 and just in the interest of being timely adjustments to the agenda please then we have a piece of paper we could start okay all right so I would like to add an adjustment to the agenda that as soon as Tara is here we have her share her reports with us any other adjustment anything that we need that's been missed on this agenda what's not yet I think Bruce was bringing them and they're not here yet I think that I mean I think we need the presentation from the supervisory stuff or maybe we can just talk about it today I don't know how long Bruce is going to be here okay so why don't we add that down into discussion items annual tuition rate you want to move to like parental report until Tara gets it okay let's do that sure all right so we'll jump down to okay so we moved you to first in the meeting Tara I appreciate that I only grabbed the agendas from Bruce's he has everything else we're moving it to discussion items yeah we're moving on the tuition rate the tuition rate the discussion okay so if you wrapped up the work with the auditor no okay wrapped up they were shut down and from the last two weeks and I'll come back to work until Monday okay but I can give you the numbers that were as of 12 19 okay the general fund deficit was a hundred and ninety two thousand three hundred and forty five dollars okay we had to clean up 192 345 okay we had two funds in the supervisory union that we needed to do some additional work on fund 10 which is our general fund for the SU and fund 12 which is the clearing accounts for shared teachers and shared positions from the SU to the individual districts so there was an additional charge there which would bump up your general fund deficit to 256,000 roughly and then the SU's current deficit is two hundred and thirty thousand six hundred and sixty five dollars adding your forty one percent of that if we have to do that entire amount as an assessment brings your total general fund deficit to about 383,000 okay food service can you repeat that last number 383,000 the SU was two hundred and thirty thousand six hundred and sixty five dollars prior to any additional adjustments that were made this was as of December 19th that takes into account the SPED deficit we assess that out you'll see that in your warrants I believe last time it was in your warrants we assess that out as best case scenario based on the recommendation from the auditors okay so that was already taken care of so that brought the SPED account to zero so if and when the AOE releases their numbers if they give us everything that we thought they still owed us then that's all taken care of if they come back and say no we're not giving you all of that then there may be additional SU SPED assessment also built ahead so was assessment was already accounted for in the 192 okay okay and then if we don't get everything that we think we're going to get that there could be a potential additional SU SPED assessment I don't feel like I understand what the SU fund and the shared positions are compared to the just general SU deficit so the general SU deficit that two thirty six sixty five that is the SU's fund ten we had to take care of the hundred and eleven thousand dollar deficit that was sitting in front 12 which is the shared position fund so when an employee works in multiple districts and they're paid by the SU they're coded to fund 12 within the SU and then that fund is supposed to be cleared out every month for those positions that are shared right so essentially SU deficit is more if that 256 I mean basically that is an SU deficit the hundred and eleven thousand is the additional that pumped up from your 192 to 256 that's taking into account the invoicing that was within fund 12 that was subject to your district so that's taking that and obsessing that out which will be but it's not something that was in our budget that we went over our budget for it's their positions that you're using at Wilton and Bethel you give me an example of some SPED Paris who are doing regular ad duties okay that's an example your technology people that are shared so Ollie he's an SU employee those positions that are paid at the SU level but are billed out to the individual districts for the work that they do in the districts right so we include that in our current budget so do we go over our current budget for those positions I guess is my question I couldn't tell you that we just clean the fund yeah I don't have anything in writing from the auditors to give you the detail that you're looking for so basically if we're assuming that White River Unified District has 40 covers 40% of the SU expenses is there any accounting for the amount of time for the para educators or the technology text or is it just it's that's all done based on what your agreements are with the SU and as far as your regular SPED Paris that are doing regular ad duties that's all established when they do their time studies that are required by the agency of education but what I'm getting at is they're not we're not paying based on time allotted it's based on the assumption that we carry 40% of the SUs no when it comes to your billbacks that's what they did in your bill okay all right the SU assessment like the SPED assessment that's based on your percentage of the SPED assessment the general fund deficit for the supervisory union that's what's based on your 41 or 40 whatever percentage round up to 41% assessment is okay your food service deficit is down to 31,535 dollars and again I don't have any of the documentation to back that up that's just the auditors giving me numbers 31 535 yeah so the work that you're doing now is the 192 pretty much like you done kind of with our books with the auditors yeah so there may be changes to that as well that was as of December 19 okay I didn't know because anything that they change in the SU ends up impacting every single member district so your number there that 192 the additional numbers I gave you are assumptions if they do not change any further but what I mean is like our our books separate from the SU yes okay is there some way we can get them to release I vast well I vast I let them all know we have full board meetings and individual board meetings on Monday night and it would be awesome if they could get me those numbers by then I am not any promises and then it's not asking of the auditors to provide that okay yes that's done by a whole separate division of the auditing firm that actually produces the physical paper that they send out to us a report yeah okay yeah I guess another question I have is do you know how closely our accounting what we have in our books right now matches what the auditors have like it won't match until I do all the journal entries to make it match right I know but like are there parts that are pretty solid parts that you know I couldn't tell you because I haven't looked at the journal entries there are pages and pages of journal entries yeah that have to be done to make the changes that they made during the auditing process in our software right I know that but like if those are all kind of concentrated in a few places where there were problems they're all over the place revenue and expenditures billbacks all of it is all impacted by those journal entries and rose starts Monday yes okay so have some downtime because obviously she needs to learn the softwares but right because she hasn't used either of the software systems that we use in the SU but we're moving in the right direction we're very excited yeah so and as far as your budget is concerned I anticipate having draft one for you Monday night I couldn't have it done in time to bring it tonight what that draft is representing at this point in time is status quo okay 3% increase in salaries 12.7% increase in health insurance the changes to the HRA funding that are based on the state's requirements for starting July 1 for the state mandated health plan at a 65% funding level because that was the recommendation that was given to us by the auditors and by other business managers in the state yeah so the VSBA sent an email I thought last week that indicated they would start January 1 2021 the rates change okay all right but the benefit changes effective seven okay so the biggest impact there is the way that they're funding the HRA's changes the way they're funding the HRA's today you have three tiers of funding in the HR right and the state plan goes to two-tier funding for teachers and administrators and then a separate two-tier funding for support staff increases the exposure then we're currently funding about $3,800 for family to 42 for teachers and admin and 44 for support staff for the family so that's the biggest difference that we're going to see as an SU funding mechanism we're already at 80-20 for the premium share based on the last round of contract negotiations except for in central office it will impact central office which will in turn impact the SU's office budget okay so for the second notes can you you were talking really fast just give me the draft one of the budget will be available on Monday night yep and it's gonna include just the assumptions of a 3% cost of living increase 3% salary increase yeah okay and 0.7% increase on the health insurance okay okay and that's and that's active the health insurance of 12.7% increase is active as of January 2021 right the rates yes yeah okay and any new hires that you hire for next fiscal year will be impacted by the new rates and the benefits changes are active we are doing that effective 7-1 because it's a full year the HRA is funded on the calendar year not on the fiscal year mm-hmm so when I'm building your 7-1 budget I'm using the HRA assumptions for a full calendar year we can add 65% of the total exposure right now usage wise in the HRA as of December 10th we're averaging around 40 to 43% depending on the tier so you add another six months to that we really and that's where a lot of our budget shortfalls were is that we have not budgeted appropriately for the HRA exposure for the last two years since they came into effect so obviously that'll be a decision as you as a board will need to make is if you want to keep that 65% or if you want to budget a different number but that's the number that I use as the placeholder based on the recommendations that I received from the auditors and from other business managers in the state okay so the HRA isn't budgeted correctly but it's current it is not for anybody do you know about how much that will impact over I do not know right now I only got through Bethlehem campus out of all the district as we're planning to like you we got a list there the listing cuts of things that you can do to make up the deficit this year I can have additional deficit oh you're now tuition rate okay so that's what I'm bringing Monday night and that number is normally based on a formula on your FY your next fiscal years budget so we'll do some percentages increases that kind of thing to get that number and that's we're doing that as a special meeting because I have to get the numbers into the AOE by the 15th and your regular scheduled board meeting doesn't happen prior to the 15th that's why I asked if we could do the roundtable or the wagon wheels for Monday night so that we could hit each individual board and if the auditors produce as I've requested then I'll go now with me as well and you're dry and I'll just be your expenditure budget because we're still working through the revenue side of things okay so the announced tuition rate needs to be January 15th I have to have the file into the AOE and out to each one of your tuition At some point we're supposed to get an update this year's revenue I think I was supposed to give you an update on that I have built out your tuition students there are 10 students that we don't have residency verification on so that right now is impacting what that is I can't type the numbers off top of my head the report needs to have a generated the report out of the system yet could we get that? Probably not because Jane has to book your revenue and she hasn't been here for two weeks so I don't know if she will have the tuition revenue book by Monday but I can try but for our regularly scheduled January meeting we should be able to have that information yeah because that was December revenue actual revenue I'm looking for a projection of we have this many tuition students compared to be projected this so we'd expect our revenue at the end of the year to have this so it doesn't need to be some fancy thing I would expect our administrators to be able to have it if you guys aren't like overpriced right I mean at the last point we were told that we would have it this time and you know we should have it again now we were expecting to get this much grand revenue and we're actually getting this many you know like we should be keeping track of this stuff I would hope that our administrators are knowledgeable about like how this stuff is going so can we please get that we share sorry I'm getting really frustrated right but like I'm not I'm not this is where I'm directing it as their administration because it seems like everything's going on you when it should because like you know we got the tuition numbers but like what did we build into our budget for and how does it compare and what does that mean for our end of year expectations and again much grant revenue stuff like are we getting the grants we expect to we're not like all that stuff you know Cynthia usually brings us that update well I mean like they should have it as well yeah you know we get for our areas we are aware of what we have to like a CFP allowance like the middle school area for Title IV whatever it is but when we need that information we go to the business office as well so I mean we can go to business office and we have files on some of it but I'm not exactly sure what we're specifically asking for well I mean it seems like the business office is you know working through so much stuff in there not you know it would do like I might need a little help supplementing some of these ingredients and so you know like if we have the tuition student numbers like that's something we should be able to figure out as far as what our revenue should look like compared to what we expected we finished with 36 tuition students last year we think we have 39 this year so it's not any wild and fantastic larger number of people this is the kind of thing like we finished with 36 last year and we wound up with 39 this year did we budget for 36 last year because there are different numbers and I don't know I this is a conversation that Tara and I had this afternoon knowing that you might ask that question when we were here today I think the one thing that is still out there kind of outstanding is that there are 10 kids that we haven't verified their residency as of yet and that needs to be done before we're absolutely sure that these are that there's 39 there's 29 right now and if we can book these guys some of them you know we thought we're sharing kids and they're probably Royalton kids so that all needs to be figured out before we can be absolutely sure and in order to do that I think Tara is what Tara's saying is Jane needs to be helping with that you don't you she books revenue when she does a reconciliation and she does a reconciliation after the close of the month it was billed out in December so that revenue is in booked in the system by generator report in the system it's not going to take into account the tuition revenue I build in December that's what I was saying the other thing that I'll say is that we and we talked about this this afternoon is that we have to make some cuts and I've informed the union basically that we may have to do some riffs this year in order to be able to they are on notice they've returned the responses to me saying that they did get the email that I sent them I'm gonna follow it with a hard copy don't know what those are those are gonna look like I know we had anticipated last year about 400 and so thousand dollars of different things we were we might do we ended up not doing them I think without a whole lot of changes the budgets up about seven hundred thousand dollars so we're gonna have to and you're not gonna get that from extra tuition students so right I know we have a projected state yield like how much that increased some so how much with that I haven't even done that side of your budget yet I'm still building your expenditure budget and until I get that I don't even start working into the tax rate in the yield in all of that I think it would be most productive if we just had a rapid fire set of meetings where we did different things in order to be able to in the next couple weeks and I think if we went through this you guys would feel a lot better about every piece of this and we have a little time to to deal with each piece of it and and bring it to you I've been I've been trying to get some ballpark numbers and when I came up we came up with a 700,000 that looks like that's what we've either got to get that in revenue or we've got to get that in in some kind of budget cuts and they weren't all people they were other things so it's not all people and that 700,000 is a very loose number that is literally just estimating yeah I want to be held accountable for that number when it's not valid the 700,000 is an estimate of costs with everything else being equal we've gotten more expenses to about that number if we do everything the same next year well that's I mean the only thing I've heard from anybody is that you guys want to be you know flat line number and not a big increase and so that's what I'm talking about when I say 700,000 that's what we've got to to work on if you don't want a big budget increase so right because we know that the health care costs increased for everybody in the state in addition to other factors that are beyond our control yeah for Tara before she asked around just the auditors you know we set a deadline figure out here is about October 28 or 31st or whatever was that an actual actual deadline or was that just kind of a guideline because that was really we're not doing what they wanted they basically what they could give us for that deadline right but like when we set the thing was it will be just saying could you please be done by this or was there some contractual no there's no contractual we have preliminary numbers the only problem is oh yeah I wasn't here for that but the problem is we don't have the state numbers yet and I've done everything I can to try that's not like they're still working through our account so it's not the state numbers that's the issue it's like the issue was the last entity that they audited and the SU impacts every other entity yeah no I understand they're not even done with the SU audit at this point there's still many things that they have and as far as issuing your final audits they're not done with the fixed assets so until that's done they won't even issue a final audits because we're still working through your fixed assets worksheets yeah which I've now recent out to all the building administrators with the questions from the auditing term yeah I think it's just really frustrating to kind of get these numbers without any kind of documentation kind of Bruce like that's why I don't like it I know I would like to see Bruce put more pressure on Ron to have them release whatever changes they have made so that we can look at our books to get information about where we've gone over because you know we have this general fund deficit but we don't know where it really is right now or what caused it other than you know HRA cause some of it and we have some other ideas for some of it but like it's very nebulous right now and we're trying to build a new budget but we haven't figured out where we went over in the old budget so we know if our current budget is over and therefore that we're you know like it's kind of an impossible situation right now and they Ron theoretically has all the information for our district of like most of the spending I realize the SU's not done yet but Ron theoretically has this information and he just needs to give it to us so that we can start doing you know whatever to try and figure out what's going on books like the information is there and it's been there since I don't know months what my concern they were still working yeah up until December 19th when I left my office and then they shut down for two weeks right but like what you're saying is that they're working on the SU side everything it's impacted anything that we change in the SU impacts anything within our member districts because the SU is literally a pass-through what did you give what did you give them so we know where the areas were there was there was a billbacks for special ed that was $63,000 right but I just gave the wrong numbers yeah there was food service that was more like a little over 30,000 right but these these are the things that's in addition to the 192 general fund deficit which our actual deficit for 2019 is much higher than that because we had some funds on hand going into 2019 plus we had $250,000 that was budgeted for the bathroom boiler which wasn't spent so you know the actual overspending in the individual categories is going to be something that we need to know and it's different than what you're talking so that's he wants the backup data to support it that's what I cannot give all I have is what I originally sent out to the boards by email that Ron gave us back in November I have nothing since then in writing and we can't get that until the auditor provides it I understand your frustration I think you really need to put some pressure on them because I put so much pressure on them including telling them they weren't gonna have our business next year you know I mean I have it's not like I've been just letting it roll here I feel the pressure from all six districts in wanting this information would it be possible like I'd be happy to get on the phone with them and talk about the questions that I have is that a possibility I'll call them tomorrow and find out if they're in a position to give you they have been working but they have a cell phone number I think we have a cell phone number and you know like they could be next week or something like that I just want if you have specific questions I would suggest write them up and then I'll send them to the four of the auditors that are assigned to your district and then they can okay pan through them but my hope is they're gonna give me the stuff from Monday night like I asked a week ago that would be nice with that deadline saying any chance we can hit this meeting yeah I'm with you I'm extremely extremely frustrated because it is impacting everything that I do on a day-to-day basis I really don't mean to be putting oh I sure I know it just seemed like the auditors were lined up and we were on a good trajectory back in the fall it sounded like we were getting number one right in time so that we wouldn't be like overwhelmed and behind the ball like last year right and and now things are just dragging along and where I feel like we're almost getting into the same place that we were last year we are like and when the auditor provided preliminary draft that oh this is what we have now but we're gonna have two more months to work to do that I just feel like having that preliminary information out and in the public was premature and it shouldn't have been done because it created a lot of reactions for information that wasn't even true I said these numbers we shouldn't be in two we can what did he say in that meeting verify until those numbers can be verified they're not real numbers it's the same way tonight I like I said these are numbers as of December 19 they're not reality it's not reality until we physically have the office in our hands so when we're listening to these numbers and this is a public session and everybody's listening to this and everybody's reacting to things that aren't even real aren't these things that we should be doing more in executive session until we have numbers that we can publicly let people react to recommendation yes that was what I had recommended all throughout and why I think we discuss I don't think we can discuss budget I think the parameters around public open meeting laws so we would have to be able to say that that puts us at a disadvantage in terms of communicating with the public and I think that we opted to err on the side of transparency and be really forthright about the fact that these are soft numbers until we have the final final reports having said that the reports that we were getting last year we now know weren't accurate so I would rather have the reports be accurate when we get them as far as not accurate I mean I really want you to be cautious when you say that what you spent you spent right it doesn't matter if it was coded under 320 or 280 you spent what you spent you receive what you receive but how it gets presented like how it's coded in the system doesn't change the bottom line A plus B equal C that doesn't change what changes is when you have prior year expenditures that are billed or received prior year revenue or prior your expenditures that are billed and received in the current fiscal year that impacted the prior year okay that stuff is never cleaned up until audit because that's when that happens so just because something may or your salary people weren't in the right class code they weren't in the right count code they were still paid what they were paid right so that number is still a number that is a valid number it's the way the reports and the way that they were coded is what I had found when I first started in March that has been an issue and the way that these reports generate and the way that the system was set up originally because it didn't take into account any of the beginning balances so that's the stuff that's changed since the audit which impacts what's in the software system which is what impacts what comes out in your reports but you spent what you spent I really just I mean I feel like every time that statement gets made that it's a reflection on the business office that we're doing things wrong no no that's that's not what I'm implying at all no it's it's just that within the audit and the coding and language and blending definitely the numbers are the numbers but you know when food service gets out in the press that they're over spent by a hundred thousand dollars and now we're finding well it actually it's more like 33 like that's right it's a lot and that hurts that hurts people that work in that that area of the school and and and that hurts that hurts me because I know that there anyway I don't like it when that kind of stuff happens it's not a reflection on you it's just a matter of you know rectifying all these different codes and maybe it's going to get cleaner as we go along we're all going to change this July 1st I can't change that but we got Rose joining us on Monday that's right and I have a list of tasks for her to start on and I think it's important that it be said that when the auditors got this charge which I got then I gave it to them they wrote put extra people on they were in our office every week they were we're working on all of this and I gave you the best scenario on the deadline when the auditor came to our meeting and gave it I didn't have any idea that that we were gonna there was going to be more tell tale going on after that I was led to believe that those preliminary numbers were going to be those that you could use I think that's what I was told is like we had them say that we got those numbers into public session and we didn't get any of the follow-up numbers and we still don't right yeah he was going to be like two weeks he would meet with all of his chair all the chairs within one week yeah and I remember I mean and I you can attest to the fact that I was emailing you when am I going to hear from Ron yeah I have not been silent yeah I am on your side so yes I have been pressing as much as I can press I mean I cannot physically go to Maine and generate these reports I mean I can't all I do is give them the dates that we have these meetings and requests can you please try and get this information to us by this time yeah I mean I had that's all I can do why don't set up a phone call where Lisa and I or whoever it's on the phone with Ron so we can try and talk through them and we'll write up or whatever requests like I think maybe if we had an physically present face-time or Skype or yeah yeah that would be great and maybe by Monday this will be a new point I'll have the information that's not how we're trending all right thank you you're welcome thank you and sorry to run sure thank you sorry all right I'm just as frustrated so technically in the agenda that brings us to public comment so should we move forward with that since there are any public comment okay right I'm seeing none we have minutes in our packets on November 19th and that our special meeting on December 5th there are any changes people would like to see second that motion all right is there any discussion right all in favor of approving the minutes say aye any opposed okay all right so the minutes are approved thank you any board comments Andrew comment might be why don't we have board comment after you do all the discussion and stuff so that okay in the future because a lot of times I don't know that I have comment until we've not something okay so we're wanted within the agenda you know just for the last comment yeah move it down between policy review and board comment and public comment all right the town clerks aren't here so we'll probably put them on our agenda for the January I talked to them today I have some information for you they want to know when you want to schedule your meeting they do not want it to be on Tuesday March 3rd which is town meeting day they would prefer that it be the night before the night after or the day after whatever but they've got it's going to be very difficult for them to have it on the day of town meeting and town meeting is scheduled March 3rd this year so I guess if you it was Pam Brown that I talked to and and she asked me to bring it forward tonight for you to decide as far as your question about whether or not we can hold it later Lisa you asked me that I believe that later meeting in May some of the districts have done that and Rochester and Stockbridge do that Hancock and Granville do that I think you have to ask your voters at this next meeting if you want to change it it has not to deceive them or have a hold a meeting where nobody comes and and the board decides that or whatever I think you need to put it on the ballot or on the agenda for that meeting if you wanted to have that discussion and maybe have some ideas of where you'd like to see it be if not there not on the regular day so that might be worth putting on the agenda for the annual meeting this year because our turnout was so dramatically increased then the meetings in this year I believe yeah so those that's what the clerks wanted to speak to you about when you wanted this year and also not to please don't do it on May 3rd right well that's an assumption but what's the bit I mean Monday night seems doing it before town meeting what I was thinking about Wednesday night wondering if that might be better but of course I know in South worlds and they've got the tradition of doing it on a Monday night it used to be on town meeting day right now Bethel it was on town meeting day yeah but we moved it to Monday night last year because the board of civil authority because we have Australian ballots for our board members and anything that's on a ballot they have to count those when the polls close at seven so essentially for the floor vote items the board of civil authority and town clerks are disenfranchised like they can't be there if we hold it on the same day so we made the switch to Monday evening I have less of a problem with it being on Monday evening than feeling like we're going into a budget cycle again without adequate preparation that concerns me I mean I think we can hopefully get where we need to be but it's worrisome that we're not getting what we need right now yeah I mean expecting us to be completely finished with the budget process by January 30th or whatever seems and to be thorough and deliberative and all of those things you expect to be hard yeah I guess we'll talk about I mean Monday seems good to me but this year wasn't it already I think it should be on the agenda that we look into like April I don't get the impression that Pam do that it was firm okay should we need to vote on this I think you need to formally set it yes okay so we can go forward I mean everything hinges on that if we back play in and I make a motion that we have the town meeting on I mean the school annual meeting now works when March 2nd March 2nd Monday March 2nd do we wanted so starting at should have a time starting at 6 o'clock yep 6 p.m. is what we've been doing in Bethel in Bethel here is there a second for that motion second right any further discussion okay all in favor of setting the meeting for Monday March 2nd at 6 p.m. please say aye any opposed okay so the meeting is set for March 2nd at 6 p.m. on the Bethel campus all right that brings us to reports to the board well it's that time again for you to decide the Winooski Valley choice program and this is something that every year I bring to the board and we make a decision on how many students in and how many students out last year you used the number of 10 10 out 10 in and I don't believe that we reached those numbers for either category but I guess I wonder I'll pass it to you Lisa this is the folder that and the information that we used from last time and there are some schools that make that have more than one high school in their district and they do shovel shuttle kids back and forth it's not really a part of the Winooski Valley thing there's a kind of side deals that are made but I guess I want to know what you want to do know how many students we have coming out and how I know we have some coming in also through that partnership correct seven went out and one came in okay any thoughts about we can't remember there's no cost or gain to us on this right correct there's no there's no tuition you get or any of that reason to go more than 10 if that hasn't been used right and the the you can only take as many as you let out correct and so there's a formula for says here potential number new transferring students to fewer than five percent of the resident students enrolled in the sending high school as of October 1st of the academic year in which the calculation is made or 10 students whichever is fewer so I believe no I don't believe that is impacted at all if we have students from our district choose to go to another high school we count them I believe so I believe so maybe you for sure that would be good well I mean I terror was still here I could tell you I think you've been using the number of 10 for years so stick with all right do you need a motion I think we probably do need a motion to formalize that we keep the new ski valley choice award as 10 out in 10 in second second okay all right all in favor of keeping our Windows key valley partnership agreement number set at 10 out in 10 in say aye any opposed all right so our number set at 10 thank you the only other thing I have for you is that this is way old because we cancelled our meeting in December but the career change assistant program is supposed to be voted on from the contract every year that is a program within the supervisory union only if the towns and the board affirmatively votes to adopt the program in any year of this agreement the career change assistant program will be available through the white river valley supervisory union only if the supervisory union boards affirmatively votes to adopt the program so basically what this is is is assistance to people who may be leaving I don't think we have extra money in the budget well I formally need to ask you it does impact your next budget so have we had anyone make that request I'm not sorry this year then I know if we have in previous year they wanted to know if we offer okay all right so I don't think I think this is something we do when we have extra money and we want to salary cost down like okay spend extra money in this year to save money in future years and you don't have money to spend in this year to do this okay other thoughts you want to vote to do it or not to do it all right so you were going to make a motion I need a motion to not do any of what it's called the career change assistance program that's it okay is there a second for that I'll second it any discussion right all in favor of not extending that assistance this year say aye any opposed okay it makes me sad it's the first year since I've been on the board that we haven't offered it so um I believe we have a student matter that I needed to speak with you in non-public session about and you have to go to the bud meeting yeah but not until six so I got time okay so we have the principal's report first do we have time to do that next or would you prefer that we well there's also a grievance issue I believe that needs to be done tonight or okay I believe so is that an executive session I believe it should be yes okay so our reports very short I don't know if you've had a chance to read it yes it could just be if you have questions okay some of it's gone by in time as well I know that you've got a resignation within the food system and is there more information or a letter for us to review did you get a formal order we sent that over it was in the report no it wasn't in the report to my knowledge it was just a line but there was a there was a letter from willy walker okay but we sent to central office the central office okay so willy walker resigned as of June 30th yep and that's confirmed okay as of December well June 30th June 30th that's what we need to accept a lab with a regret um we need to act on it I guess I think it could be something that's kind of like a session or something like I kind of like more information but yeah me too okay so any other questions about the principal's report thank you for updating that for us regularly yeah seems to work well yes it seems to work well until running yeah it's nice to go back in time and look at all you can see the tuition stuff is linked in there about two meetings ago right another reason yes thanks I was asking for for that was conversion from just do you remember uh spending freeze do we have like what it looks like plan on like how long if we need more information okay we have no information so I still unfreeze and so we're waiting for the information and then we're purchasing things that we need to work in school okay so we're putting a little more attention here like we had a request for clay for the ceramics class it's not something we stockpile for the whole year right something they need to have when we look through the line item and then the vendor said that's going to cost you 99 dollars a package to ship we said no we did the extra work to find you know shop online to find it from a different source with free shipping you know what in the future for clay um there's a distributor in Randolph where you can buy 50 pound boxes right from a local source source so I can hook you up with that person that's not a long drive and probably cheaper than in the mail do you know any good parties just kidding yeah but it's really not good PC stuff no but I can hook you up with some clay for the good price in the future it's an example though also like the shop we need some longer to build something these are consumables yeah okay but we're being very frugal but those right and the classes are still happening yeah okay of course but you know those things like watching the shipping costs and stuff they really add up yeah we go with amazon because they have free shipping yeah and it's a good thing because I can afford to cut that much stuff all right any other questions for the principal's report okay so at this time we should probably move into executive session to address the grievance oh we have policy first I'm sorry I'm about it my agenda all right so the policy review we should have gotten them they were emailed cleaned up from christie did people have questions they didn't bring hard copies okay that's all right we got it last time and no did she yep yep they were emailed on monday I appreciate that they have been cleaned up who do you want in these executive sessions for your policy yeah we had to bounce back to policies I'm sorry no policies are exciting they're necessary yes I read more on monday when they came he milked me can you recite it for me but I didn't see any problems yeah I don't see any problems either I didn't see any problems when I gone through it can't fit all right so do we want to accept them or how what what is the board do we accept them now or at the full board these are second reading you need to adopt them and we we need to put them in the paper and fully warn everything and until you guys got to the point where you're happy with them we weren't going to do that and right and warn them two and three different times and put them in the paper two and three different times so if you're happy with them then then we would bring them back to you after the public sees that they're about to be adopted we can't fool the public we want to be able to show up if they don't like what they see it'll be they'll be put in the paper so if you guys are happy with them we can move forward and and now formally adopt them at the next meeting they've gone been gone through by policy committee members from each of the committees from each of the boards and I'm also bringing four more five more are coming next and then we have another meeting i believe in two weeks 23rd three weeks to look at some more so okay we don't have to vote on the second reading we just no if you're happy we're happy with them to be forward yeah so we make a motion that we accept them no just just uh we'll bring them forward and you'll formally adopt them after they've been printed in the paper and they'll get printed in the herald and the valley news yes i think so yep i know the herald but probably the valley news as well all right thank you thank you i better look more carefully closer okay now we can move in to executive session um and so for the grievance who would we want to keep and union members should stay while the union members yeah there's one more public comment so public comment yes hi i'm kary kohl i'm here with rebecca fours on behalf of the white room valley education association special campus and um we just have a comment from the principal's report kind of as a reflection that when room changes and program changes need to happen it's important to include all of the adults that it applies to and affects and it's not as simple as making it a room change or saying you're going to move here after a few weeks of time but it's important to have discussions with all of the people at the table at the same time and i know that's not something that we usually address at school board meetings um and we've had discussions with Bruce and Owen and Andrew and everybody but just pointing out that when it affects programs of tiny children or middle schoolers or high schoolers or anybody that is important that all of the people are at the table at the same time when the discussion starts so when you're reading about things in the principal's report happy questions thank you i wonder if that's something that should lead to a policy or procedure or um i've just been thinking about that whether there should be a specific policy or procedure protocol to point to um to make i don't know to streamline communication or to make things um more systemic i'm not being very articulate but i make sense i just think that that the last time that there was a significant room change like four years ago when it was just Bethel Elementary that was really hard also and so having it come up again partway through the year and being really hard a second time makes me feel like maybe um there should be some level of policy or procedure or expectation from everybody involved and we have a policy committee convened i think in this particular case a lot of the people involved in the action don't agree with why we were doing it and uh and i'll take the responsibility for that i did meet with everybody whenever i could or whenever it was asked for and i don't think we came away from the meeting feeling like everybody was completely in agreement of of doing it but i think for the for the good of the the organization we made the decision we we made and and i'll be happy to to speak to any of that if anybody wants to i'm not going to hide or or anything about it i really um i really uh feel like this is the was the best thing to do and i know others don't agree with that that um so yeah andrew um thank you i mean we got the letter from rebecca and um i guess had you heard those concerns before should we just go into executive session i don't think we're going this conversation is going in a direction okay well i don't i don't whatever i meant with them face to face and they gave me the same arguments that everything was said to me i feel like the discussion should have happened before the decision was made and then if if they if you hear their concerns and come to a different conclusion that's one thing but if they feel like they haven't had any input or been able to say kind of what the issues would be before the decision is made then you're making the decision before you know the full scope of like what the decision is going to impact so like if that's kind of the issue at hand then i think something throughout all of this in the last two months i mean we started having those conversations in october in in the conversations that we've had in the last two months there were opportunities if there were if there was information brought to light by to the principles or to me that we could have discussed that and maybe changed our decision it wasn't a case of this is what it is and that's what you know i went to them i sat down with them i explained maybe some things that they didn't know about the situation and um they explained to me what they didn't think i knew about the situation um yeah i mean i just wanted to make sure that and we did that uh face to face uh i just believed that that was and it was emotional in in some cases i mean it really was uh for them because they felt deeply that we were making a a bad decision here um uh i guess that's all i need to say rebecca i'm rebecca fours of representative from the bevel campus um i think i appreciate Lisa what you said in regards to the policy because what it really felt to us is that we had like no voice in it and i appreciated super tender lab sitting down with us in that first meeting and um i understand i think we do understand the sides but it was that we as a larger group feel like there needs to be some sort of protocol in place when um staff members feel as though they're not being heard and we just wanted to be heard we understand their decisions are made that are not always favorable but the fact that they didn't seem to have a voice at the table is our biggest concern is it more of being heard but also having some leverage or just well that would be nice but yeah i mean i i i think you know ultimately in this particular circumstances specifics i think it wasn't a room change we feel that it was actually a program change and that um those changes should be made in a well thought out time we made or in a way that that wasn't going to necessarily compact in the middle of the school year so you know it wasn't necessarily a contractual issue we did certainly go there at first to see but it was really just an um situation that two different parties felt in different ways and we felt one party had a voice and one party didn't thank you specifically yes we think that this not in the best interest of a population two populations really but yeah thank you i think also just the aspect i'm sorry on the periphery of this but have experienced this same sort of occurrence i guess um just the acknowledgement that we as teachers who work with these students every day have an expertise and a level of understanding of the needs of that particular age and those students and sometimes um sometimes that can add a valuable insight into decisions that are being made and as rebecca i think very aptly said um not to have that representation and not to have that advocacy for our students is very frustrating thank you i also agree with the idea of having some sort of procedure i just i feel as if because they're very young they're being discounted somehow as not important to receive what they deserve i feel that it's start education should start at a base level and we're providing education for these kids we're studying them up for entering further into school and if we're allowed to do it correctly with the proper attention we're creating better students for later in in school and and and they're three and four year olds and five and they turn five year olds and but they're still important i just i feel like all all the kids should matter no matter what their age is just because they're young you know they're expendable somehow to to move around and and they don't matter but they do but we were teaching them how to read i mean that's that's supposed to be a priority this year their kids who want to read that's okay all right and i think that i mean i can say and other board members can chime in preschool is a priority it might not feel like it with this transition but it is something that we care very deeply about and know the impact and i think you know we've been trying to get to the point where we have two you know the three three-year-old and four-year-old programs in both buildings and so the administration is aware that going forward we want to see you know the full day for you continued yeah so you know even though this happened now i'm thinking next year what make sure we have a long-term plan for strong preschool programs going forward i i don't think it's just preschool either i mean you i think you just throw your resources when they're very young you throw resources at them as soon as there's a recognizable need you don't let it go because they're young um as soon as you recognize that they need help you give it to them as opposed to just letting it go until it becomes a crisis point i i think i don't know from my standpoint as a parent having my kids in the school and working in the school i just i worry about how education is done i have to say it's hard for me to to hold my tongue because we know that there are a list of kids who are about to be sent in to added district placements and each one of those that are not coded special ed kids are going to cost you 50 000 bucks at least a piece which could impact everything else everything every every bit of money that you have to show to use on these preschool kids and the kindergarten kids and the first graders and it's it's a huge issue and a huge need that we did this to be able to not send these kids out and um they want to be at home too they want to be educated at home too they don't want to be uh moved to another another place and just out of out of sight out of mind um Bill Keteris program's got a 41 percent return rate for kids that have been out to coming back into regular program and that's got to be the highest in the nation if it's not it's pretty close to it we needed the capacity to be able to make it so that these kids didn't get sent away and uh i'm not saying that one size fits all and they're all going to be in that situation but it's a balancing act and if i felt that the preschool kids were going to be in some kind of harm because we did what we did they each classroom had nine kids in it um we had to look at that and make some tough decisions and i think uh according to a report that i got from the principals this morning it's going to be fine we think it's going to be fine i heard at that meaning that they're going to be traumatized and they're in a tender age and they're not going to be able to read and i don't believe that's the case i think i think these kids if you if you frame it as a as a good thing as an adventure as a transition it can be okay and you know i i've spent a lot of time thinking about weighing both of these things and what's the most important thing it's not an easy choice neither of them are but i i don't want to get to be framed that we're taking it out on the the preschool kids and and not you know and they're going to be the victims here they're not i don't believe they are and i feel very strongly about that and the staffing level remains the same for preschool they're four kids four four adults they're not in there all day not at not all together all day some of the kids go home and the kids are not in there eleven one kids one three-year-olds go home after we're done moving things two of the adults help with intervention work in the afternoon okay so we'll be at capacity for the preschool for the room we cannot take anymore 18 is the capacity there's maximum capacity out of the room yeah we're not turning anybody and we're turning people away do you are turning away preschoolers i have a question about what happens when uh kids move into district who are in the district we have to accept them right not for preschool four-year-olds you don't have to anywhere is there capacity in there we're out to preschool we're very close to capacity and what was that maximum capacity before would two rooms we could have had up to 40 i mean i don't think i'd ever do that but in the uh four teachers well i mean i mean ratio wise yeah i mean so the place the system five but yeah okay the ratio is could be from a ratio of students but then depends on the age space yes yep and it's a toilet issue but you could take more because the three-year-olds only come for half day so you still have room for more three-year-olds in the afternoon sure potentially we could take more three-year-olds but i think at this point taking a three-year-old in this far of the year is not a good idea right we've learned not the hard one they're very i think academically you want to be able to prepare the four year olds so to give them their own space and time to dedicate for kindergarten readiness and when when you're introducing when you're combining three-year-olds and four-year-olds you tend to work more on social development just because that's where they are they're not as ready to accept academic skills i mean some of them are some of them are but if you have just four-year-olds you can concentrate on that um is it am i correct in understanding that in order for students to be entered into the restorative classroom that it there needs to be a agreement from the parents so the way the process works is a referral is made their a parent has to agree that they will support a kid being in the restorative classroom otherwise it's not going to work the same as the next level out the restorative classroom is the last level of being in the gen ed environment it's same as if you decide that a kid needs to go to an out-of-district place when the parent needs to agree right that's that but um but it's there's a process so that most of the kids that all of the kids that are in the program the parents have to agree and they they see improvement and those those students who were designing the new restorative classroom at the middle school our families are signed up and ready to have them enter in the program as soon as the space is available we have we because of the limited space that were in there were we couldn't accept any more kids because there just wasn't enough room because the kids are big and it was a small space and there are kids now that are there are kids that a new one started today in the small space and there's several more in line but again it's a process and the idea with the middle school is that it can be more an in and out kind of program rather than with the the k to two kids it's very small and very contained it's five to seven kids but it's a very contained environment the three to third grade to fifth grade is a little bit same idea but by the time they get to middle school if they haven't already transitioned back to their agenda environment the idea is to get them back out into the mainstream where they can be successful and then the capacity in the current room at the middle school is what how many students can make four four and they're at four yeah and my understanding is there were seven others in line to go into the I wouldn't put a specific number but there's several others yeah and their parents have agreed to the program and they're just it you can't you can't start a process if you don't have a space so we have with this move happening we have started talking to more parents but yes there's other kids that are in the process but thank you and if they didn't if there wasn't room for this restorative program to increase and allow space for these students the possibility that they would have had to be been sent off and there is to a special education openings in any of the alternative programs that are out there EVA is full wilder is full choice academy is full there is no other option and we have to educate all kids right Raven is full as well Ravens what would you have done? What would you do if you do? What would you figure it out? Pays together. You know we have to provide an educational program tutoring is not an educational program with some students we have done some tutoring but you do that for a limited amount of time you put applications in everywhere and you try to maintain the kid in the genetic part and it's just not a lot of options. The other the other point of all this tutoring is that we've been told by the Secretary of Education to build our own programs because of Act 173 that's under control and it's very important that we're going to be given some of money and we have to use that money in order to accommodate our students in the future so if we don't have these programs they're just not going to be out there or they're going to be very expensive more money than we have in order to be able to place the kids out there so that's part of why the development of the restorative program has progressed because we we need to have local programming for these kids that because the program out of district is not going to be available in the future because we're going to have a block grant we're going to have to deal with and we only like what's the amount that we're in deficit with special education right now that's for the whole S U okay so we're 40 40 percent of that and a lot of that is because kids had moved to a higher level of care and moved from mainstream out to different programs I mean one one kid alone moving from mainstream to say Choice Academy of tuition itself is 70 000 and then transportation on top of that we have to cover that special ed yeah yeah Andrew and then yeah just like I support the restorative classroom I do want to see it expanded and support it at the same time we definitely need to be able to accommodate more than 18 preschoolers in Bethel so we need a plan for next year or like how we're going to or we need to find a different place for the restorative classroom to expand it to because we need a strong preschool program that has been a clear priority from the board so yes um so the restorative classroom is in my understanding is a solution for the entire S U yes and so um to me that means that um any uh building school within the S U could be utilized for this program well it it it has to have the grade levels that the students are in so for middle school um Chelsea, Tumbridge, or Bethel so Chelsea closed their high school so I I'm working under the assumption that there are empty spaces there that could be utilized for such a program where middle school kids could transfer into that program I I just seems like we're kind of stuck in this model where we have to use only Royalton Bethel campuses for a solution but it seems as though there might be other options within the S U that could be utilized for this and and we have looked at other options I have to say that Bethel and Royalton are central so you know it's tough to send a kid from Rochester all the way to Chelsea um or you know the outline districts it's tough but we did look into Chelsea um Chelsea to provide transportation one way or the other right yeah yeah part of that problem in Chelsea right now is that they are trying to figure out whether they're going to house their middle school from both campuses there and they didn't want to commit until they knew what the answer of that would would be whether or not they were going to have a middle school for both Tunbridge and Chelsea on the Chelsea campus and therefore be taking up those rooms so we did approach them because we wanted we wanted the option of the possibility of the space that they had but they were unwilling to commit until they figured out what they were going to do with middle school and the majority of students in the middle school program right now are ours correct well I mean you have the most number of kids in the middle school Chelsea has 30 Tunbridge has 30 Newton has what 16 or 17 something like that thank you can I just ask one more question I'm sorry I appreciate the time taken um how many students can the new space in Bethel fit it could it could fit up to I would say 10 7 to 10 depends on what's going on the the kids you know but they can if the model can expand so the idea is that there's one special educator and one person that is um getting their teacher certification because the idea would be to have a math science person and a ELA social studies person and then kids could it would give us more flexibility so and that's up and running once the once the room will be once the room not the the that's for next year to have the two teachers be able to provide two different kinds of classes but right now they provide as much of the academics that's needed in the one but they still have to highly qualify people so is it this seems like it could be a short-term fix if you're trying to grow the program and it and you don't really know the numbers of what it'll accommodate now um if we're trying to grow the program to beyond 10 is what you said um go ahead uh it seems it seems short term as opposed to thinking strategically and where's it going to go after if you get beyond 10 or beyond the classroom so you have to understand that 10 it's a fluid program so there's been 41 kids 27 kids um that were in the elementary ones now all 27 were not in the same space the whole time because most of the kids stay a school year and then get reintegrated back in and then other kids come in so you don't with our our population we shouldn't have more than 10 that need this level of service but i also understood that that from outside people people might be coming from outside as well and well i mean not with money involved with that i mean if you're trying to grow it to a level where it's contributing to the it sounds like we're going to outgrow it if we start digging to where we haven't decided to take the wishes you know before you said you were going to bring a man well i mean it depends on how big capacity we have and we need to take care of our own kids first so until we're we have a system in place you know that we know that we're capturing all of our own kids because we don't want to take especially the middle school level there's a huge need at the middle school level we don't want to open it up that elementary might be different but we don't want to open it up to anywhere we do get calls we do get asked until we're sure we're taking care of our own kids first i do think we need to move on to the next item on the agenda just in the interest of time Bruce has another meeting after this so that would bring us to the executive session related to the kids thank you all for coming in tonight thank you for the grievance can you clarify which grievance the issue of the business office we have two links to the reporting or is this the one that that you were talking about okay so the reporting i did not know that that was on this agenda would you feel better if we did it the next meeting i feel better i didn't want to do the whole problem right