 Yes, so we thought, we had been getting some feedback that people wished that the unified board meeting was easier for them to attend. So I talked to Dave and Christine and we decided that the unified board would go first. So that's why we've sort of clicked the order for tonight. So we'll call the meeting to order at 6 PM, are there any adjustments to the agenda? But I think it's good fun on my side. We have public comments. Yes, Bridget. Hi, Bridget Taylor, South Royalton. If I didn't get anybody, I'm sorry. I have some questions about a little praise and a lot of questions. I was very pleased to have the principal decision announced to the high school students. I'm not pleased about the number of questions I have left and about, frankly, the rest of the process of communication. There was a press release. It went up on Facebook. There has been to this date no email announcing the principal, the high school principal or the elementary principals. And I'm not sure what the structure is of these two schools at this point. I know there's a principal at what used to be South Royalton High School and is now White River High School. White River High School. White River High School, thank you. I know there's one elementary school principal. I'm not sure if he's working at one building or both buildings. Two elementary schools. There's actually two campuses, one school. Right, okay. Sorry, trying to be helpful. That's helpful. I'm not sure who the middle school principal is, if that's still up in the air, if that's been decided. I'm not sure what the process is that got us to that point. I'm not sure how, as far as I can tell, the vice principal at Bethel, who I had to look up and Google to figure out was the vice principal in Bethel because I wasn't in the press release or the announcements. And again, didn't get an email. And apparently the principal at the Wickham schools have their jobs or a job. And as far as I know, the South Royalton administration basically had a flashing question mark. And that may not be true, but that is the perception. And that's the other kind of the second half of the comment I'm making, which is that there's a lot of room for rumors when you don't communicate. There have been a lot of rumors. Some of them I've heard from students, some of them I've heard from my students, some of them I have heard on Facebook, some of them I have heard. I don't think I've heard any at RBs recently, but you know what I mean. It feels a little bit like these decisions were made in some kind of black box. And I'm not comfortable with that at all. Especially with two towns coming together, I feel it's extra important and vital to have communications be as clear, as transparent, and as honest about what's going on as possible. I'm very disappointed that as a community we weren't asked to weigh in on what we wanted in leadership, either in an abstract sense or in the sense of the leaders we knew at South Royalton. And I feel like it's a lot of missed opportunity and a lot of room for resentment, honestly. At a period in which we want our kids to be working together to be seeing each other as one community. And so that's where I'm at. And so if someone could clarify, are the positions clarified in leadership in the four schools? No, three schools, two campuses that there are now. And how hopefully we're going to improve these communications going forward. Thank you. So to address that, if I may, I'll do you one better. We've been having these structural conversations ongoing throughout a lot of the structural meetings as we were trying to get people acquainted with what we were going to do with the merger. And it was something that we, as a full board did talk about often about, I was quite emphatic that I didn't want to have one. I was not suggesting that we have one person cover two elementary schools. That that just seemed to be like a concern to me, that there would be something going on one place or the other. So we decided, and I recommended the board, that we have a team approach for the two elementary schools with both two administrators for the elementary. And that they would share that not necessarily being dedicated to Royalton or dedicated to Bethel, but the two of them would get the job done together. And that's still the plan. So one principal in one place? Not necessarily, no. We had to go out and search and see what we could find. No, I mean, is that where we are now? No, we're at two principals. Okay. Sitting to my right is David Wells, who is the elementary principal who has been hired. And I'm pleased to introduce him to you now. David has not had a whole lot of time to be in the buildings. I think he was on a conference call with the staff yesterday. And they had some decision making that they had to have done. And so that's what he was doing. The middle school would be, is proposed, or is set to be run by Mr. Bradley right there. And so, and the, I'd like to introduce the second person on my left here, Reed McCracken, who is the high school principal. So, and we talked about this the other night at a meeting with the teachers, high school teachers, and the question was who's going to tell the kids. And I said, I'll tell the kids. So the next day I went over, stood in front of them, then came over here to Bethel and stood in front of them. And we told them what was going on. And I kind of challenged them to get involved in the remaining decisions, teacher decisions, the AD, co-curricular decision, and the other things that still needed to be selected. And they have risen to that occasion. I understand there are 33 kids on the Royalton list, and I don't know how many here, but probably a comparable amount. So we're going to have to now figure out how we can get them involved in, get them all, or most of them involved in the process. Going forward, we have a lot of positions to fill, people that have left us. And it's pretty normal for that to happen year to year, but we've got a lot to do. And so we've been talking about how can we get those kids, the kids involved, and the staff involved in what happens next. So as far as the press releases, as soon as some of the discussions were happening, I kind of felt like, unless we got a press release out immediately, that we were going to get a lot of rumors and things like that. I didn't handle the emails, but I did do the press releases. And I tried to get them done and out to the papers as quickly as possible. We had reporters calling me, and I was just afraid that I needed to get there as quickly as possible and get it done. We do have schedule for the newsletter this week. It's going to be about the administrative team and introducing them a little bit more and how that's going to work. So look for that when they come out on Wednesday or Thursday. Yes, Nancy. Who's address and when it's supposed to be? No. I know it's public knowledge, so. I think it's supposed to be within about 24 hours. Okay, the old name and I don't see what name, but I couldn't find them. So I have asked before to have published a one simple little place to put them and put it in the newspaper. This is where you go if you want to read the minutes, the drafts, whatever. And it's still not done. I am personally very, very upset not being able to find what I look for. Anyway, that would have stopped a lot of this, too. I'll also note that when the minutes did go up and it was corrected once they knew about it, but well, no, I'm not actually sure it was corrected as soon as they knew about it. I got sent a note. I got sent the letter as an attachment, but when the minutes first went up, the letters from the teacher was not connected. It was a dead link. Okay. And when I checked after she sent it to me, it still hadn't been fixed. Hopefully it got fixed. I know how it is. It's like, oh, no, I have to send everything out and then I have to fix the link. So hopefully that's what happened. But that was probably an extra six to eight hours where people went to click on that and it didn't happen. Right. Because for the one person who complains, there's four people who go. Right. Yep. I embedded the PDF and then it was a dead one. People are human. I'm not blaming anybody for it. I'm just saying that was, you know, one more step to one more barrier to get in the folds and that's it. It's there. Great. And live. Yes. Over here. Sorry. Yeah. Can people say their names? Yes. Can you say your name for that? Just to piggyback on what Nancy said, I need to clarify as the minutes for the meetings are created within 24 hours. I think it's three days. Three days. I can't, I know it's not 24 hours. It's either three or five days. Okay. It's very well. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I just needed to make sure there wasn't a false element there. I appreciate that. So five days to post the minutes. Unless it's a victory. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yes. I'm Olivia. As a representative of the student body. I'd like to take this as an opportunity to highlight some of the concerns and the stance of the involved members of South Royalton High School. Numerous time students have stepped forward and made it clear that we feel unheard of, uninvolved and misled during the process of emerging South Royalton and Bethel schools, especially at the February nine student gathering where many topics of importance rose to the surface and were never fully addressed. Blank pieces of paper were hung up on the walls of our school and they were instructed to sign up. The signups were not followed through with and gave little context for what action was going to be taken. Students had to then reach out for further information and were then emailed. Yeah, we were emailed a list of possible committees to join. On May eighth, we were told it was too bad that students were not a part of the hiring process for our new principal. And we're then suddenly encouraged to formulate our own student voice committee for the purpose of electing representatives for the hiring committee for the athletic director and co-curricular director position. We have done such and we have done in a matter of days what was promised to us months ago. We want to stop being congratulated for performing the basic duties of an involved student body and start receiving real answers on topics that matter to us. Thank you. Thank you. Are you guys? I didn't know if you were. Okay, thank you. So we heard loudly and clearly I think the meeting that we had with teachers last week as a board we expressed that it's our expectation moving forward that students be fully engaged in the hiring processes. And I think that that's what's happening now. I think we need to regularly meet and what we did was set up meeting time with the teachers and the board so our first meeting will be on the 21st so that hopefully we know better or sooner what the pieces are that we might be missing. This is the most well attended meeting we've had in months. And I appreciate all of you coming here with your concerns and thoughts and questions because we need healthy communication. Yes, Bridget. Bridget from South America and I guess one of my questions is how we've had other meetings. We've talked about as Olivia said we talked about incorporating student voices and a little part of me feels like a sucker for not coming to more meetings and saying at every meeting how are we incorporating student voices because I had trust that those conversations were going to be followed through. And I'm hoping that this time these conversations are going to be followed through but it's harder to trust. Right. I do think now that we have a leadership team in place that we have going forward it would be easier like with kind of the interim situation in South Wales. We kind of have a leadership vacuum in some senses and we need to do what we can to make sure communication goes forward but we're not in the building and we can't do it. So I'm hoping going forward that we'll be able to with more dialogue with the teachers and a kind of leadership going forward in place that we'll be able to improve this problem going forward. So we're aware of it. I'm just concerned about that because as we all know it was talked about it was identified as a priority area. You guys even spoke about coming into the classroom and talking with some students if it could be arranged and it was exciting and I'm not sure any of that happened. And I'm not saying that it was even feasible for that to happen. Just you know there were there were some really good ideas for engagement there and then you know this little gap of silence and oh hey guess what everyone's been hired not everyone. There's a leadership structure and no one's answered my question as to whether the full leadership structure is in place and the full who the full staff administrative staff is. So do we are the two the four administrators so the former vice principal of Bethel is now the co-principal of the elementary schools. No vice principal. There's no vice principal. I'm sorry. We have to take some formal steps tonight in a non public to talk about various adjustments that we have to make. I don't want to characterize the fact that there has been no student voice in anything when we hired a interim principal there was a student committee that was involved in that. This is great. And and I think I don't understand why you didn't just repeat that process since people seem really happy. Well it's complicated. I guess. I'm going to explain it. Explain it. And I join my answer and I have been good friends for probably 35 years and I didn't feel for the committee going forward that I could be a part of this second the hiring of the principal the future principal. That's understandable but you're one person. Well I was the one that organized the interim process so and so that detail about with the kids and I basically apologize to them when I met with them both both groups because I felt like we should have realized that they should have been included. I did get involved in this but to check references at the end and we did a site visit with David to see you know what he was doing at his current school and but you know I was out of the process until the end and you know I'll say it again I met it and I said it to them that it was too bad that it didn't happen that way but all I can try to do now is to try to make it up to them as we go forward for the remainder of the things that are happening so and Joanne's done a great job and I don't want it misconstrued about that there is no been no vacuum it has been she's done a nice job while she's been there. I don't think any of us who self-realized and had any issues with them. I think we're just to clarify when I said vacuum I more meant about this specifically because Bruce was stepping out and she was part of the process so you know there wasn't really a link between the board and the students in the building. I didn't want to say leadership vacuum. She's done a great job. Sorry, I don't want to cut off any discussion but we have four students here to give a presentation and we had made a commitment to their families that they were early on in the agenda and I don't know if it would be possible. This room is probably three or four times more crowded than we had told them when they were preparing for the meeting so I'm wondering if it's possible to get them to do their presentation within the next couple of minutes of that. It's okay with the board and I apologize for asking that. All right we do have another public comment on the agenda so if there's anyone who feels like they need to share earlier on then anyone else who has commitments and then wants to go then you could go during this public comment otherwise I would entertain having the student presentation go right now. There's two student presentations. Right, the two. That's what, DCAT and also the TRIP, Nature's Classroom. Do you want to go? Eliza, maybe I'm a junior. I guess I'm kind of speaking on behalf of upcoming seniors. Of course the consolidation of two schools is a long and difficult process and there will be a certain degree of hardship when it comes to settling into a new school but going into my senior year I need to make sure that the process isn't going to take away from I guess the most crucial and final year of my high school education. Is there a specific piece that you're concerned about? Well I guess like making sure that I have like guidance on like you know my like future steps like college wise or like you know classes that I might have to take next year. Those key things that are kind of important. So the thing. Did you want to go now as well? Kylie Hebert, also a junior from South America. I have a couple of things that students had passed that were spoken. More work went into making sure every student voted on school collars and mascots than for making sure students were a part of hiring the new principal. Superintendent Bruce Labs said on May 8th no important decisions have been made yet. Can you explain how hiring the principal for our high school is not an important decision? I think that statement was when will we be receiving the formulated schedule because at this time in our school usually AP homework is being assigned for the summertime. So it's kind of important to know. Can I address that? I think that statement was partly partly out of context. I went and announced to you who the principal was going to be and when I was addressed by the students about you made the important decisions I said no there are still important decisions that need to be made and so that was the context that I made that comment. And then I talked about the AD co-curricular position that is coming up so that's what it was. And then about the schedule. I thought we had a draft. I thought we were at a better place with that so can you speak to the schedule just a little bit. Joanne can you speak to where we are with the schedule? I can. Okay Marielle. Marielle and Simmons who's our curriculum coordinator. We do have a schedule and the schedule can work with pre-K through graduation. There still are some adjustments that need to be made to the schedule but we are now in the process of taking that schedule and seeing how it fits in all three levels. So we have asked every student to select nine classes and we are in the process of putting them together to see are there any conflicts? Are there any pieces that need to be changed? Are there other things on there? So that's where we are with the schedule. So are we looking at a seven or eight period day or what's the block structure? Seven or eight period day. Yes. This is frustrating because as a board we have been pushing for two months now that the community, the students they need and want to schedule make the decisions and get it put out there. And we didn't have a, I get that we don't have start and end times with busing schedule but we could have at least put out first period you've got math, second period you've got P.E. whatever it is. There's three things that are in flux with the schedule. One of them is the teaching contract to see how much prep time there is. Another one is the start and end of time of day and lunch time. And there's another one. But there are other factors but we do have the basic schedule. We do have a schedule for everybody that will work for all the shared staff that are between two buildings that are between elementary and middle, elementary and high school. There's also shares up here. And when do you think it will be available? Well we have an all day session tomorrow negotiating on the teacher's contract. We're hoping that it will be finished but I guess we've also been meeting through the winter. We've just concluded probably four days of working to merge the language between the two contracts that we're going to all agree on. And tomorrow we are scheduled to begin at noon time and go as long as it takes. This has been a long and protracted, frustrating, long period of time. And everybody's interests are trying to be considered. And so I'm hoping that there's some good news after tomorrow on that front. We have settled and it's supposed to be ratified the support staff contract. This is much more complicated than it normally is because we're talking about language from two different contracts merging into one. It's just taken a long time. So hopefully that will be done soon. So when do we estimate that students will have schedules in hand and be able to say I'm taking these AP classes and I need to read this book? Is that not until the teacher contract is complete? My understanding was as of a week ago that they asked me to look at the schedule to see if this one can roll. And I said yes. What has happened since that happened? I don't know. But I gave my OK. I was a high school principal. I know what the schedules are like. I built many schedules. So in the case of this, it went back to the guidance department. Hannah, are you here? Where are we? Where are we? We're working on, we have time as a big assembling block right now, I think. Not having that makes a big difference between are they teaching six classes or eight classes? There are still a lot of holes into whether or not this is going to work and how it's going to work because what's been offered is you can teach a block or you can teach 45 minutes. So it's a little bit more complicated than just this is a block, this is 45 minutes. It could be either or. So it's figuring out what teacher assignments are, who wants 45 minutes, who wants a block. Does that impact students negatively in terms of what options they have? If we have a ton of 45-minute classes, then kids who want to take blocks, which is generally science, are going to have really limited options on the other side. So there's still a lot of questions. So I hear you saying you need to decision on the prep time. I need that. And I also, and I've put this out there and I don't know, you know, I'll get in trouble for it or not. But we have a schedule that both buildings have used. I don't feel like there's a definitive answer. This is awesome. This is great. I want to go with this. I want to keep it for five years. Can we take a pause, go with what we know, and spend real time when we're not doing all the other merger stuff to really focus on what would be best for our students. And a schedule that we won't change again because they've had so many changes in the schedule. I think the other part to that is we have to look at what structure is best in place for students learning. So there are, you know, other things out there that are considered in this. So it's not that black and white. I'm just really nervous that we're going to get to the end of the year and we're not going to have a schedule. And that's going to be really difficult for teachers, for students, for guidance. It's going to be, and then having them walk in the door next year. It's worrisome to me. I think it's worrisome to us and the community as well. And I truly care. And I would truly quit in extra hours and see whatever is necessary. Absolutely. But I just, I worry. Owen and then Bridget. And then I think we need to move to the, the student presentation. I'd like to address a few things if I may. The model, the leadership model is very clear to me. So I'll end the student newsletter. I think we've been saying it all along. There's one school, two campuses. There's four principles. There will be two principles on each campus primarily. At times we'll need to support each other on each campus. David Wells is hired as an elementary principal, but that does not mean he would never help read McCracken on the high school level. I am a, we're all licensed pre-K through 12 as principals. My experience has been primarily as a pre-K through 12 principal. Like here in Bethel, as well as in Twinfield for 11 years, and I've done elementary principal. Andrew's been an elementary principal and assistant principal. There is no vice principal. Sorry. It's an arcade term, but that's fine. There's no reason you know that. But they're really just principal. And we're the same thing. We have the same license and endorsement. We're going to support each other. The charge is for Andrew and David to make that those two elementary campuses work as one unit and have one set of systems. We see ourselves, because we are a pre-K through 12 system, the whole system. We see ourselves as a united leadership team. We've been talking about it. We've been working on that. It's been very uncomfortable having to go through this with Joanne, who's done a great job. I agree. She wasn't chosen. And with Frank Romeo, who took himself out, we have two people that have been helping lead and are now out. People are looking like that's a surprise. My understanding is he did not want to be a principal in the school system. That's my understanding. So I also would say to you as far as the schedule goes, the faculty came up with the schedule. I was there. Josh Pauley led the high school faculty. I was there through a process. Josh is a faculty member. This is very difficult to make a schedule. It's even more difficult when you're making a new school. And people are bringing their own things to that. And we need to serve pre-K through 12. And we need to meet all those needs. We have done this. We've only been doing this since Rebecca Holcomb ceded you. This is six months. The work we've accomplished is amazing. The grieving process is hard. This seems very hard for you. I don't see one Whitcomb student or faculty member here. I see it. I feel it for you. I'm empathizing with you. I truly am. I believe in what we're doing. I believe in public education. So you're saying we don't? No. I'm saying I feel it with you. You're grieving for it. I can feel it. I truly do. I think what we're asking for is some just practical solutions here. We have a scheduling problem. I don't think we need to talk philosophy. We're like nuts and bolts. Let me just say I was asked to give a gate. And I haven't been asked anything since. So if there are more questions, I'll be at the guidance office tomorrow morning and we'll try to work out all the details. We start negotiations at noon. So when I was asked to give an opinion and to say is this okay? I said okay and we went forward. I didn't know that there were still some conflicts but we will work on them tomorrow. So I mean that's all I can tell you. I didn't know there were still conflicts until tonight. My last question for them and then the kids can do their thing. Why was the decision made and I hope it was a decision rather than just sort of sliding into some sort of inevitability to go with a seven or eight period schedule again when the block scheduling is so important to the sciences when it feels like every other school in Vermont is going to block scheduling and not understanding why we were in a seven or eight period schedule two or three years ago. There were nine schedules that were developed. It wasn't just one or two. This was a recommendation that came to me. I know Mary Ellen was heavily involved throughout the whole process and I can't tell you about the intricacies of every conversation. She probably can because she was at the table with all of them. So I don't know whether you want to respond or not. You know I think we looked at many different options and we did get a lot of input from faculty like Owen is saying and we're putting together the pieces. I think several weeks ago we had started the process. We had the schedule all ready to go but then the scheduling company had some things. We have all of the students signed up for nine classes. They all have their classes. They know pretty much they just don't know is it the first period or the last period that they're having that class? I think it's important. So if there's a conflict they can put one of the other ones in there. So you always have at least seven in there. That still doesn't mean they know what classes they're taking. What's in their schedule? It's not finished yet. It's not finished yet. We're starting that process. To say that I've been here four years and every single year the schedule has been in question. People are upset about it. Some don't like it. Some do like it. And it's kind of bobbed and weaved all over the place according to whatever. But it's still going on and we've got to get it right. This is really the first time I've ever been asked to do anything with it but I know that the controversy's been there. And it's pretty complicated especially in a small school. Schedule's designed at 45 minute blocks which can be 90 minute blocks. You can have a block schedule or you can have a not block schedule. That's what you have there. It can work both ways. And this is what the teachers asked for. All right. Christine. Sorry. I just, I remember when we sat at South World in two, I don't know a few months ago and we were told May 1st there'll be a schedule. We will know our classes May 1st. So now again, I'm just asking because kids sign up for classes now. If kids want, you know, they need to know what they need for graduation. When will we have a schedule and when will we know what classes our kids are taking? Well, I promise I'll go to the guidance office tomorrow and we'll see what we can work out. Are you going to be there? You're going to be on your own. I'll go to the guidance office and wander around. I would be available at noon for any group's power meetings. All right. Deadline for one month. Deadline at June 1st we'll get the schedule ready or something. I think June 1st. I hope sooner than June 1st. Wait, wait, wait. We've got to have some time when we have it ready. Anyway. When do schedules typically get handed to students in Royalton? Before April. Yeah. Okay. All right. There's no typical, this is not a typical use. There's no typical use. There's no typical use. There's no typical use. There's no typical use. There's no typical use. There's no typical use. This is not a typical use. I'm speaking first stop, but I'm sorry. I don't know what comes. Okay. Deadlines are. But that's what we've operated on in the past. Right. I get that. I just wanted to know what the community probably expected closer to that than this. I just want to make sure my senior isn't going to find out in September that she doesn't have the credits or the caseload that she needs, because if that happens, not going to be a mama just saying. So is it possible to start with the seniors and work backwards in terms of schedules because it seems like the freshmen have four years to get what they need? It's not quite that simple because you're looking at, you really look at freshmen and seniors in the sense that you want to be able to get some of those graduation requirements over with in the first couple of years so that they have options in their junior and senior year if they're not if they're doing that kind of flexible pathways or doing anything outside of the building so or vocational any of those things so it's not quite as simple as saying seniors we're just gonna focus on the seniors but certainly we do focus on both freshmen and seniors when we talk about priorities and who really needs what. I hate to bounce around so much but I feel like we need to go to the right is a nature's classroom first let them present and then we can do our nature. It would be such a well-attended meeting and we have a picture displayed here. Hi my name is Amelia Lincoln I'm the student assistance professional here at Bethel Whitcomb and this is I'm Laurie Smith I'm the elementary health teacher and these wonderful ladies have volunteered to present to you a project they have been doing V-cat they've been doing V-cat stuff all year and Aliyah is going to tell you what V-cat is. Hi I'm Aliyah and I'm a sixth grader from Bethel Elementary and V-cat it stands for Vermont Kids Against Tobacco which is a group of fifth and sixth graders at our school that have been trying to prevent tobacco use in Vermont. Hi I am Paisley I'm a sixth grader at Bethel Elementary School this year V-cat students had lunch and afternoon meetings to learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and about big tobacco marketing for kids. In March for kick butts day two groups of students went into first and second grade classes to teach about tobacco how tobacco affects the body. Other groups of students worked on letter urging state government to increase the smoking age 21. Students also signed a banner pledging to be part of the first tobacco-free generation. We also did a photo voice project photo project called Photo Voice. Hello my name is Lily and I'm also in sixth grade and we have been preparing all year to create this giant presentation called Photo Voice which is basically telling the story of our town Bethel through pictures and we walked around town taking pictures of just different things we saw like Amelia's dog true which happens to be rainbow the town hall and different tobacco marketing things and cigarette butts and we have like just trying to put this together to prevent tobacco use yes my name is Mackenzie I'm also a sixth grader here after we took pictures photos we choose pictures and wrote about them explaining what the picture showed why the situation that exists and if we could do anything about it. Yesterday we picked up cigarette butts and sit later and got this many cigarette butts between the school and the band show in town. So given the crowded room it's probably not realistic for people to actually get to walk up to the display but we can leave it here for people to look at when the meeting ends. Yeah the kids did an amazing work out. Questions about the project the kids did or any questions? It's been in this school but we need to take it down because we need to give the display board back to the art teacher who created this and let us use it. You guys are going to be many of you are going to be in the middle school and so you're going to be students with a lot of self-royalty kids I don't know there should be a place in the school for this at South Royalton I would love to have you guys bring it down here so you know just sort of introduce saying hey here are some of your future classmates here's a cool thing they did by the way tobacco is terrible and thank you guys for again waiting here so patiently if I didn't know you were there I wouldn't have known you were there and this is a great project. Any other questions or comments? You talked about e-cigarettes and I know I think that's a really important I mean something to be more aware of do you have did you find any signs of e-cigarettes in your... There's lots of flavors which people want to buy it yes and it happens to be right next to the M&M candies eye level for kids and so like they see the M&Ms and then they see right next to it e-cigarettes that are different flavors and and they might think wow I might give this a try this is cool flavors exactly like you know different things like that and they're like wait this is like and understanding that it's marketed towards kids and no those are not healthy things to do I mean this is gonna show my ignorance kids aren't allowed to buy that just like don't you have to be 18 to purchase yes you do but they put it next to the candy it's trying to make that association so when the kids are old enough to buy it they'll buy it it would be wonderful to try to work on legislation to prevent those things from being displayed next to you know wouldn't that be a cool project for like middle schoolers to next year organization counterbalance Vermont and they talk about exactly that you know if you go into the gas station where there's the great flavored cigarette for 99 cents and kids get it definitely get ahold of them they feel like e-cigarettes are not that depending on the age and the education they've gotten feel like they aren't that bad but if they're in Skittle flavor or sour flavor that's exactly you know who they're looking for yes your next project should be energy drinks really great because Lori now little we're a little nervous about approaching them and they were really fantastic the kids went in took pictures and yeah and we also did a survey they did a survey of Bethel and what people loved about Bethel hopes concerns and they wrote little poems about some of their pictures I also want to point out on one of our pictures for the ads it even has a warning which I think they should make much bigger it says warning this product can cause gum disease and tooth loss and so like why would you risk it to piggyback up that there's actually a bunch of research that shows that the more that children go into convenience stores the more likely they are to use tobacco products and that's all because of how heavily marketed all the tobacco products are in stores so what these guys did to draw attention to it can have a huge impact on kids walking into a convenience store and saying that's a trick or I think that's gross or whatever so it's a really important issue to draw attention to because not even realizing it kids are getting exposed to this message every time they walk into one of the stores in our community really thank you very much thank you very much thank you that's the dress that's right I know I was trying to have the right to the makeup Show me how you feel about the uFB stickers. Where? I'm just not in this picture. You thought you were so exposed to this. If you bought this thing, you would have a price tag. It smells like something from here. You know? As if you're telling me terrible. You're being exposed to the nicotine, aren't you? I don't know. Yeah. I'm not like a legend. Hey. All right. All right. OK. So my name's Alicia Hanford. I am a South Royalton teacher in grades 4 and 5. My name's Focke Yeager. I'm a South Royalton teacher in grades 4 and 5. And Monica Farrington, South Royalton teacher in grades 4 and 5. And Rebecca Forrest was here. She's a Bethel teacher. She teaches grades 5 and 6 right now, but she had to leave. And David is here. Yes, he is. Come on. You're good? OK. So roughly February, we came up with this idea of bringing Bethel fifth graders and South Royalton fifth graders together, knowing that they were going to sixth grade together next year. We brought them to nature's classroom. And nature's classroom is all over. But the one that we chose was in Ocean Park, Maine. The dates we went was right shortly after April vacation. So just to give you an idea, this is how awesome it is. This is our beach. And it was a seven-minute walk from where we stayed. Our kids got to go to the ocean multiple times a day. OK. So I just thought what I would do is show you a little bit about what it looked like when we were there. So every day, we were there for five days. And every day, the kids had multiple transitions times, which could be like recess. Or we had also set aside some quiet reflection time during the day. And they had about five of those each day. And they came after meals. And in between activities, and they ranged between a half an hour and 45 minutes. While we were there, each child was put into a field group, which they stayed with their field group leader or teacher for the whole week that they were there. And those field groups were mixed. So those were Bethel kids and self-royalton kids. And that was every morning. They met for about two hours. And then in the afternoon, they had choices of different classes that they could take. Those classes were also mixed, Bethel and self-royalton kiddos. And the one in the center is a geodome that the kids built. Off to the left is kids getting ready to go into their class. And then on the right is a wilderness survival class. And that was about we learned how to make a fire when you didn't really have a whole lot of anything. So it was pretty cool. And every night, we had an evening activity. And this was the last night. I was not there for the last night. So this one, we split the week. I was there the second half of the week with David and Alicia and hope for the first half. So this was called Thursday Night Live. And kind of like Saturday Night Live, it was on Thursday. The kids with their field groups, they kind of put on different performances. And it was just great to see the kids up there on the stage. And again, our tables were mixed for meals. So we had self-royalton kiddos mixed with Beppo kiddos and Beppo staff and self-royalton staff kind of all mixed together. And so the meals were served family style. And it just was pretty special to watch. Every meal started off with positive share. And then they had waitrons. So it's kids signed up each child. I think three meals for the week was responsible for gathering the food and bringing it to the table. That way they didn't have too many people up at one time. And then there was all kinds of fun stuff that happened at meals. We kept track of Oort, which is how much food was wasted. And we tried to be graphed that. And then every meal concluded with a lesson related to nutrition or food. And yeah, so that was that. And the food was ridiculously good. And the last day, I'll let Monica talk about that. So this is a picture right before we got in the bus. It is health and Beppo and self-royalton, as well as all the nature's classroom staff. I just wanted to get a picture with all of them. And Rebecca had asked me just to share that she felt like, because Rebecca was there, as was Veronica from Beppo, they were there for the full five days. And Rebecca had asked me to share that she really felt like the group kind of came together really on Wednesday. And she felt like it was kind of separate, separate, separate. And then sort of really brought together on Wednesday. So she really felt like that five days was really important to have that amount of time for these kids really to be in that kind of environment to really start to feel comfortable and become friends with each other. And yeah, so the hope obviously would be that this would be in the budget. And this would happen every year. And I'm just going to say it now, because we had about 30 kids between Bethel and South Royalton this year. And next year, we have over 60 in fifth grade. So just give you an idea of how much things fluctuate from year to year in small schools. But in thinking about that, that's definitely something that we've talked about. And we have had a little chance to debrief. And we'd really like this to continue for these kids. Did you get a lot of personal feedback from the kids about how they felt? So when we got back on Monday, I could hear, and I was helping the school. The kids are on the playground morning recess. And I could hear they're calling each other waitrons. And you could see just that kind of. So waitron is someone that's like a waitress and a waiter, but they kind of put the two together. So it's gender neutral. So the kids were like, you waitron. Go get, like, push me on the swing or something. So it's just kind of fun to hear them coming back on Monday to hear the kids talk about it. And just to follow up, to answer the same question. So it's come up a couple of times in my home room. So the Oort Report, in terms of how much food was wasted, there's a little song that went with it. And so one day, one of the kids started singing the Oort Report song. And then another kid said, hey, we should bring the Oort Report to South Royalton. And we should look into that. And how much food do we waste? So it sort of popped up as the time has gone by since we've come back. And different kids will say it different times. Like, oh, I miss being there. It was like, yeah, I miss being there, too. That was cool. So it's sort of, yeah. And I just feel like I have one more thing, if that's OK. Dave, you want to go? I'm sorry. Well, then Frank wanted to. Well, Frank wants to say something. Oh, yeah. I wanted to just say that Frank was there, but we can say that. Oh, no. That's just typical. Yes. Right. So I do want to say that I was there for the first three days. And when they came back on Monday, the kids that were there came over to me and said, Mr. Romeo, you miss this. And I can't believe you miss that. And this is what we did. I'm going to say right now, find the money. Find the money. It's worth it. I saw kids interact and do things that I have not seen them smile and be leaders. And for some kids that may not even get outside the house this summer, that might be the only experience. Find the money. It was incredible. And I want to say, good. Go for it, Dave. And I'd like to say there was definitely not every kid enjoyed it, but it was because it was a challenge. And it was the first time they were away from home. So that part, to me, was the most important part, that they had the experience being away from home. When I got there on Wednesday, there was a few boys, quite a bit of them, that were homesick. And I talked to them, talked to them about it. And I was in that boat when I was a fourth grader in basketball camp. I remember getting on the pay phone. They didn't really know what a pay phone was. It hit a lot of these kids once they persevered. And I told them, hey, you'll always be able to look at what you did and know that you persevered, even though it was tough times. And overall, the kids loved it. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying. There were some kids. I just asked a kid today in Bethel, and she was like, I was like, did you miss it? She's like, no. Glad she was back. But it was a great opportunity to echo what Frank said. It's definitely worth it. And I would just say that for my home room, if you ever had a fifth grader, it's a hard time. It's a hard time in their lives. And so a lot of them can be down or just up and down. So one of the things that Nature's Costume does is it sets up this very supportive, positive environment where people feel safe, where they can take risks. And principal ox, if you haven't had the chance to meet him, everybody should meet principal ox. Every teacher should work for a principal ox. He would. And his whole thing was, his whole quote, was basically, above all else, be good to one another. And we were having a little bit of a to-do in my class the other day, and one of my fifth graders stood up and he said, remember what principal ox said, above all else, be good to one another. And I'm sorry, if that doesn't, that just, to me, sealed the deal right there. When you said, so was it all fifth graders, soro and Bethel? OK, so there's no, no one will be left. Where are a couple of kids that didn't go? There are a few kids who chose not to go. Chose not to go. OK, so it's a nice choice. OK, so it doesn't cost anything for the families. It's. We did not charge the families. Wow. It's awesome. OK. Great story. Were there pay phones or cellular phones? No, so one of the things is the kids jump from any devices. That's good. No devices, none. They were encouraged to write home on a piece of paper, which actually was a good lesson in itself, addressing an envelope. What if someone really wanted to come home? Did you have that? We would make that phone call. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think it was a great location, too, because a lot of these kids don't have an opportunity to go to the ocean. So it was like a first time thing for that. Also, the kids that were really homesick, I think if it was closer, they would have been calling home. You know, come on at bedtime. It's like, OK, well, let's see how you are in the morning. And then next morning, like, let's go to breakfast. Is this the same location it's going to be every year, or is that? I hope so. I hope so. The staff there was so solid. One year is not a good time. One year. Anyway, that was our trip. Thank you for taking the time away from your families to take the students up there. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Back to our agenda. So we're just to our agenda approving the minutes, which are in the packet. There's three sets. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from those three days. I'll second. All in favor of approving the minutes as one consent agenda? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Is there any board comments? Yeah, I just want to make a comment. I think we need to prioritize what needs to be done first to get ready for next fall. And if the schedule is the top of priority, then it needs to get done. And I don't know if that is the top thing on the priority, but I guess we need to decide that packet. Is the AP exam that Hannah is proctoring tomorrow? Is that the AP exam? Or is it just? We proctor seven exams and two late exams. But is it like the official AP exam, or is it? Yeah. So nobody else can know. So I won't be bothering you. Chris was trying to find someone else. You can sit in your place. So that one is good. Yeah. She has to be official. Yeah, that's not a great idea, because I would love to put some comments on it. Yeah. Oh, but if these guys tomorrow, so not really, I want to be there for them right now. Anything else? All right, superintendent's report is next. Several things for you. I have three resignation letters that I'm going to pass around to you. Cass Bath is one of them. Kate George is another one of them. And Christine Fitch from here at Bethel is another one. So there are rumors of others, but I don't know. I think we'll probably know who's coming back and who's not now. And also, I'll send those around. The other thing is I have three documents for us signing up for V-High next year. One is the medical benefits part of V-High. The other is the dental benefits part of V-High. And the other is the unemployment part of V-High, compensation part of V-High. So I am going to need signatures on these if you wish to be a part of it. Hope you, I mean, we have in the past. And I guess I'm suggesting we will in the future. But those need to be executed at some point. So I'll pass them your way. Again, I introduce both David and Reed. We have a policy meeting tomorrow night. And hopefully that will be the last policy meeting we will be having for the first time ever. The most important policies that the mandatory policies that the state wants us to have. And with Act 46, it was important that those policies be developed before July 1st when this board takes on exactly what you're going to be doing with leading this group. So that's been, Steve Dale is leading that. I'm kind of excited about the fact that the process is going to end with the most important ones and then continue in the fall with all the optional policies that we have to look at. This is not easy work. It's not exciting work, but it's necessary work for boards. So I'm glad we're doing that now. I don't have much else. I don't think at this point for you. I guess I'd entertain any questions from you. We're really, we've got one more budget to pass with Rochester and Stockbridge. Next week, we got Chelsea and Tunbridge last night. So and the, as I said before, the negotiations continue. I'm hoping that we will have something concluded tomorrow. If not, we have another date on the 24th. Hopefully, we won't have to use it. We are really down to very few things, so. And Dave has been there for all of it. So I thank him for his time. Where do we stand on the teacher's health insurance? We have accounts developed with Datapath. In my understanding, David, do you have the latest? Where are you? Do you have the latest on Datapath and where we are with them? I'm able to say that the money is flowing yet, but we're getting there. We're getting there real close. There's more forms and more forms and more forms and we're getting them right away. Same day or the next day, we're getting them in. And we are hoping to be operational on the money flowing again within a very short period of time, but I cannot put a date on this. That's it for me, unless you have any questions. Nope, I think we're set. So that brings us to a financial update. My name is David Larkham. I'm the business manager here, everybody. I have a number of copies of two documents. And that's what's going to be shot up here. So if you don't have a copy in your hand, you'll be able to see it on the screen here. First of all, we are looking at the wealth and financial report as of the end of April. It's good practice and accounting-wise to look at the end of an accounting period, so end of April rather than today's date, so that we can compare this year to the next year and last year and every year on the same date of the year. And so what I have here is a report of what's in our accounting software. The first column, column A, is just a break-in. But B is the description of the kind of activity, which in accounting world in Vermont is called a function. What function are we performing? We're performing instruction, general instruction, art instruction, P instruction, music instruction all the way down. The next column C is the amount that was budgeted by the voters for different areas. The encumbered column says that we have a written document that says that we are obligated for something. We have a contract, we have a purchase order, something like that. The expanded amount is the amount that has actually been had checks cut and gone out the door. So those columns A, B, C, D and E are all firm numbers. They're in our accounting system. They are not subject to interpretation or speculation. The next column, the business manager, is my opinion, my professional opinion as a business manager. What do I think will happen between now and the end of the year? It's a projection. And so if I add column C, D, E and my projection, I come to column H, which is the projected column. And then the column after that is the variance. The difference between what's projected and what was budgeted. So if you go down column I, you'll see all the variances. Some of the rows have large amounts. Most of them have very small amounts because our budget is pretty close to what's actually happening. But there are some areas where there are significant variances. And column J for those that are familiar with some of the intricate codes that go into the financial accounting in Vermont. Those represent the kind of objects or the kind of things that are being purchased in that general area. So for example, in instruction general on row six, you go across to the right-hand side, the budget manager comments 5.1.1.5, which speaks about salaries for support staff. 5.2.2.0 talks about FICA costs. And so for each of those codes, there's something very specific that's meant by it. And each of them relates to the formula in here. So you can, if you look up where it says F6 and go across, you see there's a formula in there and that shows where the 5.1.1.5 piece comes from and where the 5.2.20. So it's very detailed drilling down to look at what's actually happening. Some areas have very clear answers and some need more work. So for example, if you look at row six and go all the way across to column I, the variance is $106,000. That's a lot of variance. I drill down to just below the knee level and identified which teachers were being paid in that account and which teachers were budgeted in that account and there was a reasonably close correlation between the two. So it means I need to go down to the ankle to get to the detail and I'll be speaking with our principals from Bethel to get down to that. Not the Royalton financial. Oh, not, do you know the answer to that one? No. Oh. I thought you knew all the answers. So anyway, so we're starting with Royalton and I won't go through every line. Nobody's interested in every line, I don't think. We can come back to any line that you're interested in and I'll jump to the bottom. You will see that there are some labels in column A and B which is designed as yellow but it comes out as kind of an ochre kind of a color. Those, well one of them like school-wide represents a grade level or a range of grade levels. So previously we had pre-K and elementary, pre-K, elementary, middle school, secondary and then we came down to school-wide all the grades together. But in addition to that there are these in row 42, 45, 50 and so on. All those shaded in yellow are represented functions that are performed by the supervisor unit on behalf of the member districts for which an assessment is charged. Some people in the past have seen a very large amount of money being charged to the central office. That sort of history has passed now. Now we're looking more closely at what it is we're actually getting from the central office. So we're getting some special education services, we're getting some improvement of instruction, curriculum work. The representative of that is sitting at the head table here. Office of superintendent also sitting at the head table. Fiscal, the guy who's trying to keep us moving here. Grants administration, technology administration, all these kind of services are performed at the central office and the cost is shared amongst the member districts. And for example, grants administration, Royalson pays on an annual basis $6,608 for the benefit of receiving that grants administration. It's a great deal for Royalson. They couldn't afford to get a grants administration function for less than that if it was done locally. Transportation and so on it goes down and now jump right to the very bottom. Not quite as far as that. So the bottom line is our total budget is just under $6 million for Royalson. We have encumbered about almost $800,000 in column D, the bottom there you see on row 64 going across. We actually cut checks for $4.1 million. My projection for the rest of the year for all those different functional areas in the budget is just about $600,000. So I'm projecting that we will come out at the end of the year with about $5.5 million. Now there's a caution at the very bottom at row 67. And it's very important that you don't start imagining how you're gonna spend all this money especially with those wonderful field trips that have just been presented to us. It's very easy to imagine what else we could spend it on for next year. But there's a caution here which is to say that in the normal cycle of financial management of school systems, at the end of the year there are a lot of things that get built back to schools. I'll give you one example. During the course of the year we have employees that are identified as special education employees who are deployed in the various schools within a supervisor union. And at the beginning of the year it is conceived that they will work 100%, 90%, 70%, 60%, whatever it is in doing special education work. And the remainder will be regular general education work. Thank you. One of the management tools that the agency of education at the state level requires of us is that we monitor the time that's actually spent on special education. And so there are two times during the year when time studies are done to just ensure that people who are being charged with special education actually doing special education work. What comes out of those two time studies is that this person who you thought was going to be doing 80% special education is actually doing 50% or is actually doing 100%. It can go in either direction. But if it goes down and it often happens in that direction that especially a power educator is suddenly no longer providing support for special education services but is used for support in playground management or in bus monitoring or loading the kids off the bus, recess, duty, all those kind of things. All those expenses have to be taken out of their special education expenditures and charged back to the schools that has reassigned them out of special education. And so that all happens at the end of the year. So right in Royalston we're seeing a variance at the end of the year. You might say a profit or at least expenditures are 320,000 less than was budgeted. But a significant amount of that is gonna be eaten up with these billbacks that happen at the end of the year when all these time studies and other things like that calculated and amounts charged back to the districts. So that's true for each of the districts that's here. So when you get to Beth, you'll see there's an even larger number than that 300,000. And you may say, whoa, we're gonna have a party. But be careful, it's a caution, we're at a caution. They're the year end activities that need to happen financially that will certainly eat away at some of that. Hopefully there'll still be a surplus at the end. I'm expecting that there will be. But it's not likely to be as big as it's showing up there. So it's good news for now. But we wanna hold on for the rest of the story to work its way out. There's a natural cycle in education finance and at the end of the year, there are various things that get built back. The other caution that I mentioned with this is we're only looking at the expenditures. So we may be 300,000 at this stage, $3,000 less than expenditures. But if we're $500,000 less than revenue, we're in trouble. I think you can see that. So it's important to look at the revenue and expenditures together. At this stage, we haven't had a chance to do that. It's a very time-consuming work to do this kind of thing. And we will get to that. But at this stage, this is what we have. And that's what I'm sharing with you today. So you can see what it is that we, what is budgeted, what's committed, what I expect that we will have projected by the end of the year and that's the amount and that's the variance, the difference that our expenditures are at this stage on looking like they could be something like $300,000 less than we budgeted. With the caution that there's some year-end billbacks that need to happen. In the ideal world, there would be plenty of time and everybody would have the resources and opportunity for the business manager and the principals to sit down before coming to the board into a public meeting like this and for us to share notes and to share opinions and expertise and perspective didn't happen. I apologize for that. I'm running at about 100 miles an hour and as I know our principals are and we will get to that but it didn't happen today. So this is what we have today. So these numbers here are firm. This is a softer number. It's not a number which I made up. It's not a guess. I drill down in each of the major areas. I look carefully at who was being charged where and what kind of expenses to see how many months of certain kinds of services were included in a particular area. I looked at, for example, at tuition to see do we have tuition for the whole year or do we have it just for 10 months? Those kind of details are all represented here. I looked at the assessments and most of the assessments have been paid in full in Royalton, not true in all the districts but it's true in Royalton except for the transportation assessment. So there's still an amount here that I'm projecting that we will in fact end up the year paying another 31,000 on top of the 115 that we've already spent. So we will end up paying the full assessment for transportation. The buses keep moving every day. Our kids keep coming to school and going home each day and that's an expense that we have to pay. So I'm expecting that that will in fact happen by the end of the year. So this is a 40,000 foot view of where we stand financially. I think it's generally positive. Andrew, did you have a question? Just with a lot of these billbacks, I mean, did you put things in the business manager column for those things that you're anticipating? I haven't calculated them yet. No, they're not in there. So the full payment of assessments is in there. As you can see, I did include the full amount of the transportation assessment in there. So things that were easy to identify, I put them in, make sure that you get as much of a picture as possible. But the billback is a much more complicated thing. So it means, for example, running a separate payroll to calculate what going from 80% to 72% means in terms of salary and benefits and all those kinds of things. It's a task and it takes time and it will be done. Because on our agenda, I'm trying to make sure that we're doing the right things, closing out South Royalton. And I don't know if anyone else has gotten that email. It went to most of the business managers. I can forward it to you if you want it. But I read it before I left tonight and it sounds like as of July 1, our district ends that day. There's no checks written up after July 1. They have to rehire everybody right then and there. It's very specific of what has to happen. And I'm concerned if we don't have the budget, like it should be pretty firm on July 1 because my understanding is you cannot write a check off of the Royalton budget that day. So I don't know who's responsible to make sure that this stuff happens, but like all employees have to be hired in public session, like they have to be, it's pretty specific. So I'll email that to you. I'm sure Bruce, your office probably already has it. David and I talked about this today. And David, will you explain what the procedure will be for that day? Mike, I didn't see that email yet. I was searching emails until five months before I came. But I was talking today with the Tumbridge Town Treasurer who's also the district treasurer for one of the new unified districts. And we were talking about this very topic. And the conclusion that we came to was that based on our understanding of the agreements, the merger agreements, all assets and liabilities of the merging districts become the assets and liabilities of the merged district. On the left, specific purposes for that town. For instance, scholarships that may be graduate, you know, a resident of South Royalton. I'm sure Bethel has the same. But they told me it's all what's written in our articles of agreement. The issue really is that there are a lot of bills that are coming in after June 30th. And we've got to pay those bills. We've got to be able to come up with the money to be able to do it. So that has to be clarified. Right, the letter that I have was supposedly sent to all business managers. So somewhere in the office, they should have that. So I think there are two different issues here. One is what happens to the utility bill that is for the period ending on June 30th, it arrives on July 15th. I think the answer to that is that it gets paid by the White River Unified District out of the White River Unified District checking account. So in the fiscal year, fiscal 18 for Royalton and for Bethel separately, they may well have only 11 months of utilities expenditures. And so any amount of money that's in the bank account on at the end of June 30th for the districts that are going out of business at midnight will be transferred over to the Unified District so that that June utility bill which comes in July will be paid in July with that money which is coming across. That's our understanding. I don't feel that's my responsibility. I'm just saying that I just want to make sure that come that time it transition. So I'm answering your question and saying there's a crisis in place that's well understood. Now the other thing that you raise is a different topic and that's also a very important topic, but it's really not anything to do with merging. It's getting confused in the merger emotion, but it's not caught up with merging. So three years down the road when the White River Unified District has been operating for three years and somebody comes along and says, I want to donate $5,000 to send the fifth grade kids off to Maine to the beach. There's a restriction on a donation which has got nothing to do with the town of origin, but it's to do with the purpose for which it was given. And so scholarships that were given for the purpose of these students will remain the students whether it's merging or not merging is irrelevant about the merging. And the same would be true of, for example, I believe for reserve funds for maintenance of buildings. So if there is money that is being set aside by a board to maintain this building, whether it's in the same district or a merged district or whatever it is, it's irrelevant because the purpose, the dedicated purpose of that money would need to be honored going forward. New money coming in is different. And the other thing that's a little bit different is that in the past it was the Bethel Board that would decide on the reserve fund in Bethel for the maintenance of the Bethel building and Royals and likewise. In future it will be the new unified board that will decide, but the same restrictions will go with the money. So those restrictions are not gonna be lost. So anybody who's concerned about money that was given for a specific purpose, whether it's a grant from the local gas station or a scholarship from a family member that died in the community, those restrictions all stay with the money, whether it's an merged district or an existing district, that doesn't change. So people don't need to be worried about that. And the board will make sure that those intentions are. Well, I know, are you gonna show us Bethel? Yes. Yeah, I feel like with the Bethel part we maybe don't need to go in. You did a wonderful job of describing the last one. I think that. When we go to the vital line. Yes, the vital line, that's exactly it. I was trying to articulate that and that's what I'm looking for. Thank you. You don't wanna spend the whole night on numbers? Oh, come on. It's our favorite thing really, but we don't wanna keep everybody here. We're sick. We're gonna talk about the beach just a little bit more. Thank you. Yeah. Let's just leave the water on the line. It's a better, isn't it? I'm gonna run out. I'm gonna run out. Right. Then we're... We've got more to finish. It's more to finish. Yeah. There's not a lot of greenery, but it's a good sort of thing. There's not a lot of greenery, but it's a good sort of thing. So the bottom line here is $600,000. Wow. You can clap if you like. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. That one, I know. That one, you know. So again, there's a word of caution here. Don't take it to the bank. Don't plan all your field trips based on the number that you see there. There's still billbacks and things that need to happen. But I did drill down to the knees here in Bethel as well. Good. Thank you. So that's where things stand at the moment. Thank you. What is that? Thank you. The things, like you said, like the library and whatever, like you had on the... Let's see if you can get the handing out. Say hello up there. And they're in the handout. This is all just royalty here. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, David. Thanks, David. Thank you. So we are back to public comment for discussion items at this point. So we have, there's nothing under them on the agenda. So I feel like that brings us back to public comment. Can I just ask a quick question? But it's a pretty simple question. Okay. So can you just clarify for me, everybody had to go through, like reapply for their jobs. Thank you. Like how did that, like the teachers have to reapply for their jobs? Not necessarily. Okay. There were no, we didn't do any layoffs. Okay. Basically a professional staff. We had enough positions for everyone. Okay. And how about the administration? Not a, not an application, so to speak. We, I do the evaluations on all the administrators and therefore I made a recommendation in the board. And that's how that happened. And when did that happen? The evaluations have to be done by February 1st. So by law and basically I had to talk to the board at that time about whether or not the ones that were coming back were coming back. Okay. So when did they, when did the administration know that they had their jobs? Well, they received a copy of their evaluations and there was a- In January. Yes. Well, actually January. I did the evaluation. This is something that the legislature did last year. Normally we would be evaluated in March or April, but they wanted this done earlier because they wanted these people that they weren't gonna be here to be able to find jobs. So they went to the legislature and the VPA approached the legislature last year and said, we want you move that date back to January. Which means I had to do the evaluations in December. So we know then like, does Bethel have a guidance counselor? It's supposed to be Bethel. They have two guidance counselors. Okay, so they know that they have their job and we know that we have Hannah again. Correct. And you have Jenny Lane. Right. So we're secure and we know that they have their jobs and they're coming back in August. Yes. Okay. I think the administration- Yeah. They're not- They're not necessarily administrators there. No, but- We have all four of those guidance counselors where they're gonna be exactly and you know what that'll be. How they'll be deployed is still a little bit up in the air. But they have their jobs. Yes. And they know that. I've met with all but one of them. And there was one gentleman over here for Eero. Okay. Yes, Lisa. In terms of just improving communication and how the process led up so far, I remember in all of the community meetings we had and in conversations with staff and students, one of the things that was comforting the staff actually was that administrators were saying, we don't even know if we have a job either because we all have to reapply. So one of those sticking points right now, I think one of the sort of maybe reading between the lines about is that that wasn't really the case and it was not communicated well. It was another one of those things that was maybe well intentioned and was it maybe a promise you could keep but it was something that wasn't well communicated to people. Yes, Christine. Hi, sorry. I just have to ask. Bethel sent out a parent letter saying who all the elementary teachers would be and which classrooms ask in for parent feedback on. Every year before May 1st. Class placement. I realize that but our teachers don't even know if they have jobs. And as a parent of an elementary student, I want to know all the teachers have gotten letters and sent out. All the teachers know that they have jobs. No, that's not true. No, that's, well, I put two. And all I'm saying is if we're going to send out a letter to Bethel, we should be sending out a letter to Wilson. Are there any other questions? Yes. This might be trivial, I don't know, but what about sports or coaches? I'm trying to learn everyone's names and I'm struggling. I'm asking everyone to say their names. Okay. I'm Andrea Taylor. I'm a resident of Bethel and I have a child in South Royalton and one in Bethel right now. So trivial question, I guess, like coaches. Are they gonna have to go through an application process? Are they automatically in? Next week, the 23rd, we will be interviewing the candidates for the, it's not really an AD's position, it's a co-curricular position. We want these people to oversee the drama program and making sure we have people to do that. And so we're calling it a co-curricular position. It will include athletics as well as the other co-curriculars that happen, like with play. They will be interviewed with the applicants for that position. There has been no okay on any coaches yet. That person will have to be in place first and then we'll go through the process of doing that. It's not all-ematic that coaches will come back, so. Yes. Can we make sure that students, like with the athletic director, are involved in the hierarchies of coaches? You will be asked by the athletic director to get involved in that process. That's what I meant by other decisions. Yeah, I think you've nailed me with that so many times. Way to go, Kyla. Way to go. You got me. Yes, you. Alexis Taylor Young, South Loyalton. There's not a lot of students that are going to be involved in this merger process from now on. Summer is very quickly approaching. How are we as students going to know for certain that we are being involved and that we are up-to-date on every information that we need to top it in? I've used student email to communicate about the merger concept, please. Will that email get switched over or converted or disappear on July 1st, though? No, the email will stay. VWRSU. VWRSU. Are they all VWRSU emails? Maybe the lead number is. Still the same super thank goodness. Currently, Bethel School, if it was probably a student of the one, O Bradley at WRVSU. Royalton is the sixth. So there's six O. That's probably going to stay in place till we get things smoothed out for them. That's not top of the list. I know that some of them aren't at the top of the list and they're over on the side and then nobody thinks about it and they push a button and everything is not as planned. So I think I'm going to ask. So just a question, is email going to function for you or are there other outlets or other ways in which communication should function through the summer? I personally can't speak for the entire student body. I think we need to talk to the student community as a whole over what's the method of communicating with them over the summer. I think that would, you know, to me it seems like we shouldn't just assume that email's going to be the only way to do it, that some communication to the student body would be really a good idea so that everybody's kind of clear and engaged and they know one or two places where they can collect the information that they need or someone that they can contact to get more information. So for what it's worth, I recommend that that happen within both the school systems moving forward or both campuses. Remembering that we have to be able to understand what you're asking for. So we know how to use email. That's a little funny that he's up here, but some of the other technologies may be a little. And I know that, I mean, this makes me think about, I remember that there was a communication to the board recently and saying that it's really hard to find out how to connect with the new board with all of us and hoping that the main website has the list of the current board and our emails and our contact information so that we are. I haven't gone on it to look, but I assume it's on there. Never assume. I know that there's been a lot of, so it's got us in the middle of it, so go assume. Anyway, I think that that would just be another, I know that there's a lot of stuff happening with this whole merger, but I think that's one, everybody goes to, well, I do, to the WRBSU website and it is hard to, the last time I've been on it, it's hard to navigate, but. It's especially hard on the phone because I was looking up at John this 10 hours ago. Yeah, I wouldn't even try it on the phone. But anyway, it would be, we should make sure that that is just another thing to tackle and streamline so that we're all able to communicate effectively instead of trying to dig through layers. And then once that's done, then you can't blame anybody for not being informed, right? Any other questions or comments, anything else? Yes. I just want to thank the kids for coming out tonight. It's pretty awesome. Thank you. I had all these guys starting out in fifth grade, some in sixth grade, and one in basketball and all the girls in basketball. They're very hardworking. And moving forward, I hope that they have a say in this, truly have a say, and they should be commended for doing the right thing and having a voice. It's pretty powerful. And us as adults should encourage that. That's what education is all about. And that's where we've always stood as teachers. So it's awesome. I'm very proud of you guys. The sports staff got letters of intent. Some didn't. Is there a date or when all that's supposed to be handed out or? The letters of intent went out Friday. So if you haven't received one, I would imagine it'll be showing up. And yes, I signed yours myself. No, I'm not talking. I'm saying that Bethel said some Bethel. They all went out on Friday. Okay, so I was asking. So we ratified the contract today, awaiting. I didn't know that. Just waiting for some final things. So the support staff, I'm probably negotiating team two, but so we did that and that's why I was wondering because we heard that some hadn't got. So just wondering. Hey, so we wrap up. Yes. Nice to see everyone looking. I'll be waiting for them from Southwest. And I just want to thank Joanne for an absolutely wonderful year that she's been here. She has pulled the staff together, not that they have been apart, but has really made them feel good and welcome and useful and all of that stuff. And I think the students have noticed, the faculty has noticed, but the staff has noticed and we really appreciate you being with us and your professionalism during this drawing time. Thank you. Next meeting day is Tuesday, June 19th at 6 p.m. We'll be in Royalton at that point in time. Right now, I think we're scheduled to transition to all three boards. Although I think we've covered a lot of the business in this meeting. We need to have, our WRUD board needs to have a non-public meeting. An executive session. Yes. Yes, Lisa. I didn't realize you were wrapping up public comment until you were done. Can I say one last thing? Sure. Sort of ties into the budget projections and I just wanted to point out as you're aware, but to sort of ask for some support, you had checked in early on about the status of the healthcare. And as you know, we have healthcare, but the reimbursement that we were, the reimbursement that we were, that was agreed upon by the board has not happened because it wasn't signed up for on time. So we switched over to a new health insurance January 1st. And as I understand it, that paperwork didn't get sent out until late January. And since January, people that have gone to the doctors or gone to fill prescriptions have been paying that cost entirely out of pocket when it was supposed to be reimbursed. For some people that means, I think someone addressed the board earlier about this, but I bought a home last year and my credit report was very important and could have influenced in the terms of tens of thousands of dollars how much I paid. And I think you really owe it to the staff to tell them not only yes, you're gonna get your money eventually, but what are you going to do to make it right? This has been months where people have been holding thousands of dollars in debt perhaps as I hear it, second mortgages, there's really no recourse for us. And I think while you don't have to, I think you owe it to us to find some way to make it right. Acknowledge an error, give us a letter that we could provide to creditors that are now probably trying to knock down the door asking for money. I don't know what you can do to make it right, but I think it's your responsibility to make it right. So 80% of the school districts in the state of Vermont are in the same predicament with this. It was a failure of the carrier that we went with and I know that that doesn't give any excuse, but... Well, we're simply a disagreement. Well, we transitioned in January 1st. Did you have a contract to have the reimbursement set before January 1st? So the board saw that we were into a contract that wasn't getting fulfilled and asked us not to continue the contract because they weren't, we were afraid that we were gonna lose our money. So that was done. We have signed up with Datapath, a new entity. My understanding is they're gonna flick the switch on the money immediately or soon. And I know this is a promise. I looked into trying to give you guys loans until the money came in and that's not, you can't do that with public funds where I would have been in jail probably for doing that. So we felt like we wanted to help but didn't know how to help because if we had committed public funds to this, we would have had a problem with that. And I know that doesn't help you pay the bill, but... Well, I really just wanna sort of drill it down here. I'm not on this insurance. I'm on my husband's insurance and he works at Randolph. We've been getting rembursed. We've been getting rembursed with a debit card for a long time now. So it's not that it's a state problem. It was a state problem and it's unfortunate that company wasn't able to fulfill the large obligation it put out there to people. But I wanna put it out there and say, there is some responsibility at this SU level and you owe it to us to acknowledge that and to make it right. But I think, I mean, I too work in the Randolph district and there are definitely people who are in the same situation. I was talking to a colleague today who was sick, who wasn't going to go to the doctor because she owes thousands of dollars. And I have a friend who works in Hartford who is in the same situation. So, well, and yet, whatever prescriptions I have for some reason, I go and get them refilled and they cost literally nothing and it used to be like $150 a month. So I don't understand, I think there might be some difference between the services and the prescriptions under the new formulary that have changed things up. It's a terrible situation. Did you file the paperwork before January 1st when switched over? Yeah, I filed my paperwork the day it gets sent to me every single time because- I'm talking about the S. I'm obsessive about it. Did we have a contract? I told you a minute ago that the board decided not to continue the contract. That was probably, in hindsight, a mistake. At what point did they know? I don't know exactly what David was. Was it after January 1st? I don't know that. I could find out, but if David were in here, he could tell, but he's not. He's gone. I mean, she brought up, like are there other things that we can do? She asked for a letter to give to creditors. My understanding is we have sent a letter out to the people that are the creditors to do this. I mean, the teachers asked for a letter to give to people that are the creditors. And I had a lousy credit rating because I had paid $2,000 worth of bills. And that's not just $2,000. That affects the mortgage rate I get. You know what I mean? This is affecting people's lives in enormous ways. And I feel like for the board to make a decision to not go with that provider, you at least owed people that conversation to say we've made this decision. This is how it's gonna impact you just to let you know for the next five months, you're gonna be paying everything out of pocket. At that point, the company wasn't paying. And we were afraid we were gonna lose everything that we had. But we're no, we're no, we're better than we were. They're not paying, you're not paying, no one's paying. So what can be done at this point? I don't know because I have tried with lawyers to try to figure out something to get you guys what you need. And anybody that's been intimately involved in this can tell you that. I mean, we did research trying to get loans out there and whatever. And I was told, no, you can't do that, public funds. So I don't have an answer. My answer is that because we were, we do not have a tail end of this. We don't have money that future planning has that we may get served now in May quicker than the other companies that do have a tail. And so they don't have to reconcile with us anymore because we didn't have the money invested so that they had to do it. So I'm sorry. That's all I can tell you is that we have been laboring with this since it came up. And I've been talking to my fellow superintendents to find out if any of them have some solution. We have a great deal of sympathy for what's going on. And I got a bill. Can you find out what Randolph's doing? Randolph stayed, paid future planning something, I think. And therefore they had some money at the pot to reimburse. We didn't do that. And I'm not reimbursement. I'm not gonna lie and tell you that we did. I mean, the board made a decision that they were not gonna throw good money after bad and worry about whether or not we were gonna lose that money. That was a January conversation. That was not a first conversation. Can we clarify which board that was? Was it the current board or the SU board? I think it was the, I don't know, Dave, do you know, executive board perhaps? I don't know. All right, we talk about it. It's been in minutes for months and months and months. But it was executive board. It's there, information's available. I don't, I'll top my head, we've been so much going on in the last four months, including negotiations, I couldn't tell you for sure. But it was the supervisory union level board, either the SU or the executive board, right? Christine. I just have a question. So we know we're gonna give so much money into this, what HRA, HSA, whatever it is for reimbursement. Where is that money? If we didn't invest it, where is it? We have the money. Where? In the budget. So is that why our budget is? That's accounted for. That's accounted, it's been set aside for this purpose. But the point is, is that we can't give it to them without an agreement with the carrier. And that is a new carrier, which is called Datapath. And we have signed up the papers, they literally have been sending us papers day after day after day, and we send them back the same day, hoping that they'll turn the switch on and these people will get reimbursed. And they will get reimbursed, we've promised that. Could we send somebody to their company so that you could do it person to person and just do whatever they need? I don't know what you're working with them. I mean, that's what's going on. Well, I mean, this needs to get done. I know that. Because I'm part of the negotiating team, I'm also working for this. And we just explained it to our members that Datapath has guaranteed South Royalton and Bethel that they would open our box first, because we do have this problem. And they guaranteed us by the end of May that they would have the people that have these big bills, they would be first in line. So the people that we know that are really struggling financially, they're gonna be first paid. And so one of the things that we mentioned was that it's not kind of fair that one person gets paid. But we're all, so their Datapath is saying through the attorneys, through the supervisor union that we are going to be taken care of. They will hopefully have everything back online by the end of May and up and running. Right now, VHI is covering all of the prescriptions because of the just for, right, just during this blackout period why Datapath gets up and running. So, you know, we got a thing, I got a thing, a couple of the other negotiators got things from Dartmouth. We got them from CVH saying that they were gonna put a 90 day hold on some of the bills, Gifford said no way, but most people know that we're having this issue and that they're stepping up to help us. So. Thank you. But I still think we should, but I still think we should get some kind of get back. Is there any follow up for? I guess just to summarize, sometime in January, realized future planning was not gonna hold up its obligations, wasn't holding up its obligations, made the decision to not file the paperwork to contract with them. Didn't have a backup plan in place, knowing that we wouldn't- We had a backup plan to go with Datapath, it has taken that long for them to finally take our paperwork and get us going. Okay, so the backup plan meant there would be a big delay for people. Again, it's, I guess I'd say 2020. People deserve to know they'd be out for months having to pay out of pocket. So I don't know what the conversation should have been with Datapath, or if they also let us down. But I feel like people, I mean for months, people were waiting for reimbursement, thinking it was coming next week, thinking I'm like, how long could it possibly take? So that's very disappointing. And I will still leave it with you to sit on. I think you need to think about how to make it right, not just how to keep the money back, but how to make it right with people. Nancy. Can the board write a letter now that you know that there's a problem to the teachers or the staff that is affected? Because if they've been waiting every day, that's harder than knowing, okay, it's gonna be a long time. So it might be nice if you wrote a letter. When does the SU board and executive board meet next? 29th. Okay, so not next week, but the early of the week after. Executive board has a meeting on Monday. Okay. The full board is gonna meet on the 29th, which is the day after Memorial Day. So could a letter be put on that agenda or we could ask that that happen there? The one on the executive board? Probably. Since it sounds like the executive board made the decision. Is there any additional public comment? Yes. How do I get something to the board that I want considered? You could send a letter to us, you could call one of us, but I think emailing a letter is probably the easiest way. I did some looking and I don't think there's a link on the current White River Valley Supervisor Union website to the new White River Union District Board. So we need to get that contact information updated. On my to-do list. Okay, thank you. Okay. I have a question about the financial issue. Yes. When were you planning on telling the teachers when they were or that the contract had been dropped? What, the contract regarding healthcare? No, but the like, as Ms. Lisa Dragun said, when she bought or when she had purchased a house and she's been in debt like thousands of dollars. I'm just to clarify, I'm not personally done, but I do know that people are. But it's back to the healthcare. Yeah, I think that's the case. It's not necessarily the contract. Okay. So the healthcare situation. So the way the board structure works is that there's representation from this board and the Bethel board and the Royalton board and all the boards in the district that meet as a supervisory union district board. Then the chairs from all the boards meet and make up the executive boards. And the executive board that represents all the school districts in the supervisory union was the board that looked at that contractual piece. And I think that that must have happened in a January meeting. I saw it in the minutes. I don't have them all right in front of me right now. But I think that. Well, not to pass the buck. None of us are on the executive board or the issue board until July 1st. So we had nothing. This board actually had nothing to do with what you're talking about. But right. I mean, some of us have been going to those meetings, but we're not official members until July 1st. Yes, Alexis. I would just also like to say, like just acknowledge how much the teachers and the current administration has done for all of us students in the past couple. Yeah. Like the back of a month, but like the year because they've been great. They've been super supportive. They've encouraged us to think and to actually talk to one another about what's happening and talk to them and get the actual backs and stuff. And they deserve some credit for that. Thank you. Bridget. Bridget again. I was gonna say one thing because it's bothered me a couple of times at these meetings and I'm just gonna. We're at the end, I'm gonna do it. Twice this meeting, there were people, they know who they are, who kind of dismissed questions that I thought were perfectly rational as emotion driven. And so there's two pieces to this. One is, again, I thought those questions were perfectly rational. Anybody who went to high school with me, there are a couple of you in this room who think I'm actively mourning South Royals and high school will probably laugh until they wheeze. But. But, and so I think it's easy to dismiss things as an emotional thing and I don't think that's fair or legitimate. And the other half of this emotion is actually really important. Nobody works for months without a promise, with a promise at best of health insurance and a promise of a contract someday. If they don't care about being here, nobody puts up with annoying questions from me. If they don't have emotions that they value their work and what they do. And so I want to make sure we honor the good emotions that get us here and that have put all of us with an investment in the next generation. And don't be so quick to say, eh, it's just an emotion. Emotion's why we're here. So our board now has to enter an executive session. What's that? I think we should probably go to another room. I think that's a far sign to them. Okay, all right, so we will move there. We'll make a motion to do that. Yes, so I would say emotion. In our word, there will likely be action taken. So you'll come back in here and finish that. So we'll have to come back here and finish that. Okay, so there's still separate board meetings that are there for after this executive session? Right, not the White River Union District, but there will be a Royalton and a Bethel board meeting after this. And we'll come back together and make our motion. Christine, you have to make the motion. Right, so could somebody make the motion too? I would entertain a motion to enter executive sessions. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. I'll move. Who's noting? I am. Thank you. Todd's taking notes. Makes sense. Yeah. Any adjustments to the agenda? Anybody else here want an agenda? Does anybody here have an agenda? I have one. I mean a personal agenda. I have one. To get finished? Not yet. Not meeting with me. Oh, yeah. Hearing none, consent agenda. Approve the minutes of April 9th. I move that we approve the minutes of April 9th. Do I have a second? Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll move the paper. Aye. Board comment. If you have a comment, I have a really, really, really, really. Are you sure? I really want to see an in the newspaper or somebody, anybody, like Andrew. What a sign. I didn't make the link to the meetings, minutes. The minutes of the meetings. I could give you a link without putting the paper. Christy doesn't send them to you? You don't get them from Christy? Not all of them. Not this, only this one. The other one, too. Not the W red one? Yeah, I don't care. I just want to know where everybody's getting it from. Okay, I will show you and she could send you and you get one bar, okay? When we get done, I will show you. How do you get it? Okay. But I still want to make sure she... I will, she's not in it. I have tried this so many times. I feel directed, I got it. Thank you. Put it on the sign on the front line. It's not the whole minutes you just put it on the lawn chair. I don't care. Okay, any more board comment? No. Hearing none. Public comment? Carrie? Yeah, okay. Discussion items? I don't believe we have any. Next month is our last meeting. Next month is our last regular meeting. We're gonna do that at Babes. Ooh, that's a good discussion. Or that's the post meeting? Good game. The meeting's in Royalton, so... Oh, probably. Well, you got to come back to Bethlehem. Crossroads, crossroads. All right. All right. That's what I want to do. New business? I don't think we have any new business because we're going to be old business, surely. Okay, you guys, report to the board. Send this to everybody. I got it. I couldn't get it. I didn't send it, so you get it? Yes. You get it? I got it. So, hiring updates. This is for the entire, our new unit. There's a bunch of hires we have to do. There's an elementary teacher for next year in Bethel. There's an English teacher, math teacher, and social studies in the middle school. Wow. There's two special educators. Those have already been interviewed and they're about to be placed from Depp Matthews. There's, in the high school, there's a social studies, a math, two science teachers, and we also have a elementary world language teacher for both campuses, halftime eco teacher and halftime health teacher. We have the applicants, we're performing the committees, and we're setting up the interviews. Any of these halftime people, are they going to be working with the Royalton to pick up some more tonic? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, actually- With our other campus. So, it's not Royalton, it's our other campus. Right, Royalton campus. So, the halftime eco position will be based in Royalton. The halftime health position will be based in Royalton. The other half may be here, that's to be determined. We're working on that, it might be Lori Smith. Right? Okay. Facilities? Well, Lori's not going to leave, right? No. She's halftime here now. She may go full-time by taking that other halftime. Being worked out. Okay. Facilities? I'm going to give you the overview, but Chris Forz would do a better job and we'll get some reports for you. You've got to tell these guys who Chris Forz is now. Chris is the, he's kind of the clerk of the works. He's taken care of all the facilities for the merger. He did the forest study for us. So, he has had some engineers look at our heating system in the 1958 building. And we put $200,000 aside. It's going to be at least 800,000. So, we're going to kick that can down the road and go to the voters at another time, it looks like. We're going to have a true engineering study done because we're just getting estimates. And he's, the engineers in here are recommending that we tune up and upgrade the elementary side and we're going to have a lot of savings and put some of that other money towards the engineering study which don't come cheap. I think they're like $60,000 for an engineering study. So, then we would probably have to go to bond with the public. So, we're looking down the road, okay? I know. $60,000? For an engineering study. And that's for both buildings? That's for the 1958 and they will do that part too, but this is the main piece for that study. How does the town go on that engineering study or is that something that's just done? No, that would go out to bid. The board would have, I think the new board should probably bless that. Would you all agree? And that money would probably come out of that $607,000. Yes, exactly. And the greenhouse, we're getting numbers on that to tune that up. They have people that are giving numbers on the library at Royalton and the painting in both buildings. The science classroom that we have to put together in Royalton, we've turned out the floor and the room we wanna use is asbestos flooring. So, we're gonna have to take that out in a federally approved way. So, that's happening. And I think those are the big ticket items. Like when you're doing this high school science, they're gonna take everything and bring it over to South Royalton, right? What's in here? They're gonna leave this for the middle school. Okay, that's what I'm trying to find out about if there's gonna be science here, because sometimes it's great for kids to take a science a little higher. So, if they wanted to take chemistry or physics. They're gonna build a new lab over there. Okay, but how about here? This is gonna stay. But are they gonna still have a chance to do chemistry or physics? Yes, we have that facility here with gas and with a chemical hood. Okay. More than most middle school. That's what I mean, I wanna make sure of that. Okay. Mowing and plowing. So, we've come to the determination that plowing will happen in the winter. I don't know how to do that. So, that we both right now, both schools still have their own budgets that we will take care of our mowing bids separately. And then, we will look at a plowing bid, a combined plowing bid. And in the future, we would look at a combined mowing bid. Okay. The rest of this is primarily dates. Three dates of things that happened. And there's a bunch of dates of interest that you should wanna be aware of right up to graduation. So, we had Alec Hastings, who is a former teacher. Yes. And author. Yes. He has a love teacher. Yeah. He has a new book out, and he came in during library month and read to the students and he had some signed copies that are available for sale here. The children's book this time. The children's book this time. Proprietary for children. Yeah. Yeah. Right, some of his other books were a bit more. Not about both bootleggers. Right. Yeah. That's, thank you for that. And on May 3rd, do you wanna give that one? On May 3rd, we had our writer's fair for all the elementary, except for the kiddos in fifth and sixth grade, our gateway presentations and our senior projects. So, it was a full house. It was lovely that people could walk around and see kindergarten writing all the way up to our senior projects. So, that was thanks. Really nice night. They had some really good projects. They sure did. Yeah, I enjoyed them. Somebody redid an entire pickup truck. There was a lot of great things. Computer. Writing songs. Writing songs. Somebody made a guitar out of scratch. Project on feminism. Right. And the Allstate Parade was on the 9th. Can you give us an update? Were you there? I was there. I was at South Royalton. And if you didn't know, South Royalton was wearing. Good Lord. Find some pictures because that will go down in history. What were they wearing? Tutus and Blue Afros and Josh was wearing a yellow suit, like a leisure suit. And lace. Yeah. It was great. Hard to miss. Why colorful? They heard them coming. It was so loud. Yes. They were probably the best uniforms in the whole thing. Yes. Or non-uniforms like that. They strong even attitude. So, and then the upcoming dates, this Thursday and for the next two Thursdays, there's concerts. This Thursday is the last victim concert. And it will be at the town hall. Tell your friends. Bring your neighbors. It's flashback to the 80s. Boom. Yes. There will be crimping of hair involved. Got it. And then the following week, so it's the elementary concert, which is always a big hit. And get here early if you want to park near the building. Right. May 19th is a busy day. This is that next Saturday. We're gonna have touch of truck, which is giant trucks and vehicles. This Saturday. This Saturday. So, yes. Touch of truck. Drive one for your school by Ted Greenford. So if you come and test drive a car, the school gets $20. All the money that they raise is gonna go to revamping the greenhouse here. So this is all the PTO. Touch of truck. They're also doing a, actually I think Carol Delia is doing the flea market. So she's selling spaces. We have a bunch of vendors that are gonna come. And not here, but on the same day is the girls on the run 5K that will be happening in Castleton in, you know, a half inch rain. We're gonna do some waddle and run. It's supposed to rain on the 19th. It is. Yes. Maybe it's not as bad as it was. All right. Where are we going? Are we? We have just a few minutes and we'll be done. We're done. Okay. Yes. I think we like to finish and then we'll come back. I appreciate it. Baccalaureate student tent, 630th brick church, June 13th class night, 630th in the cafeteria, last one, June 15th. Last day of students half day in the dismissal and graduation is that same night at seven o'clock. Ooh. Schooled out for summer. When did we sign to come? Not for a really long. As soon as, you know. They weren't here. I checked today. They weren't here. We're gonna have to have you come in. Okay. And we'll let you know when they're in the office. They're not here yet. Okay. Thank you. We're at 5.45 that day. I can't make it to graduation because my niece is graduating at the exact same time. Same time. It's a high now. That's the report from the principal. You guys come in for graduation. I don't know. You're way out for me. I'm in a month from now. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing. Okay. It's my due date, so I might not be around. Graduation. Are you crazy? Yeah. Yes, I'm pleased. Oh my gosh. That wooly Walker's food is so good. Yeah. Can I have the baby till nine o'clock? Yeah. Action items. I don't believe we have any. I think she's having a wild cut. Next date, Tuesday June 19th at Royalton. Okay. 7 p.m. We may... Yeah. Okay. We may talk about that some more. The time. Not the date. The time. Future agenda items. I guess what we normally do, because it's our last real meeting, I can't think of anything that you really need to do. Those folks are taking over. I hope you say so. You guys can have a party? A good going out party? No. I was going to, but I haven't been able to pull it together. I wanted to have something for, invite all school board members that are still alive. There are school board members who look alive in depth to come to some. There's a lot of them still alive. There's a lot of them. I know they're against it. Quite a job to put that together. Because the Royalton sisters want us to be here. Yes. Oh, okay. You're going to be caught up. Because it's sound like we were imposing to you. No. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Okay. Second. All those favourites? Aye. Under my block. Now we just have to wait for the Royalton. Well, they said to step in. They're eagerly awaiting our, we need to vote and adjourn our meeting. Oh. Did I tell you to do so again? Okay. Well, I thought I had the clear ones, but I have two. So should you meet it? Oh, okay. Do you vote and adjourn our meeting? Yes. So we need to get Andrew and Chris. Yes. And then, do you need me? I know, I want to make a comment in your meeting before you adjourn. Okay. All right. If I forget to say Dave, you'll... Oh, I'll let you know. No, okay. All right. And we need to record it because I'll record it. She just, she told somebody about what... Tammy. Yeah, she told Tammy about what to do. Tammy told somebody else what to do. They're keeping information. It might fall into my shoulders. So I'm going to... That's a good one. Just take a couple notes. Nancy, take a little bit away, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure he is that thing. I'm doing the same glorious stuff. That stuff is killing me. Whoops. What was the locomotion? I'm doing the same. I don't know, like... The locomotion is the same. I was just getting out of the chair. The glorious stuff on feels... It's the feeling. All right. Are they thinking, thinking, or thinking? No. So do you think we'll finish the machine? No, we'll finish the machine. We're going to end the... There you go. You got it. We're all going to actually finish. Okay. I'm going to finish you. Are you going to finish it? Yeah, I'm going to finish it. You have nothing to do with me. Oh, that's right. I'm going to finish it. You're pushing yourself. That's true for what you are. People, get some... That's true. Yeah, you're going to finish it. I'm going to make a 2-3. Please. Come on. What are they doing? That's the... I'm not sure what's going on. Of course, never throw in the mic. It makes you not miss it. Oh my God. I'm like, please, Jim, come fast. I want to compete. Shalina. Right there. Yep. That must be happy with people's words. We'll come along this way. Remember those years? Remember four years ago? Yeah. I can type it up and then send it to Tammy. Okay. Let me just get this for you. So we exited executive session at 8.44. It's a little bit atypical, I think, because here we are at 8.57. Taking action. Okay. So I'm just taking some notes. So would somebody like to make a motion? I make a motion that we take the superintendent's recommendation for the principal position for the elementary and Bethel campus. Right. Can we say more than that? Not the particulars. Okay. Is there a second? And all in favor? All right. Okay. All right, so that's unanimous. So that's very anticlimactic, but totally boring. Whoopie. We don't know what your recommendation was, so no we don't. Of course, it's a mystery recommendation. Bruce has a conversation with her. Yeah. We get her a bassinet! You can send a letter out in a couple weeks. Yeah. All right. So make a motion to adjourn. No, I'm sorry. Dave had one thing he might want to talk to. I have two. I would make a motion that we accept the minutes on the last combined meeting. Yes. As printed. I would second that. Do we need to have Barrelton members around for that? Is this the wagon wheel thing that we're doing? Is this a combined meeting? That's true. They were all in here before. Why don't we just finish our meeting and then we can do the wagon wheel meeting and just... I won't be here. So can we table those minutes until next time? You can, but my other comment is I'm suggesting that we don't do a combined meeting again. Because that's the only thing that didn't get covered in your meeting. But you have to do that in the combined meeting. Okay. So do we... How many people do we meet from the self-world? I think we just need one in a combined meeting, right? We need one from every town. Right. So Jeff... He's in the room. He doesn't even have to set up. You don't have to sit down. You can just do whatever you want. As long as you're in the room, we're good. Okay, so let's adjourn our meeting. Okay, we will adjourn at not... sorry, 8 57. Okay, that clock is slow. It is. All right. All in favor? All right. Let's open the combined meeting. Okay. The meeting is back in session at 9 o'clock, right? All right. Okay. I would make a motion that we approve the minutes of... Whatever that date was in our last meeting. April 9th? Yeah. What was the date? I'm sorry. April 9th. The minutes. Sorry, Todd. I would like to make a suggestion that we discontinue a combination meeting. Okay. If we... I mean, the minutes... Now we've opened the meeting, we now have minutes again. Right, I'm not taking them. But that's... Eventually that has to end. I guess the point of the combined meeting we're looking for versus reports to all the boards. But if you're comfortable with doing that... If you do your meeting first everybody was here, right? Okay. And it's only... It's just one... We're all done. I'll second the motion that we discontinue combined meetings. Okay. Oralton? I'll go with that. Any objections? Okay. Any objections? Sorry. I don't mind per view. Well, any opposition? Hearing none. All those in favor? All right. There you go. Back in our meeting we never just set it next meeting. Motion adjourned. Yeah. Second. I said it. Yeah. All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? Thank you.