 Opening the meeting of the Motley-Roxbury School Board of Directors at 6.32 on April 15, 2020 and let's do a roll. So I'll just go through the screen. Jerry? Present. Ryan? Ryan Zajac. Bridget? Present. Andrew? I'm here. Anakit? I'm here. Jill? I'm here. That's everyone, correct? Great. So first, a couple of things to add to the agenda. Under board business, we need to formally appoint Jerry as clerk because when we did so last time should not be yet been sworn in. So we can do that. Let's do that under board work at 7.10. Or we can just do it now. Actually, let's just do it now so we do it. Or after public comment. And then we do want an executive session to talk about board negotiations. So we can add that after board business. Any other agenda items that we should add? Okay. Mara? Mara, Mara's here. Not an agenda item, but do we have a, how are we going to do an executive session? With the zoom, we can make it. Private room. Okay. Thanks. And Mara. You need to announce yourself. Okay. All right. Excellent. Public comment. I don't see any. Members of the public on. I think Teresa's on. Oh yeah. I am, but I don't have a public comment. I'm just listening. Okay. Everyone else looks like staff or work. Thanks for joining Teresa. Okay. So. Consent agenda. And again, we have to do everything by, by role. Do I have a motion to. Approve the consent agenda. So moved. That was Bridget. Yes. Okay. I do have a second. A second. This is Jerry. Jerry. Okay. I'm just going to do roll call. Okay. Mara. Yay or nay. Yay. Jerry. Yay. Brian. Hi. Bridget. Hi. Andrew. And again. Hi. And Jill. Great. Yeah. I have it. Onto board discussion. Okay. So I have several new administrators. We're just going to introduce themselves and talk a little. But thank you, Katie, Bill. And Beth. For joining us. We wish we could meet you in person, but I'm sure that will come. At some point. I don't want to say soon enough because I don't want to make that guarantee, but at some point it will come. I'm just going to start with Bill. I'm just going to go to the agenda or another order, but we'd love to, you know, to have you introduce yourselves and if you're willing, take some questions from the board. Start with Bill since you're, you're first listed. Hello, everybody. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to, to joining your team. And like you said, Jim, I'm looking forward to meeting everybody in person. Being at home is kind of rough. Certainly willing to take some of your questions, but just kind of a, what I've been doing to prepare myself. I've been meeting with Mary London, who I've had a working relationship with through our regional directors. Group for about three years now. And I've started meeting with her weekly. I've been working with her for a long time. Getting the lay of the land and understanding kind of the initiatives that, that your system's working on already. Or should I say our system is working on already. One thing that jumps out at me. A particular interest. And something that I have some experience with when I was in the classroom as a special educators is the co-teaching model. Something that I, that I believe in. And I think can work well when implemented correctly. I've been up at you 32. Some of you may have heard for, this is my fourth year. And I've been the site-based director of special education there. And I think that's been a good place for me to get my feet wet. As far as being a director of special ed. And I know this area. I have good connections with the leadership and special education in this area. So I feel well grounded to make this transition. And I'm looking forward to it. So fire away with your questions, please. I have one, which is what sort of challenges might we anticipate just given potential funding shortfalls at the state and perhaps federal level in terms of, you know, properly funding our, our SPED program next year. And going forward, are there things that are looking likely or is it just really uncertain right now? It's, it's uncertain. There's things that we, that we know that I'm sure a grant can speak to as well. But primarily it's, you know, given that Vermont is not a block grant state, nothing is guaranteed right now for this time in which special education, well, education is, is not in person. So the reimbursement model comes into play. And the way that the state has directed us to deal with that is through the distance learning plan. And that has really served as to redress the service page. Not trying to get too technical on IEPs with you, but the service page really drives that reimbursement for districts. So there's been a mad, mad rush of paperwork up to Hill at U32 in Washington Central and across the state quite frankly to, to reformulate these IEPs given the fact that we can't be in front of students. So what do services look like? What can we put in front of our Medicaid clerks and what can we get reimbursed for? That unknown is creating some anxiety across the state. So I don't know what it's going to look like. I do feel like the local level sometimes can run faster than the state level and can run faster than the federal level. So it's, it's, I think we have to be careful not to run too fast and to wait for the guidance from the state. I know that that's something I think even just in the paperwork that we've had to do in the last couple of weeks, we found that, well, we probably should have waited the extra three days that even though that didn't feel very good to get the guidance from above. So I hope that answers question. Others? Yeah. Thank you. Can you speak a little bit to what options we have for continuing to engage with students over the summer and how, given that we'll have a transition in this position July 1st, how that will affect trying to plan for summer options. Yeah. So first, for ESY is that what you're speaking about? Yes. Okay. The statement is coming into play for me. I'm not exactly sure. I know. I feel like the AOE is going to have to give us direction. I don't know that they're going to allow some districts to have extended school year. And other districts not to. In fact, I'd appreciate that guidance from them. I feel like that would be an equity issue. I don't know if that would be an equity issue. I don't know if that would be an extended school year. But, you know, some other school district couldn't. That would seem inherently unfair for a population that is. Could be described as disadvantaged already. So I would be seeking advice from the AOE first. Before saying, hey, we're having extended school year over the summer. We're having extended school year the only option for engaging with students that have higher needs over the summer. So that's where you can be creative. I suppose I don't. So that's going to take a collective effort. Do we want to continue to provide services in the way that we are still developing now, which is online, which is again, not fair for all families. But I don't know that's going to take a serious discussion. More than just me, it's going to take discussions with teachers, service providers, school board members community to really decide what is reasonably appropriate given our current circumstances. And I say those words. They're reasonably appropriate because those are the federally mandated words that we're being asked to use. In these circumstances. The questions for bill. Thanks. Welcome aboard. We're. Excited to welcome you to our district and. Excited to meet you in person. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I think we're all ready for that for sure. Not necessarily to meet me, but to get out in public. I'm sure. I'm also going to excuse myself. I'm a double dipping. So I'm going to run to another board meeting right now. Perfect. Thanks. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Beth is next on the. At least on the agenda list. Actually, I was a lane before I married and my great, great, great grandfather founded link shops in my play or after the Civil War. I'm really excited to be heading back to center. I'm super thrilled at the opportunity to be the next principal of Roxbury village school. I'm really looking forward to joining the entire MRPS community and specifically become part of the Roxbury community as well as I lead the school into the future. Yeah. Pretty excited. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Welcome aboard. Questions for Beth. And I'll start at once. Perfect. Well. Thank you for, for joining us and we really look forward to having you start at RBS and. Again, also excited to meet you in person, but that's, that's a wonderful school and we're looking forward to having you at the helm next year. So next is Katie. Who I have also met on video before, but good to see you again and also look forward to meeting you in person, but Katie is going to be the principal at MSMS. After Pam retires after 14 wonderful years. So Katie, take away. My name is Katie, and I grew up in Coltas to Vermont. So I'm really excited about coming back home to Vermont. I currently am living in Brazil, the capital city. I worked at an American international school here and I've been here for the last four years, but I've been out of Vermont for the last six years. So I'm really excited to be coming home. I actually lived in Montpelier seven years ago when I was teaching in Danville. So I know the community and I'm really excited to be a part of it again. I've already started making some connections. I spent some time talking with Mike yesterday morning and I'm even more excited to hear kind of where you are in your stage of curriculum development because it's kind of where we were four years ago here. So I've been through that process and I'm really excited to work with the team and the plan moving forward. Sounds like a great one. And I think I have a lot to bring to that. But it seems like there's a lot of great things happening when it comes to curriculum. And you know, Pam's been at the school like you were saying for 14 years. And so I've heard from a lot of teachers already making connections about all the great things that she's established within the school. And so I think I'm excited to use that as a foundation to really elevate the middle school into kind of its next phase of life and creating a new identity for it in the Montpelier community. Great. Thank you. Questions for Katie. Katie and I will have some hiring to do right away because Matt, you read your packet Matt Roy just announced his resignation. He just got a new job in Essex Junction. And we're going to be working on that. We're going to be working on that. We're going to be working on that. At Thomas Fleming elementary school and we're. Wishing him his best wishes. So Katie and I will be running that search going and Jill Remix going to represent the board on that search committee. Thank you, Jill. Yeah. Thank you, Jill. And thank you, Katie and Libby for. For doing that search. I know we're all going to miss Matt, but that sounds like a great opportunity for him. Well, I'll have a board, Katie, and we look forward to again meeting in person and. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. I'm a middle school. So next we've have the COVID-19 update. And basically the agenda. Continuously learning starts with Mike. And then we're going to hear some predicted physical challenges, which. I know are potentially many from Grant. So Mike, do you want to start? Our big document, basically, I'll just walk through the process of the continuation of learning plan. We received a template from the AOE and our job was to complete that template and submit it for approval. This work really represents the work of the administrators and their leadership teams and their educators, all combined into one spot and everyone did a great job. I have yet to talk to a district whose plan was approved on the first submission as arts was. So I think that speaks just to the strength of it. The template was created with four sections, communication and routines, structures for student success, instruction and assessment and ensuring accessibility. We tackled it as a district, really focusing on four main areas of engagement, empathy, equity and relationship throughout that. And what I thought I would do is rather than go through the whole document, I would kind of talk about the highlights of each section and then take some questions that folks might have. In that first section, communication and routines, we really spent a lot of time thinking about how we could track, monitor and make sure that we're communicating and connecting with every student and every family. So each school has some sort of communication law they're using to really track that and make sure that we're collecting feedback along the way as well. We wanna be efficient in our communication so we don't wanna overload families with emails and links and we're really working hard to get better at that and figure out how we can do that along the way. We created a remote learning website that houses all the stops for all families and Anna was integral in that and the principals really worked with their leadership teams. And then we're really focusing on taking feedback and responding and those are the big elements of communication and routines. Each section had three or four essential elements that the AOE really wanted us to outline and those all kind of hit that. In structures for student success, that's where we really dug into the academic structures. How are we gonna be supporting learning throughout this time? Schools develop office hours and support hours to make sure that students would have the support they need whether that be for SEL, social workers, guidance counselors those folks have done an amazing job really honing in on students and families but also for intervention support. And then we really focused on routines and dependable schedules, families really need and students really need and frankly, we all need a routine and a schedule that we can count on from day to day. Those are the things that we put in place for structures for student success and instruction and assessment. We really focused on feedback for student learning. We that again went to academic learning structures. Frankly, a lot of the questions and details within the plan were quite redundant. So you'll see similar responses in each section. So again, there we focused on academic learning structures. Luckily, we've been doing a lot of work already on prioritized standards. So K through 12, we're able to really say what are the standards that we need to focus on for the remainder of the year that are most important? How do we build off those? We're continuing to use our PLCs to discuss student needs on a regular basis. So data is coming in, feedback is coming in about student performance and teams are continuing to discuss how to support students in learning. That hasn't changed. Also in this section, there's quite a bit of detail about there are flexible pathways. Matt McLean and his crew really did a fantastic job thinking about how do we support students who are at CTE, doing CBL, flexible pathways, early college, all of those components and really articulating what we're doing to support those students at this time. And then a second part of that whole group was identified and organized tech tools. So we had to create a list of tech tools that we were using to support learning and support educators at this time. We were pretty far in front of that at the beginning. There's my dog sparking. Here we go. I knew what was gonna happen. We identified and organized tech tools early on and really stuck with the tried and true and things that we were comfortable with and things that we knew were safe. So we didn't go off with the shiny pennies and there were a ton of them that came up at the time. In the last section, ensuring accessibility, this was about FAPE and special education. So marrying special educators, special educators are working their off. Like they are working really, really hard. And so they've developed plans for students and families and every day they're plugging in. In that section, there was also about FERPA and student records and data and how we're ensuring safety with that. We've really done a good job keeping that in-house and being thoughtful about that and reminding teachers and families and parents about safety and data privacy. There was accessibility challenges. How do we work with families that may not have internet access or need extra support in some different way? We developed a lot of strategies around that. We're continuing to work on that. And then again, in that section, there was a requirement that we explained how we're supporting folks in flexible pathways. So you'll see a redundant kind of explanation of what we're doing there. And that is the 77 pages of that plan. It's broken down from pre-K through four, five through eight and nine through 12 in details for each of those categories. And everything that went out to families or educators is represented in this plan just in more of a stereo instruction kind of format versus what is being shared with families that's more approachable and more accessible. But as I said before, our folks did a really amazing job. The principals really took lead on this in their schools and the leadership teams and the educators put it all together. And I have yet to talk to any district whose plan was accepted on the first submission. So questions for Mike? Jill? This isn't a question, but a comment. I just, you know, as a parent and as somebody who's got friends for teachers and friends at the AOE, I'm to say I'm impressed as a huge understatement. I just am so blown away and grateful by what you have done here. It's really remarkable in several ways. And frankly, on the receiving end, I feel like it went very smoothly. And as soon as schools were dismissed, you know, our kiddo hit the ground running. And I know that talking with, like I said, other families and friends or teachers that's not the case across the state. And they're still just this week kind of building it out. So I just, I cannot thank you enough and I'm so impressed. So thank you so much. Thank you. I can appreciate that. I'm, as many of the principals and educators in the school are also parents and we're experiencing this from different school districts. The comment going around has been, man, I wish my kids were experiencing this stuff. Yeah, I know and I want to echo that too. It's obvious just looking through the document and also seeing the results that there's just been a ton of work and a ton of thought put into this under unanticipated and very fast moving conditions. So we really appreciate the time and effort and the talent shown by this team. Other questions or comments? I have a question here. Yeah. Mike, can you just tell us a little bit about some of the strategies that our district is using to help those families who have struggled to afford internet or I'm concerned, accessibility is an issue that we talk about in Vermont a lot with regard to whether there's fiber networks there or not but in our 10.6 square miles around the capital city we have pretty good accessibility but I'm concerned about internet is essentially a utility but it's non-regulated utility. It's very easily arguably more critical than telephones today. It's arguably as important as electricity and yet these and it's because of federal law in large part but the internet companies aren't very well regulated at all and I've heard numerous stories in recent weeks about predatory practices just in our community and I'm wondering how our school is able to work with families who might be experiencing some issues related to access to the internet not just because internet doesn't go to their house but because of other issues whether they're socioeconomic or whatever the matter. Sure, I can definitely speak to that. We're spending quite a bit of time on this. There's a couple of factors in play. So one, you're absolutely right about the predatory practices. So a lot of the companies if you go to the Vermont commerce site I think that there's a page where they kind of explain what's available to Vermonters and all of the internet companies that kind of come out trying to get out in front with the best deal and it starts with we'll provide free internet for your student and then the fine print says if you sign up for 12 to 24 months of service and we'll give you two months for free but then after that you're on the hook for the next 24. So that's been a challenge for us in many ways because and I don't mean this critically but most people see the free part and wonder why we're not setting it up. Well, because it's essentially a regressive tax we're setting families up for something that they won't be able to afford and a situation that's gonna be troublesome. Having said that, I've set up several meetings with a couple of vendors in particular to see if there's something that we can do and I'm waiting for those to come through. In the meantime, we've explored a couple of options and found some workarounds that we've used for families that do not have access to internet and want access. The other part of that is that I've talked to at least five families that philosophically don't want internet. They don't have it, but they don't want it. So we've found ways to support those learners outside of internet access. But we've explored everything from Verizon hotspot hubs that we could purchase and loan out to families and then take back after this and that turned out to be like a 36 month lease process with an enterprise account and it was just not great. So I have two more meetings left to go with vendors that I'm hoping will work out and yield something that is feasible for families. But we found several workarounds, not only analog materials or things like that, but also using more conventional things that people forget about like the wall phone or things, we've also found a way to use thumb drives and devices. So educators can store materials for a week or whatever onto a thumb drive. We can mail the thumb drive or deliver to our families and we can provide them a device. We won't have internet access, but it'll work for everything that the student needs to do. And that's really kind of the best we've been able to do. I've been partnering with the SEL group through Mary Backtel. So social workers, guidance counselors, those folks, those are the folks that really tend to know those families and know them really well. And just like helping families get fuel oil or something similar, it's kind of the same process. We are helping a family connect with a third party vendor. But in this case, we haven't found a lot of good will from those companies, as you mentioned. Yeah, that's a major concern of mine. It's a concern of mine across the state. And I do wonder, I don't wanna tie things up, but I do wonder if the school boards and superintendents can band together maybe through associations and principals as well to try to leverage the situation with a critical mass. Yeah. Yeah, I would say that the one challenge that still remains is it's not the school district setting up the service. The family has to set up the service. The family has to allow the person in to install the router. And so there's this element of if they need it, want it or are able to set it up. And that's pretty much what we can do at this point. I agree with you that there needs to be some advocacy and some management of those companies. And I think that that's appropriate at the moment that we're doing the best we can. And frankly, we're talking about a relatively small number of folks at this point. Thank you. I've got a question. Mike, the document is impressive. I just wanted to comment about that too. You guys have done a fantastic job putting this together. My question is related to the time that supposedly the students would have to spend in front of a screen or basically so much stuff is happening now with information getting delivered to the kids via computers and just having to sit in front of computer for a long period of time. Is there any thought given to how to counter that or whatever it is to limit that time? Yeah, sure. I think that's a great question. It is somewhat school-specific and developmentally appropriate as well, some of the responses. I think every school was really thoughtful about that and focused any of that connection time so that synchronous interaction time to be about relationships and connections. Time in front of the screen spent completing asynchronous work or interacting with a Google Classroom post or a document or a word processing or something like that, that is there as well. The hope I think universally was not to have students sitting in front of a computer or a screen for eight hours a day. What I saw was a range of developmentally appropriate from an hour or less to two hours a day of schoolwork that may or may not be in front of the screen. And I think that there was a hard, hard line for everybody in that thinking and also making it really manageable. The good news here was that as we were developing this plan, we ourselves were going through this experience of being on computers all the time to do the development. So we knew how taxing it was and I think we really held the line on that. But the other thing I would say is that we've intentionally built in a lot of feedback into this process. So if we hear it's just too much, well, we're gonna adjust, we're gonna figure it out. We've already done that with communication. We heard right away too much communication. We've heard about challenges for accessing all of the information and links and we've worked on fixing that. And so I think if we hear that families are having too much time in front of the screen, then we're gonna adjust naturally. What I've seen from the K through 12 perspective is that I'm not seeing huge pockets of too much time on a computer. But if it happens, we're prepared to really adjust for that. Okay, thanks. Other questions for Mike? So I have a question about how it's playing out in the high school because I really agree with the message that came from Renee and what you've said, Mike, about the importance of relationships and maintaining connections. But my experience of how the high school program is playing out is that there's actually not very much synchronous connection happening and that students are very much getting the message that it's pretty much optional to be, you know, making those direct connections with teachers. You know, the assignments get posted and the work is there to do. And there's only one TA a week. So I was wondering if you could just talk about how that balance is being struck at the high school level. I wonder if Renee's on the line. I wonder if Renee wants to step in there. Yeah, I'm happy too. Hi Bridget. Hi Renee. Hi, I would put myself online but I'm in a tie-dye sweatshirt. So I don't want to embarrass myself. I didn't think I was going to do a video. It's Zoom land, there's no such thing. I know, I know. So yeah, we spend a lot of time in having conversation about synchronous and asynchronous and part of our decision really was putting it up, putting it up to the teachers with regard to whether or not they wanted to get online. You know, the problem with synchronous is that it opens opportunities for some students to join but it doesn't necessarily open up opportunities for all students to join per se. And some of our teachers also don't necessarily want to put themselves in front of the video as well. So it's, you know, I don't know. This is the first week that we're trying something new. So there may be more opportunities for teachers to get online. You know, one of the things that we put in place within our plan is soliciting student feedback which we did probably two weeks into the original, the maintenance of learning plan and got some really good feedback from about a third of our student body. And I'm asking teachers to individually solicit that feedback so that we're not just getting generalized feedback as a school, but teachers are specifically getting that feedback. So if students are wanting to make those connections and are gonna make the time to make those connections, I think some teachers, I won't say all, some teachers will make the effort to get online and connect with students. As far as TA just being once a week, that was just the part of our plan. Could that switch over time if we get feedback? Yeah, it can. I don't think that this plan is absolutely set in stone. I think the framework of it is, but if we get feedback that sways us one way or another, then we'll take that and do something with it. Thanks Renee, I appreciate that. And I know everybody's working super hard on this and it's basically impossible tasks. So I did have another question about the plan because I noticed that the plan on pages, and I was looking at pages 20 and 21 about that relate to the high school, talked about teachers providing daily instruction. And I was wondering if you could explain what that means because I had understood that the schedule was more of a post the assignments once a week and be available, but the plan actually says providing daily instruction. So how is that, what does that mean in the terms of the plan? Are you, which page were you on? 20 and 21. For the high school specifically? Yeah, it says 912 and then this is the bottom of page 20 English teachers will be using Google Classroom email Google Meet to provide daily instruction to students. And then it says that for math and science and social studies. I mean, I could try to help you out there Mike, but I don't think that there was any intent of us doing daily instruction. So that may just be incorrect on the plan. I think the idea was for us to put out all the assignments. Again, this was based on student feedback and what they were asking from us that they wanted a consistent time in which we were sending out all the assignments, which is why we chose Monday to be the start of that week. That works for all levels of our students and also really taking into account our students with special needs who definitely need that consistency in the document that comes their way, how it comes their way. But as far as daily instruction is in play, I think that that really comes at the play of students should they need additional support at any given time. So whether it's within their class period. So if they're in a green one at nine o'clock on Tuesdays, they're available or teachers are available to offer instruction or support during that time or in the afternoon during office hours. So that may be what daily instruction looks like. Teachers are available every afternoon from one to three o'clock. So I don't know if that was a mistake on our part or if that's what we're thinking. I don't have the document in front of me so I can't open it on the chat. Yeah, I think we're gonna get out of there but I would add not to back step here but we are wiser three days ahead than we were three days behind. And so this is an iterative process. This document will change. I'm sure that we'll update and re-upload to the AOE before all of this is over. So that's a good catch for us though. I appreciate that feedback. And Bridget, I'll just share like from the time that we knew that we were leaving and we weren't coming back to school, there was a lot of pivots. I mean, there's been a lot of pivots through this entire process. And I think when we started this planning which was Monday the 16th, I remember it explicitly well, we were going in one direction and pivoted pretty quickly the following day on the 17th. And the amount of iterations this plan has gone through over the course of the last month is insane. And the group, obviously I didn't just do this by myself, it was with our leadership group at our school which represents every department. And it's not gonna be perfect, but I think for the most part, we feel really good about what we put in front of the community and the students. And like I said, if the feedback comes back to us that we need to shift, we'll do that. I don't think like I said, anything is set in stone by any means. I totally appreciate that, Renee. And again, I think the task that we're asking of educators is incredibly difficult, if not impossible and really wanna thank you all for everything you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. I think Ryan had a question earlier. Sure, I was just hoping maybe for the public, the question that I had been asked somewhat consistently all has to come back to evaluating and grading during this time. I was hoping maybe Mike just for the public's ability to hear what the plan is, how grades, how evaluations will be essentially recorded over the next eight weeks, what parents and students would expect. Sure, I can do that. And I think other folks can chime in as well on that one. Generally speaking, we shifted our gaze from assessment and scoring to feedback and learning. So really thinking about how are we informing students about their interactions and their learning? That's generally what we focused on K through 12. K through four, we're looking on a lot of information that's gonna come back through the programs that they're using, and that's gonna inform a really narrative response for students on their learning progress. Great, thanks. Mike, we lost ya. Mike, we lost ya. Lost who? Can you hear Mike still talk? Half of it, only half of it. Hold on. You cut out for a little bit, Mike. Can you hear me now? Yes. After the, you cut out after the narrative for K-4. All right, well, I've finished, so. It was great. So narrative for K through four, five through eight and nine through 12 are really looking at those prioritized standards and then adjusting proficiency scales accordingly to be able to inform students of their progress. So if we're focusing on a big standard, how are you on getting to understanding and being solid in this standard? And there's gonna be a scale so students and families can understand that. I think there's some more technical reporting aspects at the high school, and I'd really defer to Renee on that, but that's generally what we've done for grading and assessment focused on feedback and learning. Renee, did you wanna talk about the high school a bit? But I know it's gonna be such a big part of this meeting. I would have dressed completely different for all of you. I'm sorry, I can show my face, but I'm just too embarrassed to do it. Yeah, again, just as I was saying to Bridget before and the rest of the group, that was a long, arduous process and thinking about how we were gonna go about reporting. There was a lot of conversations with a lot of different principals around Vermont. Every Monday we get together, a consortium of Vermont high school principals get together and talk about this very thing, how we are going to assess and how we're gonna report. Nobody's really on the same page. And we were kind of all on the same page and understanding that the colleges and universities are all sending us information saying that they're all looking to be very flexible with this second semester. As we were looking at it in our lens was really trying to look at what's the most equitable way of reporting in general. And so that's how we ended up with the incomplete. We didn't wanna go with the fail. We didn't feel like it was appropriate during this time to fail any student. So the students will have an opportunity if they're not able to engage or choose not to engage, they're able to come back. At some point we haven't really completed what that plan or what that plan looks like yet. And then the past really is for students to engage and work towards proficiency on a standard level that teachers feel like every student can meet that particular standard. And then the past with distinction is for those students who really wanna just delve deeper into the content by choice. Some teachers are putting out options for students to delve into those and others are conversations between the teacher and students that are kind of like extended learning opportunity projects more like passion projects where students wanna kind of dig into some cool stuff. Like computer science is an example of that where kids are going on and creating coding programs and so on and so forth. So there's a lot of different reporting structures across the state. There's a collective group of us who've chosen either to go with a pass incomplete or pass with distinction, pass and an incomplete. I think that, does that answer help? Jill? Thanks. Forgive my ignorance, does that include things like AP or IV or like the SAT or ACT? Are high school seniors gonna be able to take those? So the AP exam is still in play, which is interesting because the SATs and ACTs have been canceled. So APs has completely overhauled their testing systems so students have the opportunity to test at home. There's still some concerns around equity and internet access and students being able to access the AP exam. It's a 45 minute exam for all subject areas. I believe that there's like two different types of questions that students have to answer. I do wanna note that AP said if you don't have access, they'll figure out a way to do something so that they can do it on paper and turn it in. But all other, I think IB has also canceled their exams as well, AP is the only ones that have held out. So there's a lot of discussion around that. I think the SAT and ACT are gonna open up in like August, September, October and they're doing monthly, like they're doing a lot more opportunities this fall that's their plan anyway, if they can. Other questions for Mike? Great, thanks Mike and thanks to the whole team for all the great work on this plan. I know it's a lot of work, I also know it's still a work in progress. So we appreciate the check-in and we appreciate all that everyone is doing this less than ideal time. Grant, you wanna tell us how bad the financial news is? Yeah, it would be a pleasure. Yeah, I mean, in case I couldn't figure out how to unmute I was gonna visually summarize by doing something like this. But actually, I think we are gonna be okay. It's more a question of what's going on state level. And Andrew is much more of an expert at this than I am but the revenue side is a real problem. In FY20, the JFO is saying we're gonna end up $90 million short of what we thought we were gonna be. So that's a huge problem statewide. So those things are gonna end up impacting us at some point but what I know and what we can control at a district level. For FY20, I still say, I think we're in good shape. We are gonna have some additional expenses. We are gonna perhaps lose some revenue like, you know, driver's ed, rentals but those are small. On the expense side, we'll have some more expenses for childcare, maybe some hardware and software but we're also gonna see savings or cost avoidance like spring athletics, all the costs related to that. A lot of the field trip expenses. So I think all the additional costs are probably gonna be offset by reduced costs. And the revenues that we lose won't be significant at all. The only significant revenue that I'm worried about and Bill mentioned this is on the special ed side and I think I may have even talked about this a little bit before, if some of our special ed expenses are deemed ineligible then we may get less special ed reimbursement. But once again, we're only talking about, you know one quarters worth of special ed reimbursements. And I'm not sure that that's even gonna happen. So in FY20, I think we'll be okay. The wildcard between 20 and 21, the large wildcard is the CARES Act funding. Vermont is supposed to get about 30 million, 31 million dollars. That money is supposed to be distributed to the SUs and SDs based on the Title I allocation. And for us, that means probably close to $250,000 which sounds great. But right now we don't know when we're gonna get it. If there's gonna be limits on how we can use it. So that's a huge wildcard. If we get that and there aren't any strings attached then if we get an FY20, we can end up with a surplus that we can carry forward into 21 to help us if there's issues then. If it's for specific COVID-19 expenses as of right now, I can't imagine that we would ever get that high. So that's a wildcard that we still are waiting to find out what their direction is, what's gonna happen with that. So that's 20, going into 21, I think we're still gonna have problems statewide with revenues, specifically sales and use tax, purchase and use tax, rooms and meals tax. So I think statewide revenues are gonna be lower. The question is, what is that gonna mean to us as a district? Is there gonna be something draconian that happens like a funding for each district gets reduced, who knows? Right now we've got an approved budget. If the revenues come in to us as a district then we should be fine. I'm more concerned right now with FY22. As we go into the fall and we get ready to build an FY22 budget, there's likely gonna be a lot of pressure on us to try to slow down spending, to try to keep the increase very minimal. So I think that is the one, I guess kind of known to me and there are several unknowns. And like I said, the big unknowns are this year if there's an issue with special reimbursement revenues and between this year and next year what's gonna happen with that cares money that flows down to us. But I could go on and on but it's probably best for me to stop there and just see if there's anything specifically you wanted to ask. Questions for Grant. I just wanna add something on the state side, which is the Ed fund is going to be depleted of its reserves this fiscal year. And it actually, and with sales and use tax which all sales and use tax as of two years ago goes into the Ed fund that replaced the general fund transfer that used to occur, that and 25% of meals and rooms tax. And I don't know, I can't remember on purchase and use because that's DMV but purchase and use maybe all of it or a chunk of it goes into the Ed fund. But those are all taxes that are performing they're just not really performing right now. People aren't buying products. We don't have a tourism industry right now. And so it's a big deal for FY20 but the way that it's being covered in FY20 is the treasurer is executing a massive inner fund loan from several different funds I believe to cover that. But then heading into FY21, we're looking at those revenues being even worse off than they are now and the reserves will be depleted. And there's also an inner fund loan from the Ed fund and the Ed fund has to repay the general fund and those other funds unless something changes. But the big question mark is what's gonna go on with when are we gonna start to rebound and when are we gonna get federal funds and how flexible might we be able to use those federal funds? Right now the federal funds that are coming through can't be used to backfill foregone revenues and almost all of these problems are created at the state level, not at the business level but at the state level by foregone revenues. So that doesn't solve some Ed fund issues but there's just a lot of huge question marks right now. And I would say also with the CARES Act money you could drive a truck through the definition of what you can spend that on and you're right at the state level you can't really use it to help with revenue issues but at the local level if I got that money I could just simply justify that we've continued to pay employees during this closure and that costs money. And I think that would be enough to justify getting that money in and it would not necessarily help cover expenses but it would basically have us end with a surplus and that's why it's 20 which would help out. Statewide the short revenue shortfall is a huge issue. I'm not sure what's gonna happen as far as setting up tax factors statewide which could also change the revenue implications for FY 21 as well. But I think we're in great shape as a district. I mean, there are a lot of districts that be in worship. We have a fund balance. We're not incurring huge expenses because of the closure. So, I think there are a lot of districts that are gonna be struggling a lot worse than us. So we'll make it through. But like I said, in the fall when we're building a budget I see that this might be a year where people instead of saying, hey, you should add this you should add that, they're gonna perhaps be asking us to tap on the brakes. Brent or Libby, I mean, do either of you think that we as a board should be considering ways to cut back expenses for FY 21? Well, I'll let Libby jump in on that in a minute. For me, I don't see a reason for us to have to go to any dramatic exercise right now to reduce FY 21 expenses. I mean, we have an approved budget. The revenues that we are going to get hopefully will be stable. It's the statewide ED fund that's gonna be the issue, which is why I'm hoping that some of these CARES Act funds can actually help maybe reduce the education spending grant amounts that are coming from the ED fund to districts and just let us use this CARES Act money instead. So I think right now there's no reason for us to try to take any kind of dramatic action to reduce budget for FY 21. That may change as time goes on and we get more information, but right now that would only cause us to have a surplus that we would then roll into FY 22. Surpluses are great, but I don't really wanna sacrifice what we're trying to do in FY 21 just to have a better outlook for FY 22. Well, I mean, maybe this is a question for Jill and Andrew too, who I know are plugged in at the state level. Is there any concern that the state is gonna impose some forced budget reduction, kind of like what they did with the healthcare issue a couple of years ago? I'll let Jill and Andrew answer that one specifically, but for right now, I would say we have gotten no guidance on doing that. So we need to wait until what they tell us to do. I think, I mean, we can be coming back in the next board meeting and I could be like, we need to cut because this is what the governor has directed us to do and we need to figure out a way to do that. But we haven't gotten any guidance whatsoever on the finance, we've gotten the financial outlook presented to us, which is dire, but they have right now my understanding of what's happening at the state is they're just passing volleys back and forth to each other around who can hit on an idea that might work to solve this amazing problem of money at the state level. But certainly Andrew and Jill might have a better insight than that. I would say right now we wait and see to what the directive is that comes at us and work with it then. There's just, right now nobody's really saying much of anything Bridget, because the options on the table, depending on the situation could be so jaw-dropping. And if we get federal dollars to pad all of this, like Grant saying, there are different ways that federal dollars might be able to be used. For example, if federal dollars go directly to the school districts and that relieves some of the burden on the Ed fund, then maybe a five to 10% reduction in what we normally get from the Ed fund won't hurt as much because we were able to make up a lot of that through direct federal money. And it's the good news and the bad news of this that we're not in this alone. When we are in this alone, we can get bailed out by other states who pay into the federal government. It's our grand federal experiment. Right now everybody's going through this and everybody wants money until we're pushing this on the future generations. But the good news is all of these governors are gonna wanna be solving problems pretty similar to this. We're unique because we have the centralized Ed fund and so we have these state tax revenues that helps support our schools rather than local or county. And so it's just us slightly, though we're a similar size to many counties around the country. So it's pretty similar to what a lot of them are going through. I don't know if Jill wants to add anything on the property tax side. Okay, I don't need to myself. No, I haven't heard any sort of guidance or direction or gotten any wind and I certainly defer to Grant and Libby as far as our particular district. In my universe, it's all about property tax rates and property tax ability to pay and what's gonna happen to property values. I know Montpelier is actually due to have a reappraisal. I think Roxbury either has had one recently or is about to also undertake one. But as Andrew pointed out, being the statewide fund like we are, I think it helps in some way because we're not gonna be on our own with the ed fund problem. But as a district, it sounds like we're in better shape. And I know that any signal that I have seen from the governor's office or the legislature and the bits that I've been trying to follow is that the last thing that they would wanna do is cut school employees, which is the vast majority of the budget during the recession. So I think they're gonna do everything they can to not. That being said in much better times than this, they certainly send out this thing saying, okay, school budgets, you have to hold down your spending to 2% increase or something like that. So that's possible, but I actually haven't heard, I have not heard that discussed at all for what that's worth. I really appreciate all of that. Thank you to everyone. And I think we have only higher needs coming, not fewer needs. So. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's gonna be, I think a challenging couple of years. Other questions for Grant or comments? I just wanna add to that, Jim, I think what the administration's been doing, staying on their toes, being flexible is the right approach here because there's just tremendous, tremendous uncertainty. And when I'm talking with both in the legislature and the executive branch, trying to get information about a range of different issues, the lack of certainty on the horizon. It's really, it's probably unprecedented at any point in like the, since the civil war, maybe. Maybe World War II, I'm not certain. And so I think we're gonna have to take a similar approach as a board and at some point, whether it's the finance committee or we create some ad hoc committee at some point, we'll probably want some group to kind of focus on different, maybe some different ad hoc groups related to some of these issues. Yeah, definitely, I agree. Anything else for Grant and thank you for the update? I was just wondering, I know I've been hearing the Act 176 legislation might get bumped out. I think, was that the change to the special education payment? And is that likely to happen or impact us at all? I know there's been a lot of advocacy at the legislature that to push 173 back to delay it. And that hasn't happened yet, but I imagine that it will. So 173 is changing the special education funding formula into a block grant, into more of a block grant. And it's been, they never got the rules down yet. So I think that what they're doing is they're gonna delay it again. It's already been delayed once or twice, but they're gonna delay it another time. That's what my hunch would be. But again, that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, we're gonna have to try to figure out how to deal with that in the FY22 budget. But if it does get delayed, then that's another year before we have to try to sort through that. Excellent. Anything else before we turn to the last agenda item before executive session? Yeah, perfect. I just wanna reiterate how much I appreciate what the administration and the teachers are doing. Yes. To keep our community connected. Thank you all. We're Roxbury has an awesome team. They're fantastic. Yeah, no, absolutely. The work you guys are doing have been just fantastic and much appreciated. And yeah, I'm hearing that from the community as well. And I know these are, it's said a million times, but it's super challenging and super unprecedented times. So we recognize that and the sacrifice and hard work you're all making. So board work, Jerry, I'm assuming you're still willing to be clerk. If so, we can entertain a nomination to make you such and then have a vote on it. But. Okay. Do you have a nomination or a motion to nominate Jerry Huck as clerk of the board? I move to nominate Jerry Huck as clerk of the board. Do I have a second? That was Andrew or? I'll second. Hey, Jack, I'll second. I think that was Mara who got the audio first. I'll give her a couple of hands. So, Aniket, Aaron, I or Ney or? Jerry, you can vote by yourself, I think. Andrew. Yep. Hi. Bridget. Hi. So the eyes have it. So Jerry, thanks again for doing that. And then next is a consideration of board. It's knocked the S off candidate. I think Emma was going to try to join us. I don't know if she's on or not. Emma, were you able to call in? She's not here. You all saw her letter. Do we need to discuss her application in executive session? Or should we just about given the lack of competition of the fact that I think most of us know Emma, but I'm happy to move it into executive session or we can just appoint her. I don't know that we need executive session and I'm, you know, very appreciative and grateful that Emma's willing to serve. I did I did just want to mention that I don't think it matters, but just so folks are aware that I think because she's a teacher in another district that she will not be able to participate in any of our negotiation related activities. I believe she's not a teacher anymore. I think she did not know that. OK, I think she I think she's it's it's an education related. Job, I think it's like a private consulting firm that does education work. So no longer a member of the. Yeah, he's no longer at Danville, not any. Yeah, OK. Maybe she confirmed that, but that was my understanding from the latest I've had with her. Olivia, do you remember is that right? I'm not sure what her present employee is, but I know she was an educator that she saw me. She has been, but I don't believe I think she's more in the consulting business now, but I think you're wrong. I know she is not at at Danville. She's Danville High School as a social studies teacher. I know she's not doing that anymore. OK. I'm. Do I have a does anyone else disagree? Does anyone else want to talk about this in executive session otherwise? No, I don't want to talk about it in an executive session, but just so that the public is aware, because I don't think we've explicitly said this to my knowledge, she's the only applicant, right? Yes, exactly. Bacon Ford position. Yeah, do you do you just because do we have members of the public? I I think we have a member of the press on. Do you want to just provide a brief summary of her backgrounds and she provided that to us or yes? Let me just if you give me half a second here, I can call up her letter of interest. And I think it was pretty short. So this is this is Emma's letter. I'm ready to express my interest in the open MRPS board seats. I have been actively involved in the school community since my son was in kindergarten seven years ago. I've considered serving on the board many times over the years, but have never felt compelled to serve the way I do now. Light of the turmoil caused by COVID-19, I'm ready to step up and meant to serve. Here is some information and background to consider in your decision to appoint my two children are students in the district. She has a third grader and a seventh grader. So that's UES and mainstream middle school. I have been actively involved in both the UES and the MES MS parent groups. I was a founding member of friends of my better schools, advocating for school budgets and bonds to pass over the years. I established the holiday go fund me, which was successfully funded two years in a row. This fundraiser provided gift cards to families in our district to help during winter holidays. My background is a low license social studies teacher gives me the perspective. I believe will be helpful on the board from 2013 to 2019. I taught high school social studies at Danville High School and U32. My current job is at Vermont Higher Education Collaborative, allows me to continue to learn the best practices in education, including equity, inclusion, trauma informed practices, special education, law, etc. So that's where she's at now. She's at the Vermont Higher Education Collaborative. In the past, I've served on other boards and have an intimate understanding of how boards function. My play is my hometown. I love this community and the schools. She's an alum of the district and would be honored to give back in this way. Please feel free to reach out with me to me with any additional information you would like to have when considering my candidacy. I look forward to discussing this for Emma. So that is a rundown of her background. And I'm sure that she'd be willing to talk to any press member. I so do I have a motion to appoint Emma and just for clarity, I did talk to John Odom and this appointment will last until town meeting day. Not the November election. So it will be till it will be close to a year. It will be 11, you know, a little less than 11 months. Do I have a motion to appoint Emma? I move it. That matter. I move that we appoint Emma Vahanson to the open born seat. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Great. That was Aniket. Yes. All right. Aniket, I or nay? Aye. By Jerry? Aye. Andrew? Aye. Mara? Aye. Ryan? Aye. Bridget? Aye. Gil? Great. Thanks all. So we are nine again and I will let Emma know that she needs to get sworn in, but she will hopefully be able to join us as a board member at our next meeting. And then we can also ask her what her interests are in terms of committees. So thank you everyone. I think the last piece we have is executive session to discuss negotiations. And I know we need a motion both that discussing such matters in public would disadvantage the board and then a motion to move in. Bridget, since you seem to have memorized the first. I'll do it. Sure. Make it. I move that we find that discussing negotiations in open session would put the board at a substantial disadvantage. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, I'll do this again. Aniket? Great. Jerry? Aye. Andrew? Aye. Mara? Aye. Brian? Aye. Bridget? Aye. Joe? Aye. And now I need a motion to go and do executive session. I move to go into executive session. A second? I'll take it. I second. Gary? Aniket? Aye. Jerry? Aye. Andrew? Aye. Mara? Aye. Brian? Aye. Bridget? Aye. Jill? Aye. You must have live meetings to avoid this. And then we need someone who can actually perform the technological feat necessary for us to go and do executive session. I'm doing that right now. Okay. All that. Working on it. Okay, so I think that means that Jennifer Orca and David are gonna go away. Well, they'll still be in this room, but we go into a separate area. Okay. And then we come back to adjourn the meeting. Okay. I don't think we're gonna have any decisions to make after this. It's just informative. No. All right, you ready? We're moving into a room now. Excellent.