 I'll try to notice, it was like the idea was like. Yeah, I think the volume is on so it will be better. That's what I thought. All right. He starts at 6.33. First order of business is public comment. Second order of business, consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Yeah, can I make a motion to approve the consent agenda pending to, should we say grammatical changes? Do we have to remove those items to make grammatical changes? Yeah, I think so. I think we do. Do we make them grammatical? So we have. Grammat, okay. Yes, I think we probably have to pull them out. Because there are changes. Yeah. I'm trying to specify what those are and pull them out. It's the, it was in the board superintendent of relationship policy there was some mistake in new submission. First is vision. In section 1.5. That's the one that I have, and yeah. There was a typo in the minutes. Wow. I don't know what our name is. We'll get to that. Yeah. It's really hard to have some help here. What kind of help? Let's add that to your motion. So the motion to approve the consent agenda minus those two. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So now we move on to the discussion of the two items that were removed for medical. So then I make a motion to approve the board's super head of relationship policy pending the change of mission to vision in the second to last statement of 1.5. Okay. Where are you in motion five? 39 staff. That was the superintendent's story. Since this is a policy, we don't do that. No, we can't do that. It's just a theoretical change. All right. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. And then the minutes. Agenda item number seven, action taken again since the last word should be interested. Where is that again? So the agenda item number seven, action taken. The second to last sentence. Mr. Murphy, we have a re-appreciation for expressing interest. It's on the last page near the top. Oh. It's in the section above the co-projector appointments. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Motion to approve the minutes will be corrected. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Any opposed? Andrew Stein. Yes. Very happy to have him on board. He replaced Peter. And I'm just saying is that everything can sail through the city council? Very smoothly. Great. I do have a question. We nominated him at the last meeting. The agenda says the nomination of the board. Do we need to read that? I think we've already nominated him. We've already nominated him second to city council. I do want to, now that we have Andrew on, I think it might make sense to make officials some committee appointments. Andrew, perhaps out of ignorance, has volunteered to be on both the finance and, and Ryan has also very kind of agreed to be on the negotiations committee. So we're going to have formal motions to so nominate and then approve. We'll have those committees run to that. I'm pretty certain I was bummed and told. Yeah. We asked. Has that happened to me like 25 times a day? Yeah. Negotiations committee by this board or should we just be clear? Let's be honest. Let's read. Yeah. I know that the board appoint Andrew Stein, Ryan Zajak, and Tina Munsee to be the board's negotiations committee. I second. Any discussion? Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And then. Switches me and Tina and Andrew. Yep. Yep. Am I not there anymore? You're on there now. You're on there. So it's the four of us. We okay having four? I mean Andrew's got a, Andrew actually was excited about the finance committee. That's what he does. I think he'd be great on it too. Actually, if we only want to have three, I would not mind stepping out of the finance committee with being on a super attendant. Okay, Steve. Can you hear us? I don't think it's fine. I was going to say we didn't call. That's been kind of fuzzy in terms of what we've kept track of and not kept track of. Yeah. A lot of that's going to be in part of the budget policy. Because the finance committee actually also is part of the review of the financials that go into the budget. So. Like I was calling him. Right. That was one of the open questions we had at the last meeting, wasn't it? Just what our charge was going to be. As I was home and the finance committee. It was very nebulous when it was just the Montpilier school board. Matter of fact, I don't think it even existed until we made it happen. Last year. Now that was the first time I think there was a budget committee. Right. Even though it's mandated in our policy. And it's a BSBA recommended policy that would have a budget and finance committee. Should we put the finance committee in charge of putting together a charge? I mean, I think it's kind of two main things. One is looking at the. Are you asking the finance committee if they want to write a charge? Well, I'm going to. Yeah. I think it's going to be reviewing the, you know, the part of the financial reports. And then. The details. Details of the budget. Yeah. I think it's kind of two main things. One is looking at the. Are you asking the finance committee if they want to write a charge? Well, I'm going to. Yeah. The details. Details of the budget. I think. I think so. Do you want those in one motion? Uh. We don't really know. They could just come back. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I don't know what was going on. So. So you haven't voted on the finance committee. We have not. I was just letting Steve get in. All right. Let's do the checks. Well, let's let's nominate and then. All right. So let me see if I have this. I move that the board appoint. Ryan Zajak, Andrew Stein and Tina Muncie to be the finance committee. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. You opposed? Yeah. I think you just by email the draft charge. Jim, I have to say now that Steve is here that I wasn't here at the last board meeting. But I watched you all. And I have to say I was so glad that Grant was here so that he could say four or 5% might be reasonable because I wasn't here to say it. And there was Steve saying, what happened to 7%? Steve, we're just getting kind of the top, maybe 25% of your head. There you go. It's okay. I mean, it doesn't really matter whether we. Well, I guess we're talking about the real questions. Steve, can you hear us? Yeah. Can you hear us? Well. Oh. I wonder why I didn't get a reaction. He heard Tina. Tina a little bit. It is connected to the mics, huh? No. Oh, there we just have to shout. So is it just the volume on the computer? This is me. That's because I'm six inches from the microphone. Yeah, we have a big fancy microphone. Well, it has a pretty long cord. Hang on. Oh, okay. So that's the microphone. I thought that was the camera. No, this is the microphone. So let's move it closer to Jim so Jim at least can interact. Central. Yeah. Becky, you want to? Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. There you go, Steve. Now can you hear us better? Whoever was speaking, I can hear. Okay. That was Libby. Can you hear me? I can hear you, Jim. Okay. I think we're set. So if we're going to speak a little louder, and we'll keep working on the mic. Thank you. So. Are you focused? Yes. So for this week's Learning Focus, we have a little video. Some of you may have seen this. Here's Steve's again. Yep. What's up? You could actually do this on your computer if you wanted to. It was embedded in a solo salute. Yes, it was. So if you followed it on solo salutes, you'd seen this. One of the things that we're doing with flexible pathways this year is trying to highlight opportunities for our kids that they have. So it's a joint effort from Matt McLean and Mike Barry and Kits, obviously. And this is the first one that was done. It's about a 19-minute video, which our Learning Focus is typically about 20 minutes, so I thought it would fit. And this is Rami Savard, right? Yes, it is. Yeah. Rami, who is amazing. So how many of you have seen this video? Okay, good. So you guys get to see it again. I've seen it, too. It's great. And it really shows how not only the senior citizens that Rami is working with are benefiting from his talents, it also is really highlighting how what Rami is pulling from this experience. So that's what we're going to watch today. Are we ready? Well, I'm going to make sure I get sound here. Adam, they're open. And do you have a good thing for the TV audience? Yes. Yeah, program. Steve, can you hear? A little bit, yeah. The photo messed me up. I'm going to try to do my things. And I'm a newcomer. I didn't come until 1998. And who is Rami? My name is Rami. I go to school at Montpelier High School and I'm in 12th grade. Rami is a guy who has a real sense of music and ear and rhythm also. And he has the most amazing ability to communicate to people. I think he's brought a lot to a... I know I feel very positive about this experience and I think everybody has worked with him or someone they love. I'm strongly interested in music and playing music with friends and other people from the community. And I'm also very strongly interested in academics. I really enjoy math, sciences, and although I don't enjoy writing, I love English classes. Community-based learning is a program that you know how long it's been going on in Montpelier and it's led by Matt McLean and it's a program where kids through math and now through a lot more people will go out and meet a community partner who is often the owner of a store, a local business, or a local events coordinator in my case and through them will work out a sort of learning experience. So I started Westview. I started doing performances there, weekly performances around June last year or rather June this year, last school year. How's it going? Thank you so much. It's really great. It's wonderful what you do. Well, we enjoyed it. I'll tell you, you're great. Thanks a lot. Yes, I'll just be setting up and you're welcome to come by. I'll see you later. Sounds good. My students, I go up there this week and I sit down at the end of them and I have a horde of regulars and they sit down in the audience and mess around with the cool audience, and they're doing styles. Now they finally decided on a couple round tables, like a jazz lounge. They really liked it. And relative to the next piano, they tuned it a couple of weeks ago. I think for me, I'm going to have never been tuned. Learning journeys that students create throughout their high school experience where they have some voice and choice and how they go about demonstrating their proficiencies before they walk across the proverbial graduation stage. The flexible pathways is the umbrella that community-based learning falls under. There are a number of pathways that students can take to access learning and to access opportunities that they feel are important to them and that help them to achieve the proficiencies that they need for graduation. And community-based learning is one of the areas. The other areas of flexible pathways and popular high school are dual enrollment where students are afforded an opportunity to take a college course during their junior or senior year. Online learning, independent studies, career and tactical studies, and early college. Early college essentially is the time when students can do their senior year, both as a senior in high school and as a freshman in college. So it's a fantastic opportunity that the agency of education has set up through Act 77 where really students can personalize the way they approach their graduation. This whole idea that learning happens all the time and to capture learning and to capture the agency that students have in what they do during their day is important. We really want to make sure that students have the best voice and choice as they move towards their graduation. You know, Remi came to me last year with just his continuing passion for music and he just wanted a creative outlet for it in a way that was beyond himself. And Remi and I talked about this, the solemn commitments are take care of yourself, take care of others and take care of the place. And we talked about how Remi's interested in taking care of his music passions with the community and in particular with a senior residence. We're really embodying those commitments. He was taking care of himself by continuing his passion for music and finding outlets for that and growth. Take care of others. He took care of much of them through his time teaching and operating JF sessions. And they took care of him by offering their friendship and mentorship in a really, really cool intergenerational way. And then the third piece is really around this idea of taking care of the place and the place being the world beyond oneself. We are not getting younger in Vermont. We're getting older. And the idea of taking care of the place, this issue of intergenerational wellness and growing well as seniors really kind of understand that it's an important piece. And so when we started talking about what he wanted to achieve, we really kind of wrapped it around those commitments and he was all in from day one. And he just said, let's get after a movie contact and then Remi was in there. Remi, I came for that. Thank you. It just starts playing. He just goes just like this and then people come in and sit around him and he just keeps playing. And then eventually I played flute so I come and play with him and we have another friend who plays guitar who comes along and people sing along to his music. And then he teaches us about the composers and this is one of the books we do. And he'll just open up the book to one of the pages and he'll just start playing and I'm just coming to that. I've been practicing at Bios, you know what I'm saying? It's called Walk-In. The idea is it's called Walk-In and it might be like gospel piano playing. I'm Sarah Lawless. I'm a community-based learning advisor at Montpere High School. My job kind of begins with talking to students and having conversations about their interests and what they want to do. The CVL program is opportunity to explore interests outside of all the schools. Those can be vocational interests or abogational interests. It does not have to be tied to something that they know what they want to do after they graduate. It's purely exploration. So my job begins with that. The conversation based on the ideas that form there are spring work for which you have to communicate parts outside of the walls of the school. Graduated and now she's at UM, pursuing. She wants to be a pediatrician. And she did a series of, she did many CVLs. She's the poster student for starting in one place and just like that experience led to another experience, led to another experience, led to another experience. And really kind of all along the way there's kind of the endering path led her to an interest in healthcare and working with children and working with mothers and she did an awesome CVL especially with a midwife and she started the process of becoming a doula and still working in college. She just took it and purely following the interests that came before her and it's just one of those things that we never really predicted where she would end up because she just followed the path and she followed the opportunities that came up and was just beautiful. Or again, I think at the end it just became an amazing a look looking back at what she had found was over the course of four years and it was you also obviously he not only had the ability but he had the ear, the feel but the first time he played afterwards I looked at Chris and I said so much percussion and he said I'll talk to him about that. So what he learned I think was his own playing I'm not sure if it's better it was so good to begin with but he learned to play with us he learned when to quiet things down so that our voices for the flute could be part of the thing and I don't think he knew that before that I don't think he knew that when you're playing with other people you have to subdue yourself to meet what the other people can offer and I feel that he that that was we could watch him learning that each time and the other thing he learned he looked around he was in touch with us he'd look around and he would either smile if he were doing it right or he would nod to say your turn or he would he was in communication with us and I'm talking this more about just the four of us who sang as a quartet really in a way but then the other folks would begin to arrive and he'd bring you all in just by personality just by smiling because he was a warm and connecting person giving other people about being and that's the most intractable thing I've done in my full school career I do what I do for them and they appreciate it to an extent can we sit down? I'll be a part of your... I'll be a part of your... alright let's do it again and be able to go do you want a solo on your creation? okay yeah the quartet and the first half I think that's how you call it 80 and 80 how do you call it 80 go from the top one, two, three obviously one of the best things of my day that Adam can probably speak to as well is when I walk through the halls and I have a piano in the cafeteria and it just... you don't do anything with a smile you just can't because kids are talented but he's the piano man that's nice which is awesome so yeah we're gonna make... see this episode one I was planning to make many more episodes to highlight kids in different pathways and we can't go straight out there the good work that's happening here across our community what percentage of the students are enrolled in this program you know I don't know the exact percentage but I can certainly find out we have a large program it has in the past been like 80% do you have a CDL at some point in the time that you're in this it's not like a program that you do alternatively to school it's just an opportunity that any student can can do at any time and it builds itself up to hiring that as a full time person yeah actually I think for any workshop they've got a job there so then this is second one do the students get any kind of credit for it or is it all the flexible pathways so it's a lot of experiential learning and that's the big thing is that it looks fantastic to publish an error transcript of your resume skills I think my daughter did one over the summer and they have to write they have to set goals and they have to do a reflection and I can't remember whether they get credit but I think they might have to identify an LE that they're going to that they're going to target and then a learning expectation and then demonstrate that they are publishing the flexible pathway in CBL so if I'm a flexible pathway student so I do it's a piece of it it's one option so as Matt was saying there's several options that we have available to the students and CBL is one option in flexible pathways well to be clear flexible pathways is not an alternative program it is any students have access to demonstrating proficiency in ways outside the classroom and all of those ways come under the flexible pathways umbrella am I saying that I'm sorry I missed it so if students want to demonstrate proficiency through an avenue other than classroom learning that avenue would be one of the things under the flexible pathways umbrella and any student can at any time do that so for instance my older daughter did a CBL this summer that's a flexible pathway and Jim said Steve said face it toward you Jim I thought I had no face the microphone toward Jim and then my younger one this year is doing an independent study in PE I think to have her dance classes count as a PE class that might just be that used to be called outside PE credit but now I think it might be part of flexible pathways but for some of those things you would get credit you'll get her PE credit exactly but not credit exactly it's proficiency you're demonstrating proficiency because we're moving from credits to proficiency but don't you get credit system we're working on that but just to be clear because we did use to have and many schools had like an alternative pathway program that's a non-traditional but that's not a flexible pathway it's exciting and it's growing it's good next thing oh yes sorry what steps do you have in mind for getting these help well right now they're being shared on all our social media feeds and they're in the Soul and Salutes from Mike McCrae other avenues I would just really encourage everybody to follow on our PSBT on Twitter and Facebook because that's where we showcase it Instagram Instagram yes thank you Adam but I have my student here but I have my student here great other questions just one last thought on what Bridget just asked about and Adam might be able to answer this would ORCA run these is that something that would be interesting I think two students have done that not this year but last year two students did a CVL with ORCA I wonder if they put this on their website though too this the video that they made yeah I think there's going to be more episodes I don't want to see a career permission from for programming yeah well I respect anything give me the access where is the video if there was accessible I think you might have said it it's on social media it's on our social media pages I'm not positive it's on the website or not but it's definitely on our social media pages cool yeah it's a great piece I think you're going to have a series it would be interesting to have it on the website too we also have Mike also has a YouTube channel that we should probably get a popular Roxbury YouTube channel he has several series going on right now a video if you've seen them so I actually just got a link I saw to the no-name tech show with Sumat P. of them highlighting different features with Google that we have that's kind of curated teachers but not really anybody could watch it he also has a two principles and a guy we have to work on our meeting conventions the two principles and a guy book reviews with Brian Herney and Brent Bernal doing book reviews of kids books that is starting up that they've done two episodes with too so he's got several videos going Mike Mike is that's no-name tech show I have to say great for parents who are like when you hit middle school and your kids are doing the Google classroom stuff and maybe if you don't know how Google classroom works those little clips are great I know they've shared some cool things go ahead and show there's a prequel to the CBL series and Ed Utopia came here they did a feature on our CBL program if you weren't aware that could be added to the series it's good it shows a kid doing a CBL an insurance completing and another one it's on them video is just a great way to get the word out and see the kids and hear the kids and you can see the seniors and their reactions and then telling Remy what to do and then going back to the historical in fact he's playing George I've never heard of Ray Charles before come on Remy honestly I think people will watch today perfect I want to move on to people more discussion on that I do have something to add to it Lisa noticed that when we got the enrollment numbers we didn't have Roxbury's on there can I have those now yeah unfortunately so we have 44 students at Roxbury to add to those numbers 5 Kimber gardeners 8 first graders 4 second graders 10 third graders and 5 fourth graders along with a slew of 3 and 4 year olds I'm just going to put lots down 9 3 year olds and 4 4 year olds those 9 3 year olds are great I just want to make sure sorry about that yeah but we've been doing some really good work that race against the racism that was led by the racial justice alliance was a fantastic event the students were marvelous the logistical planning having done events is not always easy and they had things like my kids played with bubbles for a long time while they listened to great student music we had running teams from Harwood and all the fall sports athletes were there and a large majority of our high school population was there as well as our community members I saw people from my hometown my community there as well so it's really getting a lot of that word out I wouldn't be surprised if they chose even larger next year so I was really proud of the students they had about 500 participants over thousands of dollars per migrant justice and to the cause of their support something to be proud of so just a question about enrollment looks pretty steady we actually just got the figures today that we'll bring forth later in budget conversations for the trends yeah we just got those today they're hot off the press so it looks to be as if UES is going to start to hold steady and mainstream middle is starting to increase a little bit because they're getting the population from UES and then the high school is increasing as well we don't have the trend numbers from Roxbury just yet because it's a whole different piece that we can figure out and what's the main difference in because I see MSMS is about 8 to 10 students more per grade is that a combination of Roxbury and some people coming from other schools or there's just larger classes for instance we got grade 5 at 95 grade 8 at 97 we usually have this in a big chart so that we can see that yeah we're going to see where that came today so that was I know Ryan had asked for enrollment numbers to put in the superintendent's report so this was just a quick take on that we have that chart and you'll get that during the budget process I can speak to the 8th grade because I've been a large cohort for a long time yeah that would be my guess you also have an influx of grade 5 from Roxbury so good that's the question about the lead so the UAS is on city water you know I'm not positive but I can find out yeah but that doesn't it often comes from the pipes in the building and Andrew is on that he's in the process it takes a little longer Roxbury is clear that's the only one that we have in Roxbury and Roxbury is well water yeah I like that I have a question were we supposed to get an update from the racial justice alliance about raising or lowering or keeping the black lives matter flag up the last time I'm aware of that we decided you all decided as a board to wait until a new policy was in place that's right I don't want to speak pretty rid of it the policy committee is working on that it's the next thing to take over right it's on that long list it's at the top of the list oh good I think the list is getting shorter that's good it's real good thank you questions or do you want to highlight do you want to explain the board book quickly sorry Jim and I were thinking that it would be a good idea to do some short readings together we have some discussions I see smiles over there oh it's easy to be smiling alright good so as part in the superintendent's report you saw information about the leadership team we went to see a guy named George Coros this past two weeks ago and he's all about integration and education so now we got a text because of the conference and most of our leadership team is reading it if they have not already read it including myself and as I was reading it the other night before bed I was thinking this first chapter about what innovation is and what innovation isn't might be an excellent conversation starting up for the board as you guys are thinking about how do we promote innovation in our schools to make sure we're all on the same page of what that exactly means I didn't ask George if I could photocopy his first chapter, George Sorry so I hope the copyright police don't come after us but knowing him I don't think that it would be too much of a problem so that's the first piece we thought that if you could read it before the next board meeting we'd have about 10 minutes or so to 10 to 15 minutes next board meeting to kind of discuss, ask questions and see what we all think that's a good idea sounds good I'm going to email this this article thank you we were wondering where the article was so it took some time to decide what I wanted to do I have a few options do you want more you have mine I have the rest of yours yes have you seen that from the hallways so it started at UDS and we brought it brought the idea so at UDS all the teachers have it and in front of the custodian has it everybody has it and then I tweeted that out and said hey wouldn't this be great to start a trend isn't this awesome and so of course the high school had to one up them on what the signs look like because I'm much prettier so now a lot of teachers have what I'm reading outside their doors which I think is fantastic to show off that we do a lot of reading of adults cancel cool I'm excited for this conversation and just kind of one quick note on the other risk against racism unfortunately can go to but a great event for it yes and I was going to mention the fall festival I know we're thinking of having a table so this is a good time to confirm the table and what people are coming yes and there's one other kind of idea I'd love to throw out for the table which goes to the mission which is to have index cards and a box and just have people come and write one or two words they think defines the district and then we can use that to inform our discussion about the mission and the date Libby is the chances of that idea group effort collaborative problems alright so just on the logistics it's Sunday folks make sure like me get confused and think it's on Saturday it's actually on Sunday the table is reserved for the public said chance just for the board members will be staffing a table for members of the public and you can stop by and talk to a board member if you have anything else that you'd like and leave some input I'm going to staff it I'll set it up and be there from 11 to noon I have Becky and Brian from 12 to 1 and Tina from 1 to 2 and Jim you said you'd be there after the 1-miler but I have no idea what that is and I don't either well the fall festival goes until 3 so if anyone is available later in the day is that this Sunday I'll be in San Diego or I'll just peer out are you coming? I'm there for set up so I can be in the first then yeah and let's coordinate on set up with the the boxing and the starts I have a you don't want those giant hair options that's what I'm am I going to borrow an easel from the school? anyone has one but I have one I'll be there soon just in case there's not someone from 2 to 3 and we peed her out or I don't see her you'll just give me whatever the pick up the clean and tell me what I have to do yes all right I'm in the dunk tank at noon anybody who needs to get out of the screen it's been a fairly long time they are I didn't see the wheelchair on I didn't see the wheelchair on it's a good thing to do before right it's a good thing to do before we looked it up today we have 3 more spots of potential dunkers do you want any dunks? I would do it if I were around I said I would do it if I were around Dunk aboard remember give me feedback give me feedback the same round really show us how you feel we'll just play back for camping trips let me do her bath if you want to go to the water after all right all right I think great a bunch of discussion I know some of us had some pretty outreach I know it's still ongoing but do you want to give any initial report on how you reached this I went to the open house at Roxbury and spoke with some folks there didn't get a lot from people I think there was some sense of like I don't really know there were a lot of people there so that was nice yeah but I can sum up Jim middle school parents meeting and I would say there were two takeaways there's a lot of interest in the bus issue and my takeaway from that discussion with middle school parents was that we need to make sure we're kind of pausing on that in the budget conversation when we're here pausing in the sense of like having time specifically to answer people's questions and talk about what that looks like and what the planning process is because that's a big change for the middle school and the other side of this food service a lot of interest in what was going on in food service and then the food service director and concerns about turn over with the employment and the energy and the vision they had developed a year earlier with the committee around food service which was before you were here living in the food service what happened to that in order so there we go it's a really good timing and I know Michelle also went to the high school boosters I talked to the boosters and I kind of came into a conversation where they were talking about Project Grad and Winter Ball for those of you who don't have high schoolers there has been an event called Winter Ball that's been held in the very auditorium for years and here has been the host of that which means we provide the chaperones and we also get the money and it pays for Project Grad which is a post-graduation party and Mike McCrave is recommending that we not host the Winter Ball anymore I don't know that a decision has been made on that but it has grown too large and we're such a small portion of it and our chaperones only know our relatively small number of kids and given you used to be able to check kids to see whether they were drunk but now kids are coming with edibles and vape pens and it's gotten more challenging and he's not sure it's worth the risk so we may need a different way to fund Project Grad not necessarily from the budget but we've got to come up with something and they said that they heard a lot of feedback from the community that they didn't get enough detail about the budget and that people walked into town meeting day and were quite surprised by the large numbers and I found that really surprising because I know the Board was really impressed and pleased with the amount of detail that we thought last year was a tremendous amount of detail and I almost wonder if it was so much detail that people kind of glazed over and I don't know if there's if there are more opportunities for us to communicate that you know the more detailed the more details of the budget come up front unfortunately I didn't have a budget calendar to share with them the budget policy doesn't include the detailed calendar we do still have a detailed calendar which I didn't have but it would be great if we could make the detailed calendar available so that it's clear to people at what point the budget information is going to be that makes sense could that not be on the line and they asked about the bathroom renovations which are part of the auditorium project which I hope is still it is still do you want to speak a little to the playground because I don't know if there's a lot of community questions about where that's at how that's going well how if you've gone over there lately Foundation is going in right now for the new vestibule it's all buried down there's a big truck so there this appears as a math class rather interesting right now because there's lots of trucks and they are digging so if you went into the back to see the little playground you'll see that it's been dug out about maybe a little bit more now and they're doing the test to see if they have to dig more there so there it has been moved up to the upper playground which is going to be a shift off eventually so that's by the big passenger so that's really exciting everything seems to be going well right now so that with what's happening and it's going as planned at the moment so that's really good Andrew LaRosa and I spoke with the playground committee about a month ago maybe three weeks ago about the particularly where what we had to cut out of the budget and Andrew was giving giving them figures if you want this back in we need to know by this date and this is about how much it's going to cost and so the number is pretty high we had to cut out about $400,000 from the project and that's not to say we won't have some of those things put back in because as the project continues we have really large contingencies with this contractor and as things start to get phases start to finish those contingencies start to close if we don't need them so there is money left to start filling that gap there are also other sources that we have to look into to try to fill that gap we really want the project to truly get rolling in a more just in more depth and so we can know exactly how much we have available to us before making any kind of promises on things but there are some decisions we'll have to make because some of the projects that were cut for instance the amphitheater once you're past the date of no return where the big trucks are gone you're not bringing the big trucks back in right so you want to make a decision on that sooner rather than later so as the project progresses we'll go back to the crew and say this is what we now have available to us this is the funds we have what should we do with it so we involve and collaborate with that group that's been working so hard on this project for so many years so that's where we are with the playground piece yeah I just want to emphasize too this is a district piece I know there's been some fundraising about the playground group which has been very much appreciated what the expectation is that we can start with with district funding and find those funds from either contingencies or other sources and it will be a bit of a patience game but we're still on so Tina so I have a question because I didn't even know I watched didn't understand exactly the conversation you had last meeting about these meetings that were happening and I'm glad to hear everybody and why if you have children in school you've got a priority I mean when somebody says what do you want you're ready for those priorities if you don't have children in school I found last year when I went out early people said sort of what they said to Lisa they were had more of a reaction when they had something to react to partially the dollars but what you're doing with the dollars and so I'm wondering I haven't done anything except that Libby and I are going to try to go in November to the senior senate so did you want me to do anything else and if you did I'm up for how to approach it because I didn't get very far last year here's what I did with when Virginia and I met with MSMS I just started kind of gave a layout based on this grants budget discussion piece and the themes I had we've got a merger that we're focused on we also have a new administration that really wants to kind of look at what our existing resources are doing and how they're being used and then also say we're in a pretty good financial shape we've got some revenue that we didn't expect savings through looking at our systems so we're coming in at a pretty good place and kind of an overview of where the state's at which is there's probably going to be a squeeze and also we've gone from 8 to 6 so there are going to be some forces out of our control that are going to paint the overall tax picture but generally this is kind of a year of really looking hard I think of what we have without a big initiative year and then talking about the few things that are there for instance the blessing issue which is a great interest to the middle school parents groups the seed money for a foreign language immersion program and just kind of giving that very high level overview and getting people's reactions given that you went to the middle school very specific to the middle school you know we had a pretty robust discussion around that which I think was generally supportive but questions you know there's a lot of questions you know and the food service too so I think it's you know you may just give that and depending on who your audience is they might say okay great it sounds good or not so is he Adrian and Victor and Jamer here I'm going to try to move the microphone over to the table so Steve can hear a little better can I ask a question about the that playground that we talked about go point Steve I'm sorry I'm catching about a third of what we're saying so bear with me I understood there were you said about 400,000 that we were once looked at the true costs we were going to be short and we had to come up with 400,000 in temporary cuts or at least temporary cuts is that right yes and that the effort will be to try to find some of that money inside the budget as costs get firmed up yes do we have a plan for what we do when we can't find 400,000 inside that budget right now the plan is to continue to have conversations with the playground committee and what we have available to us and we may not be able to make up that 400,000 very quickly but we'll be able to I believe we'll be able to get equipment on that lower playground in particular the upper playground is going to look beautiful people are going to be happy with the upper playground it's the lower playground that is the most concerning right now we will be able to get that lower playground functioning for kids more than just a grassy field it's not going to be a grassy field by the time we're done is there a list of the items that are on the chopping block right now can the board get access to which part of the vision might not happen absolutely I can get the document in the next board meeting that Andrew shared with the playground committee so I don't believe the board has seen that yeah I don't either my understanding is that the the big item on the upper playground is the amphitheater but everything else is relatively close to what the design was the lower playground is a little more flux in terms of how close it's going to look to the design whether it's going to get the amphitheater to get the amphitheater going that's 30 to 40 thousand dollars and we need to know by February that we have that money available and it's possible so there's a board decision what would you say to that Jim I think it's a joint decision I think certainly having the board be informed I think it's a conversation it's a board decision if it has to get shifted from somewhere else yeah exactly I think it's something we're going to have to let evolve but I think you know close contact between the parents group the administration and the board as you know we figure out more about what the finances are and you know what our options are with the finances and kind of what the priorities are so but we definitely want to make the decisions I just want to be really careful about not sending a message to the parents that they're going to be fundraising for this because I don't think that's the deal we have it's not the deal we have as long as that's really clear I'm up as a board member and I hope this isn't our last chance to weigh in on this just to be careful not to let this obviously has huge implications from a community relations perspective and we just want to make sure that the board has opportunities to address whatever shortfalls there might be and we can bring that back to the next board meeting as well yeah I think we're going to be talking about this pretty consistently until projects done thank you I have a question but I don't know should we let them go first and then come back to this it's a follow up to Steve's what I do is a follow up to Steve's just so because it's sometimes hard to lose the $400,000 that represents money that went to environmental remediation efforts have we talked with the agency of natural resources at all about tapping into some state funding for environmental remediation or federal funding I know that they have this is before my time but my understanding is that they have gotten grants around that purpose and it went towards that work and the our parents who are working so hard on this time for that grant again the challenges is that you're working with a grant system and it's not immediate they did get very slow they went through CVRPC and they're the petroleum cleanup fund that they have so they're thinking about trying to hit that up again okay have we talked with any of our representatives or senators about this I'm not sure consulting them considering we're heading into the legislative session and this is a pretty big community issue maybe it would be good for you to consult with the parent group to see what they have done so you're not overlapping yeah that's a good idea I can get in contact with them excellent thank you ready to turn to I was going to take Steve's microphone and put it over you but I think it's too short so we do have someone to remote and this microphone is not as magical as it appears you could try to we could probably make it if you want to try to broadcast thank you thank you I'll work out another option for next time good to know go for it guys my name is Adrian Gill I'm here representing the food service committee I'm Jim Birmingham I'm the food service director and I'm picked up with Agne also on the food service committee so thank you for the opportunity to provide an update so last year and a couple months now the school board was asked to put together a food service committee and there was three goals that they charged the food service committee with one was to develop goals for food service that reflect community input to support the food service director by implementing evidence based practices and to develop budget recommendations and so I provided a handout to everyone or those goals are included in there in the background and so last year when we were charged with this we put together a committee we met six times over the last school year we conducted two site visits we went to Milton and Burlington we attended parents groups meetings to gather information on how they felt the school nutrition program offerings were and what was good what they would like to see differently we also put together a survey monkey for the entire community and we received 443 responses from parents students, staff it was a pretty good response considering you know surveys or you should contact grace people took time to write responses really providing really valuable feedback to the school nutrition program and so we spent last year really looking at research like where are we now what are we currently doing what is the current state of school nutrition and you know just a lot of findings that we found from the community is that people were not aware that our food service program has its own budget that they're its own separate entity it's their own business they manage their own budget they hire their staff they maintain all the operating costs of food and then really the bottom line to maintain their budget and so I think people were a little like taken aback because they're like why don't we have more food you know we want more local organic food but once they realize what the system was that we're working in the federal guidelines the requirements the very stringent program that we're working within when we talk about school nutrition and so we did you know a lot of research last year and the existing conditions we worked with Heather who was a new food service director last year after replacing the previous one who was here for a long time a long time and so she was new she came into this and we spent the year building relationships with her trying to learn from her trying to get her vision and mission so that we could support her and that was what we were charged with so with that we came up with some root causes as to what we wanted to look at based on last year's research and instead of initially coming out of the gate and focusing on changing the ordering of our food and looking at bringing more local organic options for our schools we really have to focus on the foundation of our business we have to look at it as a business and the foundation of our business is the people and school nutrition has a very high turnover rate it's over a 50% James can tell you that he hired more than half of his staff this year and it's constantly turning over which if you have a high turnover rate in a business it's very hard to grow a sustainable company and so that's where we kind of decided to focus our time and energy at the end of last year with some ideas on how to fund you know propose a funding proposal for additional FTEs that Heather left and now we have James and so we're kind of starting a little bit over again we still have the research we have the surveys we have a lot of great information that we collected but our role as the committee is to support the vision and the mission of the school nutrition director and so we're here today to provide an update to the board what we have accomplished and kind of where we are now and James can talk about where we're going to go from here to some degree because you know this you know I've been at it for what feels like a few short weeks now and this feels somewhat premature to me but you know they did their work last year and work with Heather and it's really astute I think the observations that came out of it and I don't really feel like we're starting all over again because they really like teased out what to me are really most important things you know for all of the ideas that come to me and all the initiatives that people want you know you do local organic you know a good example of that you know scratch cooking would be another good example of that all those things that people want I feel like step one is let's build a durable robust staff and then we can start to work at those things because as it stands that's our biggest limiting factor is the staff that we have and I don't at all mean to denigrate the staff in saying that you know that they're doing a tremendous amount of work you know in the amount of time that is allotted to them and they're doing it at a really high level I feel like considering what it is that they have to work with but I really feel like the whole thing can grow and be better I come you know with this philosophy focus on quality focus on making things as good as we can and you know it's referenced in sort of the abstracts here that you know we had a school nutrition director here for ages and ages and I can see looking at the organization that I've inherited is that over the course of that time the focus was on cutting the cost and keeping the costs low and let's do everything we can to keep those costs low and so everybody so in that time we're focused on driving that cost number down we drive that cost number down and like the quality of what we're doing goes down along with it results the amount of it that we're doing goes along goes down along with it I have this idea that if we focus on quality you know we can increase the amount that we're doing and keep the costs in line that we're going to control the cost and improve the bottom line by growing the top line and if we focus on squeezing that bottom line nobody's happy and if anybody's happy it's not sustainable it's not going to last the participation is going to go down we're going to sell less meals it's going to be a lot harder to be financially viable if we're selling less meals and that's what's going to happen when we cut it back so I come with this idea of focus on quality and I think the thing that I interviewed on and I think that it's a really important core part of my philosophy is that to me is like the leader of school food my number one goal is to make sure that the people my staff feel like they have good jobs that they feel comfortable and happy on the spectrum of happiness in their workspace and that they really believe in what it is that they're doing and then in turn they can provide hospitality to the students who comes to our cafeteria I come to this with a history as a chef and an executive chef and so I have this I think of it as guests it's the same idea, I'm in the hospitality industry to this day I feel like I work in hospitality but now my job is to provide hospitality to my staff so they can in turn provide hospitality to the students you go out to eat and when your server doesn't like their job, you can tell you really can tell and when your server really likes their job and they're enthusiastic about it you can tell that too and so that's the place that I'm coming from my most important resource is my staff and so I want to invest in the staff when you look at what's happened over time and when I look at the positions that we have every position has been squeezed down to five and three quarters hours a day so that we can get as much work out of somebody as we can without having to offer them anything in the way of benefits so what we have basically we've got one full-time position and a 12 part 13 Brock Spurry's come online 13 part-time positions and me and so what happened and what worked very well for a long time is the food service director would squeeze and cut and take the responsibilities on to herself and groove this my position into something really large and unwieldy and diminished all those other positions of those people who are the funds who are piecing our students every day and are serving our students every day and so my idea and the idea that it's like germinating for us that we're just discussing is this idea of how do we increase the quality of the jobs that we're offering that we have in food service and so the idea that I have is that if we had the way we have at the high school full-time employee, you know, seven hours and they have that, you know, sweet of benefits offered to them, if we had that position at the elementary school and the middle school as well that would allow us to do more I think with the people that we have I think it would allow us to get more out of that but I think that we could adjust the size of the other positions and have in reality the amount of hours the amount of dollars that we're spending on the payroll aspect of it, not increase dramatically. Where we end up with the increase is in this idea of offering somebody benefits who's in that position and I think that that's the thing that was up to us to sort of work out and figure out you know what is that cost and what is it that we're sort of thinking of and eventually asking for but I guess we're sort of going back to going around, like what are we coming here for today and I think in many regards it's like offering update on what it is that they've done and I guess saying it now is to sort of hit on the idea that we're coming together already in terms of the ideas that they came out of their analysis last year and what I've seen in my first few weeks getting going here and how that sort of lines up with my philosophy. I'll just add that I think I really want to echo the idea of the old lunch lady move away from that to more of the food service export in some way. We want them to be professionals in a career. And also just a reminder that there's an edge zone between the food system that is the school and the food system of the community and you start to look at some things come to mind here we are in the state capital of a very innovative state that is very focused on food and there are some food hubs around and a food hub often serves small businesses in the area does education one thing we came up about is as we were talking about speaking with teachers about modifying the curriculum or adding to the curriculum that just raised tensions so perhaps this entity that emerges can provide resources that teachers can call on if they want so and then just the last thing is that we were hired to support Heather and we did that and we came up with a vision when we think about a food hub the school has infrastructure so often food hubs aren't gravitated towards because you think you need a new building but there is some infrastructure particularly at the high school that's underutilized so when we think about increasing funds for the staff we want to also increase potential well how do we pay for that and so as was mentioned this is a standalone business that does offer catering so there's an opportunity to expand on catering and then expand on like you had said earlier but we want to have the food system that we can be proud of here so the final thing is we also want to step back and get to know James and his vision and support that certainly the idea that he needs a good solid staff is not something to I don't think there's any difference in that but we really want to make sure we rally around his vision as he gets his view on the ground here I'm really glad that you guys are here I've been eager to hear from you partly I served on the hiring committee that hired Heather and it was only at that time that I learned the pay structure that we have for the food service employees which I was appalled because we have often talked as a board about wanting to about the fact that we are an employer in the community and we take that responsibility seriously and we want to offer high quality jobs and I have been hoping that you would recommend doing that and I would love to see us move away from the idea that food service is a self-contained business I would love to see the business office take on the business aspect paper work some of the paperwork that they're doing now and budgeting that they're doing now and have the whole thing just incorporated in the district budget I don't know if that's something you guys would support or the business office would support but I don't I think that thinking of it in the way that we've been thinking of it as a self-sufficient thing has not served us well it's not a comment you know I guess what is how do we say it school food is not a part of anybody's budget you know like there's a community that gets kicked in the same way there's a contribution that the general fund kicks in for us you know I don't think that that's not what's that's the way it is I think what is different is the way the business aspect of our school food is administrated and that it doesn't happen in the business office and that it happens through me and that is a unique thing for a food service director position is that I cut the checks I enter the deposits and I cut the checks for the purveyors which is unusual in other positions that all happens through the business office and I think that the business office has that on their radar I don't think that that's not going to be a revolutionary idea but yeah it's not like I said I'm a certified executive chef I'm not going to use my time like I should be focused on menu development and training and procurement and making those connections with the classroom, with the curriculum and the cafeteria and I understood that one of the barriers to scratch cooking for us was that we don't have a staff with that skill there are we don't have a kitchen at the middle school and one is the staff and I think that with my background I feel like no experience is necessary we'll train the right candidate that there's that aspect of it we want to be able to attract people who are going to come to this as a career I don't want to have to hire 50% of the staff again next summer I'd love to hear from the rest of the board if we are interested in seeing a proposal from the food service department as to what the additional cost would be to provide higher quality jobs my thought is looking at this as a business is not looking at the right way this is I see food service as kind of providing it should provide two functions it should provide high quality nutritious food to the students and I also think it's a learning experience about our food systems and where our food comes from and what it means to eat healthy food and what it means to be part of a healthy food system I don't think you should be looked at as a business that needs to keep even on the books and or make a profit although it's great that you're thinking creatively I think obviously we don't want to waste money and if we can find economies but I think we should look at it through the educational purpose and then the nutritional purpose to kids who need it rather than say you know we've got to provide food to the kids and let's go do it but make sure you're covering your costs and your problems because we don't ask that of our other educational services right we need to be responsible absolutely like everybody does absolutely I think that's it's exciting to hear that yeah it's this idea and what I love about this position is that we get to influence them like pre-K through grade 12 that it is really like nutrition education for a lifetime there's nothing that can't be taught without with food, sorry nothing that couldn't be taught with food is sort of the example you know it's like a great opportunity for engagement throughout the school and one of the things that I've found is that when we focus on quality and get the kids excited it's like one of the things they look forward to about school it's like hard to put up when we think of it that way and we think about how do we invest in it and not think about how do we kick in a subsidy at the end to cover a shortfall but how do we invest it at the beginning and then how do we get the best return on that investment I just think of it from a proactive standpoint Tina so I just want to state I have never worked in the school in which the food system is self supporting so to think that is just so let's go for there what concerns me about looking at this is it appears and I want to just check this out so you have 12 part-time staff why not 5 full-time staff and did we do that to avoid paying the benefits yes that's depressing yes so the positions are all squeezed down to the most that you can ask somebody to work in a day without offering them benefits so my idea is that if you had a full-time position and then a 6-hour position you could probably then you can have a couple of like real part-time positions where somebody came in to serve and instead of having to offer somebody a real job but it's only really this much of a job I think that we could attract people to those full positions who are interested in food and excited about food and have that as part of their character and then fill in with a couple of people who would look for a job because of the hours which is most everybody in school food and I think that there needs to be a blend, a mix because we need to have full-time people who who can cook to get the food out but the way service happens you need to have a certain number of sets of hands there so you would be hard to do with only a couple of full-time people who are really skilled with the food because you need somebody to run the register and somebody to put food on the train so to me that's two different skill sets and when I look at it budget-wise if there were fewer part-time people and were replaced by several full-time people with an addition of just serving people who don't need the same kind of skill that a cook would sounds good to me Bridget I agree with much of what's already been said I'm not going to repeat I did want to point out the policy that we're about to revisit again on employment compensation and treatment of staff says that compensation and benefits for non-union employees should assure a fair wage and be reasonably equitable in comparing the compensation and benefits for other both non-union and union employees food service employees are not in the union but that is the commitment that we make in the treatment and it sounds like we need to make sure we're meeting that within the minutes but I was you're on television I was the food service director for Washington South last year but the starting pay that we are offering for food service employees in Washington South last year is more than two dollars greater than the starting pay that the budget allowed us to offer for this year as I said I was appalled when I learned the pay scale I get quite a few phone calls in response to our ads saying hey I'm interested in this position what can you tell me about it and so I tell them about it and part of that pre-screen is this is what the starting pay would be and I get very few applications after those phone calls and I would think that even though there are some people that want just a part-time job a couple hours they're willing to be on the service line that's fine but people would like a full-time job with benefits and you're offering to train them we've got people who are asking to do a full-time job but you've got to get done by 215 send me your order I'll enter the order in the computer for you it's not a good use of lifetime and so that's yeah it's pretty stupid that's what they discovered if they worked with Heather last year because it's really clear struggling through hiring and organizing our little business here that it all starts with build a durable, robust app the other point to make is that there are districts who have insisted that their food service is going to support itself end up abolishing their food service in high-rabby or somebody else and say I'm going to pay you so much a year and you're going to provide my food for me and really you have not much say at all in what's produced in hand-out and those costs come back to you in a different way you might not be paying that it's all going out into the food service but for those little catering things those little special events that you ask of the food service along the way for us in many ways that stuff is sort of a pass-through financially whereas that's how School Food for Profit works for a company like the Abbey Group is by charging a premium for other little added services that we're going to need from you now that you're here and we don't have any other options Other questions? Well, thank you very much We appreciate your coming We appreciate all of your time Yes, for sure I greatly appreciate having the support like this One question is the committee going to continue? It's in a different form Jim and I are working on that Thank you Turned Steve around How are you doing, Steve? We're looking at the ceiling here Can you get a tiny little There we go, Steve He's falling under the table So This didn't get in the packet This updated version Didn't get in the packet The board expectations I think I think we pulled fake copies with that on top of things I'm not used to having resisted yet Who's so darn good Yes I don't think she does So we have policy reading board expectations and superintendent expectations Ryan, you want to start with board expectations You and I have an email just adding one more small piece which is clarifying that if we have a vacancy that is also an officer position the board will appoint someone to fill that officer position from the board So it's clear that you know it's clear one that the person assuming that vacancy would be in that position which would make a lot of sense to bring a person on to a chair or vice chair and second the definition of business So it would probably be the statement would be one would have a quick summary relating to what Jim just said If there is an officer there would be an appointment until the next reorganization Besides that the board has done a tremendous amount of work on this policy in the last year and I'm hoping it's really good at this point You're tired of looking at it, Ryan? I can't, yeah Could we make a B1 would be the school board will and no member may hold Yes, the school board will and no member may hold Yeah, this is great work Ryan I appreciate it We really have gone it is funny to think how much time we've spent on this in the last year we really included a lot of information Good It's really good Any other positions? There is a board clerk that's one of us It is a required position though I personally would like to use a term secretary or recorder instead of board clerk because it gets confusing because there is a district clerk that's elected separately The statute regarding the board offices does use clerks so I kept it in It does conflict with the idea of the outside clerk which was hired when we merged we had to change how we proceeded with things and we had to have a clerk by law For the district who helps with elections and other stuff besides our normal board meetings but yes we are required by statute to have a clerk for the board which means we need to appoint a clerk Well, yes but we've hired a clerk that's a different person Right, but that's why I'm wondering about the word clerk I think clerk is using the statute both for both Okay I was close to changing it I would have voted for that Okay Steve looks like he wants to be clerk I could not care less what it's called That's the problem Steve You didn't hear It doesn't that person then have to check the website to ensure that the minutes are posted within five business days I think it's by calendar days Maybe Yeah, I was going to say I think it would actually be an easy job because Heather's on it Well, one might want to check in on what perform all duties legally assigned to the office It's Is that just a placeholder in case the legislature decides to come up with something I mean it does fall back to some of the meeting stuff with posting of the minutes keeping the record of the minutes, etc I spoke with Sue, I forget her last name she's new at the SBA about the situation where we have the informal setup where the superintendent's assistant does the actual reporting and the postings and do we somehow designate this person does it or that and her recommendation is really Steve is our new board clerk and he's really happy with the way things are running right now with Heather doing everything herself kind of chugs along that way because there's a chance that maybe next year Andrew wants to step up with the board and he wants to do everything himself that could be within his realm of office While we're on this last year when we had a defect in a meeting and I met with Heather and we went over the procedure that she used she said at that time that she would really appreciate training on what the statutory requirements are and then I went because I was supposed to be verifying that things had been posted in different, in certain places at certain times As the board chair, right? Is that why you were supposed to do that? Because I was the board chair not because I was the clerk because I had to figure this out and so I went to the high school office where they post them and for whatever reason post in a public place is interpreted in the high school as posting them on a bulletin board near the copy room which because a lot of people use the copy room I guess it seems like a public place I guess I would go like the lobby at any rate and then I think that they take the meeting warnings from the bulletin board and stick them in a file but then once they're in the file they don't have a date on them so I asked if they could date stamp them when they put them on the bulletin board but I think anyway I'm telling all of this just because I think we have work to do to make sure that we actually are doing morning procedures in a way that enables us to document that we've properly warned things so for the new board clerk there's some work to be done there and I will add to that didn't once we have an issue because Heather wasn't here and since it falls all on her well that was exactly why I was running around doing this because Heather wasn't here nobody else knew how to do it and we were in trouble without you Heather but Heather also said if someone has right I get it ideas about how this should be done let's all talk about that so is that a board job? it's a clerk's job it gets tricky because when you think about it we have to post things online it doesn't make sense for anybody in this table on this board to be having access to our district website to be changing the website we have to make sure that this stuff is posted does this have to be a board member? yes taking the actual minutes posting it doesn't have to be things a little bit fuzzy in terms of policy governance by policy how we get things set up has there been since Libby came in had some change in the central office has there been an effort to revisit what we learned last year and go over the procedures or is that something that we need to make sure happens now I don't want to step on it I don't want to step on it it's reminding me of what went wrong we didn't we didn't have a way to verify that warnings had happened I know that Heather and Mike work closely together to make sure things are up on the website correctly we don't have a way to verify that they're posted in certain places or on the website in non-website places or on the website yeah or on the I think Heather was asking yeah they are posting on the website right once they're there but you can't say well I know that they were posted on Tuesday I can see that they're there now that it's Thursday but I don't know when they got there you know what I mean and why this is crucial is if we don't hit those deadlines we're not meeting open meeting laws and it's not valid for every special meeting and every committee meeting and don't have to be posted at City Hall yes they do have to be posted at City Hall and that for that particular meeting the message went to the person at City Hall that it always goes to but for some reason she didn't get it and I don't know like her email was correct and everything but there was some well and I think it was there what the procedure is in terms of Roxbury too because it doesn't have to be also posted in Roxbury we can look forward yeah yeah so they go to City Hall and we can see yeah did we in support and we organized in October declare where our posting locations are we're required by law to post online on the website but at the physical locations did we declare no that's not all and the question really when it comes up legally would be does somebody think we posted them public enough that's what it comes down to right in Roxbury we declared every March after the meeting after the election these are the physical locations they're going to be posted this bulletin board, this roadside pieces where I think will be posted at actually suppose that was on the website right it should be that it said we post the public postings all documents will be so that's all we were responsible for as long as they're at those locations then yes everybody knows where they are we're up to par in terms of posting and making things publicly available so that's something that we may have dropped the ball on that we haven't declared our location so that it's clear and nobody's guessing so this I mean to me this sounds like it is something that we should someone who wants to look at it seriously should be the board clerk and should say that as part of doing that for the next couple months they'll talk to head there and they'll track down and look at the requirements and come up with some recommendations because there really is a board obligation to make sure that it's done correctly absolutely does that make sense or no I think that's right on I think that's exactly what the clerk should do and it sounds like whoever wants to be the clerk it's going to take a few meetings with Heather and looking at the laws and maybe talking to VSBA and figuring that out and making some recommendations I think formally declaring where we're going to post makes a lot of sense so it's and actually talking to the people who we're asking to post and make sure that they know what we need I don't think anybody has to volunteer to take that on right now but let's let people think about it when we come back from the 17th and hopefully have a person ready to step forward on that so it's kind of a little trip away from our documented hand but further questions, comments edits to I have a general question so well actually first comment I thought that this policy was really well constructed Ryan you took the lead on this is that right? Yes. Thank you I think you did a really terrific job the only question I had about this was not about the meet it was about the framing at the front of this and the purpose of enhancing teamwork among members of the board and between the board and the administration etc. which seems like a great purpose but I do wonder since these are the expectations of the Montpelier Rocksbury School Board members and since the board has a lot of civic duties and responsibilities to our communities I was wondering if it would make sense to expand that purpose language to encompass some of the larger responsibilities of the board or if this doesn't seem like a document to do that that was the only thing that jumped out of me give me an example of something that isn't in here that you're thinking for the purpose of educating our children our community's children providing a fertile environment for education and enhancing the teamwork among members of the board between the board and the administration that type of thing I think that goes into the vision I wasn't certain but we could say for the purpose of enhancing teamwork to be able to fulfill the district's vision or something to tie it back to that might make sense but I do agree I think that kind of fits more in with the vision that does this statement but we could tie it back to that so are you both on the policy committee sorry new guy here and so is the vision I haven't seen is there a vision policy that's already been established or is that something that okay yeah so I feel like maybe maybe linking it into that that core vision might make sense but it might be redundant I'm not certain how you're planning to construct this so it was just an idea Michelle? I thought you were talking about Andrew and it seemed like a good idea to me although it's apparently not what you're talking about is our relationship with the community which I think is a big part of the A the section A of this policy is about how we interact with the community and I don't that is part of what I was saying I don't know if it's worth referring to you know having transparency in our relationship with the community I could say between the board the administration and the community yeah yeah what was the suggestion Jim? to add so read for the purpose of enhancing teamwork among members of the board and between the board comma the administration comma and the community and the members of the the board it just felt kind of insular is between no longer an appropriate word if you add three I think you're right I think is it among yeah other questions comments modifications do you want to hear more about the word procedure alright superintendent policy I'm actually curious to ask the superintendent what she thinks of the superintendent expectations if she'd like to comment because I thought if we'd forgot something that you really thought should be well I think compared with this and with the job description and the evaluation procedure I think you'd have to be covered something that Bridget touched upon with the food service presentation was something that I had flagged in here the language under 2.24 make compensation and benefits or should it be and benefits commitments is it benefit commitments make compensation and benefit commitments I don't know I don't know if that matters that wasn't what I was I'm just hanging out loud and it sounds kind of funny and benefit commitments to non-union employees that assure a fair wage and are reasonably equitable when compared with compensation and benefits for other employees and union employees is the I guess how do you anticipate I guess this is a question to the board as well as to Libby how do you anticipate defining this would we use the livable wage study of the joint fiscal office puts out every year or two would we use a percentage of the federal poverty level because I feel like we can actually use real world metrics to help actually achieve a goal like this so I can give you a little bit of background responsibility going forward this language was in our Montpelier policies and it was there for a number of years so it's not really the language but it was my understanding is when that language went into the policy there was not as we now have with the food service employees there weren't there wasn't like a category of regular employees not in the union it was just a couple of administrators managers who were not union a couple of people that worked in sensitive positions in the central office that are not union so I don't think when the language was developed that it really contemplated that you would need a study to address it I think the idea was really administrators pay should be in line with what administrators should make administrative assistants on this side of the hall should make the same as the ones on that side of the hall the union is sort of taking care of having a fair wage and then the food service folks took themselves out of the union a couple of years ago so now we have a number now we have this piece of the workforce it's not huge but it's an actual piece so we don't have any comparatives that are not union and I would say you would use the union that covers other similar workers that have consent as a baseline you know what you're looking at both the custodial and some of the administrative assistants are in particular union I think you would look at that as a baseline I put that exact note to myself to check on that when they were talking and I say that's a superintendent she may wish that she had some comparative studies and could ask you or somebody else for those but I'm looking for the fact that it doesn't happen what happened to Michelle that as a board we go and find out that somebody isn't paid what we thought they were paid I'm assuming that our superintendent will tell us if she finds somebody that she feels is grossly underpaid or grossly overpaid or whatever I'm going to come to the board and say we need to discuss this particular place I look at it as part of her job sounds great that was a great that's a very meaningful response I don't think that we should put any of that stuff in here I was just curious how it would actually be so sounds like a plan does anyone have a grammatical answer on competition I think it is competition with the benefits where does that sound I think it's benefits because we have the benefits we have more than one benefit which is sometimes benefits I think it's okay other comments or edits I can't hear well but 2.2.6 Steve elaborate Steve it's not working yeah it might be the headphones that he can do with this is the same section this is like the fourth I'm going to do this Steve type it in the chat type it in the chat or text me it's not working oh again it's crackly Steve yeah yeah yeah I won yeah that's what I wonder what was he asking about this section looks like a trap 2.2.6 too restrictive Steve can be pithy both contracts provide flexibility for calm for calm why does he think that's a trap it seems to give us all kinds of flexibility I think that's good sounds like an antitrap perhaps vague would be better and it actually protects the employee because it has to be for cause and we are in a right to work state maybe that's what he's talking about yeah we can fire whoever we want at any point if they're not in the union and this protects the employee well I don't think all of them are union employees have to have a contract I think he actually has problems with the for cause he says I'd like contracts that do not necessarily require cause or terminate for other reasons in poor performance poor performance he's so annoying we can probably just mute it there we go that's really complicated we can mute it just a note just because it was it was I kept thinking my phone I was like my phone well today I think he might have had his well Bridget this is a legal definition sometimes if you put it on speaker cause is a thing right it's a term I just I just wrote back to Steve do you want to propose language we can review at the next meeting you can remind him and Steve I would look at it before the next meeting too you can send it to me and Brian and Steve replied sure and great and thanks did you tell him we muted him did you tell him we muted him I didn't need to you can hear him just kidding all right I think we may be ready to adjourn motion to adjourn I move to adjourn second