 So we're going to call this meeting to order. The regular meeting of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District for the month of September is convened at 6.40. We're going to be passing around a piece of paper if you could put down just your name and whether you're a Rockbridge, a Stockbridge, a Rochester, or another resident. That would be really, really very helpful. So the first thing we're going to do is adjustments to the agenda. Yes. I would like to add two discussion items, 7.6 and 7.7. 7.6 would be policies for cross-campus classroom balance. And 7.7 would be a clarification of details around the dandelion daycare sale. Are there any other jobs? What are they doing? They're talking about the marquee. Do you want to put it in your report? We can just address it if you want. Yeah, under principle, if that's okay. OK, cool. Anyone else? Janie got one. Yes, there's two, several here. OK, three. He has another one. Anybody else have any? No, sorry. Great. All right. With the adjustments to the agenda having been made, we'll proceed to item number three, which is public comment. Do we want to start with a question for the last several words? Sure. Keep them for everyone here while I take out my computer. We deserve the last one first. OK. As I understood it, or as it was explained to me by both Dina and Steve Dale, the merger consultant at the time. Again, the merger became official that all the assets became the joint assets of the RSUD building. RSUD district. So there's not, with the exception of assets that are held in trust for the school districts, those being the assets that the trustees of public funds in Rochester, the trustees of public funds in Stockbridge Hole, all of the assets belong to, it's not belong just to Stockbridge. Exactly. That was not, that is an error. That is definitely an error. So back to the question, went to pay for this study. How do you know what the proceeds are if you don't even know the expense of that building? What do you think the proceeds are for? Right here. Right, but we all know. I think all that money was there to pay before, though. I don't think it paid for through our accounting system with line items. We should be able to pull out what is called. Exactly. So what is it? Do we know? Or funny numbers can? Or what? I don't think we've ever looked into it. I thought we did. That's a separate question that you're asking. OK. So more of a discussion that we need to have. Because you don't know. We voted when we didn't vote, and we in general, don't in particular, in particular, exception of things that have to come from the restricted fund, like things that have to be, like if we said we wanted to use some of the building fund that's been set aside for the Stockbridge building, because even though that money is owned by the district, the restriction of that fund is that it's where the Stockbridge building is. You specifically said, and I've watched work over, three people jump in and said, we voted. Do the study. And in the course of voting to do the study, we said, if we're going to spend this money, we've got the bids for it. It's going to be $45,000 somewhere in that neighborhood to really get all the information we need on all the buildings the district owns. We identified that we had cash available to spend on that. We don't have to, because it's not a restricted fund, we don't have to do that. The Rochester money was put into a very, very deep-define fund we'd have to look at. Payment of it, and actually vote and make a motion as to how we were going to pay for it. When it was discussed, we did say that we want to do this study and we have these options to pay for it. Let's say I'm being one of them. Let's see the public funds possibly being one of them. Grants from the Fish and Sea Vermont being one of them. But no, I feel like we have not thoroughly discussed it. Right. Exactly. And then a check for $26,000 has been caught. And it wasn't voted on as Jenny said. So, you don't even compare, except you... The number of things that we've just stated, number one, we don't have plans. We have an analysis of our properties. We do not have a plan. There is no architectural drawing. It says you could put a room over here maybe or put a room over there. Okay. There are a list of things in that document and I'd be happy to sit down and show it to you. There are a list of things in that document that say these are the absolute priorities. There are roof issues in the Rochester Elementary School that are of high priority. There are other issues that are of lower priority. And it kind of just breaks down needs into that. It's just a need to discuss. I understand that. It's not a blueprint of everything we're going to do. In previous minutes, we're talking about square footage and materialism. So, I mean... And that's what you said to me Amy. I'm thinking about... And I just want to be in a minute by saying there should be a vote. It should be warned as such. And the people need to know what is the plan. Absolutely. If you recall, if you look at the minutes of many of our previous meetings, we've said over and over again that we need to have community-shared meetings. We need to have long conversations with everyone about what to do. And we've said fairly specifically, and I'll say it again just to make sure we're clear, that the work that we've done so far in the main has been the fact that there's not really documentation on any of these bills. One of the things we're supposed to do, and we're holding off on doing, for example, is doing some of the more... It's been recommended by the assessment study that we do some testing of all the oil tanks. We have no idea how well the oil tanks are or what state they're in. And an oil tank failing in February is a lot of money. So understanding that and being prepared and knowing what our assets are and what we're supposed to do about them is important. But one of the things that... One of the things that told us was that we really can't necessarily and Bonnie helped me with this. We really can't necessarily inspect the tanks because some of the inspection methods are fairly invasive. So we have to think about how we want to do that and what we want to do because we've been trying to put in a rock and a hard place with some of the knowledge that we have. But we have to do something about it. Underground tanks are usually inspected by the people that are providing fuel. They operate with all the time. It's not a big deal at all. This is the issue of we can't and we're still looking. We can't find any documentation that leads us to believe that any of these tanks are less than 35 to 40 years old. Both of the fuel companies that we contacted said, yes, they do the testing. It's by pressurizing the tank. And if there's a leak spot in the tank because it's old and they pressurize it to test it, they're going to blow a spot out of that tank and then we're going to have a leak that we have to deal with in the medium. So that's the binder in with all three of the tanks. The two at Rochester, the one near Stockbridge. In fact, we're going to discuss that tonight with the board about how can we move forward. As one dealer said, we're kind of in a precarious situation. He's not sure what we should do. I can imagine that this state allowed me to get that part because we have to do ours every summer for years. And I think that's another thing. That's one of the other reasons that Wendy and I were supportive of the engineering study because as new administrators in these buildings we don't have to go over past faculty. We can't find a lot of documentation around the number of systems in these buildings. So one of the things that one of the reasons we were pushing for the engineering study was to begin to get a handle on these buildings. Asbestos, lead paint, roofing, fire coils, wood nails. That's very good. I just like used that years, got tested every five years. I can imagine. Here's about the numbers of students and I don't mean like the assessment numbers where it's like I'm point three for our high school and the actual heads in the classrooms. We must have an idea of what they are. And I don't want the pre-k kids in classrooms. Well pre-k is real kids. What we can tell you is that there's 91 students at Rochester and 45 students at Stockbridge. And 98 is preschool. And that's pre-k to 6. Of course it is. How many can think pre-k? I would guess we have 13, 14 pre-k kiddos. Stockbridge, we have 6. So somewhere between 19 and 20 out of that one. And how many high school kids does each have? I don't know that. Of course the state is pretty much equal. We have more high school kids than Stockbridge. Then Rochester was surprising. But we had a school choice longer so that makes sense. Well if you think about that, if you took the pre-school or so, it should be fairly equal because you've got 6 grades in the year and 6 grades that are going out for choice. So 7 through 12, they're going out for choice and that's 6 grades. And 1 through 6 are on campus so that's 6 grades. So the fact that it will be pretty close sort of makes sense. That's here and there. Thank you. You're welcome. The first time our friends have been ever able to answer that question in the last 15 years. I think also between October 30 and the 11th is that we will have a really good counting because that's when we report to the state. But it's something you don't have time to do. But those are real bodies that we find at that point. Then the state should be that close. I don't mean after that the same information which is what is reported to the state. Thank you very much for getting that. I appreciate it. The other comment. Can I just ask a question? Would it suffice for everyone if Linda and I reported up to no more of the high school students at the next board meeting? Or does someone want to see that sooner? I don't know how to be very proud of this. You just reported up to this. The coverage district we go into the consent agenda I thought it would be simple if there's anything else that people are interested in they're not interested in our approving minutes. It's much interesting in education material discussions. So let's move the tax issue number to 6 to now. Has everyone seen a copy of the board's statement about what happened? So when Brad James returned at the end of the month he went through the revised numbers that myself, Jenny, everyone on the board and the principals went through correct of the census and it actually we had a couple more dates than we had originally thought which means that the tax rates going forward as has been cross checked and agreed with by the department of taxes as well that the new tax rates are going to be $1.499 for Rochester and $1.6481 for Stockridge. The rates that were passed in the budget were about $0.2 higher. They were $1.9 for Rochester and $1.6614 for Stockridge. And again the majority of the difference in the rates between the two towns is actually all of the difference in the rates between the two towns because of the CLA the assessment in Rochester is more recent and their property is at about 110% and our property is just over 100% of the state went down for the character properties. What this means is that there will be corrected bills we have not heard yet when bills will be going out we expect easily in time for everyone who had a chance to look at for November payment for Stockridge residents Rochester Ah, that's right. So you should have a corrected bill before that I am not sure if that bill will reflect your first payment and how it gets that information that comes over from the bill data from the state or not but if it doesn't you can also figure out obviously one of the things hopefully you think it's obvious but we will be moderating this process and being very careful that we're not being bold in the same sort of here's another number sort of situation and we'll be paying fairly close attention to what the state is doing and whether they are actually certifying these numbers we're saying here's our best cast numbers for this month so we do not have a similar situation next year and again it would have been great if we had been able to tell you tell all our community members before the bill came out but unfortunately we only had some more time to when the town clerk saw the bills and said which number are they Are there any questions more about the taxes from the community? I think it's important that all of you know that it was really important that we did this research not because you're getting a more favorable tax rate and the taxes were up and now they're going to come down but we found some things that we couldn't have known about unless we had done the study and that is in one case there was a student going to high school fairly in another town there's another town with an R our first letter that was getting credited with the tuition from that we didn't know that until we actually went through the data we couldn't have known that instead of credited to Rochester they were credited to another town with an R started with an R that's our revenue yeah we weren't getting credited for one of our students I can name the high school but I'm not going to on the ADM on the ADM district because the receiving district for public schools is who reports the residency do we check them now to make sure that the way this used to be done was the business management used to do a basically a paper pencil and they put the final word on this the state decided that it was all going to come right out of our student information system all the time it's only as good as the people that are putting the information in and the reporting that goes to the places that are the tuition districts that are being received that these kids are going to there are two others and they went to the same high school they were tuitioned in one was listed as a guest student and that was like an exchange student but it was a Rochester resident from the family of Rochester and there was another one that was had a fluky designation like that but we weren't getting credit for it we would have never known this and of course now that we're getting credit for those students it's taken away from the other districts that had those students so they're checking how to make sure we're getting credit for them is this the first year of having the SLPS system that the education is using so there are a lot of bugs that they in this education are going to work out and there when I went back to them and said are there checks and balances in place for the upcoming school year that I could be aware of so that I'm not doing this as a reactive measure but as a proactive measure and they have to be what I need to do so once we're receiving districts that we send our kids to get their files certified I commend now I have the access to be able to go in and pull down their reports to verify the figures for every single one of my buildings and the entire supervisor I've become a very popular man because people in other districts know about this now and they want to check around that to make sure that they're right I've been contacted by Central Vermont School District which is Waves Town in Northfield they're interested in it I've talked to people in Windsor they're interested in it and several others have contacted me and we're going to talk about it and ask Supertenants which is Friday and they're all very curious about because they're thinking if this happened to us then maybe they're dead I'm surprised when people are watching their numbers making sure that they're getting those credits but they're supposed to get it first week and then they're going to have 35 days one kid makes a real big difference because you guys are with him I was in the dollars so I think we would have our own check to double check and again, in any new process in any new computer, any new software we have to work the bucks out so this is unfortunate but we have Jackson Balances that I have with Carl so if you go it went to 18% times the increase to what? to uh... what we had said before was 2.48 so I want to say it's like 2.39 I just wanted to ask you you saved about 350,000 that's including penalty as well as the... can I ask the devil to ask you a different question? I'm sure the tax rate is less we were very concerned about how we had we had voted on if the tax rate was more than what we voted on a lot of times and for like they adjust the legislature will adjust the the yield rate by a penny or something in the course of the legislative session where they'll decide they're going to pull something out of the end fund and they'll change something so it's it's not in common that your taxes may vary a little bit for what was voted and this this would be kind of at the outside this kind of variance about the outside of what often would happen between when you voted and what it comes in various ways so but normally you know it's you voted in budget and then they make their technical changes to their numbers and at this point in time there's a range of that now that we've got this information and it is in our favor is there any more that we as a board want to do or say to the state that about this whole process that happened to us that's what we have to say I'm sure we'll be contacting the state tremendously about our anger at this I feel like there are issues that we need to resolve I mean this was a pattern they didn't respond to the SU who was calling they didn't respond to us we had one person in the state of Vermont who could figure out what was going on and that's absurd and we need to make sure that this doesn't happen even in the sense of communication if Bruce calls someone will call back if I call someone will call back so yes I think we should send the letter to the state and you have a very important point there should not be one person who knows how to do a job there should not so I guess we as a board should create a letter absolutely and then maybe also call someone who doesn't want them to mind this yeah see I go over I know I'm trying to change me to write the letter I'm going to cheer for the first challenge we put that to bed it was misrepresented to us and you're not upset like how does that happen because there are several people in this town and they said yes to the merge because of that so I think there should be every vote personally I would agree with that I agree I agree all kinds of money misrepresented it was not us misrepresenting it because that was not how it was represented to us the merger would not have gone through that's almost like a separate letter to a separate department I think it's a letter to you you guys have to figure out is that true or should we think about that as a board I think it's really definitely a town that's pretty upset about it yeah it's quite a surprise yeah and it was passed out it was a pass out we got just before the vote and that's why we voted yes certainly on Ethan's take yeah but that's not right I should advance absolutely board I have one question I don't go to many of these meetings because they're always a before I get out of it but how does the homeschool children in our town allocate to get to the state board because I know sometimes they only go to school for certain certain grades or they may not go to say they want to go to the tech center or they want to go to a different high school for certain things are you talking about just high school or elementary kids I have that same question because we are participating in programs that we are funding but not in the full day what type of yeah student how is that calculated within the town I don't know if you've had a small number but it's like before I was not a whole student if that makes sense so they are counted and they don't agree it just depends what and how much they're here for or I thought that makes more of a school level they basically have access to the school program and that they want it but once a family declares that they want to go to school there's a whole separate process there's a whole part of the agency that they deal with for homeschooling and they're really, we know about them we get lists that's about all we don't have really a whole lot to do with them but they are allowed access if they want to come for an art class or music class that makes sense and so they do have the right to access that and we do get something better credit for them do you know that with Shirtail that's one of the things that you thought about changing that school so the way homeschool works is you can't be registered for homeschool and registered at a public school if one of you registered one place you are allowed to access up to 40% of the school day in the public school and still be considered homeschool so you don't know what the public school does not get to count a student who does up to 40% and it can be a subject area and they do it by these five major subject areas so two out of the five you could do in a public school they don't count sports or extracurricular stuff as part of that 40% so that's how it works but you can't be registered in both if you registered in homeschool it's not counted in the public school if you right now at the elementary level we don't have any homeschool youngsters participating in our programs so they have to ask is that how it works well we just let you know that they like to come and take an airplane by law on this day of the month I can't say no if someone comes to homeschool we'd like to do art at Rochester then they're allowed to do that because they live in the town of Rochester they don't get credit no they don't get credit unless you go over the 40% correct do we have any idea how many children are homeschooling in our district I think it's important to to know just to be able to reach out to them and as well as to be aware in case someone shows up and says hi there I live here and I'm in homeschooling my kid a lot of like science and math please being able to to have an idea who these kids are and then making sure that their residents are actually allowed to access the resources I have a question how many children do you have in such education in this college there's two and there are seven though we have some of them now so that number would change quickly seven to eight at Rochester we have there's one in Rockett and two third five in Wilson any other questions about the tax issue that's good to clarify for everyone the numbers we just cited were pre-k to six they go from seven to twelve all right so let's move on to the consent agenda we have a packet of minutes for a special meeting a retreat on August 2nd as well as a regular meeting on August 6th the packet unless people see something incorrect in any one of the okay adding a bullet wait, there's been a wait for after this meeting the public's been attended the special meeting on August 2nd had one thing that he wanted to add in the August 2nd special meeting so we should wait out for it so let's I would entertain a motion then to approve the regular meeting on August 6th I'm sorry to interrupt I would like to get added to my question at the end of the last two meetings where I requested at that time to not move forward with any study until the tax situation was taken care of I said it at both meetings I certainly wouldn't be saying that and I do not see it in the public can you repeat that gentlemen I just asked if we could hold off on any building additions so we knew what our tax was going to be and I was told no promises please add that to please it's on ORCA if you need to I would also be concerned about debating the 5% if we're going to continue with this so we would be adding Joanne's comment under 9 public comment and since she certainly said there's a problem with adding that to a meeting so is everyone okay with the current amendment okay you know the only other thing Superstar about does she only have a first name because you have a lot you can have a last name that's admin 18 don't have to fill me in 18 so then I would entertain a motion to approve the retreat and then on the 6th regular meeting as okay this comment was in a special okay use that at 3 o'clock now yes so then I would entertain a motion to approve the retreat and the amended regular meeting meeting minutes from August 6 so move second motion has been made in second any further discussion hearing none I'll signify by saying aye opposed okay we approve the minutes of the special meeting of August 2nd and the minutes of the regular meeting of August 6th we've tabled the minutes of the August 2nd or I'm sorry we've tabled the minutes of the August 2nd special meeting minutes of the August 2nd retreat minutes the August 2nd special meeting minutes will be considered as amended on our October reports Bruce you're first yeah we're we're off to a good start I think we have 20 on the 22nd August we've brought in all the new teachers for orientation there are 34 of them throughout the SU which is a pretty hefty it seems like that's all we did all summer with the fire people people that left were retiring were moving on to a different place state some other vacations in Vermont we spent the day again how things were in the SU many of the administrators most involved in and it was a good day whole day on the 26th two day half day actually and they went back to the buildings where they're signed at the end of the day probably 250 at that meeting primarily the things that I talked to them about was the literacy initiative that we are Medicaid resources on upgrading classroom libraries and we have a reading coach that's working with teachers on guided reading all the building they talk and we really think that we did some sampling to find out how open teachers were to changing maybe their practice in some regard even though some of them have been teaching for a long long period of time and we do feel pretty confident that they are enthusiastic about what we're trying to do and now that they have new materials in their rooms they're learning how to use them and I'm pretty excited about using them I have been trying to work on a weekly communication with all the boards about things that are going on around the ESU not only board related things but teacher and administrator related things that's going on fairly well with all the people that receive it and I think I send 27 or 30 copies once a weekend I put in this press release about your situation in the last one that I sent out because I think we can all learn from this unfortunately it was a difficult lesson to learn but we ended up coming out of the good side of it so I'm hoping that all the districts we really have to put some things in place to make sure we're more careful about the data that the state receives that it's correct before we press that button and send it off and so generally I make a routine of trying to visit all the schools I'll be here and Rochester tomorrow and then three other districts on Thursday I was in three districts today on the other side of it at ESU so everybody seems to be very happy and really busy you know probably by the end of this week I'll be very tired because of getting back to it but things are good and our numbers seem to be pretty strong in a lot of places several of the districts are reporting more kids so we're hopeful that that holds pretty much by having a significant question thank you Bruce so we're passing down the principal's report we're sorry we didn't send it out earlier but things will all happen and we wanted to have real numbers to give about kids who never know to the first day when they all walk through the door so the first item is opening our school it went smoothly Rochester opened with 91 students and the doctor is 45 and that is preschool through 6th grade bus routes were established or changed that's needed based on getting picked up and being dropped off things like that takes shoulders of Rochester after this year actually in the next couple of weeks oh in the next couple of weeks so he's currently a bus driver in Rochester top coach so thank you I can make some work there will still be butters so butters will find an urban environment do they take part already looking at what's within the community yes they actually already replaced it with someone from oh about how many more preschool reports will you who would like this year the other half does anyone did not get distributed we have some notes on the takeaways from our retreat if anyone is interested to see what the board you have thought about we can make a comment on that too okay stay with us stay with us you just did lightness on the green one ah so no we have on our handouts oh facilities we still do not currently have a custodian in Stockbridge but this summer the custodial staff from Rochester clean classrooms and library here and then we had a contract we did do a pretty elaborate search over the summer and I would say it was a failed search neither candidate understood that you have to clean a toilet that's a key piece of the puzzle and so currently it's kind of all hands on deck it's myself, it's Janet and then teachers help out as well which is great but we try and take a lot of light out of them we have reached out to contractor for a bid just to see and that may be sitting in my email at the email box after 60 and that would be a subcontractor rather than a custodial staff to really just hired by the district not subcontractor one of the things we're finding and we're not the only school plan with that is Vermont's employment rate has dropped down to near two and a half percent excuse me how do you put it two and a half, three percent we cannot find folks and there are numerous schools that are looking for normal staff positions so it's not anything unique to us it's just the employment situation in the state of Vermont right now it was on Facebook it was on the Herald it was, yeah, we pretty much Friday we were I'm hoping to if somebody knows of someone please sign up Uruguay how often it's been signed it's point success so it's like five hours it's based on it's a you know starting wage on the contractor 1365 and then you have more experience you take your points for that and your points amount to more money but also if you're a subcontractor and they're not part of the student and we have to that would be my next concern is have we have we talked have we told Rasmussen that we're going to re-enact that we just honestly just got caught no, we're just trying because that it's an easy job you could decide that we know that we would like to develop one tech-based job and that is a good point right now we're even trying to find out is there even a subcontractor who's interested it's just one small building five hours a day you don't even know who did anybody but that would be something we would have to do if we felt we were moving forward with the subcontractor but it's not an option for a time that they wouldn't really be able to have for more over there who was interested in expanding their hours for a period of different reasons Lili, did you check out the building I gave you? yeah, I did not well, yes the employees and Rochester worked for the district they got on that road and said well now you're going to do some hours here anyways because that's a good job now it's not necessarily a platform to deal with it's only the hours though so even if we told them our staff and we did it some full time we're still going to be now lacking for hours but we're doing 80% in the two buildings the group prepares to make projects or elementary and high school buildings basically to fix all the serious leaks that happened last year expectancy we haven't been able to find any specific information that confirms anything about any of the three tanks the two in Rochester or the one in Spockridge in terms of when they were installed or how old they are dead river? dead river, thank you we're near do you know if CBOI wants to put them in? we're not able to find that out we're still hoping to find that out it's a mathematical puzzle we're trying to piece information together we believe it could have been CBOI a couple people told us they thought it was CBOI but we haven't really been able to get that answer for certain we just haven't been able to they are going to get back to us all three are buried I'm surprised the state doesn't have a record of when you were building the ground there's a part of the team that didn't find it when they put it every year you have to tell the state send some money to them and say I've got a tank in the ground nobody would we're allowing it to go on it was in like 50 years ago or something the dilemma is that we can find it and we may be wrong but we can't find anybody who said yes I remember we did this every year the state doesn't have anything it's a new rule I didn't think we have to talk about it when Joanne said the comment about the state I just wrote myself how come the state doesn't come to an extent so that's the question they asked us every year whenever you have to in order to get a follow-up the company remains on its ownership of the state it's not very often that just because you switched and if you switched really companies go in and do testing before the show so Gen River shouldn't have and again I just want to be clear from Wendy's and my perspective we're not suggesting anybody hasn't done what they were supposed to do we're just new and there isn't a lot of good written right we're having difficulty finding folks you can say yes here's a piece of paper that was inspected in 2014 right that's our dilemma if it was sea-new oil odds are they haven't been inspected properly just from knowing how things work there okay to our history after Irene and other principals in Rochester there were conversations with the state about the state said well at least we'll take care of the bill now it's very information disappears all the time especially for me a taxpayer isn't the foundation why are you reinventing constantly that's one issue for me as a taxpayer and watching this episode go on for many years now and seeing the disappearance of information I was just about to make a comment very similar to that I've lived here now for eight years I've been paying taxes for 30 years and I keep hearing these stories about well you know it's passed down my word of mouth and we don't even keep records what are you doing now to keep records going forward because I feel the same way I don't want to hear about these wonderful stories of Stockbridge and we pass it down from generation to generation I want to see concrete information and I'm totally tired of this these antics because as the flat lander in town has not been called it's very very disconcerting to find out that none of these records exist I mean we just did it that's one of the reasons why we did this but what are you doing that next year we don't come to these meetings and we hear the same thing so we have, we each have a facilities finder a lot in the facilities finder I've found more and more to summarize we did some detailed cleaning so to speak so it's all organized based on what company came in what they did who we got quotes from for what jobs things like that and that just doesn't mean we feel the same way we shouldn't have to start over every single time and so now that's up front with myself so it doesn't disappear it's up in the office and so in many years really that we've had consistent leadership and we've been reading the book I mean a river principle in February a few years ago many principles of Rochester and I think that requires leadership saving those records organizing those records that's part of leadership and we really haven't had it until these two and now I'm most confident most confident that they are keeping the records that we need to protect we didn't do it correctly before absolutely but I'm very confident because of that because we're learning our lesson and because they realize that they're keeping even more careful records than they probably would have to be I would say the building study a major concern your frustration without having information on the buildings is our frustration as a board we have been wanting to do the building study so we won't be creating that table but our hands have the ability for the systems and what's going on so in new leadership we have the ability to give a major part of the reason the building study is done because we've had not a lot of information as a board on when things were maintained it was just do you require SOP standard operating procedures do you have documentation the requirement the documentation not the documentation itself the requirement and a set format for the way this is all documented what we're doing is we're starting to build those systems and Tara our new business manager has really been extremely helpful in that she improves her building it from supervisor to lead-in and I know you don't want to hear this word I'm sorry just let me say it quickly and then we'll go on the mergers of the supervisor union two supervisor union's merged then our schools merged while those mergers were going on there was a lot of turnover I think that's contributed somewhat to the problem but with CARES how Bruce's direction Wendy and I are beginning to build the systems that we believe should be there so that this can be prevented but we have to build systems as you say that standard operating procedures that go beyond us and I don't want to know other people asking the same questions about the same fuel tanks we have to do better than that and when you go back I think too when you talk to people Steve Martin will do the right to take energy comes without a house so there are people in the oil who probably know the history maybe if you're talking to an illustrated person they might not but I would go directly to Steve Martin and the Wharton one of the other guys who want to use that something called Charlie Charlie but I mean they know that Ellen would probably know so just to clarify until this moment in time there's been no accountability for anything that's going to go on but I think before she came I know that there's there's some there's not it depends on what was done I know that we had a decent record of we were required to update the water system here with the UV filtration system there was a lot of documentation around that but as far as as far as understanding where some of the heating system went and where we did some work on this building a few years ago and his wife was on the board of the time Jim Shand on some of the updates on this building you know there were things like why was this particular pipeline never insulated we don't know we put insulation on it so we've been trying to to face some of the things as they happen part of the problem is again do you spend a lot of money to rebuild systems do you try to keep the spending just to keep things going and not spend money for a consultant to come in and redraw architect plans that went somewhere figuring out what outlets are on what circuit do we really need to know that do we need to know that at least our loads are good and our wiring seems decent our panels are one of the panels in Rochester there's like an obsolescence issue so we've been trying to stay on top of it as best we can working with rotating some rotating people we're trying to do better because it needs to be if we're going to figure out if this is viable this is the smartest thing to do the systems better in place of the buildings and their liabilities and their strengths and you know I think one of the things that also used to happen and it doesn't happen now but there used to be a lot more because the state used to pick up 50% at least of school projects it was really easy you go out and get in three bids you pick the lowest the state would write you check for half so I think having that kind of you know back in the day having that kind of free money there wasn't as much of a need or the people were just like why not we're not going to track and repair it the state cut that faucet off what 10 years ago so there's been articles in the paper about facilities around the state having deferred maintenance issues we're certainly not alone but we need to do better because I don't want I don't want to throw money into the building throw a ton of money into the building that we may not be using at the same time I don't want to let a building that we don't think it might use next year say you're not having a roof came in and suddenly have to do an emergency bond or something because we said I ought to be flying one more year so it's getting that kind of information to have the procedures and the policies to do to do the right thing so and I understand how important that is and I know of a town in Massachusetts they're building a $260 million high school because it's cheaper to maintain the old one or to fix the old one I'm just seeing how spotty braggers are not knowing where to build because where they are and I want to make one thing clear goes back to what we were talking about earlier is that the stuff that we're talking about moving forward on is not right now is the stuff about keeping the building the building available and safe for kids a lot of the top priority items were safety related we're not the big question is not to renovate a building and make cool classrooms we'd like to do that down the line and we're not sure where that would go but right now really I swear crossed my heart that we're trying to the focus now is on understanding our buildings and facing the things that could be either catastrophic if they fail or dangerous to to the kids there's a problem with some of the emergency lighting we may not be using both buildings in Rochester we need to have emergency lighting that works in both of them so those are the kinds of things that we're that we're moving forward with now and thinking about now or the things that we would think about with all our buildings furnace maintenance, roof leaks broken into stuff like that we're really not using that as a way to leverage us into some re-arranging of classroom spaces so you're saying if we just use one of the buildings in Rochester, not both we have to keep both buildings up or is that what you're saying which is sad I think we're trying to save it then are you not ready? the board is just I guess maybe anywhere, but especially if we're wrong we just can't walk away from the building it's going to deteriorate I don't know if we can sell it or put it in the interim until a decision is made but until a decision is made the building has to be maintained seriously keep that building safe for children it's kind of great, we own the building so if somebody gets hurt around that building that we own it doesn't have appropriate we don't know what we're getting rid of we don't know what our plans are as a matter of fact we were asked to not think about that until we resolved the tax issue oh that was better I just got back we have to make an intelligent decision until we do not be milked in the building I think the other thing is important to know is that the music program and the art program in Rochester that's right, we have the beautiful home he's still in the high school that's right, we have this room because there isn't enough space but yeah, we have this room I understand that and you don't have enough space with that gymnasium to have it the other issue, just let me finish my project the other issue is the auditorium in the stage is heavily used by people from all communities in terms of players and things like that so we have to keep a safe building we can't let someone get injured we can't let the roof leak to the point where it falls in on the stage there's a building use fee whenever people use the facility does it probably cost it probably needs to be adjusted but originally it attempted to cover the cost and we have not jaded within a year and a half I've been there so that really is something that we probably should look at the other part is that they're very different spaces Pierce Hall is not yet functioning here space for the plating is all in the other twin it's wide valley I don't know use it crucially as well the theater is like that as a representative of what we call the players that's why we choose and why the summer program Suzuki chooses to use it for their recitals as opposed to Pierce Hall and on those rooms there's a I think kind of I think though I'd like to I think we're getting a little bit into the weeds and we're trying to get it we're starting to get into the content of what we're going to have in community discussions moving further again I think the point that we're trying to make is that we need to maintain the buildings to to keep them safe and to keep them to be reasonable access and that's the level of work we have in that tone so you're basically checking your buildings out and really comparing all the rates in the survey including in that survey tell me if I'm wrong it's asbestos and lead survey yes was that never done ever there was no there's been asbestos inspections there was there's been asbestos manuals I think there was a problem asbestos manual or manual in Rochester that came up around that so the lead is on the legislature's agenda and we were complying with what they told us to do this year but that was to do 2018 if that was put together by an engineer who went around and kept the lead and changed things off and tested for asbestos that book is valid and it should continue and it stays with the building so if you're planning to abate asbestos you would look at your book and say the book says there's asbestos in that ceiling this floor tile has asbestos so can somebody on this group or somewhere in town or anywhere in the school union or whatever it's called do things about grants do we look for grants for federal money to improve our school specifically asbestos and lead it's a big deal John's Mandel is paying billions of dollars to people for all of this there are funds I think at the SU level it's specifically around grants mostly educational things we look into those things we're looking to do for example one of the things about the generator that we're trying to get and of course no flies here in Stockbridge is one of the things that's going on that's working to make sure we're getting the maximum grants from two members of the quiche and from a physical model so is this survey going to recommend statements of things or a encapsulation or is it going to just give us another survey and say this is what we have it's going to do I'm sorry I didn't catch you first Tommy it's going to do some of all that depending on the building we believe that most of the asbestos in Rochester was removed to a previous abatement program but there were some areas that just had question marks on the master document as part of this engineering study we had them go back to those areas to retest to say either it's there or it's not there or it's encapsulated and it can stay put I'm not anticipating or unless you should already know neither of us are anticipating major issues with asbestos what I'm thinking is that the tax money that's paid for the R&D survey maybe could come from some part but some of the I'm trying to make sure we did get a grant from the efficiency Vermont to put towards on asbestos populations alright so let's uh I think you guys were around to so onto the next I radically asked so a couple of things but shortly happened um the company who provided the bid for the generator did want to just check you know we haven't made any movement that their sites were okay but they pecked so the fire inspector continued with the company as well as I've been working with uh two Rivers Regional Commission which is what Stockbridge belongs to Plain Commission and who helped support the process of low-energy grant funding in terms of finding it and what steps we need to take to do that so we're working with those steps of information right now it's just a lot of factual information that we need so you like I'm seeing Leanne that she was left so we can connect you will let the select and know I asked yeah probably how we do that so more just like I got referred from this state to our company put the bid and the company referred the state referred me to Plain Commission who is finding the right to connect with I think when I asked the select and his help um that um they said they just wanted more information to advise more the wind so yes coming soon he was looking for how much electricity he used and shelter and how that would be so the emergency shelter right which was a response to additional materials that are no longer needed in a second safety planning in Rochester looking at what to explore the option of having to send a double door that was getting into the hallway they're further down the hallway talking about right at the very beginning of the hallway so that we could lock them during the day and youngsters could still have access to the office right now if we lock them between the office and the main entrance from the start of the hallway this is to lock them during the day or lock them during the day but we do have locks on the exterior of the door otherwise the kids right now are separated from the office if the door if we lock the doors the kids are separated from the office from the drinking fountain from all those things so we basically can't lock them right now so we're looking at moving them up the hallway about 15 feet and we had gotten money for safety funding is that all allocated that was a grant funding that background of grant money we've already allocated and spent so we're waiting for the states the second round we were not eligible for because we were bringing funds in the first round there's supposedly going to be a third round and we're going to be ready to hop on that which is why we're trying to get cost estimates for what this project might cost sometimes those timelines are called for a pretty quick turnaround yeah and the in general in my experience with the states where they come they have a safety grant like that if you're if you filled that you met the criteria and you go out the window and when everyone they want that they can work in and you'll get it so it would be really excellent and the reason we're asking you to start early on this I'm just going to explain to you guys because it's related to Rochester is that there is there is some historical attachment to some of the things that we would have to move when we're developing mainly some very old trophies that are in there from Rochester High School's way back history so we would be working with the historical society and it would be interesting to help us decide what's a respectful way to relocate this we have to go slowly forward as we move some of these things and we just don't want to rush in like holes in a giant shop but we have to relocate we have to take the trophy case down and do something with the trophies that are in it so that's why we want to start early and proceed and reflect in a sort of way and I just remember going to hear about this again before I say actually all we want the board to know is that we're looking into it we're looking for a contractor who can come and even tell us if it's even possible and then at that point we look for estimates then we come back to board and say looks like we're ready to move forward we're going to hold off as long as we can on the grant cycle and then we don't get grants and we'll be back later and in the meantime we want us to be aware so some of the historical society can tell us something else so we're going to move on to the trophy case we might try to do is that some sort of a security regulation with the double doors I'm just picturing our hall down here we lock our exterior doors but we don't have a set of double doors that you're seeing so we're in when I asked about the double doors here we would have to do some other components because the way my office is set up so even if we did the double doors that forced everyone into the new office similar to what she's talking about they would still have access through my new office into the rest of the building so is it a regulation or are we choosing to do that? we're choosing to do that we're choosing to look into that actually for both schools we started looking to it and that's when we came up with this what we would call a challenge toward these offices that's not to say we shouldn't still look into that for our few regulations and safety training there are a lot of strongly recommended steps that folks who have learned over the last several years of safety planning would recommend that we look at and try and put it in place I think that's why they put that extra door in the principal's office where it goes through from the secretary's office to the principal's office because they didn't used to do that it was just one we did with all of David just as well as you went into the secretary's office and we went to the principal's office and it goes through but I mean there's a lot going on in this department so I don't know how the school is set up they brought just around all of the experience where they should because we would like to explore the possibility of what it would take to offer before and after care for our preschool programs right now we have yes it's after school program but it does not their license is not for schools even though like in Stockbridge we have for a full day for four-year-olds it's still really tough for some parents the bus at 3.15 so just what that would look like in Rochester we have an extended day but not full day so I was going to tell one it's 11.30 for some of the extras and I was like I think that's critical the kids that I have at my little house they couldn't come to school until 11.30 and I think as the board is interested in everyone in our communities are interested in attracting more families or communities what really attracts families to communities are jobs and the ability to have their children well cared for and we both have preschool models now that work for parts of the population working moms and dads find it very difficult to have their youngsters attend our preschools because of the midday if you don't have an extended family that includes you know a grandparent or an aunt we still have youngsters every year who don't attend our preschools because of transportation or even we're finding our three-year-old numbers decreased because half day is much easier for a lot of families then you go to work till five as we can capture these kids in the preschool where we're more likely to retain them so what we're looking for there is just the board's understanding that we're going to start pursuing what this means we can't even make any sort of presentation to the board yet because we haven't even started looking into it and the challenges were the upsides were the downsides so we just call the board supporting letting us just move forward and try to figure out what this might look like the challenge has a really big future and today's new app is Midgets they make a ton of weight here they make a ton of weight here there's some of our partner facilities that we use as our supervisor we also have we work well for Rochester and Stockbridge because geographically it's close enough for a parent to live in Utah and attend either a preschool program if we have before, here, and after here I could live in Rochester and bring my youngsters to Stockbridge if I didn't have to pick them up at 3 o'clock if they had aftercare until 5.15 or vice versa I could live in Stockbridge and have my child at a preschool program in Rochester where it was before and after here but when we have programs that are built around these school day hours it's very difficult because a couple of school districts are looking into in the afternoon or even summer care and summer care would be a piece of the page which reminded us summer care would be certainly something we look into while we're looking at our before and after it makes no sense not to and as Bruce said it's not a reason necessarily to do this school districts who are making a significant amount of financial money and big financial money support off in these programs and it's an additional source of resource to their school budget well I'd sell it for courses just broke even but certainly I think it's important that we start thinking about this now because I know that in years past when we brought up these ideas right around the budget we look at it and we go and try to figure that out for this year and then we don't think about it again until we're in that same position next to us having something as a more developed proposal that we can look at it and understand budget impacts, student impacts education also integrating it into the marketing plan but the town will stop in Rochester just the school board and the select select board do not have anybody to market it then it just falls on deficits okay ask me about it you have to promote it and then and then teaming it with the whole states program to bring people into remarked so it's a comprehensive marketing program that has to occur Tony pardon me for not because I'm not tuned in now my kids are gone but the after school program is that part of the school budget no our kids often go work and it doesn't cost me anything the town makes a contribution to that so we get wow we also thank you two hours a day if she goes out to volunteer form it comes into the game and I'll take her for two more hours I'm just thinking that's everybody's paying for that people that are going to work and people have to go to work we don't want jobs we go to go down things and say no we don't want this we don't want that I think the school could stand up and say we want business in this world we want business what we're doing is we are telling people no business we don't want business we don't want the over there it's on a family to family it's on a sliding scale I think I think the school will try to seven dollars a day for her kids or reduce the support over time now one plan I understand they get they receive a significant federal grant from them I don't know not by much but they get a great deal of their funding federal but not a lot not 21c not 21c not 21c that's the funding they get our other grant our other grant funding specifically for the one plan after school programs my understanding is did not drop did it cover driving the bus from Rochester to Stockbridge and then Bethel for swing lessons and then come back and all that the program was built into that and what is the difference between what it's paid for parents pay and the taxpayers pay now Bethel is one plan that has its own budget and it's dropped by a little more so I would have to agree to that to get more specific but it's not they ask for a supplemental amount of money from the district and on the time what it's not a very significant comparison but it's not in the SU assessment what you're asking it's part of the line but it's in amount that we contribute it's like $10,000 that from our budget goes into the one plan and then the town votes $10,000 from Stockbridge $10,000 from Rochester I don't know what those numbers actually are please don't quote me but that is how the bus goes all over and I'm just wondering what that bus do provides more kids to come which provides more funding to get to them which provides more kids in our area and the child care is a big issue I think most people by age did so that's all I'm going to say about that if you can encourage the kind of school for all day you're then having to have buses that have got to have car seats because those kids are going to be scared they've got to have seatbelts on those buses some of the school buses are so tight I would hate to put my child in a car seat they can either go forward because there's not even enough room I wrote online a few weeks ago and there was not even enough room on Stockbridge and that's where the and then then you're going to have to have a bus monitor I would use if I was a parent that was sending a child that little I would be one in one we do have it on the time so Stockbridge does provide transportation for a registered adult so we do not bus your point is if you're a good one those are all things that we have to we don't need them if we're talking about extended day or before care after care, summer care four year olds can ride without seatbelts because I've gone through this just in the last two or three days and we've looked into it we've talked a lot about it the regulations allow those kids to be in seats I'm not sure about three year olds but four year olds can ride without seatbelts but nobody can ride in a car without seatbelts it is the law of college not all buses sit down on a school bus they're designed to be able to accommodate small kids, they are so we're going to fund it again and if you see funding is going to go away on the stagecoach possibly like three years it's going to be here but it's going to be two bus five kids while they make a share but it may go to other schools that may have to if that is not carried by the state that's going to have to be backed into our budget that's not how it works so then as the sending school if we do not as a choice school we cannot provide transportation and they send a bus here because they want to retract their youngsters they will very send a bus here because they want to retract their youngsters we can't in fact it's against the law if we were to offer busing we could if we were to offer busing because we're public education we have to bus every kid in stockers to wherever they want to go which means if one kid wanted to go to Brownville we'd have to bus them there so the way busing works for choice kids can choose where to send so Bethel used to send a bus up over here I'm not sure if they still said a middle school bus you know there's been buses that have come down in the Rochester area from Harwood and from American and Middlebury so they can send a pickup we can't send it to transport because it's illegal to do that if you don't give the same opportunity for everyone that's why you can't look at the amount of dollars I don't let's try to move through again near two hours and we still have principles before so if we can move through that that'd be great so exciting news we have been working on creating and distributing combined projects and books to families and it will go to the printers at end of this week and we distribute it to families as soon as we get it back now we're not all going to be sending it to everybody we're just selling out so we're not only electronically we're going to have it different and then faculty from both campuses will be attending what's called the palace training which is a safety training during our Wednesday they have to open a service on the 18th it really starts the conversation about safety for the fall training an active shooter response and then just to highlight some of the literacy work that's already started to happen and what kind of plan is for the next month like we said faculty from both campuses attended a literacy training with Amy Talk on Monday the 26th their second training and that was just kind of a general overview on the 11th September that we began to focus on planning and instruction in small group reading lessons and then after that training they'll be coaching support from Amy with a focus on that staff learning as well as modeling what it should look like observations from staff throughout the day what September is for and then just one last item I'd like to bring up to the question which has been a couple questions raised about the marquee the sign that used to be over at Rochester the list of demands on it this is probably going to make more sense of the Rochester folks than the Stockridge folks we had to move it when we sold the dandelion date here and we had immediately adjacent to the southern side of the driveway it was a great place to have the sign on the 11th as we know on our own that property the land to the left of the driveway drops off rapidly I went out there with a contractor and said honey it's going to have to be so far down the bank to be out of the states right away and away from the snow clouds when you're zipping through 100 and throwing snow up nobody's going to be able to reach up and put the letters on it it's not that tall of a sign the other suggestion I think that came up from someone was to see if it could be relocated to the parking lot in Rochester there's this barrier and this fence that separates the bus line from the cars the only place that's even a little bit feasible down there is right at the end of that barricade and the drivers are a bit concerned about what that does to their line of sight for cars coming into the parking lot and it would have to be it couldn't be perpendicular to room 100 it would have to be parallel to it which means you have about one and a half seconds going by to read it you wouldn't be able to see it the whole way as you're approaching it which is what you used to be able to do it wouldn't have to be placed this way so it's not very practical to try and relocate trying to relocate that particular sign someone has brought up the idea we should look in I guess there's a number of schools who've got these digital signs that you program from inside the school office and programing there's a possibility of looking into that one school told me they paid like $4,200 for theirs I wouldn't know if we feel that strongly about having it put back but at this point it just doesn't seem feasible to put that marquee sign back up is there a reason why you can't put it back further in that little medium because there's a cement area right there so that's that's as far back as it can go because that's what separates the buses from the cars I might not envision how it is it's too big for here it doesn't seem practical the issue we talked that there was one other option of possibly talking with people on the property there's sometimes they're dead on the property possibly they would let us put it back there the other option would be to figure out as Mason's made the point several times how do we communicate because if you're not going to have a marquee then communication still has to happen I was one of the ones who drove by here when school started because they drove by to start from school it was not out, we got Rochester and that's what we needed to have it's up on the green in the townhouses something else just because we keep getting a closed door I think Mason's point is we need to be communicative past 10 years before it was taken down it should have had a new location and put it up as soon as it was taken down and put it up it just was so frustrating to see you get thrown behind the school building and forgotten about it actually didn't get thrown back there well it got a place back there it doesn't matter it's a piece of equipment and the added for me what I've seen is a stale stale stale stale and let's get a solution and just give it back to the taxpayers it does communicate to all parents it makes a difference for us to know what things are we're going to make a difference too but it's our PTO I didn't even think of this idea about approaching the town to see if there's some place a sign because there are folks who don't come down south of the green they come to the green, they go to the cafe they go back north we have the town green we want to promote our schools I mean let's go there that idea you just came up tonight they're not using it you just have to remain agreement and give them a dollar a year of agreement if they're so available if they're so available and we can put it right back to the exact hours or they can use it as well so there are some options family review family review about two years ago I got something asking for volunteers for the school filled it out very diligently there's a lot of things that I felt like was not a good offer nothing happened I'm assuming that that paper went by the way of everything else that I'm hearing about tonight in Stockbridge but how does somebody who lives in the town of Stockbridge who could offer educational programs for children to become a volunteer we ask a thing to work with them there and then I can start to figure it out I don't think it would happen for the family in that country so that would happen I had a lot of adaptive volunteer I got back on the ships I got a lot of files with the FBI if you ever want to drive nine more miles you can come over Rochester because we need adaptive support what you have to understand is these are the things that really frustrate people in healthy I don't have children but I always felt like I needed to support the schools for the towns I lived in and now I live here but when we extend the information and then it gets tossed or filed and nobody bothers to reach out people then say I guess you don't really I want for a couple for care and I don't want to be absolutely right totally agree it's been a rough two years man it's been a lot to this merger and getting it together it's been difficult to concentrate and focus one of the things that you have to remember as a manager for 25 years you don't ask a survey of people if you're not going to do something with the information you can't cost money to print it costs money to mail out however it came to you you don't ask people to fill in paperwork if you're not going to do it so keep that moving don't use public because people get very frustrated and I guess that's where we are and all that being said I don't think the kids have a clue that any of this has gone on the kids their kids which is great and it's a really I've never seen that in this car since I started here so I'm so sorry about that but we love health and we love our community so all I have to do is come on in and work square way because after I spend days a day weeding the damn garden out there and then I come tonight and see and planted it who was supposed to take care of the garden because now we've got Ronnie Mish who's out there except for on the broccoli that you got you did harvest the broccoli we had broccoli today the other thing I'd like to say quickly is I know as people both Lindy and I when I say this if anybody goes home after this discussion that you've heard let's say you don't have time to come in and volunteer but you have an idea oh they were talking about this here's an idea I think to make it better about asbestos or blipping or anything don't hesitate to pop in one of us and say I've been thinking about the conversation we had in the morning have you thought about this have you thought about that anybody that can help us with these oil tanks there's a lot for effort we've had a lot of issues against this there's ample time tonight before you can build systems you have to have state of leadership we've had four principles in this building in the last five years so the other side of that the other side of that and this was at the merger and I remember being here and basically there was a lot of lack of trust of institutions in both buildings and I hear that and I still hear that and I think we hear that and we can't expect anybody to turn around their trust in a year we've got to earn it and we feel like we know because we're in the act of working with these people who we've got here but you don't know that so I think this is still the process of trust and obviously the tax issue was a hit and we acknowledge that it was a hit against us and I think we've handled it pretty well but don't trust us because we tell you certain things trust us because it shows up the next year and we start actually showing the results so just all we can ask for is patience once again on the community to solve this and maybe put it into the Herald just just being a recommendation to let people know what people want them on here school started again and the other two here I think you just have to use stock-rich connections too I don't get it I don't get the Herald and I found out today about a lot of things that I never knew that the Herald is the official newspaper for all stock-rich communities and stock-rich neighborhoods and never do that it's actually one of the things every year you have to vote what your radio station is what your newspaper is where the places are you post the the minutes or sorry the mornings so yeah there's bits that we do have to go through I'll just break it and keep up on this whole entire area I just want to say that these two right here will always answer their phone they will always have an answer if they don't have it they will get back to you I dropped the phone today I guess maybe the last thing I want to say thank you for those kind words I don't take compliments easy so I'll open my tongue here but the thing that I want and I'm going to speak a little bit because we talk about this all the time everyone I would even know is that I don't just advocate for Rochester's cases and she doesn't just advocate we don't even think about it that way we think about it as our kids so if it ever sounds to you like we're trying to advance one group of kids over another then we just need to talk to us and we'll explain why we're doing this before we're doing that we usually have a plan but these 130 kids that we have in these two buildings is as important to us as the next we don't provide this line where there's Rochester kids and Stockbridge kids and neither do we allow anybody in our schools to think that way so I just wanted to say that alright it's ready to go okay I was alright I would like to make a motion that Rebekah Klein be appointed by our board to build the school district treasurer position effective September 2 second motion has been made and seconded to Rebekah Klein to fill the school treasurer position discussion we're very happy to have her she is said she'd be happy to do this for us but we do need to continue to vote for subsequent years this is not something that she wants to take on for the next 10 years for us so I'm glad that she could be working close with you but yeah Teri, I didn't know if we wanted to have that support at the SU so thank you thank you so I guess everybody can continue to think about the future absolutely so is she filling the position that Kathy Brown that is correct she's just filling that what's going on with the Newtown clerk why did she take it well from her experience with Rochester got a new town clerk she states that the position is quite a lot to learn to start with just being part of the treasurer of the town and taking on another aspect we might be a little overwhelming so we're just trying to relieve that to not put extra pressure on the new one coming in it will go to the next school meeting today I know we'll meet it so the treasurer will be re-elected for that and hopefully you know they'll be great if we could establish that same door relationship and have that same opportunity this is time Lori's time it'll be great if Lori as she gets settled in feels comfortable being the town clerk now just for the record I have never spoke with Lori I never spoke with her directly this was from speaking of mine the town clerk in Rochester on how difficult the job was to get off and running at the very beginning we just felt that we won't even have enough pressure that it needed pressure I think that you're almost there's a lot and we're still putting up famous stuff from my group so there's a lot they'll be going forward she's very sharp I'm sorry and that's a hard one you're all going to miss my group yes any more questions I love you sorry I'm the same thing any more discussion on all those in favor of seeing the fuck they're saying on those opposed okay we have a we've already pretty much covered lack of design unless there's something else no it's well there was of the final report so the asbestos company there was a delay getting them that was about a day last week from Black River Design Jenny also asked for clarification to put in explaining where it's put her people means how that was kept in so people have a good understanding so they actually ended up stopping five years after I asked that female because my response to that was that still doesn't make sense they're missing and also Jenny has learned that there was such a huge number that weren't giant tables or something so I just wanted to wonder if they're all aware of that and to find out what the asbestos was that is they can have all those and will they be purchasing a sub-component or brand new as do they have in the company that's not too late if you have any other questions will that report be public yes it is a public so yes but would be good just to say I guess I have a few pretty copies of both schools and all the time we have offices and then the online PDF we were talking about we also wanted to talk about scheduling a public meeting um sure I think I think it would be the best way to go um let's see who's on the annual report committee I'll turn to the back of those tables if you talk about the back of takeaways it says annual report you can make them in body so I understand that that's okay we can ask so maybe you and I want to take a leak on the stuff okay and then you can stay off the annual report putting together some proposals for that okay so you guys are about literacy that maybe you and I would talk to me to go forward we need to get some community members on that Gene anyone interested in meeting on that committee Joanne excellent um I think probably a good committee size and really be fed with one or two pizzas so we get a couple people from Rochester so maybe clock six or eight open up again if someone really wants to be on that but I think and again it's just going to be putting together how we're going to talk about it in the communities and what we're going to say and not really just us making a decision but I think we want to we're going to struggle with that conversation and get that going so okay I want to talk about that we'll shut what I've been saying completely yeah we'll get it not now but I understand you but just to answer the actual plan obviously the building plan is overall February retreat we have last year 40-70 yes who has that I have that was the next um I have to say I'm not really sure what's going on with me in February yeah so I'm not sure I'm really ready to schedule the party I don't know my availability during February yeah well no our next item is scheduling the February retreat well during our retreat in August we discussed that there is certain staffs that we really need to get in motion and for like all coming years we need to keep the momentum going forward right we do need some we definitely need some I think the point of that is we need to design a real working calendar and then close in who went and where and what went and where budget when did we send the tuition right okay so I have to schedule the February retreat okay so it comes to the next month which is the October 13th we still have some which isn't all okay policy for tuition that's me looking at side conversations I've been looking at various other school districts websites policies that they have and procedures radians, Barney, and Shirley, both your district website and the SU website, about I was moving into the stock groups, how do I am going to tuition my student somewhere, my child somewhere, how do I do it? And, you know, what's the point they use? That's a procedural piece. We do have at least in stock, a formal policy, I want tuition students and I want the presidency requirements. I don't think that exists over here. In Rochester and the two of you, you thought of... I keep, right, I think they were right. Absolutely, I'm sure that it doesn't exist in Rochester today. They didn't, uh... I'm just... There are forms that exist in Rochester for choice students to verify residency. It wouldn't take much to turn it into what Bruce was asking about. Right, so we're putting them on the website and they're coming out of the procedures. But do we have a policy for Stockbridge? Well, it's Rochester's policy. I guess you have it. It's our policy. Yeah, we just need to agree that it's going to be... Okay. It's Tuesday. Sorry. I thought it was Monday all day. And the other part of this is that we are going to get our policy on today, don't we? Again, I believe I've scheduled the first Thursday in October for those policies that need to be looked at on the policy committee. We have an SU policy committee that meets. Right. I don't know who your delegate is here. You're talking to me. It's me. I'm... It's either the... What? October 3rd or 4th, whichever Thursday that, whichever of one of those two may be 2nd or 3rd. And we will be at the SU at 6 o'clock to look at the policy. I know there's several that have come in to the policy committee to look at. That's your policy committee separate from the SU board? Yeah. There are members of the... Members of the... Yeah. ...the election. Is this still part of what we were paying Steve Dale for? Is this a new bill with Steve Dale? You don't see how that involved the whole... He's not involved. We're... Yeah. All right. Exactly. So are we asking that at next meeting we are presenting a policy for torching all students so that... Well... We said right just now. We're going to talk some together that's from both of you. This is policy. Sure. Well, let me get a copy of the policy that already exists in the past. All right. And then we will put it on as the SU. And you would have a lot... The Stratford has a long-standing way that they tuition kids is way different than the way we try to say let's come to the SU policy in one size and it's all... Will not happen. No. So... All right. We need to look at what the current policy is and just maybe adopt it to review. Mr. Chairman, I think there's a policy and then there is... Right. What are parents going to look forward in the future? What do we hear you asking us to do? What are parents going to look forward in the future now? Right. We need to focus on the procedure and the marketing piece. So getting into what's the name of the new website. Right. We're meeting one day for us to begin to talk about and hope to turn this around very quickly and move our website so that it's up to date for all schools. That would be great. Great. That brings us through the agenda with the extension of the executive session. Didn't you have seven... Oh, yes. I didn't write it down. I didn't believe they fell out of my head. This is something I'd like to... Mr. Chairman, we were having a conversation about whether there's a majority of children with certain age groups in one campus and another. And is that the best? There's only one fourth grade or two fourth graders in Rochester or only one second grader in Stockton. Is the best thing for those kids to say, well, you're in your town's building. Or are there ways that we can figure out how that would work if we decided to try to have ways to bring them together with your cohort? I think it's really important that we do that and not bring anything that's happening now. But I think it's important that we follow that and put together a policy that exists and supports that when there's not a family attached to whatever that situation might be. So that we're saying, here's what our thoughts are about the keeping kids in the community. Right. Their professional opinion on is it better for one second grader to stay in one location versus for all of the larger groups of second graders? Right. Or second graders, you've got nine second graders in one school and one second grader in the other. Do you move the one up with the nine? Do you move down to have a bigger group? But what do the educational people say about that before we were faced with a situation like that that's wrong from the board as a political discussion and not as an education? So just to clarify, Carl, what you're looking from when you and I are thinking on that, not really looking for a policy? No. I was thinking in the thought about how that would work. That's really something that really is a major problem. It's not that great when there's one or two kids at a particular age group. What to do about the show work communities? Because when we were in multiple, my daughter was in one of the old age classes, there was a ton of kids that were a year younger than her. And so the fact that they're all three of her age, she was still a big classroom because she had peers that were a year younger. But understanding how that would look before some weird situation comes up before the educational value of the class. Yes, as it determines to us, not just as just in general, you know, class. Which is what I'm understanding. Having some idea of what we would do in a situation like that, before the situation like that, I think would be a good idea. And then the last thing I put on there, was talking about can we get some information? We must know what we could do. I'll tell you what I have. I have a folder that I found. It's called TIDO, Rochester, Daniel Island Building Sales. In it is the settlement state. It's the one. And the confirmation that the funds were deposited in 70,904 of that. That's the settlement detail. That's what I was able to find. The funds were the possibility to be general fund for Rochester school districts. That was Jeff Sherman. He was on the chair in Florida. Who's the attorney? I'm here on the settlement statement. W-I-L-E-M That will settlement. That was the settlement agent. He's a representative. Was he involved? Were you involved in the meetings? I came in right when it was happening, but he was at one meeting. I guess we're trying to I mean, it seems like we don't have information around receipt. We know what happened where it went. It seems like there's questions about how the process went down. I mean, what do we need to explore about it? Beyond just in general understanding, how much money we put into it beforehand, I thought it was one of the bigger questions about it. I'm not sure there was much help to explore. There were no commitments made for it. The money was put into a fund. It was taken from the general education fund. There was a motion to create and allocate it into a general education fund. I guess we need to come in and run. Yeah, we did. Yeah, it was a reserve fund that was set up. Can we go through this? The motion that received the fund was put into a general education fund. That would have been a Rochester motion. Yeah, that was the point. Yeah, we were talking about the language of the fund. I think understanding the language of the fund and being able to say definitively, we have a piece of property. We sold it. We got this much for it. Here's what we did with it. If we had any ideas, any majors, I think part of the other question that I at least understood, Joanne, to be asking was was there substantive work done to the building to make it sell? No, there was we moved to the official playground. We were paying for that. We needed to create a part of the fence. We put a fence on it. The question did that come out of the fund? I'm sure it came out of the sale. The things you have to do when it's closed to fix that place. I think it would also be interesting to know if there any major work done to the building before. Not to sell it, but there was a major stuff done to it prior to in years before because we were trying to set it up as an aftercare date. Right. Right. That was not offset by the sale price or anything. That was a couple of years before. We were slowly working on it. But I guess what I was getting at is I was seeing the emails and the questions and the concerns. I wanted to be able to when we do sit down in the community being able to have as many of these things squared away so we have a clean story and we know what's going on, we're able to say here's what really happened, here's where these things went so that we're not in these meetings about the future we're not rehashing some of the details about the past. So I was thinking, getting an understanding and getting those documents together in advance of starting this committee. I was really curious why when the vote was, he voted it. Well, there's no documentation Well, they think the vote, the Rochester vote would be taken by Rochester. No, I believe that what I was going to say is that the payment of the study with the sale proceeds from the sale is that what we want to do is that is that this is just I think I think we left it up to them I don't think we ever made specific instruction I don't think we it wasn't up to us I was sitting here I was sitting here to be from the sale of the data if we are going to end the funding from a fund doesn't the board need to discuss and actually make a motion on record about it? If it's truly set up as a as a reserve fund so we need to verify a holiday's best practice so we need to know how to transfer from we need to know how to transfer from the reserve fund Rochester Reserve Fund to the RSUD and what is that the merger the sales I think it occurred after the merger vote but before the merger the last things that the Rochester Board did I believe the meeting was talking to you for some time It was sold before the merger it closed after the merger vote vote and a merger was not official until that meeting in January or no where we really incorporated, right? We had that meeting where we all came to the Rochester a lot of 40 minutes in January and we had to go through that hole where we had to come to those articles and we had that very long meeting. So that's what the RCD became official. In our minutes, a lot over the second, 2018, so back in 2018, there's an item where we talked about the dandelion daycare. It was a question regarding whether any funds from the sale of the dandelion daycare would fund a facility assessment that we were hoping to have conducted by an architect or engineer. We know that the dandelion daycare funds went into an education fund could be used for such. And I'm going to keep looking with that. So, again, the word is could be. I think there's a real choice about that. So let's put that on as an action for Rockville to figure out where we're paying for that. We should hopefully have the final bill by then. We'll have the final report. Will we can decide where that comes from then? Yeah, I think where the confusion came is sort of a language issue. I know people certainly sound like we all agree that the dandelion funds could be used for this study. No official rule was taken, but yet everybody remembers. Yes, we agree that that was a possible source of funding. So that made me agree with the big size of it. And it was true because we didn't want to go into this and be like, well, we didn't want to. Right. What are some of the things? What do we want to do? What's where do you want to spend that? Okay. But Ed, I believe that you would be better for us to get this taken care of earlier than later. Right, let's take care of everything. Let's get the information. Look at the minutes from the last meeting where the sales approved, what was said there. Go through it and make sure that our light is consistent in our meetings and our meetings. And then figure out how it's going to happen. Can I just put it into offset? Right, $8,000. The study that we were just talking about and where the funds would be drawn down, Business Manager Tara was pointing out that there already has been a $7,500 grand check for the officials that Vermont received towards that study of the engineering and the official department. So, yeah, that's what I believe. Right, we had $7,500. So, over 10%, $15,000. And then hopefully we will fish every pond and see what we can catch. Okay. So, the only issue left on our agenda is the executive session discussing student issues. So, thank you all for coming. Thank you. Ben, sure. More about the government, what would you like to say? Well, I just wanted to talk about the happiness of kids. Because happiness of kids relates to good learning in that process. So, this is just food for thought. Because right now, you know, we're putting a double door. We must be communicating to the kids at all levels their safety. Right. And because it's an emotional issue, a mental issue, we want them in good shape for that. If you've been all noticing, young people, 16, 15, 14, are leaning in their concerns about the well-being of the planet. How are you handling equal grief? Or have you even thought of that yet? And how that affects kids' ability to learn. So, this could be food for thought in February. But it's part of the picture right now. Thank you. Have you had enough of the comment? Yes. Oh, yes, again. We don't need to hear from the students as soon as you're talking. We're not eating. Good night. Thank you all for coming. For the second session, we'll be doing further business conducted at this meeting. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 1st at the Rochester Elementary School at 6.30 p.m. Thank you very much.