 All right, yes, thanks all sorry for the late meeting. We had another forum that ran over. I'm called to order Rooks for the Montpellier Roxbury Board of School Commissioners at 6.52. So first order is public comment, which is five minutes. So I'm Elaine Tuey. And please either come to the microphone or the chair, and you just denounce yourself, but please denounce yourself again. You're not going to be louder. So I'm Elaine Tuey, I'm a parent of a student, current student, and I have two other students who will be coming up through. One's two, so not for a while. And I'm just here to kind of give some input about health education that my kids reflected back to me. And I guess that education, that piece is that I would like to see that be more inclusive of all students. And I guess the big pieces of that that have come up are being able to redirect conversations and being really kind of educated on some subjects that are difficult or even triggering or traumatizing. And having some outside people maybe come in and talk on those specific topics. And yeah, I think that's the biggest piece. My child is transgender, so there were things that happened last year that he actually is not in health class now, and a correspondence class to cover. His health education is not acceptable. The class needs to actually be, and the curriculum needs to be set up in a way where my child is included, and all children are included in that curriculum. Thank you. Hi, I'm Mara Iverson, I also live in Montpelier, and I also wanted to chat about health education. My focus is mainly that sex education in the Montpelier School District really needs a lot of kind of a lot of things. It could use some review, it could use some thinking about whether more educators are necessary, whether they're trained to offer appropriate information. I actually mostly, the first time I got worried about it was when I had a student, I teach sex ed in town at the church, I teach the OWL program, and one of my students who had been through my program came and said, the health teacher today told us that non-latex condoms don't prevent pregnancy and STIs. And I was like, well then what would be the point of wearing one if it didn't prevent pregnancy and STIs. And so I was like, what are you learning at school if that seemed concerning to me. So that's my, I'd really be interested in having a deeper conversation about what we could do to enhance broad and deep in sex education in Montpelier School District. Great, thank you both. Yeah, we are going to continue discussions about it. Is there a timeline or a review? It will certainly appear on the agenda. We haven't set any timeline. I think we're likely going to do it in the, you know, in the guise of making sure we promote equity on a, you know, agenda and, you know, basis. Great. Did you figure out how to find the agenda? We did, we figured out that cell phones don't access all of your agendas, so that that's good to know. That is good to know. We both have access to different information and neither of us have access to all of it. Huh, okay. Well that's a bug. Let's fix that. I'll figure that out. Look into that. It's all accessible to a group. Is that where you went? No, we're doing it today and you can't, you can't scroll over to the board packets online so I didn't know there were board packets. And then on hers, you can see the board packets but they stop at December. I can see all the way to the end of the year. I just can't scroll over. Huh, interesting. Thank you for letting us know that. It's better than when you couldn't even get anything on your iPad. And we've improved a little bit. Still a problem. I'm not sworn in. You haven't sworn in yet? I don't have a comment there. I thought about it before this. You knew it by phone, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're supposed to do it before your term's up. Consent agenda. Okay. And yeah, thanks for your reminder. Unfortunately, the learning focus piece, which is a big part of our agenda, the students were unable to come tonight. There were some things that popped up. So we have a much shorter agenda, which since we're starting late, is not the worst thing in the world. We're talking about that. Is Renee on call if we need her earlier? Yeah, I can check. Okay. Is she here? No. She's going to Google chat in. I don't think it's just me talking to her. I move to accept the consent agenda. Okay. Second. Any... I have a quick... Oh my God, I'm sorry. Well, good question. So you can get it on your phone, but maybe we just need more clear navigation or instructions. Okay. So did that have to do with the consent agenda? It could be Apple. It could be operating systems. Yeah. Well, to address that, I noticed that it wouldn't scroll up anyways. It doesn't matter. Okay. I have a question about the consent agenda. It was something relating to the superintendent's report, which is the Unified Basketball Team. Okay. So do you want to remove that from the... Yes. Okay. So let's make a motion to... Just to ask a question. Or we don't even need to remove it. We can approve it and I just would like to ask a question. Afterwards? Yeah, let's go. Right. Can we have a discussion after the motion is approved to accept the consent agenda? So we can discuss after we approve it? Yes. Okay. After you make the motion to accept, is there any more discussion? And then after the discussion is over, we would accept. Even for consent agenda? I thought you couldn't do that. Well, let's just pull that and approve without that item. That'll discuss it. I am in the mind of the motion to... I am in the mind of the motion to... Heather sent out a different distribution list this afternoon just adding Rockford Village School. Yeah. So I am in my motion to say that... I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda taking out the superintendent's report and noting that the list of where agendas and warnings are different than was in the packet. Does that make sense? Yes. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Your question. This will be very brief. The unified basketball team. Yeah. Is that Montpelier and U32? Is that a combined sports team? We have some students from U32 on that team. Yes. Matt McLean's son Noah is on it as well as Caroline Canary's daughter is on it. So, yeah, we often share things with U32 when they don't offer. So... Or we don't offer. So that's great. Because that kind of does tell some of my question that doesn't need to be addressed for next time. Maybe this summer it could be addressed. But a question that... I've received numerous questions about, well, how are we sharing resources with U32? Are we operating in silos? Do we share... Are there opportunities to leverage economies of scale and offer enhanced programming? And I know we are doing that. Yeah. The quick answer is yes. So when U32... I'm sorry if I cut you off. U32 offers something that we don't, for instance, football, then Montpelier students can try out for that team. And when Montpelier offers something that U32 doesn't debate, then U32 students can join us. How about with academic programming? We don't have as much sharing going on with academic programming. So I guess a question, and I don't know how difficult... Yeah, it's hard. It gets a little more difficult when you're talking about classes, in-house classes. So it's primarily for extra curriculars where we're seeing this. Would it be possible at some point to just get an outline of where we are sharing those resources? Is that what the owner is? No. Is that what's... I think helping the discussion about this is something that regularly comes up with. Thanks. I guess that wasn't going to impact my vote on this. So I'm trying to make a motion to approve the superintendent's report. Yes. I'll second that. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. I can also say, just a little bit, the final... Heather, you know, this is the final unified basketball game is... Next Tuesday the 11th at 3.30. It's a great time to come and cheer on the kids. Thursday. Thursday. So if anybody can come, then please come on over. I'll take a picture and tweet it up. But it's a great... It's a good time. It's a good time. Great. So next is board business. The first item, when we put our merger agreement together, there was a typo of a couple of digits on a statutory reference. And a cut-and-paste job did not get removed. So the articles of merger between Roxbury and Montpelier reference a statute that does not exist. And we're the specifics of the packet of... Yeah. She just printed out the emails with it. Yeah. So we talked to Pieteri and said the simplest way to kind of cross the eyes and not tease on this was just to have the board recognize and approve that that was a typographical error and that there was a correction to that error. It was like section 55, and it was printed out like section 5536. Right. The only change for the public is that it's just a number that was incorrect. So they're not changing any substance. You're just changing the number to reflect the actual number. Exactly. It is a cut-and-paste mistake. Jim, who found the cut-and-paste mistake? Steve Dale, who was the... He was just going back and reading the old... He was going nightly... He says it has been brought to my attention. I don't know. Brought it to his attention. I was curious. I think I could have met someone at the SBA or maybe he had a family member that was having some problems sleeping. Excited to read the pressure agreement again. So if we could have a vote on making that change. So we need a motion. We need a motion. That's what I meant to say. Do we need a motion? That's the full thing that Steve said. At the bottom? We need that if that's what we need to do. Sure. Just kind of along. All right. I will move that as follows. The articles of agreement were approved by the electorate of the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools in spring 2017. In March 2019, we were informed of a typographical error in Article 11. The original approved article specified that in the new district the vote on the quote annual budget and public questions conducted by Australian ballot pursuant to 17 VSA Chapter 5513B close quote. There is no Chapter 5513B. The intent of that wording was to simply read pursuant to 17 VSA Chapter 55. That typo is hereby corrected by vote of the Montpelier Roxbury School District Board. Article 11 is modified to read, the unified district board of school directors shall propose annual budgets in accordance with 16 VSA Chapter 11. The vote on the annual budget and public questions shall be conducted by Australian ballot pursuant to 17 VSA Chapter 55. I'll second. All those in favor? Or any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Done that. Next item is after school discussion. I'll just open it. Who's going to actually do it? Someone has to actually do this now, right? Where is it filed? I don't know. We just thought I'd throw that out there. Good idea. Okay, sorry. That's a good question. We inform. Like, we could take the minute. I would ask a few of the person who did this. Yeah, or you could just do that. Steve would know where to go with it. Right. So, where is this kept? Who's the keeper of this? What happened to know right now? I'm assuming maybe the agency of education. Yeah, the district clerk. Oh, right, the district clerk. That's right. Oh, that's probably the person. So, any legacy? Yeah. Yeah, well. That's great. So, after school discussion, we've had quite a bit of progress on making the decision about what the after school programming will be next year visually on the provider. As you know, back in December, no, January, back in January, we taxed, taxed, and appointed a committee to set up an RFP process where we would take in bids and that the committee would work with Libyan advising her about a decision. That committee has been formed. I want to thank all the members, including Bridget, but also we have a couple of community members, Christine, Zaki, Rebecca Chopin, Cassie Wilner, Sam Brondig, who's a student representative, and then Brian Herity, the principal of UES, and Matt Roy, the vice principal at MSMS, who also participated in the committee. We've received, we have the committee work to set up some parameters, put together the RFP. We've set it out, we've received four proposals. One from CC, which is the existing provider, and is an entity of the Washington Central Supervisor Union. One from the after school collaborative, which is doing business known as Part Two, which is a for-profit provider that provides after school services for a lot of schools in Chikunin County. It's looking to expand into Washington County. The Y, which actually does programming nationally, but they have a pretty vigorous program in Vermont, and it provides throughout the state, including to our neighbors in Waterbury and Barrie, and the Montpellier REC department, we've passed out. We're weighing costs, we're weighing capacity, we're weighing kind of all the factors that we put together. But a piece I wanted to talk about, or let me talk about in addition to, you know, the proposals is as we make a decision, there's kind of two components to after school care. There's the license component, which is regulated by the state, which most of the UES programming falls into. As you start to get to the older grades, we have a lot more what we call enrichment programming, which is somewhat like co-curricular, but a little different. It's the more segment programming that oftentimes focuses on an activity, mountain biking, a sport, woodworking, et cetera, that's not licensed. That programming right now, a lot of that programming is provided by the current provider and funded through a combination of fees, subsidy from the district, and then revenue that's generated from the licensed programming, particularly at Union Elementary School. That's a critical piece of our after school care. We did not ask for the RFPs to include that. We asked the RFPs only to include the licensed portion. Three of the RFPs only included the licensed portion. One of the RFPs also included the non-licensed after school portions that the committee is trying to consider it with that in mind. But what we want to do with the non-license enrichment program, we obviously want that to continue. It's very popular. It does great things for kids. We want to continue along the value lines that currently exist, and with as much continuity as possible. But we also want to think about chances to really expand and stabilize that, and also fix some issues we've had. For instance, this has been some issues with transportation and doing that legally in a way that meets demand. So one consideration that we've been batting around is bringing that piece in district, and that would require a commitment of current funds and probably some additional funds to do that to make that sustainable. But there's a lot of advantages to that, and I'll be kind of explaining the thinking. Sure. We're in the beginning stages of this, and I have something that was not part of your board packet, and I apologize for that. I was getting feedback up until three o'clock today. I don't know who would do that. From some members of the after-school committee, and I wanted to make sure I heard from people. And so this is very much draft. So put that in mind. The district, we have budgeted, and it has passed because our budget passed, $37,000 towards some sort of after-school piece. So what this proposal, this draft proposal, is putting out there. Let me just do this one. Is that we hire a new position. So we hire a position for a .5 right currently. That's what we're thinking the need is from leadership team. A .5 extended day enrichment coordinator. That person would be responsible for organization logistics, parent registration, collecting fees, working with our business office to making it happen. It would be very similar to food services. How food services is run currently, which is run as an enterprise. So we would add an additional enterprise, and I'm actually happy Grant is not in the room because he starts to choke up a little bit when I suggest that, but because for him it's a little difficult, but we can do that. We already have it in place with food services. So that position would be collecting the funds. They'd be going out in the community to find community partnerships, serving students to find out what their likes and dislikes and what they really want for club like activities. We would also be looking at, so there's that position. So I'll separate that first. That's what I'm proposing for the board. I believe that the $37,000 would cover a .5 position under the AFSCME contract. If you were also looking at these club activities being, we'd ask parents to contribute as they do now in a very low cost way. So that cost would also help provide sustainability to that position, as well as increase our capacity over time. So one of the pieces that we really are looking at is to have licensed engaged child care from K through six offered to our students and then starting with lots of engaging activities that are part of that process. So they're not just sitting there doing colored pages, right? Provided by someone else. Contracted out, yes. Contracted by somebody else, they would be responsible through our, through work with our principals and our community around what engaging club like activities, those that would require. Then when students move into seventh grade, they move into more enrichment extended day, not licensed choice activities that we offer multiple, very similar to what we have now. So if it's more sustainable because it would be through a district lens, we'd be able to protect it and to move forward with increasing our capacity. We see that at the leadership team level as a potential possibility to transition students well between eighth and ninth grade and provide a bridge in a very fun, easy way. As well as increase our capacity for opportunities that are not sports, drama or music related here at the high school necessarily. We have excellent opportunities for kids if they're into sports and drama and music. If you're not into those three things, then we have less opportunity here at the high school. We're also very cogn, I've been talking to Dave Bennett quite a bit who is a person who's been doing this work at the high school. We're both, he and I are very concerned with over scheduled, highly, highly involved kids and so providing opportunities to let go of some of that and work with anxiety which is huge with our over scheduled, highly functioning kids as well as provide opportunities for kids who just don't earn into sports and earn into drama but still want to have a group to work on leadership skills and develop themselves and working with people without a screen in their face. So Dave and I have been talking quite a bit about that and I also feel as Renee comes on in a little bit that's an excellent project for a new principal to take on here at the high school to help vision and build that program. So back to the position is key because it allows us to sustain, build and grow from where we are now. Questions? How is that money currently being used? Currently it is given to CC to offset the cost at MSMS. Tina. Would the theory be that I understand what this person is going to do and then the activities themselves are self-supporting? Through parent revenue. Right, through a fee. So the vision is not that the person hired to be the coordinator would be the person providing. No, in fact we wouldn't want them to provide the services. We want them to focus on the logistical piece so the people who do provide services can really focus on that and develop high-quality programming. Would that increase the cost to students who are using the program? I don't envision that happening. We haven't gone through cost structure. We're not at that stage yet. We're just not there yet, but I don't envision that happening. But the disbursement to CC, it wasn't that direct as this is going to offset the cost to our students by this percentage. We don't have that information. It just went to a general fund at Washington Central. We sent a check to Washington Central and $18,000 increments twice a year. So I know you're going to ask. When I look at budget sheets from the current Community Connections program, I can't tell where that money goes. It goes into Washington Central's pot. My overarching concern and answer to my question is that I think an after-school program is in the community and public good. I think the idea of a hybrid payment model, what we have right now, fees for those who use it, but those fees being brought down by contributions from the community I think is a pretty healthy model. I just want to ensure that we continue with that general model and aren't putting too much of the cost and too much of that financial burden on those families. No, I agree with you. That's where we want to go as well. That's the idea that we want to make happen. Michelle. So it says under the... You just explained that the half-time person would be sort of an administrative physician rather than not work directly with kids. And it says under here, recruit club advisors would be one of their responsibilities. Are we anticipating that the revenue from program fees is enough to pay the club advisors? I think so. That's the piece that we have to think about with cost structure. So we're not there yet. And so there's lots of questions there, right? It's not a co-curricular because it's not structured in the same way. I'm imagining six weeks programming one day a week. Very similar to what's happening now. So that doesn't fall under our co-curricular teacher contract. So we want to look at how much do we need to... That would be a new world for us. How much do we pay people for an hour and a half a week after school to do woodworking? And if they're a community member, what does that look like? What does the teacher... What does that look like? Those are still questions that we need to uncover which thus the position to help us work through those pieces. But generally speaking that's what you're anticipating that the program fees would pay... The program fees plus the budgeted amount would help pay for fee things. Eventually, if we increase our capacity which I would really like to do when you're coming to the board of future budgeting you're saying let's increase this line so that we can access more kids so that we can intentionally target more kids with this programming. So I definitely want to see more kids get in the program and I'm okay with supporting it with the budget but I... You had told us back in the beginning of this conversation in the winter that it was unusual for community to budget funds for after school because we're not legally allocated to provide anything after 3 o'clock. For middle school, yes. So, but we had asked that question of the Vermont after school association. Did we get any further information from them as to whether there are other districts that subsidize? Did we ask them specifically? I've talked to... more specifically. My understanding is there are some districts that do some sort of... We don't really know the answer to that. We don't really know the answer to that. For instance, she has mentioned that South Burlington does a lot of stuff in the district that is traditionally covered that other schools tend to cover through contracts. And the piece of separating the extended day and the licensed child care I'm not sure what districts do with that piece. I mean, we do pay co-curricular stipends for sports coaches and that kind of thing. Maybe just sports coaches, I don't know. No, we do with drama and we do with lots of things. When we were having this discussion initially and you'd be more familiar with this mechanism than I am, Libby, but we learned that many other schools that have a certain percentage of free-reduced lunch students are eligible for federal funding. Yes. And we're not because we don't have that percentage. So my perspective on this is because we're not those students that do come from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background shouldn't be penalized as a result for having a lesser percentage of... We're living in a more wealthier place. Yeah, exactly. Good point, Andrew. That's where I do see your role for the board and being a leader on this type of thing. That's Stephen and Bridget. I just had two clarifying questions. I have to admit to not understanding some of the structures. So you kind of draw the line or maybe all of the news between 6th and 7th in terms of where that goes. I know that at least from my daughter's experience in 5th and 6th is that Drew's been the contact of 5th and 6th and that she's been participating in mountain biking and all the same things I think is the older kid I might be wrong about that. And we're looking at Woodshaw and all the other things. So does that mean in the future of 5th and 6th I realize it's all being run under CC right now, but what's the decision or what's the reasoning for cutting it at 6th? And then the other pieces that Michelle just started mentioning a little bit the co-curricular versus the enrichment they seem to be a really similar thing and I'm wondering if it makes more sense for the district to adopt these things as co-curricular at 7th. Rather than as enrichment and I think that from a curriculum or from a whole child perspective that actually integrates things a lot better than if we continue to consider it separately. Just questions. Both of those questions. Don't let me forget the latter one because we've talked about both of these things. So one of the things that came up Matt Roy actually brought this to our attention is that when we were talking about this in the after school advisory committee because we talked about originally the district could potentially take on enrichment and make it middle school 5th grade on. And Matt brought up the really good point of currently and he worries about in the future of a have and have not scenario. So if your kid who is in 5th grade and is in licensed childcare and not doing the mountain biking piece he could potentially as an expert and at that age level see kids saying well I'm going mountain biking you're stuck in the over here doing whatever you're doing over here and so he was very concerned about people who have things like would be considered the enrichment kids and people who don't have things would be the licensed childcare kids. So that was very concerning to him which I thought was a very good point. I'm not saying it as eloquently as he did in the meeting. And so when we started talking about that more Matt and I started talking about that more we started saying well if we make the assumption that we really work with our licensed childcare provider to provide engaging opportunities for our 5th and 6th grade that have a club like a club structure to them where there's choice and that kind of thing but it's still within the licensed childcare we can have that piece and then 7th and 8th grade generally we don't suspect that many 7th and 8th graders will participate in the licensed childcare because they're at the age where they may not need it they may not need that space like a 5th grader might. So then we could offer the enrichment activities for those who would really like to participate in very specific choice activities for the 7th and 8th grade. Nothing set in stone around that. That was our reasoning why. When I was talking to Matt that was the reasoning why for that. The second part of your question around co-curriculars we've talked about that too as a leadership team on Tuesday and one of some of the things that we were talking about is we could solely go that direction we talked about going that direction we have way more flexibility if we don't because once you have the co-curricular in place then it's in place and you can't add them ad nauseam. So if we have like quick 6 week verse that means we can change the program by year like that one didn't go last year let's try something else this year and we can find a community member comes in and says hey I want to do a 6 week thing on oil painting all of a sudden we can quickly make that happen whereas a co-curricular we go through a contract we find a person you know it becomes a much more long process so that's why the leadership team said no let's keep it as like very quick verse of club activities we could do we could go either way though. Can I just ask the clarifying question? Sure. Does the term co-curricular mean is the definition of that that someone on our faculty is the advisor under the contract and gets paid? Not necessarily somebody on our faculty but it's part of our teacher contract. And it is a contract. So the definition isn't really that it's this kind of programming versus that kind of programming it's really there's some very specific definitions in the contract so there's levels of payment and they're so like if it meets once a week for for a semester that's different than if it's a full year with multiple planning up planning responsibilities versus you know so it's just different it's a contracted item with narrative rules. More rules with less flexibility. I'm curious to know if this .5 person or if you've talked about this is this person also in charge of hiring people that would run this program and supervising the people that would run this program? Supervision would come from it would be a district responsibility so the supervision would they would be the monitor for that piece they would be in charge of the hiring and getting I mean it would go through me eventually but they would be the ones finding yes I would envision that to happen. Other questions? So to follow up on the point that Steve was making about age I would have said that my sense was that in terms of the current enrichment programming at MS MS that a lot of younger kids are using and that this structure may be may be a loss in that regard because I'm as hopeful as I am about the license program being a great program I'm not sure just because of the transportation issues that the license program is likely to be doing they would be more limited to site-based until they solve the transportation dilemma. And that's a problem I'm not sure that I mean I think we've also discussed in the committee the possibility that the license program can wrap with enrichment so that you can be old in the license program but still able to on Sundays do other things if you're also doing the enrichment program and I think especially for sixth grade you know when we move the fifth grade there I'm not sure that the thought about after-school care was totally gone through and I think the fifth grade really needs after-school care similar to what they used to have when they were at Union and the fifth graders went to that program until they moved but as the kids get older I think that the appeal of these activities becomes greater. What's interesting is one comment from the online piece which I know only Jim and I have access to at the moment but from the online feedback and the community said that the enrichment opportunities at Main Street are overwhelmed with fifth and sixth graders so seventh and eighth graders often don't get an opportunity they get left out of that so it's interesting. Well because there's a more of a childcare need for fifth graders so you know there's more pressure from parents to get kids enrolled when they're younger. So it's like I said this is a draft it's not set in stone and I am very much looking for feedback to see how we can make this bigger or how we can make this better and keeping math's concern and I think the concern about haves and haves not is a legit one so if we were to bring it down to lower grade levels how do we ensure that that's not a that doesn't happen. I have one question following up on Steve's question about the co-curricular approach. First of all I can totally understand and appreciate wanting to use a less bureaucratic approach that will enable us to deliver services quicker to kids that want those services I think that's great, offer better programming sooner. What would be the advantage of a co-curricular versus the approach that you were talking about? It'd be set families could rely on it could know that there will be woodworking offered every fall by Jason you know so it would be something that people could rely on a little bit more honestly I see more limits to that direction than I see benefits I'd have to really think through, I'd have to think through a little bit more the one that jumps to my mind is that it would be set, it's a contract so it would be set in stone a little bit better Even though this would likely be particularly the successful programs that I imagine I can't say the reason why that wouldn't be right Michelle This is pretty irrelevant but I just want to say it in case this document gets circulated and I think it will be on our website and people may take an interest in it it looks like the high school has five clubs no I know I can tell you why that's like that three times today Bridget gave me some really good feedback from the first draft and one of them was make sure that you put down it would be really good for the board to know these are all the things that are offered right now so I was doing this at about 4.30 this afternoon so it was like quick on the top of my brain and as I was doing it I was thinking I need to share this with the principals on here and that's why that happened just check it before it gets circulated we will make sure that that looks like the lamest high school where it is that's not the image we want to post it we'll make sure that with that gets fixed that's the reason why because Bridget had such good feedback and I was like oh I want to get that in before tonight and then it just didn't get totally in there I think I saw it this issue of the co-curricular versus the clubs I did not fully understand the bureaucratic piece for lack of a better word but one of the things that I have been concerned about in terms of the after school big picture at the middle school and I think at the high school it's very hard to understand the big picture and to understand how the district is looking at it 30,000 feet what are all the things that we're offering to kids and how are they coordinated is it the right mix of offerings is it the right mix of sports and STEM and drama and music we'll be hitting all the bases what does it look like in terms of scheduling can you be on the soccer team and be in the jazz band at the same time how are we looking at that are we funding all of these things correctly and how many kids are in sports one thirds of the students are in sports maybe we only need after school stuff for one third of the kids but if only one third of the kids are in sports then our after school might be a lot larger I would really prefer and I'm not sure this is enough money I'm going to do that I think we should consider committing to more money for this I would like to see if we're going to have an after school coordinator someone who can look at it with that lens and not silo not create more silos around what's offered but instead have someone who's really thinking about this as one big picture that includes the license piece also for the younger kids but then 5 to 12 includes all of these things so that there's these issues about do we have a softball team and our kids going mountain biking or in the same conversation person is looking at it and I and I'll just finish where I was going with this we already budgeted this money and we have repeatedly said I've heard Jim say it over and over again that we are committed to expanding this offer these offerings but this is the money that has been used to budget what we currently have and I think that it would be helpful to get a sense of the board of whether we're willing to commit to money out of the fund balance to expand this so that we have the resources next year to start a really good program and if they are self-sustaining then we don't need to spend it and that would be great but if they're not the money is there and it's available so that we can fund it properly I would like to know what I would be funding and I don't know that yet so in other words Libby has said this is the initial plan and so what do we need and how much more do we need in order to do it and so some real numbers some real numbers would be what I would want to know before I said sure let's do it I have nothing against it I just want to know how much would it cost this initial draft was to get the feelers out but we do need some real numbers and what is our timeline right now where are we in the process so there's RFPs out for the licensed child care piece and we're going on site visits this weekend next to three of the sites we have an after school advisory committee on Friday to talk about the feedback we just got from the public forum we'd like so the committee will be giving me a recommendation by the end of this month right Jim? yes so we could make that decision around the licensed child care piece this piece would need to be in place by September I mean we'd need to have it by September so I'm thinking that we'd want to if we went this direction without new position then we'd want to have that higher in July so they can get the ducks in a row that they need to get in a row yeah and to echo and I think build on what Bridget said I mean I don't have to get a sense I think is as we make these decisions it's going to be probably a somewhat stepped process but I also think it's very important that we hit next year with the programming that kids need and the community wants and part of that might for the administrations part mean building some of this out before we go through our budget process so I think it would be good to have a sense of the board whether assuming it stays within a reasonable limit there's support for if we added another 25,000 we could really get to where we need to be and have something to build on that's the type of thing where she wouldn't come and put things in place and then have us say hold on what are you looking for are you looking for do we support what you've written and are you looking for gee I wish I had another 25,000 I think we're looking for support of the concept including support that if we can if we can if this is something that makes sense and 37,000 all that's needed to do it in a way that makes sense starting next year and then it comes in the year after about whether we want to add to it or if after writing some of the numbers it's 37 plus a little bit but I kind of want to get an endorsement of the concept within this number or perhaps more but not a huge amount more because the administration just has not they've got some ballpark ideas but they haven't sat down pen and paper with grant and really ran through all the scenarios to come up with what what it would look like to have the type of programming that kids need and that the communities get a lot next year Steve and then I think there's so many fantastic reasons to do this the fifth six though kind of sticks a little here because the problem is as we move forward with licensing we have to be really clear I think with what we want for those fifth six under a licensing agreement under agreement for licensing kids because I think that it's you know if we want to try to keep something of the quality that we have it can't shift towards that elementary model at all really what the kids running around in the gym at union is very different than what a sixth grader or fifth grader is getting right now at the middle school and I just want to be careful because if we're going to split them and take and we're going to develop a vision for the enrichment then and we're going to contract out the license kids we got to have definition about the five six as we do that we can't put the cart before the horse right yeah and that's something we definitely can keep looking at and just to be clear our current situation handles 25 kids a day in a school of 350 so it's not the entire fifth and sixth grade that's being being considered right now in any way shape or form so we need to so we want to make sure that that's one of my main goals is to increase opportunity for particularly our middle schoolers who need this type of work we need this type of group activity and structure and increase the number too I mean it would be great to get 40 years students in the middle school participate in that and I think we do that by making exciting and accessible programming and building on the exciting and accessible program so I have a couple questions the general vision for the coordinator that Bridgette espoused just before I I love that general approach to coordination if somebody is coming in do we right now as a district have that information available is anybody keeping that information how many kids are enrolled in what is it on my fingertips no could we get that information yes so that's something that somebody could put if they came in in July I'm just thinking about the timeline of this they came in in July that's something that they would with your team's assistance be able to with time and talking to the right people yes it would be a process that's fine I was just curious to know where we are in terms of that and then these something that I think would be nice to have a little bit more elucidation on is how exactly how these programs might interact with this position in the programs of this position would be would be responsible for have heard these license programs the license program which is the interactive programs how to interact with each other and yeah I would they be totally distinct I don't you know from a coordination perspective I think anyways I'm curious to know how and it's hard to answer that without having a license child care provider right contracted yet in when you're looking at these providers are you so does this change if this proposal would this change how you view these providers in the RFP process yeah so okay some of their models I guess my question is with some of their models gyne more than others with this type of approach maybe let's that I could I'd have to ask them specifically I don't want to speak to them because that's not a question that's been posed they are to the bidder so I would be making the assumptions based on what I've read but now here's my last question in terms of what they the proposal they've responded to is it based on more of a holistic enrichment and licensure combo or is it based on just the licensure the licensure and I think that's where the community piece comes in because the original part is important to a lot of community members is important to a lot of kids so and we're going to need to have both in a really good place come August 27 through whenever school starts and it's really important to the district it's really important to the district too that we have ample opportunities for kids to build relationships I'm just concerned that that half-time employee is not going to be adequate and I would definitely support drawing on our fund balance which I think we got a memo on the fund balance so I know there's money in there to expand that because this person is you know I know other I guess I know 10 school district has a full-time after-school program coordinator they have like 6 or 7 facilities I think so they have an in-district after-school program they don't contract out but this still is dealing with 2 separate facilities that are really developmentally different kids 8 different grades and if we truly want somebody to vision and sustain and grow one full-time person who can oversee all of that or a part-time at each building who can oversee for each building to me it seems like this person is going to be killing themselves and maybe not making it happen the way we want it to more comments or questions so I think this has been helpful in terms of giving some guidance as you steer through yes hard numbers look at a couple of different scenarios work through some more age ranges but people are generally on board with this as a viable option and the possibility that it might cost a little more to do it right it might not but it might I think for explaining to the community too though having that licensure component like what we're proposing is for this these grades this area this enrichment coordinator would cover this so that it's very tangible for people and they understand exactly what's going on I think it's going to be important to this like we're providing childcare K6 and then we're providing enrichment 512 or maybe a little more basic these are the options your children have for after-school care and here are the ways that we can sign up and enroll I think it's in terms of licensure out there and I think there's also a demand for enrichment K12 I think it's important that the message from the district not be the enrichment starts at some great level whether it's in we're talking about that as well childcare is not a great word for what we're doing in our schools we're doing in our schools it's expected that that it have an educational value of some sort and not the childcare does but you can see it already in the second, third, fourth grades that these kids are looking for more advanced definitely I think we want to make it more interesting and more interactive and more enriching whether it falls under enrichment or licensure K12 we have also heard a demand though that it be reliable and accessible and available exactly available to more people that's the basement upon which to build the house expand the availability the reliability the accessibility and then quality and well thank you all I'll be working on this with the team and we'll probably bring you another draft in the coming weeks one final question the state childcare subsidies that broken out in the chart just going over in the last form those do not apply to enrichment is that correct? No, those are for the license peace the next draft have maybe more of a summary on expenses I just all the numbers we've talked about tonight just seem so low to me and I'm sure the after school committee has evaluated and reviewed and looked at things I don't expect to go through all that again but just maybe a better description of this is how much we've spent on or community connections uses this much or why would do that much we can do that for the best of our ability I can't I might not be able to bring in hard numbers I'm not expecting to be like to the penny but it just $37,000 just doesn't seem like it can possibly pull off what we're trying to do just maybe more justification for how we can make that happen people are similarly right, but that's how far is that going to go like I said I haven't seen it right it would be great along with the number of kids participating in sports programs to see our athletic program budget yeah I do know that our extracurricular budget is spent what does the grant tell us, two-thirds of it is spent on sports of our extracurricular budget two-thirds of sports so our two-thirds of our kids do kids pay a fee to do a sport no so it seems like there's some equity stuff going on too because all of us you know that like it's free to do a sport after school and it's cost to do different activities that's interesting well the sports budgeting is kind of mysterious too because like the Nordic team doesn't have transportation and I don't know how that decision was made but that's pretty hectic every year trying to get kids to Nordic meets without a transportation budget and you know some sports the uniform budget is pretty for their outfit is pretty non-existent so how the budget is allocated among sports is and I like your question about the number too because sometimes we've supported a sport that has hardly anybody in it I'd rather pay for the uniforms for the people that you know we've got enough to feel the team for example kind of thing and that's been iffy in the past keep sending those sports questions because I get a lot of them and I now have a monthly meeting with Matt because I was like I need to meet this is coming up a lot so I need to learn more about how processes are done and stuff so know that that I just started a monthly meeting with Matt out of need because of questions that I get around sports so you know when you get them sent in my way I've never heard that before so that's just really good information as I'm continuing to learn all the nuggets and pieces of our district but that our Nordic team doesn't have a transportation budget or that people have different uniform budgets that's strange to me the Nordic team also has one member I don't know my kid did it my kid did it three years ago and there were like 18 kids I don't know they had to get themselves to meets but then the parents didn't want kids driving other kids and it was challenging I don't know what the status of the program is now I think it ebbs in yes this all feeds into the other conversation about what's going on at the middle school for sports and then how's the rec department dovetail into our sports program and create a continuous continuous path for kids who are doing baseball or basketball it's hard to coordinate all that we kind of I'm not saying we're not doing a good job I'm saying it's hard it has to be re-evaluated at some regular level to determine we've got this big code work of softball players coming through or frisbee or disc players I'm seeing them raising money for a club at the grocery store but they're not really a sport but they're the biggest group the girls bottom and I was like what that's not a sport I don't know how to do that but now we're talking about adding in the enrichment which is sports often it's not biking and hiking it's just not team sports actually that's a good question in the past haven't we not competed with the rec department if the rec department offered something we didn't offer it if they were willing to offer it I don't know how that works but it's not so much competition as continuity between the program I don't think anyone's too worried about competition it's more whole well I meant if the rec department offered it we didn't because we didn't have to we offered something else and so we should be cognizant of that when we're looking it's a big picture it's only 5-6 it's making me think as I'm listening what's the district's role and who is that person in the community I just don't know we can't take on everything we can't offer everything to every kid but what is our role what is our role here to ensure opportunities and what should we offer for opportunity I like the question posed earlier do we have an equal opportunity for multiple avenues for kids to pursue because I'm not sure we do and that's a really good question for us to look at what we can control but we can't control everything and there is a responsibility for my community aspect to offer things to kids too I actually have a meeting with Bill Fraser next week to talk about some of these ideas so I think it's on somebody's mind over there sitting all yeah alright we're ready for Rene let's try to get Rene up she's gonna be on the big screen she's gonna be on the big screen any teachers yes I'm gonna set her on the big screen oh oh oh looks like the extent it is like in the high school in the high school well in the middle school in the middle school is more similar to the high school in that there's a set number of kids with them I think May 5th May 1st and May 2nd and May 3rd and probably May 5th and May 1st and May 2nd and May 3rd and May 4th and probably May 5th and May 1st Okay oh no That's very nasty hold on we just gotta put It wasn't great. Can I see everyone? Can you flip the screen down a little bit? There, so I can see. Oh yeah, hi! I see Jim. Hello. Is Michelle there too? Hi Renee. Hi Renee. There's Steve over there. Oh hi Steve. He's bringing out guests today. We won't let him on the table. Alright. We're just trying to get you on the big screen. I'm sorry I don't have a better backdrop. It's very nice. We'll see. We used to do that. And so, they may have had an advance. Searching. Waiting. There you are. Hi everyone. So, everyone, this is Renee. Who is going to be our new high school principal. And Jim and I thought it was a good idea for you all to see her and meet her. Yeah. And ask any questions or anything you wish. Yeah, no thank you. Hello. Yeah, thank you Renee for taking some time to introduce yourself to the board. You've met me. I guess all the board members can do a quick introduction. But very excited to have you coming on board. And I'll let you introduce yourself. But why don't the board members just give quick two second introduction and then Renee can introduce herself and give a little background and then we can ask her whatever questions we have. Can you hear Jim? Yeah. Yeah, so I'm Jim Murphy on the board chair. I've been on the board for a while. For my day job I work for the National Wildlife Federation. Doing legal and environmental advocacy. Do you know? Hi, and I'm Tina Munsey and I've been on the board a while and I'm retired. I can't see her. It's very important to see her. Hi. But I did used to teach and I was a principal once upon a time. Oh, lucky you. Hi, Bridget Aisy. We met at one of the meet and greets at the high school. Nice to see you again. I can see you from a distance. I've been on the board a few years. Also a lawyer in my day job. Sure. Renee, I'm Ryan Zajek. I'm one of the Roxbury reps on the board. I've been in school for quite a while now. I was in Roxbury, the merger board, the new merge board. Lots of school board fun. I've been in Roxbury. Awesome. Nice to meet you, Ryan. Hi, Renee. I'm Lisa Frost and I'm also a Roxbury representative. I did not have the pleasure of meeting you at your visit and I am a freelance educator. Oh, hey. She's making up the title of this. Sounds so fancy. Hi, Renee. I'm Andrew. I'm the newest member of the board and for my day job I'm the deputy state auditor and I look forward to meeting you. I look forward to meeting you too, Andrew. Andrew's super good at math. It's a good thing to taste the auditor. I'm Michelle who you already met. I have been on the board the longest which is six years now and in the day time I am the director of a local watershed group and I have two daughters who are both in high school. One is graduating so you won't meet her the other will be a sophomore next year. Great. Steve is over here. Hi, Steve. Hey, I'm Steve Hinchin. I'm actually not a board member right now. I was reelected but I forgot to go get sworn in at the clerk so I'm sitting in the audience but I have a couple of daughters who will be in middle school about the time you show up and I have a small business. Great. Nice to meet you, Steve. Nice to meet all of you. We're missing one board member tonight, Becky. She was not feeling well so she said I wouldn't come. Ah, yes. I love seeing you. Do you want me to tell you a little bit about myself? Yeah, don't do it. Yeah, so I've been in education right out of college. I started teaching in an alternative school when I was 21 so I grew up right outside of Portland, Oregon in Vancouver, Washington after going to school at Southern New Hampshire University which used to be New Hampshire College when I went there many, many years ago but when I finished my college career I moved back to my hometown taught a few years in Vancouver at an alternative high school and then decided to kind of get out of the rain and go move to San Diego and that's where I spent most of my high school or teaching career was in San Diego and then as I got my administrative credentials and my master's degree I moved to El Segundo as a principal there for four years. This is a principal for one a principal for four there we became the first international baccalaureate school, actually the third public school in all of Los Angeles County to become international baccalaureate and then my father passed away in that time but my mom I'm an only child and my mom moved to the east coast to be back with her immediate family so I wanted to be closer to her but I did not want to be living in Philly or New York City so I put my finger on the map and landed in Chicago which was very similar in a lot of respects to where I grew up kind of that Midwest culture and then I spent six years in Lake Forest working at high achieving middle school and now I'm here and I am so excited to come to Montpelier I have to tell you that when I saw the job description and then after I came there I'm just even more excited about all the work that's being done there. I think one of the things that's been most important to me as I've gone through this whole process is not only to find a place where I feel like my strengths can be utilized but also a place where I feel like I can learn from the work that's already been done and that certainly is the case at Montpelier High School it just is being done there is phenomenal. I was really excited when I saw, initially saw the job description I was so excited to see the work that was being done there as far as personalized learning plans the flexible pathways to graduation the work on equity and equality. There are just so many wonderful things happening there and then come there and then see it all kind of come to life with the students and the staff and the parents and some of the board members that were there it was just a phenomenal experience so I am really looking forward to coming there. In fact I'm coming there next weekend to find my place so it's getting exciting and being very real. Yeah, questions for today? I would be very just interested and I realize you're just getting into this but interested to hear about the transition how you interact with the outgoing principal and the team here as part of transitioning into the job. So Bridget asked about transition, could you hear her? Do you want to start or do you want me to start? Yeah, I could start Mike and I have already been in contact with one another so when I'm there unfortunately I'm coming on the last day before spring break which is an awesome time to show up and see how great things are at the school so Mike and I will have a chance to just touch base then but he is going to be around the following week so he and I are going to have some time to connect that following Monday just kind of one on one and then I'm planning to be up there in June so planning to get a place probably June 1st and then kind of spread a place, spend some time within the school just kind of transitioning a little bit and kind of getting a feel for things with Mike, with the staff members and with the students as well so looking forward to that and then Libby you can add whatever your thoughts are. No, you had it on so Mike is very open to making sure this transition is as soon as possible so they've already connected we have plans for her to just walk around with him and really see the school through his eyes because it's unique his perspective and then the beautiful thing also, I don't even know if you know this but Mike's new position is right down the road and one of his roles is working with new principals to the position to mentors and things like that so Renee I don't even think we've talked about this yet but principals who are new to buildings in Vermont there's state law that we get your mentor and all of that so Mike is now in charge of attaching mentors to new principals so we got it in there to get you a good one I need my mentor I know right but yeah so we have that plan already starting so McCreth is making it very easy excellent any other questions for Renee you know something we didn't talk about I'm looking at Ryan and Lisa right now we didn't talk a lot in the everything process is that the merger with Roxbury village is still pretty new when you come next week maybe I'll take you through Roxbury we'll blink and we'll be there but the students coming they're kind of working their way through our system to be more and more at Montpelier High School and I think just to put on your plate that's a piece that you're going to have to really work at to see to ensure that kids are being pulled into the high school because it's different they went to different schools before and the arrival of buses to the village will be unique so there's going to be some challenges and some opportunities there and I think the beautiful thing about Montpelier High School at least what I've seen and heard in research is that from what I understand students and staff are very welcoming to students not to say that there isn't work that can be done but there's such a presence of student voice and I just based off of my time there I feel like students definitely will have a part to play in welcoming students from Roxbury into Montpelier High School and what that looks like and how we can make that better and just to add at freshman year we also get a big influx of kids who have been going to private schools and kids who are coming into our district from other districts because we have an exchange kind of a program and we have a lottery so for instance when my daughter who's a senior now when she was a freshman I think their eighth grade graduation was like 50 people and then when they started freshman year like 70 people that's a big jump so I think folding Roxbury kids into that you're also getting a bunch of other new kids and I think coming from other districts and coming from areas like Chicago and San Diego and what not I think conversations like that and looking at those numbers it doesn't make sense for us to do something and I don't know what's currently being done is there a freshman transition if not is that something that we can look at as to how our students transition into the high school just speaking of those private school students and students from Roxbury how can we get them more connected from day one it could definitely be stronger we do have a transition program run by students mainly who take control of it and it's pretty cool to see because I saw it for the first time this year so it would be nice to have other fresh eyes on it to say how can we do that if we need to do it better how do we or it's pretty rockin' right now great any other questions from her thank you for that yeah thank you virtually and soon we'll meet each other in person alright thank you thank you and I think that's it so just I will be sending around pretty close to landing on some dates for the extended meetings and retreat likely extended will be 1st of May and 5th of June we've got a reserve probably 430 we might not need that much time and the week of the 17th is probably most likely for the retreat 1st of June and the extended 1st of May 5th of June that pretty much count on that so what time might that start 1st of May we've got a book 430 but depending on how we line up we may bring in some sort of moderator facilitator for a couple of those or trainer for the communications department and then the other part we want to do is a deep dive on equity depending on how broadly we do that and whether we bring in some sort of facilitator or moderator will depend on the timing so book 430 it may be it may be 5 or 530 but just for scheduling purposes book 430 and that's the 1st meeting of both May and June 1st meeting of both May and June we can start quite early what are you eyeing for the retreat um week of the 17th June 17 so I I'll weigh in on that there are some days there that I won't be able to oh actually maybe it might work out it seems to be a good week for folks and technically it's not a retreat it's an extended meeting it's an extended meeting so the week of the 17th we can call it a week if we have any preferences for days that we did you fill out the google I know that the Tuesday and Thursday don't work for Libby so we're talking about the 17th night there the 21st for a full day and I just wanted to come through people's answers and see if there are any of those days that recall any of them being off the charts but before I bring the date one to the 19th we have a meeting so we may be able to do it that day and not have that but I'll change the time to be the meeting it's your world alright I think we have a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn thanks all