representing the students and guaranteeing that they have the best experience possible and that school is a place that they enjoy going and that they're learning in an exciting, stimulating way. And that we recognize that we help in every way we can to guide that learning experience because every child learns differently and to approach it in a way that doesn't confine children in little boxes but allows them to explore in their own unique ways. But also it's tricky because the schools are paid for by our property taxes. And so there's a lot of contentious issue around that but we have to remember that our teachers are really important and I believe that teachers should be getting a fair wage for their efforts just like farmers, teachers are not paid enough for what they do. And so it's a tricky balance to guarantee that teachers are getting fair compensation but that homeowners aren't being squeezed. And I think that's being a good board member is trying to walk that fine line. Thank you. The role of the Merge School Board. I heard tonight and I've heard recently people said that now we're being forced to merge, this isn't going to work. Well, it's not something I've wanted to work to begin with, but now we're there, we better make it work. And I think this first board's job is to make sure that we can smooth that merging amongst the towns the best we can by finding the positive things that our schools are doing and replicating those as much as possible. Watching the bottom line that we don't start squeezing it so much that we're going to affect the education part of the equation. Because basically schools have two basic areas. They have the infrastructure, the buildings and the transportation and they have the education. So we need to not take any money out of the education side. We got to save money. We can find it hopefully in the infrastructure without letting our buildings go to wreck and ruin. We need to have capital funds to make sure that we're prepared to fix things. So my goal is to try to work with all the other board members and throughout the towns, throughout the district, showing people that we can do this. Even though we don't want to, we don't want to be there. We need to do it and do it well. Chris. Thanks. So the role of the merge board, I think is consistent with the role of a good board. And I think Dorothy is correct about needing to knit the communities together that didn't necessarily want to be knitted together and make an awkward garment. But I see school board members and I was thinking about this and I was saying, I didn't want to really say the canaries in the mind prior to keeling over, but we should be open, we should be the communicators with our communities and with the administration. I think there's not enough dialogue that goes on at the school board level between the board and the administration in terms of information sharing or from the different constituent groups like the teachers coming directly to the board, community does come directly to the board. But I often think that we just don't have enough open dialogue with folks being able to come in as opposed to information that's spoon fed to us. And I think we often don't get enough perspective from enough different stakeholders in our community. We certainly need to be the voice for the students and what's best for our students. I also think we need to be the voice for our communities and our teachers. And while we have the task of overseeing principals and superintendents, I would rather see them as a dialogue and an ongoing discussion amongst all those different groups because we all have, we all have an interest in making sure that our school serves as many people as possible. I was running for the board because I enjoyed doing it for the East Montpelier board and I was one of those rare people who was not afraid of the Act 46 and went to the early meetings and got so frustrated. And I would like to be a part of bringing the change in a positive manner. It's going to happen. So I like to see it happen positively. We have excellent schools and I think we can keep them that way. I see the role of the board as similar to what was said earlier with the vision, the finance, kind of those bigger things than the managing. As far as a communicator to the community, I'd be happy to be that role. I think in the four or five years I've been on the board, I've had, I could count on one hand, people who've either stopped me out and about or called me to ask me a question about something that's going on at the school or at the board level because I think people go directly to our schools and they feel very comfortable and open when Chris mentioned having more input from the teachers at the board level. My personal life, I'm thinking, oh, Lord, when I've taught all day and then they tell me I have to come back for a board meeting at six o'clock that night, not as a board member, but as a teacher. I kind of cringed at that. But I understand what he's saying. I understand the communication across the lines so that it's, we're informed, not just a budget spreadsheet that we signed off on or this is who we're recommending, but we really are informed. So I understand that. And I would love to see more community involvement at the board level. Not always just for contentious things, but for some port of things so that it's not just a contentious issue that brings people to a board meeting. So, again, I'm gonna say the same thing. I wanna create a more collaborative culture around governance and working with our community so that the communication and collaboration exists throughout so that we have more parent engagement so that we can get a community engagement so that we can get more support for what we're doing so everybody has a deeper understanding of what is happening so that you have more ownership on your schools. But I really think that we need to revisit our, or clarify, and I'll agree again on what our purpose and our mission are so that we can continue to move and take that to the next level so that we can continue to support, especially in this first year, we continue to support our leadership team in what they're doing, they work with the trauma, they work with multi-tier supports and try to not unsettle that in this first year while we're in this transition, temporary superintendent too, for that first year and while we're doing that, really put our priorities right and create that governance culture that we wanna see as a community. And our, the last thing I'll say is that our leadership team works as a learning community. They, and our school boards, we haven't created that for ourselves so I would like to be able to, that we're more informed in those decisions so that our oversight is more informed. So when I think about the merge board, the first thing that comes to my mind is the importance of this particular board and this particular time to be, as been said before, the voice to kind of bring us all to the place where the consolidation can work. So when I think about the merge board specifically, I think about that being a major role and a major thing that we're gonna have to grapple with is how do we make this work the best for everybody. I think that it's important as we're developing this new organization that we take a look at our mission, vision, values, goals, how we're gonna get, where we're gonna get and why I think it's important that we sit down and are able to critically think and listen to the townspeople, to the teachers, to the administrators, to be able to figure out how we can make this work. There's a whole lot of people and there's a whole lot of movement that says we can't make it work. And I think that it's gonna be important for this board to figure out how we can make it work. So, aside from the normal board, things that all boards have to do because we're school boards, I think that that's gonna be one of the major components of the new merge board, at least in the beginning. Thank you. Wow, now I know how crisp up. I've heard a lot of really good things. And I share the perspective that we have to make it work, as you were saying, Dorothy. Regardless of our views of the fairness or benefits of the forced merger, one thing I wanna talk about the new merge board then because so much else has been said is what I don't want it to be, which is what has been noted in other places around the state, including from some of the voluntarily merged districts which have very soon started talking about moving children from one building to another, actually shutting down schools or moving into a sequence of actions that will inevitably head in that direction. I do not want the merge board to be a bean counting green eye shade type of formation. It should be exactly what people have been saying relating to our townspeople, to our students, to administrators and teachers within the school, but always having the human element, the human being above the bureaucratic imperatives that otherwise seem to be driving so much of this. Thank you. Okay, we're gonna go off the script to printed questions because I've been handed a whole bunch of questions and more than we can get to in the 55 minutes or so we've got left, but I'm so tell. The next question is you 32 has a junior high and a senior high principal. How many elementary principals does the new unified school district need? How many principals? Yeah, well it says how many elementary principals, but I guess you can answer that for the whole district as well. Yes, that's four additional, four, five additional principals. Each elementary school and then one it, oh and then six, so yeah, five. Sorry, I'm doing my math wrong. It's okay. I think every elementary school should have a principal. That's a question I would like to look at. I would not say toss the principals a day one, but I think our education system is getting top heavy and I'm not so sure we need full-time principals or full-time superintendent or assistant for superintendents. I think one thing, the merge board this year is gonna have a lot on its hands. To go through a big study of what's the best role for principals or a leader in each of the schools or a superintendent or any of those things will take possibly a committee of the communities and some board members, but I think it's something we should look at because I don't want this supervisory union to become top heavy. We need to have teachers with working with the kids and if you have a lot of administrators, they don't have a lot of kid time. So let's look at that at some point in the future. So many years ago, Romney had a, it was going through a difficult time with principals and it had a lot of veteran teachers and at the time, I thought the teachers would just kind of take over and run the school. It turns out that they didn't and they really needed someone they could go to for decision-making and this was a school that had many 20 and 25 year veterans in the school and it really surprised me. So it has persuaded me that I think each school needs a principal, maybe not a full-time principal, but it needs a principal in a lot of different ways. As a decision-maker, a motivator, a protector, an advocate, and I think if a school doesn't have that, the members of the school will look for that leadership somewhere and I think it's better for the school and for the students and the community to have that as close to the school as possible. So I would not be in favor of eliminating principals from elementary schools. Maybe there's a room for part-time, but very, meaning like four days a week, three days a week, not like one day a week. Just because I think principals play an important role in the culture of the community and the school itself. I've been sitting here contemplating this because something I'll say out loud that I haven't said out loud to too many people was I almost threw my hat in the ring for the Dodie principal job because it's exactly what I thought about if I was going to be an administrator is a small school where you also can be with kids and play that kind of role. I don't wanna get all the way away from students. In my role as an educator. And so when we're talking about, I think you have to have a principal in every school because not only is our society pretty messed up. There has to be somebody and it shouldn't be the classroom teacher to deal with that parent who is mad, who is angry, dangerous, whatever. As well as the person that the student needs somebody besides the classroom teacher as to go to and to feel safe with. And I just, when I saw the Dodie posting, I thought I could still work with kids, be a teaching principal, be in the school a hundred percent. But sometimes my role might be more principal and sometimes it might not be. It might be more with students and to build that community capacity. So when I heard the question I thought to myself, I can't imagine any of our schools, Dodie being the smallest without that person in charge so that if I'm the teacher who's not comfortable with a certain parent, I have somebody there with me or not comfortable, I don't know, in another situation, I'm saying parent, but it could be a community member who's just decided they don't like the school or doesn't, you know, you have to be ready for that. And I can also be the person with a beanbag chair in my office for the kid who just needs a safe place to go sit and get away from the teacher or get away from whatever. So I think we need a principal in every building. So I agree at the moment that we're right now, I think we need a principal in every school. We have, in every elementary school we have right now, the principal, we also have to step back and ask ourselves, what do we want a principal to be? And as far as our mission right now or vision and our student outcomes, we need a principal in every school so that they can be the instructional leader for that school and not necessarily just the behavioral police because they need to be that instructional leader, otherwise we're not closing the gap and we're not having professional development for our teachers, we're not doing teacher evaluation. There's a lot of roles that that principal takes that are critical and important for every student and they're usually the ones that know best every teacher, every student and are able to really be the ones that bring a lot of information back to the board and are part of that leadership team. So I think yes, it is crucial that we have a principal even in a small school, whether it could be part time, if needed depending on the needs and but that person is still in the building doing something else, I don't know the answer to that but it's gotta be student driven and outcomes driven. Chris. So I think this is a very interesting question and I go back to a lot of my professional experience and organizations that I've worked for, they've talked about how you're a supervisor if you supervise two full-time people. So with that idea in mind, I can't see an immediate situation that I would advocate for removal of administration from any of our schools. The principles that we have now do so much more than just be a supervisor. They're a crucially important part of the community, of the school community and I don't know how it would work to not have somebody in that position, somebody in an administrative position at every school to be the advocate for the teachers and the parents and to be the liaison and to work with kids and to know the rules and to know how to do the trauma-based and to be the point person for developing of staff and so I think that's the best I can answer that is I don't know how I could see not having administrators at every school. I think maybe one of the ways to swear what Dorothy said with other views is just to look at the job of the principal in terms of that portion of it that is connected with children and that portion of it that involves paperwork and just carrying an administrative load to the extent that this administrative load can be performed by someone else, particularly if we're combined. I think that's the whole point of this, supposedly trying to achieve notional economies of scale. Then we should definitely look for those opportunities and but how soon we'll be able to find them is another matter just because of everything else that we'll be having to deal with but I think it's important to have it as a goal. So I think as I sit here and always think well what would the teachers say? I would want to know what the teachers would say about that because we are in a unique opportunity to be very innovative in our thinking right now. That being said, I'm a nurse which is often very comparable to a teacher and I need my nurse manager there to do all these things that everyone said and really be an advocate for us as nurses in this greater system. So principles I feel like should be advocates for their teachers and their school in this greater district. But the type of principles that we need are definitely something that I think the schools that are standing would need to decide on their own and a good fit for that school. You know, in making sure that teachers are feeling like they're being supported in whatever troubles are coming their way but also feel like they can step back and be creative in what they need to do. But I do suspect that the majority of the elementary schools would feel that they need a teacher principle. Okay, Dorothy, next question. How do you feel about the possibility of school choice at the elementary level? And if you support this idea, how would you guarantee or support equity of choice for all families? Well, choice was the one thing that I asked the new board to decide on. I felt it's very important that the new board comes up with a policy for choice. I am only going to support choice that provides transportation to whatever school a child wishes to go to. Otherwise, it is discriminatory. I remember when we just had one wage earner, which was me in the house. Our son was in U32. He wanted to play hockey, but for us with one car and those was in the 70s. So when people are not old enough to remember, we had a bit of a depression and there was very high gas prices. And we could not get him to a hockey rink at five o'clock in the morning. So he could do that. You know, if I had my druthers, I would ask for the same thing to happen for sports, for children, that they all are provided the transportation they need. But if we're going to have choice, it must provide transportation. That's the bottom line for me. I also favor school choice. And there's a little bit of a conundrum that if we're a unified district and everyone's paying the bill for the unified district, then it seems that any student should be able to go to any school within that district. Whether that could really happen from a practical matter, I don't know if it could, but it should happen for a certain number of students. And I fully agree with Dorothy that if we're going to have choice as an option, then it has to be a real choice. Not only a choice for parents who are able to transport their child from the over to East Montpelier, but that the district as a whole to make that choice viable would provide transportation along with any student who wanted to choose to go to a different school. How we would, I think we'd have to develop a system where it would be a more of a lottery system than anything because I think once there's discretion and subjectivity that comes into it, you run into problems with potential favoritism and folks questioning whether it was a fair decision or not. So if it's completely, if you have folks go into a lottery for a certain number of choices in different schools, I think that would actually work well. But again, I think transportation, as Dorothy said, would be the key to making sure it was an option that was available to everyone in the, in the SEM, going in the unified district. My understanding was it'd be part of the Articles of Agreement or that the board would come up with an idea. I also favor choice and I think an Emerge District, it's an opportunity for some creativity. Make your school the one people want to go to. So if you're the smaller one, make it a magnet science school or something. The transportation, as Dorothy was talking about it, made me realize that I don't know how we would do it feasibly as far as the environment and bussing and buses going every which way or whatever. But I don't think it's off the table to think about. I also, one of the times that we moved away from Eastmont Piliar was to go to Florida to take care of my dad. And I taught in the school here, we lived here, my kids were supposed to go to this school and in Florida the schools are all right around. They could go with me as long as the school had openings. So they could say no, we're full or not, but my kids were able to go with me which made it easier for me because they could go to my classroom and then go to their rooms. The schools were about equal distance from our houses. And I chose to have them go with me. It worked for me. There was no transportation, there were no buses. The kids walked. So if you lived within two miles, you walked. And the elementaries were all within two miles of your house, but they rode with me. So I've experienced school choice. I can't envision it would be something I'd have to think about more as far as the transportation aspect in my head. I think it's a great idea. But then when we talk about equity, the hockey was a great one. It wasn't equity necessarily for my family as much as I wouldn't get enough at five o'clock to take my kids to a hockey rink. So we just didn't use that word in our house. My boys didn't know it existed. So I think equity is a very important thing as we look at all five of our schools and U32. And that's the biggest thing right there, equity for all of our students. So I agree we talked about it briefly at our Articles of Agreement Committee. And I think why we agreed on this that we wanted to create a clear policy of what school choice would be and that is equitable for all both. As we're saying right now. And I do not, I feel a little strongly that I don't think just full choice for every school is what we should have in our district. I favor more of a lottery system where you would have maybe 10, there's different ways that they have done it around or month and you have similar to what we do right now with high school. They would have like 10 positions open in each school and they're really, so it's just a lottery so we're not favoring one another. But also a clear policy that if there's a child, right now we do it in a different way, but if there's a child that would benefit from a smaller school and there's specific, there's a specific guidance that, you know, that child could potentially go to Romney if it has transferred a Romney or Worcester or a smaller school like it has the transportation equity is really important. Now having full choice around I sure hope that what we're striving for is to have all best schools in every town that has excellence in each town and it's not just trying to, you know, like let's get all the kids to go here because it's the magnet school for this or let's get the, you know, like we're gonna be equitable all our schools should be equitable and there's been study cases in Massachusetts where you have kids that can go to their sister school because it's the Mandarin school and so going to the bilingual and Spanish school because there's just too much competition and parents are driving kids. So I would wanna avoid that to keep our community strong because that's part of keeping it local. What a great question and a tough one and something to really, to really chew on and think about when I think about the idea of having school choice, I think about my kids and what I send them somewhere else if I had the choice and I'm not entirely sure that I would. However, I don't think that that's the sole reason to deny someone else the opportunity to have school choice if that's something that they think that they might want. I think that there's a lot to consider when you think about the idea of school choice, how you would determine who would go where, how would you determine how they would get there would you consider a model that you would have schools specialize in different areas? Right now we have teachers in our schools that specialize in different content areas. Would we, and this completely arbitrarily throwing things out there, would we make or would it make sense to have Doty be a STEM school or to have Calis be a school that focused on literature as it's number one focus and if your student had, I mean, we have an opportunity potentially if under this merged district to be flexible and to be agile in thinking about how we best use our resources, how we best use the human resources we have as well as the physical resources. So I think that the idea of allowing school choice is definitely not one that I would be opposed to but I think that there's definitely a lot to consider about what that might look like, how it could be equitable and fair, how it could benefit our community at large the most and how we can make it successful. Oh, I foresee many happy hours. I don't know. I don't know. Definitely it should be easier to attend other schools within our consolidated district than it is now. I mean, again, sorry for the personal example, but it would have been a lot easier for my children to go one mile to Doty as opposed to 10 miles to Calis Elementary. But that just couldn't happen. Such situations ought to be considered among the happy hours that we will spend. But at the same time, I hear very clearly what you were saying, Floor, about the necessity to maintain equity and make sure that we're not having the doggie-dog competition among our schools to try to snare the most students. We'll just have to work it out. It's gonna be deliberation within the board and with the people. I don't think that school choice would be a bad thing. My second grader proclaimed in kindergarten that she's never leaving Remney, so she's not going anywhere. But my pre-cave might want to. So I think it is an option to look at. There are models throughout Vermont that do it now, so I think that that would be a good resource to look at and see how they did it. Transportation has to be written in that. We're not in a city where rural and people have different needs in different lives and need to make sure that their kids can get what they they need to get and transportation is an essential part of that. So otherwise, I do think that it would be something to look at, but community needs to be engaged about what that would look like to them. So I support school choice. I am concerned about the population of one school dwindling to the point where then it's more rivalish, close it down. And I think we really have to consider the children and what's best for them in the situation. If going to a different school is going to benefit them then they should have that choice. I'm gonna kind of throw something out there. I'm also a climate activist and so I think a lot about those issues and transportation is where Vermont's emissions are the greatest. And so creating a system that will help us all drive less and have less buses and cars on the road. So if someone lives just a few blocks from a school but is in a different district or a different town, they should be able to send their child to that school so that they're driving less. And it would be, we'd need to consider that in our as board members planning, does choice mean that we're gonna have a lot more buses on the road and have more emissions in the atmosphere. Chris, next question is for you. How will the new board, or how should the new board handle a debt issue? Is it fair that taxpayers who never voted for a bond must pay it off? I think you said the debt issue first. This is not a debt issue. And can you have saved that for someone else? Can we pass on the questions? We haven't talked before, so whatever your views are, I was wondering whether they were giving you mints before, but so the debt is a problem just because there's three of us, three towns who have significant debt and two towns that have no debt. In his decision, Judge Mello raised the question about the debt being problematic for him. They didn't issue a ruling on the debt issue, so I think the new board should take that concern and run with it and try and fashion a system where the towns with debt, and I'd say this being from middle science and we have $3 million worth of debt, are somehow paying more toward the new district and alleviating the debt problem or the increased tax burden from Wooster and from Calis, just because they did not incur debt. They shepherded their resources and maintained their schools and didn't incur debt. That is, I think, an equitable position that we should strive to address because of all the problems that we've had with this merger, that is the most difficult and fractious because you have, I mean, just the shifting of debt that just shouldn't occur. So I would hope this and through the new board would at least try out different formulas, even at the risk of it being legally challenged by saying that's a violation of Article 5 because I think we'd have at least some ground of saying, oh, you're going to sue us for being equitable here? And I think that it would be helpful and have to bring all the communities together because this has been a burning and contentious issue. And it's just fair. And, you know, that's what the kids say, is it fair? And the answer is now, no. That's definitely been the biggest contention. I'm really proud of our school and as a teacher who works in a windowless office and two schools, both of them out windows. I think environment is so important. I think there should be a way that we can do this more equitably, but I'd also like a study or an outside that the facilities that don't have debt aren't going to incur debt in the next five years as far as this whole equity issue so that all of our children are going in schools with clean air and good facilities, clean water, all those things. I lived in Eastmont Pillar when U32's bond was passed. That school was pretty pity before that was redone. And it was not a safe environment as far as the air quality and all the walls they had built. And now people all over the state walk in that building 20 years later and I still think it looks brand new. It's a beautiful building. The money was well spent and they've kept it up. I think that's what we're hoping to do at Eastmont Pillar as well. There were a lot of years where it wasn't kept up and it cost more money, but now it is what I think of as a very nice building. People love working there. People love working at U32. So I'd like there to be an equitable way. I'm not against that, but I think we have to look farther and adjust the debt when you look at the tax. Our taxes are so convoluted. Figuring out where the increase is coming from may not always be from that one debt issue. And trying to figure that out is very, very difficult, but I'm not against trying to figure it out. And I'd love the contention. Go on. I agree. Yeah, you know, I sometimes feel kind of guilty because I spearheaded this renovation and worked for six years to pass it. And I absolutely believe that it was the best thing that ever happened to not one of the best things that ever happened to the staff and seeing the kids and seeing the whole transformation of the community itself around. And we tried the capital plan. I had many meetings with the Calais staff and how they were doing their maintenance plan and everything, but it was just putting down fires, and we needed a master plan. And I believe that a lot of our schools haven't had any work done in 25 years, that there's issues of natural light, that there's issues of storage, how we teach has changed in the past from, you know, if we're really teaching 21st century and if we're really teaching collaboration, there's a lot of things that have changed. And I envision that there is gonna be some need for improvements in other schools, even the ones that are saying right now that there won't be any improvement. There would be a benefit for educational outcomes to invest in those schools. So it would be great to be able to face that over five years, and I know they've tried to work on something inside the house, but at the same time, I feel bad about asking something that would be just beneficial to our district and not to everybody else. And if we are not able to share that right now, how would be able to share it later? You know, there's just too many questions to be able to really be equitable about it. So when I think about the debt issue that's happening or that we're going through right now, I really have a lot of different thoughts and it's kind of echoing what some other folks have said. From Calis, we don't have any debt right now, but I do know that there's some projects that need doing and we may have something catastrophic happen in the next six months, hopefully not, but who knows. That being said, there's still the issue of what do we do with the debt that we have now and what do we do with the communities who've been diligent in organizing themselves in a manner that made it so they didn't have to incur debt. And I don't know that I could think of a better group of people to discuss that to try to tackle that. I don't know that any one person is going to have the right answer, but I believe that through collaborative process we can come together and figure out how to make it so that we can move forward in the most equitable way for all of the community members while keeping in mind that it's really important that we make sure that we have everything that we can to make all of our students be in the best place that they can be to be as successful as they can be and what that might look like. I think that developing our maintenance and developing our infrastructure plans for all the schools and all the buildings and all of the things that we have to do is going to be a priority of the new board to make sure that we can organize everything in a way that benefits everybody the most. I don't begrudge Berlin or East Montpelier or Middlesex, their bonds at awe. They made the decisions that they felt were right for their schools. Their people voted on them and voted to pass them. The problem is that now Wister and Calis are taking on the TLM, the debt service for those bonds without any kind of benefit that accrues them just to those schools or to the towns. So who does that anyway? I don't know. I've never heard of this. And I cannot believe that the courts will not ultimately rule that this is wrong. But that's there. For me, it's looking from now forward. What matters a lot is to develop the kind of practices that have helped Doty and Calis be able to keep up with their maintenance, with the replacement and repair of major big ticket capital items. And one thing I think this board should do is instruct the administration to put in place exactly that kind of capital plan and budget so that we can stay ahead of that. Anything new, we can look at that separately. But at least the stuff that we've got, keep up with it. I'm not sure how much I can add to what these think tanks have already said. Think tanks. Think tanks. Other than, this is probably one of the highest sticking points for why I didn't agree with Act 46 because of the pain that I feel that we're bringing this forward. And I didn't even live here when the bond happened. So I didn't vote on that. But I do think that we need to find creative ways to be equitable. I think really what you just said is such an important point of following your model and keeping that and kind of moving forward in a productive path. I would hope that the courts would support some agreement. Hope. Yeah, I'm concerned, because Worcester, there's actually a larger percentage of lower income for Monters in Worcester than I think in the other towns. And financial strain can be really difficult for children if their families struggling to pay bills and stuff. And so I don't want to add an undue burden onto families if they find their property taxes rising because of these bond issues. And I think, yeah, the residents in Worcester have tried to live within their means and they didn't do expansions and haven't done a lot of things on the school that might need to be done because they wanted to live within their means. So for them to take on this debt, I think there is a fairness there. And so going into this discussion, we're going to, but I feel very confident that the people on this board that will be able to come to some agreements and some good decisions and create a fair system. As far as callous is concerned, we actually know that we have, none of our major systems is in jeopardy. We are paying for a fix on our septic system just from our regular budget. And we also have a capital fund which will stay only to be used for callous just as it would if Berlin has a capital fund. If Middlesex has a capital fund, they stay with those buildings even after the merger. So you don't have to worry that six months down the road callous is going to have its roof start leaking or something and we won't be able to fix it. So that's in place for callous. I don't know, I just have heard that East Mount Piliard now has a capital fund and I don't know about the other towns, but that keeps callous whole for now. Another problem with the debt issue is our taxes are higher. When people are looking for places to live, they're looking, they save every penny they can on taxes. So who's going to settle in callous or Worcester when our taxes are more than East Mount Piliard and Berlin and Middlesex via this problem? I kind of vote with Chris that let's set up what should be done correctly and let somebody sue us. Okay, we've got about 16 minutes left. Wendy, there's a question specific for you and so for you, but that means everybody else gets no more than a minute. So TimeKeeper's been doing a great job of giving warnings and just have a different timeframe. So the question says that you said Act 46 is not about closing schools. Will you stand against the closing of any of our town elementary schools in the name of efficiency or for financial reasons as a school board member? I think I'd have to have a lot of information as to why a school was even being considered to be closed. The ones that have been closed that I've been, I've read about or known about like Underhill ID this year, it's closing. I just learned today in a meeting I was in that Holland Elementary and those schools, the decisions have been being discussed for years. It wasn't necessarily because of Act 46. I personally would feel very, I would have a difficult time voting to close a school. My road is three quarters East Mount Piliard, one quarter callous. I mean, our kids went to different schools and then they went to U32 together. Geographically, I think it'd be difficult to not have the schools where we have them. So I don't believe it's about closing schools and I would defend schools, keeping them open and having them as your community. I agree. It is not just a school, it's a community. And we had us, our community has had a really hard time coming to an agreement or a consensus in this and favoring either having the town veto and having also a supermajority of the vote, the board be saying yes, this is the reasons that we would have to sell it to the community and have information to really make our case. So it is hard to answer that question without all of the documents, but I don't see this board or our role as closing schools. It's not just a school, it's the community and what it means to the community, it's just not numbers. I think I would agree. I brought my kids back here to go to Calis. So on its face, I don't want to see Calis or any of the other schools closed. However, I think it's also important that we, if there's gonna be discussions about that, that we have the ability to gather all information. This is why I ran for the board at the end of the day is to be able to be involved in making sure we made the best decisions for the district. I don't see the best decision being closing any of the schools. And some would have to persuade me pretty hard that a school needed to close. Ditto. This would be a major decision that would require several levels of decision making, including, as we've discussed in the articles of agreement, in my view, including an affirmative vote of the town in which the school is located to close that school. Who can say what the future will bring? I would never have anticipated this right now, but a number of years ago. But I think we just have to approach such a decision with great care and with all the protections that are warranted. I think the protections that are warranted are key. So I think that we need to be proactive and think about the situation as a new board and unless a town and the teachers and the kids were telling me that they wanted that school closed, which wouldn't happen, but that's the only way that I would ever say, sure, we can close the school, that's it. The schools are very valuable to the communities. And so I think we should keep them open as long as we possibly can and that there's more value, there's different values than just financial, that you get from a school. And I mean, I know for us, Dodie is a place where everyone gathers and we socialize and a lot happens there. And it is, it's, you know, it's a small town. And so it's like we have the school and that's it really to congregate in. And that's important. I'm on the side of the town itself has to vote. It's a long, maybe a long drawn out decision looking at, it would take time even to get probably a year even to get to the point where we say you have to vote. But as far as I'm concerned, Vermont towns have always known what to do with their schools and how to do it and how to pay for it and how to make it work. And I think that's still true today. The towns can make the decision that is best for them. Period. Just like each family has to make its own decisions, big decisions like that. The town is a family and the town gets to make the decision. The school's are such a vital socializing part of each of our towns. Almost the hub around which the community rotates. That I just could not see voting to close a school without the town itself voting to close school. And that would be the safeguard for me because if the town was itself advocating for the school to close and the majority of their voters did that, then that would be permission. But without that, I just could not foresee or support closing a town school just because of the vitality that it has for the town as a whole. And you know the arguments that the smaller school is, it's not great for the students. And that can be true. And that has to be taken into account to address that. But it's so important to the town itself. I mean, Dorothy was talking about increased property taxes being people not moving there. If you don't have a school, I think, yeah, listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to you. You know, if any of you've ever had the opportunity to go to Congress and testify, the yellow light comes on it four minutes and then four and a half minutes and a red light comes on it five minutes. Some people can talk right through it, but it's very, very intimidating. I've got two questions and we've got about 10 minutes to go that are both about personal ability to serve. So I'm going to try to combine them and hope that you'll just all give very quick, direct answers. So the first is about understanding that as an individual, you're not supposed to be employed in any matter by the school district. Do any of you have contracts or employment with any of the schools in the district? And then the second one really goes to your own time and commitment, which is this is a big job to take on. Lots of meetings, committee subcommittee meetings, reading meets before meetings. So do you really have the time to do that? Will you get to board meetings even when you've got a family conflict? You're a kid at a soccer game or whatever, so floor you're up and you can tackle those issues quickly. Maybe we can get it right. Answer to the first, do I have to? No, I'm not employed by the crazy volunteer, but I'm not employed by a, and then second, yes, my schedule is flexible, and I try to make it as flexible as possible to be able to be prepared and commit myself to the work, so yes. So the answer to the first question is yes, I'm a contractor with the school. I'm a football coach at U32. I get paid a stipend yearly for that, and that is something that I would give up if I were elected. I can't even believe I just said that. I didn't say I would give up coaching, I said I would give up getting paid. Oh, okay. Good boy, good boy. And as far as it relates to do I have time for this? Yes, is the answer to that. And the reason that I can say yes, I have time for that and be so confident in having four kids, being involved in Freezing Fun for Families as an organization on their board of directors, being a Red Cross volunteer, having a full-time job, having a wife, being a soccer coach, being a football coach, being a T-ball coach is because I have to have time for this because it's too important not to. I don't really know what else I can say except for if I were elected, yes, I would have time for this, and yes, I would give it my all, and yes, it's top of the heap. I have actually occasionally employed at U32 as a substitute French teacher, and I have a waiver from the Secretary of Education. How many of you? I have one. There we go, another one, one of us. Both from Calis on though. It's nothing to do with it. And as far as time, well, four years, what's another three? No, I am not employed by the district. I've been sitting at school board meetings for three years, like in the audience by myself or with Kyle and Ursula sometimes, so it's what I do with my time. Because it's important, because I work down at Dartmouth, I cannot be in the school during school hours, so this is where I make my difference. And I have a flexible schedule, and so this is just so important to me to be able to do this. I'm not employed by the school district. I do sell vegetables to Doty every once in a while. I don't know if that would, I'd have to stop doing that. No. No. Okay, good to know. Good to know. Good to know. Good to know. Good to know. Good to know. Thank you. I think Matt was misleading about the time commitments. So I may have to take it up with him if it becomes too burdensome, but I have a pretty flexible schedule. I'm hoping it'll just stay within its, a reasonable amount of time. I'm not employed by the school. I was many years ago. I was employed by East Montpelier for 20 years, and I have all the time there is, retired, and as long as I can leave the house, I can leave the house and go to meetings and stay there as long as needed or go to extra meetings. And I've done a lot of that in the last three years, because I went to a lot of Act 46 meetings before I was on the board. I was there a lot, and I actually started going to the state house to meetings to be sort of a spy. So sometimes I have a good time at it. So I'm not employed by the school and there will probably be times that my work will prevent me from attending a meeting or so. Just the way the schedule works, sometimes I have a schedule that I cannot move and so that will happen. I know it's happened in the past and I'm sure it will happen again. But I'll get to as many meetings as I can. I do generally have a flexible schedule, but sometimes there's outside influences and forces that say be here at this time, and there's no moving that. So that's what I'll have to do. I am not employed by the school in any way. I was just thinking about the past, I think it's four years I've been on the board, maybe five, I don't know. But I think I've missed two meetings that I can remember. And in most cases my evenings are available as long as I know in advance that I would be there if they start scheduling meetings during the day. Nope, can't be there. I do work all day. But I made a commitment and I would try to uphold it if I found that whatever the schedule was was causing me to not be there, I would resign so they could appoint somebody who could fill that position rather than have it empty and no voice. Because I think it's important that that voice, this equal voice or whatever it becomes is continued. So I don't see any problem. Okay, it is one minute of eight. This is supposed to end at eight o'clock. So I'm gonna say that we probably don't need to do another question, even though everybody who's shown up tonight has shown an enormous dedication to being here. And my guess is some of you would stay for one more. But I think you've all, and I just wanna thank all of you who've come just to listen and participate. And I wanna thank all eight of you for putting yourselves out there and being willing to do a hard job under difficult circumstances. And it's really, really special and commendable that you're also engaged and thoughtful and willing to take questions and do this service. And good luck to all of us. Okay, what comes next? Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you.