 We will call the meeting to order at 8.07. First order of business is a reception of guests. Mr. Barton, welcome. Thank you. How are you? Thank you. And we'll also welcome Aaron, our principal, and Laurie. And what'd you like? Tiffany, Tiffany, nice to meet you. Do you know all of our names for purposes and minutes? You got that. Excellent, thank you. Are there any agenda revisions that anyone would like to make given the late hour that we're starting? Anything that anyone would like to suggest we table or are we ready to just try to plug through and see how much we can get done tonight? So I'm confused about, are we rescinding the policies or are we tabling that tonight? I think it was suggested we table them until next week. Okay, I was gonna defer to Corinne on that one. Is that what you heard? That's what I heard that there was nothing worth pushing through to make sure that we do have a policy in place. All right, then we will table 5.4. Well, we... We can do that when we get there. Yeah, we can do that when we get there. All right, any other revisions to the agenda? Are you good? Any public comments or correspondence? Hearing none. We'll just note future meetings. We have an October 24th SU carousel meeting. So there is no local board meeting? Don't believe so. Oh, and I apologize. Going back to agenda review and revisions, did I hear that we should appoint one member to an articles committee and one member to a debt committee? Yes. I believe that was... We can do that tonight and we should do that tonight. So maybe we'll add those as 5.5 and 5.6. Well, speaking of which, with the resignation that we have, I think we need a third voting member at the WCSU meetings because at the moment we only have two. Eric was our third voting member? Yeah. How about a 5.7 appoint a third voting member to the SU board? All right. Sorry to keep piling the moment. Nope, that's okay. While we're still on any other agenda revisions. Okay. No public comments and correspondence. We noted our future meeting next up on the agenda is to approve the minutes of August 13th and September 10th. I'll make a motion to do so, to pass both of those. Okay, is there a second? Hold on. You've had both sets. So on page... Hold on, we need a second before you can... Oh, I'll second. All right, in the discussion, go ahead. Five, under 2.1, under the number one, increased academic growth and success. So it should be changed to increased academic growth. Growth and instead of rolls in, growth and? Yeah, strike, rolls in, input, growth and success. Okay. Sounds on my head. Any other discussion? There was one, this is the one. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, just a second, please. Yep. Who was it when you were talking about... I totally can't remember what it was. Something that's brought me that it wasn't really... I don't know, I lost it. Okay. It should have made me laugh. Okay, we have a motion that's been made and seconded. With the one correction, so is there a motion to approve the minutes of 8.13 and 9.10 as amended? Or with the one correction pointed out by Vera? Would you accept an amendment to your motion? Yes, yes, yes. As amended. Yep, I'm still looking. All right, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. And those opposed? All right. Moving on to our discussion agenda. We have a board member vacancy included in your packet, is an email from Eric Chase, who informs us that due to his family needs in a difficult time, he is resigning from the school board. Eric also wanted to thank everyone for their support during this time. And he also added, please pave the driveway. Yeah, I like that. This way. I guess technically we have to, do we have to accept his resignation? I think we need a motion to do that. Despite how much I don't want to, yes, we really should because he really does need to have his time available for family. With regret. With much regret. Absolutely, his perspective will certainly be missed on the board. So all those in favor of accepting Eric Chase's resignation from the board, signify by saying aye. Aye. And those opposed, no. And that allows us to start looking for someone to fill the vacancy. Unfortunately, this has happened far too many times in the last couple of years with this board. So I think the central office has a protocol in place where they'll start advertising. I'll plan to put something out on front porch forum and it would ask that any of you and anyone perhaps watching the video tonight who has an interest in serving the board during these very interesting times, get in contact with the school, with Aaron Boynton or with any one of us board members. And we'd ask that they send a letter of interest in why they think they would contribute to the board. There was one person that got hold of me after the last position was filled, so I'll reach back out to that person. Okay. See if they still have an interest. Sounds good. Anyone has any ideas? Please read the bushes for that. We have the Berlin, item 3.2, the Berlin board goals draft. We talked about this some last meeting. We have adopted the SU board wide goals and then we wanted to go with some, perhaps some Berlin specific goals. Vera had three goals in mind and then I had mentioned at the last meeting that I had some further, wanted to think about perhaps adding another goal or two and I invited anyone else to contribute to that. You can even do that still tonight, but you'll see that on page eight of your Berlin packet. Vera, you can tell me if I got those right, I was jotting notes from the last meeting and then the goals one through three came from you and then goal four was something that I wanted to add both about school climate and community engagement. That's maybe a little more specific. It may be encompassed in the SU board goals, but I wanted something a little bit more specific so that was my proposal there. I'm gonna open that up to discussion. This captures what I was thinking perfectly and I love that you added number four. I think it's good. For number three, would it be appropriate there to say ensure policies and procedures? Because we had talked about procedures and they do seem to be a slightly separate, even though attached. Sure, happy to do that. Any other comments about our Berlin specific board goals? With the one you added, Chris? Yep. Where you say and community members as teaching partners? Well, I think that idea is good. I wonder if saying as teaching partners would actually like scare some people away as far as just as partners and whatever that role looks like. Some people may not consider it to be teaching even though it is. Actually, I thought of that as I was writing it, would that be threatening or what are we actually saying there? We just want our community to be a part of the education of our children in some way. So I mean, I totally get what you're saying and I agree that it would be, but I think putting that word there might make people think, well, I'm not a teacher. That's for the teachers. So how about just striking teachers? Could do that. As partners and then it leaves it open. Yeah, sure. Question for Aaron, I wondered if you had or would like to have input into the goals. I'm sure you have your own. Well, I think it's good that you're setting some accountability to some degree, I guess. And I think anybody would agree with these. You know, we think as within the school, as professionals wanting to see academic growth, of course, professional development for staff, of course, policies, procedures, you know, absolutely. I mean, there's nothing to argue with. And of course, number four, that's huge for our school, making sure that we're all working together. You know, at our last two staff meetings, I talked about professional learning communities. It's kind of a buzzwordy kind of thing, but that really defines everybody involved as part of that learning community. So, you know, the wordsmithing around teaching partners, I think it's implied that we're all working together as a learning community. Whether you're a board member, a parent, a grandma, grandpa, whatever. Community member, central office staff, or a non-teacher, you're all part of the learning community. So, you know, these are all things that I think, that I know that we're always working towards and to have them stated, I think is appropriate. So, I agree. Thank you, thank you, Aaron. Is there any, do you see any big gap in like one area where you'd like to see more clarity from the board or understand, you know, what the board's goal is in a particular area, or is this, are these broad enough to cover it? I think they're good, yeah, I don't have any other questions. Okay. Can I, I'll add to my opinion on the increased academic growth and success. I would like to see that defined more, but unfortunately I don't think we're at that point because we haven't seen exactly where the school quality committee is gonna go with what recommendations they're gonna make with what assessments to use, what's an alignment with the new report out system. And I think as that goes forward and progresses, we can kind of make that more defined as to what we want to see for when we say increase, like what direction as far as maybe a percentage or a count of some kind for increase. I think it is vague right now, but I think we need to leave it vague for a little while until some of the work of the school quality committee is done and we get the report out from, is it in October that we get the next report out on student learning outcomes? So I think it's hard to put the car before the horse until we get those student learning outcomes in October. I think slightly vague is okay. Yeah. I mean, as long as we're working at increasing then. Going the other way. Well, it kind of is, to me, it's the same thing as far as people that were talking about the word guarantee. I mean, you don't necessarily want to put in a number that you can't necessarily reach even though your goal is to be working that way. Okay. There's no action item on this, but I think we just now have these goals in place, in perpetuity, until we decide to amend them again or the next group of board members five years from now takes a look at this, and if there are Berlin board members five years from now takes a look at this and says, what the heck were they thinking? So I don't think there's anything to be voted on here. Everybody's okay with those. Would that one amendment of striking? Two, and adding and procedures. Oh, yeah, and procedures and striking teaching. So I think in doing that and then changing this date to the last updated and having the new date to show it some extent. On the agenda is 3.3, the SU board, goal number three, community engagement where all of the local boards were tasked with coming back to the SU board with what we believe community engagement means. Didn't we do that at our last meeting? So we did, we talked about it. So what we have in the packet is my attempt to write down what we talked about, but we need to, I think as a board, approve what we want to go to the, sorry, to the executive committee, I think is where we're supposed to report this. 11. Yep, page 11 on what is the purpose of board level community engagement? The executive committee is asking each of the local boards to report back on that. So I tried to jot down some of the comments that we had in our discussion at our last meeting. We talked about community level, board level community engagement, the purpose of it being to promote the school, to solicit feedback from the community, to guide the board in creating a vision and goals for the school, to raise awareness of what's happening at school, to bring community assets into the school and school assets back out into the community, to foster a general sense of community for the town, to engage our town in the common goal of successful children. And then there were two other pieces of this that were not necessarily what is, but I think further clarified what we were talking about, that there is a difference between the school communicating with parents and with board level community engagement. We wanted to make a distinction between those two and also to distinguish between why we communicate and the nuts and bolts of how we communicate. Because in our discussion we started getting into different ways, whether it's newsletters or online or other things, how we communicate. We're supposed to be focused on the purpose of board level community engagement. So I took a stab at it, we can play with this, you all can amend this anyway that you see fit. But gleaning from what we talked about at the last meeting, I came up with this statement as the purpose of board level community engagement. And you'll see that I did this document right after I did the last one. So there's some common language here. Like teaching partners. That's right, teaching partners. To develop trust, pride, participation and support for our school and to engage the Berlin community as partners in the success of all of our children. Now open that up to discussion, to amendment, to adding things to it to take parts away. Well Peter, do you have any general thoughts on what you want with us for the conversation? No, and I want to apologize for that. Missing, I was glad to see you had a quorum. But we are looking now at the purpose of, not necessarily the implementation. That's right. Yep, not the how we would do it, but why we would do it. So an example tonight of somebody whose idea of how is different maybe then. Yeah. There are a lot of ways, a lot of hows. No, I think your description covers it. I'm not sure that I would add anything. Okay, other comments? I think it captures. I would say everything that we discussed tonight. Would we take out teaching again in front of partners? It's like so many things, you know. The worry is great. We have difficulties in the implementation. That's right. And if we're serious about it, then we do need to think about that part of it. We've talked a lot about engaging the community and just thinking about why we do it. We want people to understand what's going on in the school. We want support for the budget that we're proposing. We want other support within the school. We want the school to be a welcoming place, a center of the community, all those things. And I tried to capture that in trust, pride, participation, and support. I do, as a Berlin resident, want to say that the lack of participation, even just tonight at the Act 46 meeting, we had technically one Berlin member there. And Stephen is the U32 principal. He's a Berlin resident, but he wasn't there as a resident. He was there as the principal. And it's just sad to me that there's not that engagement to come out and voice their opinion, whatever it is, whatever side they're on, or just be part of the conversations. And I think it's sad because every other community had way more representation there from their communities than Berlin. And for me, I feel like we're doing something wrong or I'm doing something wrong if we can't get people to engage in those conversations. And there are important conversations. These are things that are gonna affect everyone in our community. And yet they don't come out to share their opinions. And I mean, they don't, I'm not even getting any, I mean, I get very few, which is mostly my neighbors and relatives, their feedback on whether it's budget or Act 46 stuff. But other than that, I don't really hear a lot of people for being a front page news stuff, you would think there'd be more conversations even happening out there. I, are you guys getting conversations? You're coming into contact with a lot of Berliners. I know, and I do think some of it is, some of it is people feel that they have elected people into the positions to speak for them. You know, whether it's school board or select board, you know that, well, that's what you're there for. Which I do agree with, but I think even tonight, I had a time late, do I wanna be part of that? Lastly, what are don't I? I mean, I wanna support the people in our town, but I don't really know where they're thinking or what they're thinking or why. Well, but I think another thing, and it goes back to the engagement, if we went through and said, what had each of us done to promote the fact that we felt people should be here to give their opinion, we probably didn't do as much as we could have. Definitely. And that's the thing as far as that being consistent. I mean, cause even people picking up the newspaper isn't the same as it was. You know, the world doesn't get delivered to your door anymore. You have to go and get it somewhere. The Times Argus costs money. You know, you can't get into all those articles online to read unless you're paying a subscription fee. You know, I don't think unless we really reach out to people, even if there's information on websites, people don't necessarily know when to go looking. It's about pushing information out to people. Which is a huge issue, what a huge problem. And it has been forever. I mean, part of it I think is that folks are put off by big issues. They think, you know, this is just more than I can deal with. We've seen that, you've seen that in school budgets. I mean, you get, you know, you work to get people to come out whether it's support or just to talk about it. And how many people do you get in a board meeting? Two or three, if you're lucky. I mean, that's more than I can deal with. Those are big issues and real local issues. This is a district issue where it's even more complicated than I think people are put off by it. It doesn't mean that there isn't a solution there somewhere. I think certainly Worcester and Calis are smaller communities and they do have more communication just locally, which causes people to come out. East Montpere, I can't account for exactly, but I always compare our school to East Montpere as size-wise and student numbers-wise and so forth. So I don't want to cut this short, but it is a late night already. If we're focused in on the purpose of community engagement, is everyone OK with this draft statement going to the executive committee as our summary of what we think the purpose of board-level community engagement is? Yeah. I'm good with it. I'm going to throw this out, but I have a question. Will the executive committee be like a clearinghouse for the next step, which is what we've just been talking about as far as suggestions and recommendations of what has worked in other towns? Yeah, it's one of the big three goals of the executive committee to deal with community engagement. And the draft goal is that by November, the WCSU boards will define a purpose and strategy for board-level community engagement and identify training needs. So the executive committee wants to keep pushing this one forward. It's something every board struggles with, and so we can maybe work on this together with a common goal of getting better at community engagement. So in October, the executive committee will draft a written purpose and strategy for board-level. This is all going to get pushed. It's probably not going to get done because of Act 46. And then in November, the boards approve a purpose and strategy for board-level community engagement. So we'll see how much work gets done on this, but it's But I almost feel like we're dropping the ball at a really critical time. If everybody's hands are going to be busy with the Act 46 stuff, but this is the very time you need to be actively engaging the community. And so despite the fact, if the whole WCSU is going to work on it, it seems like we really ought to have a clear plan as far as getting information out to people because otherwise it's going to be too late. November and December, you've missed it as far as making sure people are turning out. I've done a lot of work on this already, on strategizing for the renovation and just having worked on this goal with the board when I first started on the board when we did board goals. I'm happy to bring a draft in October of some of the strategies that we can all maybe take a look at, comment on, decide how we want to engage with the community. I just don't think we can't do it tonight, but I'm happy to put something on for October and give you something to bounce ideas off from based on the work that we've done before. Is there any message, though, that we want to be putting out as a board? I mean, I know any of us can, as an individual, say whatever, but as a board, is there any message that we want to be putting out to people about upcoming meetings or what's happening? I think Berlin residents, I think a lot of them do not understand that they do not get a vote in the polls about what decision the state is making. I think I've relied too much on the central office to do some of that communication, but we may have a different approach than the central office would have to this issue. All the boards probably are taking different approaches, so maybe it should be more on us to get the word out to Berlin. Because as I say, I feel like we're going to have missed the boat as far as we're going to say, well, let's revisit this, and meanwhile, another month will have gone by, and we haven't informed people. Were you talking specifically about Act 46 communications? I think there's two things that actually we need to start considering. Budget's going to be coming up. Act 46 is the first and foremost that we, I do think we should be more proactive. I don't want to make a statement. I think we need to put out some bullet points of highlighting this is what's going on. The draft articles are out there, and just bullet points of some of the discussions that came up tonight. Maybe between Scott, Chris, and Floor, and Matt. I mean, they might already have some of that done, so maybe we can reach out to them and see if they've captured some community information that they've already sent out, and to use some of those resources so that the communities are getting the same information, I guess, rather than an opinion or. I think what you said is key, though. There's going to be a Times-Argus article. We know that. David Delphoy was here. However, will people have access, and will they read a whole long thing, as opposed to just seeing some bullet points of, you need to be aware, and here's how you can find out more? And I think you bring up a good point. I don't think people realize that they're not going to get a vote on this. It's not going to go back and be on a ballot once they make us do this. It's a done deal. And when that decision is made at whatever point, I'm assuming in November, that puts all this hurry up in Russia right in the holidays. Like the worst time to reach out to people and expect them to come to a meeting. And that's why I think, do the Act 46 maybe the next couple of weeks in different ways, in different forms, and then right after that, follow up with, we are in budget season, and please reach out, come to meetings. So these committees that are supposed to be formed, making sure we get out the information as far as when those meetings are for people to know that they can go and find out more. I will say, do you kind of find it a flaw? Like I get the emails of when the School Quality Committee is coming up, but not all of you get it. Right. And the same with other subcommittees that are happening out there, if it's, like I'm on the negotiations thing, so I got the email about that for the training coming up. But I do think it's nice that everybody gets that information. There is this, but sometimes that changes. But that's different, yeah. So I guess, what are you requesting? Cause I'll write it down. I guess, I'm not sure what I'm requesting. It'd be nice if there was a better. I'm not sure everyone would want all those notifications. And that's part of the problem, but I do think it'd be nice. I mean, it's hard for us to know when we should put something out to our community, if this is coming up, this meeting is happening, when we don't know, cause we're not on the subcommittee or. Right. Is there a district calendar? There is a posting requirement for public meetings. We do the following, we set it to the town office and we do post it in the locations of record. Right. But I think it's the subcommittee piece that a lot of people lose, they're happening all the time. It's more the subcommittee stuff, like the school start, the school quality, the school start time, the school quality. I mean, the executive committee is pretty much consistent and the policy used to. There is a consistent policy. There's a consistent policy. First Monday, unless a good change. So these other two subcommittees that are being formed plus school start time and the school quality. Notification to all four members. Well, I don't want to speak. I think Chris made a point though. I don't know that everybody's gonna want. I don't want to try to solve one problem and create another where people are saying, no, I don't want it. So I'm not really sure what. But are you saying as part of community engagement that we as a board ought to make more of an effort to get notice out there to Berlin that school quality committee is meeting, policy committee is meeting? The school start time. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that want to weigh in, but they don't. For some reason they miss. And in order to do that, we need to know these things are coming up. Not maybe not all of us. Maybe not. If we don't, I want to know. Maybe it's one of us to do. So maybe it's up to us as, you know, if Corinne's on the policy committee to send out the next meeting day on the policy, or maybe it's up to me to send out something on the school quality and when our meetings are and more information about that and what we're doing and what our charge is. But I think that's. Maybe for you, like the executive committee. But I think that speaks to the put it out half. Right. You know. Is it from porch forum? Is it? Right. When you say it's up to Chris to put it out for some thing, where is he putting that out? Which we haven't figured out yet. Yeah. I think at minimum it should be on the school's website homepage for anything coming up for meetings that month. Which I don't think right now those subcommittee things are on there. So the subcommittees are not in the school. I don't believe so. No, I think you're correct. They're saying no, so. I'm just, but I'm also, I'm just thinking about how many subcommittee meetings we have and if we have the monthly calendar and we have 20 school events and then we have 10 school board committee events. You kind of, I don't know. Well I think it's on the school board page is there still a school board calendar which kind of was used and then not used? I think so. It's still there, maybe that's it and that's one of the places we can point people to is that. Or on a WCSU calendar, I mean just some easy place. That's not gonna be the only way to tell people but to be the consistent online place to look for it. So the calendar that you just identified, you like that on a school website and the WCSU website? I think it can just be on the WCSU website. It's all about telling people where they can find stuff. Just point people to that. So WCSU website, it may be there, I just haven't. I think it's there, but as part of our board communications if we decide what forums we wanna put that into, we point them to that if you're interested in coming to any of these subcommittee meetings. It's just a matter of reminding people every once in a while where to look. This calendar doesn't really, this doesn't tell you at what time or where the meetings are. It's just something to give you an idea as your planning meetings when they're gonna be. The cynical side of me is gonna say we get one or two people at these meetings at our regular school board meeting. Are we really gonna get anybody at the policy committee or executive committee or school quality or school start time? Doesn't mean we shouldn't step forward out. That's where we go to effort and consistency as far as. People learn to expect and know where to go. I think that's where I have, I used to be so much better about putting things out there whether it was on front porch farm or reaching out to other members within the school. Well, negotiations people can attend. It's not a public meeting. Interest change bargaining. So we should be inviting them to something that they couldn't much as they could be there for negotiations is different. Right. Did one of us say that? I didn't. Well you said I'm on negotiations and I received all the emails but none of you knew. Right, they, the board. But only you or your alternate would be invited to participate in interest in the case of bargaining. Right. So I'm gonna move us along if we can. I think the best we can do tonight is know that we need to try to communicate better about Act 46 and the budget. We gotta think about how we're gonna do that. I'll try to get some communication out there about Act 46 between now and October and our next meeting October 24th. And on October 24th, I'll have a kind of list of the different ways we've communicated in the past and maybe we can set priorities around what kind of information and in which of those methods do we wanna communicate it. I think I have such a list. I think yeah, I think you shared something with me. Send it to you and you can do with it what you want. Okay. So let's plan for a discussion on the 24th about how to. Can you send the list to all of us in as long as we don't reply all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, I can share some of that stuff ahead of time that I have to. But I will do my best to communicate out in a couple of ways between now and the next meeting about Act 46 and about the upcoming budgets. Budget discussions. So forward vision, value statement. Yep, 3.4 Berlin Board Vision Value Statement for Handbook. I'll leave your comments from last time. I took the comments that Corinne made by email and I drafted, redrafted this statement that's in the handbook. It's a little bit different from what you saw last time, but hopefully. Slightly, and the one thing that I was wondering is still says school productions. Do we have a school production? There is a drama club that happened last year that was. And so that's because it was school. It was an after school production. So I'm not sure. And I'm not sure if drama is happening again this year. I mean, if it is after school, then I think I should say after school. I mean, last year, it was two high school students. Three high school students have volunteered their time to do the rehearsals after school. And it was done also through the AD stipend. Right. And I'm not sure. I don't know what the plan is for that this year. Yeah, and we haven't talked in detail about what that looked like for the spring. I think there would be a hope to have something for kids to be able to experience drama. I would like to help make it more successful. I think it was some challenges last year with the staff and time and things like that in space. So those things I've been made aware of, perhaps ensuring that we have staff that can be present and consistent and to see it continue in that sense, then it's a good opportunity for kids. So commitment. Erin, did you have any comments or suggested changes for the handbook message? No. I would plan to just update Eric's stuff here and just indicate that there's a vacancy at the current time. Under the list, please send it to us in care of. A little word missing there. And I'm not sure where that extension to came from, but I think it should have been 0. Oh, all right. Good to know. Who knows where that'll send up. So I'll double check that there might be something I didn't know about. Usually the shortcuts are like, I'm 3, 0, 4. So I don't believe this extension is too. All right, could you let us know? It might have been an old phone system from way back. Yeah, I don't want to keep Erin though. Erin, is that still your extension? Yes. Good to check. Would you prefer they not have your direct extension? No, me? No, it's fine. Is that fine? Yeah. Excellent. All right, I'll just check on the extension. I'll make the changes to Eric's information here to indicate that there's a vacancy. Am I the only one that doesn't use my at u32.org email? I use both emails, and I'm trying to get better at using u32.org. I didn't think you'd use that one. I have it, and I check it, but I don't check it as well. Well, speaking of which, is there an issue with email? Because I was a little confused. So my problem was I was using besboard.org, which I think has gone away since we went to Gmail. So I was using an old board address. But there is an all, I can't remember what it is, but there is a. I think it's BRIN SB. So Berlin SB. I'm pretty sure that's what it is, ag32.org. ag32.org, OK. Pretty sure, because that's how we set them up. So there is an address, a group addressing hit everybody on the board, but I was using the wrong one. And then I think that puts Erin in it, too. He gets the same. Oh, OK, good. Board 1s go also to Bill Kibble and Erin. Excellent. I was just wondering if you're leaving out the O in mind, because it's not standard. I was also doing that. Yep. Figures that I'm the not standard one. That's right. All right. 3.5 is the Act 46 update. There was lots to be updated tonight. We had a very, very long discussion about Act 46. And I guess I would open up this time for further discussion about Act 46 in respect to the action agenda, action item that we have for 5.2 and whether or not to join the legal action. I wonder if there are any comments from our members of the public who would like to be heard here tonight. All part of the Bruin parent and coach. So I've been able to be part of an email group. So I know a little bit more about what the lawsuit entails. But there are some great points tonight. Matthew said, we are a board, speaking of the supervisor union board that doesn't sign on to things without knowing what they are, which is incorrect. Because we certainly not too long ago voted to sign on to an amicus brief about another issue that wasn't written yet. So in that case, he was incorrect about that statement about the board. But the points that were made that made sense to me were that probably we could wait. But I think giving a qualifying statement or a qualifying vote saying, if the AOE imposes a merger on us, we will join a lawsuit would make sense. At this point, they haven't denied our AGS, our Alternative Governance Structure, which keeps all those wonderful members in place helping and serving our kids and our communities and doesn't impose a decision on our communities as well. But if that happens, I think you could probably do a qualifying vote to say, yes, we will join the lawsuit against the Board of Education or the state if they deny our AGS. So that would be my suggestion, because they may look at it and realize that the debt issue is something that they are going to have difficulty when it's challenged constitutionally and the purchase of the school community property for whatever amount it is. You've been a big part of this for a long time. I think a lot of work into it. It seems like the debt issue has been an issue since day one. I think when we do that, it's going to be a big deal. And I'll just say that I'm frustrated that after all this time, we have no resolution on that. So it seems like an insurmountable problem with a lot of the way that it's written. I actually came up with a possible solution for that, too. But I don't know if it's legal, because I'm just brainstormed. But if the consolidation is imposed, then the newly formed district, the single district, could pay a yearly stipend to each town to regulate, give a regular amount, and maintain the current tax ratio per community. Which if right now East Montpelier, out of all of the budgets combined, pays a tax ratio of like 37%, Berlin probably pays 42%, then maintain that ratio by, we'll call it WCSU, giving a stipend to each community to make sure that their town tax rate decreases and an equal amount that their school tax rate went up because we're paying for East Montpelier's bond. So it's probably a complicated mathematical formula. But if it's a budget item for the new WCSU, and they say we're going to pay each town a stipend to maintain, maybe not tax rate, but tax amount, I don't know if it's legal, but it's doable. Isn't that one of the suggestions in the letter from the group that's promoting the lawsuit? No. Scenarios. And one of them was to equate local and school taxes so that taxpayers pay the same. OK. I don't recall exactly how they came about it. Any of those are just incredibly complicated. And I'm not sure that they address the question of bricks and mortar. I've looked at clearly the town of Rowan or the Rowan School District owns or any other account for that matter. That's another piece of the puzzle. But I think there are ways. And unfortunately, our time is compressed to come up with the best one. And do you think it's important that each town goes to an assessment or evaluation of assets and liability and debt? Which I think any of that information that we have now to me is so old, it's obsolete, and it's not current to date, as far as the actual value of the building itself in a way. See, I'm sorry. I was just going to say, I mean, the last time a town hall assessment was done was 2007, 2008. And again, that assessment is still very different from just having a regular outside appraiser. Well, as far as the value that's added to the newly formed imposed WCSU, it doesn't matter what the value of the building is, because if it's liquidated, then WCSU will get $1 back for that asset. But I think it does make a difference. If Calis is valued at $10,000 and grown at, I mean, prime location and it's none of this. I mean, there is a difference. Even in liquidating for a dollar, there's still a value that goes into that building. But the town, yeah, the communities won't get it by law. That's certainly wrong. No, they won't. But I think, I still think within the agreements that there needs to be something about the difference in the values of each property coming into this one property. It's not like when they built E32 and everybody put in to build this, our buildings are there, our land is there. I think Berlin's land is probably the most valuable out of the WCSU district. And I think we will lose a lot. Laurie, can you help me understand why in the estimates of tax rates for post-merger Calis, I can understand why Calis goes up. I can understand why Worcester goes up. I can understand why Eastmont failure goes down. Try to understand why Berlin goes up so much and why the actual rate goes down. A lot has to do with your equalized pupils. And the information that we had been sharing over the years was based on the voters approving the merger and there were huge tax savings and incentives. So a lot of the numbers that were concerning in the past may be different today because the old laws aren't in play anymore. For instance, it used to say, if you merged, your tax rate couldn't change by more than 5% up or down. Well, that doesn't apply anymore. And it used to say there were so much in savings that would go throughout the district. That doesn't happen anymore. So what we were talking about was coming up with what is the real tax impact and why is it that way for each town? Yeah, so I'm trying to understand it. Because the news isn't as horrible as it was. It used to be Calis was going to see a 27 tax increase. They're not feeling more. So it's roughly around 9%. As simple as saying, Calis is paying for Berlin and Middlesex and East Montpelier's debt. Because Middlesex actually has a little more debt than we do, yet their taxes are going down and ours are going up. It's a totally different formula. It's based on equalized bubbles. And you have a larger population and it's increasing. It's also based on your current budget. So if you're frugal and they're not, the cost per pupil is greater than yours. Then it's going to cause them bad savings. I think that's what I'm getting at as far as the Berlin's, let's say, values or the budgets that we've, the spending decisions we've made have probably been much more conservative than some of the other towns. But it's not just about that bond. It's also about what we're spending in our school budget. It's very beautiful. So we're going to take a pretty big hit by all estimates. It's about 6 cents. It was worse. OK. Honestly, with the formula change today that I was just quickly trying to pull together and Bill would like to present this for the group at large, I was comparing this year's budget as if we had merged this year. So a tax increase of 6 cents was in Berlin. And roughly 9 cents was Calis. Everyone else was going to go down. Even Doty, Worcester, the town of Worcester was going to be the savings because they're going to lose a small schools grant that they would have to pay for individually. And if that loss of $90,000 is spread throughout the district, the consideration of both Calis and Doty are going to lose small schools grants. But, Lori, even though you said it was going to be worse and it's only 6 cents, that's still 6 cents that people can't afford. I mean, whatever our taxes went up this year, there's a whole lot of people that just can't afford it. And whoever said in the WCSU meeting that where rates are going up, you might see people selling homes and all, I think that's true. I mean, if you can't afford it, your only option is, yeah. Well, this is on the primary residence rate. So again, you might be talking non-residential to or others. But for 6 cents, that's like $60 on $100,000 house. And if someone did qualify for the rebate, they would still get the rebate on the next. But it's still 6 cents. I understand that. It has been, though, I think at one point when we had the numbers. I understand. And we have to describe it to the voters and help them understand. So it's a piece of this whole puzzle that is a reality that we might have to face at some point. I don't know if I can speak for Chris, but I think we're just trying to get our heads around it. I think it's so in our faces right now that we decided to keep it under $3 million for our renovation. And they decided to spend a lot more than that. And now our tax rates are going up. They're just going down. It's a great idea. And I think we've also done a really good job of keeping our fund balance at 4% or even more great to have this current time. And either we spend like crazy, and they can go away. Which is not the rule-right thing to do. Or all that money that we have paid in doesn't stay ours. It goes into the thought for everybody, which, again, it's not right. Well, I don't think we should spend like crazy. But I think Eric said to me that was right as far as getting the tax rate. Yes. Well, I'm not trying to belittle the 6 cents. But to me, I was actually breathing. Because when this was $0.15 to $0.25 for some of our towns, I was holding my breath. That's 6 cents above what the increase will be for a level of service budget this year. That could be 12 cents, right? $0.15. And that's on equalized. Actually, it might not be as bad because you're over 100%. That assumes your common level of appraisals at 100%. So your town's at 102 or 3. So it'd be less than that on a local level? I only was asked on an equalized basis. So you're right. The spending for equalized people is a huge piece. And some of the towns are much worse. And that was a vote. Can I just make this point, too? That was a vote that we did last year, where a few of the formulas went and moved from what they were to equalized pupils. At the time, I was like, I know Berlin's going to take a hit on this, because we were getting double the equalized pupils. And at the time, I didn't know that Calis and Worcester had two kids in their preschool. So we're not only getting more equalized pupils, that those other towns actually had less coming in, as well. So that's the thing that really bothers me about Act 46 and has for the last three years or so is that so much time and energy is going into how to make it work, what's going to work, what's going to be the long-term thing, instead of looking at how do we grow the families who are in Berlin? How do we have more support around families in our community? I can just think of all these different things that there hasn't been time for because everybody is so busy with additional meetings or lengthy topic discussions here where you're just not able to get. We're doing what we're doing. Yeah. And that's why I'm here with Will about the Central Office. We roll around with stuff, you know, so they're not used to spending time on it because they're working for us. Exactly. And I just, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel because if we're not merging, first that means there's a whole lot of work, I think, innovating that. But if we are merging, then there's all the work on that. And there are, anyway, you look at it, fewer board members who need to deal with more than usual as far as you're going to have like 12 to start but then just 10, most likely, working on issues for all of the schools, including all of those subcommittees and stuff like that. And I just don't see it's going to be any easier to keep board members going a longer distance than we have been. I mean, we all know there's been a lot of turnover in Berlin in the last few years, and I don't see that changing if you're going to put more on them to do. You don't see it getting better, I see it getting worse. Yeah, and still not getting to those very things that I just said, I really think we need to be studying time on. And instead, we're going to be having to look at more information to make budget decisions on more schools and on mavens of schools and just all these different things. Just going to take a long time. I have a question for Carl. I thought I'd heard today somebody speak up about the Howard Union Unified District not being what they thought it was going to be expressed. Do you have any details on that? Just no cost. We're definitely going up and some of the smaller schools are feeling that they don't have an adequate voice and travel. And certainly, HRSA, I think they already came up with, and I'm going to get the figure wrong, but 13.1 million dollar bond for some sort of improvement that they're. So any cost savings might go out the window pretty quick with the 13 million dollar bond as a result. We've ever seen what the cost savings is going to be by emerging. I can't remember in any aspect what he said. It's not clear that there will be. It's all for cost savings. Right. And I mean, in all the time that's been spent in the last three years, I can't recall anybody being able to point to anything because even if the school did close, which I don't want to see happen, that you can't just take that out of the equation because then you're going to be adding busing students to places, more students in places where maybe you're going to have to have more teachers at other schools. I mean, it's not just a, you know, you could close a school and therefore save money. It's not that simple. No, it's not. I'm not mistaken. It's in the letter from the, I'm going to call it the lesson committee. I mean, a lot of daddy in statistics that you're saying that a few of any schools have realized the savings. Schools that haven't, which is sad to say, but that was store-worn. And that's those who receive the tax incentives as well. Haven't, still have not. But I think that's what some of the general public has been thinking that, well, the reason Act 46 is good is that there will be savings and that our taxes will go down. And right now we're all talking about how it's going to go up. Or sometimes it'll go down forever. At least in our town, yeah. I just want to maybe speak for the other side of the issue, knowing you're speaking to that. But beyond, I think a very quickly determined issue and promise in any financial savings out of this, because it's not clear that there will be any, but there will be arguably efficiency and increased educational opportunity in an emerged district. And I've always said that we've been on the path to doing that and we can do that outside of the merger, maybe not everything, and it's not all possible, but I do want to make sure that there are some efficiencies in emerging and perhaps some increased educational opportunities as well. I think WCSU is an example of that. I mean, for almost 50 years, we've been an emerged district. And we've made it work and it's saved over what would have been otherwise. We really should be an example of an emerged district as opposed to sitting on one of these different kind of emerged districts. And I think some of the uniquenesses in the elementary school should be celebrated. And we do, our schools are newer places and therefore have different opportunities. And that's okay, there are no schools that are exactly like in the state or in the country. I mean, they're all a little unique. I have a question and I was wondering maybe since Carl's here, if he might know the answer, what came up tonight, it made me unclear on how the legal cost would be paid. Does it have to be private citizens paying or can it be school funds? I don't know legally if you can use school funds to support the fee. You could be support the lawsuit and not automatically say we're gonna pay 22% of it if there are 100 towns or whatever, if there are 10 towns, you don't have to commit to. A lot of what I'm reading is that there are a lot of legal professionals willing to do this pro bono. Right, I just wanted to double check because McVay mentioned something about it and that made me wonder if it had to be when the gentleman was there offering to write a check. If that was the only way you could pay for it. I do not know the answer. So I just wanted to bring that up as you go to consider this to be answered. The question needs to be answered. I'm here, but I think opting in or out in whatever time doesn't bind us to anything before any cost is accrued to our local districts. Yeah, and I don't know the answer but for as much as work maybe pro bono, I'm sure there are still expenses that are involved. That's what needs to be paid. So I guess I just want to bring us back to the state of the world as we know it today. We've proposed as a supervisory union and alternative governance structure, we have said that we are not in favor of a merger and that's where it stands. That's with the state board of education that they're gonna make a decision any day now. No idea that they're moving forward. November 30th, yeah. And he said at that point we'll know the brands that are requests or are forcing merger. So there's really not a lot and we don't have any control over what the state board of education is going to do. But one thing we can do is send, this is my opinion, send a very clear message. And I do this with apologies to the administration. To Erin, I know a lot of people would love to have a clear direction and say, we're just, if we're told to merge, we're just gonna do it. I would love to have that clarity. But I don't think the timing is right to just fold up our tent and say we're not gonna fight it. I think we need to send a message so we can want them to approve our proposal and join the lawsuit since that message. Chris, I think that's a very interesting thought and I heard that mentioned during the earlier meeting and the question I have is how would that occur? A clear message from all the schools in our district or from the district or from, you know, how? Yeah, we saw a mixed message, I think, in the straw hole. Yes, absolutely. A clear message if we as a board decide. Well, I think the clear message suggestion was separate from the straw hole and what didn't involve joining the lawsuit was just you ought to send a clear message and I think that's true. And the question becomes, you know, how do we do that? Could we as a board send that message to the executive committee and say please, you know? I think that message would go to the subcommittee who's been working on communicating with the agency of education, which would be floor Scott. Mr. It would be a likely body to do that. I would think they would be the likely body, but I think I'm kind of stupid. I think they've already had their say at the state board and there's nothing, I think there's something that they're allowed to do. If you're saying that, meaning that if all the boards did that, that then a one message would go as opposed to there being various messages, maybe not from all. Because yes, I agree that a message should go into the lawsuit folks. I believe there was a deadline to let them know. I think that response should perhaps be, we are interested, we really need to find out more. I heard a mixed message on the deadline. I heard somebody say, the deadline is coming right up and I heard some of this change. There's no deadline to join. I think you can join at any point. My understanding is they were looking for, to have an idea of if we were going to join. A show of strength to the AOE as well, I think is what they were looking for. I think last time I read it was about 15 towns. That's the message I'm talking about is what is going tonight. And knowing that we could take work, that the patient doesn't decide against for some merger and we don't have to be part of the lawsuit. Even if they do for some merger, at some future point we decide it's not worth the fight anymore. We pulled out of that. But I don't think you stand up. You decide you're not going to fight tonight. I think tonight you stand up for a message to say you're willing to join. I'm going to leave tonight to join the lawsuit. That is what I'm suggesting. That would be a clear message. Is there further discussion on at 46 before we move through the rest of the agenda and then get into the action agenda? I'm sorry, we already did 5.2. The action including the appointing people, correct? Yes. Let me drop 5.2 once the motion has made more discussion can happen there. Yes, that's right. I think 4.1, 4.2 can be done. Okay, okay. Reports to the board. 4.1 administration and 4.2 fund. Okay. Good evening. You have my... I think I hope you have my board report. Okay. If you have any... I think it's in the board contract. Oh, that's right. If you have any questions let me know. I just wanted to mention a couple of things that are important. So one of the things that I'm doing on Tuesday October 3rd at 7 p.m. and Wednesday October 4th at 9 p.m. is a copy of the principal event. We added agenda item 5.5 to appoint a member to the articles committee and 5.6 appoint a member to the debt committee. Is there anyone who's interested in serving on those? I'll volunteer for one of them. No. Are you interested in me to be? I am nervous to volunteer. But I didn't normally want to volunteer for one or the other and I wouldn't really care except for negotiations are starting. So I'm not sure how much those would overlap and I don't want to miss either one of those meetings. So I can be a backup for one of these. But I don't think negotiations has a backup person now anymore. I think once you're in, you're in. Right. Yeah, that's what I thought. So I would always have to go to negotiations. Okay. But I'd be happy to be a backup for one of these. Yeah, I will. Yeah. Do you have a preference for either one? Either the articles or the debt? No. Rock paper scissors? Yeah. Are you more familiar with the articles at this point? Or art? I think I would, because I'm on the transition board, I'd like to get more familiar with the articles. You do articles and you do debt. All right. So I'll make the motion. Thank you. I'll make the motion to appoint Chris Winters to the subcommittee. On articles. On articles and appoint Pete Schulbert to the subcommittee on debt. I'll second that. Any further discussion? Those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And if you guys could make sure to let us know when those meetings are, if I can get to some, I might like to. Yeah. We'll try to vote on those. Yeah. 5.7. 5.7 is to appoint a third voting member to the supervisory union board. Eric Chase was a voting member. We've accepted his resignation. Corinne and I, are the other voting members? No. You weren't very, but changed. Looks like you can, because you want to be. Didn't the yellow cards go out to the ones who were voting members tonight? I think so, yes. Because I got a yellow card. I don't know why. I felt for sure it was Eric. I'm pretty sure I am. All right. You're a good one. You're a good one. I can go grab my book if you'd like. It's right on the internet. If you could, that would be great. I'm positive I am, because I voted on some stuff earlier this year. I hope I am. Oh no, she voted. Well, I think at one point during the year it changed. Yeah. It changed when you guys read. But I read came on in March. Right. And maybe he didn't want to do it anymore. Maybe. Well, hopefully it is you. We don't have to have a five and seven. So future agenda items, right? Yeah. So 6-0, there is no order. Just let me know. Because you already did it. We already did it. Okay. Thank you. Carla has been good about emailing you. So we can respond. Seven future agenda items. I have down a communications plan strategy, which I will give you a draft before the next meeting. Yep. Board member vacancy will hopefully be able to deal with that. If we have someone interested. And of course act 46 will always be on there. Forevermore. And well, maybe not forevermore. I think we could start a conversation too. And it doesn't necessarily need to be at our next meeting, but prioritization for budget. Budget prioritization. I think if we could get that out sooner or later, that would be an essential office. Like what we're thinking. It might save them presenting a first draft. Got your book, Bill? She's good. She's good. She's already there. We didn't need to fill in. Disregard item 5.7. So it would, then Chris Vera and I is what you're saying. We have voting members all along. I think it could change the morning. I think it could just change the morning. was a boy. Anything under board communication? Oh, any other future agenda items? Nothing, I think it right now. You guys have anything? I'm really excited. I didn't know what you guys talked about. I didn't bounce around. I do know you can see Ruby and I've been like three different places. You can watch the tape later. These nights are tough because they have a lot of catching up. Anything for board communication? We talked about earlier. I think we should do something for Act 46. So Bill, I want to coordinate with you and see if there's anything coming out of Central Office on Act 46 and what's happening and where we are. Dave will probably have it in the paper. I have a question for you, Bill. This is why you should come in and say any questions. Before we adjourn you might as well. The question is about the school start time committee and whether or not it will continue. I don't think it's going to be here right now. I think the intent of the committee was to reduce activity. Not spend your time or anyone's money at this point. But to continue a low key educational from the committee. I don't think Karen is really... I looked at Karen for that leadership. She's been one of our major people on that. I don't know what that means. If there is some intent, especially for the long term committee members, it would require reconstituting that committee, wouldn't it? It didn't get... It's really just kind of like a suspension. It didn't stop the committee so the committee could be called back. They actually didn't take anything to... No, no, it didn't terminate it. That was the intent. We have time to bring it back, bring it back, without having to re-appoint members. But in that letter or in something, it did say about continuing to get out some information. Right, to do that thing. When I talk to see Karen, I'll ask her about it. Anything else before we adjourn? Good job. Thank you all for being here this late. This was a long night for everybody. Thank you. So we're adjourned. Do we adjourn the motion? 948.