 October 19th. First item on the agenda is changes to the agenda. I've got two additions to the agenda. When we return from public session, we've got a resignation of board chair and then in addition to that, so I got that under 4-1, 4-A would be elected board chair. Got you. And potentially how that goes, it could be an additional vice chair. Okay, resignation. Got you. How do we feel about timekeeper tonight? We don't have a big agenda, but I think it's not a bad idea to set some parameters for, especially for executive session with people being. I don't think that would take more than 10 minutes. I'd say 15. Okay. Be safe. Let's give it 10 for new board, a board chair, vice chair, a resignation chair, vice chair. Can we do that in 10 minutes, I think? And then the board survey, 30 minutes. That sounds reasonable. Jenny, do you think that's a reasonable time? Yeah, that's good. I think that's good. Okay, good. Do you want me to talk timekeeper? Yes, please, if you would. Thank you. What is the most effective way though as timekeeper for me to like flash that we're, I think just speak up. Just speak up and say we're five. Give us, if it's a short time, tell us when we're there. If it's a long time, tell us when we're like halfway, and then when we get five minutes, kind of something like that. Okay. That way it keeps us in our mind as opposed to we're just charging in. Exactly. Refocus us. Yes, thank you. Good. All right. Now, I'll tell you, I felt like Kathy a little bit, when I became town moderator, I didn't know you started right away. Pratt had just told me to come down there, and so I had no idea how to run a meeting. And that's sort of how I feel tonight a little bit. So I'll do my best, but please feel free to correct me on anything I might do wrong or in the wrong order. So we have our change. Do we need to move the changes to agenda or they can just be added. They don't need to be the action. They can just be added. All right, I'll entertain a motion to enter executive session for personnel issue. Who will move that motion? So moved by Amy. Seconded. Seconded by Jenny. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. The ayes have it. We will enter executive session and we will wait for, we're going to another place Ray. I just sent that to the board and to superintendent. Thank you. All right, I'm going to leave this meeting. Make sure to remember everybody to check out of this meeting before you check into the other one. Thank you. We'll see you in a few moments. Hello everybody. It is 638 before they went in. They talked about 10 or 15 minutes worth of time. So I will try to remember to come back about 645 and just give that update. Thank you. So at 645 the board is still in executive session. The board is still in executive session. The board is still in executive session. My agenda while we're waiting for Keith. Jamie, quick question. I'm not sure. Do we have to vote to accept? Yes, I thought so. Okay. Thank you. So at 706 I believe this is correct procedure right to say we are back from executive session with no announcement. Sorry. No action. No action. Thank you. Next agenda item is resignation of the chair. Does Carl then speak? Carl could just move his resignation. Yeah. Do you move your resignation? I absolutely move my resignation. You move your resignation. Do we have a second for the resignation of the board chair? Second. Thank you, Amy. All in favor of accepting the resignation, signified by saying aye. It's inappropriate, so I'm just going to stay abstained. Okay. Good. All in opposed. The ayes have it. The chairman has resigned. We need to elect a new chairman. I will open the floor for nominations. I'd like to nominate Ethan Bowen. Ethan Bowen has been nominated. Is there a second? I second. Jenny has seconded. Is there any discussion where you can grill me about my qualifications? Are there any other nominations? There being none, I'll end the motion that nominations be closed. Second. Nobody, somebody needed to nominate first. Entertain the motion to close nominations. Move to close the nominations. Thank you, Amy. There you go. Second. Yeah, sometimes the timing sequence of Zoom makes it a little great. Okay. We have one nomination for the chairman of the Rochester Stock Regenified District for Ethan Bowen. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Again abstained. All opposed. The ayes have it. Thank you all. We will. I am now the chairman of the board. I want to find a little bit more about, thank you, Carl. And thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership. And I will be calling you. Um, uh, I want to get some clarification. I just want to say I want to get some clarification on this vice chair because Dina did say in an email that she thought it was not a proper thing. And I think it's an essential thing because now Ethan, I think she misunderstood and thought that you were indicating that you could just continue to have the chair the rest of the time without a comment. Well, that's why I was correcting you. You could open the meeting. That's the role of the vice chair. Okay. Okay. Good. I just, it made her sound like it didn't even exist because she said someone didn't think it existed. Um, I would entertain a motion nominations for a vice chair for the Rochester Stock Regenified District. I would nominate Amy Wilt. I second. Any further nominations? There being none. I'll entertain a motion. The nominations be closed. Did somebody do that? I don't think they got, we can't second. I didn't hear the particular. Sorry. I make a motion to close the nomination for vice chair. Thank you. I second. Any seconded. Megan made the motion. Jenny seconded. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Amy Wilt. No. Any opposed? Being no opposed. Amy Wilt is now the vice chair of the Rochester Stock Regenified District. Very good. Moving on. Our next agenda item, the main agenda item for tonight is to discuss the board survey. Do we have the PDF available to put up? And I'd also, do we have objectives about what we, how we want to, what do we want to come out of this? I don't think we have any specific objective personally. I think that it's, everyone's kind of seeing this for the first time just to kind of distribute the information and it's a PDF. So those on the phone won't be able to see it, but I can get the information out or, Jamie, I'm not sure the best way to do that in terms of people that might be interested. We can, we can push it out through Blackboard Connect and put it on the websites and I would encourage you to put it on front porch form. We've had luck with that in other districts. And I believe Ray has a PDF. I'm not sure how I can present, so I was thinking that if he could present it. Ray, you were presenting, right? So up now, Jamie. Jamie, may I ask, is this, is this in all, at all different from what you shared with us at our regular October meeting? There's one, there's one graph that changed and then I added some stuff at the end about the open-ended questions. But for the most part, it's pretty similar. Do we, I'm just curious if we need to go point, if you want to go point by point through here and open discussion on each point or? I was thinking I would just present the whole thing and then in terms of keeping on time, if people have questions and it's a lot to digest also. So, you know, people had questions afterwards. I think so then I will instruct please the rest of the board, let's let Jenny get through her whole presentation before we ask questions. Thank you. Okay, so I'll try and go through this as quickly as we can. Not much on this first slide. It just shows that the survey was collected from August 11th to September 30th. There's 102, I'm sorry, 104 responses, 44 of which were from Stockbridge and 60 which were from Rochester. And just kind of, kind of an overview of all of the slides. Each, each question is broken down by town. So in all of the questions, the blue will be Rochester responses and orange will be Stockbridge. There's one slide where, where things are combined. But for the most part, we'll be focusing on what the totals are as a unified district. But we know there's interest there and seeing by town. So it's included by town also. So I'm just going to kind of breeze through real quickly. In terms of parents of existing Rochester Stockbridge students, there were 17 total responses that were parents. So the bottom left there, the yeses are 17 total. A majority were not, you know, we pretty small school numbers. A majority were just general community numbers. There were more alumni of Rochester Stockbridge who were 38 that answered that they're a parent of a Rochester Stockbridge alumni. Just some kind of general demographics for you on the next slide. So the top one, what is your preferred campus configuration of our SUD? The answer that, that got the most points with 44 responses was retaining separate elementary schools. The second highest score was D, which is a split, split configuration and then B came in as a third with the elementary school being used at Rochester. And then towards the bottom in terms of terms of which campus folks would prefer at the Rochester campus, whether it be the elementary or the high school, there's a pretty high response for using the elementary building, which it doesn't show up the percentages on here, but the elementary building came in at 59%. So that's kind of in line with what we've been thinking all along. So that's good that that's kind of conforming to that. And then another question, which was actually, I believe this question had stemmed from a prior, we've solicited input for questions for questions of the survey. And I believe that this was one of the questions that we got from that. So, and that would be kind of in line with the question at split grade campuses was what what community members felt was the best configuration for students and pretty high numbers said it depends on the situation, instead of just automatically saying, you know, multi-age classrooms is best or single grade classrooms is met. So that's a wide variety of input on that question and some uncertainty as well. Next slide. So the next page has to do with residents opinions about various campus configurations. I'm not going to go through all of them. The one that had some of these slides, I'm also going to kind of combine some of the answers. So one was strongly disagree and five was strongly agree. So in some of these doesn't show up on the slides, but I kind of calculated, you know, whether you agree or strongly agrees kind of a great area. So in some of these, I'm just going to kind of go through big picture talk about agree and strongly agree versus disagree and strongly disagree. So doesn't like I said, these don't show the percentages on here, but of the four kind of different campus configurations, the one that had the highest number of agree and strongly agree was the top left, which is retaining separate, separate campuses, which had 53% either agreed or strongly agreed, as opposed to 30% that strongly disagreed or disagreed. And the one with the highest amount that they disagreed with was moving all the kids at the Starbridge campus, which 5% either agreed or strongly agreed to do that. So folks, you know, can kind of digest this later or look at what, you know, more specific things are for each one, but those are kind of the highlights on each extreme of what folks agreed with and disagreed with. And then I can tell the other two are kind of kind of in the middle. There are some differences that we won't get into here about, you know, what Rochester residents were replying versus Stockbridge, but the data does show what that is. But in terms of just doing a brief overview, I'm just going to talk about one unified district. Next slide. Sorry, Jenny, are you on page four right now? Yes. Thank you. In terms of what the community members' preferences are for the Rochester-specific campus was this question. So A is status quo, B is the town taking over the high school, C is the town taking over the elementary school, and D is some sort of outside entity. So the one that really rises to the top here is B, which was 55 percent. Our country pursued the option of the town taking over the high school building. And that was, I don't have the percentages, but both Stockbridge and Rochester, that was the highest answer for that question. And I won't get into it, but some of the other other ideas that residents had in terms of other identities, entities that could possibly take over or down in the bottom, housing enterprises, medical use, senior uses, there are a few ideas that were thrown out there. Next slide. And so this kind of four options about kind of similar to before we asked what folks' preferences were for the building. And this kind of gets into the details of what folks felt about each specific option that was listed earlier, either keeping status quo, the town taking over the high school, the town taking over the elementary or an outside entity. And the highest agree and strongly agree for this one, combined for the towns was the town taking over the high school. And conversely, the one with the lowest agree or strongly agree was the town taking over the elementary building. And then the two other options kind of fell in between those. Next slide. And so kind of diving a little bit more into if we do not utilize either the elementary or the high school building, what would folks support that that building, you know, what would happen with that building. Really three answers are all pretty high in terms of working with the town to take over the unused building or the supervised reunion or another entity, a slight higher community response for discussing with the SU, whether it was some SU option, but all three of those were pretty high, 46 to 53% answered either A, B or C. And this was a question where folks could answer more than one question. So those percentages, you know, they're not going to add, they don't add up to one, it's just a matter of how many people answered that specific question. And then kind of similar with the bottom, you know, they're not cumulative, people could could check more than one. So this had to do with another has been various thoughts about what should or should not be used at the, at the high school building, if it, you know, could be partially used. So essentially, the A and B has to do with using the school for educational purposes. And then C and D have to do with using it for special events. And then E would be saying that those folks didn't want the high school building utilized at all by the students. So as you can see for both either educational purposes or special events, there was quite a bit higher response for community members that agreed with being able to use the space for those purposes if the town or whomever took over the building. And both of those were 62 and 63% for A and C. Next slide. So hypothetically speaking, if the elementary school in your town were to cease to exist, where would, where would you prefer to send your elementary elementary student to elementary school? So there's this was the one Ethan where there is a typo and the last one. So I won't get into the details, but basically the the data wasn't matching up with what was being looked up. So in the last one, a Carl had pointed this out and I knew it was off because I remembered that there were there were students. So last time in B and C, it showed a zero for Stockbridge and Rochester. So now the correct number. So if you lived in, if you live in Rochester, seven residents said that they would send to Stockbridge. And then four Stockbridge residents said they would send to Rochester. One person did say, one person from Stockbridge said that they would still send them to Stockbridge, even though there was no Stockbridge elementary school, which doesn't answer the question, but I left that that number in there. So the highest for the highest for Stockbridge, the highest response was Killington and the highest response for Rochester was Middlebury. Middlebury had eight and they a close second to that was Stockbridge. So I mean, those are pretty close with the sample we have. So those are I'd say neck and neck for Middlebury and Stockbridge for that one. And then at the bottom, basically as how important is an elementary in your school if the if the district was to unmerge in both counts, which I think we could have all foreseen is a pretty high agree or strongly agree. So 75% either agreed or strongly agreed that it would be important to maintain an elementary school in their town. Next slide. So these are the two questions are pretty similar. The top one has residents rates, what their primary factor would be for elementary school. And the bottom is for middle or high school in terms of where they would send their kids. So kind of taking out the not applicable or or no opinion, the highest for both of them. And this again was a check all that applies so they could answer, you know, you could answer all of, you know, ABC and D and the highest for both was based on school programming, which is really the highest for middle and high school. And then for the elementary was kind of kind of a broad array was actually the lowest being the availability of school transportation. Next slide. So this is kind of one of the the big highlights of the survey. So the top one asked if residents were supportive of the merger, and then the bottom one asked if they would prefer to unmerge and this shows and this is the one where so there's the normal orange and blue and then off to the right. I combined agree or strongly agree, and then neutral and then disagree or strongly disagree. I don't know if I said the right disagree or strongly disagree is the third one. So as you can see, there's it's not quite equal, but the pie pieces are, you know, almost pretty equal there. So there's definitely a lot of opinions in both towns. And like I said earlier, there's definitely, you know, there's different trends in each town, which you can see here. So the the Rochester being more likely to support the merger than the Stockbridge. And then it's almost just a clarification here. I'm not sure I totally understand the difference between these bars and then the pie chart. If you could explain that to me a little more. So to take the top one, I'm currently supportive of the Rochester and Stockbridge merger. So the ones and twos combined, those make up the the disagree or strongly disagree. And those show up as the pink, the 36. So 36 percent combined of both towns, either disagree or strongly disagree that they support the merger. And then number threes and neutrals, they're left all by themselves. They're at 26 percent. And then if you add up the the fours and five, so these are on even numbers here, it looks like 15 plus. So there's 15 number fours and 25 number fives. And if you took those as a percent, those are the folks that agree or strongly agree, support the merger. So those are at 38 percent. Got you. Thank you. So there's and then down below, you would expect them to be exact opposites. But you know, some people don't, they may not support it, but they may not want to emerge because they have faith in us that they're going to support it someday. And you know, might answer differently. So those numbers are pretty close to each other. Next slide. So those are the summary of the multi-choice questions, which are pretty, those are a lot easier to show what's going on since they're just based on numbers and how many people voted for which one. So for the following slides, these are the open-ended questions. So the first one, if 50 words or less, what do you think should be the primary vision of RSUD? So as you can see these, so this is, this slide here, I just took all the answers and did a word cloud. I'm not sure who's familiar with word cloud, so it basically, it's a program that just, you know, the more frequently a word comes up in people's answers will give it, will make it look bigger. So education is a big one. So that's a plus. People think the vision should be education. And some of them are obviously kind of generic. So obviously, you know, Stark Ridge and Broadchester, those will come up. School best, community, students, they're kind of generic. It's all kind of depends on how these are worded. So it's, you know, not, doesn't really shine the light on, you know, one certain word that pops up because they're, you know, you can kind of, if you want to scroll to the next slide. So this page and the next page, these are people's actual questions. And so I could just kind of categorize them into certain ideas, but I don't want to kind of give false impressions of what, what folks intentions were. So I just listed, and then I'm not going to read these, but, you know, it'll be something in the PDF that people can look at. Or maybe it's a board, we decide that we want to look at these since, you know, the word card looks nice, but it doesn't really give us any shining answers of what the vision would be from residents. So, you know, it could be something that we could look at and categorize. But for the folks are, but for the purposes of just kind of screening through the survey on a big level, this is just a list of what these are. You can scroll down in the next slide. So name, name one new way Stockbridge or Rochester students and communities could collaborate together. So again, most of these are pretty generic. So you kind of have to look past some of the big words, unfortunately. So community, you know, that's good kids, education, school, students. There's a few that if you start looking, you know, it's the words get a little bit smaller, you can see opportunities, programs, extracurricular, quality activities, together, outdoor staff, share. I think share is a good one. Combine. So again, no big, no big aha moments here, but I'm just kind of shows you, you know, there's not like a magic bullet here at all. But also, there's people have a lot of different ideas, a lot of different words are popping up here. If you want to scroll down. And then the same, the same format that I won't read into here, we can scroll down, scroll down. So this one's a little bit easier to create a word cloud for a name Tuesday offerings that you believe are critical to maintain or would like offered. And on this one on the bottom right, I did include, you know, I did try to categorize what I thought some folks were were intending here. And then also with the cloud kind of goes along with that. So when I kind of compartmentalized things are had 18 responses, music and band, I kept together those have 17 second language, 11 outdoor field trips 10. No curriculum is what I call the next one is nine. And that included answers that had to do with either reading or math or person had mentioned, you know, test scores and getting those better included those sort of core classes into the build curriculum theater with five sports for stem three PE to technology to. And then at one came in winter wellness enrichment classes civics, counseling, school nurse and one, one planet program. And you can see some of these words, you know, there's less of the stock bridge students Rochester kind of generic words that pop up on this. Since we're, you know, more focused question on specific are specific answers. And then again, these are just what people's actual answer for. So please list any thoughts we have on how to attract young families to our communities. Again, this is another. There's a lot of different results. So it didn't really have an aha word that pops out choice opportunities better learn families facilities, community, education, housing, pop stuff a little bit darker than some words. But as you can see, there's a lot of ideas there. And then you can scroll down and those are the lists as well. And then the last one any additional comments the folks may have. So the, the one that kind of pops right up in the center and I didn't create this it was just kind of randomized on the website is community. So I thought that was nice. That really came, came to the full to the forefront children, school students, you know, again, more kind of generic words. Yeah, there's a lot of different thoughts out there on that. So nothing, unless you try and compartmentalize and categorize and try to guess what folks are thinking there, then there's a lot of different ideas. If you want to scroll down, that's the actual answers from folks. And then that is the end. Okay. Well, thank you, Jenny. This is amazing. I really appreciate it. There's an incredible amount of information in here. Much applause. Thank you. What's your what's the board's pleasure about talking? I have my instinct is to let everyone sort of have their comment moment. What I think the question that comes out to me for everybody is what have you learned from this? And what's new to you from this? And why don't I just go through and take a moment, Megan, you available, Megan, are you on? Hey there. Well, it's going to take me some time to digest, but I think that there's some some good room to grow the unified merger, because there is there seems to be a bit of neutrality. And I think if you know, we could work together to create good programming that is highlighted in these in the survey that, you know, we could start to maybe bring people more around. So I thank Jenny very much because I think the survey is very helpful. Keith. Well, as I look at the information, you know, I taking a quick analysis of it. For instance, I look at the survey on page four, which basically says 75 percent of the community when you add the two communities together basically 75 percent of the people want to divest themselves of the high school building. It's pretty clear. I think the survey tends to muddy the waters a bit when you go to page six, because you have all those multiple options that people can select numerous times. So that really sort of muddies it. But I think it's clear cut that both communities share an interest in closing the high school. It's pretty clear cut. You know, when I look at page nine, it says, you know, you've got basically just like in politics in general, it's the undecided that's going to make the decision. You've got both sides, you know, pretty much equally split on those questions that were asked. And it's the 25 and 26 percent in each of the pie graphs that say these are people that are kind of on the fence and can go either way. And then with word cloud, I'm not a big fan of word cloud. So I won't comment on that. Those are my initial thoughts. Amy, I definitely agree with Megan that there's a lot of great information here. And it, you know, to take some time to digest it. I am saddened that there was only 17 parents, though, that filled out this survey, which, you know, and let's see. And then the next was was the people filling out the survey, a parent of an alumni from either one of our buildings. And that was much higher than it was almost almost 70 people who don't have kids in the school, never have had kids in the school. So I, you know, that that is something for me that I'm, you know, kind of struggling with, with this information and some of those pieces. I think Jenny did an incredible job. And I want to thank her for what she has put together here. This is absolutely incredible. Yeah. You know, I need to kind of sit on it for a little bit more and digest a little bit more, I guess. Good. Carl? Um, first of all, I, I have to agree. I had the same conclusion that Keith had that, you know, the survey seems to indicate that a, the, the, the district needs to divest itself of a building and be that that building is, is the high school. The other thing that I thought was interesting and I bring up because of, you know, some of the programs that our current governor has had supported in the past, which is that our community says that it really, really values having two buildings. And Governor Scott has at various times supported a student teacher ratio, which either comes with, it came in his first iteration with the, the idea that you just would have to have that ratio. And then the second idea that if you didn't have that ratio, you'd be paying, you paying a tax penalty. What I think is important about that is that should he get reelected and should that be something that gets presented again, because historically, big initiatives are always presented in the first year of the biennium, that we should have a plan for how we can pivot to, to, to, if there is such a bill. And I'm not, I'm not trying to be all chicken little sky is falling, but our community wants there to be a school in Stockbridge and a school in Rochester. And if we have to support some form of, of a teacher, teacher student classroom ratios, we should start thinking about, and Jamie, this is not supposed to be us giving you a high priority task, we should start thinking about how we could structure our classrooms to a meet a teacher student ratio, meaning like all fifth grade and sixth grade might need to be in one campus versus the other campus and still support having two campuses. Good. I've got, let me go and then I'll jump to Jenny. I've been sort of going back and forth Stockbridge, Rochester. When I saw this for the first time last meeting, the, how many people wanted to unmerge just grab me and how many people, you know, like the numbers going to Killington were strong for me and, and, and I was sad because I just was like, okay, another indication of that we're, you know, we may be bringing these schools in line in some ways, but we haven't brought our communities and, and the board in line. But then the thing that was very positive for me that was pointed out to me by Bonnie was that everybody wants to keep a school in their own community. And something about that, you know, as Carl, you bring up, there's issues, there can be all kinds of issues plaguing that possibility, but that that's really a strong part of our vision is to keep that happening is to keep a building going in each town. And it may take a political fight even up to the state to make that happen. But that's something I can really get behind is that idea of an active viable school in each, each, each town. So, so I went from sort of a little bit of despair to some real hope. Jenny, very curious to hear what you say because of course you've lived with this a lot longer than the rest of us. Yeah, actually, so kind of being number crunching, I haven't totally stepped back to see what, what surprised me the most. I think one thing that surprised me the most was the number of neutrals. I found it was interesting that in terms of the supporter not supporting was pretty much equal, but the number of neutral was higher than what I was expecting. I was a little surprised on the I can't find the slide here, but the one about I guess what, what activities and programs were important. I don't have the old survey that Stockrich had did and I might be a little biased that there's only three STEM answers for that. I thought that was going to be higher. I wasn't so surprised, you know, the art and music, those sort of things. I like the technology that a couple people listed. But again, I think that these are ones that, you know, it was open ended. So someone may have, you know, checked the box if they had seen it sort of thing. And I think that was kind of one thing. And I think a lot of that I wasn't too surprised about, but in terms of big picture, I've been, you know, more focused on just kind of crunching the numbers that I haven't really taken a look back in terms of digesting everything. Would it be useful to bring this up and maybe to ask every board member to come with their conclusions to our November meeting? Because we've talked a bit about, you know, having time, having time. I have one conclusion that I'd like to ask for action on tonight. And that is I would like, if Jenny, if you're up for it, I would like a survey to go out to parents through the school, through our schools. Do you think that would be something tailored differently or this exact survey? I think it would be tailored differently. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, yeah, I think it's simpler. I think it's a little more direct, more about what do you want offered? How do you feel about the merger? I don't think we need to worry about the building quite as much. As I say to Keith, I think we're going to be taking some action on that. And I'm totally open for this. As I say, I would like, I would entertain a motion if we do this. So I would, I think giving Jenny, Jenny, would you be up for doing it again for another questionnaire? Yeah, enough for helping. Okay. Yeah. Then gathering questions that we want or want to know from our parents. What kind of questions would there be? I mean, Carl has his hand raised. Oh, sorry, I can't see you Carl. So it's a small screen. Yeah, go ahead, Carl. Sorry, I, I certainly support drilling down into our parent community in particular because they're the people that are the most important stakeholders as far as their kids' education. What I would caution against is having another survey that ends up kicking any kind of decision down the road longer. I think that, you know, again, we need to, we need to, as we were saying, address the issues, and I feel like, I have, I have, I have, Carl, Carl, which issue do you feel we're punting down the road? I would end that. I feel like, I feel like Jamie said that we're, you know, we're trying to be mindful. I would, I would want us to not, I've seen, I've heard on social media that people have commented that this survey is a way to delay us making a decision. So I think it's very, very important that if we do another survey, we, you know, make it clear that this is not a stall tactic, because like I said, that's what I've heard. What are we stalling exactly? I don't know what we're stalling. I'm making a decision on buildings. Oh, okay. Well, I guess I certainly, I don't, I don't, I don't see that. I'd see we're moving forward and we're going to continue to move forward to find a solution having the high school off our office schools chart. That's what I've said months ago. And I'm going to continue, but that's, I, I, well, obviously we need to get the will of the board on that. What do we feel? We're at 40 minutes on this. Thank you. Do we have further comments on this tonight? I could also save this, this survey idea could just date for a while and we could come back to it on November. And we could think about if we really, if we have enough information from this, or if we need something more. That's a good solution. I'm not sure what you're thinking the intent, intent would be Ethan, but I was thinking that it would be less facilities related and more kind of programming and what, what parents were looking for. I would, I would love to see what, what you would come up with questions, Jenny, for next for November. Would you be willing to do that? Sure. And maybe if anybody comes up with one, sit in, I, I see this as an ongoing thing that I don't think we should do just once, that I think it should be a rolling thing we continue to do so that people know they have a way to get feedback to us if they aren't able to come to meetings or something like that. I do not see it as a way to punt. I see it as something that's informing all the actions we're taking. And we're also learning from it about whether we're taking enough action or not. Is that sound like the, the, do the, do you as the board agree with that summation? Hey, Ethan, it's Megan. I do agree. I'd like to wait till the next, I'd like to get through this first survey. I'd like to see what kind of questions we can come up for a parent survey for November. But I do, I do agree with you that I do think it's like a state of the state, you know, it's a state of our union. And I think having feedback from our constituents and our community members are very, very important. Because I think the survey will change over time if we move through some of our issues and it can really help define our, you know, our intent and our purpose. Thank you. Any, any further comment on this? No, Carl, Amy? Good. I said I was good. I just wanted to get my point across. Got you. Good. All right. And I think we've, we've done this for tonight. I think it can, we can bring up some conclusions in November. Possibly board comment might be a good time to do that. Just so we're, if we don't need an agenda item, that it's a possibility for people to bring up. This is what I saw in the survey. Okay. Good. Then moving on. Sorry, I lost my agenda here for a moment. Public comment, Ethan. Yes, I know. And you did not give me a specific time limit for public comment or anything. I don't know if you want to, you know, lay down your ground rules. I would like, let's keep us in the ballpark of 20 minutes. Certainly let us when we're 20 minutes. This is one thing I struggle with with the video camera making sure I see numbers correctly. So I will certainly ask for any help. I see as far as video, I see the Surabato is on. And then I see three, four numbers, O2. And that, as you say, just in case anybody doesn't know this, all we see is the area code and then the last two digits. So that's how we'll be identifying you. And I heard the comment. I just came on earlier. I heard the comment that we want to give you more time, at least a good 15, 20 seconds, maybe a full minute to respond because there is some time for you to hear, click and get in. I will try and work through all of these. One thing I want to point out is that just in general comments, we may not always have an answer for you. And I want you to know that we make notable comments and that we will, that we hear them. I hear them certainly, but I may not have a complete answer for you. So just know that I may respond. Thank you for your comment. We'll take that into consideration. It's please know that it's not a way to shut you down. I just may not have an answer and I'd rather not be making up answers in the moment or having any of the other board members making up answers in the moment if we don't have a consensus around a particular issue. All right. Yes. One quick comment. We cannot limit public comment to a time certain. We can't say you only got 20 minutes. Our bylaws say that any registered resident of a registered voter of Stockridge or Rochester is entitled to at least one comment of five minutes. Five minutes. Got you. That's right. Thank you, Carl. No worries. Much appreciated. Nope, that's good. This is how I learned. We'll start with you, Sue. Do you have a comment for tonight? Sue Roboto. You're muted. How about that? Is that Vic? Is it Vic? Yes. Hi, Vic. Hi, Ethan. So, well, first, congratulations. Just identify yourself. Yeah, Vic Roboto, Rochester. Thank you. First, just to thank and congratulate Ethan and Amy for stepping up to the leadership roles of the board. I didn't know that was coming and I appreciate that. And I just wanted to pay attention to the survey discussion tonight. I thought it was very helpful. And I wanted to thank Jenny for the great work. I think it was a terrific questionnaire she put together. The results indicating the interest in divesting into the high school was sort of in line with what I think a lot of people have been thinking and what we were looking forward to in terms of the work on repurposing the high school. So, that's consistent. And that's really all I have to say. And just look forward to the next discussion at the November meeting. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Vic. Much appreciated. We'll go to our phone callers now. 802, last two digits, 02. Do you have a comment? And please identify yourself and what town you're from, please. Ethan, it's Tim Pratt. Hey, Tim. How's it going? Good. So, originally in the proposal that was given the BOE, and afterwards, there was no money in transportation drop off on both ends of the day. So, that is a big part. And by getting the high school off the shoulders, there's some money that can go towards that. The other thing is the BOE is accepting articles of agreement. And if Stockbridge feels that they need a different article of agreement to feel that they're getting the same... Tim, I think you might be breaking in and out. I'm not sure. Can you hear me? I can't hear you, but then it sounded like it dropped out there for a moment. You were saying they're accepting new articles agreement. And if Stockbridge needs a new article, and then I sort of lost you there. So, just if you could pick it up. So, I would suggest that we think about writing an article that the Stockbridge people would feel more comfortable with because the articles of agreement were rushed. I mean, nobody on the 706B committee will not admit that it was a rushed deal. And now that we're three years in, there could be a new article without getting out of any merge and have everybody feel that they're getting their fair share. So, between transportation and the articles of agreement, if you're going to do a new survey with parents, they might not be the ones that are aware of that. So, that might want to come up in your next meeting also. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. That's a very interesting idea about new articles. 802-star-star-91. Please identify yourself and what town you're from. Do you have a comment? This is Katelyn McKinstry from Stockbridge. Hi, Katelyn. I've got probably more of a statement and then a question, but Karl mentioned potentially moving a grade over to Rochester or whichever. We don't want that. It was brought up as an idea before and many, many people were against it. And I would just ask, as I have done in emails and I have done in person, to stop throwing around these hypotheticals, stick to the actual articles of agreement. It was voted on that we kept our K-6 school here in Stockbridge and that Rochester kept their K-6 school in Rochester. So, that's one statement. I also am wondering, is Karl going to write an apology or have a statement of apologies for the behavior at the previous meeting at all for the public? I know he had written an apology email to Charity that he actually sent to me because he thought it was me that he was behaving ill towards at the last meeting. It wasn't me, it was Charity. So, I'm just wondering, is there going to be a public apology, especially since he's being allowed to stay on the board despite the amount of complaints that had come in about him? Yes. The one policy that is there's no mechanism for removing a board member. At least not that I know of. Jamie, do you know about this? As far as I know, it is up and he serves at the will. So, I don't know about that. I can actually answer that, even. There is nothing in statute nor is there anything in the board's dialogue about removing a board member. My resignation as board chair was presented as board and feedback was given to me by the board and I am remaining on the board currently. As far as apologies, I had sent you an apology and mistake, Caitlin, because when Julie and I were discussing who I was, I thought it was Charity and she thought it was you. Since she was the person that was calmer at the time, I sent the apology to you. I have since sent the apology to Charity. As far as apologizing to the community, I think that my behavior made it obvious that I should not be continuing as the leader of the group. So, I have stepped down as that. That is the apology that has been given. I failed. Julie noted that the apology is not true. Please do not give a moment, let him finish his statement and then I will get back to you, I promise. Okay, as long as it doesn't take away from my time. No, no, not at all. Okay. Carl, yes, finish up what you were saying, please. I made the apologies that I felt I needed to made as far as the public statement. My behavior was inappropriate and I resigned as the board chair because I obviously cannot provide the leadership that the board needs. So, I have resigned as that. That is where we stand. As far as my continuing service, there is not a mechanism to remove me. The board did not ask me to resign further and that is pretty much all the public comment I have about that. Okay, so, Julie noted the only apology you feel as a representative of us, the voters, is you stepping down as chair and because there is no way for us as a public to remove you, you are just deciding yourself to stand the board, understood. My second question is amongst all of this talking with the Rochester select boards about the high school building, has there been any other steps taken other than talking to them? Have you spoken to a surveyor to come and look at where our property lines are going to be decided or how the electrical or control boards for the elementary school that are in the high school could be shifted over to the elementary school because I feel like whether the select board is deciding or not to take the high school is taking a lot of time. So, I think there should be other steps that are taken and that there possibly should be a time limit on when the select board needs to decide on the building so that we could get it out there for sale for somebody who does want it and is willing to commit to it and take it. Have any of those steps been made? I can tell you that steps, definite steps have been made as far as separation of the property and understanding all the parameters of the real estate piece of that. We are in process with that. We made a motion as I believe it was two meetings ago to designate some money toward that purpose. There has been discussion within the board and there will certainly be more on in the November meeting about where the select board stands and moving forward. As I say, we are in this process and we are still in the decision making process about how much we are being advised to share with the public in terms of how much we should keep an executive session and that controls what we say. There is strong debate in the board about the usefulness of this but at this point we are keeping it an executive session and so it is privileged information but just to tell you that we are taking action. Okay, that's all I needed to know. Yes, I appreciate that Ethan. And I believe this is my last question. So since there's questionnaires going out to parents of children that are currently in school, I feel like that is a big exclusion to parents who have children who possibly like for example my daughter could be going to that school next year. So excluding parents by just the parents who go to the schools with their kids, I feel kind of excludes the future parent population of the school as well. Point taken, thank you. When we think about this, if we think about how we do this, we'll certainly take that into consideration. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Star Star 9-7, would you have a comment? Hi, it's Charity Colen. Hi Charity. Hi, similar but in a different direction to a question that Caitlin just asked, I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to maybe make up just a one-page bullet list of the items that create all the complexities that have to be worked out with the dissolving of the Rochester High School building. I think there are a lot of people that may not understand that it's not just so simple as saying oh we got to get two fuel tanks because right now there's one. I have no idea if that's even the case but making sort of a sheet that could be put up at the November election and just posted on each of the two town halls so that people can see this is something that's in discussion, that's no secret, and here are the complexities that are in the works to figure that out. I don't know if that's something that's allowed to be done but it might help give people an idea of why the timeline on this is not something that's set in stone and that one contractor that would have to figure out a piece of a puzzle may not be the only contractor to figure out that piece of the puzzle and it would help validate and explain why this is not as simple we want this done in 30 days quick claim type situation. That's all. Excellent thank you Charity. Point taken and believe me your point about a bullet list has been raised in some of our discussions so it's definitely in the works. Okay. And Star 99. Are you Ethan? Yes. I just wanted to I we're not allowed to post any kind of information at an election place just to just to I mean Charity's statement is a good idea and I'm not trying to disagree with that I'm just saying that we can't put up information like that at a polling place. Fair enough we yeah when but I point heard the points heard needs to get information out we're not helping ourselves and we're in the process and going to talk more about getting that out information out. Star 99. Yep that's me can you hear me? Is this Joanne? Yes. My question has been answered that you haven't made a decision when you have made a decision that we are still not privileged to know what's going on in the meeting between the Rochester and school school board and Rochester about the high school and that's fine but so but I do have another question if there's so much interest or it appears to be so much interest in the killings in elementary school is what they're you know what they're doing and if there was no school they people would send their kids there it might be kind of interesting to maybe send an administration or teachers or just to see what they're doing up there and why it's so why you know they rate so high and what they're doing differently. I hear you Joanne I have to say after I read that survey the first time at the last meeting the first thing I did was go on the Killington school website and just just start to get enough feel for it. Right. I think it's a very good interesting idea to say what is it about and maybe a further survey would ask what is it about this place that you're so interested in. Same thing would be for the Rochester people what is it about Middlebury that you're so interested in. Exactly. I'm sorry I omitted that yes exactly. No no no it's just I'm just extrapolating but I think it's a really great point that because then it gives some some detail to a number. Right. And that's really what we can work with we can't work with just the number we need to know the details. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you Joanne much appreciated. I believe that's everyone I have on my list is that what everybody else sees that we've covered anybody are there any further comments of those people who made their comments. I'll give you a minute or two. Very good. Well I think not hearing any comment. Oh yes. Sorry. Ethan there's a private caller listed that may be Orca but we don't know that. Okay I don't I didn't see any other numbers on my list. There's no number there's no number it just says private caller. Oh I see no caller info. Okay. Well if they haven't responded in this time I think we're safe to say that they're they're they're good thank you Ray for pointing that out. Our regularly scheduled board meeting and please remind me of this. I want it well I wanted to jump in on that under other yeah it's an election night. Yeah I thought we'd already talked about and I thought we'd moved it. No we couldn't agree and I said I would sit on an email. Oh that's right and you didn't send us email yeah so let's um so the board calendar currently has the fifth open or the ninth open. The fifth is um Thursday the fifth of that week. Oh I hate Thursdays um I'm really appreciate it. I've already got one on Monday and I've got one on Wednesday. So you've got Monday the night. What about Monday? I'm open Monday the night. I would I would intend a motion to move our annual November scheduled RSUD meeting to November the 9th. Would somebody move that motion? Second. Seconded by Jenny I think it was or Megan I didn't hear. Megan and Jenny. Any discussion I would just ask can everybody make that for the ninth? Um an important thing to point out is that um when the meeting was on election day there was no way that whoever was elected to replace Keith as an interim member could be sworn in. If we uh if we have a meeting if we have a meeting uh on the ninth it's important that Keith understands that should whoever is elected to replace him and whether that's him or not. When he's fine he's already he's already been sworn in by the the town clerk um that he needs to be available in case whoever did get elected if it wasn't him was not yet sworn in as a board member by their town clerk. Gotcha. Um how does that sound Keith? Does that sound fine to you that you you would you would be the default unless the person gets sworn in would you be okay with that? Not a problem. Okay thank you Keith much appreciated. Um with no further problems um no further discussion uh I will ask the vote all in favor for moving our meeting to the ninth signified by saying aye. Aye. I've heard him. Good it's done. Our next meeting will be November the ninth uh virtual I would like to ask um there has been talk about making these meetings uh trying a public meeting um I don't know how to go about making this happen um and maybe we'll have to just see how the numbers go in these next in the next couple weeks um I don't know. You and I can talk I mean I have hybrid meetings in other districts. Great let's let me Jamie let me let you and talk and we'll present something at the next meeting. Good I would entertain a motion to adjourn. I think Carl had something. I wanted to say dark sorry Carl I can't see your hand sometimes. Um I would like us to before we go to resume meetings I would like us to make sure we get AOE guidance because the AOE guidance is that we're not supposed to be having in-person meetings and that's not that's actually Carl they came out last uh about a week and a half ago and said as long as it's a worn public meeting after school hours that that's permissible. Okay then then I am I am fine with that as long as our administration is fine with having to have the space cleaned in the morning and and and and you know the extra janitorial. No I appreciate all those considerations I I'm about to turn 60 in two weeks and had to curtail all all the festivities I had in mind because it's just not possible right now so I I'm being very realistic about that and understanding um so let's we'll take that into consideration and I but the next meeting will be virtual. Thank you much um all in favor good night and good work we got in under uh two hours let's start thank you have a good evening