 I'm not sure what to say. I call 5.35 p.m. Libby, take it away. Thanks, chair. So we have a few members of the public on, I believe the board's purpose for this meeting was to hear from community members and it's wide open. And I see three or four community members on here in addition to the board. So you all have our boards and myself's ear, Grant Geisler, our business manager is also on the call. So if you're a community member, there's a pretty low key with so little people here or so few people here. So by all means, unmute yourself and speak up unless one of the board members wants to do this a different way. No, that's fine. I think if we are struggling to pull folks out then I could certainly go over some of the things we heard from the survey to see if that elicits any reactions from folks. But I see a head nodding. I can say from my side, that's the most exciting part. How much that interest that gathered and what the responses were. I'm a community member, live in Montpelier, but I don't have kids in the school system. So I think it's really interesting to see what priorities parents have over somebody like me who's just interested. Thank you. Great, thank you. I wonder if there's a way that we could show some of the bigger bucket responses. I mean, what I went through and sort of summarized was the commentary. So there were the first main part of the survey was a rating scale of some of the priorities. I think they were probably about 10 different sort of high level buckets of information and folks were asked to rank those by priority. And then there was also sort of a free form response of things that maybe hadn't been addressed in one of those categories that folks wanted to make sure that we addressed. So I don't know if we can show that. I have a question. The email said that this was a budget town meeting. Is that not right? A budget town hall. More for the board to gather community input towards the budget. So we will be, the district will be presenting our initial budget to the school board at the December 2nd meeting. And that's where Grant Geisler and myself and the principals and administrators will be showing a PowerPoint of where we believe we'd like to put some money towards or where we are right now and what are at spending and that kind of thing is projected to be. That presentation will be repeated multiple times to the board and the community as we our numbers firm up more. But this the board part of the board's responsibility is to gather community input into the budget. And this is this is part of the way that they're satisfying that. Thank you. Jill would you like to. Sure. And is the survey closed. Is that right. Or we could we could open it back up I suppose if there was demand. So some of the the main priority items that folks were asked to weigh in on and rank included classroom instruction foreign language art education special education early childhood education outdoor education social emotional well-being of students improvement to facilities diversity equity and inclusion food services career center and tech ed college prep programs and co-curricular and athletics. And I think in both the the responses and then also in the free form it certainly seems like the social emotional and mental health support for students is definitely one of the things that folks want to make sure we we focus on and also diversity equity and inclusion. And then the the free form responses that folks got were they were able to be a little bit more in depth. So there were questions about the pandemic response and ventilation which I do think is a board we could we could address and talk about because I know that's certainly been at the forefront of the facility folks in our business office. There was an expansion on requests for things like music art theater and foreign language at different grade levels. Then there's some specific things like drivers education capacity textbook and book books in the library after school programs seeking more AP advanced placement classes. There were some additional comments about facilities and prioritizing the most disadvantaged students and families in our district to make sure we're putting our resources where they're needed the most. And there was significant input on requesting that we not fund the school resource officer position but rather redirect those funds to the social emotional and mental health supports for students especially in light of the pandemic. So I don't think any of those things are surprises but certainly there was a pretty wide variety of of answers there that's in keeping with what I think we as a board have spent a lot of time talking about. But I'm wondering if any of those things prompt any of the folks on the call. If you have any additional things you want to expand on or things you didn't hear in any of those that you think you want to make sure that that we have on our radar screen. I think this is the time to bring those things up. I have a comment. This is Kara Robichek. So Libby I know is already aware of this but there is an opportunity coming up because there's going to be a new bus service in this city. It's called my ride by GMT. It was being called microtransit but now it's being called a flexible service flexible schedule or flexible the end of the day. I'll come up with the words later. But it is an opportunity that we could see additional busing for high school and middle school students at a very low cost. So I just want to make sure that that's being considered. Thank you. I had not heard that. Are there other community people who are not on the board on the call. Can we identify. Yeah it looks like we have we have Cameron Kara Peter Chadd and Kelly. I'm happy to jump in. This is Chad Simmons community member. My daughter is a kindergartner at UES. I think I'd just like to say first off thank you for putting the survey out this opportunity for community members to weigh in. I think this is great that we have multiple ways for for folks to plug in. I think just in general I want to support a lot of the things it was actually really tough for me to to prioritize those. So I think I chose a lot of four and fives on that list. So I would echo a lot of what's been said in terms of the the written place or written ideas in terms of mental health social services diversity inclusion equity to continually invest in those as a school board and part of our school budget and then encourage continual and ongoing learning in those areas ways we can always improve. I think obviously the the pandemic is giving us a big opportunity to reflect in our role in the school districts and the school board's role in social emotional well-being. So I think just looking at investing in the long term for those including I think I have anything else to add. Great. Thank you. I I I would like to speak at some point but I'd rather to have women and other underrepresented people talk first. I don't want to have us all be white males talking. No one else is jumping up Peter. So I'd say jump on board. OK. I would like to just make a couple of observations. This is about high school in the early 1970s. I was a chemistry teacher in Springfield, Vermont and we got slammed that year by drugs pouring into the area because of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State just moved over into Vermont and suddenly there were all kinds of drugs available. It was also a time when sexuality was even more at the forefront for adolescents than ever partially because access to abortion was beginning to be legal and the school was caught completely unprepared and I noted with interest earlier this year before well before covid I believe that there was beginning to be some talk about sexuality education at the high school and maybe at the middle school as well. I can't quite recall. And in any case I was tapped to provide both sex education and drug education courses and to be available as a counselor in both those areas and which believe me I did very little chemistry teaching that year because of the incredible not just the need but the lack of resources that had been applied to that partially because faculty and even guidance counselors were uncomfortable with both of these topics and I just think that this is one of those same kind of moments and I hope that whatever is done in respect to the resource officer that there will be people who have counseling abilities and who are comfortable in talking to young people with young people either in group small group settings or individually about issues in sexuality and also drug use and abuse. That's what I just my input on that. Thank you. So we have a couple new people who have joined us. So I just wanted to reiterate to our new community members and I see a teacher as well has joined us around. It's just because of the small amount of people from the community on the on the call. It's just an open ended what you'd like to see the board consider the board and the administration consider as we're putting together our budget for the 2020 fiscal year. So if our new people who joined on feel free to to jump unmute yourself and jump into the conversation. Did I mute myself? Am I muted? I hear you. Unmuted Alice. Just introduce yourself before you start talking. OK. OK. Hi. My name is Alice and I'm a I'm one of the school crossing guards at Union Elementary School and I was I was talking to Julia when the parents and she said that I should come on the meeting because it was I was saying to her about the budget. You know, they would talk about all the people. The school and I said and I said to her what about what about the crossing guards for the budget because we're the ones that keep the children safe that get the children safe to and from school. And I think that's a very big thing for the budget for the crossing guards because I take very good care of all the kids that cross. You sure do. Thank you. Yes, you do. There's no mention that our crossing guards are pretty safe in our budget. That's a needed feature in the city of Montpelier, not one that you should be worried about. OK. But I want to understand what they mean by the budget. Good question. So every year we go through all the pieces of the budget from every single line item. So Grant, the business manager, myself and all of our principals go through every single line. Everything single staffing line, every expense line. We look at the actuals from the year before and what we had budgeted for. Where did we go over? Where did we go under and look to put numbers together to present to the board? So something like crossing guards are in our budget every single year as a line item. And really, it just kind of passes on. That kind of thing passes on from one to the next one year to the next. But every year, the board's responsibility is to gather community input and take the recommendations from the administration to put together a responsible budget for our community to vote on. Does that answer your question? Another question I also had. What last year the school was was paying me, paying the crossing guards and all the all the hourly employees because of the COVID. And I wanted to see that still would stay the same. That's our plan. Yeah. OK, thanks. Thank you. That was my question. No problem, Alice. I knew there. I knew that was in there somewhere. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Kelly is on here that I see Kelly Murphy or I don't want to call anybody out if they don't want to speak. That's absolutely fine. Rebecca DeLorio, one of our fabulous teachers, if anybody else wants to jump in and give the board any conversational points to think about, please do so. Hi, I'm Rebecca DeLorio. I know I could get you out. I'm a teacher at the middle school and I'm actually really just here representing some of our teachers' unions to just sort of hear what the community is hoping to share with the board so that we can sort of, you know, have our knowledge in there as well. So that is why I'm here. Thank you, Rebecca. So I could, Jill, I could ask some questions, too. So I'm curious when when people say diversity, equity, and inclusion, that often means different things to different people, depending on where people's, I don't know if priority is the right word, but where their vision and passion lies. So I'm curious from the group who are here, if you didn't indeed take that survey or even if you didn't, help me get a sense of what that means to you of social emotional well, isn't it? Chad, you spoke, I don't want to call you out, but you spoke about social and emotional wellness. You're going to have a kiddo in our school, hopefully for the next, I don't know, 12 years. And so if we were to do a top-notch job with your child, you know, as a senior, 12 years from now around social emotional wellness, so diversity, equity, and inclusion, what's that image for you? And I don't mean to pick on Chad, anybody could answer that. Even board members, you could answer that, too. If others want to jump in first, but yeah, I'd be happy to answer. Hearing none. Sure, it's a great question. I think for me and for our family, I think having my kiddo be able to navigate a very different world than what we know now is going to be of the utmost importance. I want her to be able to walk in and out of any situation and feel comfortable and treat people well. And that's the tolerate for our district because our world's going to look a lot different in 12 years. So I would say in the social emotional realm, that's kind of what I'm looking for. I think diversity, equity, and inclusion, in terms of the role of the school board, I would want to see an investment in ongoing training, professional development for staff. Staff gets paid to do that. So it wouldn't just be on folks' own time, that would be part of our annual budget. I would want to see essentially kind of a community of learning around that, family engagement, community engagement in that process. And I think we'll be able to kind of learn what is needed as years go by. And I think as we're seeing right now, I think since June, things have changed so dramatically. And I think not just having a splash on our website or kind of a front-facing approach, but also a three-dimensional, where we're actually committed to hiring diverse workforce and that we're committed to that from top to bottom, right, left. So I think I could go to a lot greater detail, but that's kind of broadly what I would look for as a parent. Thanks, Chad, I appreciate that. Board members, that's open to you all too, as community members. Well, just to pile on here, I think that this year's pandemic and the last four years of the Trump presidency have made crystal clear that there need to be discussions and a much greater understanding on the part of all Americans. And I would start with young people because it seems like we have had all generation that missed the boat on some pretty important issues. We really need to take a look at the way in which we teach history, just even the Electoral College, which is talked about as if it were just a political entity, when in fact it's deeply embedded in the history of racism in this country and slavery. We just need to have kids learn from a very early age about the reality to the founding of this country, taking away land from Native Americans, building an economy on the backs of African slaves, disenfranchising people who didn't have or never enfranchising people who didn't own property until it was forced upon them. But having a country which was basically designed for the wealthy to succeed and for the working class to be there, if not their slaves, then their poorly paid servants. These kinds of things had been mistaught in American schools for a long time. There was a break. When I broke into teaching in the mid-60s, it was a moment in time for about, during the Vietnam War, when we did take seriously re-teaching the truth and Howard's Inn and others helped us to learn things that we were never taught as teachers. Even as a chemistry teacher, I taught about the relationship between science and warfare. And DNA was just beginning to be used and we brought in people who were doing that research and my students grilled them on what would happen if DNA was misused the way nuclear power was. And I think we've got to get back to that kind of dealing with really tough issues and not in a politically correct way, but in a factual way, got to look at the facts of our history and be able to discuss them. And if people have political differences and disbelieve some of those things, send them to do the research, find out what the electoral college really has done over the history of this country. So I would like to see a reconsideration. It's not just having an ethnic studies curriculum, which I think we should have, but going back into what we do teach, whether it's chemistry or math or social studies or English, why have we been teaching this canon of white male authors all these years? Now I know we have a broader range of books that are being taught now, but let's look at why we were taught all those white male authors all this time. Why is it that people don't know about women authors from throughout throughout history, important women authors? Well, Fab, thank you. I'll answer your question, Libby. Thanks for asking it. I think it's a really good way to approach these topics. And for me, they kind of go hand in hand, social, emotional learning and diversity, equity and inclusion, because I think when they are combined well, we have kids who when graduating and leaving our community or staying in our community are just as oriented. Meaning that they understand, and I think particularly about my own kids who are white, they understand that they hold a lot of privilege and they have an understanding of how to use it and how also to make space for other people. And I think that it requires very dedicated social, emotional learning in order for them to be able to do that and lenses of diversity and equity and inclusion in their learning in order to be able to have the facts, as Peter was just saying, that give them a knowledge base, they give them confidence. And then that combined with strong social, emotional learning make them see that other people are just as worthy as they are and that they should be taking steps to de-center themselves and make space for others. Hi, Libby, I'll weigh in. So very much support what everyone else said. And I guess I work in technology. And I think the other part of that we don't often discuss or see is there are people, AI is coming, automation is coming, there's no way to stop it. And we need good people who know science, good people who are coding those things, good people who are involved in those discussions because if you don't have the people who do have a sense of justice in these areas, in these fields, you will not have any input into what is certainly going to be part of our future. So that is, I really would like to see some more effort or... Did we lose a chair? I think she froze, I think she froze. Shoot. She looks very thoughtful and pensive, though, in her frozen mind. I'm sure it's gonna be great. Yeah, sorry, I don't know if I cut out there for a minute, but she looked very thoughtful when you did, Jerry. Yeah, so just something to keep in mind. I mean, Vermont overall, sometimes we're very rural and we can get a little disconnected from these things. So if we could keep this, maybe the students are very much involved in that, but it's something they should be thinking about for their own futures. Anyone else wanna add anything into anything considering budget and priorities? With that, we can give the board members a chance to run to the facilities. And before the board comes. I have a question I want to ask you. Oh, go ahead, Alice. Okay, I'm a school crossing guard and I wanted to know is, because when I unionized the school crossing guards, how does that, how can that happen? How can unionization happen? Yeah, I honestly don't know if we don't, we don't get no health benefits of nothing. I went out there. I don't know the answer about crossing guards and how you start a union. Grant might know that. How can we go about getting some like, we can't in this state, because I was a school crossing guard in New York City in the Bronx. We were able to collect unemployment. In this state, we can't collect unemployment and we're off for the summer. We don't even get paid. We don't get paid for the summer. Right. I thought that's a good question to bring up. Yeah, I think that's one that you and I can have a conversation with if you just, we set up a time to talk and we can talk with Mark and the other crossing guards as well. Yes. In Montpelier. And I can see if I can find out some information for you around unionization and that kind of thing. At least, because I feel we should get, we're out in the street, we're taking our lives and I have, we should get some kind of benefits. Yeah, that's determined by the amount of hours worked under what we have to go by. So we can talk about that. So we can make sure that you're clear about what that is all responsible for. Okay. That sounds good. Okay. And what's your name? I'm Libby. I'm the superintendent. Libby. I'm technically your boss. Oh, that's okay. This is the first time I've ever met you. I think we've met once or twice before. I don't remember seeing you. That's okay. All right. So board members, would you like to go use the facilities? I'd like to thank the community members. Jill, since you took charge, Jerry started us off. You went in the middle. So you want to finish us up here with closing this part of the meeting and then coming back at 630. Sure. I guess do we need a motion to adjourn? It was a worn meeting. So probably. Okay. I'll move that we adjourn the budget forum and thank everyone very much for coming. And as Libby pointed out, there'll be more sort of public feedback and opportunities for us to inform the community on what, where we end up knowing that we're all, you know, in the midst of a strange time, if ever. But thank you very much for joining us this evening. And there is a regular school board meeting starting at 630 for folks who are interested. Do I have a second? I second. Okay. All those board members in favor of adjournment. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right. I didn't do roll call, but it seems like we're, we're okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you everybody very much. It looks like Orca was here and they all core was here. So this will get some attention. Thank you folks for coming too. Thank you everyone. Thanks everyone. Anna, is there a different link for the board meeting or do we just kind of have to shut off our cameras? It's the same link. Yep. So we can turn off your cameras. You can get out and rejoin if you'd like, but I think we should keep it going until. Okay. Yeah. I'll just shut off my camera. Do we need to shut the chat off because the chat is working. I mean, it was fine. It was, it was innocuous, but I know that for board meetings, it's usually off. Yep. I just turned it off. Okay. Chat disabled. Okay. Thanks everyone. Thanks Libby.