 before under discussion item 7.5 board training. I wanted to get a sense around the idea of board training and whether or not we want to be looking to pursue getting some additional board training lined up and just kind of talk about a timeline for that. Okay, good idea. Any other adjustments? Do we have any public comment tonight? Act to approve the minutes of Monday, December 21st. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, so moved. Jamie. How are y'all doing? We survived our second virtual wagon wheel and hopefully it went a little smoother. I think it was a little better, but good. You can say yes. I thought it was too, so I think we got the timing a little better on this one. And so busy time as you know across the SU. You all should have been copied. I like to copy my staff correspondence with all of you. So you should have been blind copied on some letters I put out to the faculty and staff today just to keep you in the loop on all the happenings occurring. We would like to say that we were successfully able to approve four budgets, five if you count the SU budget here over the last few weeks. So certainly we've been in the thick of the budget season. Next up is Rochester Stockbridge and Granville Hancock. And I look forward to getting all the materials finalized for Rudd. All the materials went off for Strafford today and it's looking really good. So I'm feeling really optimistic about where we're at in the process. And sort of all of a sudden, I felt a little relief come over my shoulders last week in regards to getting a bunch of that taken care of. I feel like since I've been on with you, all you've heard me talk about is budgets because we still had several to get approved last July first. So anyways, I feel like we're headed in the right direction. The staff and teachers, administration are working really hard to best meet all of our students' needs and make certain we're doing a really good job in person and virtual. I addressed COVID-19 in my letter to faculty and staff today and just gave them an update in regards to where vaccine may be for educators and things of that nature. And just to give the board an update in regards to that, my sense really is from listening to Secretary French about a week and a half ago is that Vermont in general is disappointed with the rollout around vaccine and how readily available it's been. And so therefore that's what's delayed educators receiving vaccine and vaccinations. And my sense is until they feel like we have enough readily available, they're not ready to lump educators in at this point because they wouldn't have enough to actually manage it. So that's my sentiment around it. That's a little bit me reading between the lines, but certainly he talked about how disappointed that they are right now with the timeline around the rollout. But also emphasizing that schools really are when you look at data points, safe places, and transmission rates across the state remain very low as compared to transmission rates in the actual general community where they continue to see transmission much higher is in the general community at this time. And I got to say our family staff have been awesome with working with us around our health procedures and screeners. Again, we have been able to stop any type of in-school exposure or transmission other than the exposure and transmission that we had in Rochester Stockbridge. And so we've been able to really navigate this across the SU. And I just got to say I met with my team of nurses today in Shane Oaks and they're just doing tremendous work. And they're united and they're doing really good work together. And I'm just I'm really proud of the effort across the SU. And I'll take any questions folks have. It's a busy agenda. And if there are none, I am going to scoot out and be right back. That's okay with folks. Okay. All right. Business manager's report. Good evening, everyone. I sent you my report previous to the board meeting. So if you have any questions, I'll happily answer them. But otherwise, I will go right to the revenue and expenditure projections. If Ray, you want to put that up on the screen? Thank you, Ray. So on the revenue side of the projections, I've updated to add the COVID reimbursement, which matches the updated COVID expenditure on the second page. That's the only change I made on the revenue side. Ray, if you can go to the second page, please. So on the second page, I've updated the COVID cost. And then I have updated the health insurance based on enrollment and updated those projections. So that's looking better. And then I also updated the salary and benefit savings based on additional resignations that we have received. So there's some change there. So overall, we are now looking to have a projected surplus in the supervisory union of $30,240. Any questions on that? Tara, just clarification. Is this COVID money? Is this reimbursements that have come in from the federal government? Is that the idea? Yeah. That's the projected that we're hoping to get with the COF reimbursement. That's what I was curious if this was hoping still too good. It's still all that's still in the works. We've been guaranteed what we applied for, such as a matter of getting all the paperwork together and getting it into the AOE. And they can continuously change how they want that to look. So we have to change it as they request it. That's great. Thank you. So back in your December meeting, I had sent the annual financial management questionnaire for you all to see if there was any questions on that. I can anticipate answering them for you. And if you're all set with that, then I just need Kathy as the supervisory union board chair to sign that form. And since you're here, Kathy, I have it on my desk if it's accepted by the board and you can sign it for me. We have to keep this on file. It's a requirement that we do it every year. Okay. Do we need to make a motion to accept that, Tara? Yes, please. So moved. Seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? So moved. Thank you all. Kathy, I'll bring it down to you before we leave tonight. Okay. Thanks, Tara. Yeah. So then as far as the next discussion item I had on my report was the status of the fiscal year 22 budgets, meetings, and mailers. As Jamie indicated, Strafford's mailer documents went out from me earlier this evening to Nellie at the town. So I've asked her if she has any additional questions, concerns to let me know. The next one that we are working on is Rudds and we're hoping to get that all done and out no later than the end of the week to the publishers so we can get that out to all your registered voters. Once you all have your warnings and your informational meeting notice agenda signed, I will need those back in the signed version after your clerk has signed them to include in the book. So if you can make sure that gets to me, that would be fantastic. And then the next up will be getting final budgets done for Rochester Stockbridge and Granville Hancock. Tara, when do you need the informational meeting agenda thing signed? You'll need to sign that all at the same time, Sarah, so that it can get to Lisa as well and into the book. Can we get a copy that takes those times out or can I manipulate it to take the times out? Yeah, I can send one. If you guys did that tonight, Sarah, we can just send you a copy with those. Well, we didn't really because I didn't think we had to move on it. But we have three people so we could do it. We could do it somehow, I would imagine. I mean, we moved on the warrant and we moved on whatever else we had to do. Oh, the minutes. So it seems like you should be okay just to have the times correctly on the warning. Yeah. Well, it's not the, it's not the, it's the warning for the informational meeting. Yeah. So you just need to make sure they're right on the paperwork that goes out. Well, we don't want them on it at all. Well, we want the 10 to 12, but they broke it down like 10, 10.05 and we don't want that. We do talk about that. All right. Well, then we, yeah, we'll get that fixed. Yeah. I'll go in and delete them, Sarah, and get them emailed back out. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, because ours was approved as amended as well. So Lisa McCrory has all of the really specific notes for Rudd. And I can send that. Where do you want me to send those amended versions? So I can do that. If you can send it to Tara, that'd be great. Okay. I'll do that. All right. Any other questions for Tara? Anything else for you, Tara? Yes. So I have two more things. The next item on my business managers report was we were approached when I say we, Ray and I were approached by Spyglass, who is a vendor that reviews your telecommunication invoicing and contracts and tries to find means of savings for you. And if they are successful, then they get a portion of the savings as their payment. So I just need to know if that is something that you all are interested in us pursuing on behalf of your, each of your districts and also on behalf of the supervisory union. Just look to address this tonight. This is sort of an overview. I see you, Carl. Go ahead, Don. What do we have to give up as far as passwords and things for that? And what's our liability if we give that information out? We don't give any passwords. We authorize them through a letter of authorization to access our accounts with the vendors and they will review the billing and then they request specific reports that help identify usage on the individual phone lines and anticipate if the contract matches usage and utilization. Carl. So this sounds like that group that we worked with a few years ago or that was going to come in and help us with our Medicaid coding and billing so that we increased our reimbursements and their deal was they got a percentage of whatever we got. So in that sense it's fine. What I would like to have a clear understanding of, before we start investigating this, are we really maximizing our e-rate reimbursements because that's an area that is something that in the past it's something we haven't been complete on and I think before we start looking for new ponds to throw a fishing line into making sure that we've gotten all the stuff that we're already getting squared away. Is our e-rate squared away? So this is Ray. Carl there is no reimbursement in this area for e-rate anymore. Those that had gone down over the past six or seven years by 20% a year and then they don't reimburse for phone service anymore. Okay but we are maximizing this stuff because they reimburse now it's all about like access points and Wi-Fi coverage and those pieces and we're capturing all those savings. We will it doesn't happen every year. So Tara I think it would be great is it one of those things that you can do per district so the district can decide or is it have to be all or none because I'm just thinking with having a merge district it might be great just to have a review of to make sure you know things are being charged equally across the two buildings. I mean that might be really good research to do like if we're paying higher on the phone bill because it's in Chelsea versus being in Tumbridge maybe that's something do they does that kind of what they look at? Yep. Okay so maybe I would like to see it on the F-bud agenda. Okay. Probably on the R-side agenda for example. R-side agenda as well. Yeah put it on our straffords too please and I think just as a whole you would need to agree to do it for the Supervisor Union. If we decided to do it at the Supervisor Union level. Okay all right anything else Tara? My last thing I have two resignations in the business office that I just needed to notify you both of and Simone and Rob and Dennecan have both resigned from their positions. Okay and they were both in payroll just so folks know and Jason and Tara's team have done a terrific job of stepping up with us not having a payroll clerk to ensure that payroll continued to be put out by weekly here over the last month and accurate so I got to say they've done a really remarkable job. Yeah Jason didn't miss a beat he stepped right up and Do we need to have those resignations accepted Jamie? Yep that's for your policy yep. So can I get a motion? This is Lisa Floyd I make a motion that we accept those resignations. Carl Grappi second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any names? Sorry Tara could you give me those names again for the minutes? And Simone. Yep. And Rob and Dennecan. Thank you. UNICAN. But thank you. Is this something we accept with regret or not? Absolutely. Could you mark that for the minutes for regret? No thank you. Thank you. Got it thanks. Thank you that's all I have unless there's any questions. Any more questions for Tara? This is Don what's the status of the end of year reviews? Are they all been completed? The audits are projected to be completed by the second week of February for all the member districts they have completed the supervisory union they're on the second draft of RUDS and we got sent a few questions on our SUDS tonight that we are wrapping up and then we should have our SUDS draft next. All right anything else for Tara? Tara you're going to review your projected your revenue and expense projections did you do that while I walked out? I already did it. Oh sorry guys. Well I hope you saw that it's good news the SU is moving toward the black so. Nice. Technology director. Hello everybody you have my report mentioning an assessment and cop your contracts in this case and a phone service wholesaler so Tara and I were working on two different angles of this same thing relating to phone service and in addition to that we're both working on there are 11 copiers across the SU that are up for replacement this summer and there's a company that comes well recommended as a copier broker that we believe will provide us with at least the same level of service and be able to save a fair amount of money so we're investigating that. Nice work any questions for Ray? This is Don I just see that that pixelot camera can broadcast events at the gyms so that we could hold the meetings at the gym and we could broadcast it and hold the town meeting is that how I understand that that's for the high school gym at so that's only nice okay it is right that's a vpa program that was the upfront cost was covered by their athletic boosters I think but the vpa wants it to be at a place where there's high school games being played it's not it's something they've done for a couple of years but this year they're promoting it more. Ray I have a question about the copiers. Sure Bob you have a you have 11 copiers that you're thinking about replacing 11 that come off lease this July one yeah. When I was a principal at Fairhaven on some of the copiers instead of going out for lease with another one I bought them out and owned a copier for probably three years without putting anything into them and saved and saved the lease payment I also negotiated really hard on the price per copy or the number of copies and there's a lot of money made in copiers and you really need to negotiate hard with them. Right so I don't have firm numbers yet but this company thinks we do about three million copies a year across the SU and the the bid that we would be a part of would be for 50 million copies so whatever that works out to we would be in a pool you know 10 times the size of what we would draw on our own so that's that's the point is that they put out the bid to everyone in the copy business and because they do such a large aggregated volume that they get better prices well it's I found that it's something that you really have to look at really closely yeah and that's that's what this is coming from and I would consider I would consider buying out some of those leases and keeping the machines with no expense yep and so that would be an option if we went with this company we can do it with what we have now all of all of our current copiers are through Canon but the way that lease works is it's not not worth buying it for what it would cost at the time meaning you've already used it up and it's not really worth what they would offer it to you for because they they charge you less on the lease by giving you more residual value at the end everything's negotiable just because you know they say this is what will offer doesn't mean that's what you accept sure I I mean there's a lot of money in copiers right I think I'll give you an example my first year at Fairhaven I got an excess bill $30,000 for copies and I negotiated that all the way so everything's negotiable they they make a lot of money on this stuff it's not it's not free no I understand all the copiers we have today and now are based on state contracts right and this company they can do better than the state of Vermont so that's why we're looking at them to save money on both the capital cost and the print cost all right keep us posted Ray any other questions for Ray Ray I have a question about the outdoor public wireless access points are those firewalled or are there some services that are blocked or can anybody from the public just turn up and do whatever they want is there are they password protected they're not but they they run through they run separate from the school network but based on the filtering that's already there okay so there's no way to access anything on the school networks from these public access points because they're on their own they would be on their own network it's on its own network writing on along you know yeah and I guess my my initial question was like can they access some of the like could they have access could they access parlor and being like uploading hate video like is everything wide open or are there some no it would be it's subject to the same filtering that the school has okay I don't know what the school has they have berries by building yeah they have what's required which is uh sepa compliant filters okay to the level of things harmful to minors got it okay perfect that's good news thank you all right anything else for Ray before we all right director of student support services hey good evening everyone um you have my report I'm a little light this uh this month uh to report out on but a couple things I want to bring your attention to is the time study so we're in our conducting our second of two man mandated weeks of time schedules that'll happen on February 15th um and I was everybody able to access that link to that memo yeah anyways that'll be going out this coming week or uh sometimes uh Tracy Engelhardt and I will be sending that out um the second thing is that I put on that what we're trying to do throughout the district is uh looking at all our out of district state out of district place kiddos uh in various programs uh and seeing which one of these these kids that we can bring back to our district um to educate um hopefully quite a few we're looking at a program at the high school level uh you know 12 to 15 students looking at infrastructure um and also trying to build a you know filtering system of what what kids are ready to come back and what will what we what will we need to support those guys nice what this is Don uh Don what parameters are you using to make those determinations? Well we're we're going to start by uh looking at IEP's evaluations and psychological reports and we're going to look at behavioral data and educational data from our receiving student uh schools or and and kind of build on saying what why are those kids there first of all why what happened to get create those kids to be sent to another school district or program and then from there we'll we'll start generating questions what are the needs to support these children to come back to our our schools their schools well it's going to be our district yeah but we're bringing them back to their respective schools hopefully well it you know I don't know if it's going to be it'll be a high school program so it'll come to the south royals in school high school okay what are we what's the determining factor if they're ascending school and they choose not to go to South Royalton well that's a good question Don you know I think we have to take that all into consideration uh but really looking at uh what is the IEP team going to determine can we meet that child's needs in the South Royalton high school and as an IEP team make that call but it wouldn't affect so I just want to follow up to that it wouldn't affect we have choice so so first franchise let's say we have a student in a choice town that selects a high school and then the IEP team says we can't meet their needs at the high school they're no longer attending that high school that IEP team would place them in a more restrictive learning environment that's managed by your supervisory union because we oversee them still as the lea so the idea would be is if we can meet them in a less restrictive environment here within the supervisory union the IEP team could determine that the less restrictive learning environment indeed could be the wildcat institute which is held within your supervisory union so this would not be a student who's accessing a choice high school within that high school right and just functioning with supports this would be that IEP team of which you're part you're the lea has made a determination that they need to go into a more intensive setting like EVA choice academy um the maple hill maple hill things of that nature so they're not actually located at a high school they're located at alternative school I'm sorry I apologize I didn't I didn't bring that into the conversation earlier but again it's more of a step down from a more restrictive environment so the wildcat institute would be that step down uh and then integrate those kids as best we can into the uh general population or general classrooms at uh the south rothen high school if that's appropriate Megan you had a question yeah I was just gonna ask down if you had any um now that makes a little more sense that they're coming into the general population but any like programs or things you are particularly excited about welcoming these kids back to like do we have any anything exciting going on that we're going to bring them into like uh career and technical stuff or outdoor stuff or anything like that yeah that's that's that's all on the table that's what this committee's uh starting to look at what do we need I have a school psychologist PhD level is going to be working with us uh to say okay what what's going to hook these guys and gals to come back in and what do we need for an infrastructure to support each of these these kids these children to come back uh whether that's uh you know I'm sure we're going to need uh some kind of therapeutic wraparound services as a like a school counselor or a therapist um and again building those programs it's going to uh you meet the needs of kids that whether it's uh academics and or um uh tech program uh just to kind of look at that and explore that because a lot of our these our students learn hands-on you know we can embed those uh academics into the hands-on experiences Jamie yeah I'll just add I mean so what we've done is is Rudd since their hosting has budgeted accordingly to have mainstream teachers push in to service these students because these students would be White River Unified District students right that are placed there with that level of support and so the idea would be that these students are not just housed in a program all day but there's a continuum that's programming so they're accessing certain courses in the mainstream but then also they have a place to go back to to get courses and more intensive interventions and academic supports if needed as we know when you it's about looking at each student's individual student profile right so we need to look at their learner profile and the idea is that we're going to personalize programming to each student it's not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach Don I don't know if there's any of that data left but a few years ago Rochester High School had designs to start an outdoor program over in in the park and over there so that may be something that the powers to be could look at yeah and I again I think that the the task of our group is to really look at individuals and again there's no magic going on in these schools that we're sending for a lot of money to educate these these youngsters I think that we can we can replicate that and expand on it to improve and we'll have more control and oversight of their their academics and raise the bar higher I mean I gave a couple kids a ride ride home the last week that coming from EVA and very engaging kids youngsters and I said I don't I don't know why these guys are not in our schools now I don't know the backstory you know I'll learn the backstory but but I felt that they were polite you know entertaining at times but you know there are kids we had to kind of bring them back or try to anyway Don you have your hand up did you have another comment are you good okay anybody else yeah don I'm wondering if there's anybody you think we can't move back or couldn't if there are any circumstances that you think would be beyond our abilities within RSU yes and I and I told our team that was one of the mistakes we made when I we started in Barry where we really didn't put some good filters on you know how we looked at children there are students out there and I'm sure they're in our communities that have some mental health issues that we are not equipped to to help you know as as people as a program and that they're in programs that have that wraparound service in more of mental health capacity than we can provide so that is one of the big red flags I'd say to our team it's to really really analyze you know what is the mental health issues that that are existed thanks anybody got any questions for Don all right thank you Don yeah and I again I'll keep you posted as we move forward and I mean it's it's it's quite an endeavor but I think it's a doable one so it sounds exciting yeah it really is thank you thank you curriculum instruction okay Kathy sorry I just had one other thing Don are you going to access Dr. Ketterer I thought he had some designs on how to do a high school section as well no not at this time we're going to entertain bringing Bill Ketterer back and again we we're moving in a direction where it's more of an ABA type of deal and not you know everything's a relationship but again um it's a different philosophy um nothing that I'm not you know Bill Ketterer has Dr. Ketterer is a strong advocate for kids and he's well liked and but I think there's a different direction that we want to go in okay just so folks know ABA is applied behavioral analysis so the idea is that we'll couple the therapeutic approach with providing the teachers and students tools within the moment of how to you know better regulate and or navigate when conflict arises all right um curriculum instruction and assessment all right so um as you can see from the report um I have uh listed on there kind of some of the feedback that we received from teachers as we looked back at our December 21st and 22nd learning experience together so I would like to first um just quickly look at goal one which you know for students includes encouraging a relevant and rigorous learning environment and we certainly want to provide that for teachers too so as you can see we had 88 percent rated at a level three or four teachers like the variety the immediate usability they appreciated the superintendent's comments as well as the building based offerings that many of our principals offered so we had a really um great mix as far as the opportunities that were available to all the staff and in addition to that uh you know we also always have some growth points and as with any innovation there's going to be things that we're going to learn from trying something hard so I I think we can point to just trying to coordinate across multiple offerings which we had and doing that on a virtual platform we had a little bit of a learning curve there on uh the caps on number of zoom uh participants and and so on so um something that I feel uh sure we can overcome next time you can see more specific teacher feedback on the back uh second page um in addition to that as we look at goal two as Ray mentioned our star window is open until Friday we're gathering some new outcome outcomes from students Charlie's been working hard um on pbl at the middle school and high school as well as in the alternative classroom so he's been doing some heavy lifting there and as you see he also had a session uh during our in-service time um it relates to goal three uh we have uh done two out of our three days of our work uh for additional training in lli in the upper grades so this would focus on the learning uh for our as a part of our menu of supports in grades three through six um as many of you may realize lli does connect with our universal approach and would be sort of our first go to if a child is showing within their star or benchmark results that they're struggling so um that's kind of what we're trying to build there and interventionists are doing a great job of teaming with teachers around that results really uh creating that interdependent system we're trying to build are there any questions all right so you have anything to add Charlie's with us tonight too I don't have anything to add I think Amy covered it quite well all right thank you guys all right so we're on to discussion items 1920 wrbs you audit terry are you with us will you highlight um the audit and talk to them about why we need to delay until next month to approve it and um I did send it all to you in the confidential document email that I sent out um and those numbers we expect to be very solid just so you know um we really do see that as a final draft but terry can explain to you why we can't formally adopt it tonight so until all of the member districts audits are done in case there's any any adjusting journal injuries that need to occur or any changes that need to occur as a result of each of the member districts we just have to hold off to accept the supervisory union until they are all complete but again as I indicated earlier is anticipated to be the second week of February which really isn't that far away now nice for any discussion guys terry will you highlight you uh I included for you your you address some questions that you needed to address within the findings of the audit can you just give an overview of this different systems and procedures we've put in place to address some of those areas absolutely so the several of the findings that were in the audit were items that we had already addressed as a result of reviewing the financial practices and procedures that we had here at the supervisory union when jamey came on board and the changes that we were making one of them being in our grants that i'm now being more involved in overseeing the processes and procedures on the grants which includes the periodic time studies that are required when salary positions are paid for through federal funds so that was one of the findings that we had already adjusted prior to even receiving it in the audit the other was really solidifying our procurement process and using funds that are paid for with federal or using federal dollars to pay for expenditures and purchases there is a very specific federal procurement policy that we needed to adjust our processes for to match so we had already done that as well so the findings that were brought forth were already items that we had identified as issues and had corrected and so my responses to them were we had already corrected this action and you all received a copy of what i sent to the auditors all right any other discussion all right so we'll be on next month's agenda to accept hopefully no not until february right well next month is february next month is february well a few days left from january so that will be another full board or the executive board that would be full don at the end of the month yep all right perfect thank you guys um coa higher and hiring in timeline what is that jamie well i should have said cao i guess but i messed that up so as the chief academic officer hiring in timeline and so the job ad closed on friday we did as i had indicated in some board reports we did repost to secure some additional candidates and now ray who's here tonight he is one of the co-facilitators with andra bowen from the admin level and then we have community members representing that committee students teachers and support staff did i miss anything ray i think i got them all so we got a pretty good stakeholder group across the su they will call through the um applications and do interviews uh the timeline that we set out would be that they would send two finalists um to then interview with me um and then i will recommend a ceo um candidate to the board um after we you know we've gone through uh reference checks and everything of that nature so i laid that out in your board reports back in december with that plan being that we might be coming with you with a candidate tonight so we're delayed one month um but like i said i do feel really good about the quality of candidates that we have um in the application pool and ray do you want to talk about how many stakeholders within that group i gotta look to get specifics but we have somebody from every every operating district just roughly like 10 or 15 that sounded like a nice set of people good job yes no it's not 15 uh closer to 10 i'll get you a more exact number okay any other discussion on that part of my plan just so you know would be during the second round interviews is that we would um have community forum as part of that interview process with me to allow other stakeholders to join um we've gotten really good about holding these virtual forums so i think it would be important to open up a forum that way um and have them give a brief presentation and so that would be part of the interview process as well just so you know um jamie will they enter did you say interview with us next month or not yes my goal would be in february and that's part of why that would be a full board meeting as well very good all right any other discussion for this topic all right wrbs you for food service 2122 we would like to bring forth the concept of centralizing the white river valley food service to the supervisory union and there's some reasons behind that i know we have talked about it you know in the past by statute we are supposed to be one school food authority and by utilizing one food school food authority it gives us the ability to use staff strengths throughout the supervisory union and work more cohesive as a team which we have come very far in the last year and a half um developing and building the food service team and with bill joining us this year um being through the summer food service program has really helped bring that sharing efficiencies and utilizations throughout um each of our individual buildings which has been fantastic and i'd like to continue to build on that it also gives us the opportunity to move staff around if necessary i know we'd had a shortage in one of our districts this year and food service and to have had the ability to move people around similar to how we do in special education would be a great asset also to food service and then as we build and strengthen the food service program it would give us more opportunity to meet our requirements under federal procurement and have the procurement being done at the supervisory union level right now the way it works as you're all familiar with is each individual district has their own food service program the expenditures are paid through the individual districts and then you get reimbursed through the supervisory union once we get reimbursed through the state and the feds for the reimbursement amounts so it's a lot of paperwork it's a lot of money back and forth and just to clean up that process the auditors also highly recommend it in addition to like i said it is state statute that we have one enterprise fund for the entire school food authority so that's the methodology as to why we would like to centralize food service the other and we're not looking for you to do take action on this tonight we're putting it out there for thoughts and questions and then to bring it forward for a possible action in February the other thing is is that what we realized is is that as we look to create more interdependence our cooks really all have different strengths like some of them are really into menu planning and some of them are really good around grant writing and some of them are really good in regards to purchasing and so the idea too would be that we would look at su wide menu planning that they do together and that we do bulk purchasing as you know personnel side of this is what's driving the cost right now in food service um so what we can control is is our purchasing and how do we try to get more kids to eat and how do we try to get our numbers up and so that's what the focus really would be on is in regards to menu planning getting more excitement and trying to do more bulk purchasing because we have consistent menus so we're buying the same food and supplies um you know for menu planning week to week so don your hand was up first so jamie explain to me how personnel is a driving factor i mean we're all in one bargaining unit now we're all paying the same the cost of personnel the cost of personnel when you look at your food service budget personnel is the big driver to the cost of us running food service this doesn't address that as my point so the only way to save on personnel is to lower the numbers is that correct well we look to try to find more efficiency there um certainly as we go through but you know why part of why we're running deficits is just they are part of the master agreement so their salary and benefits is such that the reimbursement rate we just can't make up the difference so jamie are all food service programs in the bargain agreement in every school they're not are they the f-bud's not and strafford's not right they are everywhere else and like jamie was saying don you know one of the so because salary and benefits are what they are we need to find other efficiencies so we find that in common planning common purchasing bulk purchasing and utilizing the strengths of our food service staff and also you know help with the paperwork because there are some food service staff that just despise the paperwork and there are others that you know excel at it so to be able to have that team approach to it will be fantastic so uh carl you had your hand up and then ethan thank you kathy um question one i'm it sounds to me but i want to i want to make sure i'm clarifying this when we're talking about doing this right now we are talking about still going we're we're not talking about bringing in like aramark or abbott we are talking about hiring uh like a a a central food service director at the su level and having them run a food service pro program like ray runs technology no this is just bringing food service out from the individual districts under the supervisory union i am your school food authority as your business manager because we do not have we would not be recommended to hire someone full time to oversee them yeah so this just brings it out from the individual district enterprise fund level into an enterprise fund at the supervisory union so then expenses and revenue comes in and out of the supervisory union they become employees of the supervisory union just like special education works now right so we would have to have an allocation formula which i don't think it sounds like you you're you're ready to propose and that's probably too detail oriented for the conversation we're having tonight anyways um my but that my my second concern is that one of the things at least in our side um is that you know we integrate i mean we have community gardens uh at stock bridge and i believe there's some at rochester still um we you know we've had historically um programs where we get kids involved in in in menu development and tasting foods in uh really integrating with foods and we found that that really helps the way that our children eat um and it becomes a linchpin of our wellness program and i'm concerned that if we're going to move this you know to to to an su level will we still be able to have that same impact in that same curricular integration that we have with food and wellness in our in our overall curriculum that we have today because that's i i i i don't know that i mean i'd like to address our deficit certainly but i don't know that i'm willing to at this point give that up for our kiddos to have to have a a central a central office kind of making um big decisions about menu planning that you know here to for our kids were involved in the discussion with and now it's out that it's almost coming from from you know uh exit three we would not be the ones planning the menu i'm certainly not a food service person i'm not going to plan menus for your kids that would still be the individual food service in your building they would just work more as a team so for an example one of the items that we were talking about is you know if there's something that's really popular in one building and they have a high participation rate on that day of the menu when that's served to bring that to the other schools and see if we can get an increase in participation on those days as you indicated we have some schools that are really good at the farm to school program and then we have others that aren't utilizing that because they weren't eligible for the farm to school grant they weren't awarded that so their program may be less than other buildings so to have that ability to work with that individual strength to build that farm to school program and to follow up with it that gives us that flexibility to do that and you're comfortable i mean you're comfortable that we can do that without adding i mean to me i'm not necessarily against the idea of adding a an su wide food service director and getting the central food authority a position off your plate and on to on to someone else's but you're you're you're pretty confident that we can do these things without overtaxing you even more and without hiring someone the potential concept that we've been running through would be maybe that becomes a responsibility of someone within the su office who's already currently in place and that's in addition to their position i'm just not ready to roll that out yet so it's so we're basically at food for thought and we'll get some numbers it's more to just get a general sense of whether or not the board even would entertain like a fully vetted proposal right like i just wanted to have the initial discussion gauge your interest and then come with you with a more full proposal like we have on other things that we rolled out to you um so if you it was if folks said no jamie we really don't want you to change it then we'd let it be for now that folks wanted to find out more information than we would put together a more you know a fully vetted proposal then bring it to you would be the idea all right so ethan um yeah just saying i i like the idea i think the teamwork idea is really great of them people so instead of getting rid of people and having some centralized thing that it is a team of people working together i think that's a great idea i know jamie's talked about that before about sharing resources around the su but obviously you know i'd like to see numbers um you know if you really can save some money and where obviously we have big deficits in our food service and um but i i want to see the numbers first to see if it's worth it because otherwise i i hate to put anything more on you tera that's that's you know that you've got suddenly you're having to take all the phone calls from all the different food people all the time on top of everything else you're doing so that's that's my concern is that it's well plotted out how it's managed at the su level um but yeah numbers and that but i really like the teamwork idea thank you and i don't mean to speak for tera bill and tera feel free to correct me i think what the what the boards don't realize now is that all that happens now currently but the added work is all the sub granting that tera has to do within the but business office on top of it yes that's the majority of it but also the fact that we have eight different buildings doing things eight different ways and to get consistency across the purchasing and the suppliers and the materials and inventory getting all of that centralized should have an impact on our financials lisa you had a question yeah um i i think it was mostly answered um when carl shared i really like the idea of building on the strengths of people that we already have in our system and finding efficiencies that we can find um and i love what he was sharing about kids helping build the menu and the farm to table work that's been happening in their school district that would be exciting i think to spread to other schools um so i'm excited by those implications as well i think that um seeing the numbers would be great i wonder if i mean i don't think we need to vote on this but if we could just do like a thumbs up thumb sideways thumbs down and see what the room thinks um that would be great thank you don yeah i just just had an observation i i think if we can all play to individual strengths that would be terrific however in my experience being human nature we all if there's more people added the water gets diluted rather than strengthened so that's just something to be aware of and watch out for all right guys so could could we get a thumbs up if we want them to go ahead and get us some numbers and a little more detail of what this would look like all right any thumbs down are we good all right hey kathy could i just add something sure i i was just gonna say that i i'm thanks to carl for bringing up that issue about the local food because our strafford program is really strong there so i think that's my i love everything you're saying about my major concern is just about the hanging on to the you know there's homemade items and she's got a great relationship with the kids so i want to make sure we can maintain that yeah and i want you all to know this your food service folks are not surprised we're having this conversation either we're not blind sighting them they know that there's been talks about that um and that most all your programs do have really strong um you know farm to school components and others have weak weaknesses in that area and the hope would that you know i really see that as a value to our communities i think our 10 towns really value agriculture and it's a part of root of who we are and fresh local produce so the hope would be to continue to grow that and foster it okay all right thank you guys thank you next uh superintendent evaluation so i spoke to sue at the um roman school boards association and the boards had not there was only a few board members that had responded to the survey so she re we redid a little bit more time to get more board members feedback um i have not heard back from her or talked back to her about how many more supported so i will touch base with her and we'll have that committee get together um and hopefully they were working on going to work on writing up a report for us so um that's where i'm at with the superintendent evaluation have you heard anything else jamey oh okay no i just didn't want to lose track of it so i figured i would get it on the agenda hopefully we put it back out so hopefully i think she was going to give it to the 25th or i'm not sure what day she picked have to look at my notes but we should have that report coming very shortly kathy can you get from her for you uh the names of the people who have or have responded i mean i believe i did but if so few people have done it maybe we just didn't submit it right you know or so like we can just check to make sure right i'll check back with her and find out if there's still a large number of people who didn't respond and if she can give names so that like you could call me and say sarah your name's on the list and i can say whoa i didn't think it was it was because i thought i did it but maybe i forgot to submit it or something like that that's a really good idea i think this is a tool that we really need to work on and we need to get board participation so i think following up and making sure we had good participation is important i also think it was easy to miss this is shantel i completed it on the last day that that we were able to the first deadline and i just remember thinking to myself oh shoot like i have to go back in and do that so you know for whatever it's worth you know making sure to go look for it in your email to make sure that it's there and to make sure that you intentionally go and find it and complete it if you haven't right and we sent that out a second round and i asked all the board chairs to make sure that they got to their board members so hopefully they all did that um board training yeah so i just you know i've had multiple different board members talk to me about our onboarding process and it would be helpful in regards to getting an overall training for the board so we all have common language and approach and so what i'd like to get a sense of if that's something that folks want to pursue of yes let's pursue it and then i would go out and get more details and then bring it back to you next month um i think that you've had different levels of training in the past um and there was probably different approaches to it maybe even in and winds are northwest versus orange winds are to then wrbs you i was thinking it made sense to try to have april be the target month originally because we have a bunch new folks coming on typically after town meeting but you know now may is when i think we're gonna have an onboarding of new members so we may want to wait and do it in june potentially i just felt like it would once we have all of our new members on board um that it would make sense that we all went through it so we all have that common language approach in training so i offer that as thoughts and then was just curious to what you guys were thinking if that made sense or any comments i mean i think the sentiment is that it would be good for us um i just felt like it made sense to do it once we have new folks onboarded and we all went through it and then we would just have an annual training that we do um every year because it just i think our refresher for everyone is helpful so what are folks thoughts i would put a thumbs up i think it's a really good idea i would put a thumbs up but but we'll have new board members coming on in early march and june is late i mean i know it's what the um um vias uh from on school board association does so it's you know or probably a bit earlier than that but um i just put that out i think it's a great idea though i don't think it hurts if the other local district boards who are reconfiguring march want to approach it locally sarah and then we still offer one su wide um later in the spring once the other four districts bring on their folks i just felt like why do force you know why do a bunch of singletons that we can invite everybody here and do one big one but if local districts want to go ahead ahead of time that's fine too all right guys can i get a thumbs up mika you liking that idea okay any thumbs down i'm joking with mika because she's leaving us all right guys so jamie you'll get us some more information in our next meeting perfect thank you all that's exciting jamie do we need to talk about payroll anymore tonight no we're good um executive session for negotiations if you guys want to go to you all just had um executive sessions on negotiations you can choose to move into it as a full board if you'd like or you can look to discuss and take action on the contract that's up to you guys i put it there in case you wanted to are there any boards that didn't ratify tonight coral oh that was going to be my question did uh did we all ratify i mean we we ratified contingent on su ratification um but if i i think the executive session is not needed if we've all ratified right if everybody ratified did everybody ratify okay um so then um i'll entertain a motion to approve the wrv su support staff master agreement 2021 so moved second is there any discussion all those in favor say i yes this is dawn we just what don't i just think we need to clarify the voting members instead of everybody because i don't believe everybody's voting members that's all i was going to say this is probably something that we should do a roll call vote on okay i agree we need to amend the motion i'm not no i don't need to amend the motion but all those and i'll call out the names um andrew jones are you a voting member yes and your vote hi um carl i am a voting member and i vote i um shantel yes i'm a voting member and i vote i as well don voting member and yes i vote yes eason bowen uh i'm a voting member and i vote yes lisa floyd i'm a voting member and i vote yes lisa mercury i am not a voting member mega pain and the voting member i vote yes mika tucker i'm a voting member i vote yes michael gray i lost power and just barely got back i don't know what we're voting on um approving the uh support staff agreement okay uh yeah i'm a voting member and i vote yes yes bob gray i'm a voting member and i vote yes rodney uh i think we no i'm not a voting member i think that we uh did i three for bethle worldwood okay um sarah i'm a voting member and i think you miss sam oh sorry um yep samantha father voting member and i vote yes thank you also meg teach out you didn't call i thought i did meg i vote yes i'm here i thought you're going by last name i was just doing some alphabetizing in my head i'm going by the list of the yes we have a long list tonight um stacey peters yes and yes sukay i'm the voting member and yes uh tina pratt are you a board member no he's public uh tracy toxin i don't you got them all kathy okay i thought so i didn't recognize that name okay so everybody voted yes so i'm gonna vote yes all right four caps to go she's just done um any other business a great work team uh we have one executive session left and i guess i need terra in it and rose our lead accounting okay do i have a motion move to go into executive session for personnel issues second right and we're inviting um rose and terra in that we accept the recommendation of the superintendent and business manager as related to payroll second all right any discussion all right you're hearing none i'll go through the list um if you're tell me if you're a voting member and your vote um the top here andrew you yes and i carl yes and i can tell yes and i don yes and yes yes eason yes and yes lisa yes and yes megan yes and yes megan teach out oops that was megan teach out just now okay megan pain yes megan yes and i michael uh yes yes bub yes and no um rodney i know i know that's what you told me okay sorry i forgot rod um samantha yes and i sarah yes and yes daisy yes i okay and i am also an i so the eyes have it thanks everyone we'll get to work on that and certainly we'll keep you updated as we are moving through that process now the next meeting date is monday of february 22nd don't we have an executive board on the fourth there is going to be executive board meeting on february 4th busy couple weeks ahead full board in february um as the date kathy said to adopt the um hopefully approve the audit in addition to the interview of the ceo perfect i'll entertain a motion to adjourn so move all right guys thank you everyone good night thank you so much