 the 504-88 policy there that has all the district information in there is part of the first reading that's going to be out there. The broken, that was broken in that one. We only have seven. We only have seven. Okay, I hear I was down to six or something here. Sorry about that. Alrighty. So, my piece of work is together here on our announcement. Is that up until we run the meeting? So, this is an odd one in that because it's the reorganization meeting, that's the purpose of tonight's meeting. Primarily. Superintendent typically runs the meeting until the election of the board chair. And then at that point in time the facilitation is handed over to the chair. So, to start off with, again, goal of the meeting, purpose of the meeting is reorganization after the margin vote. We'll start off with public comment. Just a reminder. The meetings are designed to allow the board to conduct the business of the district. And so the board does invite public comment from those who would like to speak regarding items that are included in the agenda. If you would like to speak, start by stating your name, your town. And then we try to limit comments to three minutes to give everybody an opportunity. Okay, enough. Sit down. I've never been here before. Good evening. My name is Erin Wakefield and I live in Brookfield. I am here to call an emergency meeting about the mass policy. The governor today as well as the AOE stated that mass will be optional as of the 14th of March to give school districts time to prepare. Why wait? Vote on it tonight. I have three sons who are enrolled in this supervisory union. An almost three-year-old, a four-year-old, and a 14-year-old. All three children have individual education plans. I'm a former special education teacher myself. And over the past two years, I've seen the impact remote learning, hybrid learning, and returning to schools with masks have had on all my children. My youngest son has autism and has yet to see his teacher's faces, yet to see the majority of the people in his community's faces. How incredibly challenging it has been for us to get him to look at others. Yet when there's masks on people's faces, it's like they don't even, that he doesn't even realize they're talking to him. My four-year-old has speech for articulation. He does not say the sounds for L, F, T, C, G, Q, and K. All of these sounds are done with your mouth, tongue, lips, and teeth. He sees his speech teacher's mouth twice a week for 30 minutes. He has yet to see his friends, teachers, and parents' mouths inside the building. How can he work on articulation when he can't see others do it? My 14-year-old has been impacted the most socially and educationally awkward to begin with. This pandemic is only highlighting all of his challenges. His ADHD, his intellectual disabilities make it challenging for him to stay focused and attentive to work. Add computers for remote learning and hybrid learning, as well as masks for in-person, and it seems to not be there at all. I have pushed his IEP team for more than two days of in-person learning at the very beginning of this, and up to four days a week for last school year. He never got five days of school. This school year, he started with five days, five days. He was vaccinated May 2021, and I jumped on the opportunity to have him not have to wear a mask. He was vaccinated before the end of the school year in hopes that this school year he would return to five full days of school without a mask. The mask stayed on, even during his baseball and his basketball games. His special education services throughout this have been incredible, and I'd like to thank his teachers, his parents, his special educators, and his administrators for truly working outside the box to teach him. Please let him also see their faces. Take off the masks. Let him see their faces, connect with them in their classroom. He zones out, is confused. When someone starts talking to him, he becomes annoyed, becomes frustrated that he doesn't see that they're talking to him because he can't see his lips in a minute. He doesn't even know that they're even talking to him. It's been hard for him to make connections socially with his peers that he didn't previously know. Monday, March 14th is too long to continue to wait for this change. Our children need this option to take their masks off and to be able to socialize with the facial expressions they were born with. The right to take the piece of cloth off their face and prevent them from reading and understanding our language how we're supposed to express it. To quote our governor from today's conference, we need to start living again, not being in a constant state of fear. Please start with this tomorrow, not the 14th. You're at the end of this pandemic, says the President of the United States. Do it tonight. My name is Barokin from Randolph. I came because of your post. Thank you. I'm proud of it. Thank you. And I respect it and I'm on that side as well. And this really is the last place I want to be. This is the last side I want to take. But it's my kids and I don't want them to wear masks anymore. And this is America. I'll take my freedom. So here I am. Thank you. Sit. Thank you. Are there public comments tonight? I'm John Hultzman. I live partly in West Virginia. Partly in East Rocksburg. My kids attend here at the OSSB. They stole my thunder, so I won't talk too much about masks. I would concur with them. You should end this tonight. I mean, what another 10 days? I mean, come on, really. It's not going to matter. We should just be done. You can send out an announcement like we do for snow days and just tell everybody masks are optional. You can do it tonight. It's a pretty easy thing to do. So I would highly recommend that the board do that. I wanted to start off with this, the people and board members. Congratulations. I know some of you have changed. So I wanted to throw that out there. Next thing I want to talk about is flag policy. This flag policy that the last board started and you're going to hopefully adopt, I would urge you to adopt it. I like this a lot. I think this is where it should be. I do have a question, and I know the board doesn't usually answer questions, made a super intent. It says the district will only fly the lot and unites its flags on school flag polls. I was wondering what the definition of a school flag poll was. I'm talking about the flag poll attached to the building or all flag polls on the property. Anything that's on school grounds. Then I fully promote this flag policy. I think it's a good one. Nothing against the BLM flag. It's just, I think the district would get in this mucky war of what flags do we want to fly here or there for how long and all this. So I'm glad to see this flag policy. I had one other topic, but it's really not being in format. So I guess I'll leave it on. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Other public comments? Public comments from any folks that are logging in remotely, hearing none, we'll move on to the next piece, choosing an evaluator for tonight's meeting. Linda, do you have a copy of the evaluation form? Yeah, I do. I'll do it. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Did we have someone who was? I'm not even. I apologize. I think with the vacation, there isn't a update. It's the same same things that are on all the agendas that are out there. I feel a little lost. I'm here to blame. And I had the time on it. Okay. So what we are going to do is we're going to move on to monitoring the organization. And the first thing is introducing our new board member, Sarah Hopp, who is representing Randolph. Did you get an opportunity to get sworn in today? I did, yes. Awesome. So you're solid set to go. And Ann Kaplan also representing Randolph, who is returning. And did you get an opportunity to get sworn in? Yeah. So we're good to go there. Just so folks know and welcome, the Brookfield board position does remain open. We had no candidates. We did have a few folks that had received some writings, but none of them met the threshold to actually become the candidate based upon the number of writings that we had. We have notified the Brookfield Select Board. And then we currently have 30 days to advertise for the position. Then to seek the Brookfield Select Board's recommendation and then for the OSSD board to vote to appoint an applicant. And Linda was preparing the advertisement to go out to the Herald just this morning. That will also be posted on the French port. French? It's been a long day. As well as the website. It'll go out in one of my community emails. So next piece here is election of the board chair. Basically how this will work is I'll ask for nominations. And then we will go through depending upon the number of nominations that we have and then we will vote on which. So nominations for board chair for this coming year. Is there a second? Are there other nominations? Hearing none, it is moved and seconded that Anne Kaplan be elected chair of the school board. All those in favor raise your hand. So I won't ask for names. There's now accepted that Anne Kaplan is the chair of the school board. I now hand over facilitation. So we're going to move on to the election of the vice chair. I nominate Katya Evans. Any other nominations? In favor of Katya Evans as the vice chair. We need to elect the clerk. I'm firing myself. I'm terrible at it. I think if I didn't Linda would. No, I'm getting them timely. I nominate Chelsea because I can see that she's. I don't even know. You will take note when you have executive. Pretty much just in and out. Is there a form for tonight? Only time would be involved if I'm sick or something. Great. So is there a form for tonight? But I don't have to do it. Executive session forms. Okay. Great. And can I use help her out? Absolutely. Okay. So do we have anyone else interested in blur? None. All those in favor of Chelsea Sprig as blur? Please say aye. Aye. Alrighty. So next we have our meeting scheduled. That's in the packet. So we're going to continue with the Thursday meetings and 6pm meetings. Unless you have any concerns about the meeting. Thursdays are good for everybody? Thursdays are awesome. I think on our RN, I mean, they're minor things. I wonder if we should move it later in the month? Because we have trouble getting financials for the previous month. Financials are always a month late. And also things are a little discombobulated with vacations and things. Particularly when they hit. So it might make things a little smoother. I think we originally tried to do the second week. But I conflicted with the select board meeting. But if not, it's certainly a little bother. Thursday? I have a four company. You do. Thursday? Is there a lot? Thursday? That is fine. That means that we have to... We have to have an exception for November. Right. Right. Linda, when you put these together, do you take a look to see if we've got... If there's a vacation or something? Yeah. Yeah. I think... I think Thursday would interfere with typically the February break? December break. December... Yeah, those are the times we work there. Those are really good. That's like four months out of the year where we have to make 30 or 40. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But it seems horrible that's the only day... That's just another Wednesday. That's the only day I would... my perspective... And we also don't have to change anything, but we do end up... It has seemed this year that we volcano up against time. I'm not having... Like... You seem worried and you don't have the financials for Holden third. The second Monday was the 4th. So the second, I think that's fine. Is that a Monday? Yeah. I mean, it's fine with me. For a year? Why not? If it looks like it's not working, you know, it's fine. So we'll try that. And we can always... Do you want me to just do the schedule until the end of June? Well, if you do the full thing and keep on asking that you may go, oh my gosh, there's all kinds. Who's gone? Second Wednesday. So the next meeting would be April 14th or whatever. 13th. 13th. Okay. And then you guys would need to do a motion as well. So I'm going to switch our regular meeting to the second Wednesday. Second? Yeah. Any discussion? All those in favor? Second? Yeah. We were just changing the date. Okay. So, Ashley, was the person who would sign official documents, if I couldn't get them to do that, to have someone who would be able to do that? And can I just interject? I think a lot of it is like signing the warrants for the girls so they can process it. And I believe they will scan them to your email. So you don't have to physically come in very often. Just if that helps anybody. I'm willing. So, Kacha, are you saying you're willing to do that? Yeah. Or to get back to her? Or to sign it or do you want to do it? I'm fine with Kacha. You want to do it? Oh, I said I was fine with you doing it. Oh, okay. Okay, so you want to make the motion? I'm making the motion for Kacha to be appointed to sign the documents in advance. Is that right? Yes. And that's not going to happen often. No. Okay, all those. We have a second from Hannah. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor? No. I don't. Next, we have, we need to appoint two board members to be the representatives to the RCCC advisory board. Megan was serving and Ashley Lincoln. Megan, would you like to continue serving? Yeah, I can do that. Okay. Do we have a second? We have a second from Kacha. So a nomination from Sarah from Megan to be on the RCCC advisory board. And do we have a nomination for somebody to be the second representative to serve that board? I'll nominate myself. Okay. Sarah Hock. Do we have a second? We have a second from Rachel. Anyone else interested? Okay. All those in favor? Sarah Hock being the representative on the RCCC advisory board. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. So, was applying that committee? We had Hannah and Megan Saltres. What committee? This is the teacher contract negotiations. Is that a teacher contract negotiations this year? No. It will start immediately in the fall or it should. In the fall? The goal would be, you know, You know, typically they should start right off like end of September, early October, so that they're concluded before we hit budget season. So once an agreement has reached, we know what we've got to add into the budget for the changes due to the contract. I don't mind you giving it up. I'd like to remain on this. And Hannah's gonna remain, do we have, so we'll, do you wanna vote this as a slate? So do we have a third person who would be willing to join that group? Okay, Chelsea, Spray, do we have a second person? One second, one second. Seconded by Katia, anyone else interested? All those in favor of Megan Salt and Ana Reyes and Chelsea Spray being on the teacher contract. The teacher negotiating, contract negotiating. Will you say aye? Aye. Okay, thank you. And then next up, we have the support staff contract negotiation committee that was myself, Ashlyn and Katia, and we have someone interested in being on that little place, Ashlyn. Frankly, it looked like a lot of... I've done that one before, a couple of times. It's easier than two. It's easier than two. I'll try this, I'll try that one. So Sarah, we'll try that. Katia, you wanna stay on and I'll stay on. So we'll, let's vote on that slate together so that is the support staff contract negotiation committee being made up of Ann Kaplan, Sarah Hopp and Katia Evans, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Did you have a motion? I kinda missed a note. I'll make a motion. Okay. Okay, so all those in favor of having that slate of candidates Ann Kaplan, Sarah Hopp and Katia Evans say aye. Aye. Okay, so I'm gonna move us, since that was sort of our, the organization part, I'm gonna move us back and we end up to, well the report on the town meeting you gave Lane, unless you wanna speak, do you wanna speak to the... The budget passed as well as all the articles, in terms of how the surplus funds were gonna be allocated, the passage rate, the turnover, not the turnover, the number of voters that came out was about half normal. So voter turnout was a lot, a lot was true for the town elections as well, but it was about 80% that voted to approve the school districts budget and all the articles. So it was a pretty good start. How did it compare to last year about? We typically are like the 60 to 70 range, usually high in the 60 to 70, so this wasn't the, I think the highest yet. I don't know, the last four or five years. Okay, so next up on the agenda, so if you remember back in, where was this one? December, when we had talked about having, I guess it was maybe even November, having Jackie, I guess her last name, Jackie, who is the policy governance educator for the VSBA, she was gonna come and work with us just in terms of helping us understand better our policies and how to work with them and to look at them in terms of whether or not we needed to make some changes to some of them. And then due to health issues, she had to delay, so we had to put it off. And she said she would be available after the election when she was back if we wanted to follow up and actually begin the training with her. So what I am wondering if the board would give me the authority to just touch base with Jackie and then with you all to kind of set up a date to do that training. So I need a motion to I'm going to move the lead, pop rise and chat one, two, to arrange the board training that with Jackie. Jackie. Jackie from the VSBA. And that's seconded by Katya. Any further questions or discussion on that? That will be a special meeting, so it won't take up a regular board meeting. And I will work with Linda to just get some data once I get those from Jackie. So hopefully we can find a time to work with everybody. So, all those in favor of giving me the authority to set that up with Jackie. So that is done. And then we had put together a committee at the last meeting, Kelsey Spray, Rachel and I to look at what we might want to do for a board orientation. And we got together virtually and came up with sort of a list of things. And what we were thinking that we might want to do is again have maybe another just a short meeting where we sort of go over some of the basic things that happen on our board to just sort of orient us all back around to how our board works. Go over a little bit of policy governance. Frequently asked questions like what do we do with emails that come in, that sort of thing. So, Chelsea or Rachel, you want to add to that a little bit from what we discussed? So we started a, I sent you, did you guys get the thing I sent? Yeah, so it was just basically a super rough draft of maybe a packet that we would hand like a new board member that says welcome to the board. This is what policy governance is. There is a link to a short video. Frequently asked questions. How the meetings run. What the complete policy and procedures are. Go over what executive session is. How the public comments of the meetings. I mean, just some of this stuff. And talk about ends, what they are. Teacher staff, union, negotiations, like how that works. Just some of that basic information. So that when you hear it maybe a second time, you're like, oh yeah, I remember that. I heard that. Until you get a better idea. And I don't know if that would be helpful for the whole board to be there. At when I was writing up the list, I thought that might be a little much. I mean, maybe I should just be us and the new board members since we, I don't know how other people feel, but the meetings stack up. So it's just too many meetings then. I get that. It would be helpful for us also to review our goal and it would be a public meeting. So if people were curious on the board function, they could do it. Yeah. I'm feeling a little bit fundamental. Or they're interested. I think we need to be timely, but I also feel like we need to wait until we have a firm-filtered representatives that we're not doing anything. So I don't know if we can, like, we can wait until, what month, April? This is the week after that, April. And we're now meeting people for a team. So that's for our regular board meeting. And if that person in firm-filtered gets a point in, if he's born in, we can always have a meeting prior to that. How long do we need to work in? Well, it's like special meeting, you know, emergency meeting. You know, you have kids to date or you don't have a regular board meeting. But especially, it would be a special meeting for 48 hours, emergency meeting, if you would have any time. Do you have to have a pointy by night by 30 days? 30 days. We have to have one before the meeting. I think they would be okay with it. I hope they're gonna be able to find it. Who's next meeting? I think that's a long one. So maybe we'll schedule it at the next meeting when we have the new person. And then the three of us can get organized about the final of what we wanna do. We don't get this recently, just go over it. Yeah, that's okay. And then have it between May and May. Yeah. And then maybe it'll be in place for next time. Hopefully we'll get something that can be reused in the next, in the next time. Okay, so that, so the three of us will just connect on just finalizing that list of stuff for that. So moving on, we have the facilities monitoring reports. That's in the system of Western's questions. You guys have that in the packet. We'll be adding information in there about the fire that occurred at all elementary and look for show of the go. Once we have a clear picture of the work that's involved, we've had people coming in and taking a look right now just making sure that things are safe. One of the concerns was it was a fire happened in a heating system, it was a component of the heating system and then it failed. And so what we wanna make sure is because it's the same heating system in each of the classrooms that, and they're all the same age that if that one failed the others aren't about ready to go, it's correct. And so we've had folks coming in and doing that inspection to make sure that things are in good stead. Apparently, from what we can tell, the system that was put into that room, the unit, it did not have a cowling cover over the component that failed, and had that done there, they wouldn't have had a problem. So it was installed incorrectly in a 20 years ago problem that when it was put in was the problem, so we're checking for that as well. Except for the $2,500 deductible, everything is covered under our vis-bit insurance. So when we talk about a Yale 2.6, that's part of the asset protection piece. But it was interesting, the insurance company even stepped up and bought us like a new smart board to be able to use the alternate location that the students are gonna make sure that they can carry on. I expect that total repair, I mean the damage wasn't a lot, but just given the supply chain issues, especially getting that heating unit, we're probably looking at three months as their customer, just because of the lack of the deal of the work that they're doing. I'm happy to answer any of the questions that they've been on. So what's the classroom with that one? That was Laura Skollnick's classroom over at Grand Elf Elementary. So are they using it? Since you were not using that statement. No, they have a very large teacher's room up on the top floor that they're using right now that's been coming in. The fire marshals didn't give us permission to be able to bring in kind of stand-alone heat units. And so we are investing in the back of this classroom and out the regular heat unit. That's one of them right there. So it only heats that classroom. It's not affecting anything else. The fire wasn't that bad. It was against a cinderblock wall. So there really wasn't much to burn except for the insulation on the wires. I was there that night. It was mostly smoke. It took quite a while. So we're moving on to the EL report 2.3 which is financial conditions and activities and asset protection 2.6. So again, hopefully folks have been able to review to look at the interpretation of those policies. We'll start with 2.3 financial conditions and activities. So is there any concerns in regard to the interpretation of this policy? How about the evidence that was before the policy? And remember the evidence, sometimes it's incorporated into the report itself if it's logically fits. Otherwise it is in a big binder. It sits on in the bookcase of my office if anybody is welcome to go in. Does the audit often every year? Yeah. They stay far. So we have a motion to accept the EL 2.3 financial conditions. I need to accept the modernly report policy 2.3. I second it. Seconded by Chelsea. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? 2.3 assets. And then asset protection. Linda, do you want to say anything? Yeah, I have a couple of comments on this. So this one actually kind of plays it as well a little bit to the decisions around COVID. But basically executive limitations policy is ensuring that the district's tangible and fixed assets are protected. Just as a reminder at the last meeting, I am recommending that the board review provision five. The provision was written awhile back and it was designed to ensure that the district followed the law by going out to bed for any projects and purchases over $15,000. So basically at the time that this was written, it was written using the language of the law. Recently this last year, those bidding thresholds have now changed instead of 15,000. It's 40,000 if we're using our regular budget funds and it's 50,000 if we're using federal funds. And so my interpretation has always been to follow the law in terms of what's required under BIC. So it's kind of putting me out of sync with what you've written there a little bit. And so I think the recommendation that I have for the board is that either change the policy if the board's intent to have it match the law or reject my interpretation. And then I will go back to making sure that we're using the $15,000 threshold as things are written. So that's the first piece. So that's provision five. Earlier this year, this is about provision one. We had spoken about the fact that there was no longer liability coverage against medical disease exposure. At the beginning of COVID, there was kind of a blanket coverage that in the districts could not be sued if employees, if students got sick due to COVID. And that was taken away at the beginning of this year. The district spent the enormous amount of time trying to find this coverage outside of our main insurance carrier in Vermont, which is Bisbit. They cover all districts and schools, but it just simply wasn't offered and understandable why it wasn't because COVID was so prevalent. But Bisbit, after hearing the concerns from the superintendents about this, was able to secure a limited liability protection for disease exposure. It's very small, but it's something. And I have included that document as evidence in the evidence folder for this that we have that coverage. It's like 100,000 coverage, another 100,000 for legal fees. The problem is, it's in a $2 million pool. And that $2 million pool was accessed by all districts in the state. And when it runs out, it runs out. So again, there's protection, but it's small. So I do report compliance with the L2-6. So can we discuss? Sure. It seems like we need to change the policy. I just wanted to make sure that the wording should probably match his interpretation. Not that we're matching the interpretation, but his interpretation seems appropriate. Right. And so our policy should reflect, maybe not have been heard in there, but have the wording that we follow the state law, or the state fitting laws. Can we do that tonight? I think we should. So what you could do is you could move for the change since it's policy, it would mean you have not to read those two readings. So we can accept your report tonight, and then we can move the change tonight and read it. Do we need to read it two times after tonight? Two times after, because tonight would be kind of establishing the language. Who's good with words? I was gonna say, you said you're good with words tonight. What's that? Well, first, can we move? In the meantime, I move that we accept what follows in this 2.6. 2.6, here. I'll second. Second. Any discussion, any further discussion? All those in favor of accepting the policy as it is. And then, a discussion to make changes to the policy tonight. So just not. You can make a move. It would have to be, my understanding is you have to have two readings of it. So you could, like I said, create the language and call that your first reading because you had a public discussion about it. It becomes complicated though. I think the first reading would actually have to be the next meeting. Because the public should have an opportunity to see what the wording is ahead of time and be able to come prepared to have public comment at the beginning. Might be easiest if, you know, as a recommendation is give it to pH or let him. Yeah. That's, I'm happy to secure that for me to probably do it in five minutes. So then the wording would be, the wording, we have the wording in our next meeting and then we have two readings after that. You'd have the wording because you would have that in advance in the meeting. As long as you're not changing the words. Yep. That would be the first reading. Okay. First, my head's thinking about this. So is that typical when you make a new policy to have pHO work with you? It's always best. I mean, we, lots of times I will write things and then just, I always send it for him, through him, just to make sure I'm not inadvertently by my language, putting the district in a state of liability. Yep. So it's usually good to have them check everything. Do we have to vote for you to ask Pager to fix that? Yeah. We gotta, we gotta authorize me. Yep. Okay. So, and are we, what are we gonna, what are we gonna tell him to tell Pager? Well, I move that lane, the sense of Pager, or wording, I have provision five, to include all state bidding laws. Hold on a second. State and federal, do we want state and federal? Or just state one thing? Certainly there's, did other, ever, do you need to have federal bidding? Do you need to have federal bidding? Yeah, because we receive a considerable amount of money, title funds every year, about $164,000. So amend that to say state and federal bidding laws, please. Hold on a second. We're here for a minute. Any other discussion or anything? All those in favor? So, we will have that amended and we'll take a look at it next time under policy decisions district and governance. So next up, we have the district COVID operating plan. So lane is gonna be making some changes to that. Yeah, so this is a part of a good discussion. So the governor, I don't know, it was probably shortly before two o'clock, made some announcements about changes, about basically lower restrictions, the basic interpretation of it. It's leading to people in terms of their own recognizance and what they wanna do. Typically, when he does that, the secretary of education, Dan French, shortly thereafter, sends out kind of written guidance to us, kind of interpreting from the AOE's perspective what it was that the governor met. So I'll read you his guidance and talk a little bit about kind of my interpretation of it based upon what's here. It's not much and it's not necessarily all that clear, which I think is intentional to a certain degree. Recommendations rescinded. Effective on that date, March 14th, 2022, there will be no school specific COVID-19 prevention and mitigation recommendations issued by the state of Vermont. Also effective March 14th, advisory member memos, recommendations and other communications are rescinded and suspended by following the general guidance. So basically what he's saying is, in all this guidance that you've had that the state has given you about what you should do, which we've taken as a mandate because if it exists, if we don't follow somebody who's sick, we can get sued, all that goes away. So that opens up a lot of possibilities for us. It goes on to say general guidance effective beginning March 14th, 2022. This is what we are charged with doing and it's very simple. Schools should encourage their students, staff and families to follow the Vermont Department of Health's recommendations for all of the matters. We are to encourage them. So in my interpretation, that means we're not to mandate it, right? We're to direct them to where they can find information if they want to follow them. And so based upon this, what I will be doing, again, as we follow the guidance as much as we can, because it keeps us out of the state of liability, is updating things so that effective March 14th, all we are doing is encouraging students and all the other guidance for the most part goes away. I mean, I will still keep the guidance that we have developed around our HVAC systems and cleaning and things like that. But in terms of masking, that would be my intent because that is following the guidance that they have. Questions, thoughts? So the recommendation would be, so what that means, masks would be optional. It's, we encourage you to follow what the state says. Right now, if you check on the state website, it is recommending masks. But again, it's a personal choice. The way that I'm interpreting this is written. What happened to students? I think, in reflection, I think the people that would be the most concerned are people that are potentially highest at risk, which would be our understanding. I don't know for sure, I'm part of the aspect that those would be folks. But as of March 14th, it is the law. And it's allowable for us to consider an earlier date. But the reason for putting it off is communication? Liability. So again, it's a liability piece. So it's kind of a game, I'm gonna express my own personal piece here with 30 years experience. When they come out and they say that it's not mandatory, that it's a recommendation. Well, yes, they can say that. But the second that that guidance exists, if we don't follow it and somebody gets sick because we didn't follow it, we have no defense in business. And so the best thing to do, at least in my mind is to follow what they told us. March 14th, we encourage, we don't mandate. You guys have a stake in this, it's a lot to digest. And the secretary's information literally came out like an hour and a half before the morning. Any ideas? Will there be a response from the union? I have not heard, it's new to everybody. I mean, the commitment and the COVID operating manual that we follow the guidance, it's possible. I'm curious if there are other districts who have chosen to drop masking or make their personal choice. So those, in your opinion, and those districts are setting themselves up for possible? I think it's unlikely, but it is a possibility. I think the greatest possibility is coming, would be coming potentially from staff. I think the time period is well. Makes a little bit of sense, one, because we've only been back to school for two days. I don't expect we're gonna have a certain to end after vacation, but it's possible. The other thing that it will do is, at least for some folks, it will provoke anxiety. It gives time for folks to process. We'll hopefully bring that anxiety a little bit. Time to digest all this before I sleep. I'm torn between wanting to wait until the 14th or say, we've got a lot of families who have shown opposition to masks and why wait, if it's going to... And nothing will offend me. No, not at all. Again, I'm following my charges based on policy. No, I totally understand that. And I'm just thinking of the other side of the community who's gonna wonder why we're waiting, what's the point in waiting? We have our policy in place that we'll have students who don't want to wear masks any longer. They're just repercussions to not wearing masks. I think it's a little complicated to, because if it's all going away potentially on the 14th, it makes it a lot easier because it applies to athletics as well. If we try to do something in the interim, then the question is, okay, yeah, we're doing it for our students that are in school without athletics, do we need to do something separate from this? We're gonna have to, I don't know. So what was there, did they give you any rationale for why they picked March 14th? You heard about it when we did. That's been part of the, I understand, trying to get a solid message out by having it diluted by leaking out a little bit early, but that's been probably one of the biggest complaints, I think, is that we hear about it when everybody else does. So we don't get a lot of time, particularly like we said, this drops hour and a half, two hours before. And did you have a chance to connect with any other superintendents? We had sent out people, yeah, the superintendent's group was actually sending out emails back and forth about, we're going to our board meetings tonight, we're not sure if we should be recommending to vote or not. So when the government announcement came, they weren't even aware at that point that it was most of us are busy. So I did, I sent the email out and just said, hey, just, you know, he announced this, there hasn't seen any guidance yet, I'm not sure what it means from the U.S. perspective. So it was like I said, it dropped on all of us tonight. So I'm giving you my best opinion, I got, you know, sitting here for two hours after. And so Dan French said, basically, he's recommending that the district encourage families to follow the Vermont Department of Health. Yeah, so there's no school specific guidance? I mean, I would send out a communication with a link to the Vermont Department of Health recommendations and then just say, hey, this is what we encourage you to do. But, you know, mandates would not exist anymore. Again, we still have a COVID operating manual, again, that would cover most, you know, cleaning violations like that. You know what to do if there is a COVID piece as well. So if it's going to be personal preference after the 14th, and it could create issues between now and then for families and students. And conditions could change. I don't think they will. Right, right. So I'm just wondering why we don't say moving forward. You know, follow, we encourage you to follow the Vermont State VVH online. What, like, why don't we do that? You could, again, you don't know what the response will be from folks because you haven't had time to go to process, it's all new. Again, I worry a little bit more about the staff and then the students. The other piece that will come back is the CDC. Right, the guidance from the CDC is that, you know, you continue to wear a mask indoors if you are rated in the high category, which Orange County is. So there's some conflicting information. So again, I'm just trying to get information to inform on that. Have you heard any feedback from the teachers, staff, anything? Like I said, this was literally just before the meeting. With Lane giving time for the community to process. It's one week, right? I'm drinking a half. Two weeks. I mean, I am all for taking the masks off, but also I have, I know a lot of families that have been deeply affected by COVID and they are still very sensitive to taking the masks off and what policies will be in place in the future. So I think giving those people that are sensitive to it to process, I think is important as well. One of the things that, you know, again, because this is about something that, as you're talking, it's making you think, is that, you know, especially if it does provoke anxiety and it will, and some folks that might also give us an opportunity to connect with kids with their counselors might be anxious about it to help lower that anxiety. I guess the one thing that I keep going back to the union too is that if it's prior, we have a likelihood of hearing, I'm assuming, from the union. However, if it's the 14th, they really don't have much basis because it's following state guidance. So we likely won't have to deal with the... There is, you would be with the state, rather than the district. Yeah, we'll have to get into it. I appreciate the consistency of the following state guidance. Any personal opinions, Ted? Well, it makes it easier a little bit. Again, I think one of the things that happened was, I think genuinely, you know, when they were leaving a lot of it up to the districts, you know, in some part it was because, you know, conditions are different in different districts. In some part it was, there was going to be conflict no matter what was decided, so it pushed the conflict down in the school, while it was opposed to the state while they were making the decision. Again, my personal feelings is that that was a potentially perfect outcome. You never know, I'm interpreting. If it left my own devices, that's the path I have. That's another issue. This seems to me to be an operational issue. Right, well, he's delegated to make that, that decision on COVID, so we as a board would have to, if we wanted to change this, we would need to decide to take back that decision to decide on the operational. So we probably wouldn't be to accept Lane's recommendation? You don't have to go, because we've already delegated the decision-making, he's just communicating to us what he's decided, the rationale behind what he's decided given the current guidance. And as you guys had reserved yourself, the ability to change that, which is why we do you, I think my next step will be, and I did the last change that they had to try to get folks' heads up, but this was probably coming pretty quick, is I'll pull together the cabinet, the nurses, and I'll pull more in, as well as part of the conversations, hey, this is where we're headed on March 14th, and I don't know how to be there. So that will probably be pulled together either primary or secondary. Plus it helps, like I said, it helps with the communication, it helps with people having time, I think, to process. A long time coming, and I'm glad that we're at a point where there's going to be a reality, strongly. So I'm looking forward to that, that's right. Yeah, so I think it sounds good, okay. We are up to, which is the best. And there's nothing for it. So, financial reports? Yeah, a couple of things. So you have the January financial statement, and again, kind of their rule of thumb is that, given there's 12 months in the year, you would expect about 8% of the budget to be spent every month if we're on target. The January financial statement represents seven months into our current fiscal year. So things we should have spent about 58% of our overall budget, but because of the federal reimbursements we've been receiving, and the ability, in some cases, to hire staff that we're planned for, we are well in the black right now. So you would have expected us to have spent about 58% of the budget, we spent about 44% at this point in time. There were a couple of things that stood out to me that I talked with Rob, our business manager about today, under the technology expenditures. The supply line shows us being overspent by $150,000. But this is due to the cost of software subscriptions. We added, especially last year when we were remote, we added a tremendous number of different software packages for the different grades and different disciplines for the students so that the teachers could use them to help kind of enhance that remote instruction. We didn't know at the beginning of this year what things were gonna look like. Was it remote? Was it hybrid? How are things gonna turn out so we maintain those software packages? Most of those that are there are re-inversable under federal grants, so that one will be replaced some point in time. Under transportation, we're a little over the budget by about $7,000 on the cost of pretty much transporting our school choice students from Rockchester. We have a Rockchester run and a Chelsea run that we send buses out to. And a lot of that was due to bad diesel fuel. They shipped it out to us, guaranteed us that it had all the right additives in it so that it wouldn't clog up in the cold weather, the additives weren't there. And so every time that stuff turns to Joe, and the fuel lines, you gotta replace the fuel filters in the lines and so on and so forth. So that's what that cost is about. Just since we're on the topic, Rockchester, Chelsea, our school choice students that are coming in, they bring in $350,000. We have not many school choice students that choose our department school. How many students from each town from Rockchester and from Chelsea do you have? I'd have to actually get you the actual numbers, but it's high. We're probably got an excess of 30 students. Rockchester is gonna be small. I mean, they're graduating classes, we're 10 to 12. So the majority of them are coming from Chelsea. We get a couple that jump in from Tundridge on that, that bus, and what's the town on the other side? Chelsea, we have Tundridge, and then on this side, Washington. We get a couple of students from Washington. How many students that are in RUHS or RTCC? RUHS, unless there's other questions on financials, that's kind of it. So is there any recourse for the back fuel? Yeah, we've been working with the company to get it straightened out. They did come in and put in the ad is, I can talk with them about maybe reimbursing some of the damage. We actually had to send a few out to be tested for the big data. So the buses are working? Yeah, I remember we had the days, yeah. Well, the quirky part was we got a little worried that there was potential sabotage going on because there are some buses that are, they're all outside, but there are some buses that people take home at night, especially for those runs. The only buses that we were having problems with were the ones that were stored up at the bus garage that were outside. All the other buses that were outside were in that problem, so they all had the same fuel. So it was really weird that it happened two days in a row. So I had heard that there were other places where fuel was delivered around that same time where the fuel was not good? Yeah. So at first, because the town equipment uses the same fuel, the first day or two, they weren't having problems with their equipment either. And their equipment is stored inside of the rocket key. So again, we didn't seriously think that, but there was a concern, okay, we're gonna go get a lot of gas caps from them on there, because we didn't know if people were going to want any gas stations. But it turned out, as far as we can tell, just to be factual. Something not good, but good. Okay. Any other questions on the financials? All right, so moving on. Legislative update. There's that. I gave you a big long one in the superintendent's report. Yeah, that contract breaking. Is it really, do you think it's gonna go through? Yes. I also think it's gonna go through in that form. They keep a legislative log where people kind of update the current state of things. And so I think what's happening now is that they are taking into account the concerns that the management has. And so they're trying to see if they can build the two together. So I think that you're gonna see the time limit that teachers have to look, extend it a little bit, but I don't think it's gonna be till mid-June. So they're in that discussion process to find out something that can, you know, put the two sides closer together. It's just, it's interesting because this is typically something that's collectively bargaining at the local level. And this is the second time in three years that collect things that are collectively bargaining and have been taken out of management's hands onto the benefit of labor. So does our agreement have a date currently? Yeah, it's in the CBI. So your contract's ended in the next year, which is why the negotiations started. And what's the date in our contract that says when teachers need to respond to it? I believe, so they have to have their contracts by like April 15th? I believe they have 15 days from the time of receipt to return them, otherwise we can consider them in all the way to have been rejected by the... So that's what's gonna change is they'll get it April 15th and they may get to hang onto it and decide by... Yeah, we've been, the other thing that happens though is that if a teacher is out looking and their due date is coming up, they have the right to write and ask for an extension. I've always granted the extensions, within reason. If you're in your third month of asking for extensions, you need to make a choice, but we've always granted the extensions. So why do you think this came to the... Why do you think the legislature decided to take this up? You're asking me a little bit of a question that... Well, who brought it forth? This was, I believe it was the Senate Act that came from the Senate. I mean, the unions, and again, I respect the unions. I believe that there needs to be checks and balances, but they are a big voting block. And so when they put stuff forward, I believe that it's reasonable, you know, I think politicians seeking to get elected are gonna go for it because it is a big voting block from the other side. Now, in addition to that, I also believe that people are just worried about teachers and worried about the turnover that might be happening this year. And I think that they were legitimately seeking a way to make the profession more attractive. They figured that this was a small something that they could give teachers so that, you know, it would keep them in the state, keep them in the profession. I think that was the real motivation. Any other issues coming next? I think that's the big one. The Act 173, that was changing how special education is funding going from a reimbursement model to a block grant model. What ended up happening is that it's scheduled to go into effect this coming budget year, right? For us, that starts in July first. And they did a good examination to see, hey, how are people gonna be affected by this? And so what ended up happening is about half the districts in the state are gonna benefit from it. Half the districts are gonna lose out because of it. You know, in our case, we lost out. We are gonna lose about 200,000 more than we would have received that had to be built into the budget that people just passed. But there is discussion going on from the legislators about, okay, these districts that are gonna be hurt by this change, is there something we can do to mitigate that? And so what they're looking at is potentially taking a look at the three-year average of the funding that was used by the districts and using that to give them their first kind of block grant allocation in the hopes that it's not gonna be a major deviation from what they'd want to lose. That was kind of... Is the waiting, is the waiting of people, is that gonna come up at all? And is that part of the... So they are discussing it in detail, so that might have an impact. The biggest piece that they are working on is the waiting for English language language. I think that seems to be where a lot of the focus is. But they haven't talked about the importance as well. So yes, could have. Is that what have had a positive impact on our district? Potentially, depending upon what they decided to do with waiting, given the percentage of students of poverty, our district on average runs around 40%. And so those students are weighted heavily as a part of that, that we could potentially have. But those are in discussions. I don't tend to follow them closely because there's a lot of details and they change so quickly when we discuss it. I try to wait a little bit until it's more finalized or solidified, yep. All right, moving right along. So that the next meeting, we should have 2.6 asset protection, and we should have 2.8 atroes information in there. You should have all received, we just got today, the black policy. So this isn't our first reading because we didn't really get a chance to look at it. So that will be on the agenda for the next meeting to discuss it as the first reading. But hopefully everybody will please decide as we're looking at it prior to the next meeting. There is a typo in the last paragraph. Yeah, I think I caught it in an update. The one question about next meeting, so that would be the first discussion of the black policy, do you want Pietro here? There are a couple of reasons for that if there are weighty questions about law, he'll be able to answer them. The other thing that it will allow you to do is if there needs to be just more of a frank discussion amongst the board members about it, it would potentially allow you to go into executive session because if you're seeking his advice in a real frank discussion, we can go into executive session and preserve the current of the choice that you have in talking to the board. So I'll just throw that out there as a possibility. So, board, what is our feeling on that? I see that he's in there already, yeah. So, do we have a motion to have Lane or do you want, when we get down the window, set that up or do you want us to talk about it? Right, I'll connect with them if that's the board's choice. I think we've requested Lane and contact, if they're about attending our next meeting, specifically about flag policy. I second. I second. And Rachel, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Take care of that for us. And remember, our meeting time has changed, so hopefully that won't work out okay. Next up is the first review of a required policy for 504 and Indian Regents. Have a good night, everybody. Good night. I would highly recommend actually watching the video or could be, yeah. So, the policy piece here, again, required policy, typically what happens when these come out is the Vermont School Board's Association works with its legal counsel, which is usually Heather and Pietro, to kind of create a model policy for districts to adopt. What this deals with is this is Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it's a grievance procedure for students and staff. Section 504 was really created to prevent discrimination against those with disabilities, making sure that they have access, if you're a student, access to the academic programs within your school. And if you're an employee, it was really originally created for employees to make sure that they have access to employment as long as the accommodations that are put in place to allow you to have that access in part reasonable. And so what this policy does is it provides an in-house conflict resolution protocol for folks who believe that their rights under Section 504 might have been violated. And what's interesting is the process is almost identical to our current conflict resolution protocol. That's right. And I'm happy to try answering the questions around it. This is the first reading. Did we fill in the blank? Is that right? He did. Oh, you did? Oh, I didn't have that. That's okay. Yeah, like I said, people weren't in and out of their vacations, so things are a little discontented. So there is a version that has all the parts and pieces of paper. Yes. That's here. Sorry. Okay. That's it. Are we? And is this replacing our current policy? Or are we just adding it in to the required policy? I was trying to figure out why they were putting this in place. I mean, the old standby is that look at, if there's a disagreement over 504 accommodations or what's appropriate, typically the next step in the process was you would refer the person to the Office of Civil Rights in Boston. And so what it looks like they're trying to do is bring that process more kind of in-house to see if it can be resolved locally before going that step. People do not have to go this route. It's just, it's an option. They can always still go to the Office of Civil Rights. My guess is, is that they probably had a lot of issues around this recovery, right? What do we accommodate for? Someone is COVID or someone is highly susceptible to severe complications due to COVID. So it's probably a response to the current pandemic. I don't know for sure, but that's when we try to get resolutions quicker. Are there any questions? And you said you had PHO review it. Yeah, it's PHO. How did that usually grade these for the state? Okay, next we have several minutes to approve. We have the minutes from our regular meetings on February 3rd. We have minutes from the informational meeting on the 22nd. And we have the minutes from the annual meeting on February 28th. And then in addition to that, we have the reserve funds request for the meeting system that we spoke to us about earlier, correct? Question about the facilities for those of us? Yep. So this is for, this is for the air conditioning for field and rain tree. I'm just being with the rain tree school. It's just limited spaces that are not students. I mean, not student classrooms. So what are we? So it's the first step in trying to get full air conditioning into the buildings. A lot of it, and we actually have them examine how to do the entire building. I think it's gonna be about 300,000 per building if we do that, but we might be able to do that in the last three months. A lot of the rationale behind it, and then we'll talk about why these specific areas is the larger pieces because we have constant humidity problems in there and end up with low. And so if we can keep something running even at a low level to keep the humidity up and that'll solve those problems. So that's a air quality problem. The reason for these locations that are chosen is when the cafeteria workers get extremely hot with the water boiling in there and no good ventilation. And then the central offices is that there are people that are there year-round in the summer. Right, whereas the students are not. And so it made sense to do this first. The one thing that I will say about this, which is it's understandable given the times, but it's a little disappointing, is the cost to do this right now because of the supply chain issues. It's probably 40% higher than prior to school. So usually these heat exchangers are more expensive. So these are a bit more expensive than the other one. He said that the larger job that we get at the school with the professor funds, and this is not. We're gonna try to see if we can get that reimbursed. Through that. So it's not guaranteed. I'm not gonna try to see if we can get that reimbursed. But that as part of the discussion that we're having right now with facilities is that 300,000 if we wait could be 30% or 40% less if and when supply chain issues ever resolve. But the war happened right now. I don't see maybe five years down the road now, I think it's possible. And I do not wanna end up with how to do a mold or mediation two days before school starts again. Like happened in two, actually three buildings just before the start of school. So I'll move to approve this and have it done then. Do I have a second? Second. Second with my shelf, please. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Next up we have the reports from the superintendent and the principals. Any questions regarding those for Lane? Anything you want to point out, Lane? Just that the legislative sessions, the work that they're doing, things change. So there'll be a lot of updates until we're pulling our link into the future. Next up we have the teacher appreciation link is coming up May 1st. And Roger, you are gonna speak. So last year we did gift cards, like gift cards, the area of businesses I can see pick three or four. And then we distributed those, I think they were like $10 gift cards. They will be non-attached to most of us, so I'm trying to remember what we did. So it sounded like it was very well received by the staff and also obviously by the community members. So the business and community that were part of that too. So we thought like we wanted to do something like that again this year as an appreciation. I think we also did it that way because we couldn't really do any in-person thing. So you're bringing up a good point given what we talked about today. Which we talked a lot about. So in terms of the gift cards were done previously because typically the board put a meal together for the staff, that might be possible this year. Nothing's guaranteed, but it looks like as of March 14th. So that's a possible consideration as to what happens. The gift cards were very well received. What had that been in the past, that in-person, like was it a catered lunch or was it? I think it was a lunch like snack. No, it was more a snack. Yeah. Was it well attended? You just left them off and yeah, I assume you're from the staff rooms. How many people are there? For staff, 250. Oh, we could get 250 breakfasts together. From my favorite staff room. You used to do gift cards to his place and be asked to spread it around. Careful not to conflict with his staff and spread it around. Oh, we do? Oh, sorry. But no, you could definitely, as long as it's spread around like this. I do know that the businesses did appreciate it because it helped them out during that tough time. I think if that was, I think if that was well received and it's benefited staff and the local businesses, I think that's a really nice way to do it. I think it actually, almost it's a little bit more personal than us for sleeping food in places. Yeah. So if we want to do that, I'm happy to work on that. If anyone wants to do it with me, I'll probably just have to ask Ashley what she did at the station one night only as well. But I'm happy to work on that again if we want to do that same model. We can pick if we want to choose four or five businesses in town and then we'll do $10 and then just do an assortment of each and then everyone just gets what they get. I think that sounds nice. Does anyone want to do that one? We have a lot of audience in the comments up there. So we should probably just authorize by Jen and Sarah to put this all together on our behalf as a board. So do I have a motion to do that? I move we authorize Sarah Hought and Codhead Evans to put together the staff appreciation plan and funds. That was. Hi, seconded by Chelsea, all of the favor. So at January cap, next meeting we will be, hopefully I'll have a date back for us all for meeting with Jackie in the future to do our policy review and policy governance updating. We will hopefully at that meeting be able to vote on time to do a full board orientation for our work together and we will be doing a first policy review of 2.6 asset protection after Pietro takes a look at it and updates number five, section number five. And we will be having the first review of the flag policy we'll be having Pietro available if we want to go into a second session to further questions with them. And an update on how we're doing and our teacher appreciation thing if you need help or something. And that's a good. Next up, are there any questions on what's going to be happening next meeting? Okay, any, yeah, right, doing the meeting evaluation? Yes. I think this was one of the most efficient meetings that we've had in a while. I think we really followed the agenda. I won't read down the list, but there are just two things I want to highlight. We were very prepared for the meeting and that's many things to lane for getting this information so quickly. And Linda, even when it's last minute information. Scrolling down participation is very balanced. I want to give a shout out to Sarah Hopp who is new and offered to do three things. Our TCC supports staff negotiations and staff appreciation, which I just want to acknowledge because that's a lot to take on for this. And on the back, the board routinely spends time monitoring and improving its own process. I appreciate being reminded if we're voting on something or not, if we give an authority or not, that's important and it's forever a learning experience for me. So, very good. Thank you. Entering into executive session at 7.33.