 And the first order of business is space for public comment. I don't see any members of the public in the room, but are there any folks online who would like to speak? If so, raise your hand using the raise hand function, or go ahead and, well, I guess that's really it, because we're having a webinar. So we have one person so far, and I think I'll just take a sec for Anna to... You should be ready. He's good to go. Go ahead and unmute yourself and state your name for the record, please. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Sure can. Loud and clear, Joe. Hi, team. It's Joe Carroll, zooming in from Independence Green. Hi, Joe. Thank you all for the op-ed and support of passing the budget. I also wrote a letter and it should drop in the local outlet soon. So I'm hopeful that we can continue to collaborate on messaging for how to persuade the legislators to craft a better, more equitable and clearer way to finance the schools. But I also wanted to talk about a few aspects of the SEL and special ed data you'll be seeing later. There's a few mentions of initial classroom instructional needs, whether it's teaching cultural competency, equity, or diversity, or explicit SEL instruction in the classroom. We're just building teacher skills and supporting vulnerable students. And so while I agree and many of my fellow educators would agree that increasing our skills in these areas is worth our discussion, time, and effort, I'd ask the board to contextualize it and think about what can be removed from teachers' plates to accomplish those important goals. Many of our educators already work way, way beyond the negotiated contracted hours. And I think throwing the complexity of this work on their already full plates is just not a recipe for doing it well because we want to do it well. So I just asked the board to ponder ways to recalibrate other expectations or working conditions for teachers so that they can be open and have the capacity to work on these goals. Because otherwise, I think teachers will just suffer under the uncertainty of which priority or initiative to focus on. And I think that the more that gets put on their plates in terms of priorities, the less any of the priorities are actually priorities. And so I also want to speak about the framing of these conversations. In my time in the district, I've seen a lot of attempts at a grand unity of initiatives or priorities or goals or ideas. And I think just at a certain point, the ideas do come into conflict. And even though they're important, they require careful discernment as to what's the ultimate priority. So for example, if belonging is a priority or a requirement for all students, as important as that is, I think if there are circumstances that are outside teachers' control that we can't necessarily address, I think we'd have to all recognize that the effort, emotional labor, and class time that you'd have to devote to it would come at the cost of other goals. And I think that's a recipe for burnout or demoralization. And if there are just so many important but unattainable goals, teachers, they typically are very empathetic and passionate. They'll experience a failure, a sense of failure that's beyond their control. And I think that'll just result in more teachers leaving the profession, which is just a trend we're already seeing. And so I think given that shortage, but in particular, the special educator shortage, I think when it comes to helping students, we also have to just recommit to engaging with material conditions of being a teacher. Special educators' team can make $10,000 to $15,000 more a year in other districts. And with the number of special education positions that are open, I think we just have to confront that and talk about that as a part of any systemic goal. So anyway, sorry, last thing. Finally, I just can't stress enough how important it is for the district to make a plan to recruit BIPOC educators as part of a larger strategy of students belonging. I think this is hugely important and the MREA is more than willing to collaborate with the board to that end. So thank you so much for listening and I hope you have a great meeting. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, Joe. Do we have anybody else who would like to speak a public comment? Yeah, okay, thank you. So the next order of business is the Consent Agenda. I move that we pass the Consent Agenda. Thank you. Is there a second? I can second that. Thanks, Lynn. Is there any discussion or questions on the Consent Agenda? Hi, question. Lily, from your superintendent report, if there was anything that you could expand on the ideas coming from Superintendents' section, holding the intent of Act 46 and looking at smaller schools and uniform class size policy, do you have anything kind of additional to that to sort of fill those, just get a little more substance to those ideas? So I am, I'm testifying tomorrow at House Ed. House Ed has asked the V's, the VSBA, VSA, VPA, V's we call them, to testify they're moving, shifting now from the 127 fix to cost savers in the future. And so the VSA did put out a survey to all Superintendents that I was privy to because I'm testifying tomorrow. And it was overwhelming, an overwhelming theme was around small school buildings and the will to look at that as a potential cost saving. Okay. So that was overwhelming by Superintendents in an anonymous survey. Yep. The other places that was overwhelming was looking at a uniform class size policy or some sort of staffing ratio from the legislature. So something statewide. Yep. Along with other pieces like the fact that schools are taking on the mental health system because our mental health system doesn't have the capacity for the needs of our families and our students. You know, other themes that you've heard me talk about before. We're definitely in there as well. Unfunded mandates coming from the, from the legislature and agency of education. Yep. Significant reporting requirements. Some superintendent quoted she just takes a tally from it. We now are having to report out 150 times to the agency of education on multiple things. So it's not just a like check box. It's like, here's one survey with 25 questions that we're, you know, that we're answering. Here's another survey with 150 questions that we're answering. And it's reached, if you're a small district, you're a small school, that's a lot. A lot of time, a lot of, yeah, exactly. And where does it go, right? Do we see 150 data collections from the agency? Like, do we see the results of these things ever? So there are some other things on there, but overwhelmingly, it was how do we, how do we get to an economy scale that works for our taxpayers? So moving beyond 127 cost drivers that can create conditions for cost savings? Yep. Yep. And again, I'm testifying tomorrow with how said, I'm not, I don't have a prepared testimony to share with the community or the board. I'm more there as a superintendent's voice with the VSA. What time? 9.30 to 12. Can we tune in? BSBA goes first. So Floor from the Washington Central District will be up first with Susa Glawski. And then we follow them. I guess around 10. Yep. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion or questions on the consent agenda? I did, sorry, I just wanted the community to know part of it is the draft calendar for next year. I know that's always like a hot ask that people have that that's in there. That's all, thank you. Yeah. Planning vacations. Planning vacations. Of course, strategy. It's a priority. It's real. Great, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, moving right along. Let's hear from our leadership team. The winter data report. Where's yours? Welcome. Their presentation is gonna be very much like Mike's. You all got the data report, they don't have a slideshow to share because we're in mid-year data. We'll do the slideshow thing again at the end of the year. But they're prepared to give a high level overview and answer any questions that the board might have. Great. Thanks. Excuse me. I'll leave. So starting with special education. We have seen, continue to see an increase in our number of referrals and students being found eligible for services this year. I think that part of the reason for that is the change in the regulations. So there was the addition of functional skills as a basic skill area. So there are a number of students who previously had been supported through a section 504 plan that are now becoming eligible for special ed services looking at that basic skill area. And I think we're still just continuing to see the increase in the mental health stuff that Libby was just talking about. So there are a lot of students that we're looking at through the SELNs, which Jess will talk about more, but that is definitely something we're seeing. And we are seeing, we do have some more students that are being referred out to therapeutic schools by their IUP teams. And I thought today also to add, we do have some kids that were successfully transitioning back, which feels really great because that is always our goal. And that's a tough for those children and family to go through. But we are building the systems that are making it so that they are in a place that we can support them, which is great. Our administrative team has been doing work with the ability challenge around our continuum of services. So trying to look at what our options are for students to receive special ed services in the schools and try to align those so that their experiences and what's available are similar across the schools. So we've been doing that work. And I think it's been good. I think it's, we've had a lot of good conversations about where are the gaps, where are the needs and what are the things we can do to not only align what we're offering students, but also maximize our resources. Because as Joe pointed out, we are numbers that are continuing and we don't necessarily have more special educators. So we are working as an administrative team to think about how we can use people efficiently in the way to not cause them to burn out, but that we can maximize what we have because we have some great educators. And then the other thing that I put on here, I know it has been an ask, how do we know, how do we measure our work in special education to see if it's working? And I did have a small group of people that I met with and we started talking about it and it's complex because by virtue of definition, it's individual, but we are trying to look at ways that we can calibrate how we are measuring progress in students with IEPs, knowing that they're individual, looking at across disability categories and that kind of stuff. So that is work that we're thinking about and trying to figure out more ways to look at. Let's see, one of the things I think that's been great this year is that we're seeing more collaboration among the special educators. So we're working to think about that like the person case managing doesn't necessarily have to be the person doing the service. There might be someone else doing a service that they could also have that child work there. So there's been a lot of great collaboration for that and the feedback from families around the consistency of keeping the same case manager when you're in the same school has been positive. I think that's felt good for families and students and has allowed us to jump into the work quicker because we're not having to build those relationships every year. So that feels good. And oh, and I guess the only other thing is that we're seeing some exciting results with the literacy intervention. So the work in the classrooms and also with the specialization that we're doing, there's a lot of great stuff happening. Specifically I'm thinking in the middle school where we're seeing kids that have been getting intervention for a long time that are now at a place where they're accessing grade level materials and we're not needing that reading intervention anymore. So that's exciting. Those are my highlights. That's great. Why don't we see if folks have questions for Peggy Sue and then we'll move to Jess and Nick. Does that sound good? Questions or comments on special ed for Peggy Sue? Two quick questions. The changes in categories, or sorry, the changes in numbers of students, the increases, is that even across category or are there certain categories that are changing a lot as a result of the change in the... So when I looked at the trend from the last 2017, the developmental delay which is students three to six years old is actually where we're seeing the biggest increase. I actually was surprised at the autism stuff. I thought it would actually be an increase and that's actually stayed pretty stable. There's a slight increase in students with specific learning disabilities and there was a decrease in the other health impairment. But it really is that younger population that we're seeing a lot more and a lot of it's the SEL needs that they're coming in with as well as there's also a lot of communication needs actually that we're seeing with younger students that are coming in not necessarily with the communication skills that we've seen. And the change in law did not change the categorization for developmental delay? No, no, so that's yeah. Yeah. I would say overall the functional skills tends to be students that are other health impairment because of ADHD diagnosis under emotional disturbance or under autism. So those are the places where if we have students that were previously on 504 plans, those are the places that a lot of times that's changing. And then one other question. I remember from the special ed audit, one of the areas where we needed improvement as a district was in, I don't remember, it was called the communication with families. Yeah, I'm curious if you have any sense of how that's going. You mentioned one example of an improvement and so yeah, I'm just curious. So one of the things I did this summer was I created a handbook for our families that's on the website and the people who've seen it have given me positive feedback on that. So trying to help get the word out that that is on there. I think that having the same case manager for more than one year has helped with that because that relationship is there. And so there's not that like get to know each other and not sure who to call. So I think in that sense it has helped for sure. I think communication is always something that can be improved for sure and any relationship that involves two people. I think the different part of what we're trying to do also is structure communication expectations so that they're again more aligned so it doesn't feel like if just reaches out to you every week and then you get me and I only reach out to you once a month, you could be like, wow, Peggy Sue is slacking. Like what's up? Because that's what, so we're trying to look at what are the things across the district that make sense to be in alignment so that families don't feel, there doesn't feel like lack of trust or like what's Jess off, why is this different? And so that's stuff that we're still working on. Next to that, is there any kind of specific surveying of parents like for special education students and their families, surveys that come out of Panorama, now that we have that, is that a tool that's available? So there is a parent input form that is sent out as part of every IEP meeting, it's a part of the state requirement so we have that, some people send it back, some don't, because we also get that input like through the whole meeting so some people, you know, but there is that and then there is things that come out from the AOE every year to students, to families of students that have special ed services and that's actually one of the things that as a district we get a report and we get basically rated on like, what's our return? You know, how often is that? So that's what we have right now. Which doesn't have a big return rate. No, I don't think anybody does, I think it right. It's, I mean, I hate to say, but I'm not really good about doing it for my district, for my kid either so, I think it just, I think the timing of it or something, it just, you know, it's like, oh, another survey, right? And we obviously want that information because we want families to, you know, give us that feedback. So it's something that we could certainly look to do more if that is, you know, a fit for the district. Well, with our district wide caregiver council, we're developing a survey right now using panorama and I believe we will be able to disaggregate that data once we have it. And if not, we could even put a question in there that would then allow us to do that. Yeah, yeah. Are you aware of these increases in need occurring regionally as well? It's, it's all over. Yeah, yeah. It's at the monthly director meetings I go to, it is always like, okay, you know, and it's, you know, everyone is short staffed or I mean, it's just a lot or, you know, students waiting to get into higher levels of support, like of schools and stuff like that and there's waiting lists and so, yeah, there's definitely, there's definitely across the state, I would say. Are the things school boards can do to promote or encourage folks to go into special education? I don't know what Joe was saying. I don't, kind of, There actually was something that we just put out in our staff memos. I think it's through UVM. There's a program right now that I can't, I don't remember if you have to be a licensed teacher or if you just have to have your bachelors, but you can get your special education certification free. So I think the state is trying to do that, trying to do that, but it's a lot. I mean, it's the, you know, nobody goes into the jobs for the paperwork, but there's a lot of it. And so, you know, that gets, you know, people that are doing special education and want to help kids and work with kids and that's great. And we have, there's a whole compliance thing and so that really often becomes a lot for people and so trying to think about how do we support people and kind of minimize that part and let them do what they're good at and what they want to do, which is work with kids. So, been talking to directors about different models that people used to see if there's something that could be, could help our educators, but yeah. I just wanted to say thank you very much about the work that you're doing as a smaller part of your team to try and figure out how to measure the work on a scale. I know, you've been asking. I just wanted to say thank you. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's important work and we're, yeah, we're trying to, I'm using these data brains to help try to figure out how to do that. Awesome, yeah. Thanks, yeah. So I have to plug my employer. So UVM, College of Education and Social Services, the C CROPS, Special Education Graduate Degree Scholarship. I think is what you're talking about. Yeah, fully funded graduate degree in special education. Yeah. And then we'll hire you every time. I can't tell you what C CROPS stands for. Oh, Cultivating Collaborative and Resilience Oriented Practices and Special Educators. Oh, wow. Sounds impressive. We love acronyms in high-resilient. Let's dive into SEL. So, you know, overall, HHB violations are down, investigations for HHB, Hazing Harassment and Bullying, sorry, another acronym for you all. Suspensions are down one compared to the same time. Last year, rates of physical aggression that we're seeing in our schools is down as well. For example, at MSMS specifically last year, at the end of the year, physical aggression was about 20% of our reported behavioral incidents at this point in the year. That's 4.5% of our reported behavioral incidents. I think, you know, teachers are, more teachers are reporting. I think your behavior data is a lot more accurate and more effective than it was last year, which is really exciting. Again, teacher, more teachers are reporting. I can see who's reporting. And so I think, you know, having more people use it on a regular basis is really exciting to see. And I think that's a reflection of seeing the data be utilized and leveraged to connect kids based on their need. We now have, rather than just always reporting about HHB suspensions and behaviors, right? We have SEL proficiency data this year. We're doing a lot of work around SEL proficiencies and also as Joe talked about belonging and really centering that work, both between Nik and I's roles with SEL in attendance. And that has been really exciting because it's giving us more ways to catch students and screen students universally for who may need SEL support, right? So we're not just seeing those students with really externalized sort of loud quote unquote behaviors. Now we can go and see who are the internalizers. And we can go into the belonging safety relationships, SEL data and pull out students that we just wouldn't have identified before. So that's really exciting to be able to really get more deep dive into both individual students, groups of students and the whole school. That's allowed for a lot more flexibility and targets specific student needs and has really allowed us a lot of clarity around what do we see as really important, the five important SEL goals that we have for students. And now we have a way of tracking that, which is really exciting. I think when I'm thinking about the future, we're really starting to, I would call it practicing using that data in teams across like individual tiered and sort of group settings. But I think we can really do a better job of thinking about so now that we have this data, now that we have more accurate behavior data, we actually have SEL proficiency data. How do we leverage that to really think about the impact of our interventions and progress monitor? And the SEL department has done a fantastic job setting more tangible SEL goals for all of the interventions they're doing. So now our SEL interventions each have a particular goal that's tied to a grade level standard or benchmark for SEL. And so I think while we've improved on that, our ability to think about what is SEL progress monitoring that's authentic and really tied to student growth really look like. So I think as an SEL department, that's just sort of this like ubiquitous sort of, how do you capture SEL growth over time? So that's going to be a focus moving forward for our department and how to track that progress across the three tiers of our MTSS system. And I think part of the work is also, now that we have a really new SEL MTSS system, we're seeing improvements, we're moving in the right direction, which was really exciting. I think a part of the work is just allowing the community and teachers to sort of see students be able to move through that levels of SEL support and see how it works, right? We have a vision and we have a system. I can talk about it eloquently until I'm blue in the face, but people aren't gonna trust it until there's a teacher who sees a kid move through those systems and we're starting to do that work and teachers are starting to buy in and trust. And so I think part of this is just allowing folks to get familiar and creating a collective understanding and really having people see how the system functions around team and making sure that we're matching individual student need to support. How much of your time is spent on prevention at in comparison to intervention? Yeah, so last year, not very much time, but I'm proud to say a lot of my time that this year is really thinking about what are those proactive strategies for students not just in preventing HHB work, but also helping to prevent students from getting to the point where they need tier three intervention. So our system this year has started to become a lot more proactive and fluid in that we're able to, because we have more screeners, we're not just looking at behavior in order to identify kids as needing tier two or tier three, now we can look at are they internalizing? Are they reporting low sense of belonging? Are they self-reporting that they're not able to have emotional regulation skills? We can start picking them out before they start to manifest and either significant disengagement or more significant behaviors. So we're able to be more proactive, I would say largely because we have more proactive data at our fingertips, which is really, really exciting. And do you do any kind of global instruction around prevention or is it more all individualized? Well, like for teachers or? You know, just kids in general. Like the tier one, yeah. Oh, yeah, so depending on. And what would that look like? Oh, sorry. And what would that look like? Yeah, so depending on the age level, that's really dependent. So at our elementary schools, it's more direct explicit instruction in the classrooms. So they have morning meeting, they have 20 minutes of SEL time. Whereas in the high school, we're really starting to build what embedded SEL looks like in the older grades. So, you know, it depends on the developmental appropriateness of it. And I think the, frankly, the elementary school just because of being an elementary school, like folks who work in elementary schools do that, they've always done it. That's part of their roles. And I think when we think about the high school level and the blocks and it being so class based, it's a little hard to figure out where that fits in as far as the direct instruction of SEL. And research is really showing that in older grades, embedding it in their content curriculum is really what we need to do in order to move kids. So, hopefully I answered your question. Thank you. I'm curious, I think I see you over there. I'll just put that. So I guess you don't have to jack over. I'm curious just looking at this SEL survey data because you know much more about this than any of us in certainly more than I do. Just what this data means to you, like if you could interpret it a little for us and what like proactive steps that would inform you to take. Yeah, I think we have two data points at this point and a brand new survey. So I think I have gone down the rabbit hole of trying to analyze it with the SEL survey. I'm trying to analyze it with all of these wonderful people and would make meaning and analyze it. And at the end of the day, it's really baseline data, I would say. We have two data points. I think that there are successes that can be seen. For example, the fifth grade team, they're belonging data, one up 10 percentage points. I think it was 10, it was a lot, it was the most. And so that's huge, right? I think there are wins like that we can easily take out. But as far as having two data points and trying to do more analysis, it's just I'm excited for when we have a few years of this data and we can really start to track and think about, okay, is winter a harder time for kids? Like, is it, we expect to move up every time? Is it gonna be up and down? And eventually we're trying to find a graph that goes up over time with it going up and down in between fall and winter and then hopefully the overall trend line goes up. But yeah, again, I've tried a lot. I think there are a lot of wins within the data and there are questions that I have around it. And I'm not sure I can give you a really great articulate answer because at the end of the day, it is only two data points. One being this fall and one being just recently a few weeks ago. Yeah, so I think we're still trying to, again, and I think that's the work that we have to do moving forward. I was around to really thinking about how do we analyze this data to make meaning and inform our work. But you're still sharing that data and looking at it and using it with teachers. It's not like we're waiting for a couple of years to do anything with it. Yes, thank you for that. I'm imagining for the teacher reported as well as the student reported, there's like the first time you see these questions, you think of them one way and the second time you're thinking of them quite differently. And that is especially the kids. I'm wondering if there are ways for them to promote this for you in a sense. The kids that have done it just because as a kid, I would think it would be helpful if I had an older kid say, oh, here's this thing. This is how I think about it in a way because as a teacher, I'm looking at this and I'm looking at my students, not that I'm a teacher, forgive me, but I'm looking at my students at the beginning of the year. I'm thinking one thing and then I'm learning about them and I'm thinking something quite differently by the time I come around to December or January. And that changes the way that the metric functions. So I wonder if there are roles for kids to coach kids that might help the data be a little bit more reliable in a sense. Just thought. Yeah, yeah, no, thank you. And I think some of the work that we have done, I don't know if I wrote about it in here, I probably should have. We had a group of students at MHS plan a belonging circle and run a circle with every single student who was here for TA that day and then report out to faculty around how students are defining belonging, what are things that students would like to see happen that can improve in belonging. And at MSMS, a group of students just did the same thing last week. And this week they did the last, they're gonna do the last few circles around again getting kid feedback around belonging. And it was student design, student run, student facilitated. And tomorrow I'm actually meeting with that group of gators and we're gonna go through that qualitative data to really piece through. So what are middle schoolers and high schoolers saying that they need for belonging, how they define belonging, how they experience it in our district. So yes, and anyway, I'm just, I'm really excited about the student voice piece. I think that is really crucial. Yeah, that's very cool. I had a couple of questions. One is just clarifying, and I think you answered it, but I wanted to say make sure, when I looked at the percentiles, usually 90th is not good, but it seems like in this case, 90th or 80th is good and 10th percentile is not. That's the lower end of the. Yeah, so basically we'll tell you you're doing better than like 10% of other schools, 90%. So being in the 90th percentile says we're in the top 10%. That is a helpful clarification, thank you. And given that there's a lot here, there's the, I think you said it, there's five standards for most of the grades. Can you share with us any one or two of the five that you as a whole team are focused in on right now? Because it seems like five is a lot to tackle at once. Yeah, so that is dependent on teams. Overall, as a district, we're focusing very heavily on belonging. So that is something that we've all been working on and so Nick and I have gone into every team and every teacher has seen us do a little show around belonging data and what it means. Additionally, depending on individual student, or teacher teams, they're making goals around one that they feel like they would like to focus on. For example, at the high school with the last round of fault data, the high school team decided that they really wanted to focus on learning strategies, which is really around students knowing that they can use different strategies when they get stuck when they learn. That was something that the high school tier one team really felt like was important because it was one of the lower reported students were reporting to us through this that they didn't have very many strategies for when they got stuck. So the high school team decided to focus on that. So it is sort of there's a global view on belonging and then depending on the individual student teams and what they're seeing with their particular students on that team, they're picking an additional one to make a goal around and track. That's great, that's great. And then one of the priorities at the whole district level at the board has solidified is belonging, safety and wellness as you know, and one of our goals or one of our indicators of success is that we will establish a baseline and see a pattern of growth across demographics. So I'm guessing that this is the survey that we'll be using to establish that baseline. And this is our year to establish the baseline and then over the next couple of years, ideally see that growth. We also would like to be able to see it across demographics. Is there a way to disaggregate the belonging data maybe district wide, if not certainly by grade level would probably be too small. We do district wide, we can't do it by grade level. Yeah, so district wide. So if that's something that you could have for future maybe once we have our baseline or something so we can see, because if we've got 70 to 80% of our kids reporting a sense of belonging, that seems great and we wanna make sure that it's not disproportionately in that 20 to 30% that it's kids who are feeling marginalized identities. Yeah, yeah and that is something that we are continuing to look at as well. And we recently got so essentially on Panorama and the platform, you can't get individual student data so it was just hard to disaggregate it in that way and through working with Panorama, we now have the raw data in order to do that work around looking at disproportionality. Great, that's fantastic. I had a couple more questions on hazing, harassment and bullying. I'm curious what you think is contributing to the decline in investigations. That's obviously a good thing, but we think. Yeah, I think there's been a lot of work, particularly with our elementary school and middle school assistant principals around gaining more clarity around what lies as to the level of HHB investigations. I also think the way we're seeing a lot of the work that we did in responding, I would argue, we're seeing the work that we did responding last year sort of come to fruition and actually have its impact this year, right? So we worked. To sort of prevent recurrences? Yeah, so I think we're seeing less students because we have a strong system for engaging kids in our sort of and educational and supportive work. We're seeing less students who are continuing to have HHB violations, which was a pretty strong theme last year. That's great, thank you. Yeah, any other questions? Turn our attention to Nick. Cool. Hey, I'm Nick. I'm our community liaison. I think I've been in front of most of you, not all of you. So I have the opportunity to talk about chronic absenteeism, which is really where a lot of my energy and focus goes when I work with our students and families throughout the district. Right now, as we're halfway through the year, we have seen our chronic absenteeism rate come down quite a bit. So at this point last year, when we were giving our winter data presentation, I was up here telling you that 32% of our students are chronically absent. This year, right now, we're at 20% of our students are chronically absent. So we've seen a pretty significant reduction at this point. I'm not ready to leave any flags yet. We have a lot of school left, but it is trending downward this year and it's something that I think we're pretty excited about and seeing young people in our buildings more frequently and with consistency. It's having a big impact on academics, having a big impact on social emotional wellness. And so that's, I guess, the highlight to start with is that we are seeing a reduction in chronic absenteeism at this moment. You've got the graphs there that kind of demonstrate, really, we're seeing it across all schools. So from Roxbury to Union Main Street to Montpelier High School, we're seeing lower numbers of students missing school, which is awesome. We also did spend a bit of time in January kind of looking at, Mia, to your point, what we would call the disproportionality of how this is impacting students across our district. And there are lots of different ways to slice the data, be it demographics, life events, if a student is on an IEP, so we did that. And so what I've kind of put together in the report was really showing what percent of students based on these demographics or life experiences, how it's playing out for different student groups. And I think that maybe gets at your point, Mia, right? So if we look at young people that have an IEP, we're seeing higher levels of chronic absenteeism versus their peers who do not have an IEP. When we're looking at racial identity, we're seeing young people that identify as black or African-American having some higher rates of chronic absenteeism. Again, when we're looking at free and reduced lunch, which is our economic indicator, we're seeing young people that qualify for free or reduced lunch more absent than their peers. And the last piece is really kind of showing you across every grade how that's going. There's an interesting trend here, and what we have seen pretty consistently in the past and what we see across the country is like kindergarten is really high, it swoops down in the middle schools, and then 12th grade goes really high again. We don't have as clear of a trend this year that is flowing in that same way. So I think it's just kind of interesting when we look at like our 10th grade this year has the highest chronic absenteeism of any of our grades, which is not something we've seen before. So really trying to pull out the data to not just say, cool, we went from 32 to 20, how is this shaping out for all of our students? So again, we're seeing the drop in absenteeism. What I'm seeing and what I'm hearing from our families, primary driving reasons for students missing school this year are sickness. Students, especially, I was just talking to nurse Liz at the high school, really December, January, we saw it really jump. And it wasn't a 24 hour cold kind of thing. It was like, I'm down and out for a week. So that's definitely having an impact. We are certainly seeing young people that are having some mental health challenges and how they're feeling about walking in the door every day is still a barrier for many of our students. We're also not as dominant, but I would say transportation is becoming a bit of a factor for some of our students. Some students we've seen high mobility with our students experiencing homelessness, for example. And with that high mobility, providing that transportation and ensuring we have a company there to pick up that student every day can be really challenging. So we've seen a little bit of challenge with transportation. The last piece I would highlight is mindset. And I think this is probably where the shift is coming from. We went into the pandemic. Everybody was learning at home for a time. Families and students were starting to get a feel for like, oh, I could kind of do this at home or I know how to learn outside of the school building now. And then when we came back, it was like, oh, we're seeing huge rates of absenteeism and it's taking a little bit of time to kind of reprogram our brains of like, actually you got to be in the building to do the learning. And when you are, if you're building an airplane and I rip out 15% of the pages randomly of like what the instructions are, it's gonna be hard to build that airplane, right? And I think that's what we're starting to see and that's a big impact. And that's why we focus on chronic absenteeism is regardless of the reason you miss school. So excused, unexcused, it's lost learning time. And those pages are still being ripped out of that book. And we see who it's impacting more as well. So the mindset piece of what it means to be in school every day is really something that I think many of our school buildings have done a good job at chipping away, how we message to families, message from support, not message from compliance only. Here at the high school, Jason and Catherine and Leslie have done a great job in Emily with sending out letters with some frequency of like, hey, here's a reminder, this matters, being in school every day matters and here's why. So that mindset piece I think is hopefully what I think we're starting to see the shift in as to why we're seeing at least right now that reduction in chronic absenteeism. So that's our update on that front. Awesome work. Thank you. Other than the obvious things like not having transportation or those sorts of clear cut things, are there any particular areas that stand out as reasons for kids not wanting to show up in the building or do they not feel welcome? Do they feel, I don't know? Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say the reasons are kind of across the board. Historically, in my work with young people, I've seen a young person face a barrier, right? Like they may experience homelessness, they may be a teen parent, for example, we don't see that as much here, but what we're seeing now is more of a like, multiple factors that are getting in the way. Mental health and something else are the barriers. And so even if you can get over that first hurdle, there's still another one in front of that. I would say we're seeing a little bit less this year, at least I am in my work, of young people that have, that are experiencing anxiety in such a way that it's keeping them from coming into our buildings. One of the things that we know about having some anxiety around coming to school is that just avoiding it and just continuing to miss school can make it worse, it makes it a lot harder. So if we at the first just try to keep a student from having discomfort at any level, that kind of brings them in a little bit more insular. And so when we are able to build supports and a ramp back into school for young people to meaningfully re-engage without just totally pulling out, that's huge, but that's a really tough piece because I'm asking people to experience discomfort to build resiliency around this. It's really hard. So how we build out our SEL crew, how we build out our special educators, these are all really big factors. And so to answer your questions and multitude of factors, it's also a big reason why we do focus on things like SEL, why we do focus on things like belonging. It's not news to any of us, if a young person does not feel a strong sense of belonging, it's gonna be harder for them to walk through the door every day. That matters. That's really important. And so to be able to have Jess here and give you numbers on what it means for young people to feel like they belong in, to bring intention and attention to this, I think it's gonna go a long way at young people feeling a stronger sense of belonging in our buildings. I had a question I realized that is maybe back to you, Jess, but I'm thinking about the absenteeism and all the connection between the things. You noted that there's now a little bit more of a window using the data that you might have identified students. What do you, what if anything do you folks do if you do sort of start to see something like that in the data? Are you reaching out to the student or the family? Are you asking their teachers if they're seeing it? Okay. Yeah, so actually last week and this week, I mean today at one of our resiliency team meetings, so every school has a resiliency team meeting once a week, which is Nick and all of the SEL professionals as well. So we've gone through that data and identified individual students that we either want a counselor to check in, to Nick check in, somebody to sort of be a touchstone based on what they're self-reporting. So again, it's just another really strong universal screener to be able to be more proactive rather than waiting for it to show up either in extreme disengagement and land into Nick's world or land into extreme mental health or more extreme behaviors. So yeah, we're like piecing through that data on an individual basis as well. I have what I think is a follow-up to Jill's, which is that when we look at, and this is also just a really great appreciation for the desegregation that's in here, because when we look at the behavioral incidences and the chronic absenteeism, you can see there's a spike in kids who have IEPs. There's a greater proportion of them in those arenas than there are a percentage of them in our general population. And so I'm not sure, this is, I think a similar question to what Jill was asking, but just like, how is it that we could help identify any maybe biases that are happening or any things that's like at the root of why we see that spike in these two areas, which this is definitely a population of kids we want to feel like they belong in school and we want them to feel like this is where they're getting the support that they need to be able to learn. So is there any way to speak to that? I had a thought that I just wanted to bring. It was like, yeah. It'll come back, I know. It will, for sure, come back. I think the case manager, having the case manager, having that other person that is also kind of focusing on that and as a person, I think part of what we're trying to look at is the special educator slash case manager is a really important person for those students, but we don't want that to be separate from the classroom, so we're trying to look for opportunities to have special educators work with students more in the classroom so that they're not feeling pulled out, they're not feeling separate. And the older they get, the bigger the gap is from what is happening in the classroom and what they need, and so that gets trickier. So I think we were just talking about this today, actually, that calculator that Mike was showing us, there, Mike, found some calculator that you can put in the age of the student and what the skill is or something, and then based on what grade they're in, it can tell you how long it should take to fill that gap. So there's some interesting data out there to look at, but I think that's part of the work is trying to look at how do we boost up the experiences in the classroom so that students aren't feeling separated from that. That's part of it. That's not what I was gonna say, though, but it's... Yeah, I mean, I would add to that, right? Like, I think, Mia, what you're naming is what, like, we would call the opportunity gap, or folks would refer to it as the achievement gap across marginalized, like, young people that have marginalized identities, there tend to be gaps in the data, and we see that as true here as well. And I think it's just, part of it is having this data in front of us to be mindful of this, and the reason we would call it the opportunity gap, right, is that if young people are in the building, there's lost opportunity to engage in their academics, which is when a gap starts to build. What are we doing to specifically support students that may have marginalized identities, students that may have a disability to ensure that they have equal access to their classrooms as their peers? And that is a constant work in progress, and we constantly need to have these numbers in front of us to see are we, is anything that we're doing working to close the gap? So I think that's a critical part of what I was gonna say. The other thing that I think that is happening is two things, one, many students have plans that track their behavior, so there's more of a focus on their behaviors, and so it might be reported more. And I think we also see at times, which is why we wanna look at this data a lot, that when a student has a history or has been struggling in some way, a lot of times there's a heightened alertness around what they're doing, so there might be something that other students do too, but because they don't have the history or the profile or something that people are thinking about, then that becomes noted more often, and so that's part of the reason it's really important to look at that data, is to make sure that we are still looking at all students in the same manner and not having a heightened response because we're nervous where it could go or where it's gone before or something like that. Yeah, okay, thank you. Any other questions for the? I wanted to just hit rewind and maybe go back to Jeff a little bit too, and just because I'm thinking, we don't have a big crowd here tonight in person, but as folks might come back and watch this meeting, I thought it could be helpful and as a refresher for us, we have an SEL department, which is so unique and I think is something that our board has felt incredibly good about and being able to share that with other districts that this is so unique and it came to this district at a time when there was such a high level of need and we had kids in pretty unprecedented distress perhaps. So I wondered if you could just shake out who makes up our SEL department, where did our standards come from and where and how were they developed and hopefully that can be like a brief response. But I also, and I want this to come from like a place of appreciation for all our folks doing education from like our Gen Ed classroom folks that are teaching math and literacy to your team that is doing incredible work. And I want to honor Jo's question, which she was sort of hinting at the tension between teachers lists are very long, having been in the world of education, like initiative fatigue is a real thing and there's like a new loaf of sliced bread coming up every few years and teachers get taxed with this and the lists are already so long. So I'm curious like, so how, what does the division of labor look like when we're talking about our SEL standards in terms of distributed across our Gen Ed staff and our SEL team, team of staff folks. And I guess like will there be an opportunity for you and Jo to come together and respond to that and work together. And just as a new department, this is like a six part question I realized and we could follow up. But you know, because you're such a unique and new department, like in the next year, do you have like visions for refinement of this department? Period. Yes. You have to re-ask some of those questions. So to- Let me start a little bit and let you, then you can talk about your awesome team. Thank you. So one of the things that we've done that is that anything where our MTSS model in academics is the same model in the SEL. Like, so there's no rewriting of anything, right? We are using- Different teams. Same model. Different teams, same model, same system, same expectations, same language, right? Different standards. Each piece has a team behind it, you know, has academic interventionists, SEL interventionists. So it's like, thankfully the board and our voters have created this opportunity for us to create two dichotomous systems that move hand in hand with each other, which makes it nicer. It's not a new initiative. It's using what we already know or a system that we've built and is working with academics and we're moving that same system into SEL. And there are no new things there, right? We've added new humans who can do different work. So the SEL standards already existed? No, that's been developed, but it's not like it's a new way of thinking, right? Because that's how we think in academics. Sure, sure. So it's a similar way of thinking. Right. And so I think that's one of the beauties of this is that there's nothing that's like- It's not learning a new language, it's just kind of applying SEL concepts. I will say, and Joe and I have had this conversation just recently, is that it's a significant change from where we at MRPS and where the districts I've worked with in the past are in the SEL world. There's more accountability, there's more expectations, there's more intentionality. And as you can see from the data that this team just presented, it's working, right? We have evidence that it's working and not just working a little bit, like working marvelously in one quick year. So there is attention around change of expectations in some roles, and that's okay. I think that's okay. We have to be uncomfortable to learn and move forward. If we're not uncomfortable, then I don't think we're doing the right work, right? So I think there's a lot of things going on there, but Jess can talk about her team too, because we got to the point where we had a big enough team where we needed to put an administrator to bring them together, because none of us had the capacity and our roles as principals or district administrators to do that, and it's too important work to just let people be on their own on that, right? So Jess has put together a marvelous team. Yeah, I mean, Nick, I claim Nick. I mean, yeah, in addition to Nick. We all claim Nick, just to be honest. It's true, we all claim Nick. Also, the nurses fall under really the SEL illness as well. School counselors, social workers, our SEL interventionists, our behavior specialists, who am I forgetting? SEL coaches. SEL coaches, thank you. The rise shine. Yes, yeah, I would say, yeah. The rise shine thrive folks, so the folks who are doing really intensive SEL supports for kids who are either very disengaged in the high school through thrive services or in younger grades who have more physical aggression. So those folks who work with that population to provide really targeted, really, really intensive SEL support for them as well. We also, this year with the new contract that was negotiated with the support staff, we have behavior technicians as one of the key, the areas that IA's can be, and so that that is a group of people that fall under you and you do weekly trainings with them, so that's a team. That's been a huge difference. Been really great to have, yeah. Huge difference. I see Karlin on the board meeting right now just because she's on there. It's like, it's a huge difference that we're able to train and pay Karlin what she's worth for the work she does, and she's not alone in that behavior technician. Peace. And part of the goal from that is that in past years, we've had to contract with outside agencies to have those behavior tech positions, and while those people are generally fabulous, when they're not your employees, it's a different relationship and you can't necessarily manage them in ways that you always want to, and so us being able to have our own team to do that helps us deploy people where they need to go, but also make sure that they are doing the work that we want them to be doing and save money or different money. Money is going to our employees as opposed to just going out to other agencies. But this is a major cost driver, so when the community comes to the board and talks about what are the cost drivers behind our budget, this is a major one. In three years time, we have doubled our expenditures in mental health and social emotional learning resources. So to develop the system, right? And it's what our kids were showing us. They needed coming out of the COVID pandemic and they still need it. And I would argue being here prior to COVID, we were just in reaction mode all the time, you know? And people were pulling out their hairs saying, I don't know what to do because we didn't have the supports in place and I hear that much less from my end now this year in particular than I ever have before because the system is working. We also use some of our special ed grant money to fund two positions for doing the SEL services for students with IEPs. So because of that functional skills being added as a basic skill area, we anticipated that need was going to arise. And it did. So we have two people that only work with students with IEPs doing that too, so that, but that was through grants, which is fun to read. Yeah, and from like a systems perspective, that's been really instrumental because now that we have two folks who are specifically oriented to doing SEL special ed services, our social workers or counselors can be really proactive, can be much more flexible and responsive when they need to around providing target support for students who are, you know, like sort of struggling, but maybe only in the short term, rather than having inflexible special ed services that are required. So they have more capacity in order to meet students where they are. And it's also allowing our special educators to not be pulled from other services that they're doing to support their students on their caseloads when they're struggling with behaviors. So it's also made it so that special ed here's can do their academic services with more regularity. I would put one thing out that that made me get me into hot water, but. Oh, good. This is the place to do it. All right. Let me see you put directly what you said that. I think respectfully. I gave you a trophy today. I think you did. I think respectfully. I don't think belonging is an initiative. Belonging is essential to young people being in our buildings. It is the air we breathe. I don't see that as a to do list. I see belonging as essential intention that we bring every single day. So I just want to name, like, I don't see that as a. Oh, one more thing. Oh, one more thing. I see it as like, this is nothing. Yeah. And sort of building off of that, I would agree, obviously, as the SEL person that teaching and embedding SEL skills are also not one more thing when in any conversation that I've had in my career, especially as like a high school person, historically started as high school, whenever we think about the portrait of the grad or what we want students to walk away with is always SEL skills, right? When we think that we had this conversation today, it's how do students live interdependent, happy, healthy lives? And that comes down to being able to function self-regulate, being able to set goals, track goals, and they're all SEL skills, so. Well, and you hit on one thing that's at the root of, I think, part of this change of making, of having SEL live inside of an MTS system is seeing these things as actual skills and not like characteristics of a human being. Yes. And things that kids can learn, not just who they are. And that, I think. Or who their parents are. That's good, because. Okay. I'm not sure about it. We know you're lovely children. Anyway, and I think that is one of the mindset shifts that we have had to make over the last few years, which has contributed to this, the success of what we're seeing. Yeah, thank you for naming that. I really appreciate the way that you framed that, but yeah, I think. I think it was one of you who said it, and it brings forth me, because. Thank you for quoting that one. Yeah, I could have, I could have. But yeah, I mean, honestly, SEL is still new, right? Even though it's been a part of education for decades, right? It's the bread and butter of a lot of what really good educators do. They do this naturally, and now we're bringing, as Nick would say, attention and intention around this work, and framing it as an MTSS model is really new. And frankly, like we're on the edge of this work in our district, which is really exciting. It's why I'm here. It's why I'm committed to this work, is because this district is making less space to do that in what's best for kids. So thank you, everyone. Thank you. That was a robust and just such a helpful response. Thank you. Oh, and SEL standards, there was a committee before I came that developed them, and then I just worked with folks to clean up. Using CASEL, right? And yeah, they're all aligned to CASEL, which is like a research-based framework. I see we have Miriam, and then we also have, oh, did you also have a mission? Oh, okay, because we do have a number of other things on the agenda, and I feel like we could talk with the three of you all night. Don't worry, I made them sign 15-year contracts. Yeah, exactly. Great. Miriam will take it's way. This is a question for all three of you, I guess. I'm curious because of just hearing about the wonderful progress that we're making, but also just knowing firsthand the need that there is, and hearing Peggy Sue, you talk about how SEL needs are increasing. I'm curious how the board can help you. I know we don't have infinite money, and I think we're all very aware of that right now, but either anything that we can help you with to better meet the needs of our students, and it could be like in an ideal imaginary world, what would help you meet your goals, or small things, anything that comes to mind? That's a good question. I think the biggest role the board can play is support like this, and spreading the word, right? This is a significant cost driver. There is no getting around that, that this district has committed to, and will be pressured in ways come in the future around what can we let go of? Is this our role? So I think that's one thing, supporting there. I think the other thing is that I think we have a phenomenal board here, and in one place I think the board can grow is becoming more of a voice at the legislative level to say, hey, this is what we've had to commit to as a board because we're not committing as a state to mental health, and kid support, and family support, and so that legislative piece, you all would have a very strong voice in that arena, and would be listened to, I think. So I think that's another area for the board to consider that we've never really spoken to before. Jim's like, you made me go to Senate Finance yesterday, Libby. So those two things are the things that pop up to me, pop out to me the most is how do we, how do we protect the model that we're building that we're seeing results from, and how do we advocate for our students and families and the needs in this state? Because there is a scale issue there, right? Jim, you're up. Yeah, and I just want to kind of hop in and can you hear me? Yep. Yeah. Just kind of piggyback on what Libby said, we were in the State House yesterday and there's a lot of talk about cost containment, and I think there are some ways that we can contain costs, and I think Libby addressed them earlier in this meeting as things we can think about, but there's also the reality that a lot of social services just are not being well-funded, and unfortunately, a lot of those are falling to the school and quite frankly, the school level is where the lack of investment elsewhere starts to have a real human face, and it's kids suffering and visibly suffering, and that's why we're stepping up and providing these services, and that's why I think it's a lot harder at the school level to not do it because I think you can do it other places when it becomes a little invisible, but it is a significant cost driver, and I think we have to really state that if we're not going to invest in these things elsewhere, either have to invest in them at the school level or we have to see the very visible results of that, those investments not occurring, and those are very awful and sad things, so I really echo Libby that as this debate moves forward, I think it's really time for us to be honest about what schools are being asked to do and how important that work is. Uh-oh, I'm trying to close this out, Rhett. Well, I also just want to point out because there's been some sensitivity around this. What we're looking for is more people paid well enough to do the work in mental health care because we appreciate so much the work that so few do. It's about more of these people. Yeah, and then quite honestly, we pay more than our state mental health departments, so we're almost stealing it right now, so yeah. Yeah, me saying there's not capacity, I don't want anybody to hear it, it's a knock on our colleagues in the mental health field. So there legitimately are real reasons for that capacity. I need more of you all. Being less of, yeah. All right, can I just say one more thing? I think the other thing, and I'm trying to figure out how to say this in a way that sounds like I intended to, is that our teachers are working super hard and I think that the more that families can, I think it comes back to that communication thing and being open and asking questions and not making assumptions that are negative. I worry about some of the particularly special educators that they're just feeling so much pressure and I don't know if it's a history of mistrust with the district and we're all a pretty new administrative team and I know that takes time to build trust but there are definitely situations that teachers come into work feeling like, oh, I've sit in this meeting and this person doesn't trust me and they don't believe me and I have to defend what I'm doing and so I think trying to figure out a way to support our teachers and recognizing all the work that they're doing and trust that they're there for your kids and that we're trying to do all that we can do. I think that if there's a way for the board to help with that, I think that's gonna be important in keeping the good teachers that we have. We're all on the same team. Yeah, we all want the same thing. Yeah. Kids succeeding. Thank you, Peggy Sue. Yes. I think that's a good place to land this place. Good job, team. Thank you all three of you. Thank you. And my sincere apologies to the board. I should have done this at the very beginning meaning an hour and 15 minutes ago but we do have an addition to the agenda which is an executive session at the end of the meeting for discussion of the superintendent's salary because it's time to determine that for next year and we're actually a little bit late on it because Jim and I dropped the ball. So we're gonna tack that on to the end and with that, we'll move on to the budget update. Which is there a budget update? No, there really isn't. I put that on there as a placeholder when we made the agenda. Yeah. The only change I can report is that age 850 which was the amendment to get rid of the 5% cap and put the discount did pass through the Senate today. So it's going to the governor's desk probably as we're speaking for him to do what he will in the next five days with that. My assumption is that that will become long. So that's really the only update I did ask Jake earlier if the dollar yield had changed today. He said it had not. So we still have those numbers. It didn't go down. It didn't go down. That's a good thing, right? Very good point, Kristen. There isn't really a budget update that was kind of placeholder because things were moving so fast. Okay, so then let's move ourselves to the RVS committee designation and just to set the container for ourselves as a board. The discussion tonight is not about RVS the school. It is about establishing the committee that will make a recommendation to the board. So the things that we have to decide tonight are what is it that we're charging the committee to do? Why do we want it to exist and what are we asking it to do its work around? What should the makeup of the committee be and what's the timeline? So I offer... I put it on a Google doc. Oh, great. Thank you, Libby. I offer some language. Does that make sense to everybody or does anyone disagree with that? That's what we're determining tonight. Okay. So then on the committee charge, I... Can you see that? I've got... Everybody get up and walk really close to the screen. Just kidding. Just because in group conversations, I find it a lot easier to have something to work with. I just put this on the page. It's really a very, very first draft, but this is a first draft of what we would be charging the committee to do, which is make a recommendation to the board regarding the use of RBS as a school in our district and the education of elementary students living in Roxbury using MRPS stated priorities as a guide and based on the following factors. Financial considerations, educational, including academics and safety, belonging and wellness considerations and staffing considerations. And just for those who are following along at home who might not know what the MRPS stated priorities are, right now our top priorities are academic achievement for everyone in our district and fostering a sense of community safety, belonging and wellness. So that's what we mean when we say stated priorities and using those as a guide. So having said that, what are folks's thoughts on this draft? I really liked it. I appreciate you putting it together. I think it makes sense and addresses the components of the use as a school and the education of the students there. So I don't have any edits. I'm glad you did it. I would add there's always in the process learning, right? And so something else may emerge through the process. And so, yeah, I just, I think something that allows for any emergent themes to be incorporated. Now I was saying that, of course, I don't have any suggestions for how to say it, but. But I think what you're getting at, like as the committee starts to dig in and do the work, other factors could come up and that there's this room for that to be added on, you know, the conferring with the board, yeah. Well said. Okay. We've got Miriam and then we have Jim online and Scott, you can keep thinking about how you might. It's okay if it's another sentence. It doesn't all have to go in one sentence because I think that is all one sentence right now. But it can be multiple sentences. So Miriam and then Jim. In class and thought it was great, but the one thought that I had was, are we also thinking this committee would be in charge of community process and outreach about it because that might be worth including. I don't know if that's a whole board task or a task that falls to this committee, but that's a pretty large task. So it might be worth it. It is my thinking that the committee would hold the community engagement process, yes. So, and I think that's what other board members are thinking too. Jim. I might, I think it looks great. I think it really captures what we talked about and as well crafted, the only suggestion is I might change in the second line on the screen. I'm looking at school to building just because if we decide not to use it as a school, it's still gonna be a building in a facility the district is gonna own. And I think thinking broadly about how that building might be used by both the district and the community of Roxbury in alternate ways other than a school should be part of the charge as well. I just wondered if we need to put any sort of a timeframe even if it's like fall or something to sort of give the committee an end date in a school. That, we could work that into the charge. We are gonna, that is gonna be part of our discussion tonight. And it could go into the charge. My only thought about Jim's suggestion is that it changes the timeline quite a bit. However it goes. Oh, I see. The future use of the building is a long conversation or I don't know exactly how long it is but it's a slightly different conversation. Which I think, I would, you know, I think that it would be great if the committee could be part of that conversation and part of facilitating that process. But I do think that means, it sounds like two questions to me that I think it would be in good faith for this school board to try to lend our efforts to answer. But those two questions might occur over very different timelines. Because future use of the building is a secondary question that it would be harder to answer and it wouldn't, trying to answer that question doesn't end when you decide whether it continues to be a school as it currently stands. Maybe it's a different type of school. It just feels like making a recommendation to the board regarding the current use of RVS as a school in our district and then potentially working with the community to find alternative uses as maybe a second sentence or I'm not sure. No, I like, I think Red is right. I'll kind of retract my suggestion and then I think, yeah, maybe, yeah, if we decide not to use it as a school, we set up another process to help the town think about what to do with the building itself. I hope this would be like the responsibility of this committee but also like adding in a piece about thinking about the future and well-being of the students and staff within that building because, I mean, if it does decide to close, then there should be a conversation about how to help the individuals in that building moving forward. I would agree with you. It feels like it's hard to ignore sort of the next step beyond, if this decision, whatever decision is made, especially if it's gonna involve the closure of RVS, it's a then what? What does this mean in terms of the plan and the program for our students? Families really need to understand that. Families are definitely on the edge on this question. So I think, and now I'm jumping forward to the timeline a little bit, but I feel like what I've been hearing circulating is that a timeline about late summer, early fall for this and that's right up for a decision. And that butts right up against budget season, which at that point, then you're talking about designing the way in which we're offering education in the district. So that has budgetary implications. So I would agree that I think that kind of like the, and what next step also needs to be included. So I, I think there's a- And I guess not, sorry, with the building, not necessarily what's next with the building, but what next for our students? God, sorry, stole it. I think it's a complex, there are complex sets of conversations to be had that are very different depending upon the outcome of the question of do we educate the students from Roxbury in that school or in UES? And I think considering the timeline and that difficult conversation itself might be better to simply have the charge be do we educate those students in Roxbury or do we bring them to Montpelier? And then based on the result of those conversations, the future, the potential future conversations might be very different. Right. And so I think we should simplify and simply say, make a recommendation as to whether to continue educating the students from Roxbury in Roxbury or bring them to Montpelier. And then all of the future conversations will happen based on that simple, simple. Right, which I think what I hear you saying then, Scott, is just like to Rhett's point, we wouldn't change use as a school. We would leave that as is. And then maybe even to Kristen's point, the things Kristen you're raising are also the what happens after this recommendation is made. And so the committee doesn't necessarily say, and so the recommendation is to not use it, I'm just hypothetically, not use it as a school and the elementary students in Roxbury are educated at Union. And therefore, the committee doesn't necessarily say that, but that the board would have to take that up after the recommendation of the committee is what I hear you saying. Yes, and a much more articulate one. I think it would be helpful though for the committee to know what things we wanted to consider when making that decision. And I think that's what you kind of outlined there in your parentheses, right? Yeah, I mean, it needs to be some parameters for the committee around what we wanna know. Yeah, financial considerations, educational considerations and staffing considerations. What about transportation considerations? I wanna take a second to correct something that the board said, which that whomever I think was just misspoken, but for the middle and high school students right now, the first stop gets on the bus at 6.30 in the morning and arrives at Montpelier High School at 7.50. 7.50 or 7.15? 7.50, so it's an hour and 20 minutes to school for the first person that gets on the bus. The ride home is actually an hour and 30. And I'm not saying that I just wanna correct that that wasn't clearly stated in the last meeting because those are considerations for young kids and I don't know how much that plays into this conversation but certainly, it comes up when I, I mean, if my kids were younger, I would be nervous about that. I think where it fits in this charge is in safety and wellness. It's just fits in there, yeah. Okay, that's fine. And financial, I think both in both places. Yeah, totally fair. I think it fits in there. I don't think you wanna parse it out too much. Okay. So we've had the recommendation to include something around community engagement and we have the recommendation that I think is still sort of out there on the include something that speaks to emergence. Let's tackle community engagement first because I appreciate Miriam you raising this because I think there could be a way that you would hold this process as a committee that would be only research focused or only digging into spreadsheets. And that's not how we want the committee to go about it. So I think that maybe there's a second sentence or something that says, that charges the committee to conduct the process in a way that engages the communities and the people living in both towns. Just what you just said. Yeah. Design and use, sure. How do folks feel about that? Watching for Jim and Jake. I don't see anything. No. All right, Scott, you got any language on emergence? Or would that? You can add it to that second sentence. Or would it overcomplicate it? No. Design an implement process and allow for, I don't know. It doesn't have to, let's keep it simpler. Actually on the theme of simple and to my point before, if you scroll up to the top, I think really what we are asking the committee to do is recommend to the board whether or not to continue educating the students in RBS or bring them to Montpilier. Yeah. Period. Not. Uh-huh. Whether or not to continue educating elementary students at RBS. Or bring them to UES. Jake's got his hand up. Okay. All right, Jake's got his hand up and then we'll, he might have a thought on this. I like scoffs framing for the beginning of it. Much more than regarding the current use of RBS. You know, make a recommendation to the board whether to continue educating elementary students at RBS or to send them to, or to have them attend UES. Period. And then throw the committee will design and implement a process engaging both communities using MRPS data priorities. Okay, yeah. Da, da, da, da, da. I appreciate bringing the community engagement piece to the top too, because I think that needs to be a core element of how we go about this work. This is just like an order thing, but I think I would prefer that educational proceed financial in that list of factors. You know, I think the educational piece is really multifaceted when we're talking not only about academic, but we're talking about the community, the safety, the wellness piece. So I don't know if there was thinking around financial considerations coming first, but I think the educational considerations feels like it should be, you know, top of order also. Totally. The people and that's in conversations with community members, that has been a priority. Educational considerations as opposed to financial considerations. And we've heard from other community members that financial considerations are also a big priority. Yeah, sure. We've only got three there. I, as the person who drafted the very rough first draft, didn't have any sort of prioritization in my mind, at least not consciously. So I think putting them in any order works just fine. Jake, do you still have your hand up? Or is that a new hand or is that an old hand? Oh, I guess that's an old hand. New hand. New hand. Yeah, it's a new hand. And my new hand was up because does MRPS have priorities around engaging communities? Because it sounds like the community was designed to implement a process to engage the communities using the stated priorities as a guide. I don't know if there's something funny about that. I don't know what it is, wording, I guess. We do. It is our third priority, communication and community engagement. We haven't yet done the work to have indicators for that one, the way we do for academics and belonging. So that was why I guess it didn't, yeah. Just to make it a new sentence. Yeah. Is that better, Jake? I just made it a new sentence. There's an and that should not be there. Which one? Between guide and base? Yes, I think, right? I think you could be there, it doesn't have to be there. It needs to be an and or a comma, something. Or a dash. I think we're good. Yeah, I think we're good. Jake, I wouldn't wanna take the engagement language out of the charge. If that's what maybe you were suggesting that just because it's a priority, we would then take it out of the charge. I think it's helpful for it to be explicitly in there. Just like belonging is part of our priorities in this as spelled out. Jim? Before I just, I think, and I can't see the link. Maybe make a recommendation by, I think we need a deadline for the recommendation just to give assurance to the community that this will not be an open ended process because I think the community, especially given the budget situation does want an answer. And I think wants a commitment from the board to have an answer at least in time for next budget cycle. And we've been saying that in other forums. So I think, yeah, maybe by September. Yeah, that was gonna be, that's definitely one of the things for us to decide tonight. So we can go ahead and put that in there and then debate September. I do want to, whether or not that's the deadline we want. I do want to see if there's any other comments on the overall charge before we talk deadline. But it's there for now and we'll come back, we can come back to it. I think it's good. Okay, so why don't we talk deadline and then committee makeup? So the second board meeting in September, September 18th. And so you're thinking that the committee would present their recommendation to the board on September 18th. I think what that means is that the board may or may not actually vote on the decision that day. I'm not sure, the board may, we don't know what the recommendation is going to be. So the board may, I don't know what else we would do, but kind of to Scott's earlier point, since we have some unknowns, I might want to build in a bit of a buffer. If we want the board to make a decision by mid-September, then I think I would like a little bit of a buffer for the recommendation deadline. And I don't know, do we want the board to make a decision by mid-September? Is that the latest? I'm sort of wondering the same thing, like what's our, like build the build back. All right, when do we need to have a decision made? Your first budget presentation is the first meeting in December. This year it was in November, but I don't know if we'll need that again next year. So it's the first meeting in December and we are starting to plan that October. So you're starting to plan in October? October and November pretty much budget development. So the board should make a decision by the end of September? Ideally, yeah. Ideally, I think to your point, Mia, so we want to build back from that. I wouldn't go any later than September 18th. Does the board have time to vote on the first? Is one week, I mean, hopefully the purpose of this, yeah, that feels fair. The whole point of the committee is to make the recommendation. Board considers it for two weeks and votes on the first meeting in October that gives you, I would assume, time to sort of... Well, this would be the recommendation would come on the fourth and then the vote would come on the 18th of September. We'd give ourselves that little bit of a buffer. And then the recommendation and then the vote. It's fine, it's the same thing. You just pushed it back a week. That's all. The report and the recommendation are the same thing. Yeah, so that comes on the 18th. Fourth. Fourth and then the board has one more board meeting if there's anything that we wanted to deliberate on on the fourth but didn't feel ready to take a vote, we could take a vote on the 18th. Unless we were to bump to the report on the 18th vote in the first of October. And I'm also just thinking about, these are uncharted waters for us and for many. And I think that we don't know what scale of Pandora's box we're opening that we have few models to borrow from that are sort of apples to apples. Me and I did have a conversation with a board member from the Rivendell District who's been in this process of considering kind of their inventory of schools. And they're a cross state district. They have really, really, I mean, I'm glad we're not them. It was a blessing. I respect them. But man, it is having two states kind of have to be involved with articles and decision making. So we just don't have a lot of models and examples to borrow from. We are going to be kind of designing the airplane as we fly it, right? So, and I think about summer. Summer is a really busy time. This board does not tend to have like really big significant work efforts. I mean, we are going to have to with this. That's not going to be a choice. But I also just, I know that September 4th is right after the school years. It's a very busy hectic time. So if there's given all of that and that we're walking into something that we haven't designed it yet. Like this is all very, very conceptual. But when it comes down to like the rubber hitting the road, we don't understand the scope of this work yet. So I think building in, even building in a couple of weeks could be really helpful. And if a first week of October vote doesn't kind of bump too close to the budget, Libby, for your development work, then I think that could be worth it. We've got Jim and Jake in the queue. Yeah, I was just gonna, I think, basically sort of Kristen said, I think in Libby, a lot of scouts, this is incorrect. But if we got you, if we need it until October 2nd, which I think if we got a recommendation that could be on September 4th, that might give us two meetings in case there is more to want to talk about. My sense of that is not too late, but we can deal with that. Correct me if I'm wrong. Nope, that's okay. Jake? One wording thing where it says based, like sort of two thirds of the way down, I think it should say in base, it's recommendation on the following factors. Yeah, but then get rid of the D and end up there. You're my math guy, Jake. You're not supposed to be my ELE guy. My brain does both things. It's amazing. You're an amazing individual. He can take both of those things. On a timing thing, like I kind of wonder, should we be clear in here what school year we're talking about? Cause if we don't talk about what, if we don't say what school year we're talking about, then people might look at it and think, you know, oh my gosh, they're talking about the 24, 25 school year, which is FI 25, but we're not. We're talking about the 25, 26, is that right? Yeah, 25, 26 school year, which is FI 26. Potentially. Yeah, potentially. That's the work of the committee. Yeah, I don't, I think we just need the recommendation. I would be, I mean, I just don't think it's possible for them the committee to say, let's say it's September 4th and close the school tomorrow, which would be what the 24, 25 school year would be. So I think by giving the committee a deadline that is inside of the 24, 25 school year, I think we're avoiding any confusion there. In our minds, but somebody else might look at this and say, you know, they're gonna pull it mid-year. You know, like I don't know what people might think if we don't, if we're not clear about the timeline. He's worried that people might think that the recommendation is coming in September and by October, kids will be going to UES. So really quickly, again, the recommendation is to the board whether or not to close the process, right? Can't even be talked about until the board makes a decision. Right, the committee is simply making a recommendation about whether or not to keep the students educated in Roxbury or Brinkham. Once the board makes a decision, then there's a whole series of steps that need to happen. So the committee is not charged with dealing with any of those steps. They're simply answering. Unless we ask them to stick around after we vote. I mean, we could develop or we could have another committee. Yeah, exactly. But that's not what the point of this committee is. It's simply, do we keep educating our students in Roxbury or do we bring them here? And then there's a lot of decisions to be made after that, regardless. I want to go back to what Kristen said, because I think it's kind of lost. I don't think that the week after school starts is a good time. I think September 18th board meeting. And yeah, and then if we need to, we have a week or two before October 2nd. How does that sound? Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. It still doesn't give the committee a whole lot of time. So the extra two weeks will probably help. And to your point, Scott, I think it is for folks that this decision pertains to significantly. It's a really busy time of year. It gives folks that kind of subtle end time to the school year. And I think the kind of attention span will be a bit wider, even in a couple weeks. Okay. Yes, thank you, Libby. I think we've landed on charge and deadline. So let's move on to ideas for committee makeup. Rhett. That was the first name. I believe Rhett is volunteering. So I think the first place to start is the number of board members. We all know, like, the larger the number, the more of us have to do it. I'm just kidding. For those MPR geeks, right, we need the audience to scream out, like, you know, like, two, three. Wait, wait, wait, don't tell me. Yeah, exactly. I think it may be the situation, if I may, where we want our two Roxbury members. I don't want to volunteer you to do anything, but I think both of you would be dedicated to this and to Montpelier reps. Two Montpelier reps would make sense from board members or one Montpelier rep. So that's four without any community members? So far, that's just a start, yeah. I'll just say that is more board members than I was thinking. I was just thinking three. I hadn't thought about the number. It could be three. I think it's important to have both our Roxbury board members as part. If they would like to be a part of the committee, which I'm guessing they do, I think it's important to allow them both. However, they can't be the only board members out there, so it's three or four. Miriam. Look for a Roxbury student to serve on the committee. Yep. Probably a high school student. Kind of doubt an RBS student would want to do it. Possibly middle school. Yeah, either. And I don't want to volunteer myself, but possibly an additional student as well. So we'll just say two students, one who resides in Roxbury and one who resides in Montpelier? Yeah, I think that's great. Does anyone, is anyone opposed to only three board members if two of them are Kristen and I? Because I feel like part of our job is to communicate as fairly as we can the work that we've been putting into the district. There's not like an, it doesn't, there's a lot of emotions, but it doesn't feel like there's an oppositional or antagonistic thing between board members and us. So, if I would be fine with three, unless there are two people that are really, you know, really, really want to be part of it, then I won't want to stop you. I'm a little torn about that. Mostly because we've taken a lot of heat in Montpelier and I feel like we should make sure we have adequate representation. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to set it up as an adversarial kind of situation, but one of the things I'm thinking about is that you're going to need a chair of this committee. And I don't know if it's fair to put one of you two in that position as chair in your communities. And so I also may not think, that's why I think I go with four, although you know I love spending time with all of you. I know I'll probably be on this as well, is that one of the Montpelier reps. I say that not because I don't think you two are capable of being the chair. I think it puts you in an awful situation potentially because the chair would be the one sitting making a recommendation to the board. Yeah, I think we should go with four. That would stink. Members from the board. That would stink. And maybe even think of it as co-chair in terms of leading the process one board, two board members would lead the process and one of them would be a Montpelier board rep and the other would be a Roxbury board rep. Yeah. And we're going to have another board member in a few weeks, so maybe that person. We can haze and harass them right away. Where is Jess Murray when we need her? Maybe that person is actually really interested in being on this committee, you don't know. That's true. Yes. I was ball and told to be on the committee as soon as I joined the board. It was pretty funny. And then at large community members sending a letter in to participate. Something like that. Yes, yeah. Let's see how many we should do numbers. Jake, did you have your, oh yeah, Jake's got his hand up. Did you have thought on board members? I think there's a judge in need. What? No, I was just going to say that I think there should be one board member named Tim on the committee. That's ball and told. Good one. That might be HHB there, Jake. All right, so moving on to community members. We would want, again, representation from both communities. Can we put a range here? Good idea. Yeah. I don't know. Because we don't want to lock ourselves in. I don't know. I think you have to have a workable number for a committee. If you get too many people on it, you're not going to get anything done. And if you have too few people on it, then two absences make a huge difference. Right, this is a committee that will have to warn all meetings and adhere to quorum, et cetera, as a subcommittee of the board. Okay, well, let's put you, because we already decided you're on it. And we can keep thinking about it. Super. We can keep thinking about community members. I also was wondering about teachers and or principals from either school? Or again, I'm not sure I don't know if teachers want to be on this committee, but we would want. I don't, I wouldn't want to exclude if they wanted to be. I'm not inclined that way. Yeah. I think it's a taxpayer issue in some ways. Well, could a teacher, would that count as a community member? Or no, yeah. It could. It could. Sure. Not in my mind. I mean, because they're in education, I think they have an investment in the system and it's just kind of not a totally, I don't know, I'd go for as unbiased. And I'm not making like saying that in a derogatory way, but I think we all have unconscious biases based on our situations, right? So I don't want to set it up to look skewed. I think the key word there is all. We all have unconscious bias here. I don't know how to get outside of it, part of them because there are people that I can think of in Roxbury that might just say no, no, no, no, no. And I don't know if I would not want them on the committee and there may be people that are more open-minded that I might also want on the committee. So I'm not sure what I hear you because it's also, if this is where I'm making my living, then that could be a dramatic change to my life and my livelihood. And that is a conflict of interest in a sense, unless somebody's able to say how it's not. I would like to offer that the committee take testimony or collect data or something from staff, MRPS staff. However, they are not formal members of the committee because there is also the potential while I hope for the best behavior from all people involved. There is the potential of there has been attacks in other places that have gotten nasty and I don't want my principles or my teachers to be a part of that, to be a target of that. Yep, noted. I agree with what Lynn was saying. I was going to suggest something similar to what you just said, Libby, for the same reason. I'm a little nervous. The size of the committee, it's growing. And yeah, I mean, we're already looking at a committee that's as large, if not larger than this entire board. I think it will be crucial for the committee to hear the voices of parents, staff, and students. And our community members. And community members. I don't know that I, yeah, I think, yeah. I'm a little hesitant to suggest students and staff be on the committee. I think it's important for the committee to hear those voices. But I mean, yeah, I would feel much more comfortable with a board, with a committee that is six or eight people and we're already seven with no community. Is the composition of the district and how that may or may not be reflected in the composition of the committee? For instance, yeah, there's 90% of the district is Montpelier and 10% is Roxbury. On the other hand, this is potentially much more of an impact on Roxbury. So maybe equal, I don't know, both of those things can be considered when deciding the number of people from each of the two communities. And I don't know the right answer. So I think we've landed on, we're not gonna ask any staff other than Libby to be on the committee. I don't know where, I hear your points Scott on the students, but I really would like to see, have student voice in the room helping make the decision based on what we're seeing and not just have them be like data from a survey. Absolutely, I totally agree. And I heard Libby just make a very good argument for not including the staff, which I would say, absolutely, I would not want the students to be subjected to this. I mean, right now in the local environment that we are in, there's a potential that it can get nasty and I wasn't thinking about that as we said students because ideally I'm like, yes, I want student voice when you have such an emotionally charged issue. It can get really nasty really quickly and you'd like to think that the students on the committee people's best behaviors would be there and I don't know if that could be promised right now. Right, right, but the committee could gather information. Yeah, or could invite students to talk. Speaking of students talking. Yeah, it's good for me to go. I think the point is very well made about teachers and protecting teachers and principals from that sort of attacks by the public. I think I'm not protected here from attacks by the community that doesn't make the point of student voice and participation any less important and I think the point of putting students on this committee is not just to include them as include us as stakeholders in the Roxbury issue, but also just as part of a commitment to include students at every step of the process and to have real genuine student voice. So I agree, I am, yeah, it's uncomfortable when attacks are made and when they are personal and I would love to protect fellow students from that as well. I don't think any of us can necessarily be protected from that during this process. I don't. I think there's a layer of protection by gathering information and data from students rather than having students in the middle of it. I mean, that would be the layer of protection there, I think, for people just like it would be for teachers, right? We certainly want their input, but we don't want them on the hot seat. I would say that you do lose authentic student voice in that process, which it could be that that is worth it to protect students from those attacks, but personally, I don't think it is. Students can be mentored like Scott does for us and helped through that process. I think it is an unfortunate price to pay for an authentic student voice, but we're a public body and it's one that happens. I really do have to go. Thank you. Thank you. Let's think about community members on the committee, because I think we do need them. I hear what you're saying, Scott, about the size of the committee, but we do need the community members. Let me say four, two and two again. I was gonna go with three and three, quite honestly. Just because I recognize size, I understand that piece, however, or end. I also have been on more than one committee where, like I said before, two people are gone, two committee members are gone, three committee members are gone because it's T-ball season. It gets, you know, like it just gets, so you have such a small percentage of the group there, and then it becomes the board member's decision because this is part of our jobs. Yeah. I agree. I appreciate the insurance piece. I mean, really, trying to ensure people are in the room. Yeah. And I think whatever messaging we put together in terms of this opportunity, I think it does need to be made really clear. We always do, but the commitment is significant and be as clear with people as possible, like what is this time commitment, and really kind of survey an inventory or life if you have the space for it. But, you know, and I also think about, you know, we're talking about an acute timeframe. We're talking about, you know, what is this, six months? Yeah. So, you know, it's not yours, just in terms of people being able to gauge their capacity to participate. But, so, yeah, I guess, I mean, six feels like a lot. I'm shocked, actually, at your suggestion, but I understand the rationale. And, It's because I've done too many things during soccer season, baseball season, vacations, you know? Life happens. That kid's one of the two different sports that's right now in baseball. Yeah. I mean, it's also like, these are goals. Yeah. And we see what we got. We could put two to three. Yeah. The range. The range. Yeah. Yeah, we could say up to three. I also, again, I think that for consistency's sake, right? If we exclude staff from this conversation. Not from the conversation, but from the committee. From the committee. Yeah. Right? And so, yeah, for the same reasons, I think it's important to include students and staff. I also think it would be important to not have them on the committee. I don't think we should do one and not the other. Oh. I don't need them. For the exact same reason. I just really, knowing the attacks that I've gotten as a superintendent, this is the most emotionally charged thing that this district will have gone through in a while. And we are in a completely different world than the last time I was attacked as a superintendent. It's not nice. And so, I really, I do not want my staff to be targeted in that way. If they decide to, if it's vote unanimously for something that goes against somebody who might be more volatile in their actions than others, then I want to be the target of that. I do not want my staff to be the target of that. And I don't want my students to be the target of that either. That doesn't mean we don't get their input. Yeah, and we can protect them from, you know, if students are on the committee, we can certainly protect them in some way. But in a public meeting, that's not gonna, you know. It's happened. Yeah, until you're actually called the personal waste of life and all the things that I've been called in the past, like it hurts. Alara has her hand up. Well, I was just wondering like what the actual role of the student reps would be in this committee, because if it's something that could be accomplished in like something similar to like a public comment way, just like talking to the committee or like presenting information after talking to Pearson, I don't think that there's not a need for them, but it would be a way to protect those students by not giving them that responsibility and position, but so having them be able to give their input to the committee. I think the input's important. Yeah. And certainly to like put on an agenda presentation by this person who gathered this information from these people or something like that. And would that be enough protection? I think the other thing we could do is Alara will be here. She'll be one, you know, exploring the world at Wesley. Is that it? Smith, I knew it was one of those. But Miriam will be here with a new partner in crime. And I know that one of Miriam's goals is to meet with students more regularly in that kind of thing. So it could also be that that feedback is gathered by a student and then presented to the committee, even if Miriam's not a member of the committee, the committee could still invite her in to present. And then it's done in a very protective way that still gets authentic student voice from that conversation without somebody saying, you closed my school. Yeah, I've seen it where folks who would be in a situation like this where harm could be done to them for various different reasons, being invited to be considered like advisors. So it would be like two student advisors where they have that one particular role, as you're saying Alara, that. And then they also would not have to go to every single meeting, wouldn't that be nice? You, there would be like this specific, maybe the committee would like ask specific things of you and there maybe be a presentation or two, but you wouldn't also have to go to every single meeting. I like that idea. I would say as a student, I like that more than having two reps actually on the committee. Yeah, and I think it's a good role for our student board members to play. I think it's an approach where we might also get more authentic student voice. Students are working on to really kind of saying, what's on their mind and I think how they feel when they're kind of among a group of curious versus having to hang out with adults. So. It's kind of interesting to know the experience of Roxbury kids who are in the Montpelier buildings now. Absolutely. Like that perspective. We want to design the process now unless you're volunteering. The committee was the man. So can you make a note like two student advisors? I guess. And then we've got it, I think. And then how will we gather data from the teachers? That is part of the process. They need to decide. They need to decide. It really sounds like you want to be on a committee. I don't know. I'm just trying to have clarity here and some sort of safety measures. And we haven't done it as much lately, but this committee, you know, I think would be reporting back to the board to give updates, to make folks, make sure folks are aware of the process. Okay, I think you need a chair. Or chairs. Well, I think we have to, we need to figure out who's gonna be on the board, on the committee. So let's just see. Kristen, are you both willing and able? Okay. So then now we should, I mean, we could leave this open a little bit. Right, because we're really... Because there's, in one board meeting, there will be a new board member. But that's a little different person. That's actually a good, your next board meeting will be assigning committees. Yeah. So we may not just want to table this for now. Until the next board meeting. Yeah, unless as well. And there's winter vacation in between now and the next board meeting. So it's not like we could really do a whole lot of outreach. You can't do anything. Yeah. Okay. Can we, should we, at the next meeting then, set a first meeting date and then from there. And the committee gets together and talks about timelines. Bring the minutes go back to the board. They get warned. Yep, yep, yep. Yep. Okay. Jim's got his hand up. Okay. I thought Jim was on a plane at this point. No, I'm not on a plane. I've been on a plane. Okay. I'll be on a plane tomorrow. I just want to throw it out there and a little worried that if the committee is not proportional in some way to population, the, there's going to be some consternation about what the outcome might be. You know, I'm not saying that it will impact the outcome. I don't want to diminish rocks and voids and something that's very important to it, but I could see folks from my pillar saying that balanced committee does not represent the proportions of the two communities. And I just want to throw it out there as a concern. Ken. I don't know if I share that concern, Jim. I just don't, I think that if, I think if we, I think if we went either way on that of like ratio, you're going to get that comment. I think an even committee provides more of a voice. I think that, I don't know if I share that concern. It's not very articulate right now, but I don't know if I share it. Rhett was about to say something that I thought. The other, the other sort of response to that is people write a letter explaining why they're the best community member to be in that position. And then they're essentially elected by the board. And so there's a degree to which the board has some sway about who becomes part of the committee. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm kind of out of a couple minds. I mean, I think, and I'm just going to like share it out there that it's somewhat outcome based. I think that if the outcome of the, for one, I think a check on this is that the board has an ultimate decision and the board is proportional, or relatively proportional. So, yeah, if the committee's one thing, the board could say another. The report and the information say we actually disagree with the committee and make a different decision. The other thing is, if I think it, if it's more half and half and the decision is to move students to UES, I think having a strong Roxbury voice in that process is going to be very helpful to Roxbury. I think if the opposite happens, it's going to, and it's not proportional. I think there's going to be a lot of outcry from mob pillar. And again, I'm not necessarily suggesting we do it differently. I just want to throw it out there that that, yeah, if the recommendation from the committee is to keep RVS as a school and the board adopts that recommendation, I think there will be a lot of people in the mob pillar community who will question the makeup of the committee in that decision. There will be a lot of people in Montpelier. I think there are a fair number of people in Montpelier who were questioning the point of the committee in the first place, so. Right now, Jim, I'm not really seeing your concern carry a lot of weight in the room. That's fine. I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in regulation. I'm just I'm just saying, you know, I think I think it's a consideration to have. Yeah, just that some people in Montpelier might see that their voices as taxpayers who some are seen are disproportionately or disproportionately burdened. And this is how they're thinking. I'm I'm not saying this is my position who are bearing expense for this school, having a committee where the makeup does not represent the full representation of their voice because Roxbury has a potentially different interest in this. If it's a happening could influence. People could see the committee as not being representational to the population and to the effect. I hear what you're saying, Jim. I think ultimately the committee is going to gather the information people are going to voice their concerns in public. It's a transparent process. And then the committee is going to report back to the board who ultimately makes the decision. The board is is proportional to population. And so, yeah, I think I think we the process stands to gain a lot more by being even than then potentially lose from from being even. Yeah, no, and I'm I'm I'm not disagreeing with that. I just want to I just want to note that that if the decision is to keep RBS open, I think that will be that that will be pointed out in some circles. Yeah, we're going to say I was going to say that I was thinking about that to Jim before you said it. But I think I'm OK with, you know, the board proportionality being the deciding body. And so I can go with it. OK. All right, so we have charge, deadline and committee makeup. We did it. And then at our next board meeting, we will do committee assignments and immediately following that meeting, the board members that are on that committee will issue a request for letters of intent from community members so we can get that committee's work going. So they have plenty of time to meet the deadline. And moving right along, we've got the second quarter financial report. Why are there so many things on this agenda? There's a lot of talk. That's why we do. There's not a ton of unexpected elements. We're still looking at a lot of insurance claims coming in. We've got we've received, I believe, two hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and twenty. And five hundred and sixty nine dollars out of two hundred and thirty seven thousand expected. Two hundred and twenty thousand five hundred and sixty nine dollars. And we will be reimbursed through insurance claims. Two hundred and thirty seven thousand total. OK, so that's coming in. The fund balance currently we have. Four hundred four hundred thousand dollars. Of of revenue coming from the fund balance, which doesn't come in until I believe around June, I think is what Christina said, maybe May, June is when we determine how much of it we need for this budget cycle. There's four hundred and seventy five thousand in next year's budget cycle, depending on what we need. That's there for the emergencies as long as they're smallish. There's four hundred thousand committed to the track. I believe we're going to see an update on that from the facilities committee in one of the next few meetings, because there's some movement there, perhaps. And I say that one more time. Some movement on some of the things that Andrew is finding out about improvements to the track based on the four hundred thousand dollars that's committed with the committee. And they're working with the facilities. Yeah, so that's we've gotten updates on where they've gotten in the process since December. And then there's fifty thousand dollars set aside for the for the net zero study. Sixty two thousand dollars for the facility report. Thirty five thousand dollars for the equity audit. And currently we need five hundred and seventy seven thousand five hundred and seventy dollars is the two percent of our budget required by policy. And there are one million six hundred and seventy seven thousand four hundred forty nine dollars above and beyond that two percent. So we have one point six million available to us. Capital projects, I mean, everything is going on as planned. We have window replacements. Essar projects are taking priority. Those include the UES little gym, the UES special education suite, the MS MS playground and the MS MS cafeteria project. Those are lined up and prepared to begin, I believe, at the end and turn it through the summer. Maybe. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. That's where we're at. Is there any word on when we will get the audit so that we know how solid at three point six seven seven. Christina has gotten the draft or the draft of it. OK. And that is solid. OK. The draft. OK, good. If you remember, we changed auditors last year because because the person who was doing our audit for the store forever decided not to do school system audits anymore. OK. And so this new audit firm has picked up quite a few school districts and it's taking more time. OK. But we have got that. We have gotten the findings and that number is in there. OK, that's good. That's it. Christina is doing work. She's she's making it more readable. And that's who's trying. Then I'm going to tell you something. She's trying hard to do it. Yeah. I have some questions, but I think they're more for Christina, because speaking of readability, it's I had a hard time on some of the revenue line items where it seemed like I could not figure out how the math worked. So I'll just send them to Christina. That's more they're they're not questions for the committee. Just, I think, help in reading it. We is there a motion to approve the second quarter financial report? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor lose in the fight. Any opposed? Thanks, everyone. Thank you for the presentation, Brett. All right, so then moving on to policy monitoring. We have policies C2, student alcohol and drugs, C5, firearms and C8, pupil privacy rights. Is there a motion to? I move that we approve the policy monitoring reports. All three at once. All three at once with the amended. Was it the pupil privacy rights? Monitoring report that that came in after. Yeah, I think and is in the public packet, right? It's online. Is there a second? I'll second that. Any discussion about the policy monitoring reports? All those in favor? Aye. And you opposed? OK. So we need a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion of personnel of personnel matter. I think I can make that motion, even though I'm the chair, I suppose, running the meeting. So I move we go into executive session for the discussion of a personnel matter. Second. Any discussion about going into executive session? All those in favor? Aye. You need to go into the Zoom. Yep. Any opposed? OK. I'm going to join Zoom. Hey, Anna, are you with me?