 I think we're going to start. So it is my, I will tell everyone I did get a gavel tonight for my, for my role tonight as the facilitator in the start of the meeting. I asked Zady, my little one, she said, yes, I could use it for tonight. So it is my humble honor, duty and privilege to call the school board meeting for the Washington Central Unified Union School District to order tonight. So before we get into the first nights of business, I just want to let everyone know that we're doing something a little different tonight. And I'll, Jim, if you just want to touch, talk real quick about the new piece for our Zoom meetings. Thank you, Brian. Just to let the board and the public know, in all of our Zoom meetings, we, you know, for benefit of the public and for the board and for transcription, we do record in the cloud all the meetings we do make them publicly accessible to members of the public. One of the things in keeping with ADA compliance rules and at Brian's direction and the board's direction, one of the new features that you'll be seeing starting tonight is the live transcription feature. And so at the bottom of your screen, you'll be able to either look at a live transcript of this session as we go through it, or alternatively, on the right-hand side of your screen, you can look back at the entire transcript, you know, throughout the meeting. And so we wanted to, you know, just make everyone aware of what that is and why it's there. You know, just a couple of pieces about live transcription. It is an auto transcription feature through Zoom. It has its limitations. Automated speech recognition doesn't always perfectly understand what a speaker is saying. So background noise speaking very quickly like I'm doing right now, using technical words, which is also a, you know, a flaw of mine and proper names can all impact transcription accuracy. It's certainly going to be better than your phone's voice to text function. But our hope is, is that the combination of the voice, the voice engine and the voice recording that we get, which is a separate engine from the transcription engine, the two of those combined will ensure that we capture everything that we need from a public's perspective. And our goal is to maintain, you know, and come into compliance from an ADA perspective. So Brian, thank you for leading that effort. And the board, I appreciate, you know, you all leading that effort as well. As we go through this, if we find over time that the transcription is not working properly, at our discretion, we have the ability to, you know, hire transcriptionists who can transcribe this and you'd see that transcription live. But for now, we thought that the auto transcription service would serve our needs and, you know, we can look to change that at any time. So to the board and to Brian, thank you. Brian, I'll turn it back over to you. Great. Thank you, Jim. So we do have a little change with our Zoom. And I think it's a great upgrade for members in our public. The big thing tonight is our board reorganization. I do know, I believe everyone is here. I did not see Chris McVeigh here, but maybe he just tapped in right now. But I think everyone is here just so everyone knows the five board members that were up for reelection. I'll talk more about this in the articles later on when I talk about the articles, but I do want to let everyone know that they were reelected. And I'll talk more about that. There were two additional folks that appear to have qualified as well. I have yet to receive their oaths. I have not received any signed oaths. So I'm not, I'm not sure if they're going to be able to participate as board members. I do see them tonight, but I do not believe they will be able to participate as I'm not, I'm not in receipt. And my office is not in receipt of the oaths. Okay. So first thing is, yes. Can you, Chris, can you hear me? Yes, I can. I can hear you, Chris. Glad to hear. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you. So, and I just want to remind everyone that there is a new school board member toolkit on the VSBA website. I will be able to share that with the board. And if and when I receive the oaths from the two new board members, I'll be more than happy to share that with the new board members as well. So that being said, I've called the meeting to order. We have elections tonight. It is a big reorganization meeting tonight for the board. And the first responsibility we have is to elect a board chairperson to serve the year from today until basically next year at this time. So at this point, I'm taking any nominations. Hold on, Brian. Sorry, you skipped agenda revisions. Did I read that wrong? Doesn't that come first? No, the board reorganize it. The reorg comes first and we do the agenda revisions afterwards. Okay, sorry. No worries. So basically taking any nominations for the board chairperson. I see Dorothy with her hand raised. Dorothy. I'd like to nominate Scott Thompson to help her does catch for another year. He's done a nice, even job. I'd like to keep him there. Thank you, Dorothy. I have Scott Thompson as one person to be nominated for the board chair. Do I have anyone else? Hi, Brian, do you see me? Yes, I see you now, Jonas. Thank you. I nominate floor Diaz Smith. Floor Diaz Smith has been nominated for board chair. Do we have anyone else for nominations? I'm looking at everyone going once, twice. Okay, Scott Thompson, quick question for you. Do you accept the nomination to be considered? I do. Yes, thank you, Brian. Thank you. And for Diaz Smith, do you accept the nomination to be considered for tonight? Yes, Brian, I accept the nomination. Thank you. Thank you. So I believe we vote for each candidate. Is that the way it works? I'm just trying to make sure we do something. Do we get discussion first? Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yes, discussion. Thanks. So I have something if you're calling on me. Yes, Carolyn. So I support Floor as board chair. Her experience as a board member, as well as the several committees she's joined, make her uniquely qualified to lead us. Most notably, her kindness and priority of hearing all voices will make her facilitation of our meetings ideal for everyone. I think her leadership is essential in accomplishing our goals for this year. Melinda Gates said, schools' main purpose is to open people's minds, and at each meeting, Floor presses us to question what we think we know and opens our minds on a regular basis. So I'm supporting Floor. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak? Trying to look at Diane. So to me, it's a win-win situation. But I wonder about, whether or not it's appropriate, just to hear from both Scott and Floor, what excites them about being in the role. Great. Who would like to go first, Scott or Floor? Floor, please. If you wish. Sure, I'll go first. But you've been chair, so why don't you go first, and I'll go second. Thank you, dear Alphonse. Well, I guess I'm the devil, you know. And you know my strengths. You know my weaknesses, which are legion. Whether I'm the devil that you still want or feel that you need is something that I look forward to the board deciding. It's been a privilege to me to be able to have chaired this board for these, basically, the better part of two years. It will be an honor to be able to continue to serve, or a relief, not to. But there are a number of things, I guess, to answer you, Diane, about what excites me. Usually the ending of a board meeting is probably very exciting. But seriously, I think we're in a very interesting and sensitive phase of our history as a school district. I think there's tremendous promise for making real advances in education for our children. I think we have all the ingredients for it. I guess my one concern is that we're still our adaptation to being a consolidated district is still incomplete. And we will, I think, be having to confront the incompleteness of this in a number of areas, including probably a couple even this evening, including evaluation and other board operations. But I think we have the potential to truly be great. And always, I get by with a lot of help from my friends. In this case, all of you, if you'll forgive me for considering you as such. And I would intend to continue inviting maximum participation and maximum support and maximum contribution from all of you to make something bigger than the sum of our parts. So sorry. So I'm honored to serve as chair. It's been an honor to serve as a vice chair. So I'd be happy either way. But I do feel that we're ready to move in the next iteration. And I think that Scott has done a great job this past year helping us through the pandemic. And I think that we now have passed that threshold. And now we're ready to concentrate in board governance, in aligning all our goals so that we can continue to monitor and concentrate on results for our kids. I think what I would bring as a chair, what excites me about being the chair is that I have a lot of history in the district and I understand the different communities. And I'm good about trying to build on the strengths of each of us on the board and finding sort of similar how we presented the budget. Giving a voice to everybody so that we know, so we all feel like we're contributing and moving in towards the same goals all together for the best of. And my main interest is always what's best for kids. And I think, I don't have a lot to say, you guys have seen me operate for the past years as we organized through Act 46 and through my service in East Montpelier. I wore a couple of other hats, but they all align tremendously, which what is best for kids, not just in our district or in our state. So it would be an honor to continue to serve our board and help us create that equity from the board room to the classroom. Thank you. Thank you. Is there, do you have any other questions, Diane? I know you would ask that. Nope, looks like you're good. Are there any additional folks that would like to, any board members that would like to ask questions or discuss that I can call upon? Okay. So do we typically do a roll call vote or do we do an individual vote? How would we prefer to do this this time? Jonas. Brian, I would suggest that you ask people to click their yes buttons for one candidate and then ask people to click their yes buttons for a second candidate. Okay. Okay. Well, I will ask the board members to first, we will first go with Scott Thompson. If you please place, if you wish Scott to be the board chair for the next year, if you can please click your yes buttons. And Brian, I'm gonna vote for Scott. This is Chris. All right, thank you, Chris. Thank you. I'm looking at the yes, but they're popping up and going away real quick. So I can't necessarily see this here. I'm sorry guys. So what happened last time was raising the hand. Well, we can- So if they raise the hand, it'll stay. With the blue hand. With the blue hand up on the, on that reaction one, we can use the hand up for you guys. One, two, three. Just keep your hand up and just counting here. Looks like I have five votes for Scott. Jonathan Scott. Okay, they're going down, all right. And now I will ask the board members, if you please vote yes, if you'd like floor to serve as board chair. And it appears that we have seven members voting yes for floor. So I would say that at this point, congratulations floor. You have been elected as the board chair. I would normally hand my, and also just would like to thank Scott for his service as board chair. And what if I had good floor, I would hand you the gavel, but I do not have the gavel. So- I'll pretend that I'm driving it. Thank you. Thank you. Brian. Scott. Floor, if I might be the second one after Brian to offer my congratulations and also my complete support, anything that you need, please just ask. Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it. And it was nice to chat with you on Sunday. Thank you. Floor, I just want to let everyone, the board know before I stopped talking here, I did receive Christina's oath via email. I just received it a little while ago. So I just wanted everyone to know that. So congratulations, welcome, welcome aboard Christina. So we will continue with the elections and then move into the agenda. So do we have any nominations for vice chair? Jonas. I nominate Caroline May. Any other nominations? This is Chris and I would nominate Scott Thompson if he's willing to serve. I greatly appreciate the expression of confidence, but having tasted the first few moments of freedom, I'm reluctant to plunge back into servitude. However, if I may, because I think it's important to have choices in these elections. If I may nominate Jill Olson, for vice chair. I'm honored, but I'm going to decline that nomination. Okay. Scott again? Yeah. Sorry, if Jill is unable to do it once again in order to have some choice, if Carrie Bradley, we're going to be in the process of elimination here, I think. If Carrie would be willing to serve. Thank you, but no, thank you. I'm going to decline. Okay. Are you okay with that, Scott? And we move on? I'm fine. I don't want to get a third strike. Thanks. Okay. Does anybody have any questions or want to have a little discussion or can we go ahead and vote? I have a question. Yeah. Are these nominations with a pre-ordained based on board member discussions before this meeting? That's an interesting question, Chris. For the assistant, what is it called? Vice chair? Yeah. Is that what your question is, Chris? Would you phrase that, please? I was curious if you meant in general or specific to the, I keep losing the word for the co-chair, not co-chair. Vice chair, vice chair. Vice chair, thank you. I couldn't get the word. For vice chair and in general. Chris, I'll tell you that I came to this meeting prepared to make those two nominations. Yeah. Okay, so coordination of nominations. I mean, I'm aware of political and it just sounds like what's going on here. So... So, Chris, just to be clear, I think that we all had, I was approached by three different board members before and I did talk to, we talked to Scott. I talked to Scott about how he wanted to run. So there was no, there was a one-on-one conversation before to know how to run the election. But so I don't think it's a political manure. It's got suggested that it was good to have competition and he can speak to this too. The last thing that any of us wanted was any confusion or is that clear? I have my answer. Thank you. Lindy? I think just because Chris brought it up, I was reflecting as we went into this meeting I think it was two years ago when we became the merged board and Scott's chairmanship, I think he discussed bringing us out or into the consolidation was his goal at that time but he wanted it to be short-lived. And I think there was even discussion of kind of that passing the torch and floor was considered at that time. And then last year he decided another year. So in my mind, I've been thinking... You just froze Lindy. Oh, you said me. You're frozen Lindy. You froze Lindy, but... Yeah, I think I'm back now because people are moving. Okay. Am I back? Yeah. Okay. I was just saying that I think along the line when we became a merged board, this was discussed the first year that Scott wanted the chairmanship that first year and then there was a torch passing type. And then last year he wanted to continue. So I've been seeing it along that line as since we moved on. Jonas? Yeah, Chris, are you concerned that open meeting laws have been violated or do you think that that's something untoward has happened? Absolutely not. That is, you know, I hadn't even thought of that to be quick, right? Yeah, no, that's not a concern. Okay. Can we move ahead and all of those in favor of approving of the nomination for vice chair for Caroline May, please click yes or raise your hand. And I vote yes. I guess I see all yeses and a couple of hands. So it's 12. Okay. So moving right along, we have three committees right now. And what we, yes, Jonas? I believe we need to elect a clerk. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I was just assuming it was, sorry. Sorry, yes. It's not a done deal. Any nominations for a clerk? I'll nominate Jonas. I believe he is the clerk right now. I will nominate Jonas. And you accept the nomination. Thank you, Jonas. Any other nominations? Seeing none, those in favor of supporting Jonas is our clerk for the next year. Please raise your hand or click yes. Aye. Aye. Okay. Okay. Oh, yes. So again, we have three committees right now and for ease of process, we decided with, not decided, but we discussed today with Brian that we don't really have charges yet for the charges are kind of obsolete. But instead of spending time today doing that, we would have each committee do a work on the charge once they meet. Is that okay with everybody? And then I'll just have thumbs up so that we don't try to do that within this meeting. So, okay. So no discussion. Yes, and then I have a process question. The vote, the board reorganization, is that what we're still under for committees or is that board orientation? That orientation is separate. It's not the orientation of the board. It's something separate. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So a policy committee, are those in the policy committee right now willing to continue to serve in the policy committee? Yep. Yes. Yes. Okay. So let's list the names for Lisa so we can have them on the record. So if each of you, so Dorsey? Yes. Yeah, Chris? Yes. And just remind me who else is in that committee because I don't... It was Dale. Okay. Anybody else interested in joining the policy committee, Vera or Chrissy? I see none. So... We're gonna need at least one more. Do we not? Yeah, we're gonna need one more person there. Vera? Is she... I know you're in... I know that she had worked on that before. I saw her oath, but yeah. I would do it, but I want to make sure that I'm not on another committee that takes a lot of time before I commit to the policy. So, sorry. I would be willing to join. Hey. Hey, thank you Chrissy. You're welcome. Do you have that, Lisa? Yes, thank you. Okay. Negotiations. Are the same members of the negotiations committee willing to serve this year? I am. Yes, Stephen, Jonas, and Diane? Yes, although I'd like to see Jonas's reaction if I said no, but anyway, no. That's great. Okay. That's my reaction. I will go dark, Diane. Okay. And then, and I keep saying just three committees, but we had more than that. I'm going to jump into the quality committee. Sorry, can I interrupt for a second? For negotiations was just the two of them. I can't remember. No, Diane. Jonas. Diane, Jonas, and Stephen Luke. Oh, yes, thank you. So, floor on the quality committee has been Diane, Jill, I believe Lindy joined us. Caroline, are you a member of that committee? Anna. Not officially, no. Okay. And then myself, but anybody is, of course, welcome to join us. Okay, so let's repeat that for Lisa. So we have Diane, Jill, Lindy, and Anna. And Kari. And, oh, sorry, and Kari, yes. Okay. And that's my favorite committee, but I'm not part of that committee this year. And so moving to the next finance and capital committee. So if you're not, is there not an open seat on that one? If you're not. No, Lindy, Lindy joined it when I stepped down. Yeah. Got it. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So in finance, there's been Scott, Chris. Joe, I'm just, I'm sorry. I don't think there's limits on the number of members who can be on the committee. Karen, if you're interested, at least that's my impression. I don't think limited to a certain number of board members. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And especially in the quality committee, Kari has made it clear that we want maximum participation. So anybody can come to the meetings. It's great. Right. And you can come and go. You're not obligated to come every month. But that works a lot better for me. So I'll keep doing that. Thank you. So moving back to finance so we can get. So Scott is still willing to be in finance and Chris and myself. Okay. And Kari. Yeah, I do that. And Kari. Okay. Great. I think we're also going to need a transportation committee coming up. What does the transportation committee do? We'll be negotiating a contract with the, our transportation contract is up this year. I was on that last time. So I'd be willing to be on the transportation committee again. Okay. Brian, do you have a sense of. Sorry, Brian, do you have a sense of. Go ahead. You have a sense of when, when that committee will meet and what the commitment will be. It's probably, it's going to have to probably meet relatively sometime before the next start of the school year because we're going to start getting the work and contract done before that time. So probably not. I wouldn't say it might be nice to piggyback if and when negotiations do end, it might be coming up right after that time. So. So not to call out in it anybody, but Jonathan, will you be willing to serve in that committee? On the transportation committee. Yeah. Sure. Okay. So, so Caroline, Jonathan, and am I hearing that you would want to do that to Jonas or was that just a question? Do we need three, Brian, or two? I mean, obviously, I mean, to go along with what Caroline said and with our conversation earlier, you know, any board member can always go to any other meetings. It's open to the public. It's just nice to have an assigned number so we can always have a quorum. So, yeah, it would be preferred to have at least one more if possible. I would really like to participate, but I'm going to wait until negotiations is over and see where we're at there. Okay. Vera, would you be willing to do that? I know you've, okay. I will say in case it helps anyone. Last time the contract was up, it was like three or four meetings. There were details in the contract and stuff that we needed to review in between meetings, but it's not a meeting heavy committee. And there's like three bus companies and it's really pretty clear looking through. It just is not, like it's fun for me because I know the bus companies and had worked with them, but it's not extremely time consuming compared to like negotiations and the other ones. So, if that helps anybody want to do it, that's my thoughts. Thanks. Okay. So, I'd be willing to do it if that's helpful. Great. So we have Jill, Jonathan and Caroline. No. Thank you, Jill. No, I think, I think, I don't have Jonas. I have Kari, Jonathan and Jill. Is that, I think Jonas wanted to step down for a second, wait till negotiations. Yeah, yeah. So just Jonathan, yeah, Jonathan, Jill, and Caroline. Okay. And Caroline or Kari? Caroline. All right, Caroline. Caroline, thanks. Thanks. Okay. And right along in operational decisions, we need to appoint a trend officers. All right, four. Do we need to vote on chairs for the committees? We have in the past, because we're doing the charges too as a committee. In the past, we have done that at that individual, and each individual committee, or should we do them right now? We can do that right now too, but if everybody wanted to keep doing what they've been doing, Steven? I favor we just let the committees in their first meeting decide who's going to be the chairperson and just report back. I agree. I was thinking the same thing. Okay. Are you okay with that, Brian too? That's how we've done it before. Yeah. Okay. So appointing trend officers. Brian, I'm going to give this one back to you. You have some recommendations. Yeah. So basically this appointing trend officers, the principals in each school have been basically overseeing the truancy at each of their buildings, but they, as a newly merged school district, the AOE has asked us for a person for each at the elementary level and at the high school secondary level to really kind of have like a filter, trying to make sure we have more of a cohesiveness amongst truancy in the district. And so ultimately the principals would be responsible for overseeing and reporting, helping to work with reporting truancy. However, and we do have two folks that have been identified at the district level for the elementary and for the high school and U32 secondary level. So the person at the secondary level is Eric Bennett. He does a lot of the truancy already. And obviously the principal is always involved, but, and then at the elementary level, the principals will work with Kelly Bushy as the truancy person. So it's Kelly and Eric as those are the two folks that are the official for the district levels. And then I would say that at the principal level, at the school level, the principals would be the folks. So if you had like a chart in mind, it would be the principals, but they would be working to overall have a district truancy officer, Eric Bennett at the secondary level and Kelly Bushy at the elementary level. Okay, so with somebody willing to do that nomination for Eric Bennett and Kelly Bushy. So nominated. Okay. I believe we don't need any seconds for that. We'll just accept the nomination. Is that it? Okay. So all of those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Okay. I see 12. Yep. All in favor. So where was that? The next thing to schedule is schedule an annual board work session. We're going to talk about that in the board operations. I'm going to skip it because we're really a little bit behind on that. And we'll talk about it in the board operations in that section of our meeting. Yeah. Designate locations for posting, meetings and agendas. If Brian, you have the list. The postings of the of the meeting agendas, we typically should be posting them at every school and we should be posting them online on our website. Do any other areas that you would recommend? We've been posting them at the town clerk's offices. But I think. Yeah. Okay, we can continue that. Yep. Everybody okay with that? Please raise your hand and accept. Okay. And then review the requirements for the use of Robert rules for order. Everybody okay with us continuing to use the Robert rules for our meetings? Yes. Yes. Jill, is that a question or yes? Yes. Good question. Yeah. Okay. So everybody yes. Yeah. The next one is board development and opportunities and tendons to meetings. So first of all, in that, we're gonna talk about that in orientation, but first of all, welcome Chrissy to our family here. We're looking forward to working with you and Vera, welcome back. So we need all of you. So thank you for being here and willing to serve your community. Tomorrow there is a webinar held by the VSBA from 12 to one on a school board. There's a pretty extensive support in the website with tool kits of what it is to be a board member. If you're interested, I'll send you some links and then in our own board orientation, we'll talk more about in how to do board development ourselves. Next on the list is designate a newspaper for record. That's the Time Sargas, right, Brian? Yes. Yes. Okay. And then the last one is appoint the board representative of the central Vermont Career Century Advisory Board. And I will be willing to continue to do that because I've already been appointed through the other commitment that we did as we're restructuring the governance if that would be okay with everybody. Brian? I'm not sure what it would be wise to just have an official vote on both of these, the newspaper record, just to make sure it's voted upon by the board or do we just desperate it? Okay. I thought everybody put their thumbs up. So Time Sargas, everybody. I'm sorry. Yeah, everybody okay with the Time Sargas? Sorry, I was just not clear. Yes. And then. For as the. Yes. And then will somebody be willing to nominate that? Yeah. I see all thumbs up, Brian. Do we need to nominate Florida? I guess we're just trying to. I nominate Florida to be our representative to the Central Vermont Career Center Advisory Board. I will second that. Thank you. Scott, do you have a question or you're okay? I just have to caution that just make sure you're not taking on too much because it's a lot that you're doing and I don't want you to feel like you're having to either stress out or give short shrift to one or another of your responsibilities. Yeah, I think with this one, that's why I didn't join any other committee. My interest is mostly in the finance committee to continue to do the work that I was doing before. And in this one, we don't, we meet three times during the year in, and I think we have a retreat that we leave every other Monday, so every other month. So it's about four meetings. And at this point, I think between Stephen, Brian and myself are finally getting an idea of how it runs and we're in the process of some changes. So we already signed a document with them where I was assigned to it. So I would like to continue with that. And in this particular, we don't have an alternate. In the past, Stephen Luke has been my alternate. And so if he would be willing to do that again, that would be appreciated. But so can somebody nominate Stephen? I would nominate Stephen. Okay, so Jill and Chris second. Okay, sorry. Wait, sorry, what was that for? What was that for? Which one was that for? For the career center, a point for represented center of Vermont career center. Oh, instead of you? No, it's a, that one was, sorry, for alternative. Okay, thank you. Yeah, sorry. So we're a little behind on time, so I'm gonna try to have 60 minutes for this, so. Sorry, Florian. Jonah. Just one thing, do we need to discuss, do we need to talk about establishing or the board meeting schedule? Yes, we keep jumping. Are we doing that in board operations? I thought you said we're gonna do that. Yeah, that's what I was hoping, if that's okay with everybody do it in board operations and combine it together, so I have it down here. So if, so we were just getting started. So welcome everybody, any agenda revisions? Caroline, go ahead, Caroline. I have a proposed agenda revision, 4.3, executive session, personnel, superintendent evaluation. As the facilitator of the superintendent evaluation discussion, I wanna be clear that this discussion is about our process and our timeline. I think it's essential that our design be about a position and not a person. Therefore, I strongly feel the discussion can and should be held in open session. Thank you. Thank you, Caroline. Did I freeze or you heard the whole thing? Yeah, I did hear it. Okay, thank you. It's Scott. Thank you, Flora. That was my decision originally to put it in executive session to start it at least in executive session because even though as Caroline outlined, her conception of the discussion is related solely to the position and the abstract. Knowing how our discussions can often go, I felt that it would be wise to allow for some margin for sloughing over boundaries into actual discretion of evaluation so that if we then start the discussion in executive session, it's probably a discussion that will extend over several meetings. But just to see how it goes in executive session and then get back to it in open session once we have a good fix on what we're doing and how we're doing. Okay, so Caroline, if you'd be okay with that and we continue as the agenda for today and then from now on, we will move into having that as a public discussion. Is that, does that work for everybody? And that will allow us to, Steven. I would say being mindful of Scott's concern that we go into executive session, but I'm also understanding Caroline's predicted presentation that if it's not necessary to be in executive session, we immediately move or we move out of it as quickly as we can and then have Caroline's discussions in open meeting. You'll give us time. Is everybody comfortable with Steven, Scott and Caroline just suggested? Yeah, good. Yeah. Okay, so moving right to board. So in discussion, board orientation. So in board orientation, we had two parts. One is establishing the regular board meeting schedule and we wanted to propose the agenda committee met and we wanted to propose to have one meeting a month, the third Wednesday of the month, instead of meeting twice a month. And that would allow us to have the first Wednesday of the month for committee meetings or for really engaging our communities. So it's a proposal to put out there and can speak to please. So it's open for discussion. And I just give it about anybody else. Has any thoughts, Carrie? I think it's a great idea. I think we need to meet less in order to make this sustainable for ourselves. Did you have any idea how long that one meeting is gonna last thoughts about that? Yeah, we're thinking, we didn't spend much time talking about that, but in the past, from our experiences, that, you know, we're really in three hours so that we can all be sane and still make decisions. I know we're, even in our two meetings, we are not a lot of decision making. Most of the work is happening in our committees. So I think it's possible it might be wishful thinking, but I think if we all put our heads together in that game, which we should talk about there, I think it's possible, but we could give it, we would have our March 17th, the way that we have it right now, we will have our March 17th the following month to a one meeting. A month, if that's what the board agrees to do. Hold on a minute, Chris. Steven, Luke. Just let me know when the floor is open, please. Yeah, I'll call on you right after Steven, you're on the deck. I'm not a hundred percent sure it'll work, but I think it's well worth giving it a shot. Okay, thank you, Steven. Chris? I am in favor of trying to structural change as well, but I also would like to build in a very specific scheduled time for community forums, if that's what we're doing, rather than have it be happenstance, just because if we're gonna put in committees, schedule them for the times that we would otherwise have meetings, actually disperses our membership as a whole because all the committees don't meet together. And if we're gonna have forums, if part of the goal is to have more thoughtful, long-term discussions with our communities or with ourselves, when we're not doing the business of the board like we are on a regular meeting, then I think we need to actually schedule that as a ongoing schedule activity as opposed to a come what may or happenstance activity. So if we, I'm on favor of rescheduling, reordering our business and also looking at our agendas, see if there are things that we actually can eliminate and because we will have shorter time if we go to one meeting a month. Thanks. Great, I agree, thank you for your input. So if everybody is with Jonas and Jill on the deck, Jonas, go ahead. I don't look forward to spending five hours every two weeks with you lovely people, not because of you, but because it's a lot of work. And I think I'm squarely in the minority here, but I think that we need the time. I think we need the decision-making time and you only have to look at agenda number nine in today's packet to see why. Don't let my wife hear me say that though. I guess I'm gonna, Jill. Oh, sorry, I forgot Jill was on deck, nevermind. Sorry, sorry. That's okay. Thanks, yeah, I actually think, so I'm strongly in favor of making this change. I think we do relatively little business that we actually vote on. And what I'd really like to see is us use that other time for as Chris said, public forums, but also to meet that goal of trying to have more public engagement. But also to, I think it would be really helpful to us if we take some of our more complex discussions and move them out of the business meeting and into a meeting where that's the only topic on the table so that we can be focused and energetic for it. So that would be my hope. I agree, Jill. Yeah, acuteness is on the screen right now, so it's hard to concentrate. I know, I know. It's hard to compete, that's okay. Is it his birthday? You want to say again, you get your books. Okay, let's go ahead. So is buddy okay with that? Please go ahead and raise your hand that we will have just one. That's our Wednesday. Could I say one thing, please? I- Yes, Dorsey, go ahead. The one thing that concerns me is that when we actually need to have a vote on something, it means we will only have once a month to make a vote on something that we need. And I'm thinking for all the businesses and various things we have to do that might not be such a good idea. I'm not opposed to the whole idea, but I think it needs to be tweaked and worked on a little better. Okay, yeah, so if you're not opposed to it, I think let's give it a try. And then we can always have a special meeting if it's something we talked with Brian and the Agenda Planning Committee that the third Wednesday was probably better for board orders also, because that's an important thing that we do. So let's try out the third Wednesday so that everybody can get paid and move us in a way that can work better. So give it a try, okay? Sounds like everybody had their hand up. Lindy, is that a question or okay? It's not really a question, but I think for me, I'm going to block the two Wednesdays on my calendar just so if we have to have a special meeting or a vote or something, I won't have put something there or a community forum. That, absolutely, absolutely. I think everybody should do that, yes. Okay, do you need anything else from that, Brian? Do we have an official vote? Did someone make a motion and second it? I'm just trying to follow the rule here. Yeah, can we have a motion? I can make a motion that we have one meeting on the third Wednesday of the month. Great, and I see Steven Luke seconding it. I'll second. Should the motion include the time? Okay, the third Wednesday at 6 p.m. Second. Should the motion include the fact that we're going to have all our committee meetings on the first Wednesday? That's what I understood you to say. Now, maybe I won't say so. Now, we're keeping the first Wednesday flexible and yeah, we would try to have committee meetings that are first to nice and see. We have seen that in the past, it didn't work for everybody, but so let's just vote right now on the motion on there. And we revert board meeting is good. So all those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye, okay. I see just yeses, so the motion. Okay, please. There is a part of the- Tell us as thumb was down. Oh, where is it? Jonas's thumb. His actual picture, he has a physical thumb. Okay, so one now, Lisa, the next part is board or an experimentation was the scheduling our retreat. And we will want a retreat sooner rather than later and the proposal for this retreat now if I find my notes. We were hoping to achieve four things. One was a board roles and responsibilities. The second one is a relays like we did last year. The board calendar that addresses those goals was just organized to book under and the last one is we're gonna be getting involved in a strategic planning. So it would become a talk about what as a board we expect about the strategic planning. Brian is gonna explain a little bit today and he is having conversations with the leadership team. I understand this is all, this is my first time doing this in a while, but so this is from our agenda. I don't have any extra information. It's just what we heard at our agenda planning meeting. So it would be great if we could use that first retreat for that and do it in April. So we orient the board in roles and responsibilities. And if I'm missing something, Brian, please let me, oh, Sadie. Can you speak up if there's something? Use the second, the alternate board meaning that we're not having that time. I just wasn't following. Yeah, use one of the alternate times that we have either the first week in April or... But a Wednesday night, not a weekend, a Wednesday night. Yeah, a Wednesday night. So, and that is just sharing info. We don't need to make that decision today. I think we would have to plan for it, but if what we do need is input, if the themes look like something that the board would wanna do in the first retreat, like priority, those are four priorities to me. So if we're okay with those four priorities, we will move ahead and plan. Brian? Sorry, that's not me with the gavel. That's Sadie taking her gavel back. So I was just gonna say that the one thing is, if we're gonna do some sort of retreat format, we may want to, if we're gonna have a time to meet with folks in person, but obviously we would have to see how we're doing with the vaccinations. And if we're even allowed to do that per the Department of Health, and if not, it would have to be on Zoom. And I do know that a lot of times it would be stronger and more powerful if we can always meet in person. And I guess we can see as we start to organize at what works best for board members first. Now, as it is, we don't, there's the guidelines for me in person anyways. So I think we should go ahead and plan for now on doing a Zoom first retreat with a facilitator so that we can just, and we had some practice from last year and then we'll bring Chrissy and Vera into the picture. Stomps up. Can you review what the four bullets were there? I missed the second one. So can you read the three that you have and I'll tell you because I don't have my notes right in front of me. So- I have board roles and responsibilities, board calendar and- Board goals, board goals is the second one. Goals, okay, thanks. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so let's move ahead. 4.2 is appointment of new board members. Brian. Yes, as of right now, I see Christina Pollard here and I did receive her sworn oath actually during the meeting. So I do have it. So she is our new board newest board member. I know we did have a second person who did qualify but I have not yet received a sworn oath. So we will not be able to appoint her tonight but we can definitely appoint Christina tonight. So Christina, welcome to Washington Central Unified Union School District's board. Thank you. Do you have anything to say or is the floor is yours? Just I'm happy to be here and excited to learn and help where I can. Thank you. So now we're looking for a motion to moving to executive session for personnel and superintendent. Yep. Floor, one thing just about the appointment of school board members. I believe that part of that item is about finding folks to appoint for the two seats that are currently still empty, the three year Worcester seat and I'm not sure what the seat in Berlin is. Great to see Vera back. Hi Vera. I didn't know it was you from Berlin until I saw your name on the Zoom chat. Yeah, I didn't know either. But we will need to find candidates for appointment to hopefully get select boards to send them to us. Actually I think we appoint them. School board appoints the members, the new members. I believe the process is that the select board of the town refers a candidate to us and then we approve that person. That's how it used to be, but now we can advertise, but do you prefer Jonas? I think that changed, that was such totally changed Jonas so that the board, just like with Caroline, she wasn't referred to us. She came, they made application directly to the board. Yeah. Okay. And then the last thing with the appointment of the new board members is Christina. It's last year having somebody be either the mentor or if you wanted to have any questions or some of that. So I don't know if there's a volunteer to be Christina's mentor or guide for as she gets started. There we go. Jonas is your guide, Christina, you're in good hands. Thank you. Thank you, Jonas. You got it, Chrissy, we'll talk soon. So going back to an executive session for personnel, superintendent evaluation, could I have a motion? I'll move it. I'll move it. Sorry, Chris. Scott moved and Chris seconds. Is that okay, Chris? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go ahead and all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, see any thumbs down? Okay, let's do it. All right, Jim, we're on your hand. You can put the school board and myself into executive session, please. That sounds good. And for some of the new folks, I think I have you, but if I did miss somebody, I'm not in executive session. So just let me know if you don't end up getting a notification right now. Okay, welcome back, everybody. Thank you for your patience with the executive session. Let's move right ahead to 4.2, public comments discussion. I'm hoping that we don't take more than seven minutes on this, I know that that's hopeful, but let's give it a try. Steven. I would be willing to lead a small group to bring to the next board meeting two or three recommendations on public comments. I would like to see this opportunity improved. I suspect there might be a few other people on the board that might be willing to work offline and bring some specific recommendations that then the board could discuss so it wouldn't be a brainstorming session. I think that's a great idea, Scott. I agree and would be willing to join Steven in that venture. And I would do likewise. This is Chris. Okay, Caroline, do you have a question or want to join? I was going to join, but I think it has enough members that they'll do a great job. Thanks. Okay, so discussion. Do you need me to do anything with facility? Sorry, do you need me to do anything in facilitating that meeting or the three board members work together to schedule that themselves and want to make sure? I'm sending out an email right now, we'll schedule it ourselves. Great, thank you, Steven. Thank you, Steven, Scott and Chris. Okay, so that was less than seven minutes. 4.5 equalized pupil weights study. Dorothy, you had sent an email to all of us. Do you want to? Yeah, I would. I'm very, very concerned about this. It's been hanging fire now for a year and a half. We've had the information and haven't been doing much with it. I did write a letter to our three senators to support, which is actually the more active one is S13, which is on student weighting. And I heard from Andrew Perchlich, and I was a little concerned. I have found him to be a good senator for us in Washington County, and I'd like what he supported. And he did, last year he was on the Education Committee and he voted to support S13 and he's supporting it now as it goes also to the House Ed Committee. And he said, I think there is support for moving forward on this issue. And then he says, unfortunately, AOE testified against having them implement S13. And that upset me because I really, I just find it unconscionable that the AOE would say, no, we're not going to do this. When part of everything we know is we need to be equitable. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know that Washington Central itself will benefit a lot from this, but I think the poor kids of Vermont will benefit for us joining the coalition that is fighting really hard to get this considered and on the table and being acted on this year, not putting it off for another whole year, which you know, it will then take a couple of years to get something changed. So my big plea is, could we join the coalition and support what they're doing? Now, they are asking for money if you wish to give it to them and there's not an entry fee. And there are meetings every Thursday from five to six where they talk about what they're working on. But my push now is to have that coalition supported by a lot of the state so we can support the poor children throughout Vermont, where we are all in this together. We brag about Vermont. And so we have to help Vermont and this is a way to do it. Any questions? I'll do my best. Gunn? Thank you, Flora. I'll actually make a motion that the board of Washington Central Unified Union School District sign on to this coalition to promote implementation of the Equalized Pupil Waiting Study Before I continue, I'll let a second come forth. I'll second. Thank you, Chris. This I think is literally an opportunity for us to put our money where our mouths are. We've been really great at the symbolic stuff. Pardon me, at flags, you know, yard signs, scowlers and residents. But this is about remedying decades of inequitable weighing of pupils and thus of distribution of resources. This is real systemic inequity that we now through the joint bills. And I think S13 is actually the one that the coalition has gotten behind. Dorothy will correct me if I'm wrong, but this just to again to underscore what Dorothy said, even though we are actually losers according to the joint fiscal office and substantially so I think to the extent that equity is generalized to the extent that injustice is remedy for Aubraman children, that benefits us, that lifts us up. So I think this is really an opportunity to show, to actually do what we say and act on what we have at least profess to believe. Are there any more questions before I have it? For Dorothy or for Scott? I have a question for Dorothy or Scott. Dorothy, you mentioned about the AOE advocating that this provision and not going to affect. Is that, do we have anything substantive from the AOE actually saying that? Well, if you read, and I can send it to actually it's in the Vermont School Board Association. They just sent around a thing about this, what's been going on as a legislature. And if you'll scroll down and look at that one, they give the secretary of education's testimony where he makes five points. And I watched that hearing on the 23rd when he testified and I was very disappointed that the Vermont School Board Association in that where they were sent his testimony, they did not include Alex Yin's testimony, who's from Winozki. And Winozki is really suffering. Their kids don't have bus service because they have to put as much money than they can into all the ELL students and the poor students they have. So there's a, Winozki is not small. It's not rural, but that's a lot of walking for a lot of kids. And where other cities and towns like Montpelier do have bussing. So to me, it's really, I was really upset with the School Board Association for not adding that information. And I'm hoping that they will work to support S13. The other point I wanted to make is that this is really closely associated with the Brigham decision. And even Mark McDonald, who's a Senator from Orange at that hearing said, well, do you want to do this now or do you want to wait for a court case when we're forced to do it in a hurry and we don't do it right? So just, that's where it's gonna go eventually. I won't be the one, but that's probably where it will go. And I just want to put pressure on the legislature that constantly saying coronavirus is makes it too hard for us to do it is not an issue. Washington Central can tell you that coronavirus won't stop us from doing it. They didn't stop us from opening our schools. I'm very proud of everybody who pushed for that. I was tentative at first and I'm very glad we did it. But I really want to be part of this and see it through. The other part of my question is what type of funding is the coalition looking for from us, if any? Go ahead, Scott. May I, yeah, go ahead and thank you. I just, that was to be my postscript to, I forgot to mention. I'm not recommending that we, that we necessarily donate money to this effort because if the effort is successful, we will, it will cost us and according to the joint fiscal office estimates. So I think what we're showing is that we're willing to take that hit in order for there to be broader justice done to our children in Vermont. Okay, so I have a couple of questions to say. Chris, are you done with your questions? No, you go ahead, Florent, I'll follow up. Okay, so one question I think is, do we have enough information to be making this decision? Right now you're saying that we wouldn't join giving money, but that the coalition is asking for money. I think that we just got this information. Now it would be good to have more information in front of us before we join it. And then one last question would be, Brian, knowing our district, do you have any input from, for us? Well, I mean, I think, you know, this is a very complex issue, right? Because we, a lot of folks talk about equity and how do we fund equity? And, you know, our district, we also have some, you know, we're also working with equity in our own, within our own district, right? That's something that we're also committed to and in racial equity, you know, we're looking at other areas where we're looking at institutional equity. Do we even offer different programs in different schools? And I think that, you know, there are some districts that have more funds than other districts and there may be some different equity issues just there in general. So it's really a philosophical deep discussion. One thing you'll have to consider is the impact on our local, you know, on local taxes, you know, how much money will this impact us? Currently, I only have the 2020 information on how this would, and I do believe it is a, if these bills are adopted at the house or Senate, at the house level or Senate level, they will impact our taxes in a, but however, this would be an opportunity for us to really try to help the state with, you know, dealing with the equity issues across the state of Vermont. So, but I don't have the 2021 document from the Joint Physical Office, so I'm not really sure I have seen the Joint Physical Office document from 2020, which I believe is available on the website, but I have not seen the updated one. Sure. Dorothy? I think on that VSVA accounting of what's going on in the legislature, at the bottom of that thing about S3 change to waiting, there's a link that you can click on that tells each district's percentage of poverty and things like that. And I remember that Washington Central was at 6% of whatever it is, and other places were much higher and other places were much less, of course, but you can get that information there. Yeah, so I'm wondering if we could give a richer explanation to the board before we make to join the call? What I was gonna ask is, I would like to tomorrow when the coalition has a meeting, if we can't have an official vote that goes on the record for joining them, could we have a straw vote of what you would be interested in doing? I really think because crossover is coming, that they need all the support they can get as soon as possible. And for that particular bill, I think crossover is on the 19th. So we could scooch it in on the 17th, but it would be kind of nice to know where we're going. Just as a point of order. We do have a motion on the floor. There's a motion on the floor, yeah. That's what I was. Scott, can you? Yeah. Can you review the motion? Can you review the verbiage and the motion please? Scott? Sure, Lisa. I moved that the board of our school district formally join the coalition of other Vermont school boards to support legislation calling for implementation of the equalized pupil waiting study. It was something like that. Is that okay? Scott, will you take part in the amendment? Depends on what it is. Implement it this year. Thank you. Or legislation this year. Yeah. Okay. So I think the easiest way to do it would be to vote up or down this motion. So if people feel like they need more information and vote down the motion, and if you're comfortable making a decision now you can vote yes. Caroline, do you have a process question or? I do. You said it. I just want to repeat it to make sure. If we're voting it down, it doesn't mean we don't support this. We just don't feel like we have enough information right now to support it today. Is that accurate? Correct. Yes. Thank you. Correct. Or you could of course be voting no. Yeah. Period. Thank you. Okay. So all those in favor of the motion on the floor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. I can't see everybody. So I have one, two, three, four, six, seven. And oh, seven yeses. Good. And somebody, nope. Diana, are you trying to say something? Well, I think there's, I thought there were, Steven, were you at yes? Because I thought there were eight. Okay. So it's hard to, the hands go up and down to three, four, five, six, seven. I still just see seven. I think Chris, I voted yes. So that's nine. Okay. So eight, that's nine. So the motion passes. Thank you. Moving right along. You're moving along, but I like, I'm going to leave the meeting now. I've got something I have to tend to here at home. So thank you all for listening to me and doing that. And if I can join again, I will. Good night. Good night, Dorothy. Okay. So it's Anna and Towns, wait so long, but we're ready for student reports. Awesome. It's a special meet the view down there. Sorry, Towns. Let me get the number for one moment earlier. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I guess the first major piece of news is that this is the end of our February vacation. Kai went into March, but this is the students today returned to school if they were in-person and if they were remote, then some of them attended class meetings depending on how their schedules were. Yes, but today was the last, was our return to school after vacation. At the very end of March and start of April, Towns unfortunately won't be healthy graduating, but I'll be able to start choosing my classes for my senior year as well as all the other students in year 32, which is always a very exciting time to be able to see what classes you can do. And actually this year that we have a Bay Choice for CBL, which is community-based learning, pilot, branching out from middle school and high school. So it's very nice to look forward to that. Pretty soon people should start buying yearbooks too in order to get a yearbook students either email Sarah Wolf or there is a way to order them on the newsletter. I really recommend you should go get one, even during COVID, we have some really cool pictures. Also with these 32 Chronicle, if any of you follow that, it's the 50th year and we have launched a sort of celebration, honor of all that. And there's some articles going up that have just started and there's a quiz that I recently published trying to see how well you know year 32 and the history of it. So y'all should go check that out in Chronicle. Applications for the Career Center for CBCC are due soon, the 5th of March, for students who want to pursue a trade program. The applications are due soon. And as we know, winter sports are happening and games are going on and we actually have a local YouTube channel recording. It's called CBT Sports. And since we're not allowed to have people actually go to the games, you can watch them streamed on YouTube and we have some students at our school who actually work there. So it's really nice to be able to see the sports even if we're not there in person. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, this is wonderful. Any board members have any questions for our students? Seeing none, moving, right. Now it's your turn, Brian. Yeah. Great, thank you very much. We have a COVID-19 update. I'm gonna have, there's a lot going on with COVID-19 in our district. So I'm gonna turn it over to Elizabeth for her to talk. And then I would like to just give the board some information about the recovery phase of where we're headed as a state and district. So Elizabeth, are you still there? You're muted, Elizabeth. Okay, so there is a lot going on and it's really all good news for us. I guess I'll do the biggest first, which is that you probably all know that the vaccine has been rolling out for the staff. And we're expecting a phone call tomorrow to give numbers and to get specifics about when this will happen. And I feel wonderful. There's a lot of people who say they're waiting to go back to school until they're all vaccinated in our district that hasn't been. I'm so proud of everybody. I was at Rumney today and walking around the classrooms, I recall walking around in August when everybody was so afraid and terrified. And there was a shower curtain around a teacher because he was so scared. And that's changed a lot. I walked around and you can feel that that anxiety has decreased a lot. However, it's still there. And I feel like it's so wonderful that they're gonna be able to access this vaccine very soon. And I think that will help for the rest of the year for everybody's anxiety to even be lower. And so that they can feel a little bit safer that what they're doing is working. So, and the other part is that we're in a really good position. We had three cases right before vacation. And there were a lot of people implicated in potentially close contacts and not one other positive case came from that. So the transmission is non-existent. We have not had any transmission in the schools and that's really good news. And it's about the way where everybody is pulling together and doing what's right. And I noticed today in taking a look at the screening process and a lot of people, there were people who traveled over the vacation, but, you know, they, as far as I know, they've answered the questions appropriately and honestly and the kids aren't in school right now. You know, they're waiting for a test or they've had a test and they can be back. So I feel like people are really trying to do the right thing and it's working. So those, I don't think there's, I think that's about it. It's, we're in a good place and we'll keep doing what we need to do. And hopefully we'll get that vaccine out soon, which will just, you know, it will relieve people and it also will give them a little bit of permission to do, like to travel, to see grandparents to do all those things that people have been holding their breath waiting for. So that's it. Any questions for Elizabeth? Got, Thompson? Thanks, Floor. Yeah, I guess, as we know from just about every horror movie that's ever been made, the moment of maximum danger is when the protagonists think that they're just about home free. So I hope that, you know, the precautions are still maintained as faithfully and rigorously as you were describing Elizabeth. That's the plan, absolutely, right? Steven, do you have your hand up for a recent or was just leftover, leftover? Okay, Brian, go ahead. And then next, the exciting news of, yeah. So now just so the way the state of Vermont is framing the start of the school year, they called it reopening phase. And we definitely have had a very successful reopening, right? Our children are in school. We have had zero transmissions in our schools. We're working to try to get through this as a district together. The second phase, however, is being called recovery. That's the official title that the state is calling it. They believe that this will be one of the more challenging phases for districts across the state of Vermont. And also other states may call it something different, but it's gonna be a challenging piece because what does recovery look like? And it may be different at each district because of the different reopening plans that everyone had implemented at the start of the year. But if you look at page four of the packet, today's packet, I did provide an op-ed from the Secretary of Education. I'm not gonna read it, but it gives you an idea of how we're doing with regards to the rest of the state of Vermont. A large majority of our students are attending school on a daily basis, 95% attending in person and remotely daily. And right now, despite those successes, one of the big questions is how has our children been impacted by this COVID epidemic? Academically, obviously socially, emotionally, children are in school, so that's very helpful. But nationally, they're calling it the COVID slide, meaning that there's been some academic gaps in learning and learning loss because children were not in school. So if you recall, I think we've minimized the COVID slide as much as we possibly could this school year. However, this pandemic did start prior to this school year and we do have about four months of time where our children were not necessarily in school learning. And so right now the idea is we're trying to figure out exactly what the COVID slide is and what was this COVID slide for our own district, right? We have to look at student achievement data. I know we talked about literacy and math in those areas and we'll be continuing to look at those data points. However, I just wanted you to be aware of that this recovery piece is going to be, how will districts make the time up that was lost for children? There have been some ideas floated by superintendents, both in Vermont and outside of Vermont. And I think we're still waiting to hear from the agency of education what this means and what are possibilities. I do know some superintendents in other parts of the country have proposed to their state legislatures that we should have year-round schooling for the next two to three years to make up for the learning loss that happened. Maybe we should have extended school days. These are all big topics, something that we have not fully explored at the leadership team level with teachers or anyone. I'm just letting you know because it's just so brand new coming out. But I do think we need to first diagnose what the COVID slide meant for us and what possibilities exist for us to help remedy this situation with the COVID slide and ultimately get through the recovery phase, right? So one area that did come up that everyone is, I will say, and I'm not, I still would like to more time to review this, but I just wanna put this in the board's purview. The agency of education is highly recommending having a recovery coordinator, director level position. And they are also recommending a recovery team. I will be looking and meeting with my leadership team in the near future to explore this. However, I just wanna let you know that there are some conversations around this. I do recall back in June when I first started, the agency of education did talk about having a COVID-19 coordinator. And I will say Elizabeth has been worth every single dollar that we could put out there and we received full reimbursement for that position. So just putting it out there that I did talk to some colleagues around the state and people did say, oh, well, let's just do a stipend position for the COVID-19 coordinator. I do talk to, and I know that I did not agree with some of my colleagues in the state. However, I talked to some of those similar colleagues and they're saying they're looking at someone more full-time because they believe there's gonna be a lot of work. Not ready to talk about more about it right now, I'm just putting that thought out there that this is gonna be, I think, a major undertaking. Even though we're doing better, I think, than a lot of other places right now because of our highly successful reopening plan. But recovery plan, what will that look like? What are we able to do? That'll be a larger discussion with leadership team members when we are ready to do that. Go ahead, Brian, does it- Oh, I see, sorry, I had a question. Yeah, any consideration of high school going in-person full-time? I think we're still monitoring that situation. I've been speaking with the U32 administration and they are trying to see what can be happening, but at the same time we wanna opt out of mostly precautionary, we're still, as Scott had just said, this pandemic is far from over. We still haven't had our teachers vaccinated and at some point they're probably gonna start talking about vaccinating students as well. So we'd love to get everyone back, but I think there's still a lot of work to do and it may not be necessarily possible until we have an idea of exactly when folks are gonna be vaccinated and how long will it take to plan accordingly. Steven, do you have anything to say about that? I see Steven here. I would just offer that until there's any change to the six foot minimum distancing with students, that is a big contributor to why we're in a hybrid schedule. And I would also say that students under 16 years of age will not be getting a vaccine before the school year is over. So those two factors alone are gonna require us to still be in a hybrid schedule until there's major changes to that. Thank you, Steven. Any other questions? Oh, sorry. Is the floor clear? Can I? Yes, go ahead Chris. Thank you. So Brian, do you have a sense on when the evaluation for determining what our COVID slide is or if there is one, when that will begin and when we may see some results? And then the question is, it sounds like there's just based on media discussion and the press conferences with governor and the AOE that there's gonna be a lot of pressure to have all students back in the classroom in April or May. And what I'd like to discuss with the board as a whole is whether or not our district will maintain the online school for students who are already in it through the end of this year, rather than disrupt that, even if there's pressure from the AOE and the governor to recall all students back into the classroom. Can we put that as a future board topic, topic to not discuss it today because we're not prepared to discuss it today. Let Brian talk to the leadership team and then we'll discuss this at our next board meeting. Chris. If it is our next board meeting, just because if we're gonna go to a monthly board meeting, it may be moved by April. So yes, on that point. March 17, March 17, yeah. Right, okay. Okay, thank you. Go ahead Brian, you still have two items that I hope can be. Yes, so the other piece is the district budget and article votes. So I just want to let everyone know that I do think that the budget vote, I'll go through each one of them, but I just wanted to congratulate the following board members to being reelected. That was Jonathan Goddard, Kari Bradley, Lindy Johnson, Caroline May and Chris McVeigh. So congratulations for coming back to the board and rolling up your sleeves and getting ready for the recovery phase next, right? So I also would like to congratulate Christine Pollard. She was newly sworn in and she is also a member. So congratulations again, Christine, for becoming part of the board. I will make sure that we get you set up on our email and send any other new member toolkits and things like that to you shortly. The other board member that may be, I'm not sure. Again, Vera Frazier, I have not received an oath. I'm not sure if she's coming or not, but she has qualified. So hopefully we'll hear something soon from Vera. Moving along, those were the first four articles. The other articles that were there was Rosie Lecaire was elected our district clerk and Mary Ormsby was elected our district treasurer. We did not get a facilitator yet. There's a lot of writings, but we didn't get a majority. So we'll have to have that filled at another time. The other articles that passed, all of our articles passed very convincingly. The article five, which was fixing the compensation for our school district, that passed 2,556 votes for yes. There were 544 no's and 205 blank for the fixing the compensation. Article six, which was the budget and I believe this is a reflection upon all of our hard work this year. All of the sacrifices are our teachers and staff, leadership team and the board. I mean, I have to say I came in here in July and you were doing two meetings, we were going all out two or three meetings a month to get the schools open. So this was really a combination of five communities coming together. And it seems like that the public has really weighed in on that with our passing our budget in an overwhelming fashion. The votes count I have is 2,314, yes, 786, no. So it's almost a three to one margin passing the budget. So it was very convincing. The article seven, holding funds in reserve was also overwhelmingly passed. There were 2,561 yeses, 581 no's and 161 blanks. Article eight was also passed in another convincing vote. This was article eight, it's about borrowing money. 2,305 yeses, 841 no's and 173 blanks. So I do think that that was a very successful meeting yesterday, I'm happy it's behind us. We're gonna get ready to move on to the next phase of moving through the school year. And just very happy with, again, I think it's a testament to our teachers and staff, our hard work with reopening the schools and also I think a reflection of what folks wanted in their budget this year during a pandemic. You had some, a couple other things you wanna share with us, the strategic planning. Yes, yes, I didn't have any questions or anything. Okay, so the next piece was just to let the board know, I know we had a educational quality meeting earlier today. Jen did a great job of presenting our SLOs and talking about some of the literacy assessments. I do think there is going to be some major, major proposals here, the Senate Education Committee and the House Education Committee have really drafted some bills that I think would be very helpful in pushing literacy education forward in the state of Vermont. There are, I'm not gonna read through everything in these pages which are on pages seven and eight. However, they're looking at, if you look at Senate bill draft requirements 21-0807, they're looking at a $3 million grant to train teachers and methods of teaching literacy. So they're really looking at creating some function at the agency of education to build districts capacities to implement literacy education better across the state. They're looking at creating a literacy division at the agency of education responsible for improving literacy outcomes in pre-K through grade 12. This one I thought was very interesting as well in this. The agency of education, VSPA, VSA, DCSEA and VPA will be responsible for developing a statewide vision for literacy including the core principles for early literacy instructional practices. And here's where I thought that was a very key and a clear articulation of expectations for tier one, tier two and tier three literacy instruction. So there could be some guidance coming from the state building their capacity at the agency of education level that can really help out local districts as we develop our MTSS systems. Look at our, relook at our curriculum. There could be a lot of opportunities here. Not gonna go through everything else here in the bill. There is talking about using screeners for markers of dyslexia and there's some information there. The house education committee bill was also very interesting looking at possibility of giving out money to districts to address system-wide literacy development in accordance with the principles of Act 173 which is, I know what heavy will become heavier on all of our minds as we leave the pandemic and leave the recovery phase because that will again impact districts across the state. So they're looking at possibly giving up to three years of $100,000 per year for districts to really address some system-wide literacy development. This areas that could be used, the money could be used for training teachers, instructional leadership, hiring a literacy coach. So I know looking at those types of areas that there could be some additional funding coming and also looking at benchmark literacy assessments, focusing in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. And again, articulating the MTSS system when it comes to literacy. So I think there could be a lot of really good things coming out from the agency of education in the area of literacy, which I know a lot of folks in our district and beyond are not, we want to do more with improving student outcomes in literacy. Any questions on that one or should I continue? Continue. Continue, okay. The next page I would like to report on is the three to five year strategic plan. I know we're going to be leaving, again, we've done the curriculum review, we have board goals, we've had a lot of work that we've done throughout the year getting us to this point. So I think we're getting into a very interesting and exciting time for our school district. The three to five year strategic plan that we've been talking about for a while, we're going to start trying to make that a reality. And as we start looking how will Washington Central begin to focus and align our efforts and resources for the district to address these goals. And I know that the board and individual conversations with board members, board members have spoken to me about incorporating voices from all constituents, the importance of having not a top down process but a really a bottom up process, making sure we listen to our teachers, we listen to our parents and community members, we hear from our students, we hear from our leadership team and of course, obviously definitely hear from the board, but we're really trying to make sure we get all that information. And what an interesting time to be thinking about doing this as the state may even be developing their own literacy system at the state level. But there were some areas here that when we get into the strategic planning process, there are several artifacts, I think that we're definitely going to want to use and consider and read through when we create the strategic plan. I listed them here. I'm definitely interested in hearing what board members, what else would board members like to hear for this? I haven't listed on page nine of the packet. Currently the artifacts that I have listed here. And again, this is just a short brainstorming list of artifacts that we can pull ideas from and think about what we want to do for our district moving forward. They are superintendent entry plan, curriculum management audit report, focus groups, surveys, community forums. Those are some of the list. It's not a final list. It's just a starting list. So if you have any ideas, I would love to get your input right now. If there's any opportunities, I know we have some ideas, but be great to hear anything now. Sorry, Scott, go ahead. Sorry I was muted. Thanks, Laura. Yeah, I just like to suggest in addition to community forums, maybe a separate line for local resources that aren't just sort of talking to people in general, but there are some amazing individuals who live in our five towns, who retired educators, other types of people. I think the Washington Central Friends of Education is another example of individuals and groups that have specific areas of expertise or specific areas in which they can really contribute. And I would love to see those resources tapped. Can I just follow up? If a board member has any specific local resources, just send me a quick email. If you don't, I know, and if you let me know by the end of next week, would Friday be good? So I can have a list of folks. Would that be helpful? Thank you, Scott. Kari? Yes, a similar comment. I think that the idea of focus groups and interviews are a good way potentially to invite perspectives that you might not otherwise get and with the idea of representation. And so some groups that you might consider are students of color or other minorities, students that are on an IEP or free and reduced lunch in their families and groups like that that might not otherwise if you don't invite them specifically. And then one other thing, I'm sure you're thinking about this, but since we're talking strategy, you're gonna have to consider, or we're gonna have to consider external and internal trends. So I don't know how you go about gathering all of that, but some analysis of demographics and tax implications and remote learning and non-classroom education and state mandates and things like that, that I figure is gonna need to be a section of your plan. Our plan. Thank you. Diane? So I think it's a symptom of the lateness of tonight, but do we have a group that's working on this plan or setting up the process or identifying how we're going about doing the strategic plan because I think there's the CIP process and information that was gathered while for a different purpose, I think fits with this. I also think there needs to be some real intentional ways that we go about doing it so that we're asking information of all, as you were saying, Kari, but we also have to be careful to not expect people to represent what we identify their groups to be and to not require performing poverty in terms of if I'm a representative of a free reduced lunch. So I guess I'm confused as to what are the steps we are taking and when is that planning? Or did I miss it just because I can't? We don't, as far as I understand what you had shared with us is that this was just the first share with the board. And that's why we wanted to incorporate this into our first retreat too, because we would need to have set parameters as a board. For example, one idea that we talked with Brian was at that meeting. We will talk about do we need to hire a turn off facilitator to make sure that all of this happens? And then our team would put together the plan but so I think that should be part of the retreat. So we have a really rich conversation of what the parameters are. And this gives Brian a guideline of how we will have that conversation at our retreat. So it's that four part retreat. And I would just piggyback off that. Thank you, Floor. Having the parameters is gonna be if we are gonna go down the route of having a facilitator, a professional facilitator who does strategic planning for a living, that's what they do or has done that as a, I don't wanna say as a hobby, but they know it at the back. They do it every, they do it a lot. They've done it a lot more than we have. We really wanna know what the parameters are from the board. So we can start setting, identifying what we want. If we have to go out to bed or go and see what we need to do. Yeah, and by that Brian, we don't mean that the facilitator will write the plan. It's more about- No, no, no, no, no. The label that we get all of the people, the process, all of the people involved. Yes, it's all about the process, not the plan. The plan comes from the community. Yeah, any other questions from the board so that we can move to the consent agenda and hopefully hit our nine marker? Okay, so can I have a motion to approve the minutes of February 17th? I'll move to February 17th. Jonas moves a second. Second. Chris seconds. Any discussion, any changes? All those in favor, please raise your hand or do thumbs up. And it seems to be a little easier to see the screen. All right, one, two, three. Yeah, I think everybody is subject to any abstain. I see Chrissie doesn't have her hand up. So any abstains? One, okay. All right. Did you get that, Lisa? One abstain. Yeah, yes, thank you. All right, and now approve board orders. Lindy. I make a motion to approve the board orders in the amount of $221,836.05. Second. Thank you. Second, Diane seconds. Any discussion or questions on the board orders? All those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. I don't see any, yep, passes unanimously. Don't forget to send your email. I will send the email as written. I will hit send the minute that we are done. Approve number seven, approve new teachers. And we have in page 15, we have new teacher nominations. I can make the motion. Can I have a motion? Yeah. I'll make a motion. Who was that? Caroline. I make a motion to approve the new teacher nomination for the 2021 school year as recommended by the superintendent. I second. I'll make it more specific if it needs. Do we need the name of Erika, Brian? You could say Erika Moore if you wish. It doesn't, I don't think it will matter. Erika Moore, school social worker. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. A second? I'll second. Did I miss? Thank you, Lindy. Thank you. Okay, any discussion or questions? Everybody had to employ information. No. All those in favor of approving Erika Moore as our next social worker for you 32. Please say aye. Aye. Okay. All in favor, it passes unanimously. Okay. Public comments. I didn't see any others. Am I missing any, Brian? I didn't see any other recommendations. Yep, okay. Any public comments? Jonathan, do you have your hand up for a reason or that was the past vote? That was the past vote, yes. Okay, thank you. I don't, I didn't see any hands up from the public. Okay. So future, any other future agenda items that you wanna add to our 10 items already? Jonathan, I just wanna make, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Jonathan. Just something really quickly. Someone brought it to my attention in Berlin that it is the 50th anniversary. I think one of the students mentioned it earlier that it's the 50th anniversary of you 32 this year. And so it was brought to my attention that we ought to certainly keep that in mind and or do something to commemorate the 50 years of the school. Okay. Add it. Thank you. Is that school year? Is it the school year? Yes, it is the school year. Yeah, okay. Read the chronicle, guys. Yeah, the chronicle of tonight, you should go read it. I did see that it was looking for stories. If any of you on the board, if I can interrupt really quick, if any of you went either you two or no one who has stories, the chronicle would really appreciate having some cool stories from alumni. My father-in-law was the first superintendent and he built it. Can my name be in touch with him? Good try, wow. He's dead. Okay, Scott, back to order. Scott. Thanks, Laura. On 9.7, the equity scholar in residence, I don't know if we'd like to attach a date to that of March 17th. I think I would want to ask Brian where they are and I think they were having a meeting at the school. Brian? I'm actually meeting to find out exactly what the proposal is. So I will have more information. Maybe we can table that idea until maybe next Wednesday when we have our agenda meeting and then we can talk more about it and see if it's possible to get that up for the following board meeting. I also do think that at some point I would like to have some sort of presentation about equity supports and what that means. There is some information coming from the state about equity supports and what schools have been identified for equity supports in our district and what that means for our district. I know we did talk a little bit about it earlier this year. So I think I will have to be sending a letter home to families about it per the state. So there will be some more information. I'm sure folks will be having questions about it once the letter goes out. Thank you, Brian. Okay. Diane, sorry, Lindy? Probably exactly what Diane raised her hand about. The staff appreciation needs to be on the next agenda if it's going to go with an April type recognition. Great, thank you. Highlighted those three. Any other board business before we adjourn for reflections? Kari? Thanks for getting us done on time. I have a small concern but I'm just a little worried about our voting. And I think it feels a little loosey-goosey and I think it's just a matter of time until it gets us in trouble. And I'm wondering if staff can't develop something that's a little bit tighter. Kari, what do you mean by that? Well, that we're counting on the screens and we're counting hands that go up and down. So maybe there's a way that could be an online tally that everybody votes there and it records. I don't know. Scott, do you have a comment about that? We could type in the chat, yes or no? Maybe sort of a sideline comment. The Calus Select Board for the Calus and Neural Informational Meeting used, I think what Kari uses for Hunger Mountains Annual Meeting, the Zoom webinar feature. And it was very interesting. It worked very well, I thought, in that all of the people who needed to be part of the meeting were visible on a single screen. And it just seemed to gel very nicely. There were no votes, of course, but I think it might be a lot easier to just to keep track if we had something like that that where people aren't constantly moving around, you don't feel like you're playing chess with video rectangles on the screens. Thank you. Is Stephen Luke? Because some people are online and some people are on the phone and some people's internet gets wonky. I think the simple solution would be doing a roll call vote for votes. It's easy, it's straightforward. You get the vote and then you've got it for every... And if Chris does it by saying yes or no over the phone or someone else says yes or no or puts a thumbs up, whatever it is, each person is being asked and each person is identifying what their vote is. And it becomes very clear. If you don't have a vote, you figure out how to get it. That sounds great. That's gonna take a lot longer. That's gonna add to the... That's gonna add quite a bit of time. It is gonna add time, but it would be to meet Kari's request to tighten up the voting because we have people that are online and people that are on phones. It might be the way we need to go. We'll discuss at the agenda planning and for now that seems to be the most viable and we'll discuss at the agenda planning. If there's no other business, I would just want to say thank you again for electing me tonight and I hope to make you proud and I'll work hard. So have a good evening everybody and... And thank you for making me free. We talked about that. You won, it's good. Won. Okay. Thank you everybody. Good night. Good night. Good night everybody. See ya.