 It's not going to be here. It's going to be late. We've got five left. They're all set, too. All right, I'm going to order the monthly Roxbury supportive directors meeting 633 on October 20th. I want to add one item to the agenda, which we can put in, I guess, board discussion, which is organizing the volunteers and then formalizing a suspension of policy monitoring reports for their notice. The other thing I just told Jim, Grant, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've already approved one of those warnings from last board meeting. So there's an extra one. Yeah, there's an extra one. Excellent. Any public comment? Public comment on Zoom, if you just want to... Nope. Right there. Not that far away. Excellent. Get set agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? To approve the consent agenda with the October 15th warrant because we need to pass it and approve it last time. Do I have a second for that motion? Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The consent agenda passes. Next item is board action, which we're going to very appreciatively appoint Jill to the Retail Advisory Board for the Central Vermont Career Center. Again, thanks for all your great work there. Do I have a motion to appoint Jill to the Retail Advisory Board for DBCC? Go second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All those in favor? Yeah, this is what happens when you miss a meeting. You get appointed chair of a... Thank you, Jill, for doing that. My pleasure. I'll have a pretty substantial update for you all in the coming few weeks depending on how that wraps up in the next couple of weeks. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for doing that. I think you're taking on chair. It'll be fantastic. No, I'm not. Watching living. I said, I'm not going to see the one of my warm-mumers. That was nice as well. Do we want to do the... Well, let's not take up grant and Andrew's time. So potential financing infrastructure needs. Andrew and Grant. I know we all know you, but you might want to introduce yourselves I'm Andrew LaRosa, director of facilities. We made a couple of little minor changes. We made a couple of minor changes. Can we also just mention whatever we post online that we're talking about now. Again, I'm going to just set up some context for this and then I'm sure you'll have some questions and fortunately for us, Andrew is here and he knows a lot about all these specifics. Just to start out, what I wanted to point out is that this sheet tracks very closely to the presentation that Andrew did. I think it was August 18 when we went over some projects so a lot of these should be reflected in what you've already seen. As far as the columns go, these are the projects obviously we have several columns S or three fund balance capital plan and other which other is largely what we're hoping is infrastructure money that comes down. The capital plan that column the entries that are in there are for windows. US auditorium and multi purpose renovations. Those are there because they've already been in our capital plan so I just left them there. We also added the main street sustainability lab. Mostly I put it there just because it was about the right amount of money. So we've plugged it into the capital plan. That's how we came to where we are here. So we came to the board on August 18 for the overall, like, you're all the things we're thinking about, right if you all remember that we took your feedback. We grant would had a better sense from the audit that came through the that we haven't seen yet as a board but he's got some sense from the auditors around what's what the actual fund balance you know what what actually do we have in the bank accounts. So Andrew, Grant and I started our budget brainstorming with our administrative teams, and we the three of us sat down after we did that brainstorming and said, Okay, so we have this list of brainstormed ideas. We got feedback from the board initial feedback from the board. Where might we, you know, where would it make sense to put these things. So this form right here is not necessary. This is not a done deal. There's nothing written in stone. There's no dollars spent yet. This is getting your feedback, right. So Jim and I have also talked about going out with our mutual thought exchange. After this presentation and using your feedback revising it if necessary, and then going out to the community because part of it has to do with us. That makes sense. So nothing is written in stone here. The other thing I want to say for this particular presentation. And I know it may be hard is that we're not talking about the academic social emotional engagement piece around our vessel. That's not the purpose of this conversation. It's just like we've kind of split these the ideas in our heads. So we're not prepared to talk about that tonight. We're starting to get ideas, most definitely, but we're just not prepared to talk about it. So this is simply the infrastructure with the different funding sources we have available to us. Does that make sense. All right. And just another piece of where these why these buckets went into different boxes was timeframe with regards to when we knew the money was going to be available when the money had to be spent and how long we needed to plan for some of these projects. So if it was a big project that was very complicated. Well, that's tough to spend money that we need to spend very quickly on because we just wouldn't have planning for that was another component that went into where we shuffle things. And in essence, kind of what I think Andrews quotes me earlier was it's basically just taking everything that's in the air and just putting it on a piece of paper for now and capturing everything. The reason why we selected in addition to timing capital I put stuff in the capital that was already in the capital. As far as fund balance. I, the track is the big one I put here and the reason why I chose to put it under fund balance instead of say S or three was it's one huge project and I don't think it makes sense to to use like almost all of the S or three money for something like one project at one school. So that fell into the fund balance column. Kind of maybe some lower priority or pure infrastructure requirements and when I say pure infrastructure an example is like the addition roof at Main Street to replace that that's I mean that's pure infrastructure. That went into the other column. So kind of what you're left with in the S or three column or higher priority kind of student focused projects where we could do several things that would be exciting from a kid perspective. And that's kind of how we played this out. The costs that I've highlighted you can see at the top we say, definitely these are rough relative estimates. I haven't had an engineer look at these and price them out yet. This is very early in the game. These are kind of rough estimates. And then I was going to end by kind of saying what Libby already mentioned this is really just a plan to get organized get our thoughts organized on where things were. So it's more like something to react to for both you and the community in total. The totals at the bottom, like S or three 1.65 million. That certainly could be the total amount that we have is over 2.2. So the possibility is you could spend up to I think 1.73 certainly we could spend 165 we could spend more we could spend less. The fund balance amount, we just went over this and you saw it in your quarterly report. The number I'm showing is like 1.747 I think so 1.7 is within that realm. The capital, if you're looking at about 260 inflated every year through FY 30, then you're easily at, you know, 2.2 million maybe. So those are where the totals are and I tried to kind of stay within those totals that are available. And, and Andrew on the right side of this kind of showed some, some scheduling, like when we would do design permitting and building and when the construction could actually begin. So I think that's all I can add to it. I don't know if there's anything you wanted. One thing I would say is, is the good thing about the capital and the infrastructure is we have no idea what that infrastructure numbers going to be if that infrastructure numbers bigger. Those projects seem like they're going to be easy ones to slide out of the capital fund into that and whether that opens up more opportunities or lessens the burdens, the need for a capital fund who knows what we'll see how that we'll see what that number is when that infrastructure. Yeah, with regards to the schedule again, there's just so many projects and sort of talking about them and when we could do them. I just wanted to do a kind of a quick reasonable. Okay, where, where do we, what are projects that if you guys, if was given the go ahead, you know what could we easily design this winter have been documents by no later than march ish, so that we get constructed there's some of them that are relatively And those are reflected in spring design and summer construction. Some of the other ones, you know, a special ed suite. I don't think anybody has the capacity to envision what a special ed suite for the next 25 years that's going to serve the district for 25 years. It's going to happen this winter. I think we got to get to get through the school year take a breather and then look at those things so that's why they they sort of shifted and how they go out and as well as things like the track to just give a sense of that track. If we did a track project that's going to take it's going to take a long time to do potentially. So that's, and again, if there was something that shifted. This is still, I mean, we, I had a project up in still one time where there was a donation for a new science lab and the caveat was that had to be done for the start of school the next year, and the money was given in like April and they got new science labs so everything's possible but it's not the best way to do things so Like I said, we just we just wanted to get this on paper so they had something to react to them. I know I did see. I think some questions that came in from Mia. I'm trying to remember all of them. Resiliency based in MSMS has truly there was misunderstanding of what that space is used for now and and so it's not used for that and we have actually alternative ideas so that resiliency space would potentially be alternative Programming so we're looking at a completely different model completely different space at MSMS. So it's just based on our needs that we're experiencing this year. So it's just a completely different idea that we will come talk to you all about but it fits more in the academic social emotional behavior side. So that resiliency room was crossed out because And then the staff work at room at UES that was one of the really nice ideas. Nice to have. And we can probably do some spiffing up. Andrew's regular budget. So it just wasn't a priority when we had to cross something off. And the town hall access has been something we've talked about since Roxbury. I'm not sure you're merged. The town hall is not not. It is accessible to all people. The challenges you go through the school in order to make it accessible. So this this was kind of nice because then you wouldn't have to do that. However, it's not a problem. Like we have no problems with people watching through to access the town hall. So it's not like it's a dilemma. And that's and that's could be a legacy from when I first took the job. One of the first things when the first visit to the school is we want to close this off and separate it. That's sort of stuck in my mind in reality. There's really been a problem. So that was why that one was crossed out. And there was another question that was somewhere along the lines of, you know, maybe we would want to do a bond. Is it, you know, should we look at doing a bond? I mean, that's obviously your call in the community. So my position on it was, you know, we just did a bond, pretty sizable bond recently. None of our bonds are going to be paid off until I think the first year is FY 30. So FY 30, we'll see a drop in our long term debt, and it's only like 75,000. So we have pretty stable long term debt for a while. So my, my vote would be, you know, we've got a pretty large amount of money coming in already. So, I mean, this would keep us pretty busy to take care of this. So I would vote for holding off on any bond ideas for a while. Yeah, much federal money coming into the district right now. I'm not sure. She asked how confident you are the amounts are relatively close to the real cost, which I think you guys have addressed. And then it seems to leave about 600 K of S or three funds. Are they accounted for somewhere else? Yeah, and the total S or three amount is like 2.2 something million. We plan on using that for math intervention is I think maybe even another. We're still talking about all the different uses for that. There's some that we already know that we were planning on doing, but then there's more that we could spend. So it could even be less than 1.65. I just certainly wasn't going to use more than that chunk because of the conversation. If you're rethinking of that idea and it's going to be something else, is that going to be added here? The alternative programming. Oh, okay. The alternative programming one. Okay, that's what. Okay. Okay. You're absolutely. So we did a, we're doing a beta test. We're doing a beta test at the union for windows are screens, which were ordered on June 19th are arriving tomorrow are on arriving for installation on Friday for window screens, and it's been close to six months. So absolutely. Everything is there's not a yellowish enough highlighter to reinforce the estimate and and really this I say it every year, but this is definitely going to be a year that any project we choose. We need to make sure that it's worth the effort that we put it, that it can stand alone and it doesn't interfere because our, you know, people are going to be tired at the end of this year. And unless it's unless we can make it very isolated and controlled and a lot of outside forces. I'm going to say let's kick the camp for another summer. It's the beauty of schools. It was very nervous when I first got here. I was like, okay, I'll give everything done. That's like, well, we've been here for 200 years. We're going to be here for another 500 years. We can six months is not that big of a deal. We'll get there. We'll get there. So, but absolutely. That's, that's, that's definitely the note up here. You know, we need to, if we, there's stuff that we want to do for next year, we need to make decisions early winter. We can't wait until after town meeting and expecting you're not going to have the end. Things together in the bit. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing that you're going to save money here is the more we can lump on the more we're going to save. And so, so pushing it to another summer just gives us more time to plan. There's more time to design and doing things in a rush is not the best way to do it in construction. And then the, the good thing about fun balance and capital also is those are things that can carry over, you know, fun balance. If we have a delay in getting the materials in that fun balance amount is available. I mean, at some point we could commit that so that it's more stringent on what we're using it for. And then the capital can roll over here too. So anything in those columns would be, you know, be comfortable with things that we'd have to definitely be looking at yes or three, make sure that we can hit the timelines for that. And I'm sorry, I missed the 18th. So I'm sure you talked about, I just wondered about the bustling like is that is that involving the city like does that. Yeah, so I actually met with the city. Cory V line, the jazz center. And that he's city engineer city planner on last week, and we actually watched the buses go there actually planning on redoing the sidewalks on the other side of the street. Okay. The idea of a, and he's still thinking and we're still thinking the idea of a big move is probably not going to offer the rewards is doing lots of smaller things like winding street, a little bit lowering some of the curves, such that if a bus gets trapped like it does with traffic, at least we can get moving on versus someone having to direct traffic. So I think there's going to be a lot of those little things that are going to give us a pretty big thing for a buck and if it doesn't work, we can go to the next thing but we are working with the city on that and they are planning to do more work on that street. Next summer. Thank you. And about the track just make sure I'm clear on the cost. The limited scope is 1.5 million, the expanded you have 860,000 is that plus. Yes, on top of that. The sort of base scope would be, we dig it up, we put base down, it gets paved, it gets an athletic surface on it, but some sort of pole barn because we want to stop. We won't drive on that anymore. So we'll have to take that storage and put it somewhere else. So that's sort of the baseline. And then again, that next piece is, we put in pole bolting pits to put in more press boxes. That means the baseball field, all those kind of things. And so that's, that's, that's a wild one. And that 1.5 million would come from the fund balance as currently projected and the additions would be coupled together from other sources. Yeah, so we're hoping for the infrastructure bill. Depending on how much that is and how much we'd get from that. Our whole 14 stands infrastructure. What is our whole thing stands. Yeah, or from other other sources that may eventually come in or it doesn't get used in other areas or because these are such rough estimates we're not, not positive. So the question we actually had was how, and I know that both of you tend to be conservative on your estimates, how confident are you in some of these numbers. I think if you gave me joined $58,000, we can make a heck of a nice supportive special ed spaces at Union Elementary. If you gave me 50,000, we can make it much better than it is right now. You gave me a million would make it. So, these numbers, as you if you look at any one and every cost system that'll be the same. And if you look at one number, it's wrong. They're all wrong, but together, they're not as wrong as they are individually. So, again, you, you, you give me $1.6 million, we can address all these. If you gave me $2 million to do the cafeteria and kitchen at Main Street Middle, that'd be unbelievable. But you know what, you give me $175,000, we'll make it better. The good thing about the track is there's been, there have been a lot of tracks that have been built in recent times. So we know that the numbers have been $1.2 million for just a track. So, that number is not going to be too far, unless something is going on with some of the materials, supply chain, but, but it's, but it's a time game, right? So, you, you 32 did their track two years ago, three years ago. It was, it was almost $900,000. Yeah, it's quite, it's pretty new. Yeah, three years ago about four years ago. Yeah. And it was about $900,000. Well, you throw 10% on top of that. You're up to 1.3, pretty darn quick. And you throw another 10% each year for the next two years. We'll get there. And that's the, that's the kind of project you need. You have to balance that. Let's get it done quick. Well, you're the little, if you wanted to build it next summer, you're the last bit of the season. You can take your time. You can bid it between beer season and New Year's next year, and you're the first one that they're bidding on the project. So they're going to, you know, you'll be their first project, not their last project. And that's where you want to be. And so it's kind of a balance, because inflation, our way that being the first bitter. When it's all said and done, Grant will send a spreadsheet and it'll be exactly how much. As long as you get those bids out whenever we're chopping wood. But no, but the relative, the good thing is they're relative. Like they're, okay, this project is more expensive than this one probably. And we haven't gotten that. So yeah, the track expense was got a little lump in my throat. Just, it's a lot. 2.3 ish million dollars, which when I added up all the totals at the bottom from the four columns, it's about 6.6 million. So if I'm doing my math right, the track expenses make up about 36% of the total. Am I on, am I on track with that. Right. So that seems a little high. It just makes me sort of wonder about, I'm supportive of, of getting better facilities, sports facilities in the district. And especially, you know, I have kids who play sports and I have seen, I've traveled around and seen the other facilities locally out of their schools. So when I do the visual comparison, I'm like, we deserve a little better. And I, and I would like to do that. So I'm definitely supportive of that. But it just, it makes me sort of question the values calculation of like, what are we valuing over other things. So that it did, it did raise a question in my mind about is, you know, is it worth 36% of this total budget to get a better track. And I don't know if, if you can just sort of speak to, you know, the values part of it, like what you were weighing this against other things. I can't speak to that. I will tell you that, I mean, you can scale down or scale up certain things, but a track, if you want it on the list, it's going to be this. If you don't want it on the list, it's going to be zero. It's, it's either all and nothing when it comes to that. Unfortunately, it's a big ticket item. Now, we did at least break it apart in that 860 and the other infrastructure. I mean that would be certainly a lower priority. But if we want to do kind of just the track and just pull barn to be able to get some, some storage. That's, I mean, that's the price of it. So other than, I mean, these other ones you could try to make them bigger projects and increase the price, or you could just take that one off that what you can't do is you can't reduce it. You can't let go halfway. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay. They put all their endowment into providing for expanded educational opportunities and they have really poor athletic facilities as a result. Whereas other, whereas other colleges don't provide, don't, don't place as much of a premium on that and they have amazing athletic facilities. So I really think that this is like, you know, this, this value question is a good question for the board to be considering with the administration. I will say that that is the primary reason why it's in the fund balance column, why I thought it made more sense to be there because I certainly don't want to be using Esther three money and say we're using 90% of our money to track at one school. Right. That's why I thought if we did fund balance that's money that's already in the bank for us. So it would maybe take some of the sting out of it if people are kind of comparing and contrasting. But once again, this is all just basically putting thoughts on paper based on the requirements that we've heard from the community from internal. Well, and I have that same sort of reaction but it strikes me this is just projects and infrastructure right so as like an overall comparison like this doesn't include like our academics or our special education I mean that's, I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what our like annual budget. About 25 million. It's in our fourth quarter. Okay, that makes me feel better. Yeah, special education. Thank you. I had a couple other questions in less. Yeah, no, go first. That was it. I was wondering. The windows, it looks like the windows have been moved out of Esser three and originally they had been proposed to be in Esser three. Can you talk about that decision. So, and then we after talking about it and hearing the feedback around that, we said it's already in the capital plan goes back to what Jill was saying around shortage and chances are we can't do it quickly. You know, right, which is what we're thinking about with our faster. We had planned on doing it across seven years like that. So we just said, let's just move it back there. Okay. Yeah, it's going to do the same thing doing the windows that Esser allowed us to do these spaces with the capital fund. The name over the column. Right. And it makes more sense. It's more aligned with the values. The transition room at the high school also gave me a tiny bit of sticker shock and I just wanted to hear more about the scope of that project and why it's 25. Yeah, it's a it's for kids who are transitioning out of our high school and into the world that need a lot of life skills. So what it is is basically creating our apartment within Montpelier high school. So it would have a kitchen and have a bathroom that, you know, it have places where we can teach transition skills life skills, where we can teach cooking with kids who will be making their own meals eventually around a hot surface that typically have had an adult right next to them doing that their whole lives. It's a lot of work to make the space that it currently is into something, you know, plumbing, it's electric. It's a lot of things behind the walls that we'd have to do. And above the ceiling and above the ceiling is to make it work in the way that we really want it to work for kids who need that type of instruction. I remember the description of like how the space will be used. I'm just sort of more curious because like the cafeteria and the kitchen project at MSMS is, you know, roughly the same amount. And so I'm just curious like, why, you know, Absolutely, you know, absolutely. And that's, and that is that is a that is a big number. And again, the idea is, where are we going to put it. Yeah, if we build it, it doesn't want to be, it doesn't want to be falling apart in five years. It's going to be a hard new space. So it's going to be tiled. It's going to, it's not going to be, it's going to be a well built space. It's been served as population and then once you start putting kitchens into things, you start dealing with that noise. So that number is probably probably maybe a little bit high. The good thing about Union, the Main Street Middle Street kitchen is a lot of the appliances we have over there are usable. So that's going to be a lot of finishes and retweeting some things. So that exactly speaks to the sort of individually as a group, you know, it'll, it'll shift interest. I just didn't want to, I didn't, I didn't want to give the impression that that was just going to be, we're just going to stick a fiberglass shower in the corner and, and a sink in the corner and call it done. And we don't know, you know, are we going to put laundry facilities into it? Are we going to, you know, it just hasn't evolved yet. It's building a little building an apartment. So, but, but I agree that that number probably is probably is a little bit high and as we get direction. Well, I shouldn't say that, but, you know, the numbers, the value judgment based on the numbers, they're all good projects are going to be great for the students and we'll, we'll make it work. We can have, as a colleague of mine used to say, you have anything you want, you can't have everything you want. Yeah, so we'll, as it goes through, we may have to say, we may have, we will be back here at some point saying, we've done the work, you said you want this project, it's just something's got to give. We can reduce the quality of some things or we can take something off the table. Yep. My gut on that one in particular is just that the cafeteria space that MSMS is so important. And it's so highly used. There's like, what? It's a big open space roughly 400 kids in there. So I would just in my gut, I just would want to make sure that that one is like really well done. Yeah, absolutely. So there's another question just based on community feedback. I had a listening session at the mainstream middle school community alliance a little over a week ago. And some of the feedback we received was about the cafeteria and kitchen space and I was just wondering if these were in your mind in as part of this renovation. We talked about wanting a water fountain and hand washing station in the cafeteria. And I wonder, it was wondering if that was a mask with that project. We haven't gotten it yet. Something we've heard of in other, but that's a, that's a new priority in cafeterias is actually having a hand washing station. Yeah, I mean, we have a union under they want to do one that rocks very self and just coincidentally I was reading, I think it was our wellness policy. So it's actually our policy to have water for kids available in the cafeteria. I didn't realize that. And anyway, so it seems like it was. And my only other like feedback, just based on the community feedback we've received around SR would be it looks like we can go up to 1.7 million almost 1.8 for us or and I would just say, you know, potentially to consider going even under that a little bit and more money for learning loss, which is what the feedback that we received during this, the initial SR feedback. So that would be one of my suggestions. Thanks for doing that. Water. There's not a water fountain. I guess. Oh, yeah, there's one out there. Or leading to it. Right. So kids have to like, please. I don't know. The three items that were eliminated here. That are struck out. What is the reason behind that? We talked about it earlier. You're going to have to review that. I'm very fried. It's been a long week already. You were looking for the budget for Jill. That might have been it. Right. It wasn't in the presentation from August. Did you already say that? Yeah. Yeah. So the sustain is so if you can go see it. So we are family consumer science teacher retired last year. And we're in conversation with the kids that MSMS, they wanted to design more of a sustainability course for all students to take and students designed it themselves. You can see their presentation from the summer. June, maybe. May or June. And Don Taylor moved over from humanities. He was a humanities teacher and he's taken that on. With Westo. And so they they're focusing in on just the whole sustainability, the standards for sustainability, global standards for sustainability. And he's doing a magnificent job. So Andrew and I went to go talk to him and said, he's in the family consumer science space right now. Which if you were to see if it's an old space, it's what you would imagine it to look like. And we said, dream big, what do you want it to look like? And so he gave us all kinds of ideas. So this is based off of Don's thinking about the work that the kids have told him they want to do. The global, I'm not using the right term. It's the global sustainability standards. But if you look, I can get you the, if you send me an email to remind me, I can find out remember what board meeting that was. I remember it was warm. So it was either May or June. But you can see the presentation that the students sit with Don, which is really great. I'll just look through. I'd rather look and find it. I'll just show the other things. Yeah, maybe if you look through the agendas, you can identify the meeting and then. I'm going to add credit extra copy. This is the presentation that Andrew did on the 18. Yeah, I'm looking at it. And if, oh, so on actually on the MSMS family consumer science, there's a link to the students. Oh, there you go. Grant, good. Other questions for grant Andrew. This is really exciting stuff. These are both needed. And I think very important thinking project. So. I'm just wondering the next thing on our agenda is community responses to budget conversations. And a couple of the things relate to like infrastructure projects. I was just wondering if you guys might be able to spare another few minutes to just hear that feedback. Is that what am I right about that? That's what we're talking about next. I think that's exactly it. And also just kind of where we're. We're at. John added. Sure. I mean, so just I have this listening session with mainstream middle school. So it was mostly mainstream middle school parents. And just a couple of other things. What was interesting. And actually I started looking at the. Results Amanda had shared a Google form with us to fill out for like anytime that we had any community listening sessions. And so I was noticing. I mean, I'll, I'll give you the specifics of the feedback I received, but I was noticing like a lot of the things were pretty simple asks. And I was just hoping that they would be on your radar for like to try to quickly address some of these things. So one of the things was, and hopefully in this budget cycle. One of the things was like triple exclamation point, more bike racks. It was like, yeah. I was like, I feel like these are attainable goals. Which is so nice these days. But it was like, at all the schools, they said across the board. I mean, I don't know. I definitely have noticed the mainstream middle school bike racks are really overloaded. A lot of kids ride bikes to school at mainstream middle school. The kids are trying to. So that was one. I mean, the drinking fountain and hand washing station was another. The other thing this isn't low hanging fruit. I think it's a complicated conversation, but I know that it's been coming up. For at least four years. Because I heard about it a long time ago. Is field trips. And I know that these have been put on hold. Yeah. And so I wasn't at the school board level of the discussion, but I did hear about it in the community. About field trips, create this equity issue. There's a couple of like. Sort of. I don't know. Capstone experiences at the middle school that relate to the curriculum. There is a fifth grade field trip to Boston and there's an eighth grade field trip to, I think it's to that city or Montreal. And the question is, can those, those field trips, I mean, there's some that I can think of in the elementary school, too. That are just, they do them every year. And can some of those bigger field trips. That can be built into the budget so that it doesn't create these fundraising issues and put that burden onto families. And I've heard rumors and I don't, I don't know about it firsthand. Of some kids actually not being able to go because of not being able to fundraise the right amount of money. So where do we stand on the potential of field trips. On. We can find a board meeting that we had. Okay. year and a half ago? It was before COVID. Okay. Because we're in person. So once before COVID. It was before me. Yes. And we did some some rough math and the quick answer is we can do that. It depends on how much you want to and how much the board would like to increase the tax rate to do that. Or would you like to get rid of a teacher to do that? So it's a it's a considerable amount of money. And then the other question to grapple with and we never finish the conversation. We'll put that I don't remember ever finishing the conversation because the numbers were so large. The other part of it was the board would need to make some sort of policy or direction to the administration around which field trips counted which don't in that. So so it was it's a more complicated conversation. Yeah. That we could start the board is certainly welcome to bring it back. But you're talking about massive dollars that equal teaching divisions. And I said too is the kids from families that are unable to bear those costs. Things are figured out to make sure. So that is just. Yeah. Yeah. There are other I will say that's open. There are some other equity issues that I'm discussing with the teachers now around it. But it's a completely different. It doesn't have to do with cost. Yeah. Before I was on the board, I was a parent who came to this board to fund raising which was connected. It was a fundraising event that was tied to the Boston trip that felt very sort of punitive and kids were running out at the roundabout. You know, it came a little bit out of control and I think that was a lesson. But I share the concern. I think it would be great in the future when we can think about travel and traveling in groups like that. We kind of need to have that conversation of what we could and what couldn't because I think it can't be everything. But if there's a way to have like one like the Boston or something that is part of the curriculum that's an equitable trip, maybe there's another way we can fundraise that doesn't sort of shame kids who don't have neighbors to ask. Something we have discussed at the time I remember was having some kind of like sliding scale and there's there's two I guess issues related to that. One is, you know, we do need to be I remember two issues that came up. One is, you know, we need to be cautious about stigma when it comes to assisting families and students. At the same time, you know, because we don't, well, I don't know where free and reduced lunch is now. At that time, we didn't qualify for free and reduced lunch for everybody. So we did have some students that still were, you know, it were not one of those districts that that has that that's above the threshold, the number of students being above a certain threshold, I think it's like 40% that are on free lunch, we can offer it to everyone. Yeah. So we did have some of those situations. We do have those situations in our district or did at that time until there was consideration as the like, you know, using some of our existing assistance thresholds to provide assistance to families for those types of opportunities. But I just remember those, those were a couple ideas that were thrown out there because we were looking at a large amount of money. Certainly a bigger conversation. I will tell you one thing that's just a statement of fact is since I've been here, I've never reduced a principal submission when it related to field trips, lives for transportation. So it's not like something has come to the bigger group of administrators and we've crossed something off the list. But I do think it's a bigger question because of some of the types of field trips and the scope and size of some of these things. My role of thumb is if it's an important field trip and you need to do it and put it in your budget. But it makes you have to think about things like an Ireland trip or Boston trip or Montreal trip or whatever. Those are just big things. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of money, but more than important than that from my perspective is it's a lot of time out of the classroom too. But you're actually, it's a bigger conversation, but it's not necessarily something that's due to us putting limits on people's submitting budgets. I'll just like quickly go through the other things that was like food, food was brought up improving nutrition, offering more positions surrounding nutrition, which I know we're having struggle to fill anyway. Literacy was a topic of discussion, especially kids on IEPs and that sort of to me that sort of triggered back to this conversation that we had had around ESR, but it was in particular about literacy and learning loss around COVID. So we had talked to that person and said maybe we can consider that as part of ESR. But I think that's it. There's a couple other things that have just sort of come on my radar over the course of the last couple years. One of them was that I've talked to Libby and Jim about was graduation budgets at the schools and I've been on some of the graduation committees and it feels like it's a little bit of a shoestring budget and it feels like maybe even just like two thousand more dollars would be really helpful for each of the schools to help plan those ceremonies. I'm smiling behind my mask because in the draft budget worksheets that I sent out I actually increased the budgets for that specifically a union of Main Street in that one specific line and said in case you didn't think about having it let's increase this. Wonderful. And there was also a big conversation at the middle school about like beautification projects which aren't like infrastructure and you know windows and it's not like that important but it helps with morale and sort of creating a sense of belonging in space and they were talking about it in terms of a huge mural project and I noticed when I walked through the halls here that this school does a really great job with that. I love looking at the public art. I don't know I know that often that kind of work ends up falling on the art teacher to provide those things which maybe isn't equitable to that person but I just wonder about potentially including some money in the budget for things that aren't that fall outside of the scope of like this is a need an infrastructure need and more of like a community building like beautifying the space type of thing. Yeah it's my understanding with the mural from like that he's working on other funding streams grant mechanisms. Yes to get that action going so but you're right with the murals you see here that those have primarily been guided by the art teachers here and we've had some phenomenal ones here you know so and then also with the harvest piece that they that's one of the community projects each year with the harvest celebration which is actually happening tomorrow that kids do some sort of service around the school and am I mixing up my day? I'm not 100% sure because it hasn't happened in two years so my brain's fuzzy as to when they do it but that's another piece of it it's usually like part it's a tradition here to do something like that so I think it just might encourage that kind of stuff if there was a line item for it. I know you know I've worked in a few different schools and so you see some things where you're it's like really stunningly beautiful and I know that some of the main street middle school parents like three years ago were talking about before the bathrooms were renovated we were like what can we do to help make these spaces friendly and I was talking about like painting and doing stuff in there and it was just even if it's just small. Well a couple things I'm just Mike is already the last meeting I had with Mike very he was talking about exactly that working with the art teacher and taking down some of the older stuff out of the basement and opening that up for paintings and things like that and as well as the mural that's above the main doors possibly doing something there so Mike is already working with the teacher on that. If anybody is you guys haven't had a chance but on a night like tonight you might want to swim by the Franklin Street exit Franklin Street entrance to Main Street middle we redid that store stairwell the paint the lighting it looks really cool and so we're trying to elevate that and hopefully you guys well you guys will be able to get there and see the new gym so we're we're we're working on an over there yeah so you got anybody who hasn't been to that gym since a couple years and remembers the brown paint and the crummy insulation all that would be blown away it's gone from a multi-purpose room to a do you have that picture is that what you're looking for no that was all taken out it's all been painted and Libby's looking for a little image that I sent that's kind of cool yeah I think those are that's great and it's and it definitely makes a difference I do think there's a slight difference between like brand new beautiful facilities and art you know like beautifying a space through something artistic and a lot of those I mean those could be just some good ideas that the principal has about spending money that can just qualify as a supply type of purchase yeah and if the principal has a requirement like that by all means they can increase there's a buy line on the principal budget and just tell me why you know as long as it's not a huge increase then I'm sure we get accommodated and if it is a large increase we might be able to accommodate that too as long as we can as long as I can explain to everybody why or what it's yeah so I would when something like that comes to me I would say put it in your budget let's see how it goes let's see if we can afford it and just make sure if it's a big increase that you explain it so that I can advocate for yeah when we get there so certainly that would be a feedback back to people as you know you have a different school including the budget you know this we'll see yeah can you make some examples in schools like around the state I'm not that of what you're talking about just the I mean yeah I mean there's examples right here in the school where you when you walk down the hallway towards the cafeteria there's a funeral there and like those beautiful new portraits that are that are hung right outside of the like front office are really cool there's been some sculpture work at the entrances of schools that I've been to where you know and a lot of it is like sort of student driven and it doesn't cost a lot but I know that also sometimes it it ends up falling on you know like I think the type of thing that you're talking about it then if it's not a line item where it's not like hey we want to offer you money to beautify the space then it might not even come on to the radar of the of administrators to think to ask for that and oftentimes it ends up what the experience that I've seen is it ends up falling on mostly on art teachers to work with their students to provide something for the school there's another one there's a big mural at Danville where it's all recycled materials and they took and it was the art teacher and but they worked with other teachers and the cafeteria staff to take all recyclables and make made this like huge beautiful mural that looks like mountain scapes and sunsets with like caps and recycled mostly caps bottle caps and jar caps so are you suggesting principles like look for professional artists work to put in there well that was the conversation that was being had by the main street middle school community alliance is they were talking about bringing an outside artist artist in residency to come in and like Libby said I mean the idea was to tap into a bunch of different funding sources for that but in my mind I didn't say it out loud during the meeting but in my mind I was like I wonder if the school if if we could pitch in a little bit towards that as well and that they wouldn't have to I mean the ticket price was pretty high on that particular artist in residency program so I don't know if it would have to be like that amount of money but but even a little every little bit helps you know with stuff with something like that and it's like they were talking about it as like a community building project a morale building project and something that would really leave a mark part of it was even designed to be on the outside of the building and so it could tap into city art grant public art grant funds so it's just something I wanted to like put on the radar yeah the the challenge a lot of times is that we don't hear about these things yeah as the budget is being built so you certainly I think it's great to remind people to think about those kinds of projects when you're building a budget as well yeah all right excellent um thank you again very helpful um and we'll get back to your evening thank you thank you did you want to talk about volunteering yeah I wanted to say yes absolutely let's do that now as we can talk about the RFP I'm going to make a question do you want to embarrass Andrew first publicly thank Andrew for all the extra gigs he's doing right now this man is amazing 25 right 30 it's a 25th anniversary the people in this room are really stepping up big time Andrew's leaving the charge on a lot of that so thank Andrew do you want me to say what I know if he's like enough of this stop it I was going to sing happy birthday but so at our last board meeting um and and just you know sort of out in the public knowledge that the school is really trying to recruit folks for a lot of positions um in the department including custodial health and helping the in the cafeterias and so on so um some of us were trying to figure out how we could possibly lend a hand in the short term until the schools are fully staffed or if there's something else that we can do to help we know we have a lot of folks here who really want to help and many hands make white work and we're trying to help I know it's only October and I know nationwide schools are really school employees are really struggling and feeling the pressure and Montpelier is not immune to that so it's um so some of us have some of the board members have offered I know Emma's helped with testing and Kit and I have started working at the elementary school to do cleaning it's very straightforward and it's just something little that folks have a little bit of time to dedicate that it's helpful but we also need to sort of be thoughtful about it and not overload everyone or not create a lot of extra work for the staff so this week is the first week we've done this and the need seems to be largely at the elementary school for the sort of after-school shift it's a two at two to two and a half hour shift my husband Jesse and I did that Monday night it was really straightforward Tara and Deb at the school were fantastic and showed us how it's done kind of rewarding in a way it feels like it's something little you can do you know you're cleaning down little sweet little first graders chairs and desks and vacuuming and Jesse knows his way around all the bathrooms now so I'm happy to be kind of a funnel for volunteers so and then I would work directly with Andrew because we want to make sure it's helpful and not bombard Libby or Andrew with emails and volunteers and trying to coordinate with people's schedules so I'm happy to do that it sounds like we have this week covered but we might we might set up sort of a more sort of ongoing schedule maybe two weeks at a time so people can you know we're not overlooking you know overworking the same few folks but we're you know spreading the load are you thinking about doing some outreach on that to like you know I know there are a number of parents like in my neighborhood yeah so there's lots of folks who want to help there would be some requirements for doing some sort of the background checks which we could help point them towards Tracy in the in the office here but that's sort of why I would like one of us or a couple of us board members to be that funnel so I've already reached out to two of the parents groups and they're like eager to help but we don't want 30 people right because then it's like there's too much training and so on so if we can get like a good core group of teams of two to cover it until you know things change so that was kind of thinking that after this meeting if I got the boards okay and it was helpful for um for Libby and Andrew that that I could reach out to the three parent group heads and they could help me but then I would still sort of funnel volunteers let them know how to get the background check they're really serious a lot of us are saying yeah I want to help but then when you actually look like for example this week I was like oh I can do I could do every night no I couldn't do every night right so um we want to make it be realistic well the good news is we're talking I mean you know you know this yeah that we hired somebody today so so if I can speak to this this is so we've got a couple of uh folks who are offered for uh different reasons who will be coming back into the mix presumably possibly in a couple of weeks so this this it's sort of initially it's kind of a short-term window so Tara and Mickey and Tom as well as the rest of the group are quite remarkable and you guys have no idea how lucky you are to have that uh Tara is probably put in 12 hours today for us maybe 14 and then she's gonna go put another job and she does that six days a week and she doesn't complain and she does a better job than we can imagine so this is kind of initially this is I think if we can kind of address the next couple of weeks maybe even in our minds think the Thanksgiving because if we hire someone it's going to take a little while to get them on the speed and all that um I think if we have a small group whether it's you folks and a few you know I've got the same phone calls and there's some people that I know colleagues of people who actually designed the bathrooms at that school that I don't yeah I don't go in there and they'll complain about who built it but you know but I so I think that that keeping is a small group uh Tara is happy to go in and train and it's really as Jill said it's not particularly complicated it's just that four hours uh four or five hours of sort of just work allows the custodians to do the sort of more technical work and in the light and slow the great deal um so if it if it's okay I think Jill would be a great conduit for sort of the school board and those volunteers she and I can work together and all that fill on our end you know when there's a gap Deborah's been over there last night couple nights Pam's been over there I've been over there you know we're able to backfill with our own with our own folks so if that seems like a system I think that would work well if it doesn't overwhelm overwhelm you um that would be a good way to do it we very much appreciate it our custodians are working their behinds off right now and and that's not what how we want to treat our employees either you know food Tara working that much and Nikki working that much and they both have small children so and John too so we want to make sure that it's it's helpful even if we can get them one less hour right or one hour back to themselves during the day um these are really good people we want to make sure they stick around so do do we I 100 percent agree um and we support that um do we ever um have we been I know some teachers do this and I'm pretty certain some teachers in this district do this and there was an op-ed that you've shared this past week Jill about asking students at least for their spaces to like clean up after they're done to like help pitch in uh at an individual kind of classroom level is that something that we're doing at all or have we considered yeah this is the this is the stuff that you don't have kids do you know so that's what I was talking about I was wondering like for the work community what I tell the teachers when they ask you know what can we do can I be happy to clean all that leave your room in a position that we can clean it that's that's the best if everybody did that and and and the vast majority do that's the key because it allows us to get in and do what we need to do it's one it's one we can't know they're little kids we understand they're little kids and it's funny Jill knows you know you go into the kindergarten growing you know it's like there's there's animal crackers all over it by the fourth grade it's nice and tight and you know Grant would be proud of it so it's just an age thing and we don't have any expectations of you know little kids picking up graham crackers but you know so that's that's what we just asked of the teachers at this point is leave it so we can clean it and and that will be 90 percent of it will get us 90 percent of it yeah I hadn't wondered if um if this was like the whole school year if this might be a great like community service thing for high school to realize how much happens when we're not here and I think COVID has proven that that's what an essential worker is these are the people who do all the things so that we can show up and do all our things and it's it's a good reminder um and I just want to say really quickly that I I um I know that there's also another volunteer opportunity coming out they'll be coming out from Libby for helping them the testing that's a different setup so I don't want people if you can't help with evening cleans at Union there are lots of other opportunities I really appreciate you helping coordinate this job it's super important and I think you're asking the board for support and have no doubt that they'll give it to you as as well as our people's appreciation hugely hugely important and and again um yeah thank you both to you but also thank you all the constituents who are carrying a really heavy load right now so I shared that document we do this is the quickest spreadsheet that just has the weeks and and where they're where they're at and some notes on different people and what was like and it's it's been a rumor no I mean you know oh so I'm so it's going to do this or so I'm yeah you were going to work all weekend of that percent if anybody's interested in helping tomorrow night we could use a hand okay I'll plant on being there as well Jesse and I would but we have a field talk and Friday and then Monday and that's that's the part that then you Jill can talk about that yeah but okay so talk tomorrow what did you at rbs we were fortunate John um one of our custodians is actually lives in Northfield so it's very that was the most of our outdoor style so now that the growing season is slowing down easily we'll go in there here you'll either do it at night or before and we'll keep you informed yeah I can do things in the evening in Roxbury I can do things before 7 a.m. in Northfield yeah and it's a huge it's it's a huge thing and that's a great thing to know if John doesn't have to go down and that's the things we're out right yeah if you were willing to go down and empty the trash can so the short apples over the weekend yeah that's three hours of John's time to do a 20 minute task I couldn't I don't know I could be closer but it would be hard I'm very close yeah so appreciate it we'll keep you in touch Tom has got it Thomas Tom has been very conscious of Tom Allen has been very conscious of moving people to kind of get them the high school is easier to do but there's stuff like this but we can't help it this is exact note where all this stuff goes once we leave and close it all you move people so that it's pretty much man power down perfect thank you Joan if it gives you a little even 10 minutes of time to do something else yeah it was really eye opening doing the testing just I mean it's my understanding that you were there that whole time yeah that testing so that's like you gave me a whole day I was just imagining how much can let me get done if she's not here like you know it's really important to be free enough for time our chief problem solver yeah it's a lot of hours it is yeah do you want to talk about testing uh it's actually huge it gives me back a whole day which I was happy to do I'm happy to do it because it's what needs to be done to keep our kids safe and it gives me back a pencil I've penciled in Mondays and I think there's a couple that I've do so maybe yeah there's a couple that I'll step in on and I have I think I have those on my calendar I can make sure of it so because the other stressed group here are my nurses right they're they're working very hard especially when we have positive cases and when the state promises things that they can't picture how it's going to happen right away there's a little bit of a forgot time that we have to calm down right so um I will be sending out a notice to the community around the test to stay and rapid testing uh because we cannot do it without community volunteers it just will not be able to happen until we get more kids to be vaccinated so um that probably a fully vaccinated five-year-old probably won't happen until January 1st ish you know when we're talking fully vaccinated two shots two weeks after the second shot will probably be around the first of the year so we've got some time and with cases the way they are in Washington County right now where we have to expect that there will be more quarantines in the next two months so I'm we're I'm doing all the back-end work to get tests to stay up and running when it's actually happening um when we're actually testing I will need a cadre of of people in here to help with testing the little ones in particular so there is a no going out to the community um it's not the end of this week because I'm still kind of playing with a few of the logistics ideas in my head and then it will go out Monday or Tuesday um and all that implies is yes I'm available on Mondays from 7 30 to 9 30 and if you call me on Sunday night I can be there on Monday morning um so it's that you did make me think right that I need to add to that survey around uh at least Roxbury and Montpelier that would be easier so right I showed some board members earlier the the survey and that was some good feedback from Brett too so um that's coming out soon um we hope we can get it to work so we're quarantining less kids and keeping up from it in school because I know Emma knows from the experience of that well it made me think that I mean I'm sure we'll figure out how to organize it but there was a time the union school probably some of you remember this um had like class captains and so we had like one or two parents per classroom that were in charge of like sort of activating and mobilizing the volunteer needs within that classroom and I know that when your class is quarantined there's at least two or three parents that would be willing to come down for however many hours it takes to get all those kids back in the classroom because it's directly impact you and then you're at home with your kid yeah so I know that when it happens there's going to be the support for it yeah and I think I think I figured out how to get the volunteers the next stage is just logistically where in the buildings and what it's going to look like and what's the flow going to be um and quite honestly keeping it off my nurse's plate because they will want to be there and they have other things to do from 7 30 to 9 30 in the morning so um so it will be me with volunteers possibly Andrew because he's my man that I go to and say Andrew I need this so so we'll we'll figure it out we'll get it to work it's not going to be up and running in the next week or two but it will be up running up and running soon so I think the state has figured out there's supply chain issues and so I think we're going to be able to give it a go wow so people will be happy to hear about yeah that's it with that yeah excellent it's a rubble uh the thing we want to do is we um I think we made uh we had a discussion an executive session about suspending calls and monitoring reports just because they're not required and you don't need to see them well with the yes other things okay right happy birthday yes yes go celebrate happy birthday my friend yes happy birthday yeah and there's there's my health numbers yeah I mean the general five thousand foot level the view on this is at a time of crisis and significant labor shortages we need to be focused on all of these very urgent time sensitive issues before us and any relief that we can provide we want to and while we certainly appreciate the policy monitoring reports and want those in the long run for the foreseeable future until we get through this period of crisis the board it is my understanding from our discussion that the board is and I'll make a motion why don't I just make a motion based on our our our discussion of the state of affairs I move that we just spend uh policy monitoring reports um for the time being so second that's okay any discussion what was the paper hi the oppose and I do want to say I do think it's a great practice in general but like there's a good you know I I kind of feel bad that we didn't think to do this singer I mean it just feels like you know your plate has been really over overflowing for a long time I feel a little chunked up for not recognizing that maybe that was something I could have done yeah I didn't tell you I didn't tell you either I wouldn't worry about that so um great well that will hopefully provide a little bit of time to solve all your problems so the next discussion is the RFP decision-making process um many thanks to Mia for who's on the line uh the number uh putting together a really nice RFP that we we put out option yes the the budget feedback piece can Kristen and I summarize some of the things oh yeah sorry we can provide it in another way I don't need to I think it's on did I read it on the spreadsheet Amanda we had we had I think we had some conversations well there are some individual specific conversations that we tried to document there but there are also trends generally that might best be summarized um yeah go for it right now yeah sorry um I kind of got lost well there are there are sort of there's I mean generally speaking in Roxbury there are sort of three camps there's a group of people that really really really advocates for outdoor education and all its forms I'm not exactly sure all of its forms that's one camp many of those folks actually don't send their kids to the school and so I think it's in the interest of the school that that'd be a consideration generally um although I know that there are strengths and weaknesses to that approach to education I just think that that's important consideration the second camp is really happy good enough the third camp doesn't understand why we're merged with Montpelier and thinks that this is the big city and their kids don't fit here and so to that camp well some people are like let's stop kidding ourselves and stop sending kids to Montpelier that's really not an option what we can potentially do is make a really intentional effort to integrate the RBS kids with the Montpelier kids not just in fourth grade but throughout and whether that means shared shared field trips zoom time pen pals I'm not sure I think that that would benefit those kids to develop relationships with the kids that they're going to be in school with starting at an earlier age um and that's it that's a summary that's right that's super helpful does anyone else want to give any updates on I know Mia was trying to schedule the teen center and that's on pause for now just because of yeah and um I have had some kind of probably more thumbs and were interested but nothing has caused and I think people are interested with this yeah I mean this has been an issue every year that I've been on the board is done and I feel like things petered off a little bit maybe last year the year I think last year around like the pandemic and just feeling we had so many board members but in the past when we've reached out in a bunch of areas a lot of people will say thanks for reaching out but we don't really have the time to talk to people so I there probably are I'm interested to see I really think the the like general package and approach that Amanda has put together is definitely the most promising general like outreach approach I've seen since being on the board so hopefully that'll yield tonight Chris and Brett have provided have been a really great example of like if you build if they will come like they're just going out and yeah showing up at the bus lane yeah it is there is a lot of what are you here for who are you but that's important work to say this is who we are and this is what we're here for and if you don't talk to us we cannot represent you so having opportunities to do that I think is important and we even put on like an online survey one of the things that happens with an online survey you may get specific people to promote a specific point of view a great deal like multiple responses to a single survey from a particular camp that is very very strongly about a specific you know perspective so that may have been our experience in some ways but definitely it's important to stand in front of the Roxbury country store and say hey my name's Rhett that's about the best place to find people in Roxbury in case you're wondering if you want to meet people there that's the place to do it excellent um I have a listening session scheduled here at the high school um October 28th for students those here to our students and it's going to be during solemn block so it's one o'clock to 140 and the room is to be determined but October 28th if any of you are interested in joining um hopefully we'll get some students that's the area close the day of the camp on Thursday Thursday October 28th one o'clock to 140 it's during solemn block we're gonna see what we can get but the idea being that if we keep showing up and being present that eventually people will come and talk to us um Amanda and I also live in the same neighborhood and so we put out an email like a text to the sort of neighborhood text thread and asked if they would want a listening session and they responded positively to that and so we're gonna just do like a one hour zoom listening session with just in our neighborhood and so that's something that others could consider too excellent thank you um anything else on community outreach so the RFP uh again hey Jim um I was just on the community outreach has anyone has anyone talked to um the pie folks about the fall festival and being there other than Jim getting dunked in the dunking booth I could reach I could reach out to the organizers and see if we could have a table there yep yep chucky cheese balls well I'm sure I'm sure I did this a while ago oh are we talking about the RFP now yes we were talking about there you know so the main issue there would be again thanks to Mia for putting together putting it out there were multiple people who asked questions we only got one person who actually submitted a proposal that person is someone who has worked with the district before I think we all have a high level of trust in so I think the question is do we want to try to go back out and be the bushes again or are we comfortable considering um that just the one proposal we have because the the deadline for submission was 13 I think so yeah how it was it was open for a month is that right yes so it's open for a month and we only got one what did we do where did we post it like uh what kind of outreach did we do I know Mia sent it out to a certain to some groups that's written in the RFP who she sent it out to others got it because people from ask questions who we didn't send it to so others got a hold of it um and we posted on social I will admit that we did not post it on the board's website because I couldn't figure out how to do that so yeah I think that's when that go on our website but we did do it I did do it on social media I mean I will say although don't get me wrong the one proposal we got is very strong and very thorough and we are familiar with his work and he does great work um I mean there is a part of me that's like wow we only got one proposal like I can't say I can't speak to that because of the federal funding that's coming in there's a lot of this type of work going on in school districts I don't know about other other places but in school districts a lot of people are doing this so and there's a limited to my knowledge there's a limited number of people who have the skills to facilitate this local conversation um so I'm not sure who else I don't I've been limited now but I'm not sure who else we can do would we talk in public sessions about like the merits of this particular proposal or it's a public proposal right yeah so yes I mean there is like um and very glad that he I share a community with them there is an element of this that you know Nathan is is like it wouldn't be he's not independent right he's a member of the molecular community yes I don't know if that matters I just think it's worth acknowledging Emma well just coincidentally we happen to have policy EO2 on our agenda tonight and in that policy budget execution policy it talks specifically about like their meeting to be a minimum of three bids and then also on case two of the policy I noticed it says um a conflict of interest survivors of the employee officer agent or immediate family member partner organization right offers and then in that case um that we would have to have more than one bid so I'm just wondering if it puts us in a position where we're out of compliance with our policy I know Libby you had mentioned that this was really more about construction construction stuff but the second part I'm not as positive but the first part with the three bids I'm pulling it up right now yeah which one are you on EO2 yeah EO2 page two at the bottom under four conflict of interest um I was reading through it earlier some kind of find the language um EO2 I think that is referring that is not referring to the provider of the service that's provide that's referring to the selection and the handling of the funds so like Libby couldn't select her husband to provide right a service that's how I read that too yeah yeah so it's not the actual person doing the service yeah the first line that says that name parks have been selection award of administration purchase of contract but um the in general the first line also says the purchase of supplies equipment and services represent okay it's talking about that so I'm trying to find a way to construction bids so there so there's some things maybe I'm just trying to get around it but because we have one bid and it's a good bid like Nathan but um so one so one question I would have and this is for the board to discuss it's a board's policy right um so it's your interpretation and this might be a loose interpretation when you're talking about district budget um the question would be is is you're paying for this out of s or two funds do we consider that part of the budget as it's meant to be here that might be one question right because it's a separate it's not something the voters have voted on does that make sense yeah um when you're talking about any kind of bidding that's a construction term right because we didn't have them bid on it we had we had them respond to it because we had they we have the amount that it would cost right but but it's it's right it does allow for rfb a sole source rfb it's for contract if the rfb only results in one bid where are you jim so everybody under contracts page two so source contracts should only occur when an rfb only results in a single bidder in the section right so that gives the board an outback yeah the section that i was referring to is actually on page one at the very bottom school board members school district employees or their immediate families may submit bids however bids submitted by those individuals may not be considered as part of the minimum number of required bids outlined above anytime such an individual is compelled to submit a bid it must be in writing regardless of cost can never be the only bid so that i mean i just once i started reading the language i was just wish that we had more i just wish that we had more i wish we did too i also really appreciate even in his work and i think he did have done great work for us he's already proved himself as you know qualified um but it's a challenge to me reading this policy even outside of this policy it's a little bit of a challenge yeah i just think it would be great if we could um maybe maybe we could take another two weeks to reach out to people again i don't know i don't know how i know that we're already under such stress to find qualified people to do any work in our district so it's a struggle for me to even bring that up as an idea but well it's simple to send things out i don't know who to send it out to so yeah i need some help with that because the the three people i know do this work one bid one turned it down and one asked questions but didn't fit so yeah i think i'll like do some research and i know some people like the um i know some people who do mediation work who have been professional facilitators through like mediation work and so maybe we could at least just to get some more just to get context right yeah just to give more bids on the table um we could kind of think outside the box of not maybe not consultants but um well it also may help the board um just being okay with it if if y'all sent it out to some more people yeah exactly for two more weeks and then we put a good effort in and we still have received anything yeah that seems makes sense to me like take another two weeks push it out see what if anything we get um can you maybe can you email to us the link or whatever it is you have it in the board packet okay the RFP itself the RFP itself is in the same folder as Nathan's the folder labeled RFP materials yes i i do think we have a strong proposal before us i just think it would be helpful to yeah also the language of this so i think you know that was an excellent reading on the policy yeah although i'm on the policy committee yeah we need we need to amend this policy because yeah a family member not a whole family if you read this if you actually read this a whole family needs to submit a bid for it not to count where are you looking at mr. lawyer school board members school district employees or their immediate families for all nice events just getting grandma police on us oh yeah yeah yeah we did not have an entire family of a yeah and frankly we for this we wanted to get it moving for audit purposes but maybe i don't know i don't know how the policy committee feels if you or the finance committee could assist with some of this too i wonder if we should go back and i wonder if we should send it back and scrutinize it further i'm just like to what extent right now i'm of two minds of that the first mind is aren't we we're doing this for us for funds i don't know where liby's at with applying for us for funds but these funds have already been applied for this disaster too i mean this is to get us to comply with with with state and federal law sooner rather than later exactly grant was asking that we revise this policy when we're starting to spend us our money right so that was the timely nature of this policy being revised now well it's still being read right why don't we just make that correction we can make that correction great and then we could um the families one yeah we can always go back and we can always go back to it but i think for time necessity sake we kind of needed to move it forward and to address grant well it's just we can make this particular correction and that's not a yeah i'm talking about more like i think andrew was just was talking about going back and doing a deeper dive i was asking yeah i was asking yeah i i think i i i appreciate both of your intuitions on this i think you're right let's keep moving forward let's make this change now there's some language no i was just gonna say that um i was saying that there's language in there that allows an rp to have a single but if i feel you result in a single bit of that's an exception and then it contradicts itself when it's out yeah um we're talking about this right here on page two but it seems like the minimum number of bids kind of goes away if you don't have you don't have one bid i mean i think i i think this is unclear enough that that if we do another two week push and don't get another application migrate yeah i agree oh so what you're saying aniquette is that paragraph two of number two contracts overrides the yeah because it says over there at the beginning um source those contracts um when there are extenuating circumstances as is discussed in the contract section and that's one of the circumstances are a few results in a single bit of so that would override that yeah so i think i think that this does give us i'm comfortable with this language and do another three push me or sarah i know you're trying to get in that's totally fine um and just back to the proposal for a minute i agree that it would be good to go out and try and get a couple more if we can um i do want to point out that we're asking people to do a lot of work and you know we want to make sure that they have enough time to do that work if they are interested um i do a lot of work just for the proposal and to that point we actually put in the rfp that the our deadline for the board for determined for selecting our facilitator is actually not until the 19th of november so we do have that time without having to push out our timeline too much so all of that that i think it makes sense and good sense to go out and and ask for more um if we can get it and um on the one that's in front of us um i agree it is incredibly strong i was very impressed with the thought and the level of detail that nathan went to in designing the process that he would go through as well as the intentionality and the how i can see him seeing that seeing the intentionality through an execution um for the inclusion of so many different voices in the process i was also really impressed with the letters of recommendation and there's one piece of it that if everyone else on the board is okay with i would like to go back and ask nathan a question about which is the timeline that he lays out um it looks to me like he's planning on sending the board the final report um at the end of the whole process in july and what we wanted and i think this is clear enough in the rfp although as the person who made wrote the first draft i may be a little biased what we wanted was that the the report come to us more like in may and then we have time before the full end of the scope of work a couple of months where nathan will then actually work with the board to help us figure out what to do with the report so i wanted to just go back to nathan and ask him if he could if there was a way to make that a little bit more clear or if whatever in his timeline um if that was all right with all of you i think i think if we were to enter into a contract with nathan mia that would be what we should do for that contract i don't know if we need to ask him to resubmit his proposal to do that does that make sense like i think we could have a conversation if he says sure that's no problem we would just put that in the contract um if if that seems sufficient i'm okay with that too it makes me a little bit nervous to accept a proposal that has that that timeline laid out and then it feels like we're actually moving the goalposts on him later on it feels better to do it right now but i don't feel that strongly i yeah so mia you probably didn't hear but nobody has a challenge to you asking nathan that would you like to reach out to him yeah i can do that my understanding of this i mean the way that it works in state government generally is we have a proposal we might go back and forth with the contractor about that proposal but it's really what goes into the contract that is like yeah so we regularly have these kinds of conversations after a proposal you can you can get into contract negotiations yeah and find legs contract i would agree but if it's a reaching out thing so i was just throwing it out there to say potentially sometime yep so we're gonna do another push come back in two weeks to see how if we got anything like mia's crappy until the 19th so see where we're at in a couple weeks so do we want to do we want to i'm just looking at a calendar november 19th is when when we're done it's no november 18th is Thanksgiving right no so we thank you i made a note to myself to change the due date on the rfp to 11 12 and then i will send i'll do that tomorrow and then send it out send you a link that you can send it to people because i'm good thank you to november 12 perfect and then we'll decide at our november 17th oh okay so november 17th no then we decide that and we can we can stay on the schedule that yeah and the district is off okay let me get back to my uh so committee updates uh policy and finance i think we can do these reasonably how much you want to do policy sure um the policy committee major news from our committee is that we thought that we were obligated to revise all policies and resubmit them um this year but that's not the case we've consulted with petro none of our policies have expiration dates on them it's just the best practice to review policies every three years so we most likely will not get to all and and i think i think i'm correct in saying all of our policies almost all of them need to be you know are up at the three-year mark now so we are most likely not going to stick to that schedule and get all of them done this school year and we've forgiven ourselves for that and we've talked to petro and he says that's legally fine um so that's where we're at with that we're sort of we've prioritized and started to create a calendar and a schedule and so we're we're moving forward that way um but there's also been some sort of organizational stuff and best practice issues that have arisen in our conversations around uh revising policies so we have dedicated some time to just take a step back look at our best practices as a committee and um and sort of create some structure to the way that we are going to proceed um and that includes you know sort of low-level organizational stuff high-level organizational stuff and then more like sort of values-oriented things so one of the things that um we're going to be actually putting before you at the next board meeting is something that the equity committee worked on Mia's on the line so she could maybe talk to that but it's a equity framework that we're going to be using as a tool to review when we review policies we're going to be using the framework it requires a little bit of data entry and you know a close read on on specific questions um for every policy and the reason why we've decided to bring it to the board um i'm not sure logistically if it's going to have to be voted on or if it's just more of like presenting it to you we'll have to see at the next meeting but um is because we some of the policies we think it's appropriate to be having sort of the first revision process happen within other committees so sometimes that might be the finance committee with the this EO2 and EO1 sometimes it might be a facilities committee sometimes it might be um equity committee whatever so we're actually going to be asking those individual committees to be using this equity framework as well today we talked about maybe creating an additional framework that we would use as like sort of a regular um tool to be reviewing these policies so we're going to be looking at that stuff um and then getting started again later this month or early November on our revision work Mia did you want to say anything about the equity framework tool i'm excited it started thank you um yeah so i think that's it for the policy any questions i think because policies will be going to different committees and also because policies get read before the full board like three times um i think having input from everybody on that and getting everybody on the same page yeah it's going to be really helpful um also you know if you guys have a vision for how it can be used i think that's going to be helpful for us to understand as well so i'm excited great i see the finance is on there yeah this this will be very brief uh we had a finance committee meeting earlier today first quarter we're in excellent shape really really excellent shape um at this point in the year it's you're just a quarter into the year and you like can't read too much into the numbers it's it's not until later in the year we'll what where we'll have more certainty surrounding what our actual expenditures are compared to the budget but we're in excellent shape and frankly we've benefited greatly from having grants our business manager over the years he's done a tremendous job and we get anybody who wants to take a look at those quarterly financial reports you can get a really good understanding of pretty much all of our major financial positions just when reviewing that and if anybody at some point we want to walk through that i've heard some board members wanting to talk about it i'm also happy to i've been really busy lately but i'm also happy to carve out some time if somebody has questions um to to walk you through where we are with things and answer any questions um so in in general very we're in a very good situation also we recently reviewed as this board knows going to spring this up again Brett because you're new um the the finance committee reviewed a couple of financial related policies which we're getting to in a minute and um we are sometimes involved in that way so yeah i think i think things look good any thoughts jill anakit read from today in general thank you um so three policy readings um made the one change change families two family members um there were a couple of those references the two families yeah all right i think i think there were like two in that pair of that that's a mistake and later it says family member in section form all right i think three differences of families in one family member so be consistent there immediate families may submit although one of them might be okay um yeah no the other the other references are for yeah tuition yeah yeah that might be okay all right are we talking about these right now yeah we can talk about them basically any sort of changes additions comments you want you make during the second reading that you put in and then the third reading is hopefully third reading and vote that same day exactly i get to put my consensus end of the next one i had a question about the under the bids and contract section bullet point one under bids and then under um oral quotations it says that quotations may be received by phone or in writing and i just wanted you to walk me through what it looks like to receive a bid over the phone and how that becomes part of public record so it would be the person who's taking that bids notes of the conversation that would be how it gets put in the public record the only time i could imagine that happening is andrew talking to a contractor who we might use quite a bit you know and and saying what he got for me that's the only time i could imagine it happening so is there a value to have that in there do you think that that's valuable to be able to accept a bid over the phone my hunch based on this particular policy or this particular policy is that that's language that has been given to us by the lawyers of the state the lawyers or the sorry the lawyers of the vsba who've written this for us because whenever a policy is of this length and has to do with a lot of statute it's usually written by lawyers for the vsba and then put up as a model policy that's where my hunch would be that the language comes from so i don't know the answer i mean to me it feels a little like i mean i think we're just trying to get away from any sort of thing that feels sort of under the radar insider you know and i feel like it's so easy to just send an email these days even if it's a super simple in writing yeah and that's what practice is for us outside of this policy in general that whenever we're having an important oral conversation administration or directors follow up with an email saying thank you for the conversation this is my understanding of it doesn't matter if we're talking to a teacher or we're talking you know like we generally follow that up and then that would come into public record at in the board packet when we're talking about bids or how would that be totally access has happened so i'm not sure like with the construction bid do construction bids ever come before the board or do they just get dealt with by the administration at a certain dollar amount at a certain dollar amount it comes before the board i believe in some way how did you remember from your past history we ever brought construction bids specific construction bids before the board yeah and then andrew or and or grant would say i i think the board should vote on this particular bid because this is my room we haven't done any major bids because the bond stuff was done prior to my time which is why i'm kind of waffling a little bit i'm trying to think about when we've done that and i don't know if we've done any major bids since then do we want to maybe this would have been a good question to ask andrew and grant that they were both here actually i know i wasn't thinking about it um i wonder i i feel like we're not going to get clarity on yeah is that something andrew that you'd be willing to sort of follow up on yeah um or would you or do you want me to i don't know how it makes sense because i know they can be sort of taking the lead on this policy if you could follow up on that i mean i personally would feel more comfortable if it was just all in writing but i mean i do see that the next bullet plane says that a record of these oral bids must be kept on file you could put parentheses eg email because that's time-stand right if you want to clarify that the type of record that you want us to keep does that make sense um yeah i guess i yeah i just don't know how it would work for if the public was sort of curious about our process in particular bidding thing how they would normally access those would it be a public records request a good file yeah or they just ask yeah i mean like reporters yeah regularly make those types of requests i just want clarification around that and if there's a way for us to just um get around oral bidding feels like yep yeah that was my only question any other questions or comments are we are we taking them one at a time or are we doing them all at once i think we open above all at once um okay so the one that i i have a small thing on animal dissection which i think since we changed the language on our website from mandatory to required i saw then um we just need to change it on each policy as they come up for review and the animal dissection one has mandatory at the top of it or mandated so i think we just need to change that to required is that right i think we need a motion to just open to spread i think we could have a motion to adjourn right are we at that point we're at that point but do we need to approve this policy yeah i'll all get approved to the third reading okay great yeah the readings are just uh it's basically an editing set okay great i move to adjourn there was second i was in favor all right you imposed great have a good night