 Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming today. We are going to call the meeting to order at 532. And we're going to go into executive session for a student matter and a personnel update and I'm wondering if I could have a motion. So moved to move into executive session for personnel matter and a student matter. Okay, I'll second it. Thank you. I still need just a little bit of time to get everybody into the things but I'm close. Yeah, so we're going to do this. We're going to start with the student matter and for the student matter we're going to invite Steven, Amy. Christa, do I see Christa? Christa, I don't see Christa but if Christa comes after, please let her in, Mark. And then with us we have Sharon and Jeff. Correct. And is Justin here too? Oh yeah, I'm here. And Justin that is here and is April with us? No. And then Jen, of course, is going to come in with the board. And someone clarify who the phone number ending in 495 is? Jeff Bergeron. Thank you. All right, I think that's everyone. If I miss someone, let me know of course. Good evening everybody. I apologize that it took us a little longer. But here we are we're going to finish a little bit of business and then I'll welcome everybody to the community forum. Thank you. Can I have a motion that we accept the recording in progress? Superintendent's recommendation regarding student matter. Thank you, Scott. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to move to the next section. One minute. Put all my posts. Okay, but here we go. So welcome to our community forum on budget. Thank you to the public for being here. I wanted to start first today by acknowledging how hard. This week has been for our staff or administrators and everybody and how thankful we are for all they're doing to, you know, still staying up into our student needs and keeping the slid is open as they can, and that we support what they're doing and they can't be easy. And we're trying to advocate as much as we can for you guys across the state. And second, January is school boards appreciation month. And I just want to say that it's an honor to serve with all of you. I know that some of you might be stepping out and we're going to have a meeting about that later in the month, but I just want to say also to the board members like today just showing up at the, you know, at the meeting for something that we needed to do and it is appreciated and it takes a lot of time. So thank you for all you do in January is your month. So thank you. Now we can get started. Tonight we're here to look at draft number three of our budget. It is a community forum so we're hoping to hear from the public. We're going to learn about the current state of our work regarding teaching and learning. And we're going to continue to build the trust with our communities and intentionally intentionally engage with you guys so that you know that your voice matters. We're going to move to the very end so I also want to be very transparent with you that we're hoping that we could potentially also approve this budget tonight, if possible so I want to start with that. We're not trying to track anybody but we will still be taking your, your input but it's just how quickly things move. In the next meeting I just want to be swearing a student and we were in a second section right now I just want to take a minute to just like breathe in and be pressing and talking to myself to just, you know, we're moving into a different part. This is exciting to share the budget for the next, the next year. Please respect everybody's questions. There's no wrong questions, especially when it comes to budget, anything that you want to ask please feel free to ask. Recognize that we need each other to make this possible. And please model good citizenship and we, I don't see that we have a lot a lot of people tonight so we are going to stay as a one group. We're going to present the questions will be asked as a as a group all together. And if needed we will time those questions on a two minute, because I don't see a lot of other people here so with that, I'm going to pass this on to or anything in terms of Britain and jet. Thanks floor, thank you everybody for being here we've been working on the budget for a long time. We are thrilled to present draft three to you and the presentation that we've prepared is a group presentation from the entire leadership team, you're going to hear from a lot of us. Those who aren't actively speaking tonight did a lot of works work behind the scenes as well so mark if you can pull it up please. Mark will share his screen and we'll get started. I'm going to try to see if I have that permission right now if. There we go, mark is bringing it up. Great. So first slide mark yep there's the home slide. And again, floor thank you for that setting the context for tonight. We're hopeful that this is a budget that is based on our student needs and reflects our communities values and with that, please advance and Caroline will take over. When done well budgeting is actually a year round process, which helps us actualize our mission and our values. The budget should be grounded in our mission statement, our students needs, and our communities values. Students in the budget should tell a story about what we believe is important. Next slide please. This draft reflects our commitment to meeting our students and our staff's social and emotional needs, as well as our commitment to high quality instruction and intervention. As we've presented throughout the fall we continue to experience a difference in performance between various groups of students, such as students who qualify for free and reduced lunch students who qualify for IEP's and students who don't. We're addressing these concerns in this budget. Priorities across all three groups for 2223 include full time counselors and nurses access to art, music and health, a focus on equity, a common teacher understanding of tier or layer one math and literacy and student engagement and attendance. Next slide please. So where we're at right now is we took the feedback from last month when we presented draft to a and incorporated it into draft three. So this is a summary of the additions in draft three, including what had been included in drafts to and to a. The additions equal, excuse me a 4.1 FTE increase over last year's budget and I will just pause for a moment to give people a moment to just look at this slide because it's got a fair amount of information on it. So speaking for the leadership team is that we feel like this has been a very inclusive process working with both the community, our faculty is the board, and we can really honestly stand behind this budget and say that we have contributed in the decision making and rationales behind these decisions. Next slide please. So some of the position changes that we've had in our budget includes that you 32 social studies teacher position. This actually allows us to convert some temporary employee FTEs to permanent so that we can offer more options for students to be able to meet their differences in global citizenship and so we we recognize that this point six increase will will give us kind of a little larger capacity for the school to meet some of our student needs. And also included in this is a point to FTE increase in music at East Montpellier in order to continue providing our students with rich general music band chorus and instrumental lessons given the increase in two classrooms. This increase is required and will also allow our music teacher to return to teaching pre K music something that was taken out of her schedule recently. Next slide please. So we're at a program between Berlin and call us around art and music. We've spent some time establishing considerations around a number of different factors, including number of students, a number of buildings, number of classes per week, half days, buildings, and so on. Our proposal increases art from a point three FTE to a point four at call us and from a point five FTE to a point six at Berlin for music. Similarly, we regarding music and art we've began look at number of students number of buildings classes per week, and what it takes to have a robust program for art music. The call us music teacher will increase from point three FTE to point four, which will create a total position of 1.0 FTE to allow full days in one building rather than requiring travel in the middle of the day. So, this 1.0 position will be shared between Berlin and and call us. Next slide please. Myself and Kara our district special ed director its analysis of special education needs, specifically for Berlin. This district wide assessment for the need for special educators across the district. Some work we still need to do in the future to ascertain how to determine the needs of students and the capacity of educators. I appreciate that this request for a 1.0 increase in special educator would primarily utilize to meet the needs of Berlin students, about a point eight FTE, but have some flexibility to meet the needs across the entire district. So the next piece is the EMS classroom teacher increase of 2.0 FTE is and I apologize this is going to be a little bit lengthy but based on the questions that we got from the board last time I want to explain it. In two parts, the first part being the explanation for the reason behind two classroom teachers and then the second part, explaining why one of those is the recommendation is to come from fund balance. So with the addition of two classroom teachers at EMS that will allow for all of our classrooms to be within the recommended class sizes. Right now with 10 classrooms, six of our 10 classrooms are either at or above the maximum recommended class sizes this year. If we were to increase that to 11 classrooms. I would make four out of our 11 classrooms beyond the recommended class sizes so by adding two classroom teachers, we will be in alignment with our board approved recommendations for all of our classrooms for the first time in actually quite a few years. And then the second part of that is why fund balance and why not asking for this to come out of the general budget. So last June EMS lost our instructional coach to retirement and the staff spent last winter preparing for this and identifying the best way to meet the needs of our students with this FTE. Given where we were out with COVID last winter our decision was to replace our instructional coach with a third instructional interventionist. So the instructional coach were redistributed to teachers across our building and this model has worked well for us this year. Unfortunately, as you all know we're not at the end of COVID and our student needs are still really great. So our hope is that we can continue having a third instructional interventionist next year and that that can be faded during the course of the school year to allow for a continuation of 12 classroom teachers in 23-24 and return back to two instructional interventionists. We never imagined we would need more than two interventionists. However, with COVID it just it feels necessary to continue this for one more year. This budget also includes a recommendation for the equity scholar in a residence position to be included. Since last month when we met I've had the opportunity to speak with Lucinda Garthway. Lucinda is the director of the Institute for Liberatory Innovation that supports and sort of has designed the equity scholar in residence position. So we know that we have plenty of work to do in this area and we do expect that the position will continue beyond next year and that being said we're still evolving the model. We're enjoying a really lovely partnership with ILI so that they're learning just as much from us about how the position works in school and doesn't work in school and all of the nuances that we're still refining the model and so we feel comfortable making the recommendation that it continue and that it be funded with fund balance next year to just give us some more time to figure out exactly what it might look like and sound like in the years to come. Next slide please. We developed slides eight and nine to illustrate more clearly the impact of new program and service requests on the budget, local ed spending and the tax rate, as well as proposed use of fund balance and grant funds. The leadership team is requesting $263,000 funding from the general fund for new programs and services, which has no offsetting revenue. The leadership team is also requesting an additional $180,000, which we are recommending the use of fund balance to offset. Regarding the recommendation to use fund balance for these two expenses, we just provided some rationale. We know that historically the board has been inclined to use fund balance for expenses that are clearly one year only. We also want to balance the impact on our communities and you will see shortly in this presentation that the tax rates in our five towns will be different due to the CLA. Next slide please. The team is proposing to utilize $59,000 of ARP ESSER funds to support additional time for a para educator at Doty and another 0.5 literacy interventionist at Calis. It is important to remember that ESSER funds are a temporary source of funds. The recommendation of Title IV funding would be used to offset the cost of a new educator for the high school rise program at U32. This program is similar to the current Spark program in the middle school. Rise means restorative in school experience and is envisioned as an intervention service to support kids socially, emotionally, and academically so that they can more fully and more successfully access their classes. Next slide please. This week, CARO will present more information to the board regarding the impact of Act 173 legislation on the delivery of special education services. This table illustrates the changes from the current funding model to the new funding model effective 7-1-22. The mainstream block grant and reimbursement model for students under $60,000 have been replaced by one census block grant with funding based upon the district ADM numbers averaged over the prior two years. This results in a decrease in funding of $498,000 or 13.6%. The reimbursement model for students over $60,000 remains, however, the formula has been altered to provide additional funding to the district. The total increase in extraordinary cost funding is $590,000 or 94.2%. We should note that some of this increase is a result of an increase in the number of students and the overall cost of services provided for individual students. There is no change over last year in the method of funding state-placed students or pre-kindergarten students receiving special ed services. We do anticipate a reduction in state-placed student expenses, which results in a decrease in revenue of $205,000 or 55.1%. So the total reduction in special education revenues is $133,587 or 2.8%. Next slide, please. The expenditures are the amount the district plans to spend. The revenues are the amount the district anticipates receiving to partially offset expenditures. And the net education spending is the amount that needs to be raised by state and local education property taxes, augmented by other ed fund revenues. In page 41 in the finance packet, there is a detailed breakdown of the changes in the budget by category. A cybersecurity hardening increase of about $114,000, deferred maintenance coverage around $94,000, an increase in transportation of about $25,000, updates to current staff salary and benefits, and the net education spending so expenditures not offset by proposed revenues would need to be reduced by $194,957 to get this budget to a 3% increase in net ed spending. Next slide, please. Equalized pupils is a two-year average of the district's average daily enrollment or ADM. Adjusted by several factors for pre-K and secondary students, students in poverty and limited English proficiency. Equalized pupils have decreased from 1431.5 to 1423.57. This combined with the increase in net education spending results in an increase of $831 in local spending for equalized people. The local spending per equalized pupil is what determines the equalized tax rate. The article for the budget warning must include the total expenditure request, the local spending per equalized pupil and the percentage increase in spending per equalized pupil. Next slide, please. CLA is a comparison of each town's total property value on the grand list versus the fair market value of properties. The higher the fair market value of properties, the further under 100% the CLA will be. As the CLA decreases, the tax rate increases. This is how the state provides taxpayers with an equalized grand list across the state, and it is out of our control. A CLA drop of 0.6% equals approximately one cent on the tax rate. This table compares the CLA for each town in the district year over year. The district sought decreases ranging between 4.21% and 13.86% with the most significant drops in Worcester and Berlin. Next slide, please. Equalized pupils have decreased from 1431.5 to 1423.57. This number may change and likely will change as the AOE has some pieces of the puzzle that haven't been incorporated and specifically for our district students that are doing early college have not been factored in. And so we've factored a number in for those students of 10 into the 1423.57. Nine students equals one cent on the tax rate. So if that number alters by nine students, the tax rate goes up or down by one cent. The property yield is set annually by the legislature and is used to determine the equalized tax rate. $83 equals one cent on the tax rate. A CLA drop of 0.6% in any one town equals one cent on the tax rate. So on a house valued at $100,000 on this version, which is scenario a from the tax commissioner's letter, which is a, I would say the more favorable scenario where the ed fund uses $90 million to offset tax rate and to reduce the tax rate. So a home in Berlin would see a reduction of $36. A home in Calis $158 East Montpelier $197 Middlesex $162 and Worcester $110 on a house valued at $100,000. And in order to get a $200,000 house you would multiply that by two and a $300,000 house multiply that by three. This slide shows scenario B from the tax commissioner's letter where none of the $90 million potential ed fund balance is used to reduce the tax rate. That amount will be determined by the legislature as they proceed this term and they will decide how much and, and at the end of the day, set that property yield number which tells us what our taxes will be based on. In this scenario Berlin sees an increase in taxes of $72 on a house valued at $100,000. Calis sees a decrease of $41 East Montpelier decreases $83 Middlesex decreases $48 and Worcester increases by $3 on a house valued at $100,000. Next slide please. So we have been working on this budget getting feedback from the board and the community and staff throughout the fall. We have been so grateful for the parameters that the school board set and we believe that draft three meets these parameters so specifically to recap. We do believe that we are addressing the social and emotional pillar for students and staff, especially through some of the maintenance of the work through the ARC ESSER funds as we're continuing to experience the the throws of the pandemic. We believe that we're addressing the multi layered systems of support, including continuing professional learning for our school community. We are in proposing an increase in intervention at Calis for literacy and an increase the that rise position that we described earlier for you tonight at you 32. The board had asked us to stay under the penalty threshold based on prior years there. It doesn't exist but it's a really good marker for us. And so draft three is $19,498 which is approaching that penalty threshold but under it. Next slide please. We have definitely budgeted some money for hardening for cybersecurity as requested by the board. We have focused on really continuing to boost and grow the arts and music so we've seen those increases in FTEs for elementary music and for elementary art. We asked us to have a contingency plan for expenditure reductions, should the tax rate not be favorable and that is something that should you ask us to do that or need us to do that we we have been thinking about that and working on that. Next slide please. So, here, here's a synopsis of the next steps. We're right here on the 12th community budget forum. You can, the 19th is when the final budget is should be worn. So it is possible that the board will both discuss and approve the budget tonight and we could decide that we want to provide more feedback to the leadership team and see another draft for approval next week. Generating 19th as you see there is the final date in approval order to get everything worn and to the printers and the town clerks. So we also look ahead to the future correspondence and interactions with the community, as you know, and to bring the voters all the information they need to make an informed decision. What you see on the page right now is really synopsis of the steps like I said before, so we're going to open it up now to questions by the public on the proposed draft three budget. So I think we can stop sharing the screen. Jen, sorry, I guess I missed that last. No worries for that was just a game and a little bit of a summary in terms of some next steps and just a really a reiteration of what you said in the previous slide. So I think we are definitely ready to open it up. Thank you. So let's see if I see any hands up. If the genie is here because here I'm trying to see members of the public, but I don't see any hands up. Scott, do you have your hand up. Thank you. Dorothy Naylor, I think some of you may have seen wrote an email and with your permission I could act as I have on many occasions before as her ventriloquists dummy, and sort of relay her, her statement as a member of the public. Let's do one thing. It is Scott just for purposes since we have. I didn't notice that Holly had her hand up to. Let's let Holly, who actually lives here go first, and then we'll move to that is that okay. All right, Holly. Welcome. Hi, thank you. I did have my hand after Scott. I don't really have a question. I just wanted to thank the leadership team and everybody for creating such a succinct and thorough explanation for us to see what the changes are in the budget. And to give all those justifications just really help us understand. I know that's a monumental task and just as a community member I really, really appreciate all the time that I know you all put into it so thank you very much. Holly. Let's appreciate it. Scott. Thanks for and thank you Holly for that. This is from Dorothy Naylor, whom I think all of us on the board know as as a board member emerita. And I'll just read what she has to say. Dear Washington central boarding community, although Ben and I have moved to Bennington, our hearts are still in central Vermont, and we are still taxpayers. When I was on the board last spring, I asked the board to recognize and support the coalition for Vermont student equity CV TSE and its quest to urge the legislature to adopt the pupil waiting factors report from December 2019. This report tells us that school districts with students from rural areas students who are poor and students needing English as a second language need more money per student to provide extra support. So these students will thrive waiting students with scientifically established numbers will affect equalized pupil counts in every district. Equalized pupil count is, as has been explained to us, an important factor in Vermont's unique and complicated education funding formula. January 2021. The coalition worked very hard and hired a lobbyist to help them persuade the legislature to consider and eventually pass S 13. In the 2021 legislative session S 13 recognizes the need to use the empirical scientific information provided by the pupil waiting factors report, which was requested by the legislature, pupil waiting factors now in use, and which have been in use for nearly 20 years. We're not based on any scientific research or logic, simply numbers rather randomly selected for over 20 years students in many school districts have adequately funded. It is time to do the right thing. I understand that Washington Central isn't a good place financially. I support the coalition financially for this legislative session with support from a hired lobbyist, the coalition has shown it can get results in the legislature. So, I, Dorothy nailer, I'm asking Washington Central to include up to $5,000 in this budget to support central Vermont. Coalition on student equity. And it's quest for student financial equity. The SBA supports what CVTSC is promoting and Washington Central is, again, a member of that body. Washington Central price itself on attention to equity in all areas. By doing this, the Washington Central Board shows it understands we're all in this together. We support providing the funds needed. So all Vermont students are the best they can be. If not now. When Dorothy nailer. Thank you Scott. Are there any other questions from the from the public before we dive into the board. Hi, Becca. Hi everyone. Thank you for, yeah, this presentation it was very useful. It was super informative and while the people waiting factor feels a lot like a black box to me. I'm hopeful that we can come out the other side with something that is more equitable. That seems like a, anyway, that's a another conversation that I would love to learn more about another time. In for the moment, I, one thing that I continue to think about a lot as we've navigated the merger and all the changes with that and the budget is how hard it is to really see how some of these changes in the budget and recommendations actually impact schools on an individual basis, especially the elementary schools. And so I have two kids that run me, and I know that there is going to be some shifting of staffing and I'm just wondering if there's any information about how some of the shifts, especially around the art. I wonder if there might impact some of the schools I know we're adding some, some, some portions of a full time position but I'm just wondering if that's actually adding time or rearranging time it looks like it is adding time but I'm not sure that that's actually, I'm thinking happening that's actually drawing some teachers away from one school to put them into another to try to sort of equalize stuff across the different elementary schools and I just want to make sure that as we work to find equity within schools, we're, we're reaching higher, you know, and, and instead of saying well it's not fair to have so much art at one school or Spanish for example at Romney and not Spanish other schools, just making sure that we're not going to ever be in the position of, you know, cutting a program at a school, because it is inequitable rather than saying okay how do we figure out creatively to make sure that we can have all children in the district access these really important wonderful programs that are available at one school, but may not be available at all the schools. Not sure that was clear. But maybe it was and maybe someone can help me figure out the answer to it. I'm going to speak specifically to the kind of the shift in that the art. Given that you it sounds like you know Romney and so we do have a shared staff a shared our teacher between Romney and EMS. We went through a process as a leadership team and also with the art teachers to kind of work through what that all might look like. The shift is going to be so right now that the shared our teacher spends two and a half days a week in each building, and on Wednesdays, the art teacher starts her day at Romney and answer day at East Montpelier. One of the agreements that we came up with earlier in the fall was that it's really hard to have shared staff split their day among two buildings and we tried really hard to create FTE is in schedules going into next year so that wouldn't happen so they could start and end their day in one building. And also in looking at the needs and both of those buildings. So where Romney has seven classrooms in East Montpelier has 10 and will be 12. We shifted the FTE is so that the art teacher could spend three full days in one building and two full days in another. So it's a it's a half a day shift a week so that for two reasons one so that the day doesn't have to be split between two places and also to address just the difference in in number of classrooms and students in each building. That might have been more specific than you were looking for but that's kind of Caroline I don't know if you would add anything to that. It's super helpful to me and kind of just, I think that that before you I want to make sure I hear what Caroline is going to say but I think that's what's so troubling to me about the new merged budgeting process is that as a parent. I would, it's important to me to know that we're losing a half day of art instruction at my children's school, and that half day is meaningful, you know I and I really love and value the art instruction we have at Romney. And so I just, it, we didn't lose a, we didn't lose any staffing as a district but it does have an impact on the children in different schools and so thinking about well, you know what would it be like, and I would just want to preface and understand the budget constraints are real and they're challenging and we are working in a system that doesn't actually work for students, teachers or school boards right and I want that to change and I we all deserve better. So just wanting to make sure that that's you know I get this rock and hard place that we're in but I'm still find myself really frustrated by the fact that we may not have we actually gained a staff right we are we gained to point to hours of district wide but Romney's losing a half day of art instruction. So and that's not at all transparent in the budget, and I'm just curious process wise like how. How do we know that and how do we learn that and how can that information be shared with the community so that we do have a chance. And I also recognize that we're the final hour here too right so like, maybe some of these things that's a little late to bring this up right so how do we learn that earlier on to say okay. This is how this actually impacts these individual schools and know that maybe there's not going to be art instruction in the pre K classroom and Romney next year, there isn't actually now but anyway, that might be a COVID thing but but like you know so how does that actually impact the kids and individual schools. And I know some of this is probably too granular for this space in this process but as little community schools as part of a larger merged district it actually does feel important that half a it's a it's a one fifth reduction in that person's time at Romney. So I would. I think that it's Caroline you have some more specifics around sort of that impact and then I want to speak to the process a little bit after that just back to to clarify some of where that was presented and then you know we can always seek feedback. So Caroline you want to just elaborate on what Alicia said first. Sorry, my mute button kept disappearing. Yeah, so at Remney so it is half a day what we found was that in terms of the general art classes. We can offer the same amount of direct instruction and art. And for the same length of time and the same number of classes, fitting it into two days. The piece that would shift is the time for integrated arts that so if a classroom teacher has a specific project, sometimes they access the art teacher to assist with that. And so that would be sort of the, the access to that would be what is shifted and so in looking at this, Alicia and I really talked about how if there was a special need. Like a teacher doing a special project that they've done every year around geography and they always utilize the art teacher for that, that we could have with some planning, we could still have access to the art teacher, maybe East Montpelier would get a sub for that week so the art teacher would spend the week at Remney adding the time, and it will be a little bit of a shift and we'll have to do more in terms of planning. But sorry, I'm losing my train of thought of how to end that thought but so I think it will take a little bit more planning and some shifting but in terms of the access to general art instruction. So I'll fit within the two days. And then I would just speak to the process piece back of that you raised. When we presented to the community last month in the budget forum we did present a slide about non budgetary impacts but shifts in in FTEs. So there's also a shift in the in Romney PE in looking at Romney and Dodie how that works and how we can best meet students needs, we presented that and the art. We chose not to present it this third time around because we're focused more on the numbers, but we always welcome feedback around how to continue to provide the community with information that it needs around not overwhelming anybody with too much information to process at any one time. Thank you. Okay, is that. Okay, I think we're done with that question was that your only question Becca, otherwise I'm going to move to Jim. You're muted. Yeah, it was I guess I just, I just want to register my. I hope that in the future we can figure out ways to add a day so that there's a way for to not have to lose services in one school to make sure that another school is getting what it needs. I think the integrated arts is is really an important part of learning, especially for children who learn in different ways and if equity is one of the things that we're really trying to to improve upon in our district then making sure that children can access concepts and ideas with different modalities especially tactile and art is really important so I just want to underscore that I hope that going future going forward in the budget we can figure out ways to to make things equitable while raising the bar and still keeping our tax rate fair and should be fine easy right. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. That's really good input. Jay Campbell. Oh, there's a picture now. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rebecca and I just, I just want to just say that there are a few other things that might be impacted by a shift and I realize that I realize that the administrators and are trying to do what's best for the students and as far as trying to make sure I have a balanced workload in the two schools but I also feel like the robust art programs that we have and the individuality of the schools. Maybe suffering at this point, because of this and I don't, you know, working in two schools is tricky. I am the art teacher at EMS and Romney school I'm sorry I didn't say that my name is Jen Campbell. And so anyway, I, I feel like it's a really difficult situation to be in but I feel like more than just integrated arts might be impacted and I have mentioned that before. But even working in two schools this past couple years I don't know what it would be like to with COVID around I haven't had the opportunity to really share the robust programs that I've done for many, many years so I just wanted to share that information that it's not only integrated arts that's going to be impacted and I have mentioned that before but other things and it does feel a little bit like it's going to be even more tight to do anything like that so just reiterating and those are my, you know, I, I, I love the arts obviously and I think the kids at Romney and I've just started working at East Montpelier during this pandemic so the last couple years this is my second year so I haven't had the opportunity so much to work with the kids in that capacity but I think they benefit tremendously from from the extra enrichment programs that I have done in the past and I think that EMS students would also be able to do that. So that's all I would like to say just wanted to share my thoughts on that. Thanks. Thank you, Jen. I have, Becca, you have your hand up again, and then, Michael, you can go after Lauren just my son Lauren who's a first grader just wanted to say hi to miss gamble Lauren can you say hi, because he really loves her class. Hi, Lauren. It's great to see kids, Micaela. Hi, thanks. So, I guess I wanted to comment as a community member more than a board member at the moment that I totally hear what Becca's saying and I think equity is is super important so I just wanted to like emphasize that and I know it's a complex question right because there are a lot of ways to look at equity but I think as a community member it's difficult to really gauge equity because I feel like it's not easily accessible information necessarily like, you know, it took a while for me to understand where we were lacking music teachers in the district and, you know, I always just assume like no elementary schools are doing languages but like, it sounds like maybe some are and so just not having to do with this current budget but just, you know, future leadership planning, making that a little more transparent would be helpful. Thanks. Not transparent just easily accessible I don't mean to say you're not being transparent. Just, just easy to find that information. Sorry. Chris. Thanks for, and I'm asking to go because I have a hard stop at seven, but I wanted to just offer some comments on the budget, which I think the administration has done a nice job in terms of presenting it touching all the bases that need to be touched and responding to our comments and and our hopes for the budget as a whole. I would urge that we move the equity and scholar funding into the general general budget because it's even though Jen explained that the model is evolving. I think the cost expenditure is not evolving. It's going to be something that is continuing on for years so I don't think we can justify using the balance for that purpose on a, you know, a one off I think we should incorporate it into the budget as a whole because it's we are supporting and we want to continue. And even though the model may evolve the funding for it is not it's going to be I think it's going to be so I would urge that we incorporate that into our general budget. I still kind of feel the same about the second East Montoya teacher although it's it's not as clear that that that the additional behavioral position will continue on although I strongly suspect that it will because we're not even near the end of COVID and and I can't imagine that behaviors are automatically and improve dramatically just because we're out of COVID because it's slow to ramp up and it will be slow to ramp down so I again I think that that is a position that we'll be seeing not only next year but the year after and maybe even the year after that so from a from a budgeting standpoint I would want to pull that position into our budget as well just so we have a planning tool of what we're going to be looking at in the future. But overall, thank you very much a really nice presentation. I really like the clarity of the numbers and Becca just we did talk about what the impact would be from the in previous meetings and I know we can all attend all the meetings but Caroline explained in a previous meeting what the impact would be but it was good to hear from Jen Campbell because it's a different perspective to but thank you very much and I fully support the budget as framed right now and I would support Dorothy Nailers comment on finding 5000 and that could come from fund balance because that's not an ongoing expenditure I don't think so thank you very much and I have to sign off now but I appreciate the time. Chris sorry before you go. What was the second position that you were talking about the first was the equity. The second station was the second teacher at East Montpelier, which was slated for funding to the fund balance. So I support the support completely support both positions because the numbers really buried out. And that was very helpful to see that in the packet. It was. Sorry. Okay, thank you. Before you go. Can I just respond to something you said just so you don't leave with some information. No, no, I want to get it. No, I want to just at least I don't want to change my mind. No, I just want to clarify. It's none of this is about behavior. They're instructional intervention. Okay. Yes, I just didn't want you to leave thinking it was behavior interventions. So then let me ask you this. Why are you hiding you're hiring another instructional assistant. No, we have me. Yeah, so this year we have three instructional interventionist. Okay, so they provide interventions to students who are not at grade level. And that would continue through next year. And also with two additional classrooms, our class sizes would be smaller. Right. So our classroom teachers would have less students. So the goal would be that between the interventionist and the classroom teachers the students needs would still get met. I just didn't want you to leave thinking it was about behavior. Can I just follow up to your, to your comments. The instructional intervention list is due to the impacts of COVID. I'm assuming the one additional for this year is okay. And is there are you seeing any evidence that students are doing better than they had been, or is the impact of the code but still having a fairly detrimental effect on student achievement. So that there is a real need for the instructional interventionists. That's a really good question. One thing I would, I'm hopeful that the leadership team can present to the board in a very near future meeting can be looking at our winter assessment data, which will give you the answers to that right we took, we did had fall assessments. We're right in the middle of winter assessments right now. Our hope, all of our hope is that we're seeing growth in student achievement. And those assessments will help paint that picture for us and show us where we're at. My hope to your question is yes, we're seeing gains. Did you see the gains in the fall from last year. Well, did you say you had fall assessments this year or yes, and was there any gains in the fall assessments this year based from last spring. Yes, there's growth. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. That's helpful. Appreciate it. Have a good night. Bye Chris, just a process clarification. I'm just going to make sure that there's no other public comments or public questions and then we can move in so the board don't feel like you're not going to be able to dive into deeper questions before we approve a budget so I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you Chris have a good meeting. Thank you. Sorry you have to leave. Me too. Any other questions from from the public. I don't see any hands up. So I guess we could any other clarifications from from staff on the budget. I don't see any hands up I just want to say, you know, thank you to the administrators to see and to the whole leadership team. It takes a lot of time. This is probably in my history being a board member this is probably the most transparent budget process. Now that we've been unified to but it's just it's really incredible to see how everything is going to be allocated and to have those those explanations and I know that you guys were collaborating with your staff to so we really appreciate all that work. And it is hard to be able to have all the resources we need for all of the needs that we will want to, you know, have a carry you have a hand up. Yeah, thanks I have a comment and a question. The comments really very much like what you're saying floor I want to commend Jen and the team for doing a really excellent job with a budgeting process this year I thought it was it was exemplary and how you responded to our direction and then incorporated input from staff and from the community and you mean I think you really took that part of it seriously and reflected it back and did a great job with that. And then a question. Well so here's a, here's a thought I have an another question. One part of this budgeting for school school year that's always been somewhat dissatisfied to me is that we're always looking at one year at a time. And I think there's probably a lot of reasons why we can't do multi year budgeting or maybe I shouldn't say we can't but we don't choose not to. I mean, as a board member you're left wondering, you know what's coming what you know where where is this heading, you know Chris was Chris was getting at that and with his comments. And so I just thought it might be interesting to hear if you have any thoughts were you thinking in terms of what's coming next year or their big picture items that the board should be aware of like, like Esther grants or you name it I don't know but things that the board should be aware of that are that might inform our thinking this year because they're going to be so significant next year. If that makes any sense. Thank you. I can start with a few thoughts and then, and then let's see what other people how folks would respond we haven't had that specific conversation about framed in that way as a leadership team, and here are a few things. We really wanted to be clear in this presentation that we are funding some things with Esther monies and those monies are finite and they will be going away in a few years so we wanted to be clear about that. There are other sources of funds that seem to be reliable, a little more predictable and ongoing, such as the consolidated federal programs money, the title one and two a and four funds that we used to fund some positions. We had a big conversation around pre kindergarten we mentioned that a few meetings ago and the idea of really thinking about what robust and sort of wrap around pre K and expanded pre K and we did not go down that avenue for this particular budget. We also on occasion would sort of say, well, what if, and now that we are unified we have some opportunities to explore that and we sort of put that out as well what if we looked at shifting the few things and those are conversations that I think are worthy of deeper exploration and maybe when it doesn't feel so tied to the budget process in terms of the actual numbers are finite budget. The other things I would add our one as much as money is a resource, finite resource time is a finite resource and we've had lots of conversations about that. And I just want to bring you to sort of my final point, and that is the importance of our community undergoing a strategic planning process, because that I think will help us figure out and prioritize both financially and in terms of time, our most important things, because we're going to rub up against all these amazing problems and we only have so many hours in a day and so many days in a year that those are my preliminary thoughts. I would invite the team to chime in. Thank you, Jen does very helpful Gillian. So, Carrie I think it's really interesting that you brought that up because one thing that we did talk about a bunch is that we really need to button this budget up, and then start thinking about next year's budget and start really looking at our budgeting process in a much more sort of comprehensive and long term way and really looking at what are the resources that we have kind of across the district, and thinking much more planfully so what I think is exciting is that you're asking the kind of a very similar looking ahead and, and looking forward so I think of this as a really kind of exciting opportunity for us to not, you know spend every single board meeting on the budget certainly, but to come up with mechanisms that we can have to inform you along the way and get feedback from the board so that it's not sort of this mad dash in the fall that we start playing through these things like well what if, what if we could get 5J a week child care for three and four year olds in all of our elementary school. You know, things like that so. Thank you for asking that I think it's super exciting. Thank you that was helpful. You don't need it yourself. Oh, no, you're not. Okay. So I guess we have inadvertently moved to 4.1. So let's just discuss the budget in the close things that were were brought up so it's open to the board any other board questions or suggestions. Diane I see your hand this kind of. You know I think Becca got at a little bit of what I was wondering about again because wanting to be sure I asked the question in the right way because I think that's where I slipped up last year I didn't ask quite the right question and the right way to get the full question. So, other than the music position which will be shifting. Are there any other positions and any of the schools that are changing might not be the position might not be being cut. Are there changes that are occurring in any of the other positions that might that might just take a little more explaining if we're making those choices does that make sense. PE is is a shift in FTE between Dodie and run and Romney and Gillian and Caroline worked on that one specifically and can share more but that again we're looking at the needs of the buildings the school populations how many classes all of those things and we feel like that is the shift that allows us so specifically actually a non budgetary change that we're thinking about would be that Romney PE is currently 0.7 we recommend it be 0.6. Dodie PE is currently 0.3 we recommend it be 0.4 that's a shared position so it remains 1.0 and just like the the art position as well having them be full days a lot mitigates the need to try or eliminates the need really to travel in the middle of the day it maximizes staff time it supports sort of a more thorough presence in a building on any given day and it still allows us to to offer what we're offering now right with not a loss of service and Gillian or Caroline anything you'd add to that. Yes, I think just to put it into the actual nuts and bolts to kind of see what it is because PE has to be twice a week so the 0.3 the way it was as our PE teacher would start the day in Romney and do I forget Caroline if both days he was doing one class in the morning. Or the Romney schedule I know has shifted somewhat but he would do either one class or no class in the morning at Romney and then race over to Dodie and it's adorable actually but you know pulls up in front of in front of the building with his car. Unloads his gear drags it in goes parks his car frantically sets up for his first class at Dodie so. And I imagine there's a reverse process that that happens at. At Romney on those days so it really. Sort of made a lot of sense and discussed it with the teacher about would this make your life easier. You know it's a gear intensive position so Caroline can talk about how it impacts those two warnings but definitely for us here at Dodie it adds. A level of sanity into the teacher schedule and allows him the time to have a little bit of time to go check in with teachers find out how kids are doing. And work with some of our special needs students. Yes, so. The Tuesdays and Thursdays that the teacher is at Remney it's just in the morning I forget. So it's a point one, which means. A point one ends up I think to half a day a week split over two days so it's just in the morning time so it's not he actually doesn't teach PE on those days he does cover. For classroom teachers who have team meetings and he does some other things. But in terms of PE classes, we can have those on the three full days that that he's here and it does save him the. The one other thing I would add that we had sort of briefly presented last time is we also said school assignments for para educators, by and large our para educators stay in the voting but I wouldn't want to promise that everybody who's where they are right now would be exactly where they are in the voting next year, because we base all of that on student need. We're looking at it we know our needs right now, we know that needs shift, sometimes students move in and out. And so it's it's our it's our hope to keep people where they are and want to be and we recognize that there may need to be some shifting as kids move from, for example triple to kindergarten or sixth grade to seventh grade. That's something we put in that might be a possibly non budgetary impact personnel shift. Any other specific questions from four members to administrators. Diane, is that a new hand. It is a new hand. Oh, why don't Maggie why don't you go and since I just wanted to wait not hog so Maggie go and then I'll go after you. Go ahead Maggie. Okay. With the awareness that staffing para educators has been much challenging to see or how much forewarning would that staff expect to receive about potential opportunities to move to a different school. If they want to remain employees. I can start and then principles you can chime in here. We are typically talking about transitions for kids. In the spring time I mean formally we have transition meetings in the spring. Sometimes it happens before then sometimes it's happening just along the way in terms of talking about student progress. That's not a super specific cancer Maggie I don't know principles you have an example or two or more insight that you could share than I provided. So I was on negotiations last year with Jonas and I believe there is a procedure that's outlined in the agreement so that we make sure that it provides those protections of the emergency type situations but also being clearly identifying when those moves occur. I guess and the only other thing I would add and we had this case this year where there's right students may move in or out during the course of the year and any one of our buildings and there's a vacancy and so say a student moves out and there's a vacancy in another building right those conversations are had and we've been able to move our ESP staff around that way as well which is which has been a huge benefit to buildings looking for someone. Thank you very much Allison Jen. Diane, you had a question and then my gaze that you can go after. Yeah so Mike my question is about the presentation which thank you it was very, very clear I just had a couple of detail questions. So on slide for it's the one where it's talking about. It had. I'm going to find my slide for now. It was the one that talked it had the budget draft number three summary, and it included the, the art teacher and the special educator and the equity scholar, and then on the right hand side it said including from drafts. Number two and number two a. Are those all in the budget, or is it just, I just wasn't clear if it was all and it looks I'm seeing nodding so it's, it's all thank you. They're all in there. Yeah. Okay perfect and then the other question I had was. It's great explanation but I wrote what's our bottom line I don't know what our is it the 4.28. You know I guess I'm just not 100% clear what's being said would be the percentage and I'm not trying to be difficult I just I'm not quite clear. The, the bottom line number that the board would need to approve is 36,169,267 dollars. And that was, I don't remember on which side but the one that talked about the expenditures, the board needs to approve the expenditures, and then the other piece that's included in the warning is the per equalize people dollar amount that's derived by that, that total. Okay, so it's the 3.39% increase is what we're looking at. Yes, I'm looking for the page, hold on one minute and it was in this. 11. I just want to be sure I'm clear on on that. And then the scenarios a and B is the state will decide which one they're, they're doing on that as to what the, the final, but that's based on 3.39% increase, both of those scenarios. Exactly Diane, although I would normally the board includes that table about that was in the slides that I showed scenario a and scenario B in the annual report. Normally the tax commissioner gives just one property yield, and this year he gave two. So I'm curious to know which one for if the board would like to include both in the annual report. I would I would be interested in direction from the board on that. Thank you, Suzanne. So let's do question number one. First day and so is that clear where you able to find that. Okay, I had send you guys that finance back to because I felt it was a little bit easier to read it there that everybody was able to look at it in there. If you have a question and then we'll get to to the other part one second, Lindy. It was about what Suzanne was just saying. When this is ready for our report, won't we know which of these from the tax commissioner. Well, the tax commissioner gave us his December 1 letter, and he provided two numbers he said, if the legislature decides to use $90 million to offset the tax rate, then it will be this number. If the legislature chooses not to use it, it will be this number. So he gave us two numbers to use. First, business managers are using the more conservative number which shows the higher higher tax rate. And that's actually what I showed you last month was the more conservative one but I thought that the board might also like to see the, the other possibility that might happen. It could be somewhere in between. When will the legislature make that decision. I think they said it in February last year. But it's, it's after you, you, you do your morning. Yeah, Scott, and then we can give them feedback if, if you, we don't mind taking maybe you're making a motion Scott go ahead. Actually, I will make a motion, then that won't stop the discussion I presume. Correct. I'll move that we approve budget draft number three. Thank you. Yeah, so that was you, Kari. That was Kari. And if I may floor just to continue. I would be in favor of the conservative option. That's what Suzanne mentioned that other business managers were doing I think a pleasant surprise is so much better than an unpleasant one. So, could I have thumbs up just on that second part if people will be okay with the more conservative approach, and then we'll vote on the motion because we were going to keep discussing, but I don't want to forget about that. So I just want to clarify my understanding of conservative because. So the conservative is at the higher rate. So is it a or B. B is what it would be. The other option is to present, present them both as the tax commissioner presented them to us. I understand the concern I'm all about conservative but I also don't want to lose a single vote, because someone perceives it to be too much. I would agree Kari and I guess I'm sorry for I didn't have a kind of out order. My feeling too is this is information that every tax payer and voters should know so that there's the opportunity to voice your opinion to the legislature about both of these things and so if we only provide one set of the information, then we make it a little more deeper that they'd have to look to find that. So I guess my suggestion would be that we provide we provide both scenarios but we put a you know we put either an asterisk or something that says waiting for because I don't want to confuse people some people will get confused when they have two different scenarios there so just to say that we're waiting for approval not everybody knows that that's what we're doing waiting for approval we're not asking them to choose one or the other either. So that just add a little note there Suzanne and Jen that we're waiting for approval. Is that reasonable for everybody. Okay, and now let's continue the discussion on the budget. If there's more questions before we call a vote. And it's got I haven't forgot about your where your request, but my suggestion would be that we join us and Chris we're not able to be here right now that we do that on the 19 because we can always add. I'm still here. Oh you're there. Oh I don't. Where did he go I don't see your little emoji. Okay, you moved. Okay. So go ahead Scott. Thanks for this time I'm speaking for myself. Be my own dummy. I agree with everything that Dorothy said, except the part about putting it into the budget. So I would be in favor of taking it out of fund balance now, if it's in the budget, then we don't get around to it until, you know, July 1 of 2022. The action is going to be in this legislative session. I think we could make a request please that the question of making a contribution to the coalition be on our January 19 agenda. Just as a separate item. If that would be acceptable. Yeah, that's what I was hoping. Yeah. Thank you. Any other clarification clarifying questions to see we could vote on the budget here tonight is the interest of voting with the budget tonight and like I said in that email is that we would also want to set the tuition we have a deadline on the tuition in order to do that. We have to approve the budget. And I can let Sam speak to that. Linda. In the motion, should we have that number the 36 million 169 in the motion instead of it was a little vague to me to approve the budget when we've been kind of seeing other things here. I would say yeah, let's include the numbers and is we're going to need it for the warning. So is the 3.39% one at the top. Yeah, so if we want to include that in the motion is a friendly amendment. Scott and Kerry. Okay. Lisa, do you have that number in front of you. You might not have it right in front of you. I have the dollar amount but I don't, I don't have the percentage number that you were talking about just now. It's 36 million 169,267 dollars is what you'd want to include in the motion. Okay, got that. Thank you. Are we ready to vote on the on the budget. I don't see any other hands up so I'm going to go for it all of those in favor of approving the budget. Please say aye for year 2022 2023. And the motion as read. Any oppose any abstain. Hearing none the motion carries and it's unanimous. Yeah. So the second part if you don't mind going on. We were want to set the tuition tonight which is basically from the budget. That is when we can put that up in the screen too, but it's on four point. I moved out of my postage. So it's in page 57 of the finance packet that I sent to you. And Suzanne, do you mind giving the number Scott, you have it right in front of you. Thank you. That would be a great motion if you like. That would be wonderful. Okay, I move that the board approve and announce the FY 2022 2023 district tuition rates as 21,253 dollars for elementary tuition. And that would be $1,338 for secondary tuition. And Lisa, I can read those again if 21,253 dollars for elementary tuition and $20,338 for secondary tuition. Thank you a second. I can. I'll second. There were two, two voices there. And I think it was Ursula and Lindy. And I give it to Ursula. Okay, so Scott moved. Yeah, Ursula second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Thank you. So, now we can move into a personnel update, approve new teachers. So we have just one change in FTE for for this, this week's error, this month's board packet. And that is Amy Koneg Bauer Amy Koneg Bauer teaches in our pilot program. She's returning from a family leave and is requesting a change for the rest of the year from 1.0 to 0.8. And we would be, we recommend that change too. So I'm looking for a motion. To accept the change. You want me to make the motion. Yes, please. I make a motion to accept the change from 1.0 FTE to 0.8 FTE for Amy Koneg Bauer at the U 32 pilot program. Thank you. A second. Second it. Thank you Diane. Any discussion or questions. I'm sorry. Is that just for this school year or should I just leave it. For this school year. For this school year. Okay, thanks. Thanks Lisa. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed. Hearing none the motion carries. Thank you everybody. And update in vacancies. We just did this. There hasn't been a lot of change since last week. One piece I want you to know you remember you signed. You're you authorized floor to sign on your behalf. The drivers education MOU from the fall. We had a sentence in there that said that we needed to meet together if both parties agreed, we would extend it. We needed to make that decision by the 14th of January. And we've been actively. Advertising we still have the vacancy. So we agreed to just keep it short and sweet one sentence. Both parties agree to extend this memorandum of understanding. And we are in the process of collecting those signatures from the association for presidents and floor. So that we are still enacting that. So that's definitely on our radar. So that continued vacancy just generating that particular MOU, but we will extend it for this spring. Thank you, Jen. So that brings our meeting to an end. So I'll be looking for a motion to adjourn. Oh, Diane, your hand is set. Yeah, I just, and I apologize again. So I just looked at that last page of the, of the finance financial committee packet, which talks about the tuition. And I, my only question is about the projected enrollment because that doesn't match what we are currently at. And so my concern is. That we need to be sure we're explaining what's going on. I mean, the number I saw. Was at East Montpelier was 239. So that's dramatically different. And I believe it was 209 at Berlin. And so, um, I guess. I just want to make sure that we're being clear with our community. How many students we have. Those numbers won't include any of our acts. Act 166 kids, no pre-pay. There's certain numbers that are pulled out because the tuition is only on elementary and secondary. So that's where you're seeing the differences on those. And it's a projection for next year's students, not this year's. Can I just add to that? Diane, the numbers that you're referring to, Michelle, Sepega took all of those from our October 1st. Count. And those do include all of our pre-K students, which is why those numbers look different to you. Thank you. And Alicia. Carrie. Yeah, I just wanted to check is now the time that we all have to go up. To the central office and sign the warning. Not quite yet, but we're going to let you know, but it is, it is coming. It is coming up. Suzanne, we were going back and forth with Michelle, with the. Rosie and Melissa on that. We were not quite ready, but we're going to be sending you and. An email and the scheduling for you guys to, to come by and sign. There's several, several ones. You also have, we also have to sign the career center one too. Any other questions? I guess we lost most of our community members, but I just wanted to say thank you again for putting it for putting this together. This was a lot of work. And we really appreciate the, the transparency and mostly the collaboration between, between you guys. I just wanted to add one last thing. I think the things that we are going to be facing in the future. I agree with all of you that we have to start planning ahead. Just right. Finish this budget and start planning. But we also are. The school board alone is not going to be able to. To, to do all this, all this work through the strategic plan, like Chen was saying, and community involvement because of the decisions and, and the looking really holistic, our structure and potentially being able to provide. Child care in our district. It's, it's, it's got to be a community, a community decision. So, you know, we have a lot of work to, to come our way. But it is super exciting because there's so many opportunities in our, in our district to provide. Integrated arts. You know, and other. To, to all our kids. So. With that, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. I also want to thank Chris for being here. There's the end, all of the other administrators that just. You know, chose to join us today that didn't necessarily need to be here. Your support is appreciated and your work is appreciated too. Okay. Now for real. Let's go have dinner. Move to adjourn. Thanks. Scott. Second. Second. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye and leave. Hi. Hi. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night everybody. Good night.