 Welcome, everyone. My computer clock has just struck five. I think we're going to have people joining even as I speak. So, although I'll try not to go on at length, I will allow people to settle into their Zoom boxes. So far, we're 47, I guess, and counting. So, welcome to all, and thank you for spending the next 90 minutes, or however much of that you can manage, to go over with us what may be the most momentous and certainly the most elaborate back to school season that I think most of us will ever know in our lifetimes. I certainly hope. However, before we get going, just a couple of housekeeping notes, please. If I could ask everyone who is not speaking to kindly mute your microphone if you're on Zoom. And if you're not familiar with where that mute button is, on my screen at least it's on the lower left hand corner. So if you're not talking, please mute. And when you do talk, please unmute. And for those of you who are joining by phone. Star six is what I recall to be the the muting touch star six. Is that correct? Thank you. So star six mutes your phone and star six also unmutes your phone. So, at least there is only one move to remember. Now, what I will ask all of you to do on all of you who wish to speak and I hope there are many of you who do. We're very interested. My collars on the board, and I, and our superintendent, Brian, and the leadership team to to hear what you have to say to hear your questions, your concerns, suggestions, anything else that you feel you need to share with us. The way to do it, if you would please, if you're on Zoom, click on the participants icon, again at the bottom of your screen, and it will show essentially a lineup of everybody who's on this at this forum. So at the bottom of that column of participants, you'll see an icon for raising your hand on if you could please click on that in order to be recognized on zoom seems to basically operate on a first come first served basis. So, it will, it will signal to me, I trust who is basically in line. Now, if you've already had a chance to talk, I'm going to try to go to others before we return to someone who has already had an opportunity. It's a little bit trickier with those of you who are on the telephone, because there's no raise hand button on the telephone. What you might do, what I might suggest in this case, sometimes if you unmute your phone, I can see it on my screen, sort of highlighted. And if that's the case, take note and ask who it is and then recognize you in turn. Otherwise, if you try that and it doesn't work. At some point when there's a pause, please break in and just indicate your name and that you'd like to speak, and I'll jot it down and we'll get to you. So, anyway, after all of that technical stuff. My name is Scott Thompson. I have the honor of chairing this board. And there are a number of other board members who have been able to, to join us for this forum that precedes our regular board meeting at 630. If I might just ask you fellow board members to introduce yourselves. Vice chair floor. Good afternoon, I'm floor and I'm the vice chair and I live in East Montpelier. Is our clerk here is is Jonas here. Yes, I am I'm sorry I don't have the video on, but I'm making dinner. I'm the I'm the clerk of the board. This is my, my first term my second year on the board, and I'm from Worcester. I believe I see Chris McVeigh. Yep. Hi, I'm Chris McVeigh. I serve on the board from the town of the middle sex and very pleased to see the turnout today. Thank you. And, and Stephen. Hi all Steve look. I'm a representative from East Montpelier. Thanks. Hi, everyone. Glad you could be here. I'm Kari Bradley from Calis. Thank you, Kai. I'm, I'm not. Oh, Jaya. Jaya Pulse Camp from Worcester. Thanks, Jaya. I'm not seeing anybody else. It's still Olson from middle sex and I'm hi I'm on to I'm I'm just on the phone right now but I'll be able to switch to video and a bit I'm in transit. Great, great. Thank you, Joe. Um, are there any other board members that I've overlooked who are able to join us at this point. Um, if not, then I'd like to introduce our new superintendent, Brian Okaushki, who has been enduring, I think, one of the most intensive baptisms by fire that anyone could could think of. But he seems to be surviving it. And I hope we're counting on you to continue to survive it, Brian. And I just turn it over to you for you and your team for a quick scene center. And then all of you who are here, please click on raise hand in order to be recognized to speak. Well, thank you very much, Scott. Again, I'm Brian Okaushki. I am the newly minted superintendent here in Washington Central Unified Union School District. I'm going to ask Keith if he can put up the quick PowerPoint slide presentation. We have about a six or seven slides that we wish we wish to go over. And as he puts them up, I can just give you a brief overview. Did he get that? Just Keith? Okay, great. So basically, if you just go back to the title page, I'm just going to talk very briefly about the highlights of what's been going on in our district over the last several weeks. The first thing is our district has been tasked with basically doing something that no school district has or anywhere has had the opportunity to do in our lifetimes or possibly in public education history, which was basically we've been given 10 weeks to prepare for reopening our schools in the middle of a pandemic. A lot of people have been working extremely hard in trying to ensure that we have a safe return to school for our staff and our students. And that is our number one concern as superintendent. That is my number one concern. And any plan that is presented, please, I want the public to know that the key word is flexibility. We have to be flexible in our approach because we have to be able to pivot at any moment based on the medical science that's on the ground at the time. So the story begins very briefly is back in late June, our leadership team got together and we're able to appoint five task forces, which you'll hear about from tonight, that contained over 72 teachers and administrators across the district. And what they were tasked with was to look at the reopening guidance from the agency of education and the Center for Disease Control, determine if we could meet their guidelines in reopening schools safely and effectively and healthfully for our students. And of course, within our own local context. We were given, we were, and since that time over the short summer, which seems like it's flown by, we've given teach opportunities for teachers to apply for leave, we've given opportunities for teachers to enroll children in our schools. The board has been very generous in allowing that to happen. And we've also been working to front load professional development in the start of the school year, so we can make sure our teachers and staff have more time in the start of the year before our children get to school in order to address reopening and making sure that we have the protocols in place at the school and that staff is trained in the protocols. I can keep talking, but I'm not going to I'm going to turn it over to our first we have five task forces I think we've separated it into several slides some side there's one is some of this task forces were broken apart just because there's so much to talk about so I'll have we just move forward to our first task force, and I'll have our tap the first task force chair. If you move from health task force just talk about what some of the work has been done up to date regarding our health plan for reopening. I guess that's me I wasn't sure whether that was going to be Elizabeth or not but I guess it's me. I'm Amy Molina and the director of student affairs at you 32. The task force has been meeting twice a week, most of the summer, and we have concentrated on a couple of things. Mostly it's trying to evaluate the information that we're getting from the state around how do we keep students and staff who are sick home so that we slow the bullet spread or mitigate the spread of the virus in our schools. We have a place, things like health screenings and temperature checks. We have ordered all of the supplies that that not only our students would have access to if they're not able to access their own masks at home and things like that but we've also been accessing all of the gloves masks hand sanitizer cleaning supplies, all of those things that have to happen date on a daily basis for our schools to reopen in the safest possible ways. There's a mailing that's going to be going out in the next two to three days from each of the schools that will have four pieces of information. There's an emphasis on updated travel information to remind people around planning vacations and getting ready for school. There will also be some information around the daily screening process when to keep students home, what to do if they are ill, and then how they can return to school when they're feeling better. There will also be some information about how parents can help to prepare their child for return to schools that are going to look very different and feel a little bit different. And then also how to wear source and wear a face mask. That's it Brian. Thank you very much Amy. If you can move on to the next slide facilities task force is a Gillian there. She's here. Oh, I know so I'm a good thing I'm on facilities and not technology is all I have to say with my unmuting so facilities like I said on the slide we really focused on the bricks and mortar what are the physical needs into buildings in order to have a safe and healthy reopening so we met weekly we had representatives of hang on. I have somebody who needs to be on my lap. I'm from every building and so we tackled sort of went through the buildings and just tackled everything evaluated and found isolation rooms and have ensured that they all have outside direct outside air ventilation areas of the schools that are high traffic like offices, we have plexiglass dividers coming from Portland glass to be installed before school openings. We used a formula that allowed us to determine how many desks we can get in each room you plug in the square footage of the room and the size of the desks and that tells you what you can do. The, we had an inkling that the guidance was going to change from six feet to three feet but as a district we made a commitment to not going less than five feet apart. We have boxes and boxes and boxes of cleaning sanitizing and disinfecting supplies and the air handling systems have all been evaluated by Kohler and Lewis. They've been serviced and outfitted with the highest quality filters appropriate for the unit and what that means is that in. There's a lot of talk about the MIRV unit, the MIRV filters. However, if you put one of the super fancy MIRV filters in an older unit, you actually decrease the efficiency of the unit and also all of the systems operating softwares and stuff in the buildings are being fixed to have all air handling systems on maximum, maximum output. And then I put together a little peek inside our buildings for you which Keith can get us to and Keith you can just switch right to the next one after that because I'm done. All right, so that's what the insides of our buildings are looking like these days. Thank you Gillian. We'll move on to the next task force. And this is Jen, I think you're up, or is it Alicia. So I'm going to take the lead on this one so there were about 20 of us teachers and administrators on the curriculum instruction and assessment task force. First and foremost, we vetted learning management systems and chose Canvas as the system that is going to support our students and caregivers and teachers regarding curriculum instruction assessment and scoring. We're going to use that same system pre K through graduation was really important to us to be able to streamline our communication to families and students based on the spring feedback survey results. And to ensure that we can continue to strengthen our systems of collaboration, whether we're learning in person in a hybrid model or remotely. This system is going to support us and and improve our teaching and learning across the board. We also developed the fall plan for our local comprehensive assessment plan working in tandem with folks from the social emotional learning task force as well really wanting to strike a balance between welcoming our students back to school and attending to their social emotional learning needs while also wanting to figure out where they are right now so that we can meet them where they are and continue them on their paths toward proficiency. Continue supporting them. We also have spent some extensive time developing the in service plan for the reopening of schools. We're also striking that balance I think between the social emotional learning and wellness pieces for staff and for students, health and safety protocols, and learning canvas that the learning curve is going to be steep on this new learning management system for us balancing all of those things in addition to structuring time to reach out to families and students and to collaborate within and across our buildings. The final two bullets really are taking a close look at articulating roles and responsibilities so that we can ensure that we're meeting all of our students needs. And specifically for our students who are on individualized education plans really wanting to make sure that we're providing some up to date and robust guidance for our special educators as we look to across any setting to offer a free and appropriate public education to all of them. That's it for me. Thank you, Jen. And the next slide. And this Steven Casey or Keith. Yep. Some Casey promos and the principal at remedy and middle sex. We spend a lot of time talking about the items here. So, some about schedule that there's been a lot of communicating particularly from you 32. We spend a lot of time on transportation, food service and technology as well. Some notable things and I'll try to be brief here around schedule is that a big thing for elementary schools is that we want to reduce the number of contacts that that kids and adults have. And one big piece of that is that allied arts will be in meeting in classrooms and or going outside with with students as opposed to using classroom spaces. So, we were doing a lot of communication with other teams around transportation. We've been working with first student who we contract with for busing. One important thing that we were able to do in the survey that we had that we sent out for families around in person versus remote learning we also asked the families were expecting to use the bus system. The guidance from the AOE has encouraged to the extent that that's possible for families that families bring students or carpool to reduce the number of students that are on buses. So we are working on updating our bus routes and using the stops that we know that will lead. Again, Amy mentioned this health screenings ideally before before students come on to the bus will have extra masks and hand sanitizer on the bus, hopefully soon to we coming to the stops with with masks on but we'll have some extra supplies. Students will be an assigned seats when they're on the bus. If we need to use shared seats they would be either with siblings or students from the same pod. We've also been working with first student around disinfecting protocols on the bus. We've been focusing on food prep, which are teams across the district have been doing really well since March. So we have those systems in place. We also are working on the way that students will order their meals will be using infinite campus at elementary schools in classrooms in students at you 32 will be using a program called neutral slice to order them their meals. And because students won't be eating in the cafeteria this year, they'll be eating in classrooms. So we want to make sure that students are getting great meals and what they need that's being delivered to them. In most circumstances it's being delivered. And I'll just cover technology quickly. A big emphasis is that we are building on the one to one technology initiative that we've had. We want to make sure that all students are prepared in the event that our school or district or the status is forced to go fully remote we want to make sure that students have the devices that they need. So we've ordered tablets for students up to grade one, and we'll have Chromebooks for students in grades two through 12. Thank you Casey. And is this Lisa or cat. I don't know about though I do want to just mention since she's here tonight. As you saw at the last board meeting. The, there was a real emphasis on focusing on the social emotional learning work that our group has been doing and Lisa has been facilitating that right along the way with me. I'll just go into this as deeply as I did the last time. One thing that I think it's really important for us to note is that we've been working on social and Washington Central for many years, and we're committed to let, we're really committed to health and wellness. We've been able to leverage that work that we've been doing over the last few years to adapt to the more urgent needs of this time that we find ourselves in. I saw that reflected beautifully this morning and the last task force meeting with our group. As we were planning and going over the final touches for professional development in in service for returning staff this year. It was a true reflection of responsive classroom which is something that we use in our elementary schools the TA system that we use that you 32 restorative practices and the trauma informed approaches all of that coming together and some culminating that I think can really see us through the reopening of schools safely. Lisa is there anything you want to add. It's okay if you don't want to. Nice job. Great. Thank you. Next slide. And we'll have Aaron is Aaron. I'm here. All right, great. Thank you, Brian. So I'm Aaron boy and the principal of Berlin elementary and facilitated the funding policy and communication task force, and we only really focused on communication during the summer. This is obviously a very important piece to this whole puzzle. We first looked at ensuring that we had some structures to how information was collected and distributed. We wanted to make sure if there's anything that I could say about this that we were all on the same page with the appropriate and an accurate information. The timing of that getting out to families and staff. We wanted to make sure there weren't any mixed messages we wanted to make sure that you know everything that's coming at us out there in the world with with with news and and and media articles, there's all kinds of things happening we wanted to make sure that we were careful and accurate with when we were sending things out. So that was a big part of, of what we were ensuring. We created structures to know when things were going to be distributed. As you've been seeing superintendent Brian has been putting out newsletters on Fridays, and building principles have been following up with families and staff. So that was the following week. We made sure that we had structures for each task force to be communicating with each other during our leadership meetings. And another big piece of what we worked on was the website. So linked to each school webpage and the district webpage is a coven webpage. So make sure that information going in onto the webpage has been appropriate and accurate and relevant. So make sure that you check that webpage out because a lot of work's been put into that. And I just want to give credit to everybody on my task force that took time even outside of meeting time to get that webpage going and keeping it up to date. And then that's been our focus as we move towards the opening of school. Thank you very much, Aaron. And I just want to also say that at last board meeting we had a Q&A section and what we've also added now onto that website as a result of the board of the school boards Q&A was adding a frequently asked questions page to that website, as we update from time to time as we get more information around some of the most frequently asked questions that we're receiving from members of the community, parents, teachers and staff. And I think that is our presentation. I can turn it over back to you, Scott, and we'll be more than happy to field questions. Thanks, Ryan. I think, as you can see, this has been a colossal effort undertaken over the summer and from before the summer to prepare for this for the school reopening, which is like none other that we've seen. Given what you've seen and heard just now, I invite you members of the public to click on the raise hand button on your participants column just to let us know what questions you might have. Or you don't have to have questions. You can have comments. We really feel that we, the board and the employees of the school district, the leadership of the school district need to hear what is on your minds, so that so that we don't overlook anything. And that we can continue to develop the plans and execute the plan as best we can. And I see Caroline, is that you? Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to comment because I had a meeting this week specific to my kids and their reentry to school and I just wanted to say both the written information that's come out the plans that are in place. It's really good as a parent to know that everything has been looked at and discussed. And I just, I really feel like the district's done an amazing job and I know it took a lot of work so from a parent perspective I just want to say thank you so much because it is really hard and it just means a lot. So, thanks. Thank you Caroline. I know that's very much appreciated all around Chris and Ursula or Chris or Ursula. Yep, thank you. Hi, this is Chris. In the presentation, you'd mentioned the five foot desk spacing, and that that was based on a recommend or allowance for as close as three feet. As early as recent as this afternoon, everything we're seeing on the CDC, as well as Vermont Health Department of Health still says six feet. So, can you tell us where that three feet is coming from? Sure. Yes. Thank you for that question. So, they just recently literally updated that guidance within the last few days. So, maybe they haven't posted it, but we have received the guidance. I know that I was just recently speaking to other superintendents around the state who are doing more of a hybrid model because they couldn't do a six feet model because they don't have the space in their buildings. Unlike us where we do have the space, we've been very fortunate to do that. They're now relooking at their plans at some of their elementary schools to see if they can actually get more children into the building and see what's possible. So, I know that's been happening. So, I can't speak to why that's not listed on the website that you're looking at, but I know we've received that guidance. And maybe they just updated it. I've seen it. I saw more updates about it as well today, but it's been, I believe it's been updated. It may be on their frequently asked questions page. Okay. So, can I ask a follow on question? Yes. When you're considering close contact for the greater than 15 minutes, you're using the three foot or the six foot? Yeah. So, I think that we're trying to always go for the six foot with where feasible and when practical. That's what we're trying to do because if we can do that, that's always preferable. There may be times where children may have to be five feet, four feet, but we're really trying to keep that at six feet at most times. That's understandable. And that's where I get the definition of the close contact is less than six feet for a cumulative period of 15 minutes. So that's why we're trying to understand if there are three feet apart for five minutes here and 10 minutes later or whatever it is, how, what the definition is this being used and has been tracked. Brian, could I speak? Sure, absolutely. Hi Chris, this is Amy. So I actually have the AOE guidance pulled up right in front of me. And so if I could just read it for everybody here will be great. Adults and adult staff within schools should maintain a distance of six feet from one for another adult as much as possible. Teachers and staff should maintain a distance of six feet from students as much as possible. However, brief periods of closer contact such as when a student may need one on one guidance, clarification or assistance is expected and permitted. In this case, the staff should consider standing kneeling or sitting side by side student students rather than face to face for brief amounts of time of less than 15 minutes younger students pre K through grade five should be spaced at least three feet apart. And to the extent possible older students grade six and up should be spaced six feet apart. So when physical distancing is not possible, it's even more important for students and staff to adhere to the facial covering requirement. So I can speak directly to you 32. That's the guidance that we are planning on following. Nice to me. Thank you. Thanks Chris. Others. And if, if Robin. Hi, this is Robin again and my daughter Jennifer couldn't attend and she wanted me to ask a question for her. She has two children. If one of her children is sick. Is she supposed to keep both of the children sick, both of the children home, even if only one has symptoms. Thank you I'm going to turn that one over to our covert 19 coordinator. That's a great question. And, you know, it's evolving always but if a child is sick in your home and without, you know, any, the thing is that anything can be a covert symptom and that's what we're trying to deal with and make sure everybody's safe. And so, for instance, a child goes home sick, their sibling does not have to go home. The only, the only reason there'd be that happen is if there had been some exposure to a positive covert case, or that child becomes, you know, it does get a tested positive for covert that yes then that would happen the child would be quarantined with the family, but just for the regular ordinary, you know, I have a headache a stomach ache those kinds of things to send home or even a fever. You don't send the whole the full family doesn't have to be there. Thank you Elizabeth. You're welcome. Thanks very much. David learns. Yeah, just directly on that, I have a bunch of other questions to but specifically on that one the FAQ does have a link to the state website about it answering the question of a student is ill and other parents. Oh, that's a separate reading the wrong one. What do we do a family member is diagnosed with covert 19 do we all quarantine and it's and it suggests you click through it would be useful if you actually put the summary of the recommendation in this it says essentially if you live together that you should all quarantine for two weeks, and then you could provide more details by the month. Elizabeth, did you have anything, any response to that. Yeah, that's that's absolutely true if if if if any family member has been diagnosed with covert the entire family will be quarantined. The Department of Health will do the contact tracing and figure out anything further beyond the family but yes, if somebody in the family then the family will quarantine for 14 days. This is some specific like 10 days if this or that but that's, that's there I think I think we sent home information. I think that information we're sending home does have that in there if it was covered positive versus. Yeah. Great. Thanks. Anyone on zoom with a hand. Well, unless David you, you mentioned that you had other questions. Sure, I'll go again if I can. I can't tell if keeps about to speak though. Great. You may go and then and then Monica to follow. Okay, well first just kind of a general question here about what is it preferred address for sending feedback for like things we identify on like the FAQ that maybe could be a little bit more filled in. Do you have Brian you're muted if you're trying to answer. Yeah, I'm just trying to understand the question. Can you repeat it one more time. So there are a number of things I noticed in the FAQ that I thought could be filled out a little bit better or a little clearer. Where would you like that feedback sent about the about the page. You can send it to the code that the contact us on the website that would be helpful or you can send it directly to me either way. Okay. One of the things that I'm no, I had one very specific question about W cost right now which is, do you have any percentages now rough estimates of how many students you're expecting to be in person versus remote. As of right now, and of course this could always change and that's why we have to be ready for anything. As of right now we had a according to our elementary, our elementary remote surveys. We have 78 children in the district that will be enrolling in a remote only option. So as of right now everyone else is we plan for them to return to school. And that's 78 out of the district population of at the at the elementary level I don't have the exact numbers with me but 78 probably 78 we have about six. Did someone interrupt or did someone actually have the numbers. Sorry, maybe it's my daughter who just came over but it's so what it's a, we have about 16, between 16 and 1700 children in our district about 750 give or take go to go to the high school. So, majority of our students are going to be going back to school full time. Right so we're looking at around one in 10 that opted for remote only around that time around there. I was going to also observe that having our date pushed back to the eighth is a bit of a boon because we get to see what's going on in other districts as they reopen around country. And I recognize that not only is Vermont different from say North Carolina but you know certainly Washington County is going to be different from Chittenden County. But in that light, it's hard to ignore that yesterday UNC reported they had to close because the case rate quintupled from one and 50 to almost one and eight over one and eight. And that, you know, significantly exceeded the guidelines from WHO I'm wondering have we established thresholds for you know okay that's it got to pull the breakers everybody out. So that's a great question. I've asked that question myself. I will what I can tell you is the answers I received from directly from the Secretary of Education regarding that question is, we're looking at the science, the district, the state of Vermont is looking at the science on the ground. And right now that they're saying that it supports a reopening of school, a full reopening is what they're they're really hoping everyone ultimately moves towards, based on the metrics of transmission rate, number of hospital beds being used number hospital beds being available, the number of cases that are being identified in our area. The other thing that they're looking at is, instead of looking at places like you know North Carolina and other places around the country. They're really paying attention to what's happening in Vermont with the chill with the college students coming back into colleges because the colleges students in Vermont have begun returning to their campuses. So they're definitely looking at that they think that might be a better indicator of what we may expect than rather looking at other colleges around the country that have different metrics on scientific metrics on the ground. They, as for a threshold, I'd ask for that the the folks at the Department of Health have not provided us with a threshold. I don't think I think they do not want to be stuck in a situation where they say a certain number, and then so they have not been able to give me give us a threshold. And so that that's where we're currently at. They did say that they believe currently that the data in Vermont looks so promising that if you look at the guidance that's been posted step one, step two and step three, they want all schools to open up in step two with precautions in place. They're they're actually having conversations. This is as of last week with my meeting with the secretary that they're thinking that there may be a time coming up in the next few weeks that they want to hold off and wait to moving us into step three, which would be because the data is so promising that it supports a full reopening of school. Not not but they also said that because the due to the highly, the highly, highly contagious nature of this disease. We have to be prepared to even pivot to step one. I mean, there could be a situation where we were opening in step two, which is basically the precautions and guidance that we talked about that we are implementing with full fidelity in our district, which the leadership team and our teachers have been grappling with for the last 10 weeks of the summer. We may have to actually have a point where we're going to have to, we may move up to step three in a month, and then we may have to be ready to pivot back to step one, which is a total closing of all schools based on whatever happens on the ground. So, and I think that's what our plan is. We built a lot of flexibility into that plan, because we have to make sure we are being extremely safe for our students and our teachers and staff. Great. Thank you. And then I did have just two more really quick. May we come back to you? Because others have been inspired by your example and would like to put their questions as well. But please put your hand back up and we'll return to you. But I have Monica and then Lisa Hannah. Hi, thank you so much. I was curious about the recommendations for the masks. I mean, from what I've read you're supposed to wash them every day. And so if we have children that says maybe you should use two or three a day, like how will something like that be recommended or enforced or maybe I haven't read enough about what we're doing currently to understand how that would work out. Thank you very much. The very famous mask question. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. I'm going to turn that over to Elizabeth to talk about the masks and I know she's been working on that question for quite some time. Right. I mean, I think one of the, one of the best mitigating factors to this disease is wearing a facial covering and a mask. So we're, I mean, I think that, you know, we're going to do, people will need to do the best they can. It's where we did in the letter that we sent out, we suggested that people have 12 to 15 masks so that you don't have to wash them every day. You can wash them once a week and sometimes you can just leave them in the sun too, or in a bag for a couple of days and that's, that's also, okay, because children, you know, sometimes they'll be so they should really be washed depending on what's going on in there. And so we will have, we're hoping for that everybody's maybe not going to be able to do that so we have, we have extras, we've done a huge call out for people to make masks so they will have extras in the in the school for students will have extras on the bus if a kid doesn't get on the bus and doesn't have their mask that day, they'll be handed one, because we want to encourage it as much as possible. And there'll be a lot of education. There's a lot of games you can play there's a lot of a lot of social stories that help children to understand and the modeling will really help them as well. You know, I know that the information we've gotten from the summer programs and from the daycares is that children adapt and they get into it and they're not it's not an onerous thing for kids and I think that that's, it's just one of those things washing your hands, wearing masks, staying a certain amount of distance is so important so we're going to work at it and it's a work in progress I guess you know. Oh, totally and I think like my biggest concern or question is like oh my gosh, if you're looking at something where we did have a big outbreak. Is it reasonable that parents are going to actually follow through with that or would it be like a medical office where you have the paper masks at the door and you would assure that every kid had a clean mask. I don't know. Really, I don't know any of the statistics on, you know, what a difference that would make but I was just curious to ask the question. We will definitely be aware of children who don't have a mask, and we will offer them one. Yeah, there will be a supply available to them. It has to happen. And let me just piggyback off of that one. And we all and we will also start looking into why the child is not wearing the mask. Is it a medical issue? Is it a socially emotional type of thing? Or is the child just refusing to wear a mask? And as superintendent, I'll be prepared to make the hard decisions to support the principles in those buildings. If a child does not wear a mask and there's not a medical reason or there is not a social emotional type of reason that may be related to an IEP or 504 type of accommodation. And it's just plain refusal. Well, that's why we have a remote option. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Lisa, Hannah, and then Nazan, if I'm pronouncing that quickly. Thank you so much. I just have a clarifying question for a little more detail around health screenings. Just the importance that we're hearing at the state and district level about staying home when sick. I'm looking at the FAQ right here in front of me and, you know, just the ask of students and teachers to stay home if they are experiencing any of the symptoms and asking that students and staff not return until they're no longer considered contagious. My assumption then, and you know, I guess I'm just asking for a correction if I'm incorrect, but family should be if a student or a teacher has a cough and a runny nose. And maybe it's not necessarily advised to take a COVID test, but they have those symptoms that could be associated with COVID. That if that cough and runny nose persists, you know, as we know, especially for kids, they can persist for four or five, six, seven days. You know, the, am I correct to assume that family should be prepared and teachers should be prepared to stay home for the duration of all symptoms. I'll turn that one over to our COVID-19 coordinator. I thought I was on unit. That's correct, you know, and this is a, it's a, it's a pandemic, you know, so we have to do everything in our power to keep all the kids and staff safe. So it will be different this year, you know, children who ordinarily could come and have some water, take a rest, and then go back to class. That's not so much going to be what's going to happen, you know, we're going to have to air on the side of caution and send children home. The algorithms from the state are still being produced as far as how many days and what kind of symptoms you need to have. If you have more than one, if you have like a cough and a fever, you definitely need to get in touch with your medical provider, and they're prepared to. They've been meeting also all summer long, all the pediatricians and the healthcare professionals have been meeting to try and figure out the influx of people are going to be calling them for advice and to be seen or not seen. Everything is possible, but it's not that available right now, you know, for and and so we will be airing on the side of caution parent had parents should be prepared for children to be home more than usual. That's true. And there will be clear guidelines for specifically how long, you know, and they would need to be symptom free before they came back. Yes. I'm not some and then I have a question that was related to me through the chat box. Hi, my name is Kevin ads and I have a child at East my parents elementary. First off, I do want to say thanks to everybody. Your efforts are tremendously appreciated. And even though we're not always at the board meetings or reading everything and appreciate the communication from Brian and the work that has been done. So through the app, we're going to be sharing really a lot of medical information with the schools so that you guys can make intelligent decisions about what stage to be in and what to open and what to do. And I'm wondering, I'm in the same boat, our family needs to make decisions about what's right for us I'm wondering what information is going to be shared back with the community. And I don't, I don't mean identifying information I certainly respect all of the legal requirements I understand that, but also respect this privacy. I'm wondering specifically about things like the number of new cases in a school or the number of new cases in a pod, so that if as parents, we were aware that the number of new cases was rising, even though the school might judge that it's open and to follow those guidelines, we as a family could make an informed decision about whether we wanted to keep our child home for a couple days. What information will be coming back our way so that we can make smart choices to So I can tell you that's that is a great question. I know that's a question I've also asked at the to the state level. They've, they are, I think, struggling to answer that question because the moment you a district or school a notification that there's a case in the building, because we're such a small local community, you know, kids come home and say was who's up today, who was absent. And so we have to be careful is a fine line between public's right to know and and so I think that the state is still trying to answer that question. They have they have said, you know, we will have to probably also look into our legal guidance with that thing with that answer to give you a better answer. Elizabeth, do you have any other information. So, what would happen if a child got sent home and had a positive COVID test. And so they're quarantined and all. Immediately what's going to happen, most likely according to the state is that the Board of Health will contact the school, and most likely that classroom will be closed for 24 hours at least, while they do the contact tracing. So, and then based on the contact tracing, you know, they, they may indeed say that there's it, depending on how much that that child has maintained distance worn masks, didn't have a lot of other contacts, they may not need to to close anything further they might might decide that but if, indeed, they, they do, then from that would be our decision about what to say, you know what to say, but I think immediately you would know if your child was in a classroom, where there had been a positive case, you, you would have, you would know that because your child will be home, and we would pass that information along on it. It's really important information, everybody wants to know, you know, because I would feel the same way, I would just want to have the information and then I can make my own decision, you know, and, and I do think that parents have a right to know information in a general way if you've noticed at the state level when they do, when they say there's been an outbreak here, and they're so cautious about giving any specific information and the school is, you know, but we have little children in school and I know everybody's concerned. And, and I think we will come out with really much clearer information about exactly what you will be told when so that you have that information, you know, in advance, we just haven't figured it out quite yet, but, and hopefully, we're planning that there won't be, you know, cases right now with the state where I know but you know in the state of Vermont. We're really in a good place, you know and if you look at, we could compare ourselves to other countries who've gone back to school, we have I'm listening in tomorrow with a nurse from Switzerland, who had, I heard from three months ago they came back to school and they've had a great experience, you know, and they haven't had outbreaks but it's, it's what's in the surrounding community, which right now is finding your right you know, we're close to a lot of other states that don't have such good statistics but we'll do our best to keep it that way. Thank you very much. I have, I have another name that I can mangle here my apologies, followed by honey bean Barrett. So, this question is from Emma or Emma. Sorry, I have no mic. Here's my question, just very similar to the one that was just asked. Our teachers being tested prior to students coming back. It's a way to test our students a week before school starts, since the start date was pushed back. And then, follow up, what is the notification protocol, if there is a positive case which you've just been discussing. So, so I think I also asked this question directly to our secretary. And the answer was due to the contagious nature of the virus there will be no testing. That's going to be required of staff or teachers or students, because you could test one day and then next next day if someone is infected, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have matter that's why it's so important to, when we reopen schools to have these precautions in to protect people. So, there's no there's not going to be testing mandatory required testing of teachers or staff or students to come back into the building. And in regards to the other question I think Elizabeth just answered it. Yes. Thank you very much. So, honey bean barrett, followed by Jane coffee. I think Scott, I am appreciative that we got some guidance today about what fall sports will look like at the elementary level. And I'm wondering when we will receive information about middle school fall sports, particularly interested in knowing if we are traveling to other towns in our state and if we will be relying on buses to get our players there. So I'm going to turn that one over to the high school principle. Had you heard anything about high school sports. Yeah. Yeah, so we've received all that same guidance and we're still working out the details for what our sport season is going to look like for both high school and middle school so I wish I could give more detailed answer than that but we're just it's pretty complicated right now but we're we should have a plan out in the next few days. Thanks, Stephen. You're welcome. Great. Thank you very much. So, Jane coffee followed by Jill Drury please. Hello, I was just wondering if the hours of the day are changing I noticed. Montpelier was getting out at 130 so I was just curious if it's still eight to 230 and nine to 330. Yeah, yes, the plan right now is to have a full day of school for our students in the full in five days a week. Brian, Brian, could I add one thing though. Yeah, sure. We normally have early release days on Wednesday, where we get out at 205 and think it's 305 the elementary school so that that is traditional and that will continue on Wednesdays. You. Thank you, Amy. Nice. So, Joe Drury followed by Carol. Yes, my question kind of stems from one of the last school board meetings about how you guys were for taking precautions around active shooters and making sure that central office was safe from your active shooters. Most of the elementary schools in our district are going to be utilizing outdoor classrooms more. How are we going to be taking precautions around active shooters when our kids will be outside for longer period of time. So, so ultimately during active shooters, we have to definitely, we recently got guidance from the state regarding fire drills, lockdown drills, all those types of a crisis situation so we're working to incorporate that in our plans. The, I don't have any elementary principles in particular. I know our elementary principles are have been working to try to get our children out outside. Does Emma have any information or regarding what we're, what we're going to be doing with active shooters. If God forbid that ever happened. I see Kelly and has her hand raised. So, I, I don't have a ton of really specific information but I know that through this bit and golly, I cannot remember the Vermont school safety initiative or whatever they recently had a webinar and are putting out some information about that I think that one of the things that's sort of challenging about the whole thing is figuring out, you know what is the actual sort of more real and imminent risk. And that use it so it's a constant balancing act in terms of thinking, you know, we know that the extended periods of time inside and all that stuff is the higher risk for the coven to then you go outside but I, you know, there's stuff about you know walkie talkies and escape stuff and all that but it's honestly that's something that's been evolving and we're watching it. I can just add in that usually not just active shooters but maybe have a bear outside or some kind of animal outside and so I know a lot of schools use walkie talkies and can phone in to try to let people know that they're safe or there's something happening. I know those are some of the things. I know teachers do teachers and staff also have cell phones on them and other ways of communicating. However, I do also recognize that not always not all cell reception, not everyone gets cell reception in certain parts of the outside of school buildings or even sometimes in school buildings. So I think, you know, the walkie talkies I know has been a very effective way of helping to address at least alert people to things that are happening outside. So I could just follow up on the reason why as I've talked to several schools that are kind of bordering our towns. And I know these schools of when, you know, parents asked about outside classrooms, the teachers and the principals have all said that in reality they didn't want their kids outside for longer periods of time. They didn't want their kids outside for shorter mass breaks going outside for, you know, extended recess or picnic outside was fine, but they thought that the kids could be sitting ducks outside, not only for active shooters, but in reality some of our kids could, you know, take off and to be honest, it's hard to keep track of all these kids. And that was a lot of concerns from some principals at other schools bordering, you know, these towns. So I kind of wanted to see what our school system felt about that. And I think you made a very good point. And I think, you know, we're always, it's always a balancing act, right? Trying to get kids outside because we know that being outside is better than being inside, especially during the pandemic. But also that when you go outside, there is a trade off, right? There's a, there's animals, there's other things that could happen, kids could run off. And those are the types of things where teachers and are working with their principals and making sure that the kids are safe. If having opportunities to go outside, but we wouldn't want them to go outside and be in jeopardize the safety of their, of children in any way. Thank you. So Carol, followed by Lisa W. Carol, if you can unmute, if you're there, it should be working except that we can't hear you. I have a suggestion, Carol. Perhaps if you were to, to follow IMA, Emma's example, and send a chat to Keith McMartin, and then I can read your question for you. So I think we can go to Lisa W, followed by, oh dear, I'm just a total failure at the pronunciation B of names. I'll need some help. Last name young. Young, Spongebob. Anyway, Spongebob. Spongebob. Thank you very much. So Lisa W first, and then Spongebob second. Thank you. I just have a question that we're talking about. Is there a protocol or a need for protocol for what the children do with their dirty mask? Where do they keep them and how do they keep them? Just so that, you know, I don't know if it's okay. But I'm going to let Elizabeth answer that one. But I think I understood what you said. So each, each school is actually doing their own kind of protocol about exactly what they're going to use and how, how children are going to keep the masks attached to them and not floating around or ending up somewhere else. So each child should have two bags, whether it's a plastic bag and you can just label their name and the dirty ones go in that if they're dirty, they can just go in the bag and go in the backpack and, and be sent home and then the clean ones are in a separate bag. They can just pull one out. I mean, that's the general idea, you know, is that, is that the answer to your question. Yeah, just accept it might be a little bit different in different spaces, different schools. Thank you. Great. Thanks very much. Okay. Spongebob fathered by Erica Zimmerman. Hi, I was thinking that there's probably going to be higher than average absenteeism for these students, and for potentially longer periods of time. What is it going to look like for the kids to keep up with their assignments. I know we keep hearing about this canvas platform, but what what does that look like for it say they're home for a week at a time with with a small cold or a cough, and we don't want to send them to school. How do they keep up with their classwork. I'm going to turn that one over to either Jen or Alicia. And Alicia, pipe in if you'd like. Yeah, that is one reason why going to a learning management system is going to be so important for us so that we have some more flexibility around continuing to support students learning. As we are rolling out our plan for getting our teachers and parents educators used to using Canvas and creating lessons in Canvas. We're also going to do a similar rollout for the beginning of the year for our students so that should we need to pivot. They have some experience and we're also designing sort of a checklist or plan to help our families and caregivers get smarter about canvas as well so that we can leverage that platform. Both in the classroom and beyond the classroom in times of illness. If there were a situation of prolonged illness then I think we might look at something a little bit differently but for now I think that that that platform will help the kids stay up. Of course if they're super sick at home, we don't want we want them to focus on getting better. Alicia, anything to add. I would just say that the teachers will work with families with parents to determine you know if they're well enough to keep up with their work at home through Canvas how much of their work. What to let go and I think it'll just be really on a case by case with how the child is feeling. Thank you very much. So, Erica Zimmerman, followed by me relaying Carol's question that we weren't able to hear. Thanks so much. This is really helpful. I'm wondering if there are ways the community could help besides the mask drive, perhaps with materials or resources that would be helpful for outdoor learning. What else that the community might be useful for for supporting the schools. Well, I can I can attempt to answer some of that the we have some it's trying to support the outdoor and learning is obviously a big I know that's a big hot topic in our communities in particular, trying to make sure that folks are going to believe we've had some donations people are donating some tents and other pieces at certain schools where where which helps give opportunities to have more outdoor possibilities. The only thing is, we have to be also cognizant of the fact that when we do go outside the, you know, if we get tense and things we also always have to be careful with the liability and other there's a lot of other pieces to it. We also have to look for outside. I know that sometimes it's cost prohibitive, but it's great when some community member can make a donation. But we also have to make sure that we install it the correct way so it's safe. And I know there's a big movement to go out to make sure children are outside but it's something that we, I know the principles have been working with with their within their own communities to try to figure out what they can or cannot do because every building and every campus is a little different. I know I know I know Gillian was working on a facilities task force and we talked about this. I don't have Gillian you have anything else to add. Yes, well, not really much. I mean because everybody is different trying to utilize natural shade. I think there's a big difference between outdoor education which is a really specific sort of curricular approach. And what we're looking at is not shifting entirely to the outdoor learning curricular approach, but really looking at what are the opportunities that we have to get kids outside so that they can take the mask break so for example if you you deliver a reading lesson and deliver the specific sort of lesson. Then kids can take their books and they can go outside and they can read or also thinking sort of depending on the different settings of the schools what are ways that you know you can do some outdoor exploration or even do some science outside like take a little insect census or whatever it is that you can possibly do but it's not really about doing a specific outdoor education curriculum. It's really just about thinking of our school yards as extensions of our classrooms. Right. And so that that's what prompted my question actually was just thinking I'm a you 32 parent. So I'm not, I haven't heard yet, you know, specific requests that the community might make or that the schools might make. And it could be that, you know, there's things the elementary schools could use that perhaps you 32 parents could use. So I guess it's just a word of encouragement that if there are materials, you know, stuff, physical stuff that would be helpful, please put out the word and, and I'd be happy to help get the word out with that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, love the spirit. Okay. Thanks. This is from Carol. She writes, like with most colleges where they're sending their students home for Thanksgiving break and not having them return. Will our district implement something like this. Second, is there any plan for transportation to you 32 for practices and or games on remote weeks. One is we're going to follow up. We're going to work with the state guidance that we receive and, and I'm sure that will be based upon any information regarding the medical metrics, the metrics that they're looking at on the ground at that time. So we can't really make a decision about that right now. And as for the you 32 I can turn that one over to Steven. So what's going to sound like a broken record on this one is that we're still working out the athletics piece but we certainly taking into consideration that some students will not be on campus because they'll be in their remote week and so we're looking at that as we develop the athletics practices or games or whatever that we're going to be involved in this year. So we'll, we'll get that out soon. Thank you very much. All right. According to what I've got here, we're on to sort of a second round on and their first up in the second round is Chris. Yes, thank you. The other thing that I have is, we know that between whether it's car pooling and CC that pods are going to get mixed. How is the close contact going to be trapped. So you figure that somebody goes home, sick by time they get tested as a couple days later results are two to four days you're looking about a week later, you're going to try to expect a kid to remember who they were in close contact with. It's not going to happen so who's actually going to be tracking those, those instances. Elizabeth, I think I think the answer is the contact tracers but I can turn that over to Elizabeth. Ultimately, it will be them but I understand what you're saying you know children won't remember, but certainly any, any school based activity, there's attendance so community connections knows who's there and where they've been and they will be attempting to keep them a little bit separate and they'll be aware of that in terms of like parents like having their own carpool, the parents should know if their children were in that carpool so I think that would that would help. You know it's not going to be within the school will try very hard to keep pods together and to limit the the potential contact tracing that needs to happen. Should there be a positive case. It shouldn't happen. Just want to make sure that should it happen I mean you know we all want to hope for the best is playing for the worst hope for the best. Right, but it's saying I know this should happen this should. There needs to be a person responsible says yes, we will have this information. This is who will have it so that when I don't say it happens. All of a sudden you get the calls as hey, we were doing a contact trace. What was Johnny seven days ago with the people he was with. Yeah, yeah, so and I think the answer is probably going to be easier to do that in their schools. Could we take attendance and then the contact tracers will work with our school staff to know where the children were at any given time in the day. Teachers also typically take attendance when someone goes to the bathroom or they have to go somewhere else in the building. So they should be we should be able to do that quite easily. It's going to be more difficult when you have children are with us for one third of their day so the other two thirds are not with us at all right one third we're hoping they're sleeping at least and then the other third they're at home or they're in their communities. So I think I think it's going to be easier for us to do that, because we're going to have attendance as a, as Elizabeth said, however, and we're also going to be able to work with the contact tracers who will be able to do that and I from what I understand that one of the reasons why Vermont is also looking so good is that Vermont is as is currently is able it has enough contact tracers that are on staff and our employee at the State Department of Health to address outbreaks if and when they do happen. Okay, thank you so what I'm hearing is is you're going to make the assumption that everybody in the pod has had close contact. Because you're not going to be able to keep track of the individual people that have had 15 minutes together. No, I think, I think, you know, within a classroom, there are sign seats children in one place. And so you know who they're sitting beside and the expectation is that they're going to have masks on and they are going to be keeping distance. You know, especially you know there can be brief moments but and that's what the contact traces will be asking, you know, and we will have that information we will know every adult who's been in that classroom, we will know. If there's been any cross pod activities, we will, we will know that we're keeping track of that but I think that within the classroom we will know who's beside one another and and if there's been like a lapse for some reason in the distancing, then, then the contact traces will ask us and we will be able to answer that we as Brian said we won't know what's happened after school, you know who kids are with and that kind of stuff but that they, that's their job to cover the whole community. And they're really good at it. You know that the outbreak that we had in that happened up in. It was a large outbreak but it did not spread, you know it did not become more community spread, they contained it because of the contact tracing that they were able to do. And we're, we, we hope for that as well you know, I know that Mark Levine often says you know we should all be keeping a little notebook and and and keeping track of everybody we're with all day long every day and that's probably a little bit of an extreme but I think when you have your children I think you need to know who they're with, and, and how much time they've spent and be assured that they're doing what they can to be distant and to wear masks. That really decreases the potential contagion markedly. Thank you very much. I should note we have 10 minutes before we have to fold up this tent and move into the board meeting. And in the meantime, we also have a couple of new questioners that I'd like to get to but also in the chat box on quick ones. Will middle school students get outside and take mask breaks, or will there be a specific drop off or pickup by pod slash classroom. Amy, can you address that. Happy to thank you. Yes, middle school students will be going outside to take breaks as the weather allows. I met with the many of the middle school teachers yesterday and have done so a couple times. And that's been a large part of our discussion. How do we have lunches outside. How do we like was referenced earlier how do we maybe teach the lesson and then also be able to get kids outside that so they can physically distance and take their masks off at the same time. I can't speak exactly to the process at all of the elementary schools, but at you 32 we're still working up the final details about our bus arrivals we're expecting our buses to start arriving between 740 and 745. We're going to space out the students that come into the building so we can monitor them as they come in so they're not all clumping up. And we're going to ask, if at all possible for our drop offs to happen as close to between 750 and 8 o'clock again to kind of help us spread out a number of students coming into the building at any one time. Thank you very much. I'm David Lawrence I must beg your indulgence. Matthew pokey. Yeah, yeah it's no worries go. Thank you very much. Matthew pokey followed by Larry be fellows. This is actually Matt's wife Heather McLean, and I'm wondering. I think that there could be a disincentive for parents to get their kids tested, even if they have a fever and COVID symptoms if those parents can't take time off of work, like two weeks off of work to be home with the kid and I'm wondering how the district is going to handle that like our tests required before a student returns just hope they have a fever and COVID symptoms or is it recommended and and how do we ensure that the students in my daughter's class are actually being tested. Elizabeth testing is is in the situation that we have now in Vermont testing there there's so few cases that testing is really not indicated and they're not going to be tested. However, if a child has a certain as some symptoms, they need to check in with their provider, and, and they're prepared for this they know that that this is coming, you know, and the provider will make the decision as far as testing goes, but a test as I have said, you know, you test one day and all that means is that that in that moment, you're, you're negative. It doesn't mean the next day you will be positive and sometimes it allows people to kind of feel like oh good. I'm negative, I can, I can do more things I can like take my mask off. I'm fine but that's not the case so in any event, you know, on a state level they are not promoting testing. But at this time, and neither, neither did the pediatricians want to do it unless there's a higher indication that the symptoms look more like coven and they would do a test. The other thing is that children will be home longer. You know it's not just the certain symptoms that are pretty reasonably, you can be pretty reasonably certain. But what I've heard is like 99% of these symptoms are going to be something else, you know, but we still have to pay attention to them and we will pay attention to them. But it's, it's not like you need to fear every moment that if, if a child in your, in your child's classroom costs that they have coven, it's, it's, it's very, very unlikely. I don't know if that helps but no that does thank you so much. Okay. Yes. Pardon me. Hi. So I'm a parent of a kindergarten or in a second grader, and they're both at Dodie. And one of the things that came up in the spring is just the complex nature of trying to manage two kids in the same school and just two kids and I know that's not the case for everyone but for parents who have two children in the same school and with the considerations or regarding pods. I'm wondering if sort of a two part question both for the learning part and the safety part. Are there any things that parents of two kids in the same school need to be aware of or is there additional support or anything that that can be offered that we can make sure to be both safe and also manage, you know, both the different learning expectations. So as the safety piece, I maybe can be explained a little more if you have to, if you have two children in different grades in the same school. What are the safety, what are, I'm just trying to make sure I understand the question, can you just elaborate a little bit more. So, I mean, just given the nature that we're trying to minimize contact between different pods of kids. Obviously there's going to be, you know, there are siblings in schools in which cross contact. I'm just wondering, I mean that just seems based on what I know about how families and, you know, it's worth going to be multiple exposures across those pods and I just wondered if there was anything that parents could need to do or need to be aware of going into that situation. Okay. Elizabeth, do you have anything in regards to that. One thing is to encourage, encourage hand washing, wearing a mask. You know, those are the things that obviously there's going to be some cross, especially with siblings in two different rooms you know to have a classroom so they'll be in two different pods so you have children at home now who are coming from two different pods. And I think that the mitigating factors if we can encourage children and teach them and make it fun for them to wear masks and wash their hands. It will make all the difference. You know, I don't think there's anything particularly special. I know it's worse than so if you if one child and a child in your one of your children's class, tested positive for COVID. You would of course be worried but the contact traces would take care of that if they felt like your child needed to be traced and needed to be tested. Then that would carry over to your other child, you know, because they obviously it's in with within one family, but you know, I know we're trying to do everything to protect every child in every situation and we can we can do so much in schools are going to do an enormous amount to mitigate the factors that could it could enhance a spread. And it's not perfect you know and children and children don't need to be, you know, in a bubble. That's not necessary really especially not now in Vermont I think you know that children need to be close to each other and they will be young children will be running around and they'll be close they won't, you know, we're not going to have six foot things but to separate children but and that's okay it's not that's not going to increase the risk in a dramatic way. The hand washing the mass wearing is the best thing that we can do for these kids. Thank you. Great. Thanks very much. Two minutes until 630. I think we need to wrap up, even though I'm leaving both Dave Lawrence and Lisa Hannah hanging and I know Lisa has something. Can I just ask the attendees and if you think another public forum is warranted or not. This is just a straw poll. If you think another public forum is warranted, could you please click yes. And if you think you're good with what we've had here and you know, with the communications that we've got click no. I just like to get a sense of the of the room. I'm seeing a of those who have answered I'm seeing a preponderance of yeses over nose. I can't guarantee that we'll have one. But but it's good to know this. In the meantime, I just want to thank each and every one of you for spending all this time. And just reminder today is August 19 in 10 days at September 8 sorry 20 20 20 days. No panic. However, on Monday, the teachers began 10 days of their own in service. So this is all well and train on when you mentioned Erica about what the community can do for the school. I think the single most important thing is to practice safe socializing. As Elizabeth was saying, mass distance, hands washing and extend possible avoiding touching faces. The only way that we can open school safely and keep it safe is if really if everybody does our part. So that's what I hope we'll be able to do while all of you, including teachers have a great rest of your summer and Brian. Yes, I just want to reiterate please if you have questions. We have we have our COVID-19 coordinator. We have people ready to answer them. If it's a school specific question, I encourage you to reach out to your principal. If it's if you still need if you have a bigger question that you think maybe should be asked to the COVID-19 coordinator. Do we do have a contact us button on our district website for the reopening plan. So which we update, we're going to update the frequently asked questions. We keep doing that on a regular basis. So I just encourage everyone if you still have questions that you couldn't get answered because he ran out of time. Obviously, we can look at having another forum if that's if that's the appetite of what everyone wants. If not, please feel free to reach out to our contact us button. It reached out to our contact us button on the COVID reopening website. Great. Thank you, Brian. I just want to thank all of you who were able to make the community forum just now. I greatly appreciate it. Lots of interesting stuff. Welcome to all of you who are holdovers from that previous event and to all who are joining us for this one. Because of the community forum, we are leaving off the first round of public comments. The public forum was really a kind of expanded, free standing set of public comments in a sense. So we will have the public comments segment towards the end of the meeting. So do we have any agenda revisions? Flora. So I don't see it in the agenda. Could we do maybe in board operations, the openings, the open seat, just a follow up on the open seat on the board in Worcester? Great idea. So 4.3 open seats, actually open seats in both middle section. Okay, 4.3, new 4.3 open seats. Anybody else? No objections I take it to that addition. Okay, good. In that case, towns, you're up. Hi, yeah. I know as far as from a student perspective, I don't have a lot to report that is super new with the possible pretty exciting news that today students got to look at their schedules for the first time and like really see what their own personal schedule for the school year is going to look like. So that's probably, you know, one of the more exciting and concrete pieces of information that will really tell students what school is actually going to look like for them. There's also been a lot of really great information about, you know, how the actual day is going to work and also who to talk to to address possible changes in the schedule and I really just want to, I guess, say that I'm really thankful to everyone who's been working really hard to get all this information out because it has meant a lot, at least to me. And I'm sure to many other students that you know this concreteness and something that we is pretty normal like this schedule has gone a long way in helping people prepare for the upcoming school year. So I really just want to say thanks to, I guess, everyone who's been working on getting this information out to the students because it's it's very much appreciated. Fantastic. Thank you times. Members any questions for towns. Steven. Yeah, Steve. I'm not a board member, but those go out to at least a little plant. Oh, yes. And I would also say just to the whole board that we do have a vacancy as well for the student part of this and we will be working on getting our new student rep identified and on the board to assist towns as we get the school year started. Just so you guys are aware that we're not going to put it all on towns for this whole year. Excellent. Great. Thank you, Steven. And thank you very much towns. That was very good. So, moving on to 4.1 board retreat floor. Would you like to. Sorry. Yeah. So 4.3 year in the board. Sorry, I was, they were talking to me at the same time. So for retreat. You're muted now. So we are a, we had a, we have a location now for our board, our board retreat. Should I share it with them or we wait until we send to everybody or right now is a good time. So we are going to do it. We went into between a mixed or being close to home and really trying to find a place that had opening and they also had enough space outdoor for us to be able to be outdoors or be inside if the weather doesn't permit. So we were able to book a space at a trap family lodge. They have a lot less people right now coming to, to there. So we're going to use the upper room, the master room that holds usually 150 people, but it would be just the 15 to 16 people if we have a new board member join us cross our facilitator. If they're giving us a really good deal. It is not more expensive than we tried even renting a tent to do it here and it's, it's really affordable because we are in Kobe. They're not holding events. So, and our facilitator is coming. He would be staying in town. So it's easy for him to, to travel to the location. And I will let the rest be Brian, if you have something else to add as far as we haven't done all of the details yet on, on, we're going to try to keep power presentations PowerPoint presentation to minimum. So we don't have an agenda to share, to share completely yet but Brian, can you add anything that I'm missing. I think if it's the, I know you've been looking all sorts of places I know it's been very difficult to find places. So the, do we have a, the place, the trap lodge that will also include breakfast and lunch for the board members and everyone. That's the idea. Yeah, and Michelle and I coordinated and it's all a book it was really hard to find a place that had a enough room but mostly that they had an opening for for us. Thank you very, very much for I know you worked hard on this and before I open it to board members just want to make sure that it's understood that even though the optics might not be the best about Oh, the school board is gold plating its retreat experience or whatever. It's not the case this is, this is cheap. And because of the situation that floor explained. So, it's not gold plated we're just lucky. And anytime we get lucky, I say, we go for it. But board members comments. You good with it. Will there be a remote option. There should be a remote option. Yes. There is there is internet. You know there's enough Wi-Fi for it to be for us to be outside and to be to be inside as well ventilated to Jonas and we the way that we were setting it up also is for everybody to be able to be six feet apart. But yes, there will be a there will be a remote option obviously if we're going in and out. The remote option is not as flexible right in whatever we should look into that to make sure that you're able to see everybody or whoever decides to do it remote. But yeah, the idea is that we have everybody participating and right now everybody can participate and Stephen look was working on his agenda but I'm counting on a full board retreat. We are accounting. This is for all. Yeah, thanks. I missed the last meeting so you may have already covered this but have we defined our goals for this retreat or are we going to do that. As a step in this. Brian, I'm going to let you speak Scott and myself and Brian met with the facilitator and we're going to have one. Thank you for joining me for what I understand for finalizing the the retreat. We did share you had shared some comments with us carry before and we did share those which to simplify it and Ryan really speak to add to the to the Yeah, so to not oversimplify it but I think the idea was the the ultimate thing is really to have the board from what I understand speaking with Scott and floor and the facilitator is ready to have a lot of board member participation to really talk the district is brand new. A lot of folks have been through a lot of different challenges with cool cool consolidation merging with Act 46. There's been a lot of What's the word. It's been an interesting time with the pandemic. This would be a really great time for the board really to really get to work with each other and talk about what they want where they see the district going and I think the ultimate goal of any type of retreat is to come out with a kind of tangible piece that you can present to the community about you know goals or where what we did during this time. I think it's an important part of the work of a retreat. So I think there are some questions that there are some questions that would be would be asked. I'm sure that everyone participates come participating with an open mind and listening active listening also definitely participating and sharing your ideas and making sure that everyone is given a voice at the table at the board from board. So ultimately though, after getting at the facilitator should be taking us through a process where folks are are able to participate and speak and share, and also then try to come up with some tangibles like goals and water some goals that the collective board would want to focus on this year and possibly even into the future. Right. Um, and I think goes values norms. The big three that can I also just say though I think it's it's got exactly it's their goals values norms but I also think though that the big piece I know the facilitator emphasized with us was also that it's very important for board members to participate and to share because it's going to be hard to get to the goals without people putting themselves out there with with sharing what their ideas are or what their thoughts are regarding the district. Yes. Yeah, so participation is is actually participation. So, and we had a really, really long list and one of the things that Nick said, especially to me was that you know what are priorities it was and having something tangible at the end. So I like I said I share all of your, you know, from the quality from everything that we that we had but I think we boil it down to three specifics and and mostly getting to know each other and coming together as as as one and getting to know Brian and we all be participating at the same level because Nick is going to be doing all of the facilitating so that's that's what that's what we have so far. Thank you very much. Other other board member comment. Chris. And then John. Can you hear me. Scott. Okay. I'm just, can we just have a confirmation from the facilitator that he is aware of the quarantining requirements. If he's coming from an area that is that he needs quarantine. Because, you know, just that would be to me terrible if a question was raised and he did, you know, he hadn't met the requirements for us just because we have to be aware of it with school opening and things like that. Just a housekeeping matter. Otherwise I'm looking forward to this retreat. Thanks. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you, Chris. I will definitely I believe he is aware but I will definitely follow up with him to make sure he's aware. Great. Great, Brian. Um, child. Hi, um, I am wondering what the date was that we picked. I haven't seen that actually anywhere. So it's September 12 jail and you and I talked at the last meeting and I sent you a personal email and you said that that day. Okay, I wasn't sure if that was. Yes, finalized. September, September 12 8, 8, 30 what we hadn't share and we should share right now is we just said morning and afternoon with a 30 to two. Okay. Great. Thank you. Look. Good. That's great. Anything else on board retreat. Anybody would like to ask for a contribute. If not, we can move on to board calendar draft 4.2 on page two. Board calendar draft normal life edition. How does it look to you besides very pretty with all its colors. Well, can I just, can I just, I'll just say that at the bottom of it, obviously that's if we were able to move to step three and hold meetings, not, you know, not necessarily remotely, but. So we probably have to ignore that part on the bottom but we put that there to be helpful. Thank you very much. So. Kari, I noticed your furrowed brow. Is there anything you're a very attentive facilitator Scott, I'm just trying to find that what what Brian's referring to I didn't see is Brian you say that's the bottom of. Yeah, yeah, so at the bottom of the page, hopefully you're looking at the right. There's two different calendars in there. This is called the board meeting calendar draft. It's at the top of the page. And if you go to the bottom, it says locations you 32 middle high school, you know, the first, every first Wednesday of the month and it rotates with Berlin, Calais, Doty, East Monday Romney, with the different dates. So we put those in there being we put those in there trying to be, you know, give you an idea of what it could be. But those are just some samples. Thank you. I think the other the other piece is one of the things is, I know we discussed not having committee meetings in the month of September. I think we may need to have a finance committee meeting sooner than you know sometime in September to discuss a couple things with other units but but other than that the regular two board meetings. It's helpful to not hold how will the finance have all the other meetings in the first month of September, based on the board feet based on we're opening school and we want to be prepared for pivoting or whatever could happen when we reopen on September 8. Understood. Okay, um, so this is a draft. Does anybody have any suggested changes beyond what Brian has just mentioned shall. I guess, next time maybe Diane. So one of the things I'm wondering and Jen would would know better would be just whether or not the quality committee needs to be reviewing anything in preparation for potentially if we shift to remote again or is there something that the quality committee needs to be looking at in terms of your virtual teaching that's going on or, you know, because October 21 is pretty late out, which if we're just looking at typical things would be fine but didn't know if we needed to be reviewing or keeping an eye on anything. So, so what I would say is I think we have to be prepared. Behold a special committee meeting, if we have to. But as of right now, you know, the only thing we're thinking about is just making sure we open to school in September if there is something that comes up. We may have to call. I mean, I was hoping not to have another finance committee meeting. We've had so many of them already this summer but I think I think we're going to have to have another finance committee meeting sooner rather than later. So we may have to so something does come up from it quality. We would have to be prepared to call that meeting. Okay, good. So, I guess the meeting calendar as it is, can can proceed there's no action necessary on this. I take it, but just continue to refine it and then it's a working draft. Correct. Hopefully it'll become the official draft but I do think we just have to be flexible in September in particular as the school year progresses. Right, right. I'm showing us and then slow. Are we going to stick to the 630 start time. We had done that during that during the last year. And a little bit earlier than that. Most, most of these meetings. I just wondered if, you know, what the right start time is. Good question flow. I think that's a decision, a decision for everybody to, to make it, you know, if meeting at sick, if it's visible jail, I know had a meeting at six before the 30. So I don't know, I will, you know, everybody should have to jump in on that six o'clock would help. I think for administrators to so we're not in considering we are meeting start really long. But it's up for everybody. We just kept what what we had. And the only other thing I wanted to add is that we are looking at a, after our board retreat. We will go back and looking our board goals in and calendar for the following year. And that would help guide example Diane's question about where the quality committee needs to meet when we're doing the monitoring. But everything is looking different because of COVID, but I will let the, you know, both administrators and four members time if everybody could raise their hand and say yes I can meet at six. Yes, I think she has something she might wish to say. I can, I can meet at six because I'm not driving up to Burlington. So that was the issue of getting back from Burlington in time. Okay, so how about if board members per floor suggestion straw poll, if six o'clock works for you. Maybe raise your hand or, or perhaps what we could do is, if it doesn't work for you, just speak out. Can't we do yes or no with our little buttons. Sure, if you want to do yes or no six o'clock the question is six. Oh, Carol, Caroline and do six. Okay. Okay. 630. Well, um, that right. No, if mine is still marked, if you said Caroline, it might have been marked from before I did not mean to vote at all. I'm not a board member. Okay. It was the from voting before. So ignore that. Okay. Great. All right. Can you meet at six. Yeah. We had a new board member personally I would prefer six so my vote would be yes if I were a board member. Okay. So we even have hypothetical votes and for six o'clock. Great. Six o'clock it is then. There's one no. Um, who's Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy to know. Dorothy, um, six o'clock doesn't work for you. I mean six. Actually, it works. I prefer six 30. Oh, you prefer six 30. Okay. Work but I prefer the six 30. Okay. I hear you. Can you, can you live with six in the meantime? Sure. We'll make it up to you somehow. Thanks. Okay. Great. Very good then. How about we go to 4.3 open seats. So update on middle sex. Then we start Chris, um, do you mind? So, no, not at all. So I posted on the front porch forum that the, um, any interested members to submit a letter of interest to Scott. And that the period of time for responding would close. I think it's this Friday, the 21st. I believe that's the date. Uh, and my understanding is that there have been two letters of interest that have been sent. I haven't, I'm not aware of any others at this time. I'm only aware of two as well. Um, one is Caroline May. And the other is Dennis Hill. From middle sex. Um, So the, uh, after the 21st, our next regular board meeting would be September 2nd, according to the calendar, unless we have a special board meeting, which Brian is nodding at the possibility of. Um, at which point, I think, uh, would you be willing to consider the question then board members? Great. That would accelerate the process. That would be good. All right. But again, do we, is there a part of this that goes before the select board? I just remember that part of the process before though, I thought. You're absolutely right about that, but it is not part of the process. Now I started, I think I circulated the statute that it's the board's decision. And we can let the select board know who we pick. Um, but the select board does is not, um, the decision maker on that. They used to be, uh, but they aren't now. Right. And I think it's a good idea as a courtesy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. So, um, that leaves Wister. Is there any, um, any update on Wister? Um, both Gile and I have, have canvassed the folks that we know in town, uh, in the past few months, we've reached out to, um, you know, the school board, we talked to people at town meeting. You know, that's that seems like a lifetime ago. Uh, and for, for me, and I can't speak for Gile, uh, we have not turned up anyone in Wister, uh, willing to serve. I'm very sorry to hear it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to recruit towns, but he's underage. Unfortunately. Um, I hope that. At some point, someone will. Will be struck with the, um, Whatever it takes. Um, tongues of fire or whatever. Um, So inviting. Yeah. Um, any, anybody have any ideas about this? Um, If there's been anything in Gillian's newsletters, I read them, but I don't say that I can remember if I've seen that, that might go to a broader. Community. I don't know. Um, I haven't put anything in my newsletters because I didn't know if it was appropriate. Like. You know, just because in terms of the boundary stuff, but if, um, If I'll, if Brian says it's okay, I'm happy to put one in. And I, and I, and I think Gillian, you're right. We don't want to, we don't want to have you writing about board business without the board, um, telling, uh, telling us that, Hey, can you put this in? So if someone from the board would prefer to send Gillian. A little blurb about what would be what, what, what she said, what she can say in her next newsletters. I think that would be helpful. I'd be fine if you recycled, you know, what we put in and, uh, in March. Yeah. That was like a hundred years ago. I know. The job is still the same. The language hasn't changed that much. Can you, can you forward that? Thank you. Wonderful. But I must say, just as an aside, I greatly appreciate the attention to proper process. Thank you. Um, good. Uh, anything, anything else on just filling. Board vacancies or looking ahead to recruiting future board members. Um, floor. I'm wondering Scott, if maybe you could put something out through Brian or through Michelle and just again, posting the two vacancy for also as an extra one. Um, I'm not quite sure if I can do that. I think I can do it again because you know, if any other member of the community and a neighboring community could know somebody and was, we will be in trying and with no luck in Worcester, but, uh, and, and list maybe list the three openings, Worcester, middle sex, and a help Stephen to say that there's going to be an opening for a, uh, junior. That would be great, I think. Yes, Brian. And if someone from the board would like to send that to me and copy Michelle, we'll make sure we get it out on my next Friday newsletter that goes out to the community. We could do that. Sure, I'd be happy to do that. Thank you. Sure. Okay, very good. Can I ask a clarifying question? By all means. So, I thought though Chris had already put a deadline on the interest in the middle sex one, so I don't think we want to re-advertise that because I think the deadline will have already passed. Chris, do I have that straight? Yeah, you're right, you're right. Yes, Friday is the deadline. Quite right. So just the other two. Yes. Lindy, did you have something? No, okay. Very good. So that's 4.3, unless anyone has anything further. Scott, this is Steve Look. Yes, Steven. My camera's been off now that it's on, you're ignoring me. So I apologize for having to butt in. What's the board process going to be to select the new board members? I will share the letters of interest with board members. And we'll have a vote, I guess, basically. Do you have any other suggestions? It's just in my experience, the board has interviewed interested parties that were interested in filling the position. It doesn't have to be that way. I just, I think we need to know the method we're going to utilize to select. We've got two from Middlesex, so we're going to have to pick one of them. And if that's the process, you'll just give the letters and we'll read them ahead of time and just vote based on the letters. I'm okay with it, I just want to know what the process is. No, I actually prefer your idea. Inviting the candidates to the board meeting and giving them a chance to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about why they're interested and their motivation of that. I think that would be great. That's an excellent suggestion, thanks. Do you have any objections to doing it that way? Great. No, I fully support that. Wonderful, thank you. Okay, good. So we can move on to 5.1.1 in that case. Screw reopening updates. Brian? Great, thank you everyone. It's been a very productive week since we last, well, two weeks since we've done our last board meeting. We ultimately got information about staff leave procedures. I just want to thank the board and I also want to also give a major shout out to Carla Messi, she's not here today, but she has been working around the clock, weekends, night trying to make sure she's answering teachers and faculty questions around the leave procedures, done an outstanding job in this area. We were able to insert the stats that came in. We had four teachers apply for emergency family medical leave, six faculty and staff did apply for unpaid leave. We'll be asking for your recommendations on them that their names are in the board packet for tonight, later on in the agenda. We did have five teachers take us up on the enrolling their children in our schools. This will allow us to ensure that these teachers are not taking leave so they will be here for our children and we'll be there for theirs. And that was something that was also very unique to our district. And I do have to say that the board in my humble opinion has been very generous and very helpful in this regards. We also did look at, there was one family that did look into the remote option, but there was only one teacher that had a remote option. It was only two students. It would not have justified the cost of hiring supervision or providing supervision for that one teacher. We didn't have enough folks to do the remote option for that was on the table. So that was not there, but however we are going to be taking in with your approval and we'll talk more about this in later in the agenda for the eight students. And they should be easily absorbed in the schools at the grade levels where they'll be and we'll still be able to keep our social distance. And it seems, I'm knocking on wood, but it seems that I've met with some parents over this past week and I say that they're very fortunate and lucky to be in Washington Central School District where schools are reopening full time. And also some other parents are very happy that we're offering a remote option, a full remote option, especially for our young children. And I also feel that we've been lucky in regards to the number of students that could come in. We were anticipating this to be much higher than eight and that did not happen, it did not play out. We also did interview for remote learning. I'm happy to say as of currently, we had a list of teachers who were selected for remote learning. This was, we first allowed teachers to apply and get involved and see if they were interested. The elementary principals along with again, Carla did a really great job with interviewing Jen Miller. I also want to thank her and I also want to thank Kelly. Kelly's been absolutely very helpful especially in making sure that our special education students who have selected remote are represented with a special education remote teacher. So these six teachers that are listed here, this is a reallocation of positions. It's a transfer, it's a kind of a nice way of doing this in a, this is one of the, I would say positives of being a school district. It's a lot easier to do this kind of work. We did again, allow people to apply. Some people that applied were selected, other people were selected, they had indicated an interest and these folks are I think going to do a great job with our remote learning possibilities moving forward. One thing that is just so, one thing, there is some things that we do have to do. We did do with regarding to a, when you, anytime you select someone, sometimes it creates a ripple effect in the school. There was one ripple effect just so everyone's aware. That was giving a Doty, anytime Doty's a small school so anytime a staff member is changed, it does create more of a ripple effect than possibly at the other schools. And we're very happy that Lisa Hannah is going to be our grade five and six teacher. It did create a vacancy. We did have a teacher in Doty who was going to take that position for the year until hopefully only this year because of the COVID, hopefully we're hoping that there'll be some end to this pandemic. What it did do, it did create an opening at the, for an interventionist and we were able to, as the superintendent, I elected my responsibility to transfer someone else, a teacher from another position into Doty. One of the big things is, I'm being very careful in trying to, I know we spent money on facilities and getting our schools up, but I'm very happy that this was a cost neutral option for our district. It did not cost us any additional funding. So the board is aware, I think transferring teachers across schools while not desirable will happen from time to time. I think that might be new for our schools. I think it's new for our administrative team, my leadership team. I also think it's new for the communities. But however, this is kind of the way a district works. You do transfer across schools when the need arises instead of posting for new positions which it could become very costly. And so that is an advantage of being a consolidated school district. And this was the first time that we did it. It will probably not be the last time. Thanks, Brian. Board member questions? Dorothy. I have a question about the, that I have right along and I never asked it before, the emergency family medical leave. My understanding was that that only goes until December 31st, is that correct? And then what happens? Yes. So then what happens is we'll have to see if the state or federal government will continue how they're going to respond with the leave, the leave request. These are, again, these are teachers who are, it might be a few days. One teacher, for example, could not be here next week or the week after because of a prior commitment and she couldn't do it and her reasoning fell under the EFMLA. So it might not be something that we have to be too concerned about just yet, but I think we'll definitely monitor the law, see if Vermont legislature passes something, if there's any additional information, but we're able to accommodate those teachers right now. Thanks. If they come back. I'm just saying. Accommodate those teachers if they come back in January, is that what I'm asking? No, no, no. We'll be able to see if we can accommodate those. Some of those teachers are taking a day off here or there. Not for the, until December 30th. No, no, no, no, that's not the, no. That's fine. I just assumed that. Yes. Thanks. Chris McVeigh. I'm sorry, this is a little bit off topic, but it's on topic for leaves. Do we have a number on how many staff members applied for and actually accepted the early retirement option that we floated a couple of months ago? Because I think the deadline is past now. I may be wrong, but I thought it was past. Yes. To the best of my knowledge, we had one additional member actually write to me today, write to me, I'm sorry, recently about the, about the early retirement. So we may have one additional from the four. I think we have four earlier in the summer is what I recall, but I think we may have one additional person that submitted. And it's not official until they actually, there's other paperwork that they need to sign, but Carla will be working on that. And we'll probably hopefully have more information for our next board meeting, which I'm hoping will be a personnel type of special meeting around personnel. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks. Other other board member questions? Everybody's okay with this? Yeah, there's just one thing. There's another thing that's not included in my packet, but I thought it was timely. We have submitted and I know I thank you. Thank you, Dorothy, for also reaching out to me this past week. We did submit a grant application through Efficiency Vermont. Just so you're aware, looking at our ventilation systems, paying for our isolation rooms. These are fairly big ticket items and we're trying to make sure we're getting reimbursement. And so we have submitted our grant through Efficiency Vermont. From what I understand, they're ready to execute and give us something. We're just waiting for the governor to sign the agreement. I'm not sure if the governor, if governor Scott has yet assigned the agreement or not with Efficiency Vermont, but that is one of the big things that we're waiting for it to come. And depending on what we find out this week, we may need to call for a special meeting with the finance committee just to update them regarding those expenditures. Great, thank you. Okay, so if there's nothing further on school reopening update, we can move on to 5.1.2, school calendar on page four of the packet. So I'm going to turn, Jen, Jen has worked with me and our leadership team on the, and also with our, we've also worked with our labor management council with the union on this document. So I'm going to have Jen take over here and explain the revised calendar. Now, I also understand that it's, we also, I understand that tradition dictates that we bring this to the board for your approval. I know, I don't think legally or statutorily, it's required. However, in sometimes being a traditionalist and the new guy in the block, I want to make sure that I'm doing this, doing a sunny up and up with everyone. So we would probably like a vote from the school board if you think it's necessary or if that's something that you want to do or continue to do, but I'll turn it over to Jen. Sure, thank you. So when the governor announced the statewide student start date of September 8th, we looked at our calendar. We had originally actually been slated to start this week yesterday with teacher in service day and go forward. So we are proposing that we push everything for so our first teacher and para educator day is next Monday. And that instead of having 180 student days, we have 175 student days. That will allow us to prepare around health and safety measures, social, emotional learning and the curriculum instruction and assessment plan that I alluded to during the community forum. I included in the board packet for you sort of that skeletal outline of planning. I took out all the nuts and bolts and details for you and some of it is still quite frankly, under development. But the plan would allow us to ensure that everybody who's working in our schools is prepared to open as successfully as possible. So that's the proposal that would have us having our student days and a week later right now with 175 days. We also, when we were looking at the calendar, we're thinking about the in-service days that are already built in the calendar and they serve an important purpose. And there are days that we think we need around continuing to align with some of the federal holidays and maximizing in-service time. So taking stock of where we are in October and regrouping as necessary. We have days for the parent teacher student conferences in November and April. We have a half day on Martin Luther King Day, which is gonna be a focus on issues of equity and diversity. It's also contractually a half day professional day for our teachers. And similarly, one day in June, which would be a day to wrap up together and a half day professional day for our teachers historically when they are doing their report cards. So that is the current proposal and a lot of folks have done a lot of thinking and looking at the calendar and the in-service plans in terms of all of the task force work coming together so that we have time to reopen successfully. Thank you, Jen. Yeah, thank you, Jen. Questions for Brian or Jen? No, what about the, my recollection is that if we shortened, on those occasions when we shortened the school year from 180 days, that we have taken action on that. Would any board member with a better memory than mine care to relate your recollection? Recollection? Scott, there's no harm in making, taking a motion regardless of what our recollections are to safeguard it. Okay, would you like to do the honors then, Chris? I'm happy to move that we reduce the student days for the 2020-2021 school year from 180 days to 175 days, as recommended. Very good. Do we have a second? I will second that and ask if Chris will take a friendly amendment to approve the calendar as it's been presented to us by Brian. Absolutely. Wonderful, so Chris and Jonas with the friendly amendment. Lisa, are you in there somewhere? Did you catch that? Ah, very good. Great, and you got it, that's good. I got it. Thank you very much. Discretion, for Kyrie. Scott, can you remind us how snow days or weather days would affect this? Yes, you read my mind. So if you look at, I was just about trying in on that, there is, do we have contingency days based on June 18th to June 24th if we have to use those for snow days? The big question I have is with our canvas system set up, being set up, and I, you know, this might be like a bomb dropping here, but there might, we might have seen the end of snow days. There might not be a reason of snow days any longer if we now have remote learning. So if everyone's going to remote because of a snow day or a snowstorm, we may be able to deliver instruction at home. And so, but we still do have contingency days if we don't have to do this snow day, if we still have to do this snow days for some reason, we do have these contingency days. So that's something that, you know, we're definitely, we've been thinking about recently. Fortunately, no students within earshot in my house. Oh man, yeah, we're not going there right now, no way, not this second. That's a complicated conversation. For rendering, for rendering at the school. Yeah, we had such a nice, we had such a lovely public forum on our pandemic, but I bet, I bet canceling snow days would provoke a reaction. Yeah. In like five straight months of snow days and my kids are sick of it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't have a kid in school anymore, but boy does he love a powder day, so. Yes, well, Lindy has something. I'm totally in favor of making snow days, remote learning days. And if they go skiing, they could still do some of the work later on or something. Check in for that morning meeting before they head to the mountain, but not go to school till July, because ending on the 18th. Yeah. That's true. And what we learned from this, that we can do things remotely. Yeah, and what Lindy said is very important. Checking in for your morning meeting and it comes down to how do we take attendance on those days? So I got you, Lindy. Okay, so before Stephen look, caused me out on talking about snow days instead of the topic at hand, even though it is part of the topic at hand, I wanna go to a vote on the motion approving the school calendar. All in favor, please click yes. No, click no. He's got my internet dropped, so I'm a EA. You're a EA. Thank you. Thank you, Jaya. And I see unanimous vote. Excellent. Okay, that's great. So consent agenda, 6.1 approving the minutes of July 30th and August 5th, starting on page eight. Would anyone like to move the minutes of those two days, two meetings? This is Diane and I, so move. Thank you. I will second. Diane moves, Jonas seconds. Any changes, any questions, any comments? If not, all in favor, please click yes. Opposed, click no. Yay. Or say yay if you're a Jaya. That's great. Thank you, Jaya. Very good. Once again, passes unanimously. Now the board orders, if anyone who happens to have the board orders up and handy, may I impose on you to move them, Jonas? I do. I move to approve the board orders in the amount of $232,584.93 and $397,413. And six cents. Thank you, Jonas. Is there a second? I will second that. Okay, I'll take floor as the second. Thanks, everyone. Lisa, were you able to get that? Okay, great. Okay, thanks. Any questions about any of the board orders? If not, all in favor of approving the board orders as moved by Jonas and seconded by floor, please click yes, opposed, click no. And again, I see unanimous passage. Thank you very much, everyone. All right, that takes us to 7.1, approving personnel actions. And in this batch, unless there's some change to what we have, which I'm sure Brian will signal if that's the case, there leave of absence requests. And I wonder if I could ask someone to kindly make that motion and reading out the names. Oh, Brian, sorry. I just wanted to preface before the board does anything that everyone does understand. These are all unpaid leaves for the entire school year. We are not paying insurance. They all know that the staff has the option to pay their own way using Cobra for that. And again, this is for the upcoming school year. Great, thank you very much. Anybody here to make the motion? So I'll move that we, who's that? Go ahead. Chris, Jonas. I move that we authorize leave requests for the 2020-2021 school year without pay for the following employees. Do we need the schools involved or just the names? I think it's fine to have the names. Okay, Amber Perry, Jackie Taylor, Robert Reed, Dina Cox, Nicole Shaper, and Peter Comptes. Great. Jonas, would I take your gesture as a second? Thank you very much. So Chris moves, Jonas seconds. Is there any discussion of these leave-of-absence requests? Thank you, Brian, for your clarification earlier. So all in favor of approving these leave-of-absence requests, please click yes. Opposed, click no. And once again, I see all yeses. So the leave requests are unanimously approved. Many thanks, everyone. So now we're at the second, the late stage. Oh, sorry, Brian. Yes, I also just want the board to be aware for full transparency that U32 has been advertising for an anticipated middle school math opening. I want everyone to know that this is already in the budget. It's just a heads up. We do have two part-time positions that are not gonna be used this year. And that adds into a 1.0 FTE. I worked with the principal on this and we do have this in the budget. So I just wanted you to, so if you did see that, we were advertising for a middle school math position, we do have the position in the budget. So, you know, just letting you know. Great. Thanks very much, Dorothy. I have a question I probably can't answer tonight. I'd really like to know how many staff, not teachers, amongst, I don't need names. I was just wondering how many staff amongst our six schools who are not teachers. And so we don't have to vote on them, we have decided not to go back to school to teach because they're older, they're afraid. I don't know the reasons, but I have a feeling there were quite a number of older people who decided not to continue or maybe others. I just wonder how many of those people left and we have filled the spaces, but because we don't have to vote on them, we don't know that much about it. I'm just curious about the number roughly. Sometime in the future, you don't know tonight, I'm sure. Yeah, and that's a big question, Dorothy. Great question. And sometimes we might not know because until the school year opens, because right now people are sending in emails and requests and asking lots of questions, but we haven't gotten any outside of the folks that have submitted leave requests that the board just approved. We haven't been getting too many folks reaching out to us on that piece. But what I can do is I can definitely reach out with Carla and see what Carla knows and we might be able to reach back out to you. Great, thanks Dorothy. Thank you, Brian. Okay, at this point we're at this, as I was mentioning, we're at the second phase public comments end of meeting segment. At 7.37, I'm torn. Should we take a break before the public comments or should we? No, I'm seeing shaking heads. Okay, let's plow forth. The floor is open for public comments. Stephen, Dylan's repaid. So actually just kind of following off of your personnel moment, just I wanted to make sure that the board was aware that U32 has a new administrator in our special education coordinator position. She's been lurking in all of these meetings, but I just wanna make sure that you're aware that Julia Pritchard has joined our team. And she is definitely a great addition to it. And so she might be hiding on another screen depending on how many people you have on one, but she is a great addition to our team and we're certainly happy to have her in our special ed coordinator position. So just FYI and just wanna welcome her board. So the board knows who she is. Thank you, Stephen and welcome, Julia. I do see that you're there even though I don't actually see you, but we're very happy to have you. Thank you, I'm very happy to be here. Great, great. So I see a hand raised from David Lawrence, Dave. Hi, this was just gonna be the quick comment that I had a couple of quick questions during the previous meeting. But before I say that I had also meant to say I very much appreciate that right now we're basically being all asked, what's your favorite flavor of poop sandwich? So I appreciate how hard this has been for you to all do the best you can to set school up the best you can for everybody. It doesn't seem like there's any really good answers here. And so I hadn't meant to convey that in the previous meeting and I'm sorry that I had skipped over that and headed right into my questions. Three questions are all really closely related. And as I said, pretty quick I think in that it's about remote learning. I've looked on the FAQs for the, and it covers in very good detail all the in-person stuff, but I don't see any kind of link to what's the expectation for remote learning and how that's scheduled. I'm sure there's a document about it. It would just be really useful if it were linked on the web to the FAQs. A related question I had to that actually did get covered in the meeting which was going to be about, and so now this is a suggestion to update the webpage a little in that there's a question about asking if a family feels like they have to keep their child home from school from their own caution. How does that add up? And the answer basically says, well, it's still gonna be an absence. And that's fair enough, but it didn't really touch on at all whether as the answer in the community forum did, whether in fact it would not be an absence if they were able to participate in remote learning during that time. Kind of the implication was it's just gonna be counted against you without like any remedy for that other than, well, you'd have to send your kids. And so I think that should be kind of clarify a little if remote learning is an option or why it's not, how that plays into it. And then my last question was for Brian, just he went over again the step one, step two, step three and the possibility that we might move to step three pretty quickly which was full in-person school opening. And the one significant question that I have about that is, okay, what does that mean for the 78 kids who are remote learning? Does that mean that they have to immediately swap to going back to in-person school? Is remote learning continued for the semester? How does that affect the remote learning? If we go to step three? Yeah, and that's a great question. There were some other folks who did ask that question last week with regards to, and the secretary said, well, just because we go into step three, if and when they do make that decision, they're gonna be looking at those remote, the schools that are doing remote learning and is there a way to, do we have to keep it the whole rest of the year? Do we have to start thinking about letting parents know, hey, it's really that safe to come back? So that's a thing that I'm meeting with their secretary on Thursdays, tomorrow is a Thursday. So, again, I'll be raising that question up myself, but he did say that that's a conversation that he's having with his planning team at the state level. So, because he said that if you're doing these remote planning, they might be, are they gonna be keeping it for the rest of the year or for several months or a phase out, they have not gotten that detailed with it, nor have they told us that piece, that question that you had. But it's a great question. It's something that I'm definitely following with the state and I'll be asking you again tomorrow. And then one thing related to all that was just also, it may have been said somewhere and I perhaps have glossed over it and that's why I apologize if this is something that has been addressed. Our teachers, is there gonna be some dedicated remote learning teachers or are like in class teachers going to be splitting their time with also having to handle remote kids? Yeah, so thank you, Dave. We have six teachers that have been identified to do remote learning at the different grade levels. And we are also now looking to see the possibility of that offering some allied arts as well for some of the remote classrooms. Again, we're making sure that we don't want to, we're offering these opportunities for our children in the remote learning as well. So right now we have identified six teachers. I know it's in the board packet, it might be, that might be posted online, but if you need more information, just let me know. Great, thank you. You're welcome. I've seen Chris has just raised his hand, Chris McVeigh and then Jonas. So based on what I've read and heard in terms of the agency of education and governor giving over to the local schools how to open up that we would have the authority to keep remote learning all year if we chose to. Is that true? From what I understand, he has not committed that to an exact guidance with step three. And so he did mention the possibility, but I haven't heard anything in writing. And I know we're told things one month and then you see the guidance two months later or three weeks later or it doesn't come at all. And I see Stephen looking at me laughing at me because yes, so he first told me that that was an experience I'll have to get used to, but we're definitely gonna be monitoring it. I think it's gonna be interuptive to have, if you have remote systems set up to go back, but really there's gonna be a lot of intangibles that I don't think they've even accounted for yet with the medical, when the vaccine is coming, if a vaccine is coming, how this is gonna play out in the next few weeks, just in Vermont alone. Yeah, got that Chris? Yeah, thank you. Okay, Jonas? So Dave, I just wanted to point out at the safe learning site, safelearning.u32.org. If you go up to the upper right in the WCUUSD information dropdown, the first option there, the first item there is the elementary remote learning option link that has the word document that I think was circulated a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't have all the updated information like who the teachers are gonna be for the remote, for those remote classrooms, but there is a bunch of information there, including a sample schedule. And I know that at least one of the schools, one of the principals sent out the teachers who are gonna be teaching the remote classes and those names are also in the board packet, which you could also find at the district website. Great, thank you so much. It'd just be useful to link that from the FAQ too. Thank you, Jonas.