 And I'm looking for adjustments to the agenda. Thank you, Jamie. I'd like us to move, first of all, number six, reorganization has to be, I suppose it can go behind the signing of the timekeeper, but it has to go before the public comment. So I'd like to move that item six, the whole reorganization piece becomes item four. And I would like to move the public comment to item nine. We had it pointed out to us by some of the select board elders in both our towns that per open meeting law, public comment is designed to reflect on the items that are on the agenda. And it is an opportunity for the public to respond to the contents of the meeting. So I think it would therefore be appropriate to put public comment after item eight as item nine. So that once we've gone through the discussion and the action items, then the public can weigh in. Lastly, I would like us to add, after reorganization, I would like us to add board comment. Board comment was left off the agenda completely. And then I would also like us to add to a rearrange the discussion items order to begin with the vote to discuss the building situation and follow that with Envision Rochester, the tax anticipation note, the audit and the task force audit updates. So we can get and spend our energy first on the issues around the vote and our path forward there. I apologize for it being such a convoluted rearranging of the agenda. I just, as I was really planning out, how this meeting would go after the vote wanted to rearrange it that way. Carl, I have a question. Who's this? This is Jenny. I have a question. I joined a couple of minutes late for purposes of the notes. Could you repeat the adjustments that are prior to moving the public comment to number nine? We need, I wrote those down, Jenny. I could email those to you if that's helpful. Okay, thanks. Ooh, that's awesome. Thank you, Jamie. Carl, just wanted to add and Jamie suggested this should go under, what was it? COVID-19 task force updates. I wanted to talk briefly about tents. That is absolutely appropriate. Thank you, Ethan. You're welcome. Any other adjustments to the agenda? Tim, we'll get to you in public comments unless there is something you really think needs to be added to the agenda. I think we're pretty full for tonight. I think you're pretty full too. And I appreciate you moving that vote up to the top because I think that's the most important thing. But under public comment, can we discuss the building study committee some? We absolutely can. All right, very good. Since the buildings have been added to the agenda as a discussion item, that is, I believe Pat Harvey would find that germane. Okay, great. Thanks. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. Jamie, didn't you have an adjustment? What's that? I think I have an adjustment that we talked about this morning. I think Carl said that wasn't I going right after the reorganization call. Right, in board comment. Okay, that was a tiny question. That would be Jamie. That's what I thought. Okay. All right, so I got a still at number three assigning a timekeeper. Usually that has been Ethan. He is very good at that. Okay. Ethan, you accept? I accept. What's, let me just get something to write on so I've got my, because I don't have this new agenda so it's gonna be a little tricky. Let's print it out. I just have them on a screen. Do we wanna do it by block, by section? Yeah, I think the consent agenda is gonna take five minutes. Okay. I think reorganization will take 15 at the tops, 10, 15. Okay. Envision Rochester is a report out, so that's five. I think probably the vote discussion. Wait, I come before that, don't I? Yes, you do. You're in board, I'm sorry, board comment. Board comment will be 10 minutes. Yeah, I believe so, yeah, board. I'm just gonna sort of write this board comment. And that's 10, I'm gonna say 10 plus just in case. Yeah. Good. After board comment is discussion items. Yeah, and I would say 15 minutes to 30 minutes for the vote. Okay. I would say a same for the building. Five minutes for Envision Rochester, probably five minutes for the tax anticipation note, five minutes for the audit, and probably 10 to 15 for the task force update. Yeah, 10 to 15 is good. And I think probably all the action items are just, those are just some simple votes. So that could probably be done in 10 minutes. And then... Sorry, you're moving too fast for me. I'm still rewriting things. I'm sorry. Yep, just nine action items are now nine items. Yep, got you. Excellent. I would say let's plan on at least a half hour. Mm-hmm. And no one added an executive session. So I think that pretty much does it. Hopefully, they'll hopefully adding all that up gets us out of here before midnight. Let's do it. So you all know I've been getting the rest of the boards out in under two hours. So... Whoa. Good. We would appreciate a stern task, Master Jamie. Yep. All right. And then public half hour. I think I've got that. Let's check what five is. Go ahead, I'm just sort of catching up here. All right. So we are onto reorganization. We would, I would take motions to elect a chairperson. I move that Carl Grop be elected chairperson. Second. Discussion. Carl, do you promise to be able to communicate with us a little bit more like you have? I will, I will do my best. I will. Because what you've done has been wonderful. You've really been a better communicator and we appreciate that. Thank you. Well, and as I mentioned today, Carl, if something goes south for you that you let us know and let your vice know that they are now in charge or something like that. Justin, we know where the buck stops. We just want to know where the buck stops. That's all. Yes. Point taken, sir. And ma'am. Although ma'am, see, sir doesn't, sir comes with a, Carl, don't get carried away. We're going to get right. I'm not going to start talking about gender roles of surnames. Please, please. Thank you. Okay. Before we get going, can we do a role call for of the public so that I can put them in the notes? Ah, that's, that's all the motion in a second. All right. Yeah, we're in the middle of a vote here. Yeah, we, yeah, we can do after. We don't have to do it right now. Any other discussion? All right. I'm going to do a role call vote favor of Carl being the elected chairperson of the ARSAD board. Amy. Hi. Jenny. Hi. Ethan. Hi. Megan. Hi. Janie. Hi. And Carl, I assume you're good to go with this. We wouldn't be having this conversation if I wasn't. All right. I hand it over the reins. Congratulations. All right. Thank you, sir. I would entertain nominations for a vice chairperson. I would like to nominate Ethan Bowen. Do I hear a second? I second, Megan. Nomination has been made and seconded to nominate Ethan Bowen. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none discussion. Hearing none, we'll do a role call vote. Amy. Aye. Carl votes aye. Megan. Aye. Jenny. Aye. Well, Janie comes before Jenny. Sorry about getting my alphabet wrong. Janie. Aye. Okay. And Ethan, I skipped you in order because I'm assuming that again, you would not be entertaining this if you weren't okay with it. I'm okay with it. Congratulations, Ethan. You're the ARSAD Vice Chair. We need to elect a clerk. Last year's clerk was Jenny. One of the things that there's been some conversation around, and I mention this now because it might affect who wants to take the nomination and where we go with that, is that there's some conversation that it was hard for Jenny to fully participate and take accurate notes. And so that in past years at various times the board has had one of the office managers, like the Stockbridge office managers that has done it in past years or the Rochester office manager has done it. We've had someone either transcribe a recording of the minutes into written minutes or attend the meeting and take minutes. So I would, in efforts to get our board to participate more, I would certainly support as the board going forward that we had someone that was actually taking minutes and the clerk was actually doing the job of certifying the minutes and signing the official documents. I'm not saying that we're gonna go that way. I'm just saying we can and if that affects who we nominate for this position, I just wanted to make that clear now. So I would entertain nominations for our recording secretary. I nominate Jenny, but I agree with you totally and I'm not sure if we should or can we pass over this or does it have to be done tonight? We have to nominate a clerk. We can then go about getting the person to actually take the minutes or transcribe the recordings. How do you feel afterwards? Jenny, how do you feel? I'm okay, either way with doing this or later on, someone else wants to, that's fine, but I'm fine continuing with it. Yes, and we really appreciate the detail. You were doing an excellent job. So we definitely, it is not that. We just understand how hard it is to participate in a meeting and also pay close attention to the minutes. Yes. So I would like to put that to the next meeting even on our agenda that we figured that out. And the suggestion I had was maybe we have a rotating crew of people who come to meetings so that no one person has to do it, maybe more than every three months or something like that. Right. Too much to ask, we'll see, but that way you... Well, and one of the things that I don't know how accurate this is, we'd have to check with Ray, but I believe that this meet, if you had captions turned on, the captions are recorded to a file somewhere. So that might give, having a transcription file that might need some editing might be a much simpler task than trying to take extemporaneous notes while participating. As long as we're virtual, that would be great. Ray? Carl, the chats are captured, but not the captions of the meeting. Ah. Thank you for correcting me, sir. Sure. Well, should we get back to it? Then Jenny? Yes, absolutely. So emotions you made to nominate Jenny. I've not heard a second. Carl. I'm sorry. This is Ray again. I'm looking at the meeting while fact and it says statutory requirements, members present an active participants. So I don't think you actually needed a list of everyone attending, just people who speak. And I'll now be quiet. Okay. I'll let the record show that Ray attended the meeting since he's spoken and been an active participant. I sent in Jenny as a clerk with the eye to give those responsibilities to somebody else possibly and have her just be the official finer. Possible, yeah. Okay. Emotion has been made and seconded to have Jenny Austin continue as the clerk or the board, the recording clerk or the board. Do we have any other, or recording secretary rather? Do we have any other nominations? Hearing none, any other discussion? Amy? Aye. Ethan? Aye. Carl says aye. Janie? Aye. Jenny? Aye. You can go for yourself. I was skipping Megan. I was doing the wrong list in my head. Megan? Aye. Okay. The motion has passed. Jenny, are you unanimously our recording secretary or our clerk? The members we need to appoint to the full board are, one of them is always the president. So we need to appoint two other members to attend the full board. One of them's always the president, one of them's always the chair. So I would entertain nominations or discussion of who should join me at the full board meetings. I will go. Okay. I have no problem staying on Megan. Okay. So it'll be Carl, Ethan and Megan at the full SU board meetings. Now the chair is also automatically the delegate to the executive board. And we need an alternate for that. And a lot of boards use their vice chair to be that as well. Is that something you're interested in Amy or? Ethan? You are going to stay on the board aren't you, Amy? Yes. Yes, we're taking turns. Okay, good enough. Yes, I will be the alternate. Okay, great. It'll also be in touch with you, which is good. Yeah, yes. So we have appointed, and I guess we probably should do a formal motion. I would entertain a motion that we appoint myself and Ethan and Megan as the three members to the full board. So moved. Second. Second. Okay, let's go through the vote. Amy? Aye. Ethan? Aye. Carl says aye. Megan? Aye. Janie? Aye. Jenny? Aye. Okay. To appoint myself and Ethan to the executive board, I would entertain a motion to do that. So moved. Do I have a second? Check. Any discussion? Hearing none, Amy? Aye. Ethan? Aye. Megan? Aye. Janie? Aye. Jenny? Aye. Carl says aye. That's a unanimous executive board appointment. We need to appoint a recording secretary since we don't have a candidate in mind yet that would probably still be Jenny. Is that okay? Oh, you'll do that for a while, Jenny. We'll try to find help for you. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. I would entertain a motion to appoint the board's clerk as its recording secretary. So moved. Second. Motion has been made in seconded to appoint Jenny Austin, the board's clerk as its recording secretary. Discussion? Hearing none, Amy? Aye. Carl? Aye. Ethan? Aye. Janie? Aye. Jenny? Aye. Megan? Aye. Okay, we've got a recording secretary. Appointing a member and an alternate for the... Actually, let's go through and do the appointments and then approve the slate to try to minimize the voting, voting and get through this faster. The member and alternate for signing AP and payroll. I think Janie had been doing that before. Is there someone who can do that easily? Amy? Yeah. Beautiful. Jenny, do you want to be her alternate? Sure. Okay. So we'll appoint Amy and Jenny for the signing of AP and payroll. Negotiations boards, that's traditionally been the chair, so that's me and then someone as a member or alternate. Is anyone interested in doing negotiations besides me? I've got two places, so. I will reach out to the board if I can't make a negotiation session and we'll figure out someone to go in my stand. Sounds good. Tie someone up. But wait, Carl, doesn't it need to be official for voting privileges? Ah, that's a good point. So yeah, we would need someone official. Does anyone want to join me on the negotiating board? I'll do it, Carl. Megan. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Megan. The truant officer, we've traditionally appointed either the superintendent or the principal. Jamie, are you okay with us supporting the principals or do you want to have that role for the entire SU? No, I'm fine with that. The principal's fine. And is our administration okay with that? That's been your role in the past? Sure. Okay, so we have a truant officers, newspaper and radio station. It's been Harold and the Valley News for the newspapers and the radio station has been that one in Royalton and some other radio station that I've forgotten. I think it was WDEV. WDEV, yeah. Okay. So we'll designate that. Date, time and location of regular board meetings. First two days a month. Work for everybody? Yeah. Work for your schedule? I don't think you heard it. Jamie? Sorry, Carl. I apologize. I was taking some notes. That's fine. No, that's fine. The reasoning I was looking to push this one back was to just get a little bit better organized in central office. No, first two days. Right, right. We've just been meeting on the first Tuesday for a while. That's great. Okay. So then the time is 6.30 p.m. The location is either we alternate between campuses or we meet in the internet, depending on the state of our viruses. And then our posting places have traditionally been our schools as well as our town halls and our post offices. Is that still okay with everybody? Can we designate a place online so it'd be easier for people, the public, to find our agendas online and our meeting? That would be, that's a good idea. Let's do that. Let's use that site we were using for the information about the Australian ballot that Ray had put together that's based off the SU. You know, that way we can have the school sites be about just stuff that's happening in each of the campuses. Yes. And they can link to one place where all the school board stuff is. But like right now, the woman from the mountain times, when she called me, she couldn't find, she couldn't find the building report on the Rochester side of the website. But I was able to show her how to find it on the Stockbridge side of the website. So I think if going forward, we pull our official school board agendas and documents and calendars and things, you know, on an SU-based site where Ray and Christy can just stick them up there. And it doesn't have to be created. Right, exactly. This doesn't have to be the marketing site that has all the forward-facing kid photos and things like this. This is the place that has the strategic plan and our documents about things going forward, our minutes and all that. So will it be on that site that Ray just developed or is it going to be embedded into where they go to the top, they go down to boards, minutes and agendas and down to our side? I think it should be, I think it should be, they should be able to scroll down to our side and go to that as an our side landing page. And I think there should be links that, you know, from each of the school pages, when you go to the school board link on Rochester or the school board link on Stockbridge, it should not, you know, duplicate information. It should just link you to this one, you know, RVSU page. Ray, you have a thought? Well, just that the our sub page would point to where the minutes and agendas are now. Right. Yeah, I don't, I just want us to have a good clean landing page. So people don't have to go to, you know, from that landing page, they can see our minutes, they can see our building study, they can see, you know, our annual report. That's what I mean about a landing page. Yep. I don't, you don't need to duplicate things. Right now, I think we've got too much duplication actually. Yep. I don't think there's any simpler place to host it other than what I just put in the chat. Right. Thank you, sir. So we have now designated a slate of appointments. I would entertain a motion to approve said slate. So moved. Second. The motion has been made and seconded to approve the slate of appointments from a Retorting Secretary, AP Negotiations Board, to an officer, official notice posting places, school board meetings and posting places. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. I think we have made it through the reorganizing piece of the agenda. I'd now. Carl, just so you know, we are 15 minutes over our time. Okay. Let's very quick. It looks like a half an hour. Yeah. Yeah, okay. We have three minutes listed by Christie. Jenny, are these are all minutes that we need to be approving? Yes, except I'm not sure if the revised 623 will have those minutes, but I don't think Christie had sent them back around. There was just one minor revision. I think she sent them today. Okay. If she sent them today, then I might have missed it. I would entertain a motion to approve the slate of minutes, including the 623 revisions as submitted by Jenny. I so move. Second? Second. Discussion, they look pretty good to me. I did not fine tooth comb them. Hearing no discussion, all those in favor approving the minutes as presented, the slate of minutes is presented with the amended minutes for 623 signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? The slate carries unanimously. All right, it is now a board comment. Okay. As you know, I'm resigning from the board. Much to my dismay, really. I really have appreciated everybody so much on the board. Your focus on kids, on instruction, being open, wanting to do the right thing for our kids has been really enjoyable for me and I've worked with a lot of school boards, both professionally and personally, I have enjoyed you all. Bruce and the AOE from the waiver gave me the opportunity to work with the most at-risk kids in the district and it is as you all know, I have made very clear my absolute mission, passion, focus in life and I have been given the opportunity to work with the kids, these kids and at this time, more than ever, I feel an absolute necessity to be in the thick of this thing because they have lost so much and those have already lost enough. So I am grateful for this opportunity. Whether you all believe it or not, I have really kept my mouth shut because I've been a member of the board and now I don't have to show you all the benefit of it. Hey, we're getting into the rabble rouser. I think I can safely say on behalf of the board that we are so pleased with your efforts and your time with us. You have been a guiding voice, you have been a mentor to all of us, the conversations you gave us around literacy tools and helping to educate us to understand what you were trying to do was really priceless. So thank you very, very, very much. The board very much respects and honors your service. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to say? Janie, I'll miss you crazy. You've been such an inspiration for your passion for education and I thank you so much for all you've brought to the board. Thank you, Megan. Yeah, I did owe Carl and Megan your enthusiasm and passion for the work, Jamie, is really admirable. Thank you, Janie. Thank you to all of you and your support for me was incredible. I mean, the way you allowed me to present and teach you instruction and wanting to do that and become more knowledgeable in those areas for a board to have the focus of the kids is really the instruction is so important. So thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you, Janie, for everything. I'm not done. Oh, no, and it's not the last time we'll see you because I hope you'll come and present to us and tell us what you're doing and what's going on and keep us totally up to date because that energy that you bring when you present is totally a passion that fills us too. So thank you so much. I look forward to more and maybe we'll find they have lunch now that you're not on the board. Who knows? Thank you, guys. Okay, to make sure everyone understands, our bylaws require that we appoint a replacement. We, in the past when this has happened, we've put out a public call. We've put together a basic FAQ. Basically, we crib documents from the Vermont School Board Association to put together information about what it means to serve on a school board. And I would suggest that we put that same information together. We give it to Ray to put on the SU on our SUD page so that people can take a look at that and we start the discussion on who's going to replace at the August meeting. Does that sound reasonable to the board members? I agree. Thank you. Solicit, we solicit the Stockbridge community. Okay, is there any other board comment? Ethan, I thought you were using your hand before. Yes. I've prepared a long speech about this and now that it's actually in the meeting and we're already running so late, I'm going to curtail a little bit. Somebody asked me the other day why I'm doing this and why I'm going through this, why I'm on this board. And I didn't actually have an answer for them right away. And what it came back to is that when I actually remembered why I did it and is for one reason only and that is to have local control of our education. And you can say, well, there's so many things we're not in control of but the fact is we have say, we brought in these administrators, we took over and we've really done a great job of turning these schools around. That said, I don't think there's any way our schools can survive without this merger. And I may be, you could debate that, you could say, oh, no, no, no, but the fact is I think we need this merger. I think we need each other because I think the state would love to dissipate these small schools. And so because of that, I really believe that it's time to put away our anger, to put away a finger pointing, to put away this and that and who said and to make some very clear decisions. And because of that, I am now in favor of taking the high school building out of consideration as an educational space for our school. I think it's become a huge distraction to our primary focus, which is educating our children to the point where our budget got voted down, if not exclusively about that issue, primarily about that issue. I think we need to be in one building. I think we know that building, we know it's risks, we know what could happen. I think COVID also gives us a great opportunity because of that to, I hate to say that COVID gives us an opportunity because that's a horrible thing to say, but with the outside education, we're thinking about with this tent education, things like that, it allows us to be outside that. I'm going to bring a motion to this effect when we get into the building area. We'll see what the board's pleasure is on this. I will, but I am at that point because I think we need to be partners. And I feel like it's been a marriage where there's been a boyfriend next door all the time and that isn't terribly distracting. And I think we need to move forward. Thank you. That was an interesting closing metaphor. Thank you. Thank you for it. I always appreciate the way you can turn a phrase, sir. Is there any other board comment? Hi, it's Megan. I just want to say I am disappointed in the outcome of our school budget vote. I definitely want to hear from our community members from both towns. I do think that I am hopeful that we can resolve our differences so we can move forward and actually educate our kids, especially during these very challenging times. I have some hesitation with moving so fast, but I'd like to see how this discussion goes about the buildings. Thank you. Amy? Oh, okay. I saw your microphone pop on and I didn't know if you had something to say. Is there any other board comment? Okay, then we are going to move into discussion items and the first discussion item is the 630 vote. I think we're all pretty aware of the way that that vote went. I wanted to begin to clarify a few things about just where we are and where we stand statutorily. It's Vermont law that any municipal vote that doesn't involve the election of an official, so they could not reconsider the election of me or Megan, for example, but 5% of the voters in a particular town or district, so in this case, 5% of the voters in Rochester and Stockbridge that are part of the RSU district could bring a motion to reconsider the vote. Within 30 days, if that happened, the vote would be voted again, same term, same conditions. You wouldn't be able to alter the budget or alter the article, you'd be re-voting the same article. I confirmed this with Dina, our attorney. I have not heard on the Stockbridge side of any community group that is trying to put a reconsideration vote petition together and I'm assuming that since I haven't heard anything on the Rochester side, there's probably not a community effort to putting one of those forward in that case or on that side of the district as well. Traditionally, boards when their budgets have voted, have been voted down, like when Stockbridge's budget got voted down a few years back for us going a few hundred bucks into the penalty, what's happened is the board has gone and re-warned an additional vote. As you know, the law says we have 87% of the budget until we pass a budget. And as we presented in our presentation, we really don't have a clear path forward to function as a reasonable school on that 87% limit. I don't believe, I have not heard anything from Lindy and Bonnie and to be fair, I have not even asked them to try to produce a blueprint of what our education would look like with 87% funding. So what we can do is- Can I add real quick, sorry to interrupt. I think it's a point that the public understands that we have the actual legislations that we have the ability to borrow up to 87% of the current budget. Correct, that's actually a very good tactical point, because it means we could try to play a chicken scenario where we take the 87% and we figure we've got till 87% of the school year or thereabouts is over to get a budget passed and just keep going forward. The other piece of the equation is that when a budget is voted down, there's RIF language in the teacher's contract that allows, we had issued teaching contracts or offers of contracts to our entire teaching staff at the March date, as we've often done because we have a budget that came in under the penalty that would employ all the teachers we were using and we had a path forward that our administration and our board agreed with. When the budget, when COVID hit, we did not have the opportunity or the ability to change the budget or submit different figures or change the, I'm sorry, we could change the budget. We could not change the employment offers that have been made because the budget had not yet been voted down. Now that a budget has been voted down, we do have the opportunity to lay people off. I do not believe, given that the budget, and this is my personal opinion, this is not me speaking as the moderator or as the chair, I do not believe that our administration gave us a budget that was dollars, it was less dollars than we spent the year before. So I do not believe that they gave us a budget that has, again, space for layoffs. So I think as we talk about the conversation about the vote going forward, we need to talk about how to make a budget that is going to be palatable to our communities. Recognizing that the budget we put forth did not have a decent amount of extra programming. So in that sense, the board needs to consider a proposal like Ethan made in the sense that I don't believe that we could produce a budget that would be academically successful for our children that cut a significant amount of money out of the budget to, for example, to cut enough to compensate for whatever it costs to keep parts of the high school open. But this is the discussion that we as a board need to have now, because we have, if we wanted to recall that in May, we discussed, do we wanna have a vote before the end of the fiscal year, which we ended up deciding to do, or do we wanna follow the lead that Granville and Hancock are taking, for example, which was to piggyback our budget vote on the August primary, which is the 11th. For us to piggyback our re-vote of our budget on the 8-11 vote, we need to have a warning approved by the board by the 11th of July to get outside that 30-day window. So I think, you know, I- We need to re-vote, Carl. I'm not starting that. We need to stay within the 30-day now. For a consideration re-vote, or for a, if we wanted a new vote per Dina, we'd have to warn it 30 days out. And so if we wanted to alter the budget, or- If we wanted to alter the budget, right. Right, and to do a re-devolution vote, we'd have to get 5% of the electorate. To sign on. So wait a second. So if we did not want to alter the budget, does, do we still fall under that 30 days as well? It's the same. No, how many days- My understanding is no. And Carl, I would need to check the contract language again. I just, I'm not certain that a voted down budget in your current contract would allow you to reduce in force at this point in time. I don't see, I haven't seen that language. I can review it again when I've been dealing with- Yeah. It has been in there in the past. I know because it was brought, I mean, and this was certainly before the Windsor Northwest Orange Windsor merger. So it may have been- I'm pretty sure that's been removed just so folks know. So then that makes our situation more complicated. We would have to save that money without laying off staff. That's correct. I know that's correct because I've been handling this with another district. So if we did not alter the amount of our budget, when does that, what is the warning timeframe for that? If we put the same budget out for vote? Derek, do you recall this when we were just dealing with this with F-Bud? I thought it was 10 days, but now I'm gonna have to go back and check my notes. We're gonna go back and look. 10 days is what I'm recalling as well. So that's two of us were calling the same number. I think it's you have 30 days to get the 5% voter petition to reconsider. And then after that, you can schedule a vote. It needs to be at least 10 days after that reconsideration petition has been certified. I know that you have 30 days to certify reconsideration. And then I think the vote, once reconsideration has been certified, the vote can happen as soon as 10 days after that. Okay, so yeah. So where do we go? Yeah, at this point, what do we do? Well, we can do one of two things. First of all, we need to decide if we as a board can, for example, act on your proposal or your idea, Ethan, can we as a board, you know, without our administration, you know, keeling over, you know, say that we can, we're not going to use the high school building for an educational purpose before school starts or before we have to turn the furnace on. Well, the question is, I mean, my sense, and this is hopefully what we'll get feedback on in public comment. My sense is that that was more of an issue than the numbers we put out. The only number that was a contentious one was the heat for that high building being in the budget again. And of course, add to that maintenance for the building, all these other parts of the building that take on. So that heat was 0.9% of the total budget. It was less than a full percent of the total budget to heat. I don't think I got the impression that the number of our budget is not particularly the issue. Yeah, no, and I certainly got a simpler opinion. The big piece that I would say about whether we not, we would need to think about whether we not, whether or not we needed to adjust the budget would be for, if for example, we're going to be turning the some version of the gym space in the elementary school into a multi-purpose space. We don't have money in our budget currently for partitions or cabinets or carts or whatever it is we might put in there. So the question is, would we, are we as a board comfortable with saying, fine, we're going to just put the budget back forward and understand that we're gonna be under in some of these areas that we had in the budget because we're not gonna suddenly be spending that money. So we'll be under in the categories of maintenance for the high school buildings, but we'll be over in the categories for purchasing a classroom supplies and art tables and so on and so forth. And I don't really agree with that model. I'm wondering if it's time to approach the slack board to discuss the possibility with the Rochester slack boards of the possibilities with them purchasing our high school building with the option to discuss continued current use. That is an option. I think it muddies the water personally. I think right now we need some sort of clean decision to get our budget passed. Well, I don't think it's the right thing to do. What's that? I don't think losing programming is the right thing to do. We're not losing programming. We're not losing teachers. I don't think, and I Stockbridge has proven this, that it's not the spaces that make the programs. It's the teachers. It's the tools. We're going off anyway. I think we need to move for it and see what can happen. I agree with Ethan and that I don't think space equals programming. I'm gonna, go ahead, Jenny. Nope, she's off. Go ahead. I think that was my guess. Okay, I'm hesitant to move this quickly on the building. And it's just, I mean, I'm all for trying to get them back to the town and I'm very reluctant to be okay with not having the option down the road after this one year of COVID hopefully is done about not spending money retrofitting the gym into a multi-purpose room and looking to Rochester the town to utilize the space that is already there. People in this town years ago took value in having a dedicated music in our space. And I understand that doesn't mean doesn't make the program but it does give kids a different sense. I would just like to have the option to have that as like at least the discussion before we say, okay, that's it. Well, I mean, I understand that money in the water is that I just, I just, I really am hesitant on that. I hear you. I feel that we need to look to the health of our merger. Because if we don't look to the health of our merger we threaten the existence of these schools. I think it's been very clear, made very clear to us that these options, this, you know, keep our options open is not, and I'm, you know, I feel a little crazy because I'm the Rochester representative saying this and I'm a little sort of surprised where's, you know excuse me, Carl and Jenny and Janie before, but I mean, clearly 114 people and we can't just say that because a few people put out the vote that that's, you know, that said put out the word that that's why these people, people feel like they're, we're not listening to them. And I think personally we've had some time and we've made a bit of a mishmash of it. And you can say whatever you want about that but I think it's time to just move on. I think by repurposing the gym you are losing programming in the gym. We had two basketball teams. I know this winter is going to be different because of COVID and we really don't know what the future is going to hold. But you've now, if by repurposing that gym you've now lost that programming you've lost extra curricular activities in that gym. You've lost. I hear you. I think there's, there's a, you know and I don't know, I'm not the person that understands what makes a good, you know in good instructional space and all that. I mean, I think that there's ways that you could probably put things into rolling cabinets and carts and be able to, you know to keep that gym as a space rather than, so in other words making it into a multi-purpose space versus chopping it up and making it into a purpose-built art classroom, a purpose-built cafeteria and a purpose-built music room. As far as Megan's point about gaining the space back or whatever I think that if we made a commitment to get educational programming out of that building we couldn't go back on that without talking back to the town again. Well, but we didn't. Well, we're not giving, we're not I mean, I think what I hear Ethan saying is not we're, you know it's forever and ever on men it's saying we're gonna go, you know we will not use that building for educational purposes anymore. And if the experiment doesn't work we can always go back to the townspeople and say, you know what? This didn't work. I mean, the more likely scenario that might happen is that suddenly the boiler dies because, you know, it's gonna be a big deal to get the elementary school refitted so that it's not waiting for it all to fall apart. All of this I understand I understand all of this and believe me, I've gone through it in my own head what we're losing. I'm a theater person, you know but the fact is was made that we haven't used the auditorium that much and yet we did heat it the heat was pumping out in that place every time and I talked about it because the maintenance people didn't understand how to really heat that building because it's an archaic heating system. And I just think we need this for the merger. We need it, we need it for the merger and I understand losing program and I'll understand all these things I do but I just think I'm thinking bigger picture I'm thinking long-term and I'm thinking about I believe I'm thinking about the kids. Well, getting rid of the building was not part of the merger getting rid of our high school was which we did we don't have a high school anymore we don't have a middle school anymore we got rid of them that is what was part of the merger not around the building. That's past history for me I'm saying we're in the middle of two building a two building conflict that's dragged on and dragged on for whatever reasons. And if tonight isn't the night that we get enough agreement that's fine I'm gonna bring this back but I just I believe it's time to move on. This is a healthy discussion that we are having right now and it's the right time to have it. I am very concerned I understand the multi-purpose war room works well for Stockbridge that is wonderful. They have less than half the population of Rochester. More than twice as many kids as them having to filter them through PE, art, music and lunch. And we are already losing programming because we don't have enough space we're gonna potentially have to reduce our preschool programming because there's not enough space. That weighs heavy on me. I hear you. I would like to bring up about the auditorium I know one of the concerts last year was going to be combined upper grade concert at the auditorium however the auditorium is not accessible and not all students can access that and that's another cost that I think logistically and legally would need to be accessible. The Rockwell auditorium is not ADA? Not to my understanding. There was a lift in the stage. I believe there was a lift and the lift got taken out with Irene and I don't believe it's been replaced. It's not the auditorium, it's access to the stage. Yeah, it's access to the stage and there was a lift that you see there but I believe after Irene it was not replaced for whatever reason. I'd like to just take a look if I could Megan. We're talking about the auditorium. We are really having the use has been primarily the art and the music room in which are on the same exact heating zone. So we're focusing like, oh, we didn't use this but those kids use that art and music room weekly and I just, I'm really hesitant to, I'm not saying because we are going forward with COVID and we have to, we're gonna be in classrooms this year and a good trial period. I just am really unsettled by the fact that we haven't talked to administrators about how this will work. Going forward after this year, I am, I just don't like the language where if this building gets full back to the town that we cannot have that conversation. I am hesitant because I have, I want this merger to work. I'm like, I haven't been on doing this for many years at this point, like all of us but there is sentiment in Stockbridge that I have seen on social media that has implications that they would like to dissolve and I don't know how widespread that is but it makes me really concerned that we're making decisions that we might have that partner might not be down there and I don't want that to be but I am just very hesitant to make a black, a line in the sand about this. I just, I really am. I mean moving forward with looking at the town purchasing the whole building and renting the space back to us for a portion of what we're paying now would be much less and it would really get the building off of our books and we can just run portions back that we decide to use as programming needs. I, my concern- I think we need that conversation open. I hear you. My concern is that with this Envision Rochester and maybe they'll inform us tonight, I mean the amount of money that they're going to need right away to keep heat on, to keep maintenance going, to keep somebody taking care of the building because my plan would be that, you know, we would be done. That's a significant sum and I haven't, I've heard a lot of talk but I have not heard dollar amounts that they have an account ready to take this on. And so my concern is that it ends up as a drag on the school because we're the one with the maintenance and we're the one with the fuel contracts and we're the ones with the tanks. A couple, yep. A couple of things I wanted to put in there to make sure everyone understands about the whole transferring the building to the town. It is only the town of Rochester that has the right of first refusal on the Rochester buildings, meaning that the school board and that $1 price also includes assuming all the encumbrances on the building. So that would mean like a whatever portion of that bond that was for replacing the high school roof or whatever which would travel with that building. So it's only a dollar plus whatever encumbrances are on the building or equipment. If the town divests of the building within five years the town has to pay for any work that the school had done over the last few years. So the town of Rochester would need to be, if they wanted to assume that they could assume it for a dollar and lease it out to Envision Rochester for whatever the town wanted to do. But it would be, the town would be needing to make a commitment to being the landlord and to assuming that as a municipal space that then they were releasing or developing occupancy arrangements with the whatever nonprofit might want to use that. And that could also be leasing back to the schools. I've asked Dina, I've not gotten a clear answer from her if there's any kind of statutory rules about using spaces in a public building for elementary education. Would there have to be locked doors between where the kids were and where whatever Envision Rochester might be doing with the yoga studio or whatever else, I don't know. But I mean, I think it's important to stay focused on that we as a school have an assumption around that building. And it's also important to understand that if we agree that we're not gonna do educational things in that building, it's still our building. We're just saying that we're going to try to shut it down as much as possible. We're gonna drain the pipes. We're going to do the things to seriously mothball it versus saying, okay, we've now blown our shot. We'll never ever have that building again. We won't necessarily have access to it. I think part of at least what I'm hearing from Ethan and correct me if I'm wrong, sir. But you're saying, close that building completely. Don't heat any of it to operate in the one building while we still figure out what we as a district do to responsibly handle that asset to the town of Rochester or to a nonprofit in Rochester or to whatever else. I don't think that we're saying, let's just walk away and bulldoze it, correct? I'm, you know, there are huge ramifications of what I'm putting out here. I understand that I'm pushing, I'm pushing us toward some sort of decision. There are very different options. As I say, I don't see the money in Envision Rochester to be able to jump in and take over this building as we've been talking about it. It's the town of Rochester. It's not Envision Rochester. Well, and I don't, and we don't know about the town. It's only $40,000 right now of heating costs and electricity costs. And why not even explore that with them to see if, you can't know unless we ask, but I wanted us to agree about the potential discussion for continued use. Maybe as we continue to discuss it, it isn't feasible. We have a better way to do it because we have tents, we have other things to do, but I don't think it should be part of, if we're gonna talk to the select board about taking over possession of the Rochester High School with the possibility to discuss options for continued use. Carol, do you know what sort of level of magnitude the bonds would be that would be transferred to the town that they would be responsible for for the last five years updates? I know you won't know on the top of your head, but do we have a bond card amount? The total bonds that are out on the Rochester campus are around 60 grand, 55, is that sound right, Tara? And I believe the majority of that work is tied to the high school. Give me just a few minutes, I can look it up. I believe that the bonds will be paid off in 2022, right? I think one of them is. I think there's the number one 2022 and one 2024, another two of them. In any case, what I'd like to do while Tara's looking at that information while the board has been back and forth. We're also getting to our full time. Right, we have not yet heard from either Lindy or Bonnie on this, I think, hearing their thoughts and what they think about. If the board said we're doing this, what would they say? So Bonnie or Lindy, do you have any preliminary thoughts? I think I feel really torn because I don't think this is a snap our fingers decision. I appreciate what Ethan's trying to push us towards, but I feel like there's a lot of steps, maybe steps we should have taken before a failed budget vote to do. They think what, and I'm gonna back up and say we need to like pound the pavement and have conversations with voters and hear what they really think. And if there's three options, because that's what I heard, one is to just shut the high school building down completely, that's gonna cost Bonnie. I also heard, go to the town, see what the town of Rochester, see what the town of Rochester is thinking, and then also go to the town and see if we can access that space back. That takes some time. And I know we're feeling a little bit of a time crunch because we're maybe toying with the idea of being ready to present again for an August 11th vote. But I'm worried that we're rushing so quick, we're missing things. And I think we're rushing because we didn't push ourselves to have these discussions before now is my honest thought. And I just don't know that it's while those spaces, and Bonnie corrects me if I'm wrong, while those spaces may not be used this fall because of the way COVID has shifted, our thoughts around how education is gonna have to happen for our kiddos face to face. It's a big ask to, it's not impossible, but it's a big ask to automatically use a space that's only used for two things, for four things and how that's gonna work and the functionality of that. And yeah, I'm just trying to really ask myself and I feel, I knew this was gonna come up, but I still don't have a good answer about if we shut down a building, is that what's best for kids? But I do also agree with the fact it's a big change for a space that we're not using the best possible way for its educational value. So that's not really an answer, but those are just my thoughts. So I agree with much of what Lindy has said. My thoughts really haven't changed a lot since the other couple of times that folks had asked what would the impact be if we were to house our program completely in the elementary school? I do appreciate Ethan trying to move us towards a resolution because I think a resolution, we can't carry the costs, so much of the cost of a building that we're not using for educational program. That means there would be significant loss of opportunity to reach out to our students. If we completely took all the uses and tried to put them into that one gym, the gym is not a multi-purpose room, it's a gym and we'd have to do some work in there to do that. There's another level that we'd have to think about and this is where the expertise really needs to come in. The wiring closet for our entire network is in the high school. The brains of our entire phone system is in the high school. So we have to find physical space to bring those systems into the elementary school. The job that Lindy and I have is to implement the decisions that the board makes and you will never hear either one of us say we're not gonna implement decisions that you've made. But I can't sit here in all honesty and say that there would not be a significant loss of opportunity for Rochester kids for us to do this. This is maybe I just- Rochester or Rochester and Stockbridge. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that if it was for me. You referred to Rochester kids, you didn't refer to Rochester and Stockbridge. Well, I don't think there would be a loss of opportunity for Stockbridge kiddos. Public speak. All right, Bonnie. I understand what you're saying and I appreciate that. I guess my question would be, when you say there, I guess what I'm curious about as Lindy made a comment earlier that, okay, we might not be using those spaces in the fall. Correct. And that maybe we might be coming back to them, we might be coming back to them later. I guess what I'm wondering about would be how we're intending to do that. I mean, so the gym's a gym and it's not a multi-purpose room, but we're gonna do our, and I understand that music in general is just being canceled because singing is the fastest way to spew viruses in the sphere in front of your mouth hole. Correct. But I, so I mean, so the music room is gonna be, is gonna not be used in the fall, no matter what, pretty much. The art room, I mean, what are the plans to replace having access to that art room under the COVID-19 situation? For this year, Carl, and I'm sorry, I should have restated what Lindy said. For this year, the impact is nowhere near significant because we aren't gonna be able to take youngsters into those spaces. So the issues we'd have to deal with this year would be the wiring closet, the brains for the phone system, we'd have to find rooms to locate those systems into. In terms of programming for this year, the impact is far less than, probably almost negligible to be bluntly honest, because we are gonna have to hold those classes in classrooms. So this year coming up is not the huge impact. Okay. Our board needs to be thinking about is not, yes, next year, but we need to be thinking five years and 10 years from now. Sure. And I don't know that, you know, but if we have an opportunity to do a one year experiment to see what it looks like in that building and say, we're gonna try to move into that building and we're gonna see, we know that this year is the perfect year to try it and can we figure out what accommodations we need to make to move this forward? Because at the same time, you know, it certainly also gives us the year to work with figuring out what Envision Rochester or the town of Rochester might do. It gives us the year to, you know, to continue the community conversations for other, you know, for other particular aspects, whether or not the SU might have some use for some of that space, whether or not there might be, you know, additional sped programming or something else that could be put into that space. I think that, you know, I mean, I guess my question is, if we're not gonna be able to use that space for next year, what, why are we saying we should still heat it and keep it available? And why not say we're not gonna use it for a year and let's pass our budget and see if we can function and figure out our plans going forward? To me, that seems like, you know, a way forward that addresses Ethan's issues and yours as well, Amy, do you have thoughts? So at this point, you're not feeling that we are ready to approach the select board about purchasing the building then. You still are looking into it. We wanted to be on, if we wanted to have the August 11th vote. What would be on the vote? What do you mean? Well, if we said, if we, if we warned a revote of our budget and made it clear, you know, in our conversations with the townspeople that we hear them, we're shutting this building for at least the next year going forward and we're gonna work aggressively to have a plan to move forward with either the town of Rochester, you know, and a rent back agreement or, you know, making some serious decisions to move this forward, that we're not just hitting pause for one year, but that we're saying, we know we're not gonna need it for this year and let's try to, let's take that off the table for at least a year and try to sort things out to have a good way going forward. You know, the question is, and I think personally, that, you know, if we made a statement like a scheduled a revote, there might be, you know, we might get a lot more community support because they've been heard for closing the building for at least this year coming forward. They hear that we're developing a long-term plan that includes working with the town of Rochester, you know, to sort out what to do about that high school building. And, you know, we, for me, the biggest piece would just be that it would be figuring out how to, we probably have to have some outside person. I don't want Bonnie and Lindy to figure out how to drain the pipes and really mothball that building. We'd have to bring someone in, some engineer guy in to really mothball that building for the year and drain the pipes. You know, we need to figure out, I, you know, I mean, we have to give them funds to get the supplies that they needed out of that, you know, out of those spaces into the main building and we would probably need, again, to buy storage units that we can move some of these things around because if we're doing art in classrooms anyways, there needs to be, you know, Rochester has not had art on the cart or anything similar to that. So there's going to need to be supplies purchased to allow Rochester to have art at all. So I think, you know- If I could just add, I think for a year we're going to be okay. We knew three months ago we were going to have to move in to classrooms with art and music. And we haven't identified huge needs to purchase equipment and materials. There's some, we do have to have some small stuff. But I'm, what I was trying to address was the more long-term issue. And shuddering the building, thank you very much for saying that you didn't see Lindy and I being able to do that because I think both towns would be in a bad place if you let us close the building. I think the bigger issue for me for next year based on what I'm hearing is that we have the technical expertise to be able to do that. Because to be frank, I don't know if it costs $500 or $5,000 to pay somebody to relocate the wiring closet. I don't know what it costs to relocate the brains of the phone system. Is it, does it make sense to do it as part of this one year experiment or doesn't it? The other thing I will add is that we probably based on some conversation I had a year and a half ago with contractors, we would need that level of expertise. We would also need probably Tara to get involved in this because each of the contractors I spoke with brought up the notion that if you shudder a building, your insurance status changes, your fire, whatever it is changes. I'm really out of my element here. I just know there's a fair amount of stuff that has to be checked off if we're gonna close the building. Sure, that's understood. I do not expect you to be able to produce to me a two-page executive summary of how this is all going to happen. Carl, Carl, can I just say something? I was gonna jump in and say something about, I think of the technology. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me. Go ahead, go ahead. I just wanted to mention along with what Bonnie's saying that there will be unknowns about the fire control systems for the building, the security cameras and the door controllers along the same lines of what she's talking about, specifically about the phone system. But do you know our network closet, Ray? Have you been there? Do you know what she's talking about? I have no idea if our phone system is an old key PBX. Is it, I have no idea what we're talking about in terms of is this keeping a server room heated or is this something more complicated than that? Right, so I have less concerns about the network side, although I don't know it as well as I would like, but it's the other parts that I do not know about, the fire control system, the phone, the door controllers, those all run out of the room in the upstairs, in the attic of the high school building. So this list is getting quite long already for the cost of just doing status quo, but of course it won't be, the heat will be shut down in the building if we're not using it for this year. But to completely shudder it and shut it off sounds like it might actually end up costing us more than just kind of add. If I can follow on you, Amy, and this is a question to Bonnie, were you thinking because they weren't gonna be in music or in art that the whole building would go to the 55 and stay there for the year? Yes, here's the issue Ethan, and this is why you can feel heat sometimes pumping out when you're over there. I think it's called pneumatics, I'm way out of my element here, but the temperature control system in the building is extremely old. There's only two people in the state of Vermont I'm told that still work on that system. So you can set it to 55 and then in seven or eight days later you can go back and it's putting heat out at a higher temperature so they have to all be reset again. It's just really an old system that is hard to control. But yes, that was the plan. Okay, thank you. I had a conversation with Carrie, I'd had a conversation with Carrie McDonald about after school program needing to move into the gymnasium. Bonnie, one other question, what about use of the library? Cause I understand right now that, I mean, we have talked about this that right now I think that room is actually locked. And if the art librarian is going to be going down to Stockbridge, does that present a possible space that could be reconfigured and rethought at least for this year moving some books and moving some shelves might be easier than actually rethinking the use of full use of the gym. Ethan, I don't, I'm not sure I understand your question. You mean the library in the elementary building? Yes. Correct. What are you asking me about that room? Can it be used for more than it is right now? Yes. Is that part of the plan for this year when we need, especially it is one of the biggest spaces in that Rochester elementary school after the gym. We're not certain just yet how we need to use it. One of the things we know is that we have some interventionists that are not gonna be able to work in their offices because their offices are too small. And you could possibly get a couple of six foot tables in the library and the teacher could sit on one end and the child receiving intervention could sit on the other. So yes, we are thinking about the different ways we can use that room. Good. Thank you. You're welcome. And the gym, just to be clear, there is no plan for using the gym moving forward because the recommendation is that we not bring groups of children into gymnasiums for PE and that youngsters eat in their classrooms. So for this year, there's a minimal impact on what we're talking about doing. There is a significant impact if we move forward to more normal times. I'd like to make a comment. Going back to what Carl says about his experiment, I think that especially considering what's going on with the classrooms, I think that this would be the perfect time to do something like that. I don't think that we can drop the high school in day one. There's just so many things to go through that everybody's been talking about. And I don't see how else we can move forward, honestly, without, I think we're starting to get to the point where we're spinning around in circles here. And I'd also like to make the comment towards what Bonnie was saying earlier about the, I think it was the art in the music room, a little bothered that Bonnie acknowledges that the benefits are lower to Stockbridge than Rochester when we're trying to be equal here. Jenny, I'm sorry if I misspoke. What I was trying to say is, if we eliminated those rooms long-term, it would result in less opportunities for Rochester kids. That's what I was trying to say. I'm sorry if that's not what I said. No, exactly, that's the same thing, Bonnie. You're just saying Rochester. Yeah, but there's other opportunities in Stockbridge that Rochester kids don't have, the civics class and other things. Okay, we can't go here. I'm sorry, I was just trying to explain. No, that's it, that's the point. No, no, no, you can't, and I'm sorry, there's no time for public comment right now. You have to hold it. I know, it's just getting frustrating to listen to this right now. Well, then you need to either leave and come back or just hold your piece because it's just not acceptable. That's not the way we run a meeting where people somebody can jump in. He is correct. So, I do agree with Jenny that we've been going around and around in this and I think that we need to come to, the board needs to come to some sort of conclusion about what we're going to do so we can properly advise the administration on what their marketing orders are, what their marketing orders are, what we would like them to accomplish for our kids. Do we feel, well, I think let's start with Ethan, you had talked about you were going to be making a motion. Oh, you know. Can I just jump in quick? Oh yeah, sure. Sorry, I mean, I just, I think my, just so folks get a sense of me, I believe the supervisory union should be in charge of best supporting schools and the boards to carry out their visioning that's in alignment with the greater outcomes we want for kids within the SU. So I think we're a service organization. So what I would say is, if you choose to remove students from the high school, that is fine. And then what I would not want my principles running around trying to figure out for you, what that means as far as technology and things, I would take that on and as the SU we would look at having a plan for you later in September in regards to what made sense around being the most efficient and cost effective for you in the upcoming year, while you're also working toward what is the longer term goals. So if you were going to shut the building down for this year, we would be able to come to you by your September meeting and say, this is the plan that's most cost effective that we would move forward with. Just I wanted to put that out there that we would take that on. Okay. I would I guess go back to what I said before and I would think that we should approach the Rochester Select Board to discuss the possibilities of purchasing our high school building with the option to discuss possible continued use. Okay. I still don't understand. I think that we can close the building for the year and still go to the Select Board. Is that, do you see that? I guess I don't see a conflict in that. I just see closing the building as being more costly than just reducing the heat and beginning the conversation with the Select Board about purchasing. There's going to be costs with doing that too. I mean, we're going to have to pay for subdivision. We're going to have to pay for things to get this done. It's not going to be free and it's not going to be a wave of magic wand and it gets done. There is, but we don't know what those costs are. Right. How do we know that that's not the same as what the electricity and the heat cost? Well, we're still going to have to pay the electricity because that's where our server is and that's where our communications are. So the only cost that you're going to reduce is the heating costs, which if we reduce it to 55 like we are talking about, then we will reduce that. So how long do you want to put this off for, Amy? No, I want to talk to the town about taking possession of it with the possibility that our board can still discuss possible use of portions of it in the future. I don't want to shut that out completely. I'm not ready to say, here town, take this building and I am never ever going to put my kids in it again. I don't think that is fair to our kids. I don't think that is what the desire of our town is. I think they value the arts program. Is it fair that my kid can't use the stage in the auditorium? Well, then I think we should ask about getting that fixed so that your kid can use that stage. I think we're getting that a bit of a rabbit hole here. Yes. I think we all hear and agree with you, Amy, that working with the select board is our best path forward. And I think that, I also think that Ethan has a valid point that committing to moving forward with reducing the use of that building and not using it for student activities. And maybe that is just turning down the heat. I think we'll have to wait to see what Jamie's proposal is about that around the technology, as Ray was saying, he's not sure what goes on with fire control and things like that. So I think we can address that piece of it. I think what we need to decide tonight is, do we think that we can put forward a position at the board, a motion that the board can support and move forward with that would get us some movement from the voter constituency on our budget. That we're going to be able to say here, we're not gonna use this building for at least a year and we're gonna work really hard to come up with a long-term plan, whatever that is. So that when we come back to you at the next budget, we've got a plan that we're not trying to, you know, we're not trying to build the boat as we sail it. We're saying, you know, here's the, you know, we need to think about the statement that we can make as a board about this that we can get behind that was trying to answer and address some of our community concerns so that we can get a budget passed. And it seems to me from point, and I have to say at least what I'm hearing on this side of the district, that, you know, again, it's the, you know, it's the building is the big people are very upset that we are still using parts of that building. And, you know, Ethan's making a point that I think is worth considering that should we, you know, should we work with that and acknowledge that and use that, you know, use that to work out a compromise for the greater good. Hey, Carl, this is Megan's again. I just wanna say one last thing. I'm okay with, you know, an experiment for one year. I just think I think the concern I have is, and I think I'm hearing Amy say, it's just, it's just the ability to have a future discussion. And if that's included in this experiment, then I am okay with that experiment and figuring out ways to creatively reduce our uses and move into one building. But I just don't wanna put a line in the sand that is like a black and white, when people are like, you said you weren't gonna do this and I just wanna have the ability, just like, just the ability to have a conversation. That's it. I understand that and I hear you. And I think I wanna re-emphasize a point I made earlier, which was that if we do this and we say to the town that this is where we're going, please, please re-vote this budget we hear you. What we can't do is turn around in November or January and say, oh, really, we should change things around. If we're committing to doing this, we have to be committing to doing this for at least the year and then going back at the end of the year and not just saying, oh, well, it didn't work. We're back to situation normal, going back at the end of the year and saying, at the end of this experiment, we've developed these theories. Here's our plan that works with the town and Envision Rochester in releasing space. Here's the plan that involves putting a third floor on the Rochester building or putting a second floor on the Stockbridge building and moving everyone there, whatever it is, that if we commit, if we go back, in my mind, if we go back to our taxpayers and say, we hear you about the building, we're going to not use it for a year at least and we're going to figure out a plan in that year to move forward, I think we can get some traction with getting a better vote. And we'll certainly hear when we get to public comment. I agree. Whether I'm right or wrong with that. I just think it's important that if we make that commitment, we're not going to go back and say, oh, well, we decided that really we needed to open that building for this reason or that reason. I think there's a difference between heating a server room or a phone room because we have to keep these alarm panels running so the building doesn't burn down. And doing that with maybe a space heater or something versus saying, let's just heat a few rooms and do that. So I think that's very, I just think that in my mind to start wrapping up this conversation to where we decide if we're going to have a vote or what we're going to do, I think it's just very important that whatever we make a decision about this building tonight, we support that with our taxpayers. We don't change it. Last comments from anyone? Yes. This is exactly what I was hoping for. And I think it's exactly what our communities are hoping for is a really hard nails, tough disagreement. We've almost always voted together as a board. And I think this is an issue that's gonna be tough for us. And that's okay. The other thing that I think we have to include in this conversation is that all we talk about is Rochester and that we have to talk about the merger. We are two campuses, one school. And it has to be like an inclusive conversation about what the whole school needs. Because if it gets for this tip for tap, then we're done. And we really should start thinking about breaking up. And that should be our conversation. And not if we really want this school, well, then maybe it is time to think about how we go another way. And if we can survive without Stockbridge, then maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that is a possibility. But I'm just saying that the conversation is always this sort of just about the building. And it needs to be a broader one about the vision for our schools, our school, because it is one school going forward. And that's my job here is to just push that. I don't have all these answers. I didn't do any numbers for all this. I get it. I hear Bonnie. I hear Lindy. I hear Amy. I hear Megan. I hear Jenny. I hear all of you. I also hear the other people who are on Facebook and on thing, we have to keep moving. This is the most important issue for us right now. And we want to get through it so that we can get back to education, which is what we love to talk about. Very well said, Ethan. Any other board comment before Ethan makes a motion where I can entertain a motion if you'd like to do it that way? Boy, thank you. And now I got to word it. I'm going to agree with you, Carl, right now. I think that's the way to go that we instruct. I intend a motion to close the entire high school down to 55 for the year and help me with this because I'm the technical parts of it. I'm going to, with special concerns for technical elements that need to be supported, while the board vigorously investigates a future use for the building that allows it to no longer be part of. And you'll add words if you want Megan or Amy about that allows some backwards. This is my first go. Anybody writing this down? Because I'm not. I have a paraphrased. Can you read it back? What did that sound like, Jenny? Oh, geez. Entertain a motion to close the school to 55 degrees for the year with special concern for technical elements that need to be supported while the board pursues ways to allow something. Can we put vigorously in there? Vigorously pursues long-term options for building use. I mean, I'm comfortable with that. What part? Of the wording of the year, the use and vigorously looking at what we're doing. Okay. So what do you do? What's your version? Give us a version. Megan, do you have a version? She agreed with it. She agreed. Oh, she did. Oh, she agreed. Yeah, I know. I agreed with you, Ethan. Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry about this. Oh, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. Amy, any questions for you, Amy, as far as this wording? No. Yeah, go. I was just wondering if we are actually at the stage to start discussing with the select board, and if that needed to be in the motion, or maybe we are, that is a separate motion that we're not at that. Let's make that a separate motion. Let's make that a separate motion, please. And let's also, Ethan, if we could friendly amend your motion to say rather than reducing the building's heat to 55, let's just say not using that building for student activity, because that makes it, we can put it at 55, we can put it at 45 if we can. We can do whatever it is. We're just saying that we're not using that building for student activity for at least the upcoming school year. Thank you, Carl. I prefer that, because I can come to you in September and say, here's the plan to save the most resources and with the most efficient. I agree. And that is actually my original motion, I think what's gonna be that I wrote down. Hey, Carl, that's actually consistent with something we were told a year and a half ago when the plumber guys were in there crawling around. They said you could actually go lower if the building, I'll struggle with the words here. But if the building was closed up in the right way, if you actually had technical support to closing it, the temperature could probably go lower. Great, and that's, I think I remember you saying something about that, about that a couple of years ago. And I think again, I think that's where we'll rely on Jamie and some of the SU to give us, to give us that technical recommendation, because again, I think the biggest job you and Lindy need to be focused on is how to bring our kids back mid-October. Mid-August, late-August, early September and educate them. You should offer anything around the, dealing with the building, to either the board or to the SU and we'll get an engineer or a consultant or someone in to work with that. Because I don't want you guys to have to do more than sort out what are the things you want to take out of the art room kind of stuff. Bonnie and Lindy, is this consistent with COVID, what your thoughts are for the, for the upcoming school year with the COVID considerations or are we now taking away anything that you are thinking of using as possible space? I think it's premature. I think we're probably fine-aiming. The only question that made us think we might need to have classrooms over there was if we had to close classrooms for 24 to 48 hours before we could re-occupy them again. But we have since found that if there is a positive case in a classroom, everybody in the classroom needs to quarantine for 14 days. So that takes that off the table. I'm not saying that's good news. I'm just saying that's taking it up the table. I just heard some mention of tents and I just wanted to make sure we're not now putting a cost at buying tents because we need more space. No, tents are because we want to be outside. We want to be outside as much as we can. Yes, okay. Did I hear, did, I don't know who seconded Ethan's motion because we were kind of all word smithing it with him. Did anyone second it? I will second it, Megan. Can I reread what I have so that everyone agrees to it? It would be very good. Yes, we do. I'll ask you that. Or not Carl. Ethan entertains a motion to not using the high school building for student activity for the upcoming school year with special concerns for technical elements that need to be supported while the board vigorously pursues long-term options for building use. Works for me. You can't wear that all day long. I second. Okay, a motion has been made and seconded that the board not use the high school building for student activities in at least the 1920 or the 2021 school year with considerations for the technical support of the building as well as the board vigorously pursues a long-term, long-term building options. Any other discussion? No. Okay. Long term. Okay, go for it. Nope. Let's go for a vote. Amy, you're the A. Aye. Ethan, you're an E. I'm a C, so Carl says aye. Ethan. Aye. Jenny. Aye. Megan. Aye. The motion carries unanimously, five to zero. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. We now start catching up all the time that we ran over on that. We have to discuss the, I think we pretty much covered the building in the vote discussion as well. I suggest let's have the public comment and then we'll decide if we want to warn the vote for the 11th or do you want to just warn the vote now? I think let's wait and see if everyone is okay with our options. Yeah, I agree. One of the things though around the vote and such was that I would like, I was thinking that maybe it'd be beneficial for us to send out another, possibly a single page mailer that just kind of is a frequently asked questions and some facts because there was a lot of maybe misunderstood information out there that was, we want to make sure everybody has the exact right information. And we have that full mail permit. And we don't have to do that. And we would need to have another, it's an Australian ballot, so by law we're required to have another informational session. So we would probably have that on our first August meeting but we would still have to have that online informational session for the public explaining what we're doing as well. So yeah, I think a mailer, a postcard or a one pager, I don't think we need to print a third page booklet again with just changing a letter in it. I think a mailing would be good. I would like us to do it, piggyback it with a primary just because that means we don't have to get our town clerks and our CBAs and everyone out handling a third election. They can just do it as part of that. And it'd be a one article warning. And we can, let's do that later in the meeting. Let's move into the tax anticipation note. That's Tara if she's still awake. I'm here, I just have to find the unmute button. Okay, so each year as you're aware, we go out and we obtain a tax anticipation note which allows your school district treasurer to use those funds to cover your expenditures until your tax revenue and the revenue from the education spending fund are received in your district. Because you do not have a past budget at this time, we are only allowed to borrow 87% of your prior year budget. So with that said, your tax anticipation note for FY21 is in the amount of $1,352,079. And that is with Community National Bank. So I just need you to accept that tax anticipation note. Yep. Question, do we usually get the tax anticipation note for the full amount of our budget, our public expenditures amount? It's usually 90%. 90%. So we're only down 3%. Of your prior year budget. Oh, prior year, right. And is this the done deal for the year then? We will not revisit this once a budget passes. You will not, no. If you don't have enough, if you end up needing more money, we would not obtain a second tax anticipation note. We would obtain what's called a current expenditure note, which is an alternative borrowing option should you need it in the future. It's just probably higher interest rates. Yeah. It's different funding terms and. Good. And we need to vote on this tonight. Yes, I need you to accept it because your treasurer needs money to cover your bills. I would entertain a motion that we accept the tax anticipation note as presented by the business manager. So moved. Do I hear a second? Second. Emotion has been made and seconded that we approve the tax anticipation note as presented by the business manager. All those in favor, please sign by. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Next, I need you to do one more action on your tan. Okay. So I emailed earlier to the entire board the loan documents. Okay. And now that you have reorganized, I need you to make a motion to allow the board chair and the board clerk to sign the FY 21 tax anticipation loan documents as presented by the business manager. So I need you to do one more action on your tan. Tax anticipation loan documents on behalf of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District. And then I need you and Jenny to please sign the loan docs and send them back to me. Okay. So I would entertain a motion that allow myself as the chair and Jenny as the clerk to sign the tax anticipation notice on behalf of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District. So moved. So I hear a second. Second. The motion has been made and seconded to allow myself as the chair and Jenny as the board clerk to sign the tax anticipation notices on behalf of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District. All those in favor, please sign by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? The ayes have it, the motion carries unanimously. Now Tara, move us into the audit, baby. So I emailed you all the draft audit for your review and consideration prior to tonight's meeting in hopes that it gave you time to ask questions so that you as a board can accept your FY19 audit as presented so we can get it finalized and out to everybody. Yeah, I wouldn't make a hard copy of it, please. And then maybe a lesson on how to read it. Can you give us a five-minute summary, Tara, or two-minute summary if there's anything red flags or everything you think was correct? We had already discussed in a prior meeting what your FY19 projected surplus was. So that was that $259,483 that your unassigned fund balance, which was found on page 16. We reduced from that number the Woodstock FY19 tuition bill that we received in May. So it brought that projected surplus down to 171.987, which is what we used to build your FY20 budget off from. So that did not change in the budget drafts. The findings that were found in the audit as far as management letter concerns were procedures within the business office that will be addressed with the executive committee, which was outlined in the memo to you. Other than that, there were no findings in your actual audit, so you were good there. So everything is the same as what it was in our budget numbers, nothing would change? No, nothing changed there as of this point. Okay. Well, what ends up changing that, Jenny, is if any other bills came in, an FY20 needed to be allocated but at this point we haven't seen any additional invoices. Okay. So then those invoices we booked, would they rewrite our audit or would they add those to our next year's audit as prior year fund records? That is exactly what they would do, Carl. It would just be a prior year restatement in the FY20 audit. So this 1819 audit is final as of this moment. The other document. The moment you accept it as a board, I can have the prior superintendent sign the acceptance letter and get it to the auditor so that the auditors can issue the final version of the FY1819 audit. Okay. I would entertain a notion that, a notion. I would entertain a notion that the board accept the 1819 audit as presented to us by our business manager. A motion has been made and seconded, made by Ethan seconded by Megan to accept the 1819 audit is presented by our business manager. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Hearing none, the audit is accepted unanimously. Our last action item is an employee conflict of interest policy that was circulated to us from the central office. It's pretty much a boilerplate. You know, if you work, you can't be an SU employee or a school employee and be a school vendor or recommend things, it's really, it's not, it's, Jamie, can you confirm that this is just straight up the recommendation from the VSBA or from? Yeah, this is based on model policy. That's what I was pretty sure. There's no real change in it. Is there any discussion that people want to make? Are we comfortable with approving this policy tonight? I make a motion to approve this policy. Do I hear a second? Okay. Okay, a motion has been made and seconded that we approve the employee conflict of interest policy as presented by the SU office. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, we've adopted unanimously the SU's employee conflict of interest policy. It is now time for public comment. We're gonna do this the way we did it for the informational meeting, which means I'm going to go down the list of people that are on the phone. I'm going to say the last two digits of your phone number. If you have something you'd like to say, you need to unmute, you need to identify the town that you're a voter from. So I would say I'm Carl Grappi, I'm a Stockbridge voter. Ethan would say I'm Ethan Bowen, I'm a Rochester voter. As well as your comments by by-law are limited to a five minute response. We will try to answer you. And depending on, the meeting is getting up against its two hour deadline right now, depending on how many people have questions, we may try to go through the list multiple times, but in general, well, the by-laws allow for each person to comment once. Finally, as has been pointed out to me by members of our town select boards, the comment really needs to be restricted to the things that were on the agenda. So you, for example, can talk about buildings. We had buildings as an agenda item. This would not be the place to discuss our need for a world language program. Because that's not germane to the agenda of this meeting. Hopefully I've said everything clearly, and I'm getting better at doing this. I'm going to go down the list, the caller. Oh, good point, thank you, Lindy. Before we get into this, she points out that I skipped two discussion items because I scrolled right into the action items. We did not have a discussion, we did not have the comment. Is Vic still here? He was going to briefly comment on the letter that the Envision Rochester has sent to the board. If you're here, Vic, you can star six and unmute and speak to that. Otherwise, the board has received a letter and we can distribute copies to anyone who's interested. From the Envision Rochester group, saying that they are interested in working with us and want to be kept in the conversation and in the loop as we develop our plans going forward. I think if anyone from the Envision Rochester team was here, I know Amy's on it. I think they heard that we are interested in hearing their input and hearing their ideas and working with them and with the town going forward to figure out how to best make that building work for the town of Rochester as well as the school. Then the COVID task update, Bonnie, that is you and that is actually something we do need to hear about. Okay, so let me, I think I can do this in a fairly timely fashion, though I do know it's important and people want to hear about it. There is a district-wide, Jamie convened a district-wide COVID task force. The task force has been working for about the last five to six weeks. Jamie, Lindy, myself are all members of that task force. As we look toward the opening of school, the number one priority that we have is the health and safety of both youngsters and staff. That will continue to be our first priority. We'll obviously endeavor to educate as well as we can, but we will also continue to repeat that we're in the middle of a pandemic and the health and safety of everyone in the system has to be what drives our decisions. There's basically three types of guidance that we're using to work with. The first level of guidance is basically the governor's guidance. The governor makes a determination, as we've heard over the last several weeks of where we are as a state in terms of how well we're slowing the virus, how well we're slowing the curve of it. So he makes a determination. The determination he's made that most directly impacts us is that all schools in the state of Vermont at this point in time will open in what's called phase two. There really are three phases that they identify. The first phase is full distance learning like all schools were in the spring when the governor shut down schools across the state. Phase two is in-person learning with a fair amount of restrictions. And it's phase two and how to implement the recommendations last restrictions that's been really the work of the district-wide COVID task force. Phase three is also in-person learning with fewer restrictions. So if you kind of just keep those three phases in your mind, it sort of gives us some context. And then there's these three sort of large streams of guidance. One I explained was the governor's guidance. Second is the guidance from the AOE. And on June 17th, the AOE released a document called the strong and healthy start. And those are the safety and health recommendation slash guidance for schools opening in the fall. And then the third level of guidance is from our risk management, which is basically our insurance company, Tara received the document at the end of last week. She shared that with me. I've had a chance to look at it, though not read it as thoroughly as I would have liked. But it basically is a facilities reopening guide. That's pretty much what the insurance company has provided at this point. I'm going to stress what the AOE has continued to stress and that is that we will probably in schools be shifting among phase one, phase two, phase three. And those decisions will be made based on what is going on in a geographic area in terms of health information. It is felt that we may not see, hoping won't see a statewide closure of schools, but rather it will be more geographically isolated. So if the virus seems to be getting a foothold in Bennington, the schools in Rochester and Stockbridge will not be asked to close. And that's a hopeful sign because the degree to which we can keep the virus out of our schools, out of our communities translates into schools being able to remain open and accessible to youngsters. And that's really important. We are finding in general, not just our schools, but in general, we're finding that the amount of time that youngsters were out of school sort of played out in a number of ways that aren't particularly positive, learning gains, social interactions, those kinds of things. So the goal is, while we recognize that the public health issues have to be what drives our decisions, we need to work very, very hard to implement those so that we in fact can keep our schools open. The recommendations or the guidance that's been given, if you think about... Oni, I'm sorry, could you just repeat that last bit? You said the last bit about the guidance and it was the last paragraph, if you could. Do you remember? No, I think what I was talking about, Ethan, was that the AOE continues to stress and we will also that we will be moving back and forth between these three phases based on how the virus is being controlled and that we're hopeful that there won't be another statewide shutdown of schools, rather more geographic. And the reason for that is, is that the professionals that study this have found, there are things that were not so positive about the extent, there were a lot of things that weren't positive, about the extent of time that youngsters have been away from school. So our goal is to keep schools open while at the same time doing whatever we can to provide a safe environment for everyone. Did that answer it? Okay, and then the last thing I'll say is, if you think of sort of two broad brush strokes, one being promoting healthy behavior and the other being providing healthy environments, that's pretty much what school principals and task force groups and schools reopening groups are focusing on right now. What is it that we need to be able to teach youngsters in terms of new behaviors when they come back to school because it clearly won't be the same school that they came, that they left. And then the other piece is, how do we provide healthy environments? And that has to do with the deep cleaning and disinfecting. It has to do with modified building layouts, looking at ventilation systems. Although there's a little bit of concern that's cropping up, I received an email today because of this notion that the virus may be becoming airborne. Some of the recommendations around ventilation systems may be changing. Food service we're looking at, we're looking at building access, limiting building access. Kind of the big general idea that they're hoping that we can attain in schools is this notion called cohorting. I think we've taken a noun there and turned it into something else, but they're talking about cohorting. And that means can we bring groups of children together and basically maintain those groups without a lot of interaction with other groups? And I'll tell you why that is important. Early on when there was a discussion about what schools would look like in the fall, we were hearing things like no recess, kids couldn't get up and leave their desks, kids would have to be maintained in basically classrooms in a pretty restricted way. Obviously some other thinkers got to thinking about the likelihood of that not being too probable nor even possible, nor is it a good idea for any human beings actually say nothing about little ones. So they moved to this concept of cohorting, which basically means we're going to try and keep groups of kids together. They can go out to recess together, they can eat lunch together, they can do some activities together, while at the same time not having cohorts intermingling. And the major reason for that is, and I alluded to that a few minutes ago, is that if a child in a classroom or a cohort or an adult tests positive for the virus, then everyone in that room would need to quarantine for 14 days. So what you want to try and prevent is having, your entire school have to quarantine for 14 days because everyone's been intermingling with everyone else and someone is tested positive. So that pretty much are the broad brushstrokes. There's a lot of details we have yet to put to these recommendations and that's what we're working on at the moment. The recommendations from the task force came in today. Today was the due date for that. We have a meeting on Thursday to hopefully finalize the recommendations that we will then pass on to Jamie and then we'll figure out what is the next step in our district. Principles have been very actively planning for opening of school. It's not like anyone has been standing waiting to hear what the guidance is going to be because we sort of had a sense of what we're going to address. So I think we're well positioned to be ready to open school under the current guidance. And I need to stress that we continue to hear all of this could change in a moment. So that's sort of the reality that we're moving forward with. Bonnie, I have a question about, the last thing you said with the cohorts, how does siblings play a role in that? When you have... That's just gonna be the reality, Amy. We can't, there's no way that a school could deal with that unless they went totally to phase one and had just distance learning. And then maybe this task force probably was, their entire mission is about opening schools and how that's gonna look. In an SU meeting, I had asked about the possibility of parents who are unable to send their kids back to school due to, grandma's living in the household or the risks, do we have a mechanism in place that we will be able to retain those kids with a distance learning teacher rather than that family leaving our district and going to home school? So the answer to that would be yes, we are in the process of working through that. We have to be able, we have to be able to include those youngsters and to provide educational services. I can't tell you right now exactly what that's gonna look like, but I do know that Domi is thinking a lot about that, she's contendent to cross the state or thinking a lot about that. Wonderful, okay, thank you. Bonnie, question if I may. What about, I've been reading articles about how teachers, especially elder teachers, are worried about coming back to school. Are you hearing anything about that or you made any plans for that? That is, that's a contractual issue, Ethan, that I don't wanna get into the details around right now, but certainly what it would require is that we've got, we're pretty procedures in place within our human resource department to ensure that there's equity about that across the SU and that that will be addressed to our teaching staff shortly. We've got that through the VSA and legal. Jamie, now wouldn't they be perfect candidates to be the distance learning teacher? That is part of what we'd be looking at, yeah. One of the things that I had heard from another board member is that the AOE was thinking that if a family said that they wanted their child to be 100% distance learning at a Vermont public school, that actually would be a homeschooling situation. They would not be able to count against AADM or anything like that, because if they were not making arrangements to at least come into school a certain number of days, they could not be counted as a student here. They'd have to be homeschooled. Is that correct? So Carl, the VSA is working with the agency to talk about at what point would it be that a coronavirus impacts the actual personal health and well-being of a student that it looks like there's gonna be some leniency there. Otherwise, we'd be looking at how are we building appropriate pathways based on the information the school receives. And so we should be able to address some of these concerns via Act 77 in personalized learning and proficiency based on the path. So we can do a flexible pathways model and try to accommodate some of these kids for a family that may say, I don't want my kid going to school that much because grandma lives here and she's super sensitive to these things. We're gonna take that case by case, yes, but that is part of what I'm looking to do at the SU is have a plan for that. Great, thank you, sir. And thank you, Bonnie. You're welcome. If I can just say just two seconds about the tense idea because Bonnie and Lindy and I have talked about the idea of outdoor tents and what kind of tents we can get, what kind of tents we can get loaned, what kind of tents. So my goal is to work this out that each school, I think Lindy, you've said that you found four and need three more and we need seven or something like that for Rochester. We're looking 10 to 20 footers. I saw the tent down at the camp at Stockbridge 20 by 20. I think that's a better model. I'm gonna talk to some of the rental companies, see what we can do, but I'm also looking for donations and we'll put some ads out. My goal is to make this happen without any extra expense to the budget. That's if I can, that's my goal. Buy other raising some money or donations or see what we can do. I'll come back to you with that, but I'm working on that right now. Okay, thank you, Ethan. And also keep in mind that, CARES funding for specific COVID related expenses can be covered. So if we did have to buy a tent to set up an outdoor classroom space, that is something we certainly might be able to get reimbursed through CARES. What I talked to Tara about that or what I talked to bring to the board or what's the... I think talking to Tara about the guidelines would be a good place to start. I would prefer that if you secure stuff when you pass that along to Bonnie and Lindy, then they can take care of it from there. Okay, good, my hope is to bring them some options and see what we can do with that. I'm actually thinking that a bigger, maybe a bigger tent, if we could get like a wedding tent, 20 by 40 or something like that, or even a 30 by 40, gives us a lot of space for being outside. But again, and some of the guidelines as far as ventilation and things like that, whether you want size on the tent, whether you'd rather have cross ventilation, these are all questions to be answered as well. I think this is a wonderful idea. I think this pushes forward our environmental outdoor learning. I think that this could actually be quite attractive to some of our towns that tuition their kids, and they might feel more comfortable with that type of learning in this new environment. So I think this is a great initiative and if we are able to go forward with this, I think we should advertise it. I was just thinking the same thing. If you had something, when you have something put together, Ethan, I think that would be good to let people know about it. And also, if you're still looking for a donation. Yeah, I just want to check it. Is the board, are you guys getting my updates? Are they getting pushed out to all of you? I'm doing bi-weekly letters. You guys checking in on those? No, I have not received them on the FG website. They should be getting pushed out through your schools. I have not received one in my email. I guess I wasn't sure if it was directed. I've not received one. I'm just, I'm hearing you guys bring up a lot of things that I'm addressing in my letters. So I'll find out where the hangup is there. Megan, can you give me a call? Cause we've sent those out to all of your emails. So I just need to know why you're not getting it. I guess maybe if you could also tell us what the title of it was and then I'd know what I'm identifying. That would be great. The title of the email was. This is typically says superintendent COVID-19 updates or task force updates. Oh, okay. I have seen one of those. Check them out. I will now practice. And I forgive me, Jamie. I may have just said a gun. Oh yeah, and not read it. So forgive me. I will rectify that for myself at least. I'm going to stay down folks about reading things. Yeah. You're right. So that's it for our questions. Is there any other questions on the COVID-19 update and where we stand as far as ramping up in September and onboarding all our kids? Okay. Now we're going to move to public comment. Again, I'm going to go down the list of people that are connected. I'm going to say the last two digits of your phone number. You can hit star six to unmute. You need to identify the town that you are a registered voter in and make your comment. Please try to keep your comments to under five minutes. We will try to go through, we'll give everyone at least one opportunity to speak. So the person that is at star 15, area code 443 star 15, do you have a comment? This is Rob Gardner from Rochester. So I just wanted to say very quickly, I think it's extremely important going forward that the board does a better job communicating to both communities the complexity of these issues. I think six months ago, the, when the building committee stopped, that's, we heard nothing about that building committee or what they said, what the conclusions were for six months. But everything you talked about tonight relating to the building was talked about in that committee and you lost six months of conversation with the community about these issues. So that's not to assign blame, but to assign, I guess, regret. So I really think that these issues need to be made clear. Ethan's suggestion to me is a blunt object, a blunt weapon rather than a scalpel for something so complicated. But I guess it works and I wish it well. And that's the end of my comment. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. The caller from area code 617, whose number ends in nine two, star six to unmute. The caller in area code 770 whose, I'm sorry, go ahead, the star nine two continue. But, okay, the person in area code 802, whose number ends in star three eight. Go ahead. Keith from Stockbridge, how you doing? Okay, Keith, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks so much. Hope you had a nice forth. First, I'd like to commend Ethan with his vision on how to bring the districts together. I thought his comments were quite relevant and to the point. It was disappointing to hear some of the other comments that seem to continue to perpetuate the separation of the Rochester slash Stockbridge district. So that certainly was disappointing and is not something that's gonna bring our communities together. My one question would be that if you are to put forth the same budget that was rejected, will it note the fact that you're looking to more full, for lack of a better term, the existing high school? I think I do not believe that that is part of or can be part of the statutory language of the warning. I think that can be part of the presentation from the board to the community. And can be commented in and it can be made as a promise. I think we discussed that in the meeting. I do not believe that it can be made, it can be made part of the condition of approving the budget. However, at least statutorily. It's certainly like it's gonna be part of the conversation and part of what the board would be committing to the taxpayers. So in other words, we are then voting on the same budget that was turned down and just basing it on the fact that a promise has been made to do this. What about removing the cost to fuel the building? Take those out of the budget. That's certainly something we can consider. I don't know if Tara can pull those numbers together. As within your budget, I thought, when I looked at the numbers, it was like a total of $40,000 for electricity and fuel in that building. It was 28, 743 and 12, 18. So it's about $40,000 worth of costs that are attributed to that. We would have to identify those lines and pull out of certainly we can consider doing that. It's something we would have to, as a board, get together and do and get that done before the 11th, but that is certainly an option that we could do because we're not discussed. We weren't discussing a reconsideration vote, which requires the article to remain the same. We certainly could adjust it. But that certainly would put some teeth into what the board's trying to commit to the community and make the community feel a little bit more at ease since obviously the communities are concerned. Certainly your point is taken, sir. Thank you so much. No worries. The caller at 802 that ends in Star State. Well, it's Tim Pratt from Rochester. Hi, Tim, how are you? Okay, so this is a lot to digest and you guys are sticking to it, but here's the thing. We never saw what the price tag for that study was and we never really got the information where the money came from. There was talk early on in the merge that there was money left over that would pay for revisiting or looking at structures. That was never finalized. That was never, so like Rob said, the building committee got done in December. The last meeting was December 10th. Then revision Rochester shows up. You've got a third party talking between the select board and the school board. Why hasn't RSUD gone to the Rochester select board and asked, do you think the town would be interested in taking over the building? Then Rochester never, Rochester tuitioned out their 40 kids in high school. The budget didn't drop down because the $18,000 tuition was being spent at receiving schools. That budget should have dropped down about 250,000 bucks because we knew at the time $25,000 was being spent per student in Rochester. That had nothing to do with Stockbridge because Stockbridge was already put tuitioning out there, seven through 12. So these budgets for the last three years have been being backed into. We find the threshold and we fill in the blanks. It just doesn't make any sense. So if Rochester, if the RSUD board went to the select board and said, would you be willing to ask the voters to take over the Rochester school? We know that our tuition kids are $18,000 but Rochester in the past has agreed to pay more money to keep students in school. Why won't Rochester agree to spend $3,000 for the 37 kids? That would add 110,000 bucks to maintenance on that building in one day. So I think Ethan's on the right track. I don't understand the whole holding the high school building. I sent Ethan an email that I had sent to Don Russo tonight when you, Carl, were talking about can the Rochester board lease a space? And I sent Ethan an email with that exact answer that came from Don Russo in 2017. So this isn't something new. This isn't rushing forward. This has been discussed way before and during the merge. So that's a lot to digest too but those are the facts and I can back it up if anybody wants to see those. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. The caller that is at 802-85. This is Carrie McDonald. Can you hear me? Yes, Carrie, go ahead. Okay, Rochester resident. Yeah, I just, I understand some community members and patients with the building process for sure. I mean, clearly this is a major issue that needs to be resolved in a timely manner but I also feel that we need to complete the process that we started and make a thoughtful and informed decision. I mean, we have, I believe, engineer reports we have a building committee. What we need time for is information to be communicated thoroughly with the public. My hope is that part of your vigorous pursuit this year would be to engage the community in conversations and not in this format but in separate meetings where information is provided and proposals are provided and feedback is collected. And for the record, I'm okay with this idea that we're closing the high school down while we have those conversations and we make those plans. And just a quick word on the high school spaces. I agree with Megan and Amy. I'm not in favor of closing the door to utilizing high school spaces down the road. As we reduce our facilities, it does impact our programming. I mean, we can still have music, art, PE but we're not being honest if we say there is no impact to programming. I mean, if we walk away from the high school, we would not have access to certain music equipment to a designated place for after-school programs to the pottery kiln. I know it sounds silly, but Rochester parents get the best mothers and fathers take gifts. It's just an example, but every year we get these beautiful pieces of pottery from our kids. It's something that makes our school special. So I guess what I'm wondering is, why aren't we talking about how we make sure that both Rochester and Stockbridge kids have this resource? As someone that's involved in the rec sports, I can tell you that any plans to repurpose the gym and no longer have that space available to play basketball and other sports, that's gonna cause huge waves in Rochester. And we have some Stockbridge kids that play basketball. It impacts our families and their desire to live here. I think this discussion should be not about making sure that we remove every extra thing that the other school doesn't have. We should be talking about how we can make sure all our kids have a rich educational experience by using the resources we have. And so I just encourage you all over this next year to think about how we can unify our communities further by making the high school resources available to our entire student body, how we can elevate our offerings. And I'm not proposing that we continue to own that building and maintain that entire building. I like this idea of potentially selling it to the town and leasing those spaces out later. And I agree with Jenny that we shouldn't be talking about that unless we're talking about how we use those spaces for all of our kids. So that's it. Thank you very much for your thoughts. We're going to go to 802, the caller that ends in star 88. Okay, we'll move on to the caller and area code 802 whose number ends in star 91. There are two of you that are star 91s, actually. This is Caitlin McHenry. I'm a Stockbridge voter. Hi, how are you? I just want to bring to the table. So Amy mentioned that shuttering expenses could possibly cost as much as the heating and electric bills that we're already paying now. Then I posed the question, what's the point of doing that at all? The board has continuously not listened to the voters, has continually put this issue, and it is an issue on the back burner. It's a hindrance on our school budget, not just for the utilities. Amy also stated several meetings back that the roof needs to be completely redone. And now more has come out that there is a continual flood issue because there's a drainage problem by the music room, which everybody so loves to talk about. Megan Payne doesn't want to draw, and I quote, doesn't want to draw a line in the sand. While voting this budget no, voting it down was our way of telling the board that this is our line in the sand. We have waited long enough. The building committee has yet to be called again. It has yet to submit any form of financial numbers so that the community can look at it. The building report has been done for a year, a little over a year now, and we're still just sitting on all this information, and the board keeps saying, well, more time, this is a lengthy process. We need more time, we need more of this. Even's right, we're tired of waiting. We want decisions made. If you put forth the same exact budget with just the promise, which there have been promises made before and broken, unless we have it in writing, unless there is a change in the budget, I personally will vote no again. And anybody that I talk to, I will encourage them to vote no because it's not gonna get us anywhere just having promises. It's not fair. And the only thing we have going for keeping the high school building, it's Rochester people hanging on to this idea that it's this huge benefit for the children. It is a huge benefit for the children in Rochester. Stockbridge could use a new addition so that we don't have to have a multi-purpose room that is used for just about everything. But instead, we're choosing to pour more liability, more finances into a building that quite frankly, financially isn't worth it because it's just gonna have to keep going and going and going until it's fixed or until the whole budget is about. And the fact that everybody on the board had brought up that now we know there are controls in the high school that control the elementary, that further complicates the issue. And it makes it even more complicated and makes it even more muddled, a muddy mess that voters still don't have the information on. This has come out after the building report. We're just now learning of this, that the controls are there. You guys are not providing information in a timely manner so that we can make educated decisions. Voting no is our line in the sand. Thank you. Thank you. Carl, can I respond just a little bit? Go ahead, yes. Okay, just thank you for that because those are really two issues that I think, and I've heard it from other people that along with this vigorous word we used we need to, and I don't know how we do this, but we have to get the building study out and we have to get the building committee finalized and we have to have that out there so that that again is not another thing that's, you know, that's an obstacle for us. I was going to point out that the building committee report, the PDF is available on the internet. I know it's on the school board page of the Stockport Central School side because I just helped the reporter from the Mountain Times find that document today. So the full 80 page building engineering study is available on the internet. But Carl, you have to agree that we've never done a full presentation on it. We have not, we have not. And I'm not trying to dodge around that issue. Nor am I trying to say that the building committee, the building committee did a stellar job. I haven't even dared to say that. What I am saying is that I'm not sure people had known because they had asked at a previous meeting where that report was is they didn't have to go to town offices to pick it up. And I'm saying that the PDF is available on the R-SUD website. Right, and you had also told me that the board itself would not come out and say these are the options we're looking at. Not all this other stuff because that report can be overwhelming to people who don't know how to read an engineering report. And I am in a lot of ways that person. I can divulge a lot of things. I'm not trying to tell you you need to puzzle it out yourself. I'm just trying to make sure that the general, it was a misconception that was brought up that that report was only available in paper copies. And I was saying, making sure that everyone on the call knew that the full engineering study is available to the public. The building committee has not produced and a distillation of those 80 pages down into an understandable document. And that's because the building committee hasn't met in six months because it hasn't been called to me by the board, despite the board being able to meet on electronically, and Joanne's been pushing for a meeting and there's been no meeting. That's a good point that we're going to be working forward. Can I comment on this as I was on the building committee? Sure. That the building committee had struggled to have meaningful discussions. There was a lot of emotional friction at every conversation, making, moving forward, like trying to move forward subjectively to actually analyze the document was impossible. The committee could not even approve minutes from any of the meetings that were held. That means that the committee could not even agree on what the committee had talked about in the previous meeting. So I understand what you're saying and I wish that we had a document that could answer our questions and I know that's what we're all looking for. Unfortunately, that's not what we were able to do in that committee. Quite frankly, that committee was made up with too many people with conflicting conflicts of interest. Rod is on this new revision board in Broadchester. Amy is on the school board, Carl is on the school board. That should have been a committee full of just average voters from the community. Not anybody on boards, not anybody on community boards because it's just the voters who would look at that and look at what's important to other voters. That are commonplace. Not what's according to the board, not what's according to this decision made by this community board. It's, there's too many conflicts of interest on the building committee for them to create a coherent resolution to recommend. Katelyn, I'm not sure that there's, we have beaten the building committee dead horse into a pretty much of a bloody pulp. I think that it is fairly well known that the committee did not for whatever reason, whether it was conflict of interest, whether it was personalities, whether it was whatever it was, it was not successful. When the building committee was first proposed, it was part of a multi-stage effort to bring the conversation about the buildings to the communities. If you, it was the building committee, the timeline that had been projected was originally the building committee producing an executive summary and distilling that report down for something that the board could digest. And then the board could trigger community meetings that we had talked about with a mediator to help have these conversations in both Stockbridge and in Rochester and bring that information to some sort of community consensus. And certainly that's a fine sounding plan that fell flat on the face, but that was the intention and it was more than just a building committee analysis and response. There was a place for community engagement and I think the board still feels that there's really a big and important place for community engagement. And that's with the communities of Stockbridge and of Rochester. And that includes whether there's a citizen, whether there's a nonprofit community group that includes speaking to the select boards. Again, the board's original idea was the board wanted to figure out what it wanted educationally before it presented anything to a select board or to a community group or to any kind of nonprofit. So that was the process that we're trying to do. We haven't been successful at it. It doesn't mean that we weren't trying to go there. I think that we hear what you're saying that the building committee still needs to be heard and we certainly have gone on for more than five minutes that one common is supposed to get. So thank you very much for your input and we look forward to hearing from you as we move forward into the community engagement piece. Whoever's at 802-99. I see that your mic up, okay. We now have, let's see, Amy, Bonnie and Ethan. Ethan Phelps, you're on this call. Do you have a public comment, sir? Hi, yes, I do. Thanks for allowing me the chance to comment. I just wanted to say thanks to Ethan Boen for your bold suggestion. And I've been attending some of these meetings remotely as I can to listen and really see what the issues are. I hear from my fellow Stockbridge residents. I think it's unfortunate that the budget was largely voted down for the $40,000 worth of operating expenses for the high school, which in the larger picture of the budget, if I'm remembering correctly was a $5 million budget. So it seems like it came down to less than one, less than 1% of the total budget. I certainly understand the frustration from folks on all sides, but I think we all need to remain as objective as we can and make sure we're using accurate information. I can't find any data to support that there was a $25 plus thousand per student expense in Rochester prior to the merger. I was reviewing some of that stuff tonight. I have been able to start looking through the building committees, the study report that was done. I think as a combined Rochester Stockbridge school community, our efforts are best focused in quelling our desires to quickly get over the high school issue quickly and really taking a longer term focus and thinking about what are we really facing here? And the study report looks at something like 2.3 or $2.5 million of recommended infrastructure need in the Rochester elementary building, to over $2 million in the Stockbridge building, their old buildings, the Stockbridge building has been maintained better than the Rochester one, but that's a huge expense. When this small district is gonna have to be looking at bonding over $4 million in the not too distant future, just to catch up and meet our needs I think those are the types of things we need to be thinking about. We also need to be thinking about how much sense does it make to be spending that amount of money on two different campuses where one of them has an enrollment hovering around 40 to 45 kids, the other one around 90. Even by Vermont standards, these are really small schools and I know there's no easy answers to any of these things but I think those are the types of things that also need to play into these decisions. Personally, $40,000 for another year's worth of operating expenses in the high school, to me seems like not a big deal whether that's put into mothballing it, that seems to be a reasonable solution for the immediate short term. If it can allow the process to finish, to have the community meetings that are desperately needed and to try to bring some unity back to this group. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Ethan. It was pointed out to me in chat that I skipped the other 802-star-91 person. So if that person would want to comment. Can you hear me? I can, you're star-4-5. Okay, I just switched phones. Oh, okay. Yeah, I tricked ya. Anyway, I would like to say, this is Joanne Stockbridge. The building committee was not a complete mess. And I feel that it was stalled on purpose. And I believe that we had some very, very experienced people on it. We had two engineers, in fact, that did some research and did a fine job. We had our principals, we had board members, and we had community people. Yes, it got contankerous, but if you watch the last movie of it on Orca, you will see that we did come to some agreement. However, when that meeting was over, two people that were not at the meeting did not like the outcome of that meeting. And that's when it fell apart. And then with many requests to have another meeting, it, we never had one. And one group formed a report, and the other group formed a report, and both had a lot of similar ideas in them. There was a little bit of verbiage that needed to be tweaked on both sides, but we never sat down at the table after that to do it. So it wasn't completely garbage. I think the problem is nobody wants to know what those numbers are to fix the two Rochester buildings. They are very, very high. And the Stockbridge building on the other end of the stick is very, very low. So that, I believe, has been held off because those numbers are outrageously different. And that is my opinion on that. And I would love to have one more meeting to put this to bed, agree on a document, and move forward. It's not undoable. I know we can do this. Now, that's just a comment because my name was brought up and I felt like there were some things that were not actual said. So that's that. Now, my question is, and I would like an answer from each one of the board members if that's possible. What happens if in November the COVID is gone? It just ends. Is that experiment over? Or are we definitely going to agree on not using that high school building or anything for any educational purposes or yard sales or anything? Can I have a yes from each one of the school board? I can begin. I said that my child had a support. If the board took that action and made that motion, that there would not be a sort of the other building just collapsed on itself or compared to some sort of unexpected crisis that everyone finds obvious, that that would be the board's commitment going forward and that the board would not snack and say, okay, well, we tried that for a year. We're just going to go back to the way it was. The board would. Because I feel that that's exactly what's going to happen. That's where the second part of that motion came from about the vigorous attempt at finding a long-term solution. Okay, I hear your opinion, Joanne. No, no, I want an answer. I want a definite answer and I know it's recorded and I want to know that for one year today, that building will not be used. I gave you my answer. And that is? I said that I had originally said in the discussion of the original motion, I specifically said at that time that if the board adopted this, we could not, in my mind, we could not in good time go back. Can you speak for me, Joanne? I'm sorry. In my, you asked for each board member, I'm saying me personally feel that by making that motion, the board cannot unilaterally just go back and say, oh yeah, we're going to use that building. And we made the commitment to not use it for an educational purposes for at least a year and that that's what we have to stick to. That is Carl's- And everyone agrees. This is Ethan and I say yes. Thank you, Ethan. Yes, this is Megan. I say yes. Yes, I agree, Joanne. We have to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Okay, I guess that's unanimous. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay, let's get back to, let's see, I did Ethan Phelps. Janet Whitaker, Janet, do you have any comments? No, I agree with Ethan. I'm a Stockbridge resident and I would very much like to see the budget pass and people move forward and think more about our educational needs and not just the building and just really frustrates me. That's all. Okay, thank you, Janet. Karen Rubin, do you have a comment? Carl, I feel like we need to talk a little bit. I think I need to talk a little bit more about what was just discussed with Joanne because it actually impacts more than our school. It impacts our town because town now COVID, who knows? We won't be using it with COVID, but in a normal situation, our town uses that auditorium for town meeting. So are we now shutting the Rochester town off to use of that auditorium? Are we shutting the White Reveille players off from use of that auditorium? Our motion said that we were not going to be using it for an educational purpose. So how we might negotiate with the town for town meeting. I know the town is intending to use that building for the Rochester voting location for 811. I know that we've talked about letting the town use part of that building for food shelf. It's important that we keep in mind the motion that the board agreed to is to not be using that for a student educational purpose. Thank you. I just feel that the words got twisted a little bit by when we started throwing in things like yard sales that it wouldn't be used for. So I want to just clarify what's for educational purposes. Okay, thank you, Amy. Go ahead, Karen. Yeah, thank you, Karen Rubin from Stockbridge. Just going back to that really quick, the cost to refire those burners to do stuff for town activities has to be considered as well. But Carl, you explained that we can ask questions based on the agenda items. So I actually have three questions. I will ask each of those and then yield to the answers. But if you need me to re-ask them, I'm happy to. Okay. Can someone please give us an equatable figure of what 80% of the previous year's budget actually is in dollar amounts and how that might exactly cause a financial burden of potentially starting the new year with a scaled-down budget, should the budget not get passed on 811? That's question number one. Just question number two, what are the terms of the tax anticipation loan and are those costs considered into the budget currently? And if not, where do those fees and those financial, and then my third question, I'm sorry, I'm maybe speaking over some time. I think your mic is open. Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you. So then my third question is in regards to COVID-19, is there any consideration that the board or the supervisor union is in aware of either from the government or the state that is gonna offer financial assistance for the cost of the implementation of any COVID-19 protocols and or PPEs? I understand that Carl, you said that some of that would come from the CARES coverage, but that's only some of it. So where is the additional funds coming from to re-open our schools in the fall, making sure that we're following all of the correct protocols and have the appropriate amount of PPE that our students and our teachers and faculty are gonna need. And those are my three questions that I would like some answers to this evening. Thank you. Okay. I can answer the first one right off the bat. 87% of last year's budget equals $573,000, $573,113 is the amount of money. 13% of our budget equals $573,000, $573,000, I've been talking so much. 13% of our budget, the amount of money that has to be taken out of that $4.4 million is $573,113. You're taking on my time here, Carl. So that's the amount of money that would come out. Question three about the, so there's CARES money, which is a more general pot for the state to spend. And that's where the state is talking about maybe using some of that to offset property taxes or using some of that to expand broadband. Schools themselves got a separate COVID allocation. That's $31 million for the entire state of which 90% of it goes straight to the LEAs. And I think that figure works out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 bucks a kid, 500 bucks a kid that's going to flow to us direct, that's going to flow to the SU directly, and at least in the conversations that were had under the previous superintendent, those funds were going to be used to cover a specific, and they can only be, they cannot be used as a plant regular spending. They can only be used to cover specific COVID spending. So that would be for PPE, that would be for face shields or plexiglass barriers, or any of the things that the COVID task force is going to need, is going to deem our buildings to need. And that'll be from a separate pot of money than for the most part, from a separate pot of money than the monies that's in our budget for regular educational expenses. And the middle question was? What are the terms of the tax anticipation loan, and are those costs already considered into our current budget? And if not, where are those fees and the interest fees that go along with that? Those fees are considered into the budget. We get a municipal rate from the bank and Tara shops it around, but that interest is built into the budget. We know about how much we're going to borrow, we know about how much that's going to be. So as far as I understand it anyways, and Tara jump in if you're still here and correct me if I'm wrong, but those fees are put in. I want to say the loan is about a little under 3% or maybe a little over 3%, but it's around a 3% across. So you only pay interest on the amount of money that you borrow. You have up to the full amount of the tax anticipation note to use if necessary. And in the budget, if you're looking at what was sent in the mailer, it's under 2510 fiscal services, interest on short-term debt. That takes into account any interest that may be charged on a tax anticipation note. And this is something that the districts obtain every year in order to be able to pay their bills until tax revenue and education spending fund money is available to the districts to cover those expenditures. Okay, and I thank you all for that. And I just on closing just really want to say that we can't vote on a promise. We need to know what the implications financially are of either shutting that building down and having to refire it back up for community events or shutting it down for the entire season is, I think it's going to be very difficult to get a vote passed on August 11th without some kind of understanding of what the financial implications are. So thank you very much. Thank you for your time, Karen. Patricia Harvey, do you have any comments? Good evening, everybody. Select board member for Rochester, but I do want to make it all known that I'm also a taxpayer in Stockbridge. So I've got a little special thing going on. I'm going to start with a little bit about the building that's not mentioned and I keep bringing it up because I'm wearing my... There is a subdivision process that has to go on before any of those buildings can go anywhere. So we need to start that process. If you start that process, you've started a legal process and that is showing a definite sign that this is going to happen. Since that is probably a three month process, perhaps just getting those wheels going would be sufficient to show the taxpayers and the voters that something is happening. Now I'm going to put my select board hat on. The select board has always been all ears. We've been open, we've been listening. It is true that we have not been approached as much as we would like to have been, but we are ready whenever. We are not the entity that's holding any of this process up that does seem to be inevitable. This something here is going to happen. So bring it on, but bring the facts, get it together and speaking for the select board, we're ready to work with you. So let's get this done. Thank you. Thank you, Patricia. Patty, could I ask you a quick question? Sure. Patty, my point earlier about needing a certain amount of money right up front to pay heating, electric, to take on this building, if it does, is the town going to commit to that? I mean, is that part of your saying bring it on? Well, I'm saying- Does that would raise tax rate, obviously, or something like that? Correct. You know, we've had a plan B, we can pull something out of our back pocket if the need arises. And so we are ready to take on the building in whatever building, whatever condition, but that's all I'm going to be able to say. You have to come to us with a proposal and we will answer you with a definitive answer. And thank you. And then Patty, to reiterate what we had said earlier, in the board's mind all along, the select board in Rochester has always been part of the process. The school board just wanted to make their own decision about what the educational needs were for the children on that campus and make that decision and then approach the select board rather than letting the select board or a community group or whatever drive the school's decision. We thought that it was our job as board members to make the decision about educational issues first and then try to sort other issues. We have a private caller that I'm not sure if that's Orca or if that's someone who wishes to comment. That's Orca, thank you. Thank you, Ray. We also have an unknown caller. Okay, it is 9.30, this has been a three-hour meeting. We have been through the group of public comments, given everybody an opportunity to say something. Our next meeting is going to be scheduled for, if you look at my, find the right tab on this computer. Tuesday afternoon. Carl, sorry, did we make a final decision on whether this 10-day, 30-day, when we're doing a revoke? I just wanted to let the community know when we're going to have our next regular meeting in case any of you wanted to drop. I do think we need to decide if we are going to, we would need, if we are going to a warrant of vote for August 11th, we need to do that by July 11th because it's got to be longer than 30 days for that warning. Or we have- Carl, there's an email from Dina. You should read. That's not accurate. Okay. All right, based on the email that I got recently, I do think that we have a different window because it's an actual revoke. She was giving you information based on the idea that it's an original vote because she was working with Jihad too this morning. But we also, we haven't made a full decision whether we are changing the budget as has been suggested by some people that whether we're taking some of this, I'm not suggesting that up or down. I'm just saying, it seems to me we're leaving with some indecision about what our final decision was to do with the budget. I think we are. And what, especially after with what Jamie just said, I think that we should, can we schedule a very quick meeting to make this decision when we've gotten some information from Tara about what the budget would look like if we said we're gonna defund, we're gonna defund that building as Keith or I think it was Keith. One of the Stockbridge callers suggested, I mean, I don't know that we can, I don't know that I am up for at least personally at 9.30 at night, right through how those numbers. No, that's fine. I just wanted to be clear about where we were. That's all right. And I support, I support another meeting to clarify that. We meet for a quick conversation on Thursday about this because we'd have to have Christie warn it tomorrow for a conversation on Thursday. And then we can, if Tara can give us some idea of what those numbers can look like. And Bonnie and Lindy can have some thoughts on what they, Kyle, I feel like that turnaround's really tight for the business office right now. I need to just have the war be sensitive that we have still three districts without budgets that we're trying to maneuver. Okay. How do you propose we get revised budget figures? You're saying that we should regroup and look at what Dina said and see if we really. I'm looking at, I've got a, we've got a full board on Monday, the 13th. We could hold a special meeting prior to that. It would, yeah, it would have to be, I mean, the way that Dina explained it to me, if we're changing the. Are you still on the call? Are you reading this? Yes, I'm still here. So I mean, we can certainly reach out to Dina and get some answers about what our actual window to warn a revised budget amount is. And if it's- So, Carl, I'll read it to you so you know. The board is not constrained by 30 day posting issue. C16, VSA, 7-Eleven, E and F. Data of the informational meeting shall be at least five days after the public notice of the vote. And the vote has to be at least seven days following the public notice, which is the warning. You could set a date for August 11th, warn tomorrow, have informational meeting any date after July 13th, or could set the vote in 10 days, hold informational meeting five days from morning and vote on the 10th day. So your timing constraints are not 30 days. It's seven days and five days. Okay. So we could conceivably warn this three different times. We have that sort of window. We could have multiple votes because we only really need 10 days between each of them. Correct. Okay. Then let's- Why don't we shoot for next Tuesday? Does that seem reasonable, Jamie and Tara, for numbers? Does that sound- Yeah, we can shoot for next Tuesday. I mean, it's just you guys around more nights. If you wanna meet Monday and Tuesday, we can do that. Oh, I see, yeah. Oh, thank you. Oh, God. I was trying to piggyback this. I mean, if we're looking at budget numbers and adopting a warning and trying to get moved forward, I feel like we could do that in a half hour. What's the time, sorry, what's the time of the full board meeting? Is it next? Six. Six. So what are we talking? Could we do a late meeting, 8.30 to nine, something like that? I hate to do it later, but I mean, we also could do 5.30 to six. I would prefer, it's hard for me to do anything before five, before six. So I would prefer on Monday to do it afterwards. I'd prefer to do it Tuesday rather than at late. I mean- No, I hear you. That's fine with me. I have no problem with Tuesday if you guys wanna come out again. Let's Tuesday, 6.30. Tuesday, 6.30, let's have Christy warn it. I will, you know, I will ask Dina why she said, you know, to make sure that that's the case so we don't turn around on Tuesday and figure out we blew our window. So all right, then I would entertain a motion to adjourn for tonight. So moved. Seconded. Motion is made and seconded that we adjourn. Our next meeting will be a special meeting on Tuesday, July 14th at 6.30 PM in the internet. Our next regular meeting is August 7th, is that what we're doing? We're fourth, August 4th. And that is it, we are- Can I, Carl, real quick, we're gonna discuss the warning, we're gonna approve a warning. We are, we are going to, yes, we are hoping we're going to do that. And I'm gonna need some additional guidance exactly what you're looking for me to do for you in the budget. I mean, if we're talking about going to a vacant building, there are a whole bunch of additional costs that we're gonna need to look at, versus if you're just asking me to back out your gas and electric, you're still gonna have some if you bring keep it to you at 55. So you need to give me more guidance as to what you're looking for. Absolutely. We can't just back it out, because who's gonna pull it for the oil? We can't just say where nobody's gonna pay for it. Yeah, I mean, that's true. We're, I think, I mean, if you guys remember only in your conversation, I thought I could have a full report for you in September. Well, I know I'm just saying. All right, well, I mean, this is what we have to decide and what we have to talk about. That's what I'm thinking. I'm not sure we're up to warning a budget, a meeting, we need to talk about what we've learned tonight and what we're going forward with as far as we've made the commitment to turn down the heat and no, well, no educational thing in there. What does that mean in terms of heating and costs? That's what we need to figure out. And do we need to change the budget numbers? Do we believe we've done enough or do we need to actually change the numbers to make something different? And we can't do that now. Can I throw out a quick question? Is the board, as your superintendent, I am not feeling unbelievable pressure to have an approved budget by August 11th. If the board's feeling like you need to do that, then we will try to get you the information you need. But we can operate schools and open either way. I don't know if you guys are feeling an urgency that I'm saying I would rather we be thoughtful, we have a well-planned budget that we've dug into the numbers and then we can say this is a budget that supports this concept. Cool. I mean, if you guys are feeling like you need to move to get with the primary date, I mean, I just, I can't tell you we're going to have that level of detail in it. I would rather, I think the more, I think preparation is a good thing. I just, you know, we got to keep, we do need to keep moving and keep information flowing. So I don't know, Carl, what do you think? I agree. Don't go ahead. No, sorry, Amy, you too, I can see you. I think my opinion would be that we would meet on the 14th and just have a further discussion about what we have learned tonight and then discuss how we're going to try to go forward to address what people have concerns about. But I agree that we don't need to be rushing getting a budget passed right this second. We do need to be thoughtful and move forward though. Oh, yeah, if our superintendent is supporting that, I would go with that. So let's meet on the 14th and just, and get through what we learned tonight and let's let it all sit and we'll come back with some pressure ahead. Yeah, I think let's not decide that we are definitely not warning a budget. Let's not decide that we definitely are warning a budget. Let's be prepared, let's be prepared to do that. As far as, I think a couple of things to remember about budgets. Budgets are predictions. They are not promises. I mean, we're trying to do the best job we can, but if we only budget, you know, a thousand gallons of fuel to pull the number out of the air and we have a really cool winter and a really cold winter and we run through that thousand gallons by the end of February, we don't get to tell the families, oh, well, we're sorry. You know, we don't have any more, we only budgeted for a thousand gallons. We're not, you know, we run a deficit because we say we underestimated our heat and we address that issue and we compensate for that in the previous, in the next year's budget cycle. We generally aim to have a bit of a surplus so that we can, you know, so that we're always returning some money to the taxpayers and we're never, ever trying to go to them with a deficit, but, you know, we're trying to give them our best numbers. I think the important thing to think about in terms of revising the budget numbers is not that we're going to get a really detailed deep dive. It's that what I heard at least from, I think it was Keith from the gentleman that brought that up was that they wanted the board, they wanted to see the board, his thought was if the board reduced the numbers, it showed the board had skin in the game. And so that I think is, I think it's less about, you know, bringing in a budget where we've done all these, all this analysis to figure out really what, you know, what we can literally cut out of the heat budget and not cut out of the heat budget. I think it's, I think what they're looking for is symbolic. We were gonna try to get by with, you know, this amount less money because this is what we put in the report, it would cost to operate that building. So I think that I think is where we're coming from and at least in terms of when we're hearing the pushback against, well, we wouldn't have the detailed information. I don't think they're asking us, especially if we're building a budget by the 14th, they're asking us to make a token budget reduction to show that we take it seriously. What, yeah, let's, we have a motion to adjourn. I think we know we have a meeting next Tuesday. We know what we wanna talk about. We wanna, it's sort of follow up to the vote, follow up to the building discussion and potential budget bulletin. Is that a good agenda? Sure. I think I've got my marching. I think I understand where you want us to go. This is perfect. Okay, great. All right, then let's adjourn everybody. Great, good night. Thank you all. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you.