 okay let's call this meeting to order it's six o'clock on Monday April 1st no joke no kidding yes do we have any guests online we have none in the room do we have any guests online no okay I'm Terry I think I'd be a guest since I'm not on the board okay welcome comments for items not on the agenda yes can we add teacher calendar and snow days yes okay let's put that under do you want to close to the superintendents report yes so we could make it 3.6 a okay right for this year yep all right we'll do that then all righty anything else we everyone in your packet has a copy of our norms and agreements that we will all be civil citizens dedicated to the Career Center all right any public comments or any correspondence the only correspondence I have was included in the packet and that was Terry Steele's interest in returning for that one-year appointment for Washington Central at large yay Terry so accepted it's later in the agenda all right the consent agenda the approval of the minutes students appointee student appointees to the board the program presentation which is coming forward Washington Central at large interviews and appointments and then committee reports superintendents report accounts payable and the concern with the payroll services so let's begin approval of minutes from March 18th 2024 do we have a second Janet has seconded any discussion any corrections all those things really oh sorry Scott good are you doing so my experience with the consent agenda is that there's one motion for everything on the consent agenda and then if there's something that needs to be taken off to discuss so that the point of a consent agenda is that we just have one vote rather than nine particularly concerned with the student appointees to the board do we have names for them or Chase Eastman is usually the one that has been attending this year yeah and he took a job at the very town EMS right and so he has training tonight so he let me know he wasn't going to be able to attend okay all right so so put that conversation from the consent agenda make one motion and approve all of the rest is that is that okay well what about our program presentation we haven't discussed no days or we'll get there what about the program presentation are they coming both Carl and Bob are here okay so we'll have that the at-large interviews I don't think that's a that that should be separated out the at-large interview should be separated out all right so I think the consent agenda really at this point is just 3.1 and 3.2 and the rest we would have to hear from the presenters yeah would you like the agenda set up differently well if it's a program presentation are we do we need to approve that and there's no really no need to approve it no and the appointee has been the same appointee all school year okay for students yeah so it's basically so three as a as a consent agenda we'll have to work on that yeah okay so we'll we'll make some adjustments to what is and what is not a consent agenda right so right at the moment let's just stick with approval of the minutes so we have a motion on the floor for approval of the minutes from 3 18 24 any no discussion so we'll go right well all those in favor hi say hi anyone opposed right motion carries we've already determined do we do we need to consider an additional student appointee in case chase Eastman is unavailable we have sort of a rotation from the student leadership and I think they've just been busy okay I'll remind Abby to ask students again okay very good thank you so we can move into the program presentation from emergency services greetings emergency services good evening this is Bob Bauer not sure how this usually goes but so my name is Bob Bauer I'm the emergency services one instructor and I teach the the EMT class at the Career Center the EMT class we spend all year and really focus on getting our students to the point where they will pass a national registry of emergency medical technicians certification tests and with that with that certification in hand they can be quickly licensed in 48 out of the 50 states across the country so that's pretty nice we cover all we cover a lot of material throughout the throughout the year you know we started right off right in in August the end of August with doing CPR and then we kind of continue through all the different aspects of anatomy and physiology we spent pretty much from Thanksgiving until the end of January talking about medical emergencies we have part problems breathing problems diabetes all those kind of emergencies and this past month in February we've been trying to wrap up we went through all trauma emergencies it's left to the rest of the school year is a bunch of kind of miscellaneous topics and EMS operations that get the kind of wrap up the students and get them ready for for their certification exam to try to help where our class usually usually rolls as we spent about half of our time in class because there's a lot of material that actually EMTs need to need to know a lot of background knowledge but spend the other half the time working on our work on our individual skills for the patient assessments taking blood pressures bandaging wounds figuring how to move patients around and then to try and bring it together what we do is on Fridays scenario day for us and pretty much what I do is I present them with some calls and they take our equipment and all their supplies and they head out and handle it like it is an ambulance call from start to finish from dispatch information to caring for the patient on scene to move them to our hospital back in our classroom where they handed off to me as the as the emergency room so and the last part that we've been doing that really kind of helps bring it together for the students is that we sent them out on ride time we have a great relationship with the Berrytown EMS emergency medical services of they run a very busy ambulance service here in the here in our county and our students get the ride along with them it's great when they get to get to see calls and they see stuff that we can talk about in class but is until you're actually sitting there looking as looking at a patient right in front of you going oh that's that's what they meant in class or I have no idea what I just saw and Berrytown paramedics are great in explaining stuff to folks so that's pretty much about our program and EMS one Jim you have a question yeah which two states does it not cover Robert so Alaska and New York are the two states that require their own their own programs there are two other states Ohio I think what's the other one is where they it's an option whether or not it's National Registry they have their own programs as well but energy is the way to go can I other plans for reciprocity that you know of with New York I haven't I haven't really worked with that we've gone the other way I've helped other New York EMTs get there for a lot of licenses and such but I'm not sure what the process is to go back the other way back to the New York question I'm going to also share some photos Carl while you answer that that Bob sent me today New York does accept one time National Registry for reciprocity but you have to take a transition program over there to be to keep their New York license so you can come in once and do and get your New York license but then you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops and hurdles to meet their requirements and to keep your license in New York Alaska I'm not sure how they work so a couple pictures from from class here's a class we had an outside instructor comes in someone I work with quite a bit to teach a stop the bleed program and students are actually here practicing packing wounds and you see some tourniquets laid out on the table there as well Robert this is guy this about selling yourself short by not telling you that new board how many hats you wear and what you do in the community I'm sure I'm not usually like the tube my own horn but yeah so I'm I'm a national nationally registered certified advanced DMT licensed in the state of Vermont has an advanced DMT I work on the Mad River Valley Ambulance Service I also teach I've been teaching EMT classes to adults for the last seven years now as well as helping other classes in our in our ambulance district with their with their classes I work a regular shift on Mad River Valley Ambulance and I'm also their training officer and you were just acknowledged for being a great teacher yes that was very nice obviously you figured out the manager 72 hour day here's another photo yep this is a scenario day actually one of our kind of sunny warm days that we had a couple weeks ago the students are outside and actually running a scenario where you Steve who has the the auto program he has a lot of nice cars over there that all are in various needs of repair and so we we put some students in there and and our rescue dummy and they practiced extricating patients from from a car and then how they take care of the patient afterwards so and as a shot in our class we're just practicing a basic patient movement the the patient they're laying on the floor is actually a rescue dummy he weighs what 160 170 pounds so he's a he's a little bit to move and students here are just practicing their technique using that big white sheet that's next to the one students called a mega mover it's a great tool for moving patients around who are on the floor in different different spots so just some of the things that we do in class it's good that we have we've got great equipment and plenty of supplies and such so students get to use pretty much the real equipment the real supplies that they're going to see on on ambulances nice job Bob thank you and then he passes students on up now to Carl sorry I'm Carl Madison I'm the emergency services to instructor previously the emergency services one and then when we decided to separate the two programs that's how we acquired Bob and we're very fortunate to have Bob but my students are this program came about from a a inquiry by a parent a couple of years ago when we were looking at adding a second level program and we were looking at just you know doing the advanced DMT so kind of that mid-level provider and a parent said ask the question could the students in the second level program start paramedic school and I'm like okay good question I don't know so talking to the program director at what was then Vermont technical college now Vermont State University with full disclosure I teach for them as well before we had this collaboration like so I talked to the program director who was a friend of mine and I'm like and I asked that question and she was like I'm not sure and we did some research and we were able to make it come to fruition and stuff so so now as seniors in high school or first year post graduation is kind of what we're limiting to so they can the if they are in like EMS one their senior year they can come back and do the EMS program you know that first year after graduation we're we now have students starting you know paramedic school at 17 18 years old which is in being seniors in high school which is essentially unheard of we're the firm my research we're the only program in the country that is offering that to high school seniors and we're the only program second year program for EMS in Vermont and so it's kind of a unique program and unique enough where the sparks of interest in WCAX and they ran a new story on it a couple weeks ago and stuff so and my students did a wonderful job talking about it so anyways the crux of the program is like they said they are beginning paramedic school which is kind of the highest certification level there's there's specialty levels above that that the paramedic can specialize in but it's the highest like regular certification level for an EMS provider paramedic so they they start that we are doing this in collaboration with Vermont State University because in order to do a paramedic program it has to be a nationally accredited program so they can test at the end of the program for their national certification and then become and then that will make them eligible once they pass that they will become eligible to be licensed in their state so so we have to so it's so we have to partner with them to make this work because of the accreditation process so the students are with me four of the five well all five days technically but four of the days we are at cvcc so Monday through Wednesday and then Fridays we're at cvcc on Thursdays my students and I all go to Williston campus of Vermont State University and work with the other paramedic students for a lab day there so they're there from eight o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon um every Thursday um pretty much throughout the school year and they and it's it's because it's a college program it's run on the college semester so they're they have a all semester in spring semester and then they actually start the summer semester before they graduate so they're about four weeks through the summer semester by the time they graduate high school so they're about a third of the way through the summer semester by the time they graduate and then by the end of the summer semester they would have earned 33 credits just from the paramedicine program what Bob didn't say is the EMT students earn five credits through Vermont State University as well so so they've in total doing the first year and second year program earned 38 college credits so that puts them over halfway to an associate's degree so that's that's which is huge and really it's just a handful of core courses that they have to do and then they would have their associate's degree and which will help with you know their future promotions or becoming leaders in the EMS industry because they a lot of places like to see them having some sort of degree for that that's great guy I have a question oh let's go first do you have a santa first thanks guy um it's all good Carl that's awesome um the cost of the classes um or the credits are those borne by the um by our program or is it dual enrollment or is it some other combination of of sources yes it's kind of all of the above um because they're um earning 12 credits each semester well 12 in the fall 12 in the spring and nine in the summer it's um we're working with Vermont State University on that financial side that's been the biggest challenge to this whole process is is that piece currently they are giving us the high school rate and we're using some of our correct me if I'm wrong Jody um some of the our woodhouse tuition money to support the students for that um correct and we're working on an alternative to make this more sustainable because long term that's not a sustainable goal especially I'm looking at anywhere between seven and 11 students for next year and that's a significant cost you know when it's you know two last year four this year it's a little bit more manageable on those levels but when we start looking at the larger numbers you know and it being it's a significant amount of of of money and stuff and it's unfortunately not being fully you know supported by dual enrollment fast forward which is what we've been trying to run it through but there's some complicating factors with that on the state level um and the Perkins funding and it's yeah that's been the biggest challenge otherwise it's fully supported on all levels both at the university and the courier center and um by our advisory board and the public and um it's it's it's well well kind of well supported um program we can only figure out that little bit of financial glitch um it would make life so much easier and you know possibly less great errors all right now go ahead yeah uh so Carl I have the same question for you as I have for Robert because I know your credentials are anywhere many hats and I think it's important that you know you let the board know you know what you bring to the table because I have two incredible instructors and I want to thank you ahead of time for you know critical need in Vermont you've been reading the headlines you know like this is such a huge so thank you yeah so I'm I'm uh my sister I'm at King Vermont and I practice I run with a couple of services I run with Berrytown EMS um and I still run down in Rutland County where I started when I was a high school student so well I've been doing this you know at the age that my students are so it's like a full circle moment for me um so I am now teaching students that were you know my age a little older than me I started when I was 15 um and um you know so it's yeah so I really enjoying you know educating the next generation of EMS providers um and I work like I said I work um I've been teaching at Vermont State University in the paramedic program for several years and you know and now teaching you know through the tech center there so I mean in the collaboration so I'm one of their primary lab instructors on Thursdays when we're there with my students and the other paramedic students um like I'm uh I've done some teaching at EMP classes and a lab instructor at UVM and their initiative for real EMS program there I've been an EMS instructor since 1890 well an EMP instructor since 1996 and I was teaching some other lower level EMS classes before that um I've been in so I've been an instructor in doing EMS education for a number of years um I was an administrator um of an ambulance service for uh 15 years and then last summer you know when they ask you so what did you do on your summer vacation I was asked to be an interim be the interim um EMS director for very county ambulance while they were kind of in between directors so yeah that's how I spent my summer vacation my first day was the day of the flood fortunately I had experience when I was in Ludlow and their um EMS director there um I was in you know in charge during Irene so I had flood experience and used some of my things tactics I used then and my lessons learned through that to help you know with the flooding um that we had in Barrie and um surrounding areas that day so and it worked out really well for you know for our for that service and stuff um what else do I do um I am in the what national registry rep um so for any testing for the EMS programs at the end when they do their licensing exams um I've been doing that for well since 2011 when um so that's where I worked for through the Department of Health and the National Registry you know helping kind of coordinate um practical exams and a number of other that I wear I'm on the EMS Education Council which is part of the state advisory board so yeah I have I wear a lot of a lot of hats and um and very kind of deeply involved in EMS and have been like kind of local and state level for many or and stuff so well we yes I just your students were so I was at the I heard them testify the legislature and they were so articulate and so grown up and excited and passionate about the work that they're doing and I just applaud you I wonder what you're doing your spare time what's spare time exactly well and I would say that you are integral also in connecting Barrie Town EMS with us and getting that ambulance donated in exchange for training space and time here at the center which I think they're going to use maybe for the first time in April during the vacation I believe so yeah I think that we're trying to make that happen and stuff um and then the most recent thing that happened I was working with the director at Waterbury Ambulance on a workforce development grant so um three of my students are out working in the field so we are doing kind of a hybrid co-op um program with the second year students so one or two days a week they are working out in the field under the co-op umbrella and for local services in the state or in the in the county in the region um and they so one of them is working at Barrie Town and which is a full-time paid service one of them is working at Waterbury Ambulance and they are kind of a hybrid service where some people are paid some people are volunteers considered volunteer and because the student is considered a volunteer they get paid like a stipend per call but through this workforce development grant that we just got awarded or that Waterbury got awarded the students that are there will be able to get a hourly salary instead of like a stipend once a month for going on calls which is huge for the students and stuff to you know kind of earn while they learn and stuff so that's that was kind of the latest thing yet it was a $75,000 grant that they got to do this to support students. Do you know if your students stay in Vermont or are there any that move to other states? Um of the students that we've had through the program since I've been here the majority of them that become licensed stay in the state and mostly within the region which is nice and that's kind of the trend with you know CTE programs um my master's capstone was just on that I related students you know CTE programs and I did EMS I had to do it kind of anecdotally because there's no direct information about that but CTE programs in general students that go through those programs tend to stay you know if not locally within the state that they went through yes you're always going to have some that leave the state and go other places but they tend to stay and be part become part of the workforce of the of the state um and stuff and that's been kind of my experience with um with that and when I was in high school there was six of us within a year or so of each other um that all did kind of EMS in high school and I think all but one of us are still doing it then I just passed just hit my 35th anniversary of doing EMS in February well very good congratulations thank you any other questions for our EMS people can I enter your phone so you could turn it off sure yes is it in this bag yeah because it keeps ringing yes thank you you're popularly yes we got here excuse me um yes but anyhow um any other questions from the board for our EMS people anything anything okay very good ball yes thank you all thank you we're so we're so fortunate okay slide okay we're off very good all right moving on um the at-large representative for Washington Central and we have Miss Steele there you are hi yeah I've been leaving my video off because my connection is really bad to me so I apologize well we have your uh your letter um I wasn't sure if anyone had additional questions for me that would be appropriate if anyone has any questions for Terry guy Terry I was your biggest advocate why do you want to come back well it wasn't that I wanted to leave guy um so I retired from my position uh my work position and I don't know what the next three years is going to be for me and so I was I was hesitant to run on the ballot and make a commitment for three years that I wasn't sure I could keep so that's really why I didn't I didn't um I've got a lot of things going on so another year is not going to be an issue another year will be fine I just don't know where I'm going to end up after the whole year I'm not even going to be living I'm living here so that that's why I I didn't want to really leave it was just I didn't feel I could commit well for a personal perspective I just want to want to say that I'm glad you're you're you're you're a great board member and I'll just can we make a motion to accept her um application application yeah um yes we yes we need a second for that I'll second that Jason yeah you're in now Terry any well any discussion hearing no discussion all those in favor say I any opposition uh you are swept into position miss steel thank you let me swim back in yes yeah that's what I was going to ask so I can I just have to go down the town clerk right yep yep okay I can do that I'm gonna do that in the next day or two all right very good thank you terry thank you thank you guys all right understanding well welcome back welcome back and jump in whenever you see fit committee reports finance is already finance our facilities meet tomorrow okay finance and facilities meet tomorrow so we'll get them at the main meeting program quality uh we I just shared with the board members um the results of the superintendent survey um as well as uh jody self-assessment um self-evaluation and so we'd like you to take a look at that and put on the agenda for executive committee to discuss uh the evaluation at our may meeting if you didn't get it or you can't open it let me know you need to be in your um central vermont google account in order to be able to open it is everyone clear on how to do that to get into the google account and terry I can send it to you uh I guess as soon as you're sworn in right yes so terry would you let mr. castle know when you've signed your oath and then he can send you the report your music will yep okay thank you all right moving on superintendent's report wait I just want to add one more thing and that's that we're finishing up all the perkins jody's finishing up the information that goes to perkins and we'll be able to take it directly from that amazing report that was put together and um that's kind of our next step and then we will have completed jody will have completed so yes that clna was a tremendous amount of work and I appreciate everybody's and I'm sure everybody does appreciate everybody's input into that and how important it is for our grant funding all right superintendent's report so we had a tremendous field trip on march 22nd 17 staff members and four of our architects working on the two different teams two from the valley brentzinger and two from uh chris collins came with us and there are lots more photos I can share with you the entire folder if I haven't done so already um I know the facilities committee will definitely have the opportunity to see these and I shared a few in this report but we saw three really amazing buildings that were built in the last 10 years and we got some ideas of what we want to do in our center and we also learned some of the things that we don't want to do they had an advanced manufacturing shop in one of the spaces that had one outlet so we definitely want to make sure that we're planning differently some of the really cool things that we saw were some opportunities for like solar energy uh solar tubes for lighting in some of the big shop spaces we really saw spaces where the classroom you could enter the classroom first and then there was glass between that and the shop and so then you could enter the shop from the classroom and that made a lot of sense for the majority of our heavy trades especially to be able to have some students potentially still working in the classroom the teacher can still see them while they're in the shop supervising that which doesn't happen in all of our spaces right now um we we have it in a few of them but not all of them so that was something that was really neat we saw some equipment that we would love to have I showed um in the health professions there are some of these chairs that would be great for phlebotomy we don't have any of those currently so there's all the way down to little furniture pieces that were oh we haven't even thought of that to really big cool opportunities for our students and teachers we yeah we took a lot of pictures and everybody everybody took pictures that was on the trip and we have the shared um album to put them in so I think I did share that actually as a link on that superintendent's report so if you click on the superintendent's report in the board folder you can you can click into those we finished our second round applications and process and those notifications are going out this Friday I believe and so at the end of both rounds we have 210 accepted students we also have 16 students that are formally waiting for our welding program to be approved so that would be 226 students that we would have accepted if we get to that point and we're still working to see if we can get anyone to apply for design and fabrication you all saw the wcax piece and that was picked up on the ems national newsletter so I shared that also with everyone and then I also shared that because our four largest sending schools were closing on the eclipse day they had several reasons including the v-trans recommendation that people stay off the road local police forces recommending that people don't have school and they were closing because they didn't have staffing and in a lot of cases they had lots and lots of staff already putting in for that day off um and they were not going to be providing our students transportation so it felt like I didn't have a choice but to to follow suit and I hope it's a beautiful sunny day and we all get to see that my teachers will still be doing PD virtually that day at least for half the day from 8 to 12 30 a little more than half the day just so that they're still getting at time in and I did ask for a waiver just in case it looks like we have snow coming this week and it could add to our snow days and so I just want to make sure that that's not counted against us because right now we have a little bit of wiggle room with the student days we're still up above 175 but depending on what happens this week we could get close or go below it so I requested the waiver for the 8th just in case and that waiver goes through the the agency of education okay very good any questions for jody mr isabel yeah just a comment because I I did have a question around that because you know I've sat on negotiations and I know days become a potential bowling contention so I'm glad you answered the how people are going to handle the eclipse number one and so in terms of the days where you go look at other buildings how is that accounted for is that a training day is that a so that counts as a PD day that's a good question so what we've had so far is we've had the two snow days one in november one in december because our best snow has been in the fall and spring so we had two snow days we had the day that shifted march 22nd from a student day to a professional development day so that's three out of the 180 days that we had originally scheduled for students that are down and then that eclipse day is a fourth day so that brings us down to 176 days for students and if we hit one more we're right at the minimum and if we end up having two days out this week if the storm is extended and it takes that long for cleanup that would put us under and so that's why I requested the waiver the teachers still have 190 uh contracted days and each year there's there's stuff that happens like snow days so they will have done all but two plus whatever if there's a snow day this week so there are two snow days again so that's what we need to talk about as far as whether we're going to ask our teachers to go longer in q to make up those two snow days plus whatever happens this week if anything or if we're going to waive those days for teachers and that that's what general is able to add to our agenda for 3.6 a thank you I appreciate that any further questions about school days very good we'll we'll hope that the snow turns to rain is there a recommendation from the board on the snow days that we have had and any future that we might have of whether the teachers should work those or if they're going to be waived so I'd like to move that we ask the agency of education to waive that time you know people just it's not the agency's job for our teachers that's worse oh oh I move that we wait that since we have the power to do so you know people working really hard and doing fabulous work and the eclipse day nobody has control over and so right we have a motion on the floor to waive the additional days non-student days correct for the faculty I need a second we have a second Mr. Monaco you have a question I'm just curious is that what you want us to do Jody I want a recommendation one way or the other so currently that the students are done June 14th and our teachers are done June 18th according to the calendar if we add on the two snow days that we have that would be the 20th if we have one more snow day that would be the 21st for them if they work their full 190 days that they're contracted for okay that's a good question Jason loving question on that same note what would you foresee using those days for it would be a additional professional development would we would we program or would it be I could see um because we already have some programming in place for that week so we're going to be doing the first aid CPR training for our staff so that we're all re-upped on that to make sure we have that I could see us working on some of their work in Canvas making sure their courses are archived and they can start building for next year and doing some proficiency work we've also had two consultants that we've contracted with this year that we could bring in one or both of them again to do some additional work with our staff so they would be things that we could plan we always do use one of those days as a clean out your classroom take care of all your stuff check check list do like take care of all the end of year things and as a full staff activity kind of a lunch and celebration piece so we would just move that date for that one potentially so it sounds like you have plans for those two days I always have a contingency all right do you want to withdraw your motion no okay I'm leaving it okay so um we still have a motion on the floor to waive the additional requirement for teacher days and right now that's for two days it could add any additional snow days does not count the eclipse day does not count the march 22nd day because we teachers are working those two days mr isabel so uh because I can't predict the weather unlike jim maybe could but uh I'm wondering if we could maybe vote on this in May to see where we're at is that is that a is that a good suggestion or I don't know about you but I already have my summer plans booked and I'm worried about the opportunity for teachers to do so um if they start planning to go away I would say we have to cap it if we're going to ask them to do those days because the building will have to shut down on the 24th due to the construction that's happening and the power will be shut down for that time in the internet so we wouldn't go into that following week so it's really up to three days that we could ask the teachers to do additionally which is obviously to get to their 190 days it's not actual additional days it just feels additional to them because they've had an end date on the calendar for a really long time okay thank you how if at all does it affect the negotiations the contract if they only work say 187 days it it doesn't I mean we might say if they could potentially bring it into negotiations I guess it hasn't been to my knowledge ever brought up I don't know if anyone who's been involved in negotiations has brought that up um it it could impact morale if folks weren't expecting this obviously um and everyone signs a 190 day contract so they they technically owe us 190 days as a district so we can go either way last year we waived them um and I think that was probably my fault I'll take ownership of it because I don't believe I brought it to the board and then I realized that I had missed that opportunity and it usually comes before all of our sending school boards I believe it helped me if that's not true for all of you so that that decision is made before the April break Mr. Castle so I may have missed this but just at the end you were saying our sending schools um what what do they do or do we care what they do or going to do uh it's it depends from year to year I have seen different things so when I worked at Washington Central I saw sometimes when they added the days at the end for teachers and a couple of times when it was waived especially during the COVID years um because that was pretty stressful and now that we're on that feels like we're on the opposite side of that and coming out of it the question is do we start going back to holding folks to what they signed um I think maybe once in the years that I worked in Barry that were they waived and most of the time we worked them all so I don't know if that's still I don't know if it's come up for the very board yet because I know Caledonia hasn't had that conversation okay it's for a final I don't know cabinet Mr. Isabel yeah just let my colleagues know I'm going to vote against this uh not because I'm against it but because it's negotiated and if we're not going to honor it then let's not negotiate you know let's not make an issue let's not make it you know because it is a bone and contention lots of time and like Jody's thoughts of you know you know how to fill those days and you know she's our educational leader and you know she's in charge of making sure that you honor the contract that's negotiated so they still get the day to clean out the room and they it's like whatever those end days are they still get to do what they would have done whether it's three days later or two days before so when you say oh well that's the day they clean up their room they still have that day yes yes great so I'm sticking with I'll go to the mat with Guy that was great so we can we can let the motion die for lack of a second or someone who could second we could and then vote okay motion dies for lack of a second so we will stay with the 190 days for our teacher contract all right very good moving on accounts payable they're all attached um yep and I believe you get them anyways from Lori when she completes them so if you have any questions please ask do you have any questions about accounts payable do we have the money yes yes uh Michelle are you still here yeah I'm here now last time Guy had a question about blanket did we and figure that out we did I think I addressed it last time but just to kind of clarify that the when it says blanket in actually is a drawdown purchase order as in the instructor assumes they're going to be spending a larger amount or amount over an extended period of time and so they'll put in regular requests to use that larger amount so say our baking culinary goes to Hanifers and they put a purchase order in for five hundred dollars once that's approved they can use all of the five hundred dollars throughout weeks or months and then anything over that they'd have to get re-approval but it's just so that they don't have to get approval for thirteen dollars and then seventy five dollars each time so that's what that blanket means and the reason why you're seeing it recently and haven't seen it in the past is because I noticed that you're kind of seeing everything twice you're getting the actual vendor and how it's paid and the check number and then on the second report it kind of just breaks down all the invoices that were actually paid and it will say specific items it's itemized so that's why you're seeing it now we had a change in accounts payable that makes sense yes yes thank you michelle all righty very good um 3.8 is the career center payroll services that's a concern there's information in your packet and jody you want to talk about that yeah back in december um we received and i included them in here two emails and a letter from three staff members regarding concerns about the bmsi program that we had used for our payroll and accounting not this current school year but the previous school year so our first year as a district and um we had talked about that yes we had concerns with them as well and the board had agreed that if the union was interested we would join forces in a letter about this and so jill had responded as such to the the folks who wrote the letter and i don't think i think there was a misunderstanding quite frankly and that they thought that the board was just going to write that letter and send it on on behalf of the board and the district as a concern and so jenny recently reached back out to see where we're at with that and what if anything had happened and if the company was going to take responsibility or be held accountable in any way and um i said well we had hoped that we would join forces on a letter and we never got a response and she was surprised by that so she didn't understand so i just wanted to bring it back to all of you um because she had sent it to many of you but also to jill who's no longer on our board and so i just wanted to make sure that with so many new people that we had everybody kind of up to speed where this is at and did i include a draft yes so michelle had worked on and i had supported that um a draft response that the letter that we could send uh regarding what happened um and we can go into more detail at some point if you would like um around the communication that michelle had with this company in particular to try to get things settled and also some of the issues that we've had around audits um but we wanted to have a starting point to draft this and i wanted to bring it to you to get your thoughts on that and if we should then share it with uh the union folks here and see if they're interested in joining on maybe that's where we missed the step in december by not sharing a draft to let them know that's what we were thinking guy so jody have have the staff who um probably were affected by this didn't make all or is that still kind of outstanding yeah so what happened in the pieces where there was an in the biggest impact is my understanding is that not enough um money was taken from paychecks and so they had to pay into the irs and i could tell you that i did as well a lot more than normal for me i know some of it was also that my son transitioned from no longer a dependent so there are lots of things at play so it's really hard for me to suss out what was because of the software and what was because of that but for other people they didn't have that going on and they they ended up paying in a lot more than before a couple of folks had not updated their paperwork and i think that played a role but some of it was the company was using this at first it was varying system and so changed every time yeah michelle you can better explain this to folks yes so as some of you are aware in 2020 there was a new uh tax filing forms and essentially the point of that is so nobody owes in and nobody gets paid out at the end of the year unfortunately well if you were an employer with an employer before you didn't have to fill out new paperwork you could keep your own paperwork when we became our own district everybody needed to fill out new tax paperwork um so that that had an effect um whether how people were filing just the normal changes but also this company really um made some some errors on on their end everybody is whole as in nobody's owed money the government isn't owed money on behalf of the district or anything like that it just felt um really unpredictable with paychecks because again there was varying amounts and of course um to give you a little bit more information you know we voted become a new district in march we needed to come up with a new financial system by july 1st that was really hard to do we weren't able to use buu's b usb's financial system we had to come up with an entirely new one so this is the one they gave they showed us everything that we wanted to see and throughout the entire year we had nothing but issues um i addressed the board in november of last year november of 2022 so yeah not last year the year before that i i could see that this issue was going on we went out for uh proposals and that's why we have our new system that we have today it's because we could see it happening early early on between the issues and the paychecks which that is what um these staff members are bringing up but as a business manager i listed also the other reasons that i have that reporting was inaccurate we're not even done with our auditing of the 22 23 fiscal year because we're not able to get all the information that we need uh the company with bmsi which was a local-ish company out of francone and new hampshire they've sent sold to a larger company called gworks and it's getting a little bit harder to navigate unfortunately because the system um was absolutely inadequate we did tell them in march that we were going to discontinue services um but you know one thing that we were struggling with was we still need access to the system in order to pull out all of our data so we struggled with that as well so it's it's not just um yes that's the biggest concern was people's paychecks but that's not the only concern this it's a much larger um there were much larger issues going on with the software as a whole have we been able to solve those issues or are they still outstanding we've been able to solve them mostly with um a lot of excel spreadsheets uh we've also changed our financial system to a uh more reputable system a lot of vermont school districts and cte centers in vermont are using this our auditors are well aware of it our auditors were able to work we actually have this uh it's rhr smith that we're working with us there are auditors but we also have an independent contracted agreement that they'll help that they were able to help us come in and do some um entries for our previous fiscal year to get that kind kind of cleaned up so we're definitely on track but it was it it was not acceptable it was not acceptable and i do think that that um you know the board and good you know let them know that it's it's wasn't a pleasant experience and it has cost time and money and you know okay guy a question so jody or michelle are you recommending that we at least send a letter of that was what the board had agreed to do back in december and so jill had sort of sent that note to the three folks who had sent letters um and i think it just it got lost in translation that we were looking to sign on with them collaboratively and felt like it would be more meaningful so i'm happy for us to just send the letter from our district um and the board or we can try again to be collaborative and get everyone signed on and that's why we decided to present a draft to you would this go to all staff or just to the staff who have raised concerns um our thought was that the union might want to join us and it might be stronger thank you so i would make i would make that motion that we do that with jody's and michelle's recommendation and another thing to add to that our our auditing team is also willing to collaborate with us on this letter because of the extra work that they've had to do that they their true sense is valid and they are more than willing to to add on with us i will add that to my motion how's that okay we need to clarify your motion mr isabel so your motion is so it sounds like uh we need to send the letter of distance our our uh complaint to this organization including the administration the staff and the auditors if i get that correct michelle um i'm understanding with the um union and others to to support and add more weight to to the letter yeah i guess and we would be willing to send it we're marvelous yeah so this base this letter basically explains what has happened with this financial management company and what the district has done to rectify that okay and i have one last one last question jim here the email from marching teeth from jocelyn yep is this letter that we're drafting to uh go right to her concerns that are in this email i think for the march 18th our concerns have been in any progress and there hadn't been um so there hadn't been resolution there was if you go back further to her december 7th one that was discussed right December 13th if i'm looking at the bullet points it basically points out that yes this did happen these errors happened so there were unexpected taxes um i'm not aware of anyone who had to pay a penalty that it doesn't mean there wasn't but i'm not aware of any um the 403b contributions were not the results of that company they were the results of a staff member who no longer works for us i'm not sure about the this october 2023 one is a new the new software so michelle you might need to speak to that and i can say that not all employees had correctly completed their w2s the majority had but not all so the only one i'm not sure about is the october 2023 the paychecks change um something about a deduction code so i think we've right we've righted that right and i mean you guys were directly affected right i mean you and michelle were both directly affected so yeah do you feel that the organization has done the right thing chasing down this bmi bmsi company and so on and so forth we haven't chased them down or reported them to like the attorney general's office which i think would be appropriate um we haven't done that we were sort of waiting um and then it kind of fell off the the table and our radar nobody like the money that we had to pay into the government like the money i had to pay in that didn't come out of my paycheck was still money i owed if i got paid the money i just didn't realize that maybe i needed to set more aside because it wasn't taking out enough at the time right and i and i sort of had a suspicion for me because i had that other issue going on at the same time so it was really hard to say and i think there's a variety of things that happened but i believe that has been fixed i believe the new software is accurate i definitely saw a difference this year that felt more appropriate i'm not sure if any employees didn't see that um and like carl i see you're still here so i'm not going to make you speak but perhaps you can speak to it i know stephanie is taking our minutes perhaps she can speak to you whether this year um worked out for tax season better and is more in line with where it should be it's also hard because of that transition in the irs of how it's done and so that they're trying to avoid having to send large amounts of money back to people and so they changed this the what is it the method or the amount that however they decide that so that was a transition that happened at the same time so all these things it was like the perfect storm i feel like we could do more to make sure that people are aware that this company did things wrong i don't think there's a way there's anything that is owed to anyone like financially despite how uncomfortable and it's out i guess that was my biggest concern was to make sure that that everybody's whole like guy had brought up and whatnot and that you guys because you're directly affected feel represented or whatever we we're leaving this in a good way that's all it sucks you have to go through it mr madison um so i last year i paid in a significant amount more than i've ever paid in ever i don't ever paid in one other time in all the years that i've been filing taxes which is since i've been a teenager um so last year was the second time the first time it was only a few hundred dollars last year was several thousand dollars that i paid in this year i actually am paying in more than i paid in last year um just just for the record um i thought i had taken steps and i worked with michelle you know last year you know to try to mitigate that and even the steps that i took didn't help and some of it is the tax law changes some other there was a whole cascade of things that happened and stuff but it was you know a certainly something i was not expecting to happen and stuff which led to a whole lot of other um financial struggles a little bit not struggles i shouldn't say that but i mean it just took a huge financial hit in because of that and now this is the second year in a row that i'm doing that i'm having as much of a hit this last year or a little more and stuff so it just was it's still working i'm trying to navigate it all and figure it all out as to why this is happening two years in a row do me carl do we still use this company now go okay no we switched to tyler financial which is what we wanted in the first place um and it's the one that the uusd uses and a lot of business across the state when we originally had looked at them it was they were not going to be able to get us up and running until january 1st of 2023 which was halfway through that fiscal year and they it was going to cost us 75 thousand dollars which we didn't have that kind of startup money in may of last of that first year right becoming a district um we were able to get it for 50 it was significantly less when we finally were able to sign on and they were able to get us up and running by july one okay so we said that in the letter that we're now working with do we need to add that in our letter no i don't think it says here anywhere that we are no longer using this company okay i think that needs to be included yeah perfect we can we can make this into a if it's not already a shared document so that you can suggest edits okay did you add that anyway yes so um so so my motion is just want to make sure that we go on the record of you know stating our displeasure with what happened and i think we need to do that it doesn't matter of record and i would let michelle and jody and you know whoever wants to sign on the letter uh you know to you know to do that uh because some people were more harmed you know people aren't happy so okay all right so the motion on the floor is to send a letter to the staff about the business management systems ink um and how the uh district has reacted to their um failure to respond to properly manage um the payroll jason uh staff and the union is that right so we wanted to um send a letter to bmsi right part of these concerns and also potentially to whatever agency in the state was best to report this to a collaboration with them right so um okay let's deal with it with two areas so we'll send a letter to um bmsi this this is the letter we have in our packet correct right yeah all right um did we i'm sorry did we get a second for mr isabel's motion we did not i was curious about including um the union and trying to get them to sign on as long as with the staff before we send the letter well the the union would be representing the staff okay so and that would be the letter that would go to the company right would be from the board with um administration and the union right okay so and that's what we're working in we're working with right now is the letter to the company okay i'll second that okay very good we have a second any further discussion yeah so just a clarification i i like that uh staff and union because i'm not sure that all staff are part of the union well let's hold that thought guy okay all right laman you have a question nope okay um so all those in favor of sending a letter to the the bmsi uh financial management company uh in regard to their handling of payroll please say i i i or approve any maze no so we'll approve this letter then i think there would this is we're going to add that one yes with the okay and then um a question that comes up as a result of this letter do we need to send a letter to staff saying what we have done that we have sent a letter um of dissatisfaction to this company and on on their behalf yeah right so i know all right so jenna would make that that motion that we send a letter to staff explaining the actions that we have taken with this financial management company we need a second laman laman second well any discussion all those in favor anyone opposed good i think we've covered all our covered all our bases to make sure that everybody is informed right okay now um and we'll do that all right go back to the agenda um that's it we'll deal with the the superintendent evaluation becomes a future agenda item for may i think is it an executive session agenda yes but we'll have that up so everyone has that information if you don't have that information i'm going to point to lineman that if you don't have that information uh lineman can assist you in getting it um to you or if you're having difficulty opening it opening it he will be able to assist you please review that so we can have a um good discussion of how that was created and what it means to our administration very good um additional future agenda items we have board development and goal setting for june placement in the workforce from programs um we will discuss that with the um co-op coordinator and we'll have program presentations throughout the year now any reflections or summary of our meeting and our next step is everyone clear where we're going for the month of may very good um terry excuse me mr isabel i missed that i said welcome back terry oh yes okay very good yes welcome um we don't need an executive session we'll take that off and then we need a motion to adjourn oh by the way welcome back jason too yeah i made it you have a school and you have a representative yeah it was easy i just said i wanted to do it well thank you very much we appreciate having a full board all right um now motion to adjourn motion to adjourn okay thank you second it's non-discussable all in favor well i'm in two feet two feet two feet two feet of snap