 So welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining us on July 29th at six o'clock. All right, so are there any adjustments to the agenda? Yes, we have two executive sessions on student matters. There'll be two. Okay, that's okay to move those to the end of the meeting. Yup. Okay, any other changes to the agenda? All right, assigning times and a timekeeper. We haven't always done that. Does anyone feel strongly, whether that needs to happen or not? Okay, I'm comfortable moving forward without doing that. I think usually we can get through things in a reasonable amount of time. Any objections to that? Okay, all right, what's that, Lisa? Oh, I just said that sounds good to me. Okay, thank you. All right, this is our first public comment. Would anyone like to share? Just gonna give one more minute for people to unmute if they need to. I know we do have some public with us. All right, I guess not. Right now we do have another public comment toward the end of the meeting. So we have a consent agenda and that involves approving the minutes of Tuesday, June 16th. So has everyone had an opportunity to review those minutes? Anyone have thoughts on the minutes from June 16th? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from June 16th. Okay, Andrew, thank you. And do we have a second? All second. Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes of approving the minutes from June 16th, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, minutes are unanimously approved. Okay, and now we come to board comment. Any of the board members have comments at this point in time? All right. So we'll move forward to the superintendent's report. So you guys received my superintendent's report last week. There's other stuff that we're gonna hit on tonight that are discussion items. So I don't have anything else to add, but I'll entertain any questions folks have. And certainly I know something that's on everyone's mind is our plans around COVID-19. And I'll give you an update on all those too. All right, so any questions from last week's superintendent's report? I've not had the admin retreat went really well over the last two days. And I thought it was very positive. We were able to get draft goals that we come into the SU board for adoption in August for continuous improvement plan goals and strategic plan goals. And the overall sentiment was that I felt like it was positive upbeat, very collaborative. And I'll have some updates around that collaboration during the COVID-19 update. Wonderful, thank you. Okay, business managers report. Hello everyone, I sent it out. If you have any questions, please let me know. I don't have anything specific to add. I do know later in the agenda is a couple of discussion items for me. Okay. Been very crazy in the business office. I bet with all of the audit stuff, I'm just now receiving a message from a member of the public who wants to join our meeting. So please just bear with me for one moment while I share some information. Okay, thank you, Tara. You're welcome. Does anyone have questions for Tara? This is Tammy. Christy didn't send out the report that Tara is talking about. Is that something that should be on a, is that posted on the site or something? We'll get it on the site. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I wonder if Tammy should be added to the email group that receives our report so she can link them to the minutes. Yeah, that makes sense. I thought that was already the case, but thank you. All right, and the principles report, just that ongoing document that we have. Does anyone have questions about that or do the principles have anything that you would like to add or highlight? The principles report that I have is still showing June 16th, but... There was one sent out in the packet with my... Right, okay. Do you want me to share that right now again? That would be perfect, thank you. Yeah, because the one I clicked on doesn't look like what I have looked at, so. One second. Great, thank you. The only thing comment we wanted to make was that more maybe associated with Tara's report, just that we are waiting for a meeting we want to set up a meeting with Tara because we know there's some things that are inaccurate or not in the right places that we want to work through that with her. Okay. Should be there now for you. Great. It's worth noting, this is Reid, it's worth noting that this is the first month of a new format for our principles report so that all the principles reports in the supervisory union are consistent in format and covering the same strategic goals for the supervisory union. And we've identified roughly those three goals. We spent the afternoon work mything these. So these are the general areas of the goals but their goals are not fine in their final format but they generally will cover the topics of our MTSS student support system, proficiency based learning and personalization and community partnerships and kind of student voice and choice for that third goal. I appreciate that. Thank you. I like this format seems very clean and clear. I like it as well. We also received a letter of resignation today. Sorry, Andrew, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I like the format as well. I like how you tie it to the goals but I did like kind of getting general knowledge about things that are going on in school as you did in the old ones. So maybe you still have some of those things in there too. Anyway, go ahead. We're gonna hold on to that letter to the SU board because it's actually an SU employee. Oh, all right. Okay. Any questions for the principles or any feedback on this new report? I guess we're moving right along. Great, thank you. So that brings us to discussion items of the Finance and Facilities Committee. All right, so that's me and the principle. So we adopted a finance and in addition to a facilities committee in FBUD. We're looking to adopt these committees in RUD and potentially in our SUD to start. The concept being that the finance committee will meet monthly with, so we'll have board member representation up to three. It'll meet with Reed. It's gonna be the lead principle for the finance committee and Tara. And you guys would be looking over general expenditure monthly expenditure reports, revenue reports as they're up and running. And you'll also be taking a lead. We're looking at budgeting very differently this upcoming school year. And during the admin retreat, we talked about the need to really budget, redo the budget in general and look at what is the budget support for 21-22 and get away from the current budget lines and the budgets that we have and redo it from the bottom up. So we know exactly what is where. I think it's gonna make your expenditure reports much more easy to follow and read. And so that committee will be involved in that. The idea would be that that committee is meeting monthly and then that committee will be reporting back out to the board and that committee will have standing reports monthly to the board. The idea being that there's just a closer relationship with the board and the administration around that budget development, but also on the progress monitoring of the expenditures and revenue side. So that's a brief overview of that. The facilities committee would be helping with strategic planning around the facilities and operation side of the organization. But in addition to that, I think it's really prudent that we come up with a plan of attack of how we're budgeting reserve accounts and a long-term range plan for upkeep and maintenance of our building. And so those two committees will have to interact at times, but for a while, they'll meet separate. But then when we get to that part of the budget process, they'll meet and develop their maintenance and operation side of the budget together and then present it to the board. So what the board is gonna see in August is the calendar will be broken down as the budget process goes month by month around student support services around universal instruction and programming, which has supply lines and everything around universal instruction and teaching force. And then it'll get to operations and maintenance and we'll take a chunk of that one month at a time. And so these committees would be helping work with the administration to do that work and then be presenting to the full board as we go along. So at this point, are you looking for a volunteer? If you decided that's something you wanna act on, then you should make a motion to adopt those committees and then appoint members. Okay, so thoughts? I move that we adopt those committees. Okay, so Bob moved that we adopted those committees. Do I have a second? This is Lisa, I'll second. Is there any discussion before we vote on this? I think it would be good to have these committees to one to monitor finances for month to month and come up with the updated plan, like what Jamie talked about. And then also I think having a facilities group as well is a good idea, buildings age and there's always things that need to be fixed and it always helps to have a plan on how those things are gonna be done when they come up so that it's not an emergency, it's something that's anticipated in advance. Mm-hmm. I agree. Who, Jamie, did you say who is gonna be running the facilities committee? So Owen's gonna be the principal that oversees the facilities and Reed will oversee the finance. Okay. And then we would be looking for two to three board members to join both of those committees. And Tara will be with the finance committee and I'll probably be the liaison with the facilities committee. And just as a refresher, could you give the breakdown? So two to three board members, Tara and Reed on the finance, Owen and you on the facility piece. Is that the correct representation on those two committees? Did I leave anyone out? Nope. There's no community members present on those committees. Nope. Will there be, is there an idea that there will be other people beyond the board members and administration? There certainly can be. I was gonna leave that up to your committees to decide. Okay. Certainly your head of maintenance will be on the two facilities committees. Right. Owen posted a comment that board members are community members. That is true. I think that we have community members who are interested in being a part of things from time to time who don't necessarily wanna make the board commitment. But I am hardened to hear that people, that the committees can make those choices. Yep. I think you can absolutely make those choices. And I would encourage you to bring in expertise as you need it. I mean, I can totally see the facilities committee needing to do that at times and possibly the finance committee. Yeah. Okay. Any other discussion before we vote on this? Okay. All in favor of creating a finance and a facilities committee, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. So that unanimously carries. At this point, do we have any volunteers from the board knowing that we need between two and three board members per committee? So should we, is there anyone who would like to join the finance committee? I would. Yeah, I'll do that. So that's Bob and Andrew. Anyone else? I guess I would. Okay. So that's three. Is everyone feel comfortable with that? I feel comfortable with that. That's the maximum number we can have without a quorum. And I appreciate the three of you volunteering to fill that role. Okay. Anyone else have strong feelings? So we might have to have a runoff or no. Okay. And facilities. Is there anyone who would like to be on the facilities committee? I would, Lisa. Okay. I can help with that one too, Chris. All right. Anyone else? Thank you very much. I feel like I'm pretty much at capacity between the executive board and full board and our regular meeting. So I appreciate all of you stepping into these roles. Thank you. Thanks, guys. This will get up and running in September. All right. That's exciting. Yeah. That'd be great. Okay. Policy committee. So that was just an update that the policy committee met. There's some policies that will be coming to you guys. We have two that were adopted by the policy committee that will come in front of the full board in August. And Lisa, I was gonna let you update them about where we're at in regards to equity policy. Yeah. There are two people from Vermont Law School who are working with local school districts to help them develop equity policy. So at the policy committee meeting the other night, Mary Ellen pitched their proposal, which was that students, community members work together with these students who have spent the last two years at Vermont Law School focused on equity and I'm not remembering their names right now, unfortunately. And so those committees, hopefully by November would be able to bring us a draft equity policy that we could look at and discuss. I think it'll probably go to the policy committee and then come to individual boards and the full board. But I thought that was exciting and I have really appreciated the number of young people who've been active in pushing for equity in our communities and I'm appreciative that this gives them an outlet to work on something substantial and meaningful. Did I miss anything, Jamie? No, that's great. And there will be professional development for faculty and staff that aligns to the procedures of the policy. So we're excited about that and that would take place next year. I think I said this the other night at the policy committee meeting and so Jamie will probably get tired of hearing me say it. I think it's also really important that this extend to support staff and coaching staff. I just think about the number of times that I hear things said at games or that unfortunately happens not in a classroom setting. And so I'd love for our coaches also to have that training in order to coach. So. That will happen. Okay. Thank you. Any questions about any of the policies? All right. So that brings us to the COVID-19 update. So I've got a bulleted list here that I wanna hit on the board and I'm happy to entertain any questions in the principles will too about where we're at in the process. The task force recommendations came out last week. Since then, there was announcement by the governor that an executive order is gonna take place that delays the opening of schools until the 8th of September. They're still talk about what that means for student days. We won't know that until after August 25th because that's a legislative decision and they are not due back in until August 25th around whether that will affect student days or not. So we need to move forward with planning at this point knowing that we have 177 days in the calendar, the minimum requirements 175, so I'll be working with the union to discuss what in-service time will look like prior to the start of the school year now which will be on the 8th. Then the full SU board will have to come back together and adopted an additional revised calendar due to that announcement this week. We're meeting with the transportation company tomorrow to talk about exactly what transportation will look like. In addition to that, we've got a transportation survey that's going out to all families on Monday in regards to find out who absolutely needs transportation in order to get to school. We'll use that to help us plan routes. We're gonna strongly encourage families to transport students if possible just due to the recommendations or requirements in regards to social distancing and med checks on buses. One of the things in transportation is parents will be required to stay at the bus stop until the med check is completed because what we can't have is young students being at the bus stop. We do a med check, they don't pass and now we have a student that we have nowhere for them to go. So that is going to be clearly communicated to families during that survey next week. The in-person schedules for the elementary schools are all gonna be released next week. Principles are meeting tomorrow to put the final touches on that. Those schedules will go across the entire SU. It will provide flexibility for families at the end of the day and give school staff time to do appropriate planning and cleaning at the end of the day to ensure that schools are safe for return the following day in-person will happen five days a week and there will be education will happen from eight to three but there will be a possibility for parents to pick students up earlier in the day if needed. And that will all be released on Monday. The Virtual Learning Academy, Lindy Stetson, the principal from Stockbridge is gonna oversee that for the SU. We will have one point principle for the entire SU for the Virtual Learning Academy and that will also have a schedule released on Monday. That is looking like a regular school day from eight 30 to two 30 with regularly scheduled classes occurring throughout the day, social time at lunch happening in office hours and extra support and intervention toward the end of the day. So it's gonna be very different than what it looked like in the spring. And all of those details are going out prior to students signing up for the Virtual Learning Platform. Again, the calendar is gonna have to be adjusted so we're gonna have to pull the full board together once that those final touches are done. We're gonna work in coordination with the union in regards to what in-service time and planning looks like. And we continue to move forward with purchasing a PPE across the SU. We've pulled all of our SU nurses together. They've met to ensure that they're on the same page in regards to implementing the recommendations. Shane, our COVID WRVSU COVID coordinator is meeting with all heads of maintenance and building principles over the next upcoming week or two to discuss what needs there are to ensure we have proper cleaning supplies purchased and that we have those routines implemented with fidelity across the SU. We continue to move forward with the purchasing of tents and outdoor supplies to try to do as much outdoor education as possible. That's the idea across the entire SU. And I'm meeting with Reed and Owen on Friday to discuss what the middle and high school schedules will look like. And I know that they've got a survey going out too to gather more feedback from families before we release those. And if you have specific questions about what the high school or middle school schedules will look like, they'll entertain those. And so we've been doing a great deal of work. It was a fairly significant chunk of our time at the admin retreat over the last two days. I'm continuing to provide regular updates and communication. A letter will go out for me on Friday answering all questions that have come in over the past week. And that will go out to all families across the SU in addition to me letting them know all these updates I just told you tonight. And that they can expect those surveys and details around what the in-person schedule will look like for the elementary students the first of next week. That will go out on Monday. So all that will go out to the greater community on Friday. We've been, I've received a significant response to the idea that we're gonna work, move forward with elementary students in-person. There's some SU's around us who are not doing that. That is posing a bit of a challenge I think for us in regards to workforce. I attended a VSA meeting yesterday. We're not the only ones in the situation around SU's nearby not having the exact same schedule. It's a frustration I think for all superintendents across the state that this situation has occurred. We are not the, so you know, the Vermont Association of Pediatrics has strongly encouraged elementary students to be in school five days a week as well as the agency of Ed and the Department of Health. Those statements came out yesterday. So I feel good that we're moving forward with that option. But we're also providing flexibility throughout the instructional day. And also the fact that we have a virtual learning academy for families that are feeling safe to send their kids back yet. We totally understand that. Or that there could be other, you know, extenuating circumstances why it wouldn't make sense for their children. And so we will move forward with the virtual learning academy throughout the entire year. We're asking for families to commit to a trimester to begin with just because I'm worried about it shuffling back and forth. And the fact that the virtual learning academy is gonna be staffed by teachers across the SU, not necessarily teachers that are actually in the building for that particular student. We're gonna be clear about that for families when they sign up. And we're doing that because we're trying to work really efficiently. And I think we suspect that we're gonna have a sense of what our CARES money will look like here in the next few days, an approximate amount. And so that's good news as well. And so we continue to look to make purchases that are specific to CARES money so that we can easily track that and get reimbursed for that. I suspect that the CARES money will be enough to pay for the cost that we're incurring right now due to COVID-19. That's my sense. Based on information I've been receiving. Will the tents be able to be billed to CARES money? Yeah, we're gonna have a billed to CARES in addition to, we have some 21C money since 21C is using it that we will also use because we had some carryover in regards to our 21C money for after-school programming. So we're gonna use some of those funds to offset the cost as well. Do we have any sense so far of the number of staff who may need to work remotely? That information, the forms went out Monday? Only Wednesday, I guess. To gather that information, I'm meeting with faculty and staff all day on August 7th to review those forms with Lisa Blair and HR. And so we'll have a benefit then in regards to who will be able to return and can't. We believe that we will be all right in regards to staffing right now. I have no reason to believe that we are not gonna be able to staff in open schools. We are moving forward and we'll use CARES money. We are looking to get more regular everyday subs in place that become part of the school climate and culture this year and the event that when we are short staff that we have those folks to deploy and we'll use CARES money to pay for those folks. Okay. Any other questions for board members or? Yeah, this is Lisa. I read most of the COVID task force report from last week and as I was reading it, I could just, I mean, I appreciate all the steps that are being taken from taking temperatures when students get on the bus to having separate ways to enter if you're getting off a bus or getting dropped off or driving yourself. But every step though, I know it's important. It just made me wonder how much is gonna be left of the day for students to actually learn. And I'm sure you guys were talking about that kind of stuff during your retreat, but that's as a parent, that's the first thing that came to mind. Now, when you're encouraging students to either get brought to school by their parents or to get there on their own, what I could envision is a logjam of parents with students in their cars, waiting for the students to be able to enter the school, to have their temperature taken in for the parent needing to stay there in case the student needed to go back. And that means that a parent could be sitting there in their car with the line of traffic, just waiting for, it could be a half hour to an hour before they can go back, head to work or... I think we're gonna try to have multiple entry points for the different grades. Okay. Spread out across the campus. That would be really communicated. So we're not looking at one entry point to buildings due to those concerns. And what we're trying to learn from our summer program, what we've heard is that the check-in takes about a minute. Okay. And so hence we understand that we're gonna need multiple points of entry. And lots of staff to do that. Yep. So that'll be teachers before school gets started showing up. No, no, we'll look to utilize training up our support staff here in Oasis. So we'll incur some extra costs there, but again, that's what the CARES money's for. Right. So that won't, those extra hours will be CARES money that it'll incur. Okay. Well, I know we're all just figuring this out. It's just overwhelming to me as I think about all the possibilities where things could require attention or things could go wrong. And so I hope you have some plan Bs and plan Cs in place as well. Yeah, I mean, I remember originally that's why we had the student startup calendar the way we had it, right? Yeah. I was not a superintendent. I don't mind saying this publicly in favor necessarily of opening September 8th because I really enjoyed our calendar. It gave us time to say today didn't work. We got to address it. Yeah. And so now we're starting up on the 8th of September, which is the peak of the day and we've got a four day work week. So I got to figure that out. The admin teams have been talking about it. Remember before we had a day on a Friday so we could adjust over the weekend. And then we were going to go four and a half days and adjust again on a Friday. So we've lost that opportunity right now, but there doesn't mean we can't have some cold run possibilities where you invite folks in so they see what it looks like prior to the start of school and so that we can learn from that. And my sense is we may very well be doing that. Yeah. And then our extra room's going to be needed. It seems for various tasks, it seems like we're going to need some extra space to handle that. The principal will speak to that about what their ideas are. I know they plan on using tents and being outdoors a lot. Yeah. And in addition, my sense is based on other superintendents around the area, about 15 to 20% of students have been selecting the virtual option. So we have to take that into account in regards to our numbers as well. Principal, do you want to add to that? I know that you plan on doing a lot about door learning. Sure, I could start if you want. Lisa, these are great questions and I encourage folks to ask questions and send us questions because we have never managed opening a school in a pandemic before. And we're taking it all very seriously and our first thing we think about is safety. So that's the first part. We don't have all the details, but one of the ways that we're thinking about the White River Valley Middle School is when students and faculty are on campus that they will be outdoors completely all day. Planned and we're going to try to plan to do that all the way through Thanksgiving. And we can answer some questions about cold weather or rain or thunder and lightning and we're working on that. We have a team of teachers that have volunteered to work on this all summer. It's been really, really amazing how folks are stepping up. And of course, they're well, they're big investment. We need things like tents and we need coolers and fans in the tents. And we're thinking that the bathroom, so I could give a quick example if that's okay with folks. Jamie, you all right if I give up by current thinking about the middle school? And we're gonna meet with Jamie on this, nothing's final, remember that. But there was also something in Digger and I was also interviewed today by the way at 60 by six which is part of 60 minutes. Yeah, everybody's interested and we don't have a full plan yet. It's really scary to talk to people. But I had permission from Jamie to do that. And around the country people are figuring this out, right? But we're good about this in Vermont and especially on the Bethel campus, we've been outdoors. We have four formally trained outdoor educators which really helps immediately. Our thinking is to create pods of 10 students and two adults in each pod. Each pod would not interact with any other pods. They would, while they're at school, all of their at school time would be in that group of 12. Each of those groups, and we are counting on every student in case they all come. We have 141, we'd have 14 pods and we would have everybody would have a spot that would be outdoors in a tent area. They also would have spots that they could go to that would be very safe. And we would need to split them away from the building because a group of 12 would need to share two classrooms that have adjoining doors is my calculation. And then we were also, Lindley Brainard who's a select person and a shop teacher at our school and just a wonderful person that has been very helpful. And she and I are working on maybe contacting the local four churches and using their spots if we had to. The Town Hall, the Arnold Block itself, and maybe even GW. So we would have alternate spots if we could predict that there was gonna be superfile weather. So that's an example. Each pod would also have a portalette because we don't wanna dig toilets in, we don't want 140 people using the toilet in the woods. It would probably back up in a bad way. And we're gonna teach the kids really, like the idea of like leave no trace and that they would be responsible. If you use that porta potty, you clean that porta potty. That doesn't mean empty it, but you back your way out and we're gonna teach them that whatever you do, you put it back the way it was or better. We're gonna try to focus this in three big areas. Outdoor education when they're on campus. Outdoor education, restorative practices, which will create the concept of not an advisory but a circle of a community and they would build community and that would be the beginning part and really focus on social emotional learning and keeping them healthy and safe when they're there. And then we're also looking at an anti-racist literacy unit that would either be outdoors and indoors or just outdoors. And we had a team attend the Middle Grades Institute this summer and work on that. Another team attended the Middle Grades Institute and took everything we learned about our remote learning and analyzed it and improved it. And with all those resources at MGI, even though it was virtual, there's hundreds of people they have drawn on and we have created a way to use the Google suite that's gonna just make it so much better for parents and kids. And we're gonna share that SUY, by the way. And I think I got it all there for now. We don't know everything and we know some stuff and we're looking at possibly our thinking right now is some version of partial remote and partial onsite. So that we're talking about having two groups. So we have 141 kids, let's round to 140 for numbers. If we could have 70 kids on campus per day with their teacher leaders and then when they're the other group of kids would be learning remotely at the same time. So they would alternate back and forth. So in theory, we would only need seven tents and seven places because we could share those and make sure they were cleaned each night. I think I'm getting this down, but you know what? Every time we talk about this, we learn more. And I always keep reminding everybody, the number one thing, we always say respect, responsibility and safety. We need to put safety at the top of the list right now. And we also need to remind each other we're in a pandemic and we're not doing school. We're doing something differently and we're gonna be learning and we're gonna also be making sure people are socially and emotionally stable and well. So we're talking about possibly having an example might be students would come to school either by bus, they would have had their first point of contact at the bus or if they come by car, their first point of contact would be on campus and they go directly to their pod and their leader. Their leader, one of their leaders has already collected their food for the day. Their breakfast, their snack and their lunch and it's in a cooler at their site. And that's where they start and end their day. So that's the thinking right now for the middle school. And I think it works really well and the Tarrant folks are really interested and helpful to us and they are supportive of this. And we know it works really well with the middle school experience. It fits perfectly. So can I ask another question? Can I ask 10, it's your birthday. Okay, well, I'm 29, so I'll ask 29 questions. Nice. So what about, I know that how are you gonna keep kids from interacting with each other, especially if they're not in the same group, especially if, you know, all these kids are missing each other and they wanna touch, they wanna hold hands, they wanna hug. Sure. And so there's gonna be social emotional stuff if there's two students and are really good friends that are in separate groups, so they're not gonna be able to interact at all. And then at what point once they're out of school and they're walking away, are you supervising to make sure there's social distancing? Cause an example is I've got, you know, my kids have been social distancing very well and, you know, we really limit interactions, though each one of our kids have certain friends that they spend time with, that they're kind of, it's their turn tool, I guess, right? So they've been touching, they've been, you know, they've not been social distancing. I don't wanna know the details. Right, okay. But basically, we've got that dynamic and how does that interface with the school? Well, I mean, I feel like I can jump in knowing, cause this is a question we're gonna keep all around. I think Lisa, we're gonna teach, we're gonna model, we're gonna ask students to follow the expectation safely, but this is something parents have to weigh. There's no way the school can say that students aren't going to come into close contact because we can't monitor every student at all times. And so that's why we're offering the virtual option. And so we're gonna have informational nights to discuss these things across the SU. Certain schools have already started and Shane's joining them as the COVID coordinator, but that is something parents have to take into account. I was at number 10 pond two weekends ago and there were kids all over the place swimming and interacting. And so I think for us to think that students aren't going to be commingling after they leave, it would just, it would be that we have our head in the sand. Right. And what I think we have to say is we're taking every step we can to mitigate risk. And that's the framework we're gonna go from is that we're taking all these steps and precautions to mitigate these risks, but there are still risks involved. And one more question was around the, in the COVID-19 task force report, there was students can decide whether they wanna do virtual or in-person by each trimester. But once you've decided you're in it, now, is that so? If you're in virtual and you wanna come back because we're planning differently. And also in my letter said it's by superintendent approval. If a student starts and says this isn't for me, we'll permit them to be in virtual. Okay. And we'll make that clear in the next communication. We have a community member who asked a question in the chat. So Annette Rhodes asked, will students who need intervention get them in the building or under a separate tent? I think it'll be a combination of both depending on what the student needs for interventions and how many times. Right. But we are certainly, if a student has interventions within their IEP or their 504 plan or their target intensive intervention plan, then they'll receive those interventions and those are the logistics principles need to be working out. In combination with Don. Yeah. I also think that I think we need to, the way we're offering it is a good way, but there will always be a need to be responsive to what's in front of us. If the middle school is not in the building and they're on campus, we have a whole building that's available. It could also be used in another way for the school. We've talked about that as the, maybe the librarians are like using the windows to hand out books. We have to consider how we'll do Chromebooks. And we can also do some of that more passive engagement on the remote days. Not that intervention is, but we're meeting tomorrow with the three principals and our new leadership team of the intervention folks on both the MTSS and SEL side of things. So we're going to start planning that as well. SELs for social emotional learning. Let's see. Thank you. So that's the MTSS coordinator, Shane Oaks and Sandy Tracy, along with the new hire, Ashley Grote. So this will be our first day with Ashley tomorrow. And Mindy Beth Pike. Nice. Is there thinking that they'll be, and I'm sorry if I missed this because I've been reading a lot about COVID in schools, but is there thinking that there will be some sort of education piece for parents because I think what Lisa noted about social distancing and, you know, not if your kid wakes up with a little fever, not giving them Tylenol and sending them to school, which I know is reality for a lot. Local districts have started holding informational nights. Sharon's holding theirs tomorrow. Shane will be at all of them. I'll attend the ones that I can, but I don't have a board meeting. And in addition to that, we'll have SU wide ones starting up as well. That will be offered to all communities for questions and answers and education. We also plan on doing education for parents if in regards to their child attending the virtual learning academy. So that will be a caveat that parents have to attend an orientation as well as students. We also want to do some pre-assessment prior to the virtual learning academy to see exactly where students are performing academically so that we have them grouped appropriately throughout the virtual learning academy. Okay. That sounds great. Thank you. So the extra week helped us with that stuff. Yeah. Let's go ahead and do a couple of things. One being, I know it's gonna be difficult for teachers when they have students in another system that has a different schedule. And I know in the past, on individual special occasions, we've let students from other districts come in tuition-free. And I think as a board, we should make a blanket offer that any staff need or would like to have their students come to our school. I'm gonna come to the SU board about that. I need to do some more checking with legal. That's something that's come up at the VSA in general. Okay. And I just need to make certain that we are permitted to do that. Okay. I know we've done it in the past like the board's approved exceptions or students. Yeah. I think I'm gonna come to you with that. I just need to make certain I double check dot the I's and cross the T's. Yep. Okay. My other question is about the virtual learning academy. How much flexibility for parents will there be with that? Like, is it going to be, they need to have their students online attending classes throughout the morning? Well, we're really gonna look for them to commit that their children are online throughout the day. They don't have to be on the entire time. So the way we're gonna do it is all the lessons will be recorded by the teacher. The lesson will be provided that way via Google and the teacher will have check-in times throughout the day during those instructional blocks that then reinforce the lesson. In addition to also office hours. So it's not gonna look like it did prior. This idea of you can just get on at night or you can get on just, you know, it's from seven to nine. That's not what we're looking to do here because what we're not doing is maintaining. We're looking for students to grow academically. Right, no, I appreciate that. I do think it would be good to offer some flexibility for parents. Well, mostly I'm really concerned about parents opting for homeschool. Large majority of our families doing that. And I know that there's some families who, you know, don't want their children to be on screens, but don't feel comfortable sending their kids back. And, you know, if there's a set curriculum and they're kind of doing some of the work offline and keeping their kids up with checks in and stuff like that, I would hope that something like that might be. I'm sure that, you know, I don't want to also speak for Lindy, right? Yeah, of course. She would be the principal for it. We'll be as flexible as we can. There's a question about the hybrid. I would say our hybrid goes as far as students will be able to leave the elementary school early each day. Exactly what that time is yet is not known, but there's not going to be a hybrid in regards to elementary students coming two days a week and doing virtual three. We don't have the staff to pull that off. Really, that's what it came down to. To do a full virtual, to do an in-person and to do a hybrid, we just don't have the amount of staff we need at the elementary level. Right. No, I think that makes sense. It doesn't seem like hybrid provides that much more mitigation of risk compared to just all day or compared to remote. Anyway, I was more for students, for parents who wanted to be more involved, but give them an option to stay connected with the school that isn't going full home school, but would give them a larger role in supervising their kids, as opposed to having them watching lessons all day. I totally get it, and we'll continue to adjust the virtual academy based on feedback we get. Right. I'm telling you what we've got right now as a potential draft, and part of it will be what is the outpouring of number of students who want to participate versus not. Like I said, colleagues have told me that it's about 15 to 20% is the return most folks are getting on the virtual option. Okay, thanks. Tammy, did you want to follow up? Did you have a question? The context of the word, I'm not on mute, right? The context of the word hybrid in these discussions has been used, I describe it, and so I might be kind of simplifying it, either onsite or virtual. And so when someone says a remote hybrid or a remote day, that leads me to think I didn't understand what I had read. So what I had read was families would need to choose either in person or remote learning. And so I was confused by the usage of the word remote hybrid and a remote day. That is the case, Tammy, in all of our elementary schools that go through eighth grade or sixth grade across the ESU. Your middle and high school has a lot more numbers, of course, than any of my other schools in the ESU. So they may actually be on campus certain days and off campus others. I can tell you, I used probably the wrong term and I think we're finding our language on this with the pandemic and maybe hybrid's wrong. I wrote in their mixed model, which it comes out of Jamie's intro letter. And it's probably a better term that, and it says this could potentially require a mixed model of simultaneous instruction to be a virtual and in person. It makes a lot more sense. I apologize for the confusion. Thank you. Yeah. Crazy, huh? Thank you. Mm-hmm. It's just crazy. Well, I want to highlight my first model. I'm glad I wrote that. Yeah, I do too. You know. Worked. Any other questions before we move off this really great topic? Yes. Do we have any, have we got any response or any feedback on that, the money or whatever that the state put out for having HVAC systems evaluated? Have we ever heard anything back on that? Yeah, we've been pushing forward with that. You guys want to talk about where you're at with that? Yeah, on South Royalton's campus, we had efficiency Vermont in earlier this week to review our systems. We have two ventilation projects in the work. I'll start by saying we've replaced all our filters and to the extent that our systems are cleaned and maintained and working according to the MIRV specifications. We're good there to restart the school where we're not where we'd like to be is in the nurses office. And we're working with efficiency Vermont in that grant to double the capacity of the outside vents that go out of the nurses office to pull more outside air through. So that's not going to be a big expense. I don't think, you know, probably $2,000 or less but we're hoping for that. The bigger expense is that the majority of our classroom ventilation systems are unit vents. So they're built into the walls of the school, they pull outside air in and run it through the kind of floor equipment and that's all old and outdated. And so the bigger quote will be what could we replace those with so they're all on a single HBA system that's computer operated. So we can control the numbers of times that the air circulates through a room in an hour, for example. But that's going to be a lot of money who know and whether the current understanding of the grant that I have is that all the work has to be done by December 31st. And whether that can happen or not that, you know, the companies in Vermont are going to be flat out trying to meet those deadlines once the money is approved. So, you know. I'm confident that there's actually going to be money there though. So that's good. Yeah. One thing we've talked about, both as I understand Bethel and South Royalton have at this point is we both have invested in disinfecting equipment. So one of the things we've talked about for our programs is a midweek deeper cleaning where we would spray disinfectant in all the classrooms. And the benefit of the spray is that it can land inside keyboards. It can get underneath chairs. It can penetrate into the fibers of carpet in rooms of that carpet. So we're feeling good that we made that investment. It took us so almost four months to get it. We still haven't been trained by the vendor on how to use it yet, but at least we've got the equipment in the supplies to disinfect when the time comes. Great. Thank you. All right. Any other COVID related questions? I appreciate all the work that's been done and the thoughtfulness put into this planning. It's a lot to take on in a short period of time and a lot to think about the safety of staff, students, and everyone involved. So I just want to express how much I appreciate this. One quick comment on the air filtration stuff. Have you considered getting some mobile air filtration things? Just the like standalone air filtration things? Just if something, you know, the fan in a classroom goes out or something, like having something where you could bring it in and maintain air filtering would probably be a good idea. There's, now that there's a facilities committee and Lisa is 29 and she can drive and Chris, there's actually a facilities meeting on Friday, right Reed? Yeah, there is. In short, I think the sooner we can meet, the better. And we could crash maybe Reed's meeting and bring John Hubble with us, but we'll reach out after the meeting about that. I'm sure you're doing nothing. But it's a sort of thing, just so you know, it's like it's all hands on deck, as you might imagine. And we could use your help Lisa and Chris on the facility side. And I'm sure God bless the budget committee, finance committee, I'm really a big fan of you all. All right, so that brings us to end of the year finance projections. So we are still working through final reconciliations as I indicated in my report, but given what we have done and identified so far, I still do project that you will end in a deficit and the reason for that will not be a result of your own individual expenditures, but rather the special education additional assessment and the supervisory additional assessment. So we're still working through those reconciliations done to have a more solid number as far as that impact, given that red has the largest portion of those assessments, it will obviously impact you the largest. And you guys have a full SU board meeting on August 24th, of which the SU will be prepared to talk to you about the why of those things and the steps we're putting in place to resolve those as we move forward. And it'll be a detailed report. That would be the main agenda that night in addition to COVID. And then as far, that's for your general fund as far as food services concerned, as of numbers on Monday, which we're still working obviously through the COVID additional expenditure reimbursements if we can get any of that money back. Food service right now is looking at about $117,000 deficit, which is obviously separate from your general fund. So, I mean, we're not happy about this. We're gonna go to the full SU board to talk about why we believe these things have been occurring on August 24th. And with a plan of action on how we're gonna attack them, the finance committees are a part of that in addition to just changing our budgeting practices as we move forward. But it's also why coming into this school year, we haven't replaced some outgoing staff. And we're also taking at the SU level, Don McMahon's been analyzing our costs across the SU and we're taking steps and putting steps in place already to make certain that we're reducing special ed spending for this upcoming school year. And I can talk about more of those specifics of what we're doing at the SU meeting in August. I met with all the admin team yesterday, we spent a good afternoon on the budget and finance area about what I believe the areas are that have been leading us into these areas and about deficit spending. And we discussed the idea and nature of we have to be unbelievably fruitful this upcoming school year because this is not gonna happen. We're just done with this. And so I also come to you guys after that August meeting in September with some proposals about how we tend to these deficits because I don't wanna carry them on the books. And so we'll have some proposals for you in September about how we can clean this up. Any questions? I mean, if there's any, that as much detail as I wanna go into before we go into the SU board because this is really an SU issue is that there's really two areas that we know we need to address. One is in regards to special education and there's other issues and concerns in regards to how we were budgeting federal revenues and grants. And so those are the areas that Terri and I have been hyper focused on along with Don and Mary Ellen to address over the last few weeks when we realized that's really the two areas of concern. For our budget, are we have any kind of outstanding expectations for reimbursement for COVID expenses or anything like that that might make things look better or is that all taken into account? Part of the issue with the CARES money is that if we use money from CARES for this past year's budget, 1920, Karen, correct me if I'm wrong, but they are gonna then take that off of our end fund reimbursements for this upcoming school year. I have to be very careful what and how I submit expenditures. If there is any way that it can be identified that an expenditure was in fact budgeted for, but it was just the money was used. So an example, we budgeted to have supplies in our budgets. We had to buy additional supplies to send home to families. If items like that, they can utilize that and say, nope, we're gonna make that an offsetting revenue for you in FY21 or deducting that from your education fund payment in FY21. If it is purely an unbudgeted, absolutely can prove it documentation-wise expenditure, I can submit that and that will not impact our FY21. So every invoice that's currently coded as a COVID expenditure, we have to look at every individual invoice and determine is there any way that this can be construed as an already budgeted for item or not. So FY20 reimbursements for CARES money will be very limited. We do have a timeframe for FY21 CARES money. It is from now in July 1st until December 30th. That is the timeframe of those additional expenditures that we can claim reimbursement for under the CARES money. And that would be those exact same things that were purely COVID expenditures that were not budgeted for. The tents are a prime example of that. That is not something you would normally have in your school system. And we didn't budget for that. So that would purely be a COVID-19 expenditure that I could request CARES money for. The sum of the things that Jamie was referring to earlier as far as support staff covering from morning check-ins. We will have to have that specifically identified separately outside of their contract time. It's outside of the budget. That is clearly going to be able to be identified as an additional expense as a result of COVID. Yeah, we're also looking to bring in, like I said, more floating subs. And they'll have separate memorandums of understanding so that we can clearly document that that's COVID related. How does the food service stuff? I mean, like we were doing all the meals but not receiving the revenue that we normally would for a lot of that, like is that? You did receive revenue for your meals because it went through the summer meals program. So there was state reimbursement for the meals that were served. It would be the additional expenses that were resulting of having to package those meals, transportation of those meals. But at the same time, you already had budgeted for transportation. And if you utilize your school buses to do those deliveries, I can't identify that as a clear COVID expense because it was already a budgeted for line item. So I can't ask for money back in that situation. Or if I do, it's going to come off your FY21 Ed Fund payment. So my recommendation is we don't do that that we keep our Ed Fund payment the way it is. And we use our CARES money now for all these costs that we know we're incurring. Would be my recommendation. I mean, I really want us to have a tight, we come out of here in the black at the end of this year. I mean, there's just no excuse for it. We have to. So I don't want to do anything that's going to damage that outlook. Right. Sounds good. We're into it in the final steps we've taken. All non-essential spending has stopped. But in addition to that, all purchase orders over $1,000 require superintendent approval across the SU, not just in rut. But at the end of the day, like I said, there were some things in regards to at the SU level that I'm going to go into in August that is part of the reason why you guys are on the deficit, specifically around grants and special education spending. We have to strengthen our multi-tiered system of supports. At the end of the day, that's what we have to do. There are some systematic things we have to do differently. Was the deficit on the food, was that just for our district or was that across the SU? That is only wrong. And to speak to that, when I say we got to do business differently, I told the SU board and some of you were there, food service has to be on the agenda at the SU level as we move forward. I'm going to be pushing the boards to look at a food service contractor as we move forward. That's a set cost that we know we can control that provides a high quality product, but that we can budget for a subsidy and we know it's predictable and we're not incurring these types of deficits in food service. I mean, the way I summarize it for the administrators we have to restructure how we're doing business because the way we've been doing it isn't working. Thank you. Should we move on to the annual retreat? What was that, Tara? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Talk to me about a new hire title. It should be food service manager and not director. Okay. It's just, it's a thing with the feds and the way it works. Right, all right. Okay. So Tammy, can you capture that for the minutes? Yeah, we'll capture that for the minutes. Yeah. All right. So are we moving on to the retreat agenda or? The annual retreat? I think Lisa, you have a question that they put on? Yeah, I just, you know, one of the things we've done at the annual retreat is come up with the data that we'd like to see based on effectiveness, et cetera, within our district. So I'm wondering if that's the direction that we wanna go, if we want to link some of that data to the goals that we're seeing show up in the principles report. I guess in terms of that agenda, I don't know, I'm a little conflicted because on the one hand, I'm interested in, you know, data about student performance and all of those sorts of things. On the other hand, this is such an atypical year that it feels odd to be focusing heavily on things that are so seemingly disconnected from just our COVID response. So I guess I'm interested in entertaining a discussion about that retreat, which is typically a longer than usual meeting where we focus on bigger picture stuff than our average meetings. Well, I would throw out there, if we had a retreat, it might be a worthwhile time for us to talk about just structures in general. And what do we wanna prioritize through the budget process? Because as I've said to you since you hired me, I think the budget is your number one policy statement. And if we're gonna build the budget and restructure the budget from the ground up, I think it's important to know what you guys wanna make as priorities through that policy statement. I would think for the administration that would be really helpful. Do other board members have thoughts about that? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I mean, I imagine most of the focus in the near term is gonna be on the COVID response, but when we're building the budget, it's gonna be for the following year when hopefully the situation might be different. So we should probably be looking at more regular, potentially building the budget for a more regular school year. So talking about just overall goals and priorities and things would be good. I don't know who knows what it's gonna be next year. All right, anyone else? I feel comfortable proceeding in that direction as well. Does that give you, does that, I feel like that gives us enough to craft an agenda, Jamie? Do you feel comfortable? Yeah, I think we can work on it from there. Yeah. All right, great. Thank you. What's that? Do we have a date for it? I don't know that we've set one yet. Sometimes it's easier a little further into the fall. So we have more of a sense of, like we give administrators time to get the year started. I don't know what the preference will be this particular school year. Well, if we're gonna focus on the budget process, it would be good to do it in September. Okay. I wouldn't want it to be any later. Excuse me. Okay. And I think last year it was in September as well. I think it was the Friday evening after the Tumbridge Fair. Oh, that's a fun event after a Tumbridge Fair. Well, it was a week later. So. No, we didn't miss a Tumbridge Fair. Oh, don't go crazy. No, we would not be in a school board meeting on Tumbridge Fair Friday night. What's that? Last for me. I said, we would not be in a board meeting on the Friday night of Tumbridge Fair unless there was something really emergent. Yeah. All right. So. That would work. Can we look, can we look toward that third, just pulling up a calendar. So that would be the 18th of September, that afternoon and evening. Does that work for everybody? Or do we want to choose a different day of the week? That works tentatively. And so would this be in addition to or instead of the one on the first that we normally would have. I do imagine that there's going to be people who want to provide feedback on opening plans and all that stuff after the break. I think we'll have to do both. Yeah, I feel like both is, both is what we've typically done. Good. I mean, it's a lot, but I think that that allows us to plan. It does not have to be a Friday in my opinion. Well, I mean, I don't have my board calendar in front of me. I just know Fridays are open. Right. I mean, that's why we chose it last time because they're open. And I feel like even more so with COVID, it's not like there's a lot going on every Friday night. How about the third week of September? I think so. Well, it's the third week, we would have more. I don't know. One, we would have Tuesday, we would have Tuesday night. If it's the third week, second week we would have Tuesday and Wednesday night. It could probably be a Thursday. You could do it that Thursday if you wanted, if you prefer. Okay. Friday. And I'm assuming that are we meeting remotely? Is that what we should assume? Or are we gonna try to meet in person? I'd say. We've got these discussions is that we're pulling students together. For their monthly regular board meeting would be Tuesday, September 15th that week. It's your regular schedule board meeting. And you could, if you wanted to do both, you could extend that meeting or like Jamie, that's the only board meeting we have scheduled that week is Tuesday night. Great. Do you think having a separate date to talk about? Yeah, I think we had a separate date. So I'm gonna say either pick the 17th or pick the 18th. Cause that's gonna be focused on like we said, the budget development and things of that nature, maybe some norms or things, but I think we're gonna need that regularly scheduled meeting with all these other updates and stuff that's moving. I'm fine with either the 17th or the 18th. I would vote for the 18th. Okay. Friday. What's the time that we're looking at on that day or either day? I think in the past we started at like 3.30 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we do like a potluck dinner, which I don't know if we'll do. And then we end by seven or eight. So it's a good chunk of time. Yeah, so Friday's the only day that I'd be able to do it. I wouldn't be able to do it on Thursday. Let's do it. Let's pick that Friday and move on. Okay. And if anybody, if there's a conflict that arises or if things are really, I think we just need to plan to be flexible if we need to be. Yup. Okay. All right. Great. Did you say 3.30 or 4 o'clock? What's people's preference? The 4 o'clock. 4 o'clock? Okay. So 4 to 8 is what we'll plan for. Right. Okay. So we already acted on the finance and facilities committees. When we get into the area of new hires, I'm sure everybody saw, I should have added this to the agenda. So I apologize. That we did receive a letter from the union. Did everybody on the board receive that? Requesting that we reconsider the music position and the world languages position at the White River Valley High School and in our district. So I would entertain a conversation about that. Thoughts? Well, what is music instruction going to look like? Do we have any idea? This fall? I mean, these are both elementary school. Just to clarify. Yeah, we have a music teacher on the call here. Yeah. Well, there were specific task force recommendations around it. I think some music teachers are more comfortable about it than not than others. My sense is there'll be virtual instruction occurring in composition and potentially some rhythmics, fundamentals in partnership with some PE, but it's not gonna look like it did in the past. And the administration has worked just so folks know, we believe that we can meet the program needs without replacing these two positions. Even not during COVID. Right. I guess that was my thinking that if we can meet the needs of our students, which is what we discussed, and we're not removing them completely from the budget, we're not removing them. We plan to fill them in the future. I feel comfortable staying the course with the decision we previously took or the recommendation that was to not fill them at this time. Anyone else have thoughts to share about that? Emergency, we gotta make changes. Yeah, that was Rodney, I think. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Anyone else? I agree as well, it was amazing. Yeah, I agree too. Given everything, we've gotta be as judicious as we can be with our decisions in terms of how we spend and allocate the funds right now. Hello. Yes, who's speaking, please? Hi, Bridget Taylor. I just have a quick question. About, I guess my question is since world languages has been a logistical challenge, shall we say at the elementary level already, what actually is the plan to go forward with the resources we have on hand? Thank you. Don't all jump in at once. I mean, one of the things we've talked about with that department and at the administration level is that we are gonna do more integrated learning across all grades, but specifically try to do some more experiential and integrated cultural programming at the elementary campuses that have more theme-based, longer-range approach to it. Did I get that right, Owen and Andrew? Yes, and we also were having trouble fitting in the literacy time that we wanted to, and we also want to expand our math time. It's not that one's more important, but the foundational skills are essential at the elementary. So we're looking at a more embedded cultural piece with the art teachers and with the classroom teachers. And that's given no pandemic. Deep pandemic. Right, okay. So that sounds like it speaks to the foreign language that Bridget had asked about. So that answer remains silent on the music component. Bridget didn't necessarily ask about that, but there were two topics identified here, so I thought I'd make sure to ask. So what about the music component that wasn't answered yet? I think it was, but I'll do it again. The music piece, we have three full-time music teachers and what we were offering for music as an example in the middle school was quite a bit of music and it was awesome, but with the financial trouble we're in, we were able to offer enough music electively. And we can also, all three music teachers, we challenged them to serve music between pre-K and 12 and they have. And the idea was to have them focus in specific areas of strength. So an example, Shannon Bonsignore is a trained choral teacher. So she will be teaching and not nobody's teaching chorus this year, by the way, right now, she will be teaching middle and high school chorus. And then she will also have time to be teaching some middle school and I think maybe elementary support. And then Carrie Cole's really great with, and she's on the call, she can speak for herself, but she's great with elementary students and she's gonna be doing a lot of that general music with Josh and Shannon helping out. Josh will be, when we're back to music regular, will be serving as the instrumental teacher for the middle through high school. We did this at another board meeting, didn't we? But that's okay, I can, it's good for us to go back. It seems like years ago now with the COVID pandemic though. I think we had this discussion a couple of months ago and it is interesting to think about the way that music instruction will be impacted by COVID, for sure. I think long-term we would like to restore the music position, but particularly this year when a lot of music is not gonna be possible in the traditional sense anyway. I think it makes sense to hold off until we are back to normal more. One of the things though as a school administrator is, and I love this about you folks and Jamie's right there also is we'll bring you the recommendation definitely, but we really did push this and say, what can we offer and can we offer a program we're proud of and we are? And I'm not saying, it's hard to say like, oh, we should cut, we're not fat anywhere, but other like schools don't have three full-time music teachers, four full-time music teachers. And that doesn't mean we need to be like other schools, but the other piece is if we start taking away from literacy and mathematics in the elementary programming and offering wonderful things, world language, outdoor education, health, we added those three things when we merged. They put a pressure on the classroom teacher to try to figure out a way to do that literacy and math and then add intervention. And we haven't even talked about the other essentials of art and PE and guidance. They're not easy decisions, but... That's why I think the board needs to start this conversation around budgeting in September about what are your priorities? Yep, I appreciate that. And I also think that filling these positions right now, particularly related to world language and music in the very beginning of August would be next to impossible in terms of finding a high quality candidate. So in terms of budgeting, I think one of the things I heard loudly and clearly through the merger process is that music, I mean, world language is important too, but music has been something that our communities have been really proud of and supportive of and it's really a part of the culture in these two communities that that be something available to everyone. So while I'm hearing that there are so many other priorities and obviously this pandemic has shown that schools do so much for our communities and our students, I also really just want to be sensitive to the fact that that's something that our communities considers a strength and a value. Yeah. I'm contractually obligated to add on, as I always do, that the benefits to math comprehension from a strong music program are very clear that world language is connected to the English language in ways that really increase comprehension. But thank you guys for that answer. I think we're all doing the best we can during this pandemic anyway, but I think those approaches are good. I will take this opportunity to really shout out Mr. Pauley, who's the only person I sort of had direct, not literally direct experience of, but as a parent of a high school student, to watch him rise to, well, everything I normally do is gone now, what was really great. And I'm sure the other music teachers were doing the same and it was really heartening to watch that. So thank you guys for continuing to have it on your radar and thanks for your answer. All right. Any other discussion about that? All right, new hires. So we, I believe you got resumes. Right? Ricky told me you guys should have received resumes on each one of these candidates. He sent them to you. All new processes. You got them? Chris, look at them. Chris, he's in the home runs. What I like to hear. I'll be happy to know I said that. So I'll just have each principal just quickly give them just a brief overview of the folks that are joining our team. Why don't we each take one of them? I'll take Cass Bath. Cass Bath is returning. She was a high school mathematics teacher and she left to have a baby and do other things that are important. But now she's returning as a 50% FTE, replacing Nancy Pageway as a White River Valley Middle School math interventionist. She comes with a boatload of talent and math teachers are unicorns. There's a baby in that picture. Sorry, yeah, my assistant's here. Ashley Grote is going to be working opposite me. She's the coordinator of student services and we'll be working with MTSS. And so we look forward to her joining us and helping us scope out all of our MTSS services. Hi, Jordan. And Misha Johnson comes to us from the Randolph schools where she's been a long time employee there and has been grooming herself to move up into a food service manager position. But there's kind of a ceiling there for her and we are excited to be bringing her in and give her that opportunity. So over the last eight years, she's taken all the courses that the state offers. So she's totally prepared to step into this role. And maybe more than anything else, she brings a lot of enthusiasm and we think she's going to be great with the kids and really kind of incorporate the food into the learning which has always been something that's been important to us. She's also training with Willie. We're proud of the hires. Thank you. Any questions about these new hires for many of the board members? Tammy, if you could just update your minutes to reflect food service manager not food service director, please. It has been updated as it was identified earlier. Thank you. Thanks. All right, that brings us to our final public comment of the evening. Public that would like to jump in, I know that some people have commented throughout the meeting. Tammy? My comment is, when are those sessions on all those things we don't know about virtual learning, new classrooms? Can I bring my lunch to school? I understand there's a letter coming out on the 31st of July, something on the 3rd of August, something on the 7th or 8th. How's that word getting out? Where should parents be looking? Well, Tammy, you should be getting it in your email and if you're not, please let the principals know. So those are email blasted to all parents and guardians. They are on the WRVSU COVID-19 link on our webpage they're on your Facebook pages. And so those are all the means of how we're communicating. So they're on the White River District Facebook page on the White River Valley Supervisor Union Facebook page. They're on the link to our website. They're on your RUD website and they'll be email blasted out through Blackboard. So there's no educational sessions right now but they're yet to be announced, is that correct? The informational dates, those will be released either this Friday or next week. Okay, just for those parents who have come up with the magical date of an August 1st homeschooling piece, your timeframe might work for you. Those other parents, it might not. So I'm just trying to make sure that when I hear those questions, not that I'm a board member, but that I'm directing folks to get the source of information. Certainly, you can call any of the principals or call me at any time. I mean, I have an open office. I meet with folks all the time. So please reach out. Okay. All right, thank you. Alexis, I saw you on mute. Oh, thank you. I just wanted to say that as a student who did online learning last year, I'm really, really happy to hear that the needs will be recorded. And just a little bit more flexibility while still maintaining the structure. I think that would have been really, really helpful last year. So it's good to know that that's going to be a thing going forward. Great, thanks, Alexis. All right. Any other public comments? All right. Please, as always, feel free to reach out, send us the administrators' emails and be in communication. That brings us to our first executive session of the evening. And Jamie, did you want just board for that? Just board and myself. Yep, the rest of the administrators can go. All right. Do we need a motion to go into executive session? I think we do. For a student matter. Yep. So moved. Okay. Second? Second. Second. All right. And that's at 740 p.m. Okay. Just started. Okay. I would entertain a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation. I'll move to accept the superintendent's recommendation. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor of accepting the superintendent's recommendation say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. And we have accepted the superintendent's recommendation regarding a student matter. Is there a motion to go back into executive session regarding a student matter? I'll make a motion to go into executive session for a student matter. I'll second. There's a second. All right. Great. Thank you. And that is at 752 p.m. All right. Do we need to turn off the recording again? Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. Lower corner. Lower corner. Sorry. The three little dots stacked in the lower right-hand corner. So we're out of executive session at 757 p.m. I would entertain a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation related to a student matter. This is Lisa. I'll make a motion. And would anyone like to second that? I'll second. Who was that? Chris or Bob? Bob. Thank you. Okay. Great. All right. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor of accepting the superintendent's recommendation related to a student matter? Say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? There are none. Thank you. That brings us to our next agenda item, which is other or future agenda items. Does anyone have something that they would like to add? Do we have another executive session? I thought there was three. No. The one thing I would say is that we in the past have been posting the agendas to the school Facebook page. I was just looking and we haven't been the last couple. And since a lot of the agenda now is, or we're kind of getting the reports and writing in advance, let's make sure when they're posted to the Facebook page that everything's linked in there properly. So I don't know if we need to talk to her about that. Well, I'll try to work to coordinate that with Christy. Right now, something that's been troubling for me at a system level is that right now, I as the superintendent have no ability to communicate with any of my families without going through the school, which is just crazy to me. So I've been working with Ray to say that we have to all pull together within Blackboard Connect so that we have one main way to communicate out, as well as identify SU level personnel like Ray that have ability to get on any of the school Facebook pages. So those are things that are in the works, Andrew. I think once we get those in place, then I can be much more systematic about how I get information out. Like right now, if there's an emergency, I have no ability as the superintendent to place a call out to my families. Yeah, I just mean that I think we'd put the school Facebook page as one of the posting places that being posted. Yeah, so we'll get that tightened up. But in general, I wanted the board to know I'm not happy with how we're communicating out. There's not a systematic way to it. Okay. I appreciate that you're on the thing on that. I think it's gonna be, just don't forget the homeschool families because there's a number of families that aren't on Blackboard, that might be being aware of what's happening or school board minutes or announcements on Facebook. But we've got to make sure to connect to all families that, because I think some of the homeschool families that might be taking just a few classes here and there have not been included on Blackboard or have had a hard time getting in. I don't know. That's another system we should change. If they are taking any courses with us, they should be in Blackboard. Right, or if they're interested, I don't know. I'm not sure. And I don't know if any of you have access to Front Porch Forum, but it might not be a bad place to also the board to communicate. Yeah, I've been posting on Front Porch Forum and I forgot to post this latest board meeting, but in the past I have been putting it on there. And I could also remember to put it in the newspaper, because that's been recommended as a regular thing, too. So I could put it in the calendar as the clock. Yeah, maybe when you post and put a link to the Google Drive, that folder that has the reports and stuff. Yeah. You know, it does seem like with a lot of the parts of the agenda just being, did you read my report? Good, you know, the public can see the reports, too. And all those reports are up on the WRVSU website as well. Yeah. Yeah, I know that is just people don't think to go there. I do love the reports, by the way, and the ability to just kind of speed through those parts of the agenda is great. I think our website has been so cumbersome and so poorly updated in the past that families sort of have trained themselves not to look there anymore, which is a shame. So Facebook is the place where people have gotten the most timely information. And if we can redirect with a link to a really dynamic website that has all the information, I think we can get people. We're going to try to get there. Yeah, and Apple is actually going to pilot a new software that seems to be Christ. And we're going to pilot that through F-Bud and see if it's easier to update and that the SU will still have the ability to update as well, easier to rely on a school personnel to have to do it. Awesome. All right. Any other agenda items or questions before we adjourn for the evening? Can I make a motion to adjourn? Second. OK. All in favor say aye. And we're adjourned to 803. Aye. Thank you all. Thank you guys. Good evening, guys. You too. Bye-bye.