 a full forum here, so we're gonna start meeting at 6.05. The purpose of the meeting tonight, we have a fair amount of planning board work that needs to be done, as well as some board process clarifications, and some monitoring that needs to be taking place. It looks like we have a large number of folks that have come out, I'm assuming, for public comment. I just wanna remind folks that there will be another public forum next week, as well. The board does appreciate comments from the public, but we also have work that we need to do as a board, so we are welcome, we are happy to hear comments, but there is gonna be some monitoring of the amount of time that's taken up with the board meeting. So in the pause, I just got a message that the outer connection is not. I'll get to it. So while they're working on the tech issues, there are board meeting agendas over on the table over there, as well as a sign-in sheet. So if you haven't signed in, we just need to know who's in attendance at the meeting. Did they say they couldn't hear? You're gonna go squares up, but you're sure it sounds. We're gonna need to set it. Do you wanna pose to somebody on there? If they can hear us, maybe. Hey, this is Rachel. Yeah, that's what- Hey, Rachel. I can hear. Perfect, thank you, Rachel. You're hearing all right? Yeah. No. Now, usually- Yes. If we have a picture in the bottom corner, and you see things moving up there, it's on the other person's end, Rachel. Great. Okay, so before we start public comment, one of the things that we're trying to do is just make sure that we're clear about public comment at our board meetings. The board welcomes comments, but it is not able to take any action on them other than to direct the public to the appropriate staff member or to the complaint procedure. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Comments are to be addressed to me, the board chair, or the board as a whole, not to any individual on the board or on the staff or in the public. Please raise your hand and wait to speak until you are asked by the chair to speak. Please identify yourself with your first and last name in your town of residence. Please refrain from restating comments that have already been shared. You can express agreement with those comments that have already been shared. Order and decorum shall be observed by everyone. Shouting and profanity are prohibited. As the board chair, I will maintain the order and decorum of the meeting. Would someone like to comment? Please raise your hand. I've got one person online. Okay. Marlene, can you turn on your microphone? Can you hear me? Can hear you. Okay, good. This is gonna be later. Well, thank you to the whole board for taking public comment. This is to do with the general temperature of Randolph lately. So I just kind of wanted to put some stuff out there for your consideration. The Wabanaki Confederacy lived on this land before Western Europeans came. And in the early 1900s, the descendants of those Europeans still living in Vermont and across the country, to be honest, decided that those who were different or deficient in some way should not be allowed to reproduce. I came to this land because my ancestors believed that the United States would keep them safe from anti-Semitism and that they would be accepted for just being human. They weren't and I'm not to this day in many occasions. And although I've not experienced anti-Semitism in Randolph, thank goodness. I've heard the children of color have had to listen to their peers make jokes about them. I've heard about the mocking of foreign exchange students. I was told by a local parent that being transgender is a disease and that the education system is pushing it like a drug on all kids. I was told that saying Black Lives Matter is a political statement and not an acknowledgement of a fact that so many people seem to forget. And sadly, humans tend to fear difference even if it looks like them. Fear is the driver for all relational problems. And when any emotion is shared among a group that emotion is amplified, made worse, boundaries become meaningless and logic loses ground, giving way to primal responses. I'm sure you guys have heard down again in the news about what can happen when a stadium's favorite team wins a game and they wreak havoc on the town. Fear works in the same way. And in this case, the group may feel a need to attack, subjugate, segregate and sometimes eliminate what's causing that fear. I'm a parent. I am sorry, I live here in town and I have a child going to school at the high school. Sorry. When I was a teacher, I honored in Locoparentis by trying to treat every child as an individual and as if they were my own. And that included setting boundaries and upholding consequences. And as a mental health professional, I can say with 100% certainty that without understood boundaries and consequences, nobody does well. Nobody succeeds. And that's because nobody feels safe without boundaries. Not the students, not the staff and now not the community. And not ironically, the fear that causes to attack difference is caused by the same fear that occurs when boundaries and consequences are not consistently and firmly upheld. I am almost done. As a parent and as a mental health professional, I'm asking you, the members of the school board to take action to firmly halt the social and emotional battering that Randolph students and faculty are taking lately. Bullying isn't okay. Harassment isn't okay. Shouting the N-word in a hallway isn't okay. It's not okay that teachers or staff feel paralyzed by community threats. Students who are in any way different from the majority should never be made to feel. That's all I feel at this point. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. I'm Ann Wayne Townsend, resident of Randolph. For decades we have encouraged our youth to stand up when something is not right. Now I'm some disappointed to see Mr. Millington try to silence these young ladies and gaslighting them into thinking they're doing something wrong. I'm also tired of the division and chaos Mr. Millington is trying to cause within our communities. I think it would be in all of our best interest if Mr. Millington stepped down from his position and we hire someone willing to look at some of the things from all sides with the moral values of doing something right. I was some disgusted to learn someone brought me up as a candidate after I left for work last evening as I like to keep politics in these one-sided ideologies out of our schools as neither one has any place within our schools. Again, I must leave to go to work because some of us have to work to pay for this poor representation we've been getting. And I yield my time to Mr. Hellfatt if he needs it. I was going to speak today. I wasn't going to jump in right away, but if nobody else wants to speak. Okay. So I, yep, John Hellfatt on property in Westbrook Field in East Roxbury have three OSSD students. I want to first talk about Aidan Buchanan who no longer is an employee of the district, but that's not my concern. My concern is his hiring to begin with. So this is a man who has public posts that said he was going to set up sexuality workshops that targeted teenage boys. He has posts that indicate that he is a communist, that he is an anti-capitalist. Post that says, I can't remember it so I won't say it. Often hungry, easily confused, talking about sexuality. And I can't understand why for the life of me the board or the principals or the superintendent would have hired somebody to teach history that's a communist. No, we don't need communists teaching US history or social studies or whatever he was hired to teach in that respect. We also don't need to hire people who make public posts that they're gonna target teenage boys. That's not acceptable. And whoever hired him, whether it be the board, the superintendent or principals, quite honestly they should be fired for one of two reasons. They either did a horrible background check or they did an appropriate background check and knew exactly who they were hiring. And we don't need a history teacher who puts on his official Randolph Union High School introduction that they want students to come nerd out in the classroom about gay and trans issues. No, we hire a history teacher to teach history and that's it. If you want to hire him to teach an elective having to do with trans rights and homosexual rights, that's fine. And students who want to take that can take that but not US history. Secondly, I know that this board or this superintendent sick their bulldog, Pietro Lin, on a parent, harassed a parent by calling their employer and filing a complaint against them. That is disgusting. And every one of you should resign, he should resign. If he doesn't resign, you should not renew his contract. And if you don't resign, I'm gonna make it my mission in life to find people to run against you and get you off the board. Parents pay your salaries. Parents pay for that school system. You have no right to go after their income, none whatsoever. So since you went off after a parent's income, I'm gonna go after yours by trying to get you out of office, all of you. Chris Hurley, Braintree, Vermont. I'm addressing the board tonight as a part of a group of parents deeply concerned as to the direction this district is going. Media attention was put on this issue as a result of the total mishandling by the administration and the total lack of handling by the board. The so-called solution of completely shutting down the locker room has now pointed out the lack of oversight and foresight in this district. The student who alleges the harassment has stated to her mother, the coach overheard the remarks. Has she, the coach, been reprimanded for her mishandling in the situation? Why wasn't the coach in the locker room? This has never been driven by hate, rhetoric, or vitriol by the other side as has been accused. As evidenced last night, not one comment or incident could be pointed to where hate was the motivation, not one. This particular incident took place almost three weeks ago. The hacking of the website a few days later. As of today, there still has been no resolution to either issue. This is inconceivable. Meanwhile, an entire team is being denied access which they also have a right to while you, the board, stand by and do what? All these kids matter. All these kids have a right to feel safe and protected everywhere in their school. It is your responsibility to ensure that they do. The law states the student in question should be allowed in the girls locker room. It does not state that student should be allowed to sit and watch them undress. There are some girls who are not comfortable with that and rightfully so. They believe they are harassed. It is up to you to craft a solution. What are you doing to that end? This situation is not going away. We are no longer willing to allow you to use our children in your petri dish of social experimentations. We, the parents of the other students in the school are not going away. We intend to monitor everything from here on in. We will hold you to the letter of the law and every situation be at minutes, warnings of meetings, decisions on policy and the proper implementation and distribution of said policies and procedures. It is long past time for the school board to do its job. Grassroots grow green on both sides of the fence. Thank you. I'll just push the little hand button so that we know. I have a comment of a teacher at the Randolph Union High School that's been there for about 12 years. So I'm going to read a short statement that some of which we read last night and this is coming from, I'm also the president of the teachers union, so this is kind of coming from our whole executive board and then I've still got time, I've got a couple other thoughts that I might try to share. But, so as educators, our most fundamental professional principle is the right of every child to feel safe at school. And I think I'm hearing some agreement, I think with some of folks that have spoken. And this is important for a lot of reasons, but probably the most fundamental and germane of this body is that kids can't learn if they're worried about whether they're safe and that's their physical and their emotional safety. So that is deeply felt and deeply understood, I would say by everybody who works at our school and most everybody who works in schools, period. I think we have to recognize that the events of the past couple of weeks have deeply damaged that sense of security for many of our students. And I, as I said last night, as somebody who has a daughter, I have a lot of empathy for the concerns that I'm hearing expressed by a lot of parents of the safety of young women in schools. But I also have a lot of concerns and frankly right now, my concerns are much greater for the students who are part of our LGBT community and the children who have found themselves targeted by some really, really vile and threatening displays of hatred. And the effects of this have really reverberated throughout our school to the point where there aren't many students. I think we heard for those of you who were at the public forum last night, students articulated in no certain terms that they and friends of theirs are afraid. And I think Marnie spoke to some of the things that are going on as well. So I'm not saying this to point fingers, but just to point out that it's a problem, right? It's a problem if kids are afraid to use the locker room and it's a problem if kids are afraid to come to school. I wanna say to the students and adults, largely those who are part of the LGBT community who I think have extra reason to feel unsafe given what's gone down over the last couple of weeks, as well as folks who may not be part of that community but may have close ties to that community and who have been publicly misgendered and referred to in unkind and dehumanizing ways that we see you and we care about you and you are welcome and you deserve to feel safe when you come to work or when you come to school. And we know it doesn't feel that way right now. And there are many of us in this community and again, I think we saw this last night, we're deeply committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure that Randolph Union and all of the schools that are part of the Orange Southwest District are safe for every child. And I wanna say to the whole community, we make the same commitment to all of your kids, regardless of whether the things that might jeopardize their safety have to do with their gender identity or your family's religious or cultural background, the language that's spoken at school, the way that you worship or don't, how much money you have, the type of work, the lifestyle you have to lead, none of that matters. What matters is that every child has the right to feel safe. But we need to recognize, I'm almost done if that's okay, that we all have a collective responsibility because these are all, all of these kids are all of our kids. And I would just ask that whatever your take is on this particular incident, that we take very seriously the fact that there are numerous students who are feeling less safe than ever. And yeah, that, I think we just need to really look at all sides of this issue of safety. Thank you. Disagree, all of these kids are not all of your kids, they're all of your students. Okay, I have an eight-year-old, he's nine now, a last year eight-year-old boy in elementary school. And he had this girl in his class who wanted to be a day. And he, he went along with it and he preferred to them as they, because the teacher asked them to. And he mistakenly one day said, oh, she just ran in so many laps. And he had to apologize for using correct English. Who's an English teacher? They is plural, not this girl. They no longer, my kids, my two youngest, no longer go to Randolph, they go to Websterville. And they're a much better education it's just really, really, really sickening that school, you're here to teach our kids. You're not here to mold them for your satisfaction or whatever. I really like to see the world go back to math, science, history, not, I have nothing against indigenous people, but Christopher Columbus, that's part of history. Whether he was a great guy or not, I think that's up for debate, but. Okay. David? David? Yeah, thank you. I'm David White from Randolph. I have kids in both high school and the elementary school. And I just wanted to make a comment in general support of Lane and this board. I've been coming to the board meeting for years now. I've been coming to the community forums that the superintendent puts on, that the teachers put on, the principals put on. And I've been doing it for years and there's never more than two, three other families that show up. And so I think their focus has been on academics. I've heard a lot of very honest talk about test scores and what we're gonna do about improving those test scores. So until a hot button issue, like we're talking about tonight has come up, their focus has been on the academics and improving them. And it's the community's fault for not paying attention and the other parents fault for not paying more attention, but they have been very focused on academics. So I don't really understand the call for them to resign in any way. I appreciate their time and what they've been doing. As far as a transgender teacher being hired, we're talking about one teacher out of dozens of teachers. I find that very representative of the LGBTQ community. It's not like half or more of the teachers at the school are of a different gender identity. I think having one is a good idea to have a trusted adult for those students who are going through transgender identity changes or somebody that they wanna talk to. So I find that very supportive, not of a concern. There was an email out introducing all new teachers and I did read the comment about geeking out and I didn't take it as in somebody wanting to indoctrate anybody. I thought it was just being welcoming outside of the school classroom to be a trusted adult to those students to have somebody to go to and talk about those issues because they can be challenging. In no way did that comment indicate that they were gonna change their curriculum or teach something different about US history or the social studies. I think the fear is a little overwhelming and a little overdone here. I think we all need to take a step back and see we're all trying to do the right thing for our kids and have everybody be welcomed. As far as the locker room, again, I appreciate the initial response and wanting to make sure daughters are safe. But I felt like there's been a good response from communication that I've read that there's options. There's stalls, there's private bathrooms. I'm not as close to the issue as others but from what I've heard on the outside, it sounds like there are options and that is being addressed. So I just wanted to share my thoughts and thank you to the board for your support. With your time that you did. To the point being missed, that a history teacher wants to nerd out and gay and trans issues in the classroom, that is not why he is hired. I don't care if he's trans. He can be trans all he wants. He can be gay all he wants. I don't care. But it's about educating our kids. They're there to learn math, English, reading, writing, history, not other social issues. Again, if you wanna make that elective class and kids wanna participate in that and make it an elective class and have them participate. But in mainstream education, it doesn't belong. Avery McGill, I live in Randolph-Sanark. I would just like to point out that gay and trans people have been in the United States for a very long time. So that is part of US history. It is part of history in general. So covering that history can also help navigate today's world. Not lose also in being, I'm not sure who that is. Can you identify yourself in the town you're from and you go ahead and give us your comments? Sure, my name is... Sure. My name is Mary Beth Jones. I have a grandma in the school. I'd like to yield my time to John Hellfant, please. Did I see... Yes. My name is Travis Allen. I live in East Randolph or Randolph Center. My daughter is the one that brought this issue to light and she has not felt safe at the high school. And I can't really blame her for not feeling safe because in an incident earlier the year, during gym class, she had a hockey stick broken across her leg by another kid in her class. So I would think that the school would take proper recommendations on that because I can't discipline the kid. She ended up getting stitches on her leg because it left quite a mark. The kid didn't get anything, didn't get any punishment. Would that make you feel safe to go to school? She had someone in the locker room watching her that was the opposite sex. She didn't feel safe about it. So she reported it. Nothing happened. This kid has made death threats multiple times. They've been deemed low. I'm not sure where feeling safe comes into play there. I would also, Mr. Millington, can I address him? Is that okay? Or I can address you. Was there a budget surplus last year? There was. Just what I've been told, it's in the million dollar range. Listening to the forum last night, it sounded like nobody liked changing in the locker room. We heard from people from the past, graduates, alumni, students that are here. Nobody liked changing in the locker room in front of other people. So could we put that budget into use of putting in changing stalls because nobody wants to change in a single-stall bathroom? I mean, if people go to the bathroom in there, not everybody's good at hitting the toilet. Stuff goes on the floor. I don't want to set my clothes on the floor where somebody's urinated. Can we appropriate money so that we can have changing stalls in a locker room so that seven or eight people can change at a time and then meet in a common area? And it sounds simple to me. Of course, it sounds simple to me because it's my idea. Thank you for your time. Hello, Senator. As from what I've said, we have two elementary kids that have been taken out of school. I have two other children who has already gone through school and they were subjected to all this crap. So that's great. I have a son in Raven and I have a son in the Tech Center. My son that's in Raven gets picked on by a couple other boys all the time because they know he doesn't want to hear about all this gay stuff that's in schools now. So there's two boys who make sexual comments to him all the time. He's left school countless times because these boys are hitting on him to make him uncomfortable. So where do we go for support? Because there's a lot of support for the other side. So us parents who have children that are being harassed, where do they go for support? Where do we, us parents go for support? So what would happen in that case is your first thing that you do is you go to the teacher in the classroom and you let them know what's going on. And if you're not satisfied with that, then you can go up the next level to the principal that is the supervisor for that teacher. And if you're not satisfied with what happens at that level, you can then bring it to the superintendent. If you're not happy with the superintendent stealing with that, then you can bring it to the board. And our complaint procedure spells out how you would do that. So that needs to be a written complaint to the board, but the board is more than happy to take up things. If you've followed one of the things in the procedure is that you do need to follow that change. So you wanna first try and talk with the teacher and find out what's going on. That doesn't sound like it is appropriate. It's okay for us to direct them to the complaint procedure. That's the issue. And this clearly seems to be an issue where you're asking how do I address it? So it's through our complaint procedure. Sounds like I hear a noise from Sarah. Oh, Sarah, are you unmuted and ready to give your comment? I think I've mastered the technology for the moment. Awesome. Can you hear me? Yes, can you just tell us about town? I'm from Randolph. My kids grew up and went to school here quite some time ago. And I have worked in the community as a therapist for a long time, I'm now retired. But I think I wanna say one is that when I hear talk about grooming and indoctrination, I just wanna clarify that first of all, indoctrination is something that happens with ideas. I think I've heard from some people that they're scared that their kids will become trans or gay because they get indoctrinated. Trans and gay isn't an idea, it's a way of being. It's an internal thing. It's not something you can make happen. When I hear the term grooming, I get quite upset. I've done a lot of work with kids with child sexual abuse histories, I have some very painful experiences that is among myself and people I love. And to hear 14 year old girls talked about as if they are pedophiles or 14 year old boys talked about as if they are pedophiles is very disturbing. One of the things that happens is that it desensitizes people to some of that language like grooming and clout issues and makes it easier for real pedophiles to get away with what they do. So I want to ask that we all sort of think about some of that language. I could tell last night in the forum that there's a lot of misinformation that is perfectly innocent. Nobody's deliberately trying to have misinformation but I do wonder about helping the community get some learning about what trans is. And I learned a lot from some of the speakers last night about the gender is not nearly as straightforward as just a man or a woman scientifically and medically. I had another thought, oh, I mean was it, oh, dress, I'm getting old. I've lost the other thought that I had. Would there be something that anyone could do and I'm not just blaming the school, I mean I'd be happy to help with being on committees or talking to kids or whatever. Would there have been a way that we could have presented this by helping the girls who feel so unsafe having a transgender girl in the locker room because that comes from some kind of feeling that they're real feeling. And it may be based on misinformation. They refer to the transgender student as a man when in fact the transgender student is 14. So right there there's already some misunderstanding and some fear that's part of avoiding this culture that all males are predators and they aren't. There's some wonderful males including I'm sure in that room and one sitting in my room going on for a year. Okay, those are the main things I wanted to say. I'm Norris Atkinson, I'm the superintendent of the office. It seems to be that part of our rules here are that we can share our time. I'd like to give my time to Sarah, we're learning that we're both cut off for lack of their time. I'm sorry, I couldn't understand what he was saying. Am I being offered more time? Yes. I do need to take the concern seriously by girls who don't feel safe for whatever reason. It makes perfect sense to me that a trans student wouldn't feel safe in the locker room of either gender. And it does make sense to me that girls who feel awkward anyway are gonna have, this is an added factor, is would there be a way, and I'm not asking for an answer. This is a question for us to raise. What could we do to help the other girls understand what the risks are, what makes them feel so awkward? And if we try to do that, are we then gonna be accused of indoctrinating people? Which is, that belief about indoctrination, I think we need to do some work to defuse people's worries about that. Thank you. Actually, just, I'd like to paraphrase, but I really, I wanted to recommend I have nothing to do with this particular organization, but there's your- If you want them to tell their computer, I might be able to fix it for you to get on. You're unmuted, Sarah. Okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. There are nonprofits that will come to an SU and help the students, the teachers, and then the parents in the community sort of reframe how, I guess, social-emotional interaction. And I'm happy to share the one organization I found actually adored, and it's like $9,000 for an entire year of this service. And also, I volunteer as a, you know, as a mental health professional as well, to come in, and I have a huge background in the trans community, to come in and talk to the kids, parents, to teachers. I live around the corner. I'm happy, I'm at your service. So if you want that resource, I can send it in through Katie or into you guys directly. If you're interested in looking into it. So that's all I have to say. I'm gonna go out on the road field and I just want to say, as a parent of two boys in the school system, I obviously want them to learn math and science and reading and all those basic things, but it's also critically important to me that they learn much more as far as thinking, discussion, debate, being exposed to all kinds of ideas that are out in the world. And I just hope and expect and hold the board accountable to higher teachers that broaden their horizons. Thank you. Anybody else wants to talk? My name's Sam Hoover Brookfield. I just wanted to say thank you to the school board, playing officers for public forum last night. I found it very productive and I was happy about the civility of it. I would like to remind the community that we are talking about people's lives here and people need to be very careful about how they talk about this conversation regardless of your opinion on it, but that you are messing with people's lives and whether they feel safe or not. So please be strategic, please continue to educate yourselves and please do not throw fuel on the fire because we're in a weird spot right now as a community and it's kind of teeter-tottering on whether something significant will happen here or whether we come together as a group and move forward. And so those of you who are in the hot seats appreciate your service and thank you for navigating the system today. Harassment there as well. I'd just like to point that out. I have a question for the superintendent. How many single-occupant bathrooms are near the gyms? I understand that there would be one and then two more by the auditorium. Incorrect, somebody can correct me, but that's my understanding. And that is not nearly enough for an entire volleyball team to change in a quick amount of time. I would like to point out that 51 to 52% of the US population are women. About 0.5% are intersex people. So clearly the women need more ability to have space to change, use the facilities. If there's showers, I don't know if there's showers. They need more space because there's just more of them. Again, I propose that times of access should be created. I understand that access must be granted to trans students for the policy, for locker rooms. I made a very simple proposal. If practice starts at three, have the trans student occupy the area from 230 to 245. Have the biological girls occupy the area from 245 to three. Seems pretty simple to me. That's not discriminatory. It's just providing a lack of anxiety for all the students and safety for all the students. Just like I make a point that one of my children's advisories did tell them that there was more than two genders. So there is instruction going on from the school on this. And I'm not hearing much the other way that there are only two genders. Some of the intersex arguments are that there's a whole bunch of genders. And there are some abnormalities in the human genome. Sometimes there are what are known as triple X syndrome people and they are female. And they have female characteristics. There are also people with Kline filter syndrome who are XXY people and they have male characteristics. And most people go through life not even knowing that they have these syndromes. And those are people in American society who make up that 0.5%. They are Americans. They are protected by our constitution. They have all the rights that all of us have. And I agree with that. But I think it boils down to the sexual organs of a person and that people are uncomfortable, dressed changing or going to the bathroom in front of other people that are different than them in the sexual organs. And I think we need to make allowances for women to feel safe, young women in the school. If I have any time left, I yield it to Sarah. Okay, I just thought I would try. Move on to our agenda. So we have to do a little check. Okay, so hello everybody. Thank you for having me here again to discuss our CLNA that we did for the tech center as part of our quickens plan. The reason I'm here a second time is because the plan needed a little bit more work on the data end of things. So the files that you received in your email have all of that data in the section. But essentially the information that we discussed the last time is the same. I think the only thing that I didn't address a lot was probably the staff retention and recruitment piece. So at this point, I guess I would just like to open it up for questions regarding the changes. And I would like to say also that the regional advisory board has approved this second draft. Could you discuss what you've done so far to implement your retention strategies? Absolutely. So some of the things that we've been doing to work around having folks want to remain employed at RTCC is we have looked at providing them PD opportunities to work on their scope and sequence which I think is an integral part of feeling confident in their work. We've also created more transparency in the leadership by revamping our leadership team so that involves many more staff members for equal representation of staff and non-teaching staff. We've also refocused our attention on being student-centered versus adult-centered by revamping our MTSS team. We've also empowered our students to have more of a voice and ownership in the center through our student ambassador program. And then we're also trying to make bridges to our community and one of the examples is bringing our regional advisory board that just met prior to this into compliance where all schools are represented and our community is also represented. Tonight while I'm here, we actually have our, all of our teachers are meeting with their program advisory committees and so those are real good support systems for our staff. We also this year adjusted our master's schedule which I think has alleviated a lot of the pressure that I think we were feeling up until this year. That pressure was created by the consistent pullouts for academics. At this point, we have asked all of our students to attend math, to attend their English humanities and to attend science so that everybody's gone to those programs at the same time and that allows a couple of things to happen. One, the content can be more relative to the program and secondly, it allows the instructor and the academic instructors to collaborate and to make it more meaningful and relevant. So that's a couple of things. We've also, we're looking at negotiating language for RTCC which currently, if you came to our school having taught prior to this position, the years of experience would count as half of what you have served. So that's just a language blip that's been there for many, many years that just needs to be fixed up. And so I think staff feel like that is gonna be a good thing for not only recruitment but for retention. And then one of the things we've also done is we meet with our facilities crew by weekly which has really helped communication and to ensure that they know the goals and mission of our building and what means we might have. So those are just a few things we've done so far that I think have helped staff feel welcome. I think at this point, I'm just seeking if there's any other questions before I, I'm in need of a motion to accept the second draft of our CLNA document. So moved. Second from Chelsea. All those in favor? Would you say no? Yeah. All those in favor? Yes. Aye. Aye. Expo passed. Thank you. I appreciate your time everyone. Thank you, Felicia. Thank you. Let me know if you have any other questions on it. So next up, we have our ownership linkage subcommittee, Tacha, that we were trying to meet. Yeah, we have not met. Okay, so that subcommittee is going to meet between now and the next meeting. Okay. We are, if anyone is interested in joining that committee, we are now down one of the first, right? Will you remind the board who's on that committee? Myself, Hannah, and. And it was Scott. And it's Scott here. Okay. So. I'm talking about. So Meg may join us. You've noted that, Tacha? Okay. I don't think we vote. We need to vote on us. Do we vote on the subcommittee? Uh, yes we did. We voted on members and the. Megan joined the subcommittee for the ownership linkage. I second that. Okay. Any discussion on adding Megan to the ownership linkage? Is this Sarah the second? Yes. Yes. So all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Aye. That passed unanimously. And hopefully we will be meeting between now and our November meeting. So next up, we have the. Complaint procedure. So the last time when we were going over the documents that we had gotten together for. Orienting new board members and just. Clarifying for the board how we operate. There were some concerns with some of the language in our complaint procedure that we might want to change. So. And I believe Rachel, you had some things that you had seen. Um. That you thought maybe needed to be addressed in that. In that procedure. Yeah, I think my concern is that when people appeal to the board, it's not clear that what the board is just like, we're not. Re judging the whole situation. We are judging whether the. Administration has. Has acted arbitrarily or whether they have followed policy. That we've laid out for them. So if people are coming to us for a. For a. Like a fresh judgment on the situation. They would be disappointed by the process. So I think it needs to be clear that the process. What the process is that it's not. That we go through a whole nother investigation. Or. Rejudge the situation. Come up with anything specifically, but I think it's something worth talking about as a board. Um. Changing the wording so it's clear that we're what we are. What an appeal to the board. Is asking of the board. Yeah, so maybe in that little pre part says in the event an issue of concern arises that a complainant feels require some kind of official resolution. Should be taken. Maybe we work on some language that's a little bit clear. Is even that. Like I mean I think even in reading that it just looks like it this is for employees were. We've mentioned the police supervisor and the employee that mentioned you have to be enough to say like this is the process. For individuals within community members or. The majority of the internal staff have a process. Well, yeah, so that's how I'm actually surprised to read that on here because I'm assuming we're saying we're stating a complaint procedure for. Sounds like community members who feel like their concerns are not going to rest appropriately by the administration and this reads as if an employee has not had their as it hasn't been resolved by their supervisor. The next step is principal and the next superintendents. This needs to reflect who we're actually addressing this to. So what right would be our staff to form a committee to like go through it to go through this. Do we want to do we want to do that? Do we want to I mean I think if we are offering this up to the public as a way to address concerns it needs to reflect that are actually right actually right. So how do we want to work on this as a board? Do we want to have a committee doing it? Do we want to use board time to go through it as a group? How do we want to update or edit? I think that because all board members would be a part of the you know if it came to appeal we should all work on it together as a committee. I mean I'm assuming there's a very this is very easy but in the sense there's other districts I'm sure have a complaint procedure and it's probably a pretty like boiler plate like this these are the steps I don't think ours are any different or very very probably we've seen other districts I think it might just be worthwhile. I'm happy to do that just gather what other districts have of their complaint procedure to for us to be able to compare that but I just feel like this is something that we should have done in a relatively time to be in or if we're trying to also find this procedure. Right well right now these are all in our district at our different schools for people to think of so we would want to you know get it updated. Probably should have Pietro take a look at it just to make sure that it's you know that we're not saying something that we're doing something that and then it would it would cover schools it would cover you know parents students community members but it would also cover non-union staff. So there's not a current one. Well you could call it a mistake. Can we just replace employees with stakeholders in the short term. It's what we use with non-union staff. I think that's fine as long as we write in here somewhere you know like again I think a stakeholder is just that's the myth. Yeah clarify maybe that's all we'd like to do. About hereafter known as stakeholders. So where are you at the very two and three get the complaint involves an employee. The employee will have an opportunity to explain it and present the facts as she sees them. And remove that today. And then three. Yeah all of this first. I don't think individuals immediate supervisors so should we brought to the appropriate staff member or how would that be appropriate. Should we list like I don't know teacher advisor or because we have that it's like they're supposed to go to the teacher first then if that's they feel like that's not whoever they're having a complaint with. And then whoever's in charge of that. Yeah. That unit organization. My staff member. 90% of things are worked out. Usually people just kind of talk about it. So in what circumstance would supervisor not be appropriate. Because these are complaint this is a procedure for complaints about people in the district right. So. Well I think. So if there's a I mean I think in a different learning here it was. Concerned individuals immediate supervisor. And so that was not. Appropriate boarding there because it wouldn't if I'm a staff member. I might take it to my supervisor but if I'm a community member who am I taking it to. I'm taking it to a teacher. I'm taking it to the individual like the appropriate in question or whatever. I think then yes then after the complaint cannot be resolved by the employee supervisor. You know by the then it should be brought to the next supervisor makes it sound like this is only employee supervisor makes it sound like we're just this is just. So you want to make sure that it can also apply to if the complaint is against another student. That's what I'm trying to figure it out. Usually this is if there's a complaint against a person or a volunteer. Yeah. Yeah. I think the way they have it worded is probably. Because. I'm not trying to be argumentative I just who could a complaint be against that doesn't have an immediate supervisor. But maybe if we back up when we think about what are the types of complaints that you know that we might hear. We might hear a parent who's upset with something that a teacher has done or you know the teacher hasn't responded to their child in a certain way. So our first first thing we want them to do is go to the teacher which would be the individual concerned and then if the individual. So that would be the individual concerned and then the concerned individuals immediate supervisor would then be the principal or say your child was you know had a one on one para and there was a problem then they would the para's are usually supervised by the classroom teacher right. Special education teacher special educator. This bed director. You know just so that. People know. Again it's just sort of getting them to understand that they need to go through the you know if they can. And if they. Feel comfortable. That's the other pieces we you know I have had people say well I'm afraid to say something but. My response usually is. These are professionals. And you know. If you truly have a concern it's important to talk to them. But can you make an anonymous complaint. I mean someone should be able to do that. Yeah it's both. We have a system for students to be able to talk to parents. It's a little bit difficult especially through a union proceeding because if it works its way through the steps eventually at some point in time you have a right to present witnesses and confront your accuser. So that could make things probably bad. If usually what happens in those cases is we investigate and hopefully there's enough information in that anonymous report that you can check in with people that are on the periphery who are direct witnesses and sometimes there's enough information happening. But that might pose a problem that would be an ideal question. Right. But as an example of a workaround I guess you could call it with a Title IX complaint the Title IX coordinator can submit that complaint on behalf of someone if that person doesn't want their name on the complaint. If they get enough information but they have to also have enough information to be able to say that I'm filing this complaint because there's enough information to tell me that there's enough information because there's enough information to tell me that something may be going on. Right, because they've met with the complaint but they're keeping them anonymous and saying... But there is, again, it's potentially, again, it's a Pietro question in a grievance process it's spelled out in the CBA but there is usually a right for folks to... It's kind of like the appeals that we did I don't usually share my full investigation notes with anybody those are for me based on my decisions usually what people get is the findings but the reason in those appeals that you got the whole package just like the person asking for the appeal got is because how are they supposed to put on a case in their own offense if they don't have that information? It's very hard to do so there's some complexities there that PHO but it's a good question and I don't have the perfect answer for you I just have fragments and we got up track I just read this like three times and I guess as it says I think just reading it the first time it just sounded a little bit not as clear but now that I've read it a number of times I can see where how long this session should be I would just recommend it I think the biggest issue we have to grapple with is step 10 the decision to resolve the complaint which okay we're bringing it to an end because the decision of the board is final but there's an implication there that we're going to resolve the complaint I think that's where what I said is it's going to be the language there and reflect what the board is actually doing in this situation I think a decision on the process got it to us you're technically the court of last resort that's your quasi-judicial duty and so usually what you do is what's the process followed and the other question is where are the findings reasonable given the information so those are usually the two things you don't have to go and redo the entire thing but you should be able to confidently say those two things yeah it looks like the process was followed and yes a reasonable person based upon the information that they would have come to this situation or something similar so and Rachel correct me if I'm wrong but I think Rachel is suggesting that we make clear that that is the decision we're making and also if we find that if the board finds that it wasn't reasonable or that a process wasn't followed that the board would then initiate its own investigation I don't know what that meant or push it that's a question for PHO or push it back down and say hey you didn't do the procedure right do the procedure properly and review your findings again it depends upon what the case is but I should say not I feel like it's a very like that's what we're deciding not you know maybe would that be an addition to step nine where it says after reviewing any new information the board will review and discuss all the information relative to the complaint the board will be judging whether or not the process that was followed was reasonable and that the actions of the having had foreseen circumstances the board will make a decision to resolve the complaint the decision will consist of a review of whether or not proper procedures were followed and whether the findings were reasonable given the evidence at hand no I couldn't say it again me again but it's being recorded yeah so that so nine and ten nine and ten is where we need to maybe change the language a little bit did anybody write that down it's on tape do you know what your time stamp is right now 149 one hour 49 minutes perfect so it was about 10 seconds thank you okay right so so we can what we can do is maybe go back and fill in that language and then do we and we want to we want to just add that language in and get rid of this the board will make a decision to resolve the complaint correct no I think that's what we do we are resolving okay alright so we'll take we'll take a look at what we what we had said I can I can go back and do that once the video is posted I can also just talk with PHR about nine and ten and just explain to him that it's you know we're trying to be clear that what we're looking at is the reasonableness of the process and and the outcome for the and the decision that's been made the administration I just have a question about this is a procedure, not a policy if we change the language here does this need two readings like a policy does okay with me getting that wording down running it by PHR and then bringing it to the board at the next meeting does that sound alright do we have to vote to give you that power Ann? yes you should do that I moved that I moved that I moved that we give Ann Kaplan responsibility to talk to PHR on our behalf regarding the procedure for the wording on the procedure for a plate resolution we have to worry to talk with PHR about the complaint procedure wording all those in favor aye Rachel thank you very much and thank you again Rachel for bringing that to our attention I am I I'm still working with PHR on I was going to review and I'm not sure if I don't think necessarily included no I did not it was from our prior agenda the the way that we were going to handle emails I wanted to just run by him to make sure that we were not breaking open meeting law by having we had decided that I would respond to them but I would copy the board to make sure that everybody knew and saw that we've responded to people but I still haven't gotten clarification from him he's been pretty busy with everything that went on so I will when I talk to him about the complaint procedure we'll hammer that out hopefully be all set and everything that we have in that packet from the last meeting where it just sort of goes over the basics of how we're going to manage our meetings will be finalized and then if you remember that's all going to go into a little binder like this one and you will all have not only our policies but that information, the procedures in there you're going to meet me photocopying that and Chelsea and I have talked to me we would help you out if you feel like you would need some help if you send me what you want I can do it I have to get it all approved first before we include it because I don't want to put it in there until it's all been just look at the NTH row and make sure that it's good to go okay so next up the outline for the board officer duties and I didn't bring my computer and I didn't do you have them okay print it out yeah and I didn't print it out I thought I would bring my computer because it was running a little late getting out here so that will be included in that packet anyway because that's that basically Chelsea and I met we we went over it and we just added it into that procedures for the board but the one page and it just it's in the yeah remember we added it within the welcome page so remember in the beginning it says you know approximately how much time it takes to be on the board and then we outline the duties in there right underneath that part so I apologize I think I sent that out to everybody via email beforehand I believe but I didn't send it to get put in packet so we can just take a look at that again when we're looking at the whole thing which are you I guess what I'd like from the board is do you want to give me authority to make the final once Pietro looks at everything make the final okay this is good so that we can get it all put together so moved okay and second from okay all those in favor all right Rachel okay and you've all seen most of it these are just tiny little edits to what was there and we just added things like you have to go to an agenda meeting on Mondays and how much time that's going to take we didn't add anything surprising anything okay so next up we have the EL 2.1 2.2 these are we're just these are the new ones coming out the first review so so again when we think about even the situation that has happened the beginning of the school year we can look at this policy in light of that to just you know for reassurance about whether or not you know we have things in place and the interpretations that we're getting and the evidence that we're getting makes us feel confident that our superintendent is being accountable to us remember that these are looking at a past school year so won't necessarily include this year but we can always ask for an additional monitoring report if anybody has concerns is there anything you want to point out Lane as we look at these to review just the basics 2.1 treatment of students, parents, guardians and community is pretty much centered around seeking to ensure that the district is treating folks fairly by applying processes and its procedures that's usually how you ensure that folks are treated fairly you've got your handbook of rules that you follow and you apply them to everybody 2.2 is treatment of staff and that's really about ensuring that all job classifications are covered under rules that outline expectations and provide pathways to some preferences a little bit of hope about what you're responding to and remember there are binders for any confidential information that are used for evidence in the central office that you can go by and take a look at are you using any usually he'll mention in his evidence section there's two big folks but it mentions most of what's in there it wasn't included can I ask a very question that just kind of came to my mind here so this is because I think that this is the first year that we've had an assistant superintendent is there any monitoring the board like that can come into our purview in any way because we are not the drivers who supervise our business she's in a very inhuman way she is an operational tool to help us achieve our acts same thing with me that's a tool that the board uses to oversee that as a board and to monitor that so I just wanted to make sure there was no as an assistant superintendent we spend time especially this year we talk about the executive limitations reports and what they mean the discussions we had today in fact was about applying for grants and making sure that we have all the documentation we need in case we're podded and kind of where that falls under the EL reports and part of that is the succession planning as well good question alright so next we have Lane was going to make a few changes to his I think I highlighted in yellow for you thank you and that was there were only two there were three that were up for a vote two there were requested changes that were made but all three are there for the vote this time because that other one never got podded in are there any questions on these I think these were copied in color Lane they're kind of great you can see the grade yeah they were they would be on your electronic copy I looked at it a while ago it looked yeah so we need to have a motion to accept EL 2.0 2.8 and 2.9 motion Sarah is making a motion to accept 2.0, 2.8 and 2.9 do we have a second seconded by Megan any discussion regarding these EL policies all those in favor say aye hi Rachel next up we have a first review this looks like it is a state required policy is that correct Lane thank you yeah this is actually more than it's more than a state required this is one of the policies from our auditor it's not really required but they've cited that you know oh yes we want to make sure that we covered that just because it was there that's just about conflict of interest procuring making sure that we're doing things right in terms of what we're buying and purchasing a couple other changes that have other policies in the future so I need to click my head and remember which one this was just trying to follow through on the auditorium any questions any questions that means the email chain the policy I think this was Lane why did you include the email chain or maybe that wasn't with Heather with Heather she's the yeah where is it just before that you've got a maybe that was in there in Berkeley I'm going to see it oh that's documentation because you would ask for me to supply the date and proof that they had done the training so that's documenting Heather was the one that performed the training for Title IX folks so it's got the date in there okay thank you so that goes with one of the EL reports it's a good question alright then we've got first review this means we look it over and then we're going to do the second review next month so you can take a look at it does anybody have any questions now regarding this policy again it's coming from that our audit of last year and it was recommended by the auditor that we have a policy like this in place does this issue come off often which one? the conflict of interest no we follow our procedures but is it hard like I would think in such a small town like everyone's related to everybody working for everybody bidding on all the jobs and we're very careful again I think the biggest one that we've followed it's kind of above and beyond this it's one of the reasons when it's 40,000 we love now we go out to bid on everything but it's a great opportunity to be able to be this service provider for us we don't want nepotism we don't want it coming from this place other questions we have a board budget to decide on and we remember from the last meeting we need to make our budget for next year which is kind of hard because we haven't even made a plan for what we're going to be doing next year in terms of our specific board work or board training needs that we might want to have so it makes it a little bit hard in the past and I asked Lane for this information and he gave it to me so you guys spent about $15,000 in a normal year you had one year I think it was when Winton was here where you were going to be about $1,500 over so we just pulled that out usually I set aside $10,000 so usually you spent $3,000 that the year that Winton was here you spent about $10,000, $5,000 so some of it the decision would be around are you going to be doing more than normal if you plan on bringing in other trainings you're doing things more intensely and this is for not this year it's for next year so again we have $10,000 currently for this current year so if we budget it doesn't mean we have to spend it but if we don't budget then we don't have it and it seems to me that I mean I will say as the board chair and trying to move this board forward working with someone to help us with ownership linkage I would like to continue to push us to get the training to maybe bring in a facilitator to help us so that we feel confident in doing that so I would like to stay with $10,000 for next year just because it gives us a little it's not as if it's adding millions of dollars $25 million budget $10,000 I move to keep at $10,000 for the $2324 budget for governance by second so I would have a budget of $10,000 for the $2324 fiscal year what do we call it? Any discussion regarding that? I would just say that if you don't use it it goes into the surplus and the last couple of years I've been using the surplus it just goes back into subsidizing so people don't have to pay as much tax in bulk so there will be less money they have to pay the next year all those in favor say hi Rachel are you there? Hi Rachel alright so there you have our budget request next up Lane is going to just fill us in a little bit normally around this time we're beginning to get information on how we're doing toward our hands for the outcomes that we're looking for as a district and Lane has some information for us regarding that so and a couple of things I might go a little over it shouldn't be much more than 15 minutes it's planned but I think given some of the comments the last two days of the forums about the school not being performing I think it is important to share the data that we do have so that the community can see that in terms of the S to start off with the N's report for this year I wanted to make sure I got my notes so I had all the important points here but most of the interpretations in the N's reports require state data as a measure of progress the aggregated state data for 2021-22 remembering that N's look backwards they look at last year's data including the SBAC and Vermont science assessment is long overdue we do not have it from the state as of this time so it's very hard for me to make comparisons of how we're doing against the state if we don't have the state data trying to prepare the report we reached out to the AOE to get an expected release date now following that email about potentially we'll be able to get the SBAC data out in November on October 5 Secretary French announced for the first time and with very little foreshadowing to the districts across the state that it was doing away with the SBAC and the Vermont science exam there were some rumblings about things they were looking at it looked like they might be doing that but nobody ever really talked about the fact and replacing them with an assessment from Cognia they intend to implement Cognia this spring using a new system that no one has seen or used or been trained on so it looks like we're going to have our work cut out for us trying to get this in place by April and up and running and having the kids take the test with that testing aside from the disruptions in the new system and what it's going to cause the districts across the state there is an impact because it's yet another change in my time here about five years the AOE has changed from the NECAP to the SBAC it changed the science testing to the Vermont science assessment and then it changed the grades in which the assessments are administered and now we're replacing the SBAC and Vermont science assessment with Cognia not to mention the fact that stated testing data and information from the state in some cases it's years behind we're responding to things they want us to do in special education from data that is two to three years old so it's not a really good system and the problem is for the systems to be useful they need to be in place for long periods of time so that we can track trends unless you get three years of what's happening in terms of student growth you don't know what's happening and we have not had a three year period where they have not changed around the data points that we can use so it makes that comparison very very difficult to combat this as well as part of the curriculum initiative that we've been working on in the district we've really invested in a pretty robust assessment system within the district we've talked about track and progress in terms of assessments and all those things those exist because they serve as SBAC and Vermont Science Assessment they give us the same data but they give us data that's in much more detail that the teachers can actually use and dig into in real time and say hey we taught these three lessons last week the testing is showing us that the kids got these three standards and they don't understand this one so we need to go back and fix that right now and so since those measures are here and in place as the teachers are working in their curriculum teams for every one of the board's ends that has been working this year they are taking a look at the interpretations and the rationales based upon the board's ends and they are adjusting them to take into account the efficiencies that we've had in the state testing system and so everything that you see the next time you get an ends report all those interpretations for the most part are going to change doesn't mean that some might not latch on to Cognia but most of them have other ideas using the systems that we have within the school what I want to do I'm going to apologize to the folks that are online because I don't have a way of actually showing the little presentation that I'm going to show about the data but if you listen I'm going to describe it in explicitly graphic detail and I'll be happy to share this slide so we'll talk about a few things again this should only take a couple of minutes but I think it's time to put a couple of things to bed since we don't have what we need from the state to prepare the ends report I think it's really important like we were talking about to show the community the district's performance with the information that we currently have and some of it just came off the presses from our own internal data like yesterday so I scrambled around about two hours before this meeting trying to put this together so I apologize if it's a little choppy but I think presenting the data is important at this point in time because our teachers have done an amazing job especially over COVID to not only ensure the students were able to continue learning but during the time of COVID they actually improved their achievement levels and that's a huge ask and it's a huge lift and so I'm just making sure that some of the comments from the small groups and the crowds the last couple of days that sit in schools are not performing that well don't destroy that morale because their morale is high about this work now to understand things for the last couple of years we have to talk about what's called the RAS anomaly we'll look at English and then we'll look at math and then we'll look at the district as a whole in looking at the performance in these graphs here it's important to understand what the graphs are telling you each chart shows the percentage of students who met the proficiency threshold set by the state the first slide that you're looking at shows that in 2019 53% of the students at RAS the chief proficiency are higher in English which was above the state average it's also important to remember what was happening each of these years 2019 was the last kind of normal year prior to COVID in 2020 there was no testing because COVID hit in March that year and schools weren't remote in 2021 most of the year right up until the last couple of months and then 2022 last year which we do have some data we were able to pull together for this year was in person that 2022 but it was constantly disrupted that was last year right we were shutting schools down periodically depending upon how many staff were out sick with COVID and whatnot and I'm using RAS for these two slides because something really odd happened just at this school in 2021 scores dropped dramatically at RAS in both ELA and math while Braintree and Brookfield scores jumped by 5 points each that same year and at the same time the high school saw a 10 percentage point gain in both ELA and math because this drop doesn't make any sense that 2021 I called the anomaly the most likely cause is the students in fact just didn't take the testing seriously that year which is understandable given what was happening in the world unfortunately because RAS is a larger school these scores in 2021 dragged down the entire district's performance that when they were averaged in so it's important to recognize kind of the background you see even bigger drop that year in mathematics at RAS right it was a 40 percent point drop over one year so in 2022 you see it though regaining everything it lost and then more one year later they've not only bounced back but they're higher than they ever were and so again it's quirky why that happened based on the data they just didn't take the testing seriously the state testing which was a culture in this district for a long time so that may have come out of the frustrations over the course of that year so questions before I move into the that's more important this is SBAC data that you've managed this is SBAC data we do have individual student data from the state so we've been trying to compile that but we don't have data aggregated by school we don't have data really aggregated by the state at the state level so that 22 number is a guest in that we took every student in RES we put it in a spreadsheet we did our averaging which was incredibly time consuming you did your own aggregating I have a quick question sure what you're assuming for the for the drop I understand that but why would the same apply to the other schools more seriousness about the testing the idea especially when I started in the district way back when it was just testing was not important that's what was said about it the testing isn't valid it's not important when I talked with the faculty my first year here they literally said it's never been a priority that's not what we focus on and that's not what we worry about so part of my work in the work of the cabinet for the first couple of years here has been trying to change that attitude but what's interesting is Track My Progress was running at the same time during these years and Track My Progress correlates pretty closely to have the students perform on the SBAC and the Track My Progress scores at RES were high they were down a little bit from 2019 about 5 percentage points but they were high you would expect a little drop that year that was a horrible year so my guess is not to the SBAC they were tired in the old culture it was not unusual for the teachers to say oh you're taking an AP exam just blow off the SBAC that was the norm and so only at RES but again so I'm talking about past culture and how it might have influenced what they did here one of the reasons we think the kids didn't take it seriously was because we can also go in and we can see how much time they took taking the test if you got a 2 hour test and I'm not exaggerating the numbers and 56 of the kids spent 10 minutes or less on it tells you an awful lot and so then you got a question what were the Proctors doing one of the things that were working on but anyway I wanted to I think that little drop that year is important and again the gain that came back after it is also indicative is that there was a quirk with the testing had that really been a 40% drop that you would not have recovered that much so districts overall performance in English so this is looking at every kid in the district as a whole and you can see that even with the drag caused by the RES anomaly the drop was only 1% in 2021 this scale is a little off because the numbers are fairly close together in fact without the anomaly that year the district would have actually shown a pretty big gain in 2022 the district as a whole has increased markedly despite 2.5 years of remote and hybrid instruction and the disruptions caused by having to shut schools down in classrooms as the virus continuously circulated throughout our population the work causing these gains not only continues but will accelerate this year due to the lessening impact of COVID and an assistant superintendent to share in leading this work and the structures that we have put into place in the last three years to accomplish it so even coming out of coded 2019 you got the drop a lot of that driven by like the RES impact but even in 2021 in the middle of COVID and the ugliest portion of that whole pandemic we still had almost 47% of the kids hitting proficiency we come back to 2022 a year later and they got a 3-4 point jump there right off the bat and again last year this from was not a pretty year because we were constantly closing down classes and schools and whatnot so the work that has been instituted is having an impact we were also having gains the district was kind of at a low in 2017 2019 if it started up high and for years it was kind of declining and then prior to COVID the scores were going up slowly and then COVID hit and this is what the last three years look like so that's district in English district in math district's overall performance in mathematics this is actually a harder discipline to maintain during the disruption because of the way the skills and knowledge builds on itself plus the fact if you're looking at the elementary kids a lot of them have to use physical manipulatives to understand the ideas which is really hard to do when you're sitting at home and trying to have somebody on the computer talking through it but even given that to see what happened there was a bit of a drop the RES anomaly struck they were at 36% for hitting proficiency went down to about 29% but the year following they jumped back and they're higher than they were right 40% and this is the district as a whole so let's look at it every kid across the district and now district-wide science the Vermont Science Assessment is administered in grades 5, 8, and 11 and of course it's going away only had been in existence for about two years where they actually collected and shared the data the work we began in 2020 reimagining the elementary science program along with the creation of the STEM program at RUHS has been paying dividends the district has seen a 7% point gain between the two administrations of the Vermont Science Assessment so far and this is going to be updated in 2022 by comparison this we did have some data that we can figure out we beat the state average in 2022 by 5% so there has been some significant work that the teachers have been engaged in or not where we want to be but things are on the upswing and they did some incredible work despite the most difficult of conditions now got some two more little slides here that I think are going to be important and they're going to tell a huge tip and I'll walk up there and I'll actually state the reason stuff for you so that this makes sense so this is our track my progress this just came off the presses like I said a day ago because they are doing the fall assessments using this tool the high school is using star 360 solution coming out shortly I'll be able to share these with you but one of the things as part of the curriculum work that we've done is we've really built this robust assessment system right we talked about it helps teachers track student performance over time and it helps them identify areas of weakness in terms of student learning so they can address those deficiencies right then and there we test each fall winter and spring we track my progress and start at 360 and the data from these assessments is more valid than the state testing because like I said our district had a long culture of not taking state testing seriously the kids take these tests seriously and they are the approval of RS backer or maintenance assessment um the data that you are seeing here is for elementary math like I said it just came out so what you see is the data represents the percentage of students who achieve proficiency were higher if we go back to 2018 before COVID in mathematics 40 to 46% of the students in grades one for six were hitting the proficiency threshold as of the end of last year through the COVID pandemic 77 to 79% of students are hitting the proficiency threshold so it's almost doubled just as importantly and this one is a pretty impressive number in 2018 only 1 to 3% of the students were crossing the exceeds threshold which is the highest score they can get last year 46 to 49% of the students are falling into the highest score category all this improvement happened during the disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic imagine what would have happened if we hadn't had the pandemic to interfere with the work that we've been engaged in here is ELA represents English grades one to six the data you see represents the percentage again of students who achieve proficiency were higher if we go back to 2018 65 to 38% of students in grades one to six were hitting the proficiency benchmark as of the end of last year 67 to 70% are hitting that proficiency threshold more importantly in 2018 only 4% of the students were crossing the exceeds threshold the highest score which is the highest score last year 36 to 41% of the students were falling into that so I think it's really important that we stop a lot of the nonsense that we're hearing about you need to be focusing on the academics we are and we haven't been it's taken years to get the structures that we need in place to actually do this work we've got them and they are working we need to give them time to work and things were improving even before we had these structures the good works that people should be aware about that the district has put in place in the last four or five years is right we expanded the preschool program we can now provide full day free preschool to all four year old students we are essentially providing every student in this district with an entire extra year of education than they would otherwise have and we're doing it at a critical time of their development and we're doing a program for three year olds that's what Pat Miller has been charged with this year who is doing an exceptional job at that why are the science scores going up well besides the fact that we had an expert come in and help them develop a full science curriculum that they are implementing and providing them the resources and the tools to do that we've also created a $500,000 plus K to 12 stem program and we're trying to evolve that to a full stem academy that should be a draw for other students to come in from other schools the district through the budget process has also created a full fledged curriculum team something it never had to drive the academic achievement across every area of the board's end 90% of this year's professional development time has been led by myself and by Heather and that's where we're going to continue to dedicate our work we also implemented over the last couple of years that robust system of assessments to really provide feedback to the teachers, to modern kids and how they're doing it in addition to all that we have revamped the service delivery model for special education that also includes for the first time a dedicated professional development program that is designed just for the special educators to really have the most impact on the students that are most in need we've talked about this during the budget years we have a very full full summits probably the better word support system for all students we've brought in the mental health and behavioral interventionists we've expanded after school programming across all three schools there is now an academic component that is going into that after school programming we've provided summer programming for the first time last year to try to help the kids get caught up and do that every year that also included us busing the students back and forth to take advantage of it and that has both an academic component for about half the time that they're with us and a social development component and that is K212 we also are revamping our tiered academic support system within the district to make sure that all the kids that need help are getting the help that they need we're also expanding and been talking about this a lot over the last two years to connect with our high achievers we're talking about expanding the events placement program and we've got a new team that Heather is is leading where we're looking at entering into the international baccalaureate which is one of the most impressive programs out there for a school to be connected with and involved with that would lead to diploma and IB for the students graduating so there is a tremendous work that is going on and I need to say this a bunch of times do not demoralize my teacher by telling us that things are not going well that's not directed at you that's directed out there my presentation happy to answer any questions so my question would be how do we get that information out like over and over and over because it is impressive well if we can get our website back out it's the first part but one of the things and this is a piece that Heather picked up which I think is awesome is she's been working with and training the cabinet members on the newsletters and brought in a program that is specifically designed to create those and that's a part of the PR work one of the parts we are also we'll talk about it tonight because you're going to get a request for funds a little bit later on and a part of that vision is we need to have people within the district that are PR experts that are going out taking pictures of this stuff and people that have some writing skills to write stories about it so that we can get this out not just in our newsletters and on our website front porch forum and get it out to the press so that people are aware of it and yes that is the biggest efficiency right now is our ability to communicate exactly I mean I think in the interim it's all pieces your emails that you send out I think people are reading them right now I've got to learn the new newsletter software which will take a little bit of time their old hats had it's going to take a little time to do that but it's a beautiful program but again remember in this district this work the focus has changed there was a different focus in the past and the community the focus has changed and so a lot of this is being built from scratch so it takes a little bit of time and then once you get it built it takes some time to just let it do its work you get the stuff that is designed well you just keep letting it do its thing and the good that it does spreads from there when it takes some time and these are a lot of big chunks and pieces most of what we talked about especially in terms of those good works that's a full time job for one or two people and remember for a number of years it was just me and so there was a lot of work a lot of work that was done it was awesome work but I feel energized this year to have a team around me to be able to help accomplish this a team that has incredibly good ideas and a lot of energy and it really is it's been a good time any other questions so are the newsletters going to put out some of this information through the newsletters so that may be coming soon one of the things that we've been struggling a little bit with plus they're setting up needs to go out on a regular time basis some of the stuff that they've been putting out already has been incredible and I see coming through the schools especially because there's activities each time that even I'm not aware of and so it's just it's kind of exciting to see that but one of the difficulties that we're having is we built into the budget last year was revamping the website and also bringing in another tech person they're understaffed that we need somebody who can manage the website and house but we're trying to find that very special person you're not just managing the website but you're our PR professional and we need you to help us get those stories and get that work and so that's been posted for summer start and we still haven't found the right person they will come let's just take a look sounds like there's a hands up there's a hands up but I don't know if I'm allowed to talk at this part of the meeting I don't know how this works I don't know if I'm allowed to talk that's why I looked at the chair earlier when they asked me a question we're going to have an action I guess I can ask the board if we're open to hearing a minute or two of comments it's kind of a suggestion it's kind of a suggestion so we will we will stick to it with our procedures sir email me I will yeah I will say though I'm impressed here the stuff it's very reassuring and I also don't know how you guys keep track of all the numbers and stuff that's all I'm going to say right now I want to say that I do notice in my own students that her focus is now more serious and I think that it takes their education more seriously the test scores are found the only difference when I talk about this the only difference between Randolph and Belmont when I was there Belmont was 74 or 75th in the nation with 26,000 patients is the value that the families and the students based on their education they had the same problems they had the same travails I had 40% of the students that were there that were free and reduced lunch because the next town over was Cambridge we had a lot of tough kids that came over to Cambridge but the reason that they excelled so well was exactly what Johnson hit them you have to believe that it's important and a lot of the work that we're doing the reason that we're focusing so hard on the academic piece and leaving all the other stuff behind that we used to do is because it's to develop that focus if the teachers are walking in and that's what they're talking about when the kids pick that up and the kids start to realize hey, they got some urgency about this and this has got to be something that I got into I think that's where our ownership language plan will come in as well because getting the community engaged leads out so just one other thing that I really appreciate is having the students GPA listed at the top of their report card that's important even though for a while it was proficiency based and it was confusing I think having that number so that everyone can see it students, parents advisors, everybody it sort of brings it all together for that focus I mean you did I had many but they're all for now but I appreciate from the perspective for sure okay so moving on Lane we had update on team interpretations that was sort of included in this presentation right? that was the discussion about the fact that the curriculum teams themselves because a part of getting them invested and involved in the work if I do it the interpretation, yeah it has meaning but it's not really connecting them the vision is that they are doing the interpretation based upon the ends they're creating the assessment tools that they're going to use to show progress toward it they are going to explain the rationale behind what they chose, what it is so folks can see that it's reasonable and fits into the best practice but they're also the ones that are going to be collecting the data to inform the instruction and they're going to be presenting the data each year and then I'll use that to present to you and that's how it should be as they're working on these things when they're encountering difficulties that's when they can come to me because this is how a budget is supposed to be developed and say hey you want us to achieve these things we worked on it and our best and our best estimate these areas where we're struggling if you give us X, Y and Z we're going to get it out of the park or we don't understand why the kids aren't performing well here we need some professional development and so the two things that should be coming from this work and why they have to be involved is they need to tell me what they need in the budget because they're the ones doing the work with kids it's going to get us there and they need to tell me what professional development they need to be successful with shouldn't be me telling them what they need they need to tell me can you imagine that has had a little bit of an impact on the route they seem at least for what the cabinet is reporting to me and I spent some time talking a little bit about N's interpretations with the math department yesterday did a little PD training with them they are quite happy with the new focus and that was the goal of this year we want it to feel different trauma, we've done the work either you're implementing it now it's going to be a helpful break if not the reality is is that nothing is going to make the kid feel more self-efficacious and valuable to the world then to know that when they walk into a classroom every day the challenging things we ask them to do they can do if they're walking into a classroom every day because they miss skills along the way and they don't have them when we're asking them to do challenging things you're going to have some broken kids so some of the climate piece may be just that more than the trauma because there is trauma but if you're walking into a classroom every day and you don't feel capable and confident that's a problem and that's what we want to fix kind of where we're at and the things we're talking about sorry for all the time but I'm passionate about it does feel very good and I think as we work together with our ownership linkage sort of making sure that we're aware of where things are going so we can share that with the public and make sure we're on target it's going to be important okay next up we have our board monitoring so that is taking a look at our own board governance policies and evaluating them in terms of how we're doing so this time around we were looking at 4.7 I lined it up with a budget because we were talking about the budget I figured here we can at least have it coordinated in this policy hopefully everyone was able to take a look at it and I remember last time did we just sort of go through each section and kind of share how we rated ourselves so I can lead off so because poor governance costs more than learning to govern well the board will invest its governance capacity I felt like yes we have been doing that we in the summer of 21 we did the policy governance training with Susan Mogensen in the spring of 22 we did another policy governance training with Jackie Wilson and I'm imagining as we work with ownership linkage we may be using some more training with Jackie on how to do that with the graduate process so that was my assessment anyone see things in there where we were like wait a minute okay the next section is appropriating funds and I said yes and we kind of went over that we've been appropriating funds we haven't necessarily been spending all but we we've done that the next section is about training and retraining will be used to orient new board members and candidates for membership as well as to maintain and increase existing member skills and I was thinking we've done a good job this year at sort of taking a look at that with looking at kind of focusing on how we're running our meetings making sure everybody is up to speed with sort of how things work anybody have anything else that they understood? and then the next section of that one was outside monitoring we do do the auditors report so I kind of said we were like 50-50 I think some of as we're continuing to kind of get our feet under us in terms of what we're doing I mean maybe we'll look at other ways although then I was thinking in a way the the outside testing is sort of an outside monitoring although we don't have an outsider from the state come in and speak to us about those tests testing like school testing? yeah, like the SPS because it says in here outside monitoring assistants will be arranged so the board can exercise confident control over organizational performance this includes but is not limited to financial audits so I don't always for that because I do feel like we get the state data even though we don't get it on time and that's an outside well that's what later I was like 50-50 and then I was like wait a minute we actually do and I always do the financial audit so and then this number three is the one we're working on so outreach mechanisms will be used as needed to ensure the board's ability to listen to owner viewpoints and values so so I do feel like when we have these forms I always feel like we've never done that in the past but we're doing it now yeah I mean so far I think we've only had two or three but that is the way I feel when I go through the list I don't think we did that at all last year but I know we've been talking about it a lot this year right right so I said not yet but we're working on it and so that's that's pretty good and then number two costs will be prudently incurred though not at the expense of development and maintenance of superior capability um we haven't exceeded our budget I mean that would be possibly always we discuss before making any decisions versus you know spending on our budget we should discuss that and when we were having trouble scheduling something we were trying to make responsible decisions about what kind of return we'd get for the cost right uh so I think we've been right on with that and then the board will establish its cost of governance budget for the next fiscal year when budget parameters are established we did that today so we're on with that so then we need to sort of look at which areas were rated as some of the time are rarely number three is staring right at us um and we're working on it again I think it's just putting front and center that need for us to work with getting out to the community checking in with the community getting feedback from the community in terms of you know sharing what we're focusing what we're pushing Lane to do um I do just want to as a board we're very um diligent to make sure that we promote the use of public comment at our board meetings that's true so I do want to recognize that we do encourage people to attend our meetings and comment during appropriate times during public comment or although I would say that one of the things that I think we need to think about and work as a board is we need to put some effort into reaching out to the community because relying on just people coming for public comment is not always it's not always getting what we need to really be able to do our jobs and to keep us focused and moving forward in the direction that we feel the community wants the district to go I'm not a couple raised hands on this oh wait Rachel okay Rachel hey I just have a logistical thing I might leave my connections and I see that later on the agenda there's an executive session so I will if I lose my connection I'll log back in as soon as I can but if I'm not in and you go into the executive session if you could open that I sent a link out a little while I know if that's helpful but if I'm not lost my connection and you go into the executive session you're like oh she's not here let's not bother with this link if you could bother with the link that would be great talking about getting out to the community and being accessible to them I don't know when the right time to talk about this is but it seems like we could make some sort of an outreach plan honestly taking that data and standing there handing it out to parents at some sort of game or something and being like look I'm on the school board here's what's happening right now do you have any questions for me I mean it opens it opens it up for like what's appropriate to talk about and you might have to say I can't actually voice my opinion for the whole school board you know but let's have a conversation about it and it makes it accessible and it makes people feel like they're being heard and I don't know I don't think we do that we don't have a lot of time I don't know what the right answer is I do share these open forums too coming at like a grassroots level and being accessible to the public is like one way to do that that's what our committee is going to be doing is working on that ownership and linkage how do we do that yeah make a plan I'm willing to do maybe you want to be on the committee too no but I'm willing to do you can tell us how you really feel well and if you have ideas and you're not on the committee you know you can send them to one of us on the committee and we can work with you so I mean again and I'm hearing pretty loudly select one area of this policy for improvement over the next year ownership linkage I don't think we disagree at all that might be a good idea and I think we can all sort of commit to we're going to create that ownership linkage plan we're going to follow it get out there and start you know getting information and soliciting information from the community so I think by next July we should be able to assess how did we do with our ownership linkage plan because by July this year will be over and we'll be looking to the next year to figure out okay what is our plan for this coming year to oh yes yes no no by July we're going to be assessing how well we did how well it functioned yes so alright so next up we have I sent you all information about the BSB annual business meeting it's going to be held at the well it's going to be both at the conference and like Maury on October 20th and 21st we need to to advise we need to designate a board member to vote at the annual meeting you can you can attend electronically or in person did anyone other than myself sign up to go okay we did the proxy thing nice time and assigned you to vote right that was for visit this is for the BSBA this is a different one so anybody want to go aren't you going together with Lane and Heather Heather's going that fulfills the eight hours of training chair but the BSBA meeting is I sent the information so they've got some bylaw changes they're doing they usually have some revolutions from some other districts so that's our that's the organization that supports boards I just can't go you can't go it's okay and you know if you can't make these things there's a lot of information and resources on that BSBA website and I think this year even they're going to I think they're going to share some of the content of the conference on the in some of their webinars so you know that can be an hour webinar that you you know when you have it I know I can help her here and there but if you're looking for information so I'm going to be there do you want to I'm willing to be our designate at the BSBA I move we authorize and to vote for us on our behalf any discussion all those in favor say aye okay alright anybody have any strong feelings regarding the information on there there was some bylaw changes and some resolutions the agenda if you've got some things that you feel strongly about if you get a chance to look at it just email it okay and then that was just a reminder so that the conference is happening I will share with you all stuff that I attended and what I find is interesting you can take it or leave it okay next up we have the consent agenda so that is our minutes from the last meeting we are doing a changeover of signers on the school accounts we have an operational reserve fund request Lane do you want to tell us about that we got three of them yeah so let's start off with the facility reserve fund yeah the first one the request for funds to update the city's central office software for $24,915 and then we want to have an additional contingency amount for $5,000 so we've talked about this in the past and then try to remind people a little bit that five, six years ago it was actually the first year that I started the legislator passed a law that all districts were supposed to be using the same financial software they went out, got a contract and the software was horrible, wasn't usable they struggled to try to enforce people implementing it but it was so bad they finally kind of gave up during that time we were not updating our current financial software because we were expecting to get the free software from the state once they worked out the bugs which they never did so we're in this position where the auditors are saying hey, your software isn't doing what it needs to do you need to have all the extracurricular accounts and stuff managed by it and so at this point in time with no clear indication from the state that they are ever going to have this resolved anytime soon after waiting five years and after having the auditors tell us you need to do something we're biting the bullet and we're taking the money to actually update that software it's an $80,000 update we have most of the money in the regular budget this $24,000, $29,000 is what we don't have this money was put aside last year specifically for this purpose in the operation fund what went into the operation fund was money to subsidize future budgets to support the website and to help us manage the software migrations of the money is there so that's the first one the second one the lending ended out I think you had one that came in it's a separate piece this is to create our new website and that was the money that was put aside again in the operational fund we put a quarter million for these two software pieces because we didn't know how much it was going to be so this is $30,000 to actually purchase the new software and that will come from the operational fund we're working with Ben Merrill who has been managing our old website but he has created the websites under this platform for a couple of school districts around here so he's going to do the initial creation we're going to have a train the trainer session and then the district will manage it itself the problem with the old software was that it was created under a proprietary system it was an individual who kind of created it all from scratch and we don't have access or the specialties required to do it for a number of years he decided he wanted to be out of the website business he was doing construction in Florida so we didn't have a lot of support outside so this is a well known large company going to be there, going to be around so it's a huge transition so how quickly will that so I budgeted this year over the course of this year so how I budgeted things was we keep the current website up and running once we get it back online and at the same time they are doing the creation of the new website so that hopefully by the time we get to summer we just do the transition so we're going to run parallel systems nobody's going to see the new website until it gets kind of a beta phase but we'll keep everything on the old one so everybody is informed has their access and the second that this one is completely built in functional everything it's supposed to then we transition and it should be something like that so by the end of the year it's the whole thing the last piece here is for 14,375 that one's coming from the facilities reserve fund and the reason that we're asking for this money is it's for additional radios the high power radios and part of it has to do with making sure that we're keeping our security updated as we've been really enforcing this kind of one door policy during the school day while the students are here you know everybody goes in and out one door so that it can be monitored they've got buzzers you can let them in know who's going out the teachers especially since COVID are doing a lot of class work outside which they're continuing to do so I need them to be able to have communication with the district so as those teachers go out the door they grab a radio from the front office this also forces them to check in with the front office so they know that they're outside and then if they see anything going on out there they can contact us or if something happens in the building we can contact them it's a large number of radios we really needed about 12 the remainder are to replace the parts of our aging fleet we got quite a number of them but they're getting old falling apart you need a total of 12 radios we need 12 new ones to cover the teachers but the rest of that 25 the other 13 is to replace the aging ones that we have so we have a bunch of radios already but they're getting in and they're expensive these are like the ones the fire department uses because they got to be able to get through the concrete buildings so you know they're 700 bucks a pop was that facilities? we took that from them the radios was the facilities okay and then the audit engagement letter that's that's in your green folder it's quite a bit wrong to sign yeah okay so this as a board we are the ones responsible for engaging the auditor so that's in here this is the agreement that I will sign off on so do I have a motion to to approve the consent agenda to amendments to the minutes that I would like to I just noticed on page 4 the date is September 10th 2022 so you want to correct that to September 14th 2022 you did note that under 5B on page 3 which is what they just brought our attention to which is to determine the H5 is the proxy and then I plan to attend BSA BSA conference and then a motion was made for her to be the representative of BSA BSA conference so I'm just not sure if there was if that was essentially meant to say the B-E-H-I BSA conference those were two proxies that were signed by that I had to send in as soon as the visit we just voted on her being the voting representative of BSA BSA conference just now so I'm just wondering if that was that motion was regarding B-E-H-I proxy not the BSA BSA does that make sense? just making sure you voted on the right one so that one and last meeting I'm assuming should have been the the visit there wasn't anything about the BSA BSA business meeting was the proxies that we had so that needs to be changed then am I understanding this incorrectly? I get what you're saying it's in our right we just voted on this it seems like we voted on it last time that's what I was asking when you guys this was for B-E-H-I visit which is different so last time you voted on it was the B-E-H-I visit proxy so that should be amended then to change to say B-E-H-I instead of B-S-B-A because it's a B-S-B-A conference but we had you had to vote on the proxy there were two sheets for visit and two sheets for B-E-I or one sheet for B-E-I one was like unemployment one was multi-line I think it's a different vote than what she's doing at the business meeting but I don't know about the business meeting that's different you didn't need any proxy or anything this is the B-H-I visit does that vote take place at the conference? it takes place at the conference that's what it is okay I get it yeah I think tonight was in case you have to vote on something else that's for visit that's for the B-S-B-A which is different that's the B-S-B-A insurance versus state school board this is insurance this is an insurance if nobody's going from support you could do a proxy which would be pretty much voting away from the conference okay my bad that's alright I'll change it if you want the meeting takes place at the conference so now I move to approve okay any discussion all those in favor aye hi Rachel discuss negotiations with the unions I think we were just looking at dates when things are happening so the board's teacher negotiations team actually start out at the beginning here the teachers and the support staff unions did come back and agree to begin negotiations on their new contracts for the teachers the board's teachers negotiation team is Chelsea, Hannah and Megan first meeting will be on October 18 and will start at 6 p.m. in the RES media center and then the future meetings are pretty much scheduled every other Tuesday and so in terms of the support staff our team here is Ian Cotcha and Sarah first meeting will be October 25 6 p.m. RES media center and that's going to alternate on the alternate Tuesdays so it should be a good busy time and I do want to say this you know publicly I do want to thank the union themselves for being willing to kind of start this process earlier than we have in the past because I think that gives us a really good hope of reaching a fair settlement prior to the the vote on the budget in January which is important we have talked about a planning meeting on Monday so I cannot make that meeting okay if there's a better day or time that works we can the first session is really just exchanging what we want to exchange I was going to talk with the support staff to think about how late it gets afterwards there's really only two big things that I'm concerned about it's worth at least letting people to vote on after? I don't know any others it actually may not be bad for the support group to hear what the CBA group is thinking about so wait sorry so we're not doing a Monday strategy I don't think we can we'll do a Tuesday so we're having our strategy meeting we were going to do it yesterday during the open forum we're going to have a regular meeting and then we're going to have a strategy meeting on Tuesday okay we're going to send in their calendar thank you can you mind repeating the dates for the support staff support staff the first one is October 25th 6 p.m RIS media center and then every other Tuesday with an exception or two in there typically what you do at the first meeting is you re-confirm the dates with each other that's tentative for now and they were very flexible they were literally enjoyed working on this okay so now our dates superintendents report the newsletters I do really like those newsletters yeah they were really nice for me financial reports do you have anything to add how are things looking are they looking as you would expect do a real quick one what I'll try to do is point out the important stuff each time if you flip kind of to the first page so it's got the superintendents report when you flip over you got that first page there if you go down to the bottom where it says other funds and maybe about close to the middle you see vehicle bus fund building maintenance fund legal fund special education fund operational reserve those are all reserve funds so just so that you know how much is in them just to be aware of this is money that's sitting there that you guys voted at you know the last what is it usually in March that you do this yeah and so that's money that is sitting there for future use right now where things kind of stand is we're about a quarter of the way through the year the fiscal year so you would expect us to have about 75% of our funds remaining we have 85% some of the lines themselves are under you know that 75% of the things that happen during the year where you pay for them all at once in one month a lot of that is like contracted services a lot of that work gets done over the summertime so those will be a little bit lower than you would expect some of the software you know lines and things like that those will be a little bit lower than 75% could you pay that stuff up front if we can get them here surplus and this is an important piece to talk about we have had tremendous surpluses at the end of the year that has been due to the influx of influx of money through ESR and what not reimbursements and things like that so what we've been doing for the most part is taking the bulk of that and spreading it out over three years to help subsidize future budgets it's not confirmed until the auditors confirm it but our surplus at the end of last year is 1.4 million one of the things that we might talk about as we get to the future here a little bit is you know if we're having these significant surpluses is putting a significant amount maybe into the operational fund or building fund to start planning on now payment on a new high school and you can't say those buildings are old enough right and we've got some significant to work that's coming up this year we've got two more there we've got lots of pieces where three times a year we're spending a lot of money to replace stuff the open forum that I did had 30 to 50 people for it and what's your appetite for it was all thumbs up and what's the status with the state sort of looking at the they have as is the state's method they put it off last year and asked for a study committee the study committee is supposed to report this December and that supposedly is going to kick off the decision so we could see the decision this year in terms of like matching funds or building funds the district's going to renovate so we shall see anything else oh yes this is a good one if you flip over local revenues the top number there on the left $465,000 that is the money we earn because students from out of district want to come here as opposed to somewhere else that is tuition money so if anybody is telling you that our enrollments are going down they are not people are coming in from over quite a variety of different places to take advantage of the education we do have years as I was looking at the enrollment numbers we will have years where it will be flat for a year it will be flat for a year but we have enrolled and a lot of the work the curriculum work is that those numbers and the scores go up will be a draw the science academy will be a draw if we build the new building that will be a huge draw the more we can get those numbers up the better off we are going to be overall in terms of finances and education coming in through our regular towns every kid is another another 11 to 18,000 when we start the conversation about a new school like at that community forum I've been through the process in Massachusetts I have not been through the process in Vermont they have the process well written out as the AOE does a good job there is a set of procedures to follow getting those procedures we are going to start taking a look at it recognize that usually the first step is coming in and having the study done where do you want to build it what are your priorities for the building getting the actual plans drawn up talk a little bit about the permitting dependent on things like watersheds and things like that that's an expensive process that's about 100 to 110,000 maybe up now that was the last time I did one and that becomes the basis for having people bid and tell you how much they think it's going to cost in terms of ownership linked help me fix my locker rooms that kind of thing I think it might be a great conversation to have what would you like to see in a new school before we get plans drawn up and add some other stuff that was a part of the discussion so we walked away with we want a new high school, a new tech center spent, you know, 76, 78 million on a new building then why not spend a million and a half more and put it into a field with lights why not be since we're central in the state be the place where everybody when it comes time for tournaments comes to to use our facilities and charge them for the ability to do that and I would also like to build the STEM Academy that's a separate building and is also a meeting so that's used year round where all different towns can come and use that museum take advantage of STEM educational opportunities that can be put on there and that would be a kind of a pay for stress so we had some high flying ideas that's kind of what we talked about all great ideas but I think it's good to get the input we're not at the point that meeting was just, hey do you have any interest because if it was all thumbs down I wouldn't even be bothered so action recap we are going to have I'm going to be checking in with DHRO to finalize the complaint procedure edits and our procedures for our meetings and emails if you want to be reviewing I'll heal monitoring reports 2.1 and 2.2 I'm going to be attending the BSBA meeting along with Lane and Heather I'll be sharing things that we learned I'll be dealing with the B. High and VisBit and the BSBA meetings and in your policy 4.4 you can take a look at that in the next meeting and of course we've got all negotiations stuff that we're doing likely are going to need executive session so you are moving back seconded by Hannah and we are going to invite Lane so the folks online we're going to be moving to executive session so I will be shutting down the link for the main session we will come back to that to close out the journey in the evening