 We have a teacher probably came here to present, and maybe if you guys could move it up. This meeting we're having right now is a combined field trip. This is both buildings combined. Both buildings combined, if you guys can get it, we are. And Chris, we're also having a presentation on the forestry stuff, which I kind of think would be beneficial for everyone to hear. Now that it will be a resource to everyone, but up to you. There's no objections. I would move those two items to the other justice agenda. Yes, you can. So when I happened to be serving, we had an elementary staff meeting, and we talked about using some of the money that they talked with them about the classroom, which is a high quality experience. And several day experience that they'll talk to you about. And a test, perhaps, because it would be on at the fifth grade level, and we would be having six graders come together. And in the middle school, it might be a nice idea that maybe Bethel could go to, and the kids could get to know each other as well as point on this experience. So the teachers, I'm really pleased to say, jumped on this. And they have been working hard both buildings to try to make it happen. And I think we, because this is a little unusual, we wanted to make sure that the board blesses it before we do it. And that you see a little bit of, you get a little bit. So the teachers have put together, I think, a brief presentation. And we've, I don't know what's on the presentation, but I think you'll be interested to see what they're hoping to do at Nature's classroom in Maine. So can you guys introduce yourselves, because I know this board, all these people don't know all of you. Sure. My name's Hope Yeager. I teach in South Royalton. I teach combined fourth grade, in South Royalton, and fourth and fifth grade. I'm Alicia Hanford. I also teach in South Royalton, in combined fourth and fifth grade. Rebecca Forth, I will eventually just teach fifth grade, but right now I'm five and six at Bethel. So what I have for you is my material, a letter to fifth grade families in North Carolina. On the reverse side is a sample schedule of activities, what the days and evenings look like for the students. Then specific page front-back photos of the Ocean Park facility. And then the final page is just an overview of the Nature's classroom programming. But Rebecca has some video and so on and so forth. So the images and what you're seeing was just pulled off the Nature's classroom website. So the proposed dates are the 30th of April through May 4. So it's four nights, five days. We are at the Ocean Park campus, Old Orchard Beach, near Portland. There's multiple campuses throughout the Northeast. Just a little plug for the program. I didn't work for the program, but I've done a lot of environmental ed training. And these guys are often leading environmental and professional development. They know what they're doing. It's a really impressive program. So here is a testimonial. I was just having a little difficulty pulling it up, so bear with me. If I can't pull it up, we'll pass it. But here is a testimonial from a teacher who attended. And bear with me as I clinkly get to it. I can't get it large. I think the kids get so much out of Nature's classroom. A multi-layered situation. Sorry. In our middle school, we have four elementary schools that are funneling in for the first time. For us, it's really the first time that these students have come together as a class. And they're going to be together as a class for six years. So there's that whole piece. For me, I just love seeing the kids with their hands on learning and being out and building and constructing and putting it all into action. I think one of the most important things that I just love to see is the independence that these kids come back with. We are encouraging them to set goals for themselves for the week and making good healthy choices in the dining hall. And I go through a packing list with them and encourage them to pack for themselves. So even though it really hits the curriculum, I think it really goes beyond that to them becoming young people. And just kind of breaking away from their parents a little bit and realizing that I can do this. I've written down quotes from years past and one that has come up over the years that kids write in their journal is just, I really can do this and I can climb mountains and I can be successful. And sometimes I think they surprise themselves on what they can do just given the independence. So overall, very multi-layered to what these kids get out of this program. Yeah. Cool. Cool. And what about teachers? What do you guys like about it? Oh, personally, just like coming out? Is there anything that just like, wow. Love it. Well, we love it. I think for us is we get to see each other as adults in a really relaxed situation. And we do a variety of things. We go with the kids to classes, which is really fun to be able to work with the kids outside of the classroom. And the nature's classroom teachers are teaching. So we get to interact with the kids during the lesson, which is fun. And just for us to be able to have some downtime together, which we don't normally get. We do some planning, but we do some hiking. And I think it's important to have good bonds with people that you teach and work with. And it strengthens our relationship. So for me, I would never, ever switch out of teaching sixth grade because of the trip to nature's classroom. It is definitely the high point. And I get kids that come back as seniors and say, one thing I will always remember is my trip to nature's classroom. It obviously is a fairly typical photo of what you might see the kids working on. I think that's called Haley and Bulu. And then finally, I took this quote directly off the website. After spending a week at nature's classroom, living and learning together, students develop a sense of community and confidence in themselves and an appreciation for others that carries over to the school community. And I just, I obviously chose that quote because that's why the four of us are, five of us, Carol Delia isn't here, but five of us are really hoping that this goes through. So any questions, we'll do our best. There is a parent information night that's going to be held here on April 9th. We'll have more information from that. And then they also, the coordinator of the Ocean Park campus comes and does an information session during the day for the students themselves to give them more specific information about what to expect, what to pack. I can just say I have taken a group of students to nature's classroom and it's fantastic. And the opportunities that they get outside of the classroom. And just to bring our fifth graders from Bethel and South Royalton to a neutral space where they can just get to know each other. I think it's so important. And I can't just say enough about how awesome this program is. My son went there to this program, this five-day program a year ago so in the SU in which I live, the sending students from the school get together and go to and do this program. And they just said, getting the exposure of sitting, habitats related to salt water around the ocean, something that they don't have on a regular basis here. So that's sort of when I went looking and calling nature's classroom like what availability do you have, I did ask in particular just to be able to get to do something new. A lot of pictures. We will. We will send them. Have any of you ever gone to an overnight five-day week camp? Yeah, so I mean like that's the experience I've got to walk away with. And it's a quality program really, regionally renowned if not more than that. So it's a really extravagant experience. I can't believe we get this opportunity. Yeah. So this is teachers and students, no. Now parents do not go with this. They're not shackled on this. Correct. How many students is the total of it? We figured there would be 33. Is that how many students there are? That's great. Yes. And how many teachers will go? So there's three at a time. Three at a time. So we're going to swapping. We're going to split. A couple of days. A couple of days. Because Bethel has sixth grade. So they're not going to be with us. And we, since that's frozen, have fourth grade. So we're just going to keep two with our kids. Okay. So at all times it would be three adults. Yes. Right. Yes. If they, this grade, it didn't want to go. It was because the parents just wouldn't do it. Right. They could just stay here. They would just go to school. Yeah. Yeah. Did the kids know about this yet? Yes. Yes. They've already gotten this letter because I have several parents who asked me about it because it wasn't on their radar. Yeah. I have to say a couple of them, I seem no more concerned for the parent than the child, maybe. Yeah. I did. And I guess I understand why a little bit. But there will be some informational meetings in April. Yes. What is the cost per child? Is that how they do it? Or is it a program? It is a cost per child. So we are per child. $294 each for five days? Mm-hmm. Does that include? That's total. Yeah. That's everything. That's everything. Plus transportation. Yeah. Paying the bus is separate. Separate. Plus bus. Does the bus have to stay there to take your places while you're there? No, no, no. Okay. Would our school be the only school there? No. The week that we're, that both self-grilled and Beth were able to go, there's one other school group at the Ocean Park facility at the same time. Same age level? That's my impression. I don't remember what age. So you don't know where that other school is from at this point? I didn't write it down. Okay. I didn't write it down. It wasn't anybody, like a place that I heard it. And if I remember correctly, just as far as programming goes, the program will be focused for our kids. So, like, we will talk to them and say, there's lists of all these activities, and we say, oh, we want our kids to do this, and we want our kids to do that, or we're setting this, and this will be a great add-on. And so, as far as the Bethel and Whirlton kids, they'll be mixed. But certainly, you know, I'm not, that other school will have their own kind of agenda of what they were doing. So, as far as, you know, I'm aware. And will it be, do families have to contribute any money to this? No. So is there a whole cost coming out of the Whirlton and that Whirlton money? This will be the anonymous fund in Whirlton and the Colleen that's coming out of the budget. Yes. So I have another question for the administration. I think it's great that you're getting fifth graders together, but is there, in the ninth grade, for some ninth graders, is there any plans to get all of the kids, like the eighth, I mean, eighth to ninth grade is going to be huge, you know, and I think this is great, but I also think that we can't just pick some kids to try that. You know? This was an opportunity. It wasn't a choice for them. This was an opportunity that came up. So one of the things that Bruce has said, the steering committee has said, any opportunities where we can get together at any grade level, any adults, hot locks, so this was an opportunity. We're planning on more connections with different groups of kids. Yes. I would rather not have to do it out of my future budget. But you know, yes. So if we could budget for this in the future, because I know that the budget is more important. Right, right. So that would be the goal. There's an idea with, like, think of D.C., think of this, that there's touchstone in the years you're here, that there's milestone threats. Like, next week or two weeks from now, Bethel Music's going to New York City to see Wicked. That's the sort of thing that you would build into, that both campuses take advantage of. That's a great opportunity for us to go with you. We vet the people that come with us. I won't go, I promise. It was a long list of volunteers for Shackler. So I don't know whether you want to vote on it, just give us a thumbs up. But, you know, this is a little unusual kind of field trip. You know, several nights. Out of state. Out of state. And we just wanted it to be... Basically, the funding is taken care of. Basically, the only reason we need to give us an approval is so that our insurance works. Yeah, that's probably good. If we approve it, then our insurance will cover the children. I'm not sure if that's what I heard, though. It's part five. I thought you just said that... You can find the money in the medical budget to do this. So parents have already received this. Have you had anybody where you're thinking one or two would be staying behind? Where we're absolutely not going to go or... We know how to handle it. We've had people stay back from trips. We designed a program in the next-level classroom. Yeah, I guess I was just asking what the reaction to the letter was. I haven't personally heard anybody say definitively... So maybe that's a part of it. ...not going, but I mean... I mean, I think parents... I have had a couple of parents talk to me that they're a little nervous about their child being gone for five days. Yeah, but nobody said... That they're not going to go. That they're not going to go. I think they just kind of want to talk through that process with me. Like, I'm really nervous about this. I think it's a good opportunity, but... And so we're kind of in that processing stage. And I think ultimately parents will make the decision that they feel is the best. I hope they all go. You know, and I think that... I mean, the nature's classroom has been around for years. I mean, they deal with homesickness. They deal, you know, those kinds of things. You know, we're here for... Hopefully there won't be any emergency. Have you picked what you wanted for? We haven't yet. And it's about, what, three hours away? Four? It's three. Poorly from here. Three and a half, three and a half. I know that when Miss Haynes is here for fifth and sixth grade, she would always take her students for a, what, three or four-day trip to... Holder. To hold... Yeah, and, you know, my son, I absolutely loved that just to get away and do ropes... You know, do a lot of activities that got them more into the nature and, like, bonding with each other. But they were... I don't know. It seemed like all the students went, but it was definitely... That's a memorable age. Yes. Well, and that's the thing. I think this is such that this age is so important. And I feel like this is that part where they're wanting their independence, but they don't quite know. You know, it's just... It's such a cool age, so it's kind of like, this is risky for them. Like, okay, I'm leaving my family, but, oh wait, I'm responsible. And it's just... That's what I love about this age, I think. And I think that this is a time that's so important to have these opportunities for. We've had a meeting in the fifth grade. We've had a meeting here with two parents who were concerned. They expressed their concerns. We talked to them the best we could. And I think they, you know, said what we said is that they just need to have the information. They need to talk about it and go in my... I would try very hard to get everybody there. I'd like to make a motion to support in the month. Oh, so good. Any discussion? Aye. Are you closed? There you go. Thank you. Thank you so much. All our children are on the line. Another shared opportunity. Can we do Chris first? Sure. Yeah. All right. Absolutely. Hi, my name is Chris Fours. I guess it's Fours Family 9 to the school board meeting tonight. Thank you. A little bit about myself. And then I have a short PowerPoint talking about basically, I guess, our nature's classroom efforts on the back 40 here at the Bethel School where we're fortunate enough to have a pretty decent little forest resource that's part of the school property. I have a master's degree in land use planning, focusing on natural resource planning from Virginia Tech and BS in natural resource studies from the University of Massachusetts. After getting those degrees, I started on now a career that I'm retired from 28 years with the federal government in law enforcement with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and I'm still with the FBI, which we won't talk about today. So after I retired, I always kept my hand in the planning arena with the agencies I worked for, namely the Park Service and the Forest Service, but I wanted to become, you know, more active and well-versed in that field again. So our kids both go to school here and we had spent some time on the forest out back and talking to administrators here. We came up with the idea of doing a forest plan, looking at some of the issues and opportunities on this small forest. So I need to give a quick photo credit. This was taken by a fellow by the name of Owen Bradlin, this picture, just the other day. This is in the afterschool program. We're utilizing some of the existing trails back there and doing what's supposed to be a hiking and running program, starting out as snowshoeing, obviously. So this picture just was the other day. It was the perfect picture to put in for the beginning of this program. This is essentially the entrance or the portal to the Bevel school forest. So very quickly, the process that I used, there's all kinds of names for it. I call it land analysis and evaluation. It's simply a review of existing conditions and resources focused on what you want to look at and based on what you want to do. Obviously, you could do a 2,000-page plan and look at every type of bacteria in the forest, but we've paired it down to what we thought was essential for what we want to do. And this process just sort of automatically reveals a lot of the issues and opportunities. And it forms the basis for the plan. So out of that, we have about a 16 or 17-page plan that has a bunch of action items and a whole bunch of maps showing things. The tools that I used, the state of Vermont, many people are probably familiar with the agency of natural resources, has a natural resource atlas that's based on a GIS, a geographic information systems platform, an ArcGIS platform. It is very good. It has a lot of this work essentially done for you if you know where your property is, once you've found your property boundaries, you can do a quick map of a slope, for instance. You can do the topography lines. You can do waterways, these sorts of things. So the state, compared to other states, has gone a long way toward doing a lot of the work that needs to be done when you do this process. So I supplemented that with a couple of apps, one called GPSKIN, one called GISKIN Pro. And what that enables you to do is to do field data collection. And then, thanks again to the Vermont A&R website, merge all the data that we collected out here into their site and make maps that show combinations of what they already have and what we want to look at. And one of the benefits of a geographic information system I'll demonstrate here in a second with a really complicated, busy map that I'm going to show, but essentially what it does, it allows you to turn off all these different data layers or combine them in any combination. So it's a really useful tool for this sort of a project. So the first thing we had to do was figure out where our property was. So the very first step... All right, for some reason the link is not working. Oh, okay. That's probably going to do it. All right, we'll just start the slideshow with the copies that we can circulate around for people to look at. So the very first step was we found all the abutting landowners, went out on the ground, tried to locate boundaries. We're very fortunate in this instance that most of the boundaries, with the exception of the GW plastics boundary, have been previously surveyed by licensed Vermont surveyors and marked. And we were able to recover almost all those property boundaries. So once we did that, we knew where our land was. Thank you. And we began documenting some of the other resources that are out there. For instance, the forest resources. I'm going to go ahead and lower. I'm trying to solve the technical problem. Just use a plan for a reference here. No, we might be back. The red boundary is the field verified boundary on the ground based on, you know, the survey marks that were still there and the surveys of the surrounding landowners. Again, the southernmost boundary by GW plastics that one has never been surveyed. So we basically put in an estimate of where it appears the different landowners have been using the land. And that's an issue that has to be solved. So this is the map I was talking about that basically has all of the layers turned on. And I'm not showing this because it's a great example of a map. Essentially, this is everything turned on, but using this GIS system, we're able to turn off all of those or, you know, any combination of them. So that's essentially all the field work that was done that we did with the apps out back, locating existing trails, proposed trails, existing waterways, et cetera. Who did that work with you, Chris? My main helper was my son, Andy. He is an example of a constraint on the land. And this is a slow map. Now, this is one that was already done by the state. You know, you just put in your area and you ask it to turn that layer on. The red is greater than 25%. And it's a little bit hard to see because the property boundary is also in red, but it's essentially right there in the middle. The majority of the site, except for the developed portion where the school is, is greater than 25%. So that, you know, automatically limits the sorts of things that you can do on the land. It's one of those major limiting factors. We have talked to some folks who wanted, you know, a high amount of logging to happen on the land for a variety of reasons. That really is a constraint that would limit that in addition to some of the educational things that we're trying to do. Another limiting factor, the tan area is mapped by the state again as a deer wintering area. You can see almost the entire, if not the entire forested portion of the Bethel School property is within the deer wintering area. So our management actions, what we want to do is protect that and in some cases I think we can enhance that with some of the proposed limited timber activities that we're going to talk about. Wetlands and waterways is pretty important. There's no major, what I would call major wetlands on this property, but there's all kinds of feeder streams. And the light blue dots are essentially water sources where springs come up out of the ground and as you can see there's a half dozen of these streams, most of which do flow all year round, even though some of them are very small. And they flow into two different drainage swales which are engineered. So prior to the school being here this was farm property and prior to that just forested property. So at some point to maintain the dry areas where both the trailer park is next door and the school they put in these drainage swales but all these small streams feed those. But they still function as wetlands to an extent and certainly the streams do. Up at the very, kind of the bottom left the letters are in blacks that are hard to read but there's a very significant spring head that was dug out and developed as a gigantic cast iron bowl up there. Pretty neat. I saw a picture of this property just the other day in 1913 and almost the whole thing was clear. It was all pasture. So it was probably a pasture water source or a farm water source for the farm where GW plastics now is that hold most of this land. The darker blue along the yellow dotted trail those are all stream crossings most of which need attention. There's culverts that have been placed there that are various states of failure or waters bypassing them. Under timber management we talked about all kinds of things. One of the ideas that the site seemed to be suitable for is the development of a small sugar bush at a high elevation and then also potentially capturing some maple trees, a lot of pipeline, you know, a tuning system that would come down to if you drive behind a school when you make the sharp left turn kind of straight ahead we had to find as a potential site for a school sugar house for kids to be involved in running in the development of the entire system and lay on the system. Also we identified all of this a whole series of significant sugar maple, fir and crab apple trees on the developed portion of the school grounds. Some of the sugar maples probably 30 years ago could have used some pruning that would have prevented some of the problems that are happening with it now but there's still some opportunities for that and importantly the crab apple trees which are a lot of them are outside this window are bad need of repair to prevent catastrophic failure of those trees. They've been there for several decades now and they're kind of an important resource for the schools. We identified that as a plan as an action item. Also in here what we talked about if you look at the purple outlines basically at the entrance of the school forest and then way up in the back. Those are the only two areas when we work while I worked on this I worked with the retired U.S. Forest Service Forest or Tom Ketchum and we identified those two areas for potential timber management units which the one at the very beginning of the gateway to the school forest would just essentially be a thinning type of a treatment where it would increase the age classes there's a lot of very old trees there but some of the trees we've checked when we're doing programs with the kids our sapling size are a little bigger and they're 40 years old so there's very little light into the forest floor so we thought that we could really improve essentially the gateway to the forest make it look very pretty and have a diversity of tree species there and then also release some of the maple trees potentially for that program but one that's up at higher elevation is primarily hardwood and again it would be a similar type thing just some thinning of the trees that were there leaning toward the maple species by keeping a full diversity of the tree species there and then there was a small area of about two acres that had some significant sugar maple trees but a whole bunch of even age hemlock trees that the forest had thought it would make sense to remove and allow that hardwood to come up to kind of expand that sugar bush and one of the benefits of that we talked a little bit ago about improving the quality of the deer wintering area there's all kinds of shelter for deer up there and they use it but there's very limited food so by having along the edges some opportunities for new growth essentially the buds of the deer during the winter we felt that that would enhance that that part of the property this is just a matter of the outdoor classroom sites the green dots are sites that are either used or in some cases that the eco teacher has identified as potential future sites and they use the sites heavily they use every week almost regardless of weather unless it's real windy or there's some kind of a danger factor also on this map there is an existing challenge course cable course high line course that's out there so we would recommend that that be continued but it does need some significant maintenance that's a decision that still needs to be made but that's also a sort of an outdoor classroom and a potentially important resource but the decision will have to be made how much is it going to cost to fix it can we get it back into a regular circulation and if so we need to kind of plan for the future for the trees that are going to be needed to replace that the other trees get older that things are anchored onto this is the trail system map the trails are in yellow and this is a combination of existing trails in skid roads the existing trail behind the school goes up here we proposed what I call an interloop trail now we're going to have the kids as we move forward with this come up with better names for them but right now that's the function of the interloop trail one we snowshoed and hiked the other day with the after school program and it went very well so that trail is going to need a little bit of build out but essentially the trail corridor is already there the trail now continues up here there's a small loop that goes on to Ryan Bidlack's property in meeting with him he was very receptive to what we were doing so we would probably pursue a trail use agreement with him we've also mapped an alternative route to switch back backs up to the school property one of the most exciting things that came out of this in meeting with all the neighboring landowners Dennis Wood, who owns the land up behind was immediately receptive and before we could even suggest it said I expect that the skid roads in my land will be part of a trail system that can be used by the public so what we've done is mapped a trail that we call the outer loop that starts at that bridge and goes across his skid roads at one point which comes very steep so with his permission for this corridor we've mapped a route that avoids that steep portion goes back on to a skid road and then connects back on to town property and heads down to the recreation center property so essentially it's linking two different pieces of public land and another recent development as of last week is the Ketchums have agreed to a trail use agreement so it can actually make a complete loop trail allow people having to go out onto the sidewalk in front of GW plastics and the parking lots and everything so we'd be able to actually connect back to the school property so the parts of both of those landowners very generous real big benefits in this plan there's also a mid loop trail that goes by the existing water facility that's up there and it follows a pretty wee old terraced road that was probably built for sugaring or logging that road eventually peters out so we've flagged a trail alignment that connects with that outer loop trail and then the last but not least significant thing with the trail program is that the Rochester Randolph area sports trail alliance is interested in pursuing grant money to make some of these trails mountain bike accessible so what we've done is to avoid the potential for conflicts especially on the downhill side along what we identified as a suitable skid trail for that small timber cut we also would make a very good quarter for a bike trail so that would cross the outer loop trail and follow the ridge back down and they would complete these trail systems to me is probably one of the most exciting things about the whole project priorities can everybody read those I'll go through them utilize students to assist in the remarking the existing survey boundaries we can still see these boundaries that cost thousands of dollars have land surveyed it'd be a really fun and interesting project for any students that are interested to work on getting those remarked so they're good for another 20 years potentially saving again tens of thousands of dollars we have instituted a semi-annual hazard tree mitigation assessment program because of the outdoor classroom sites and the trails so that obviously I'm recommending to continue utilize students to assist in initiating the crab apple proving schedule we should get those on some sort of a schedule before trees start to split and fail same thing with the sugar maple this is talking about the developed portion of the grounds there are still some opportunities to prevent some catastrophic failures and some trees that have died on replacing some of those pursuing the voluntary trail use agreements and easements with the neighboring land owners for the trails that's already well on its way we have the most important part there their initial agreement clear build and mark the three hiking trails again using hopefully student assistant student labor from the technical center and any other interested students working with the roster group to secure the grant funding for the mountain bike portion utilizing the students to assist the forester in conducting the timber management preparation work these are small enough units where the forester is more than happy to come back and work with students that are interested to do a complete inventory of each couple acre piece and then pursue the walking plan and that sort of thing at which point we come back to the board and say here is what we are proposing to do we are going to conduct the timber cuts again with the board's approval replacing all the trail culverts with foot bridges or something that needs to be done again with student assistants utilizing the students to conduct timber standard improvement activities and the post-sugar bush and other areas for wildlife habitat improvement that would be an ongoing thing that could be happening every year there's all kinds of opportunities for that the challenge course we talked about is the annual maintenance if the decision is to keep it have the students assist with the annual maintenance of the drainage swales pretty important with the flooding events that we get periodically keep those clear to protect both properties and then utilize students to develop a school sugar bush sapling collection system with the potential of the school sugar house those are just some of the potential action items and the whole point on a regular basis so you know next year maybe priorities would change for whatever reason as the different programs developed with the merging schools but this is a really it's a pretty pretty diverse forest for the size I don't think I mentioned at the beginning a forested portion of the site is between 16 and 17 acres it's not huge but there's a lot going on there and then with the neighboring owners lending their land for all of recreational use it becomes a pretty neat resource so it essentially it's like an educational laboratory that could be used for all kinds of different classes or individual projects and I already talked about the intent of the plans to be dynamic and be reviewed at least once a year and again we're very fortunate we have this resource right next to one of the school areas which is great there it is back there any questions I'm wondering if there's a I mean this is wonderful thank you for all that you've done it's just fantastic so many great opportunities to get kids outside and to really look at our forest lands and see what's out there so my question is is there a budget to go along with this are there estimates have you broken it down or are you planning on breaking it down to show what costs might be involved and I know that there's certain things that might actually generate a little bit of revenue to kind of absorb some of those costs but have you been putting numbers together yeah to a limited extent essentially we're trying to do as much as possible obviously with student labor volunteer labor and I think we can do a lot of it with that you know with the different school programs that are out there but for instance there's not a lot of high value timber on this land but any limited timber cuts we do we thought about doing a stewardship type arrangement where the logger in exchange for the value of the timber for instance builds the bridges across you know where the culverts need to be replaced by bridges and does some of the trail work so we're looking for all kinds of creative opportunities and I'm pretty invested in this now and I'm essentially going to stay on it and volunteer my time into the future to keep things moving in the right direction but there will be certain things that are going to require outside professional expertise that will probably have a cost if some sort of absorbing the cost isn't going to be there what's an example that you're thinking of it sounded like you'd have a forester working with the kids to he's volunteer that's awesome so I guess it's just the bridge building and eliminating all those deadfall trees and you know equipment the road course the mechanical cost for sure yeah it does but again it's amazing when you get going in the community and just by going to a surrounding way and others there's so much interest in just helping out the one thing that I think is good as far as I mean just back to the numbers is even if there is a volunteer time and contributions to capture all that as value is so important so that the community can really see what we're putting into it and if we had to hire it out what is that monetary value you know just valuing the the in kind contributions that are coming in your time is everything is value we're paying well initially we're not charging anymore Christine I was just curious what age range when you talk about students middle and high school well I think there's opportunities for all the age ranges for instance we design the trails like the air loop trails designed specifically for the youngest of the kids to access their outdoor classroom things all the time through a different realm a little more interesting realm kind of field tested but obviously we're not going to have you know the kindergarten kids out there building a trail they do this a lot with that but you know it's got to be kind of a common sense thing so the older kids would be the ones that would be utilized in like the the technical career center kids with the trail building we've had preliminary talks with them already and they are interested in doing some of that work yes I was just wondering what the distance of the outer loop trail is it's about a mile and a half and my other question is I heard you talking about the Randolph the alliance using it will it be open to the public will all the trails be open to the public one of the conditions of the grant that Rosta wants to pursue is it a security easement Mr. Wood has already agreed to allow that trail so yeah it would be open to the public land orders and a lot of change and this might be more for Bruce just a quick question I heard you mention the mountain biking which sounds great but also I know how it might be to attack that do you have any insurance concerns about mountain biking unsupervised we're covered as a part of if a kid fell down in the hallway I mean there's our insurance carrier who covers kids on the property most things she could probably never have enough it's just a normal when kids are in school policy and this would be school open to the public after that that's a different story if they're not our kids we already allowed people to use our generally or people to use our playground generally with open lands in Vermont and I'm sure you're not charging a fee you know it isn't hosted liability is very limited it's almost impossible to find a successful lawsuit with somebody who got hurt recreating another thing that goes to that point is if this trail grant were to occur and be funded there would be a professional trail designer that would be involved in the design of that trail somebody that they've used and has built trails most recently on US Forest Service land behind the Rochester Ranger Station so it wouldn't be kind of just a willy-nilly let's have really steep drills the grant the grant I think what they were pursuing was like a $50,000 grant for design and construction they used a specialized narrow excavator that has very low impact I think it could go through a standard doorway that's how narrow it is it's pretty high tech even at Suicide 6 they're going to be building mountain bike trails and they've hired some pretty I don't know, wreckable consultants to design it there's a lot to it I was just going to say I like the idea of it I think it's great it has a lot more recreational value than just timber value it's not woodblock, it's not economically to do any logging on it so no, I like the whole plan okay, any more questions for the four of us okay, thank you very much alright, thank you yeah, very short and sweet more outdoor fun we are proposing a joint field trip between a ninth grade science community between both schools to Franconium Notch overnight June 1st and 2nd the cost is $100 plus the cost $100 each? $100 for the campsite and there's a dormant volcano there we study geology there's lots of biology to go as a Christine Fitch we would lead teachers we'd send 5 people 20 kids, a 4 to 1 ratio supervised sleeping and we would send the food it would be camping and there would be supervision at all times out of state field trip joint field trip that came up and we want to manage all of it we have more to talk about later next month sure do we need to move it so they can plan we can secure the thing and you can say no and it's $100 we have to we need to talk a little more so we can't knock on stuff okay thanks for letting us know that okay that'd be about 35 students or so 20 total with the adults a small group it's all they can handle is that all of the no it's two classes, a biology class and a geology class so it would be about that much so not all the 9th grade 16 total that's a great opportunity it's an agenda hopefully everyone has an opportunity as we work together as we get closer to classes and different activities and some of the committee work I happen to sit in on the kind of the announcement for the course catalog for the high school the other day when the teachers basically each department took an area that they've been working on and tried to kind of announce and talk about the new classes that they developed and I was pretty impressed that they have really worked hard on this and we're hoping when the kids see it they're going to be pretty excited about it so that's one thing we have work being done on a lot of different fronts I think our need and what we want to happen is some of these committees will then when their purpose is completed and not continue to go on and on and on but certainly it was a big hurdle to get over to get the class catalog course catalog completed so that the kids can then take a look at it and register when is that going to take place the registration next? March 30th in the morning that's pretty pretty normal that time of the year so we think that there will be a lot of enthusiasm when the kids finally see some of the courses that they can develop the other committees that are going I don't know every one of them where their progress is but Joanne you're on a couple of them marketing the logo deadline was today so we had a few come in that was urgent some on bond so we'll meet on the 22nd and look at them see what the top three will be that go out to vote for a student body no transportation we have maps now well that's good yeah I think that Steve landed myself the plan is to map out all the stops and the ages of kids that stops because he was recommending a two tier pickup so that I'm not saying one will be first or the other but we'll either pick up all the element in first and go back out for all the older kids or vice versa so first we need to see who is where and then look at where the current bus routes overlap create potentially new bus routes does that allow for a bus to take them straight to the destination school that's what we're going to see so we won't know until we map it out cause I was like listening to my boys they're like well I guess the bus will take us to Bethel and then we'll wait there and get on another bus and go to royalty I'm listening to that and I'm like it'll be nice to see how it goes I just want to get up the latest because they're up all night long they can stop here sweep a little yeah right I'll go down through the next one there's steering committee which you lead then there's student voice which I'm the administrative leader on that is they March 30th work is what we're working on now the course selection governance which hasn't been called yet yeah but we have a proposal to move forward on that now community engagement which I'm the administrator on that's the wildcat newsletter we're getting it went out last week it went out with the typo it said wildcats so what do you name Kate in town calm down and we're also talking about how we can bring Andrew you're on there why don't you help a little we're just talking about some nights the middle school parents can come this facility faculty that same thing for high school then there's multi tiered systems of support Andrew's the leader with Deb Matthew on that yep and we've been meeting trying to bring us together about how we're going to deal with proactively with behavior and defining how we're going to react to behavior in both places so that when kids there are two different elementary schools but then follow to the same middle school and follow to the same high school it's consistent and predictable so we have a whole huge team of self-reliance teachers are going to the best conference this summer which is a annual conference at Killington and two of our teachers are going to join them just for consistency but then we'll have some summer planning time as well and the other part of that you have a question about because Mike they will go back to I guess we're talking about curriculum but then also just talking about sound like sort of some open house nights with the curriculum can we get some summary or information sent out to the other schools and the SU that would be the sending schools for students so get it up to Chelsea and over to Rochester or wherever we're going to get students from and then for those open house nights also invite for people from those schools let them know about those nights we've been talking about maybe busing kids in to do some work the ability to go get them bring them in and t-shirts can I add just because I know quite a lot of people in Chelsea Bedford is pursuing them they have like their students calling their students and they're telling Chelsea is telling their students that they should see to make decisions but I made one so that's further in the report we do have a counselor committee that I could address all of this if you want and the curriculum committee but I think if you want to do it now we have Bruce has charged the counselors at both schools to get on this get in those buildings, get with those counselors and get those kids in our building and find out what they want to learn and make sure their parents have good information and invite them to everything so I don't think we need an update I just think we need to know that you're doing that I mean that's how I feel well we got that from the steering committee too I mean it's really clear and we gave that to Hannah and Nicole very clearly and they're on it but we will not let up on that because we know that's an important thing so the best thing when you have the written documentation of all the classes could you send it to everybody in the earth like all the board members so that we can share it with our community members we're not going to share it with anybody until we share it with the kids and the way we're presenting that is not by who teaches what what is being taught so students won't shop for teachers they'll shop for what they're interested in or what their path to graduation is we will be able to hold that back they could probably figure some of that but then once the kids are on top of it we want to get it to the parents but we'll get that out to everybody and we can do that through community engagement too we have been trying to put links on the Merger Facebook page and also on the individual school pages so I've been very impressed by the work that folks have been doing doing their normal job, their teaching job and also doing this extra work and trying to make things happen at the same time and the high school group was pretty enthusiastic the other day they were proud of what they've done I want to make sure Frank gets a word in on your own committees the facilities committee we are scheduled to meet we were actually scheduled to meet last week but with snow days and stuff like that the main purpose right now is we're going to try and come up with a moving schedule to take a look at classrooms because he wasn't originally part but he's going to come sit in we'll talk about what's the moving schedule how many people do we need how many classrooms, what needs to be changed books, desks, we've been doing an inventory on that in both buildings what can be shared, what can be reused and what do we need to sort of fill in the gaps and like I said last week we're supposed to meet so my understanding is we'll either meet late this week or early next week with the gym floor which I believe you've got a report on and that's one of the main things that we were working on the other co-curricular we haven't met in a couple of weeks one of the things that we're working on is trying to come up with we're going to start inviting students we have Lindy myself and four or five teachers that are involved and we want to take a look at sort of an overall athletic co-curricular policy and that sort of ties in with our mission and our statement so sort of things like practices before games, dress up what about habits of work versus ineligibility so right now we have two different eligibility policies and one of the things that we're looking at and we've pulled some data from 10 surrounding schools all the way far down as Brattleboro up to Burlington to see do we want to stick with what we have as eligibility or do we want to look towards something of proficiencies and habits of work so that's kind of what we're looking at right now and then sending over our information to the procedure committee in regards to some of the things that we would like to see and then have them sort of couple with them of what goes in the student handbook so that's where we are with those two and then I'm on a couple of the other committees that were already mentioned so I don't need to rehash that so I'll just hit a couple of these real quick okay on negotiations we will be working in negotiations this Thursday with a federal mediator and teachers at the office all day long starting at nine o'clock probably going till five at least I think we have a very productive session with Dina on the telephone last week I think the board is prepared and I think we we are ready for the things that are important to us and I'm sure that the teachers have the same information that what's important to them but I think we'll see where this goes I guess there's a sense of resolve with the board about what we're going to do and what we're not going to do and we'll see how it all plays out Dave anything no anything policies I gave you two policies where one's a kindergarten policy and preschool policy there's a couple here they didn't get around and there's also something technology I believe use of educational technology I'd like you to look at these as a first draft and maybe bring it back back to question I have to get going with you guys with policies and I'm hoping that we can get Steve Dale to work with us on forming a committee and one person from each board meeting and he thinks it won't take very long if we get we'll get the major ones together abandoned this about a year ago because first of all people were pretty meeting out and we were getting very little attendance it's all understandable with the amount of meetings that we were doing but we really this is the most important thing that boards do and it's hard to make policy when you're in a crisis when something comes up for morning clarification if you don't have the policy you're in a pretty bad place so we need to get these done and it's pretty mundane work but it needs to happen so that's what I'm saying with that and there is a proposal by Steve with Steve Dale you know I put $10,000 away in the S.U. budget for policy work and I work with rooms on governance and that kind of thing for training I sent around that black and red and it's right over in front of Owen here on the table if you didn't see it of dates coming up at the bottom I think if you didn't get these and you're new board member you really ought to go to this first one it's not enough but it's a good start and I hope that you know you will register if you want to just call Christie she'll get you registered it's not going to be a problem we'll make sure it happens for you because it's important that you get as much training as you can which one are you talking about the effective engaged governance you can pick which one you want to go to it would be new board training is that on there right the one in the middle in the one right you pick the date and they're all the same project so we contact Christie let her know what date we want to do and register us so it's a really good flyer you can do more than one you can do some of these others that are up but I really suggest you go the IFR report I'm not going to go through it all I just wanted to see it we got this back from the state this was the assessment that they did at the end of January they sent 26 people into our SU and the people divided up and went out I was told that they had collected 1446 statements with those 26 people about things that they saw when they moved around going to classes talking to various people in the buildings it's important that you understand that you're not going to see any referral to Bethel this is an SU evaluation and we did have Jesse Roy from the state come in and work with the administrators on what it's really saying we'd like to bring this back it's in draft form here but we told him to take the water marks off because we really don't have any problems with it it's one of these things where you can always do better you can't do badly there's comments in here about we need to work harder on a certain thing or they crazed us on some of the things that we're doing so that's out to the public now and it's something we're happy about what else yeah I think it's important that you understand that the future planning that was a part of the agreement future planning apparently is not able to carry out their responsibility we've signed up for basically and we will be asking the executive board to go to a different company on Thursday we've had some teachers who had to wait to get their money once they've had the prescriptions and what the name of the company's data path that we're going to be talking about on Thursday with the executive board they were going to be making they were going to be doing part of the process for us anyway and they have the capacity to follow through on and fulfill exactly what our contract needed I think the future planning was inundated with business because everybody in the whole state is going to these HSAs I don't think they have the people to be able to provide the service that we needed we may change from data path at some point later on but we are in kind of an important place right now we need to get service for our folks so that's what that's all about anybody on the executive board Dave, Joe anybody, Eunice anything to say about any of these things I have a question on the future planning so we're already in three going into four months and these teachers haven't been able to get any money some of them have some of them have and I guess all I can do is be honest with them on what's happened basically and it's happened to everybody it hasn't just happened to them so I think as of Thursday we should have this solved you know that's what I'm doing is trying to get the agreement in front of them and allow them to pass it so we can get on with it it's nobody's fault it's just the fact that hopefully if there's some hardships we can look at maybe funding some of them I'm not aware of anybody who I mean I've had a couple people contact me because they want this fixed when I tell them what we're doing they seem to be okay with it at least in the short run like I say we knew we were going to have to be waiting a little bit anyway and it was going to be fixed in April so you know we'll consider that but I don't know of anybody that's well I mean people do contact me they know my email address so it's like okay we try to be discussion items nature's classroom I think they've covered executive or pool board representation I don't know if that's a is that an item that we're going to discuss in this meeting I wasn't planning on it I didn't send around I was told to try to get some examples of what force has done and I sent that around this afternoon to people in an email to all the board members and if you've seen it maybe you haven't seen it I don't know but it wasn't so late today and basically what they're telling us at the AOE is whatever you present to the state board has to just be something you all agree that works it's kind of a general conversation just a question about what you sent around it looked like the examples that you had basically gave some extra seats to certain districts is it possible to decrease the number certain districts have to I was told by Donna Rousseau I saw her today actually she said whatever whatever the board can agree to but it has to be blessed by the state board when you're done so I think it's going to be a hard conversation because this has been coming up for the last three or four years about who has the power who has the I mean not enough representation I don't think we should look at it well okay wrong word representation it's just a question it's been coming up and right now the only thing they give is either three votes or one vote one vote if you don't have schools three votes if you do have a school and with the merger here where you had six before Sharon and Stratford have three and they have the same and I don't know whether that's right or not yeah it's all been condensed so I would like to say something about this topic because just to give everybody a history a few years ago when we merged SU's I advocated that we do have voting done on a proportional system by how many citizens you have in the town that didn't get very much love at the table and so we moved on I didn't push it too hard I pushed it a little bit but the one bylaw we did get put in is automatically if any towns merge automatically the bylaws are open back up again that's in the bylaws so whether anybody wants to discuss it or not at the SU level discuss it because we merged and I think it's insane that we would go down to three votes as an organization I think it's crazy we have 45% of the students in the district and we'll have the same voting power as schools with 150 kids so I really would advocate for the new board coming in that you push this and it doesn't matter what the state law says that it's three votes per seat on an SU board they've got all kind of waivers everywhere across the state so even if Stratford and Sharon don't agree you can still take this to the state board and take the case up there and that's what I would advocate you do it doesn't make sense for it to be addressed ahead of time because once we are all seated and we go to the new SU model then we're already at a place where Bethel Royals and Combined are three representatives Sharon's three representatives Stratford's three and so at that point your ability to negotiate and vote is somewhat compromised I have been advocating that we start this conversation out and we talked about it last week and I believe that's going to keep coming up until we come to a resolution between now and hopefully the board who I will well just to let everybody know he doesn't see a reason to do this he doesn't know he thinks if it isn't broke don't fix it so I think those of us who are going those of us who are going to the full board meeting on Monday need to be very vocal that we want to talk about the bylaws we want to change them can you put on the agenda for Monday I don't see why not did it happen I went to the last executive board meeting and presented a letter requesting that it be put on the agenda and Kathy Galuzzo and Don Hyde and everybody who would Bruce Hyde said I thought that there was movement made to put it on the next agenda well I've been told by Don that he wants everything to come through again so I'm willing to talk to Don to reorganize everybody who was there voted but it can't be on the agenda because Don says I'll do whatever you want me to do but I understand I feel like a pain pump I've worked with Don for many years I'm very happy to give Don a call but I would like your blessing to say that the word I would be using is quite insistent to put on the agenda but if I don't have your backing then I can't really do much I don't need a vote just not a heads that is everybody okay with me using that word that word insistent I don't know where Don stands on this but I don't know where Stratford stands but I guess the point is I don't want to make a fight before we need to Bruce I know where Don Stratford stands on this because he's told me and I got a email and you won't put it on the agenda I think it's clear yeah please reach out to him I'm very happy to bring this up I'll tell him we're going to bring it up whether it's on the agenda or not we're going to do this I think with Robert's rules we can add it so let's just put it on the agenda and make it official they are don't put it on I need you to put it on okay six o'clock all right six o'clock can I ask one quick question back to Olin I'll make it really quick I'm curious if food service is under there is it a whole committee okay is it possible to sit in on some of these I looked on the website and there's absolutely no information on who's on committees or when they meet or how to even reach out I'm interested in food service and I want to go to some of the meetings but it's like here I am on the school board and I don't even know who to contact that committee is made up of Linda Wheelock and Gail Gail and who can I myself and Bruce and Willie I think Dorothy's got a good point I heard two things and we can take care of that community engagement we need to get that calendar out and merge your committee calendar we need to put that in front of people we'll take care of it okay and on that note I also want to bring up I think the White River Valley SU website is the worst website I have ever seen in my life yeah can I get a shout out on that one terrible and it's hard to find anything and especially under the when I've gone to look for information you click on something and it's like there's nothing there it's just hanging in the breeze we got hacked about a week or two ago so I don't know whether that makes any difference but I just told them if I'm more inclined than we were had and I'm going to say again I would like to see in big letters and all the papers how to get to the right place because I agree with you I have tried yeah it's terrible and it would be nice if there was some clear way to just go to the new schools website I hate having to go get redirected to the SU website oh man thank you can you announce it when you really do get it fixed I know but I'm just saying isn't that a little there could be a page on the existing site and navigate to and then like has the information it's easy to access I'm just saying that I think is a real flaw okay thank you I'll personally reach out to you on the food service we'll get it out to the larger group how about we get an email to all of us here about what you're doing that'd be great thank you next meeting day due to the April 17th 6 p.m. at Royal I have to say my vacation week is for the kids right we're on the school board we have a lot of stuff to do are there parents here with kids that are going on vacation because all kids are on vacation that would be the question so that mean I'm taking notes so you would need to take notes for your respective meeting and Jeff would need to take notes for his respective meeting oh my apologies Geo's going to take notes for your nominating some of the principals for you guys like medical appointments or out of town stuff on those dates I know a quick survey here three of us aren't available so how about Frank okay well then I'm getting like my face pulled back again you're going to get hair extensions are you so should we try to move it for the Tuesday prior for our accent 10-3 or we can maybe this year is 24 do you want me to I have another calendar so I can do a meeting I know I know that's why I said that Can we move it to Thursday, April 12th? Thursday, April 12th. Does that sound everly serious? Nothing. Oh, okay. But we just, we wouldn't have, we still have a quarrel. If you're comfortable with that. Joanne, what is the concert? Crank. Do we have something at our school on the 12th? Is that what the concert is? We have, yes, grades 6 to 12 spring concerts. Yeah, that wouldn't work for us. What about Wednesday the 26th? I mean Thursday the 26th. That's a long time though. I would go back to Monday the 9th. Okay, Monday the 9th. Let's check. It doesn't work? Sharon and Stratford, which means they might lose some of their fortune. Oh, I see. It's fine with me. Anyone? Okay. April the 9th, 6 o'clock in Royalton. Wait after this, do you want to make a change, please? I'll probably call her. All right, I'll just back in. I would like to pay in a motion to adjourn. Second. All right, where are they going?