 Yes, so we can call the meeting to order at five o'clock. And can we just wait till 5.01 so we're continuing to be late all the time? No. See what we can do, maybe we can get done early, that would be crazy, impressive. Are there any revisions to the agenda? I'll talk about the organization meeting, one question about the planning. We can talk about it somewhere, I just don't see anywhere. There's an I-46 update, so... Could we do it there? We can do it under 2.1, which is the reorganization. No, you were talking about the redistricting organization. The district organization. Oh, I see, yeah, sure. Okay, 2.1. Sure. I'd like to end on an executive committee, executive session for personnel issue. Okay. Just brief, it'll be very brief. I think for 2.5, are we planning to go into executive session for that? What are we going to do for that? I'm doing one for... Okay, so we can do it at the same time. What we're supposed to do, I guess, is we're supposed to... If it's our different people, you'll have to have them separate. Okay. So... Okay, any other revisions? Public comments and correspondence. Any executives any comments? Is there a motion to approve the minutes of February 13th? So moved. Any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes of February 13th? Please say aye. Aye. Okay. Okay, 2.1, the supervisor of the organization, which... Will happen next week. Okay, so that's just on here. That's on here. So usually the executive committee does what we said to slay your recommendations. Oh, right. We did do that last year. Yeah. Does the committee want to propose a slate for the board to consider? We've talked to them in the past. There's no reason not to continue. Okay. All in favor of that? Nobody care to nominate. People for chair, vice-chair, and clerk. We'll have a slate. Okay, let's have the same slate for that. Unless we want to. And who is vice-chair? I'm vice. I'm planning on moving this summer. So, as I've said to the E32 board. Like out of the district? Out of East Montpelier and into Calis. Oh, okay. Well, that's... Well, I guess that would affect your representation on the... Yeah, okay. So I guess I'm not sure exactly if... Well, the E32 board is what they're going to do, if they're going to appoint me as a voting member, if they're going to appoint me to the executive committee. I think when... If you're moving your representative cast, then it would be... I think you would lose your seat as a East Montpelier rep. Correct. That's my... So I think you would lose your membership on the board, unless you have it for a different reason. Nope. Okay. Should we do 2.1 first? Do you want me to ask you for a chair? What? Or do you do it as a slate? I think it's sort of slate. Is anybody else interested in being vice chair? I mean, I would say you should do it, and then you can resign and you can pick someone else. And it may be moved. Actually, it may be moved by the time. Right. That's what I've been saying. I think it will be moved, actually, unless something happens, yeah. I don't think anything more can happen before July 1st. I'm open. I mean, it's... Okay. So I'm going to look at you. And you're open to do it. I'm open to do it, yeah, but I mean, if people can nominate others as well, obviously, here or we're at the meeting next week, so, yeah, I'm willing to do it. Who's our clerk? I think Chris Winters was our clerk. No, is that Chris Winters? Was I? You were the clerk. Yeah. I haven't gotten my stack on my chair. Nice job. I thought it was Chris, but... I thought, Chris, you had one of the positions. I didn't know what was going on. And then the treasurer's meeting on speed. Yeah. So I would love to have a motion to recommend a slate of nominations to the SU board. Myself for chair, Karey for vice chair, and Chris McVeigh for clerk. Okay. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. Do you want to arm wrestle over here or tell them? I'll flip a two-headed coin and Doc can have their heads. How many of the schools below the boards have actually elected officers yet? And the new, is this going to flip around or? There are two boards, Washington, U-32, and Calisthen need to reorganize. What about Berlin? Berlin will not reorganize until April 24, right? It won't even organize until April 24. I don't know, but I mean, it is a good point. Whoever has to be a voting member of the SE board in order to serve. All those in favor of motion say, hi. Hi. Hi. Opposed? Motion carries 2.2, the 2019 to 2020 school year calendar. So you'll see in here, I wanted to present this to you. Some years, the executive committee has approved this. Some years, it's been the SU board. Really trying to get any, without snow days, have any student days past the second week in June. Therefore, there are some changes that haven't been there that we've moved into the past that we're taking and worked with the associations and with the leadership team. You'll see that Columbus Day on the 14th is now a student day. If we had kept our similar pattern, we would have been two days into the third week without snow days, which I don't think is going to help us much. And then on June, sorry, in January, you will see that the 24th, we usually had Martin Luther King totally off. And one of the things the teachers association recommended was that we have a day. We have a half day grading there, and we have a half day on diversity and implicit bias training, something along the lines of what Martin Luther King strived for, and that we have school on the 21st. We're really trying to get, and so graduation would be, for you 32, it would be on the 12th, that Friday the 12th, but really getting things sewn up with any snow days going into the third week. This has five snow days built in, right? No, it doesn't. It's not built in. That's what people like to say. They are not built in. They're not built in up there, because this school district has a contractual agreement with the association that we have 180 days, which is five days past the statutory moment. So at least no days would be from Monday the 15th, if you'd say five, right? And how many have we had this year, I guess, plus counting the days off for the water main break? There were six here at U32, and we were capturing one by moving in service in April to the end of the year. And so they have five, so currently they're going into the last Monday in June right now. And it could have been worse. I felt like those five came early on. Five been, yeah. We used a lot of late arrivals, which I hear plenty of, please don't do this to us as parents from parents. Don't do late arrivals, because it makes it really hard on us. So they'd rather go for two weeks into them? You don't see that. We'd take a gamut. I can hear the gamut. From people telling me to have less days, to people telling me to have more. I hear they're all towards them. It's not that it isn't a win-or-win. It's just it is what it is. So basically the board will just adopt this next week, as they are at least considered. It's up to you, like I said, it's been done by the executive committee and it's been done by the SU board. It's up to you in which way, but I'd like to have a board adopt this comment. My suggestion is we do it, and we don't have to talk about it next week. We can't change anything. They can't change anything. I'm fine with it, and I think that's probably what would happen. The only reason I hesitate is because before I became chair, there was a lot of discussion about whether the SU board should be taking a lot of decisions that the executive committee had been. I don't really know where to draw the line. I think there's value in the full board approving this. Then if they get pushed back from the community, then you have to stand by it. Yeah. I agree. And then I'm sure it won't change. We can recommend it as an executive committee. So I'll move to recommend this draft, too, because. Second. Any further discussion? Is there an optimal calendar that is not this? Yes. And what is that? Because we might have to change all of it. We'd have to change all of the schools in central Vermont, because we have to be in a lot of the tech center. We are not doing what is best for Vermont. We're doing what is the tradition of learning for years in Vermont. So is there something that we, how would that process start if we're going to? I think it would be harder than what we try to do with doing this at the start of time. With the sleep stay. Can you just give us a flavor of what we're doing? You would have probably four weeks on with two weeks off. Shouldn't be counting trying to do it several years ago. I'm not four weeks, sorry. You'd have eight weeks on, two weeks off, eight weeks on, where there can be your interventions for kids and professional development during that time. And you can really start to catch kids. There are other states that have moved to that and have seen improved. And then some of the only thing that can say, you can't say it's a direct correlation. If we look at what's done internationally on 200 day calendars, which is where we really should be. In terms of 200 student days. 200 student days. It's not increasing the amount of learning. It's having 200 days for learning so you can really get deeper into things and you can actually give kids more time during the day. You know, you would have, that's the schedule. They go with longer chunks. I think it's 10 weeks on, two weeks off, and there's a six week break and then some summer time. Depending if you're in the Southern Hemisphere or the Northern Hemisphere of the world. So we're really, in the US we put our kids behind by saying there's 175 to 180 days. We're putting ourselves already behind the ball with our, and our kids are competing internationally for jobs. That's the kids right here competing internationally because of the access around the world that there is. So in terms of, let's see. So basically summer, if we're gonna try and do that, summer would be, go from. Basically July. It'd be, well, maybe more than that. It's like half of August. July, half of August. If it's six weeks. If it's one in June or one in August. Right. Maybe you have to talk about community facilities and air conditioning and things like that. It'd be a major, major lift. Okay. So how do you, one of the hardest things that you could attempt to do, politically and budgetarily? I mean just based on the School of Start Time Committee process and how challenging that was, even to. Any further discussion on this motion? Did somebody second it, I'm sorry. Cari, Cari. I thought I seconded it. Are you resubmitting? Okay. Chris seconded it, yeah, sorry. All those in favor of recommending the calendar as drafted to the SU Board for Adoptable, please say aye. Aye. Post, 2.3 at 46 update. So I would give you this piece of it right now that, and I'm sorry you don't have a written report. I'm hopeful that I'll have something next week for the SU Board. Because we're in the two track mode that we're in right now. Laura has been doing a great job with trying to get all the fiscal and human resources points aligned. We've been able to start, we're registered as an organization with the federal government with, we have our tax ID with the tax system. When I said federal government, it's the Department of Education at the federal level with state labor, with Secretary of State's office, and what else am I supposed to do? The regular federal. Regular federal. The things you would need in order to pay employees. Yeah, so all that said, we have to start spinning up the software for a single organization. And now we're gonna start, besides the legal cost, this is where we're gonna start incurring other costs. If we get to $10,000 to create a single entity in Emmerich, we have to start now. We don't have a choice, or we will not be ready for operation until I want. So no matter where it goes, I gave, Lori and I, I sent the memo, Lori wrote it, but to Emmerich to start the process to start a single entity construction in our accounting system. So we'll be receiving those bills. We're also, I mean, we have a project plan that's pretty extensive, but some of it is 15-minute tasks just so we don't drop anything. I think it's pretty comprehensive. It's been crossed over by four or five districts that have already merged. And we also have, and I'm more willing to share that plan, but when you look at it, you say, wait a minute, this looks like unbelievable amount of work. I'll give you an example on there, change the letterhead. Well, it's a word document going there, change the name, and you're done. So it's just that we don't want to miss anything we don't think of, and we're actually dealing with our colleagues that are in force merger. So we're all trying to make sure we're not missing a task. Lori's got a business manager cohort, I've got a superintendent cohort. We're trying to do the least amount possible, and say, does it really need to be done by July 1? Triad. It's really, like here's a good example. We have on there changed the domain name. Well, we don't need to do that by July 1, so it doesn't need to be July 1. It needs to be done at some point, but it doesn't need to be operational for July 1. So those are the questions. We're asking pretty hard that question every time we have a task. And we're starting to meet with our colleagues at Central Office, and I don't think it's gonna be much that really affects the schools themselves, that we need to have them, and we've had a conversation with the principals a couple of times. They have pretty much times, they don't see anything that is really heavy that's gonna hit them, but it's really the business and operations piece. Okay, so. Do you need a kind of a statement by the Executive Committee, or by the SE Board to allocate resources for some of this stuff, or so, where is that? So we're, you know, that's part of what's in the district organization. I mean, to be able to take out money in Luev. In Luev, we're in a gray area right now. Of whether we're allowed to use SGU resources for doing this work or not. You appointed as the Board resources for legal funds for doing the work. There's not a good answer, either way. It's, you know, the way the agency has set it up is that you set up a fund that's where you collect where the bills are. You pay, you take out a loan to pay in Luev, and then the new organization pays for it on the other side. We also know that some of those voluntary mergers, some of that was paid for from the previous organizations from talking to colleagues. So, you know, we're kind of in that, it's a gray area. That's the best way I can give it to you. I think any time the Board ratifies work like that, it's a good thing to do, just for the Board to say that we're in support of doing this. And it helps us with the auditors and, you know, that we have a board approval. I didn't bring you any motions like that tonight, but this was literally, we had Monday night, or Monday day when we were going down to the Tassels. But we could expect that. I said, Maury, I was like, where are we for timeline? She's like, I need to start this now. I just don't have any more time to wait. And I've been trying to wait, but we've got to be ready to be operational July 1st. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm a little torn on whether to ask this question or sort of raise this topic, but I guess the question I want to ask is if there's a sense on the part of anyone on the executive committee of, you know, sort of what people will advocate for doing at the organizational meeting on the 8th. Like is there still an organized, concerted strategy to push to adjourn that meeting before business is conducted? Or, you know, do we think that the next meeting will go any differently than the previous one did? I guess, and I'm asking because I don't know, just to know like how to, you know, think through some of the things that Bill and Maury are struggling with, as well as some of the things that you might end up doing as a board or as a collection of boards with regard to teacher contracts and, you know, other things that I'm sure will come down the line. I think that there are two separate issues to me. So one is that I think we should make some statement of support of the work that they're doing right now. And then we're going to have very little control. I haven't heard anything, but we would have very little control of what happens at that meeting regardless of how prepared we are. So I guess it's, are we willing to take the risk just as we're taking the risk with the contracts to say, you know, we support, which we should. You know, we support the work that they're doing right now. What happens at that meeting at this point, even if we hear feedback from anybody right now, we really won't have any, I guess maybe a better way of saying what I was trying to say is that my preference personally would be that the board express some kind of support for a two-track process because at the moment, you know, we are creating challenges in great areas or we, great areas and challenges are being created, particularly for our administrators, but also for, you know, our teachers and others who work with the schools. But I can imagine that a proposal along those lines would be controversial, isn't I guess? It might be at the organizational meeting, but I think we bring it up at the full board meeting in a week. I mean, because then you'll have at least a sense of what the, should I have to support in a current organization and not worry about the organizational meeting. Because because it sounds like if nothing happens there or if it's adjourned again, that the transitional board will somehow have the authority to make decisions. Because I just do not see a vacuum because, you know, the way the court did not issue an injunction, this legal process is gonna happen. Unless something else in the convene senate wanted me by this would have to be an emergency either appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court and I don't know if that is or isn't happening and then they would have to issue some type of injunction and say stop or for the Senate, you know, and the House get together, the Senate passes House get together and we can do that. But either way, taking this preliminary steps to ensure that we will not, you know, be too adversely impacted by July 1st. You know, because it'll be a vacuum. I can't imagine it being a vacuum. You know, say that there's no, you know, that the House and Senate don't get together and so nothing passes with Governor signing it and the meeting is adjourned. You know, the transitional board is seated and the language is vague enough. There's an opinion on that. I don't know how tight it is, Chris, because I don't, I will say, you know, what I thought before was directed from AOE and we'll have the way the Attorney General has written since then. I said, no, those weren't directives. Those are now opinions. So I understand what you're referencing was a letter that came from the Secretary about a week and a half ago that I sent out to all of you. But in there was expressed, this is our opinion as the Agency of Education. I didn't say that that was a directive. I just don't know. A directive is only an opinion too. Based on, we think we have this power to direct you to do this and it carries no, I think if you, if it was gonna be challenged, you would be going back to the documents that support you, that entity, whoever's giving the directive, having the authority to issue it or provide that opinion. And so, you know, I don't, directive versus opinion, I think in this situation is not a, to me, a game changer in terms of whether the authority is there. And I think the articles are vaguely enough written that, and then Kyle brought this up and said, okay, who really has the power here? And seemed that the transition board may have some authority along those lines. And again, I just don't see it being a vacuum because it just, it says, okay, we've done all this stuff and no one has any authority to do anything to make the school year go forward. And I don't think that any judge would be construing it that way and just say, oh, sorry, there's a big hole here. So these kids aren't gonna be in school next year. I just, I don't envision that. I apologize, I must have missed this part of the letter, but was there a piece of it that said like, because my impression was that the transition board really has no power at all. If you look at the articles, it's a little vague in terms of saying it has the power to do what boards do, I think, is how I'm recalling it. There's a phrase in there. Yeah, and so that's what I'm talking about, that it's, and that, I mean, Kyle Lenz wrote this up months ago, I was saying, when they first came out, because it was not well-crafted in terms of delineating what authority the different boards had at what times. So. But if it's not crystal clear, how much risk are we willing to take? Why not advocate as the school board who understands better what the risks are, what the implications of not pursuing the dual-track approach are? I think that's, you know, I think that was pretty clear in the meeting is that people weren't necessarily, in the organization, they weren't necessarily thinking about what the implications were for students or the system. They're just, you know, expressing their dissatisfaction with what's been placed before us. So I feel a responsibility to communicate, listen, if we don't go this route, it may work out, but it may not, and here's what it means or could mean. But the rat you're talking about is just doing the authorization to move forward on this. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think. I mean, my concern just to be, you know, for the sake of stating it is that, you know, when I saw the red in the paper of the Secretary of Education sort of talking about using all legal means to, you know, ensure that the law is carried out, my interpretation of that, or my sense of it, was a threat of like taking over the school districts. Yeah. Essential. I could see that. I don't know. I don't know. Parallel. Well, they, they do everything under parallel, but that doesn't mean it, but I, I guess, and I guess one question that I had and I wanted to ask the committee about this was, I don't know the law. I imagine that there is something in statute that permits the state board or the agency to step in if they feel like there is, I don't know what it is. It's hard to do that. So, I was. What would be the process? I'm sorry. What would be the process for that? I don't know Chris, because I haven't been done through it. Okay. What I wanted to suggest was that we ask our attorney to explain to us what the statute actually says and under what conditions, you know, that actually could be contemplated and what the process would be. Because I, I don't know. And I don't even know how to like do the research on it. So that was one thing I wanted to suggest because I'm a little concerned about. You know, I would imagine there are emergency powers that if a school district is completely failing or something that the state board can come in and take over. I mean, I mean, I mean, you've seen that in other states where they take over entire systems. They take over Romney in the 70s. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Romney was taken over for a couple of years. What? Because of the state board. I don't know the reason, Chris. I haven't looked in. I just know that that's the history that happened. I think around 72 and 73. The state itself is close to the former Romney school district. And I mentioned there is a process, but I didn't really do what it is. So I guess I would love to have, you know, somebody's legal opinion about sort of what that looks like because it does concern me. And I think it's, you know, I agree with you, Rick, that it would be an extraordinary, extraordinary, it's not really the word for breathtaking, maybe. It's the better word. Extraordinary. But I think it's like, it's kind of like a worst case scenario, it feels like to me for everybody. For everybody. I don't think that the secretary in my opinion probably wants to be put in that position. And I don't think we as board members want to see that happen either. No, you just, you give up too much input. Well, we lose all democracy. What? We lose all democracy at that point. You know, at least temporarily. Temporarily, right. Yeah, you know, that we would not be making decisions in the schools at that point. Right. So I don't know if it's a real, how likely it is that that would happen, how challenging it would be for the board or for the secretary to make that case. I just don't know, but I would like to know. I don't think it would be very challenging if there was no entity that could make decisions for a school district that was up and cause it's gonna come into being. And say, yeah, this entity is a legal entity, but there's no mechanism to move it forward or making decisions for it. I would say that's kind of like, I would say that that's not being unusual for the secretary if there was no other way of coming in and appointing people. It's kind of like emergency dollars. It's kind of like taking over, you know, those, the problem they had up in J.P., where they took over the enterprise and they appointed a trustee or a, there may be another word for them. But yeah. We're pointing this person to make decisions because this entity is just rudderless and it has to go forward. And so that would be the parallel of not doing something. And they would get it the person we would. That's exactly right. Which is why, yeah. So there's this panel here. But anyway, it would be good to get an opinion and just so people are aware of what the emergency powers that the secretary has in the situation where there is no entity that has been, that is in place to run the organization. So I would, on the other issue, I would say we should bring it up next week at the full board meeting. Yeah, that makes sense. But I guess I would like to do this by, again, by motion. Like something like a motion that to direct bill to ask our attorney for a written opinion about the conditions under which the state board or the agency of education can assume control of school districts. I think that is the area. I would make that motion. And just, so, but in the event that there was no governing entity in place. What does the state board, what is the secretary of education's options? What are their emergency powers to come in? Or maybe more specifically, what are their, and what are the, in statute, what are all possible legal means? Give the meat to that bare bones assertion. What does that mean? Is it okay for the sake of gravity if we keep the motion to your initial sentence? You don't want me to ramble? I'm just thinking the rest of what you said made it clear. What I would do is, and the way I interpret what you're not sending us, I'm sure, because you have an emotion with you. Yeah, we need a second for that. I'll second it. Can we, did you get that? Well, did you just say to authorize the superintendent to see? To direct the superintendent. Okay. To seek legal counsel around. To ask our attorney for a written legal opinion. Around conditions under which the agency of education or state board of education can take control of school districts? I think it would be a secretary of education. Secretary of education? I don't think it would be. If you want, you know, it could be the state board. So you would want to ask it the way. Under what circumstance? Right, right, right. Yeah, and she said that. What conditions? What conditions? A, another entity could come in and soon control over. I wouldn't say that. I would say just exactly the way it is knowing the pieces of the statutes that take over by the state board of the secretary. Would you want to specify, you know, in the event that there isn't kind of a no vote? You know, you don't, you want, what you want is at least, let me say how I interpret it first. You want to know all the ways in which that can happen. Yeah. So you don't want to put any qualifiers on it about like no vote or these other pieces. If you want to know the statute, what the statute says, what power does either the state board of secretary have to say I'm assuming control of a school district? And then you from there as a board having that information can use that to have the decision of if we have a no vote, what is, where does that leave us? Because I don't think you're going to get something specific for your current condition. I actually know there isn't, I don't remember any rewriting of the statute of when the state board can take control in the past six or seven years. So you want to know those conditions. And then I would have to think that the, any statute for authority like that would not have enumerated and only the enumerated and would have a safety valve. It's going to have some vagueness as Dorothy was saying for judgment. So is there a second for this? I seconded it. But I do have a concern about it is that we're, we're looking, or asking for information about the narrow issue of the worst case scenario of the state taking over. But I'm also wanting to know what are the implications of not having a board or a budget in place when the new union commences. There are other, there could be other implications in terms of contracts and just business realities. So I don't know if we need a legal opinion about that, but I think that's in some ways very important information for the board and an extension of community to understand when we have that organizational meeting. And that's a good point of me, unless we're to have contracts because under the default articles, contracts are respected. So those would be in place. But. But now we pay that? Yeah, for sure. That's the problem because the, you know, with the new entity, the budgets that were approved or maybe approved for local accounts, I don't think they're effective for this new entity because it's a new entity. And then with that budget, it's its own. I mean, so I think that's where a gap comes in potentially. Especially if you don't have a board. If you don't have a board, that's the bigger problem because the board at least would have the authority to borrow against future budget. Well, that's, you want to go rebury that opinion from the secretary. You know, I saw where they said, but there is no previous budget to, but isn't it, aren't they looking statutorily to? The second one that has in their current bill, the statement. And that's also my other point is that, you know, a board would, it would be something to say that board, even if you didn't have the previous budget and they weren't able to get a budget in place by July 1st, wouldn't be able to borrow against based on the cumulative budget of the previous decision. That was at, I mean, that's why they're looking for the legislative to solve whatever it is. Right, but I mean, even if they didn't fix that, I think that there would be the implied authority to do that as a new entity. And you may say, you may look and say, well, maybe not, but you know what, I think. At that point, I think it's at the secretaries of the State Board's discretion. Because there's nothing in statute. Well, it wouldn't be at their discretion because they couldn't make up a statute and foreign authority. Because there is no statute. Can we just talk about mechanisms for good money? Yeah. How about we receive money for money to pay our expenditures? Who gives us that? The authority? No. Who gives us the money? It literally gives us the money so that we can run the school district. The voters currently? Okay, but who are the mechanism? They give it to who and then who gives it to us? The voters authorize the school board's to borrow and move tax collection. Yeah, but no, we didn't have that. So we're currently, we have money coming in from somewhere. Supervisor Union cannot borrow. Right, I'm not. The school district can. The taxes come in and staggered approaches from August on. But in the absence of a tax rate, that money will not be coming in because the residents will not get a tax bill. Who do we borrow from? We borrow from a financial institution. Okay, so. Based on the clad or something. But it's based on the tax. Right, but the tax doesn't come from the town. It comes from where? It comes from a calculation using the town taxes via the state for state aid. Right, but where's the check that literally the money's coming in for state aid? It's technically coming from the towns. Then there's a state aid component we get from the state. They reconcile it depending on the property values in the town and they say most towns don't collect enough in taxes to pay for the education funding. So the state, when they switch this up, they have the towns paying us directly and so the town of Worcester would rate one check to U32 and one check to the Worcester School District. That's how it goes. But in the absence of taxes, that's the problem. Because you need to have the taxes in running this formula that allows us to borrow. There's still state aid, we still get about 20% state aid and that comes in in three times a year. So if there's no revenue stream, there's nothing for us to borrow against. Right, and you need permission to borrow. From the voters and currently Super Budgering Unions can't borrow. So the new school district would need permission to borrow from somebody. So is there like a line of credit then with a financial institution that... That's how it would work. But you have to have that authority to go do that. Right, and it's not in current statute. The current statute is written for budgets for current school districts, not for ones that hadn't been created. I don't know how to say it a different way. But that's what they're trying to amend so that the new WCU-USD could borrow money. It's currently it's set up where... We would have to have a line of credit which means you lose all the interest income you've been budgeting for. About $300,000. So just a time note that we're warned until six and I believe the U32 Board has a meeting here. It starts at six. Yep, we can let's get a word. What's that? We can close the door and lock it. We could do that. Might be some legal issues with that as well. And this board's dinner is going on tonight too, so there's some... Okay, so let's dispose of this motion one way or the other and then we can turn to your question which might be a separate motion. I don't know who we ask about that stuff and it's also a lawyer. It's something we might not need to ask anymore. We can actually say that without a board and a budget maybe this all works out, but maybe it doesn't and we don't know exactly if we'll be able to operate this school. All right, okay, let's take that up. So the motion is to direct bill to get a written opinion from the lawyer about the circumstances or conditions under which the state board or the agency of education can assume control of school districts. Okay, and we want to have that by next Thursday so we can... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Call Chris Leibolt tomorrow morning. But yeah, I don't know if we'll be able to get to us by then. I don't know if we'll be able to get to us by then. That's the strong preference. Is there any further discussion of that motion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion please. So do you... One second motion on this topic or do you feel like it's... I don't know who to ask either. I sense that there's real concern from our administrators about this question and to me that's enough. That says there's real risk here of not having a board in the budget. But you know, the real risk is either enhanced or not by saying this is how it statutorily works and this is where the authority lines lie and if there's not this entity in place that can access the funds then that becomes more convincing than just saying we think it will be a nightmare and because you're kind of going knowing because of the certain things that are in place that need to be in place in order to fund a budget. So I think maybe getting an additional opinion on what is the authority, the borrowing authority because that sounds like the issue that would come up if we didn't have a budget in place. What are the entities that can borrow to keep the school going and how that works and have that explained because just assuming it would be a nightmare without it said well how do you know that? This is how we know it. I'm not assuming anything, I'm just saying I have a risk. Right. Like with this opinion what would we ask? I think it almost sounds like it would be another attorney knowing the financial angle or business manager knowing the financial aspect of how schools are really funded and where the money comes from and what authorities need to be in place for an entity to be borrowing against future tax revenues. So just to lay that out. So it was the question about who has the authority to borrow money on behalf of the school district? The question is that if there was not a board in place on July 1, 2019 and assuming that that is the operational effective operational date because it all is pinned on that. If there's an extension of time then nothing happens actually. So I would back you up on dates because there will need to be a vote of the voters on that whether you can borrow and you need to have the board in place at least 30 days and I'm really cutting it close, probably 35 to 40 days to get a warning out to have voters come out to vote to give you authorization to go borrow. Right, I'm just talking about whatever. If you don't have a board in July 1, it's too late. No, I agree, I'm not, I think it's, I hopefully said budget in place, if not. I heard you say board. Okay, then it was my mistake because I think you're right. You have to have the authority that can borrow with the entity that is able to borrow in place before July 1. We have to have the authority which only the voters can grant. To the board, yes. To the board, yes. But if the voters don't grant that authority, it doesn't matter if there's a board or not because no one will be able to, at least. True, well actually no, I don't think that's true. I think that if there was not a budget in place, well, so let me ask you, does the, so would with the board vote, you also have to have an article that says and we authorize this board to borrow against future revenues if you, to address your point. You have it every year. Okay, so there would have to be that article as part of, but that would be part of the board. Part of the budget vote we usually do. Well, not the budget vote. The board vote because of the budget vote. Not only you can't do it, the board is the only one that can authorize that vote. You have to have the board in place first. Oh, okay. That's part of the budget. Okay. Do you want to make a motion to ask another question or? I think we want to, we could do that at the SU Board meeting. Mr. SU Board meeting. Well, actually, what's the transition? What's the organizational? It's April 9th. April 8th is the organizational meeting. Okay. I think we need to go over for that. I think, I'm going to go ahead and, I would say direct the, make a motion to direct the superintendent to seek legal counsel on what are the implications of not having a board and budget, approved budget in place by July 1st. Thinking mainly fiscal, but there might be other implications. So I have a motion. I'll second it. So can you Lisa read that back? To direct the superintendent to seek legal counsel on what are the implications of not having a board and approved budget in place by July 1st. Fair. You're going to use, but you don't, I mean, just to learn from the understanding you said, you know, tying them together like that is, it's a, it's a multi-part question. Okay, so each one standing alone. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So put and or, budget in place. Okay. I'll accept that. You know, just a friendly amendment. Yeah. Is there any discussion on this motion? Further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Is there any other act 46 discussion? Do you have any part of that, or are you going to direct the motion? Yes. We did say we'd do that under 2.3. It'll be two minutes. Okay. Go for it. Just if we can all agree that, we can bring it up in the full form, but it'd be better to do it sooner. We could all agree that we would provide day care. Oh, day care? Yeah. For our community. So we can direct this for Tennessee so that we can make sure that more families come to that meeting, and we can work on the details. Do we need a motion for that then? Yes. Okay, so I make a motion that we find a means to provide day care, whether it's volunteer or for the organizational meeting so we can have more families attend. I second. Do we want to say that we're going to deploy the means, not find them? I mean, we can find them. Okay, so that's what we can just say to direct, to direct the superintendent to arrange for day care at the organizational meeting on April 8th. Yes. Is that good? Yeah, that works. Okay. Is this second? It is. Chris, any discussion on that motion? All those in favor? Thank you. Opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Any other act 46 discussion? Please do. Same with the run stage on me. It doesn't even make sense to have legal counsel at that meeting. We're not going to be going to talk about that at our next meeting. I think let's, I guess I'm just going to suggest that we bring that up at the ICRB. I can make a note to make sure that we do that. That was good. Okay. The 2.4 is the SU meeting agenda. It should give us a little bit of a draft in front of you. Are there any comments or suggestions for changes to this discussion agenda? So we have the board reorganization is complete on their reviewing board norms, considering the calendar that we're recommending out tonight. Act 46 update. We'll include a couple different things. 3.1 update is after the date in the meeting. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's probably left over, yeah, so. Maybe January 28th. We'll check the date. Okay. Thanks for that. I wanted to suggest that we, I wanted to ask the executive committee. I happened to attend a couple of weeks ago a presentation by students on the recently released data for the youth risk behavior assessment that's done statewide every couple of years, I think. And I just happened to be there because my son was part of a team that was presenting it. I found it really interesting and compelling. There was some just interesting data in there about challenges that students themselves are seeing, they're facing. And I thought it'd be great to invite students to kind of share their experiences and this data analysis they're working on and share how they perceive these concerns. So I'm thinking 10 or 15 minutes, but I'm not sure. Unless anybody objects, we won't plan to do that. Okay. We'll figure out where to put it. Maybe they should come here. Is there any written materials? Is there any written materials that they presented? Yeah, they have a print out of the data and they've got some slides that they put together. They all, the people that participated voted on what they thought their top three concerns were above of the middle school and high school. So yeah, it's a good, it's a good, it's a good thing. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. I just want to be sure that there's an actual space for them because sometimes we invite these people and we're very proud of them. But we say, well, you can put this on for the 15 minutes before we start and nobody's there. There's people going back and forth. They've done a good job. Let's honor that with their time in front of us. Yeah, very good one. So maybe we'll put it in with reports to the board. Yeah, I don't know if it's 4.1, if we'll plan it. I suggest 4.1. This is the first discussion and the first thing that we'll take out. They're the norms. Maybe before the norms, just in deference to their taking the time to be there. Okay. I have this note from, I think it's from the BSBA. Glory probably know about this that says, please be sure to add appointment of your SEU's voting delegate for the statewide health insurance to the first meeting of your SEU board because we'll get one vote other to ratify the agreement. And then it also came up that, do we need to have a discussion on teacher contracts because the proposal has been made. It's been made. So I was hoping that we could have a 4.4 that we would talk to everyone and I'm trying to get there if we're going to have everybody, enough attendance in each board to be able to ratify the teacher contract. Just trying to get that done. They're voting this at the end of the school. Okay. So we can, some boards like Romney and Chris can do it on the first. I just want to really make sure we have it all done so we can print on the contracts on April 10th and get them on the teachers after all this. Okay. So basically, there's three items we're adding to the discussion agenda. One is the student presentation. One is, this is actually an action item that we are appointing representative to the VEI. We begin to let, as part of the VEI, we already had a report on the VEI. And then there's an item on the action. Do you want that in the reorganization on the interaction? And Matthew, you and I can fix it. Yeah, we can. We'll figure out where. Okay. It's really. Yeah. Is that good? Yeah. Next week? Yeah. Okay. So now we need to go into executive session. So is there a motion? Sorry. Oh yeah. That's a good point. See you right here next. Thank you. Dorothy. Yeah. Are we going to do it at the SU meeting? Yeah. Yeah, we'll do it there. Sorry. No, no. It's valuable to have. Do you want to take care of this retirement? Lower? Yeah. We'll be good. Yes. So I will move that we accept with appreciation from the retirement of Joanne Mankoff, an effective. Yeah. Vector of the end of the school year. So I'll fund the amendment to move and accept the retirement and appreciate Joanne Mankoff's multiple services and participation as opposed to appreciating her retirement. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. I totally agree with that. Yeah. I know. The way it would read. We're not that right yet. Yeah, right. Is there a second for that? A second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Somebody want to move the. How much do we go into executive session? Go to the board orders first. Go to the board orders. So I will move that we approve expenditures of 263,709 dollars and 23 cents for the month of November. 23 cents for 23. 23. 23. Okay. A second. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the orders, please say hi. Aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries. Okay. Yeah, let's move that we go into executive session for personnel. Any purposes of discussing the personnel issue? A second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.