 Call us to order at 530 Holy smokes. Verizon standard time. There we go. All on time and stuff. Reception of guests, he says without irony. We'll move right to agenda revisions. Anything? I need to add something to this. And it's under the action agenda, so maybe you just want to leave it there. But is the number of membership, and I sent you an email for the act 49 articles committee. It will be three people. And we can talk more, but if you want to just talk about there, that works for me. I just want to make sure. Public comments and correspondence, we can step right over. Approve the minutes of November 19, page 2. Take a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of November 19. Oh, second. Is there any discussion of the minutes? Not specifically of these minutes, but as you saw the email from Ellen today, is there? I know. I guess I have not responded to her yet. I didn't answer. It's fixed. It's fixed. Yeah, I said. Did anybody reply to her just to say it's fixed? Oh, thank you. It didn't come to me when they shared it with me. Did you reply to her too? No, I just never did it and thought these should go to Alicia if it's, but they don't. I didn't see that. You didn't reply to her. She's not on the list of people it goes to. She didn't even, she included one person. She didn't include anyone but the board. Right. Instead of going to the person that has the problem. You're replying what you want. There has been a problem with getting minutes up there in a timely manner. But it was a misunderstanding a couple of months ago, but I know that they have. That's been addressed. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure we were covered there. All righty. I have a motion and a second. Seeing no further discussion, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, abstain. Budget draft number two, page four. So this is nothing has really changed in this budget draft. Hey, Dave. You'll see the net impact for taxes is still about the same. There's been a little adjustment in the Washington Central assessments. I think it went from 196 to 192. And then there are two considerations at the bottom that Alicia got to talk to. But before we get to that, if there's any questions above it, I'd be glad to, I should say we would be glad to have them. But really that part. Three credit graduate course with Dave Melnick starting in January that's happening here in this building. Where I know over the course of the next few months, we're going to learn a whole lot more about what we need to do for these kids. That we just, I don't have the answers today, but know that there's this void in what we're offering children in trauma. And we need to do it better. So what do you need from us? So. Sorry. So the piece that I would say is that we brought you these two pieces to know where Alicia and our team here is trying to solve these issues, what resources for kids. We can't give a pinpoint detail on how much time is it going to take. I think I'm going to take Steve's thunder and say, do we have a fully sketched out plan? We don't. We found out about a month ago from Nancy Thomas, who's trustee, and we all know Nancy well, trustee over at Plainfield Health Care. They just were awarded this federal grant to expand their services. Really great. We'll always be glad to partner with folks. So that's really exciting. But this is where we're at. And it's part of the frustration of the budget building system. We're building a budget for six to eight months from now for actuation. So that's the best we can give you. We know that the kids' needs have increased, and the number of kids have increased. So it's hard to quantify that into an FTE for a type of service. And you'd say that seems like it shouldn't be that hard, but it is. It's really hard. Because you don't know when you have a kid who needs support, is it going to be a couple hours of support? Is it a couple days of support? Is it weeks of support? It can have been, well, even within the same kid, in the same family, just what are the triggers? So those are the pieces. And Alicia's great about building models and building plans. So she needs more time with this. I think she was trying to tell you she needs more time with her team to figure this out. I think last month was to give you an awareness. This month, I have more information and more details. But I also feel like it would be hasty for me to say this is what we need, because I don't know that. What I can also tell you, since writing this report, I just looked. We had four new students. We now have six new students since a month ago. And they are all students who come with some sort of life crisis, either homeless, trauma, pretty significant issues. DCF custody. And that's just been in the last three weeks. We've had six new students move in. So it's a very real thing in this school right now. And I mean, this goes back to something that we've talked about a couple of times, where not by design, but by default, the school has become the social safety net, right? I mean, that's- The public education system has never been charged with outside of the school stabilization of families. But we recognize that in order to be able to effectively deliver education, we have to do that. So in my mind, I understand that we can't put an FTE to it. And I understand that we can sort of put some wavy figures toward it. The question that comes to my mind is, how can we call this out, right? So we talked pretty directly about tier two supports and how we're going to do this thing that we know is right for students. And we gave it a name, tier two support that we could sort of talk about. And it sort of disassociated the service from who was doing it or what FTEs. And I think that was positive. I think that meant that we could talk about that program. Intervention, yeah. Right, that, exactly, thank you. That, and measure its effectiveness sort of a little more objectively. So I wonder if this is something that falls into a similar bucket, right? It's not tier two or tier one or tier three, but this is social services. And I think, first of all, I think it's positive and I'm overstaying my talking stick. But I think having some sort of a bucket that it sort of falls under, that we can say we're doing this thing that is outside of the official charge of a public education system because we need to do it is an important piece maybe to call out to a certain degree. What is Elizabeth's up to, Ina? I don't have my little form or my computer. She's at one point now. So full-time nurse. But you were also saying that there is a need for Mary Beth to be here longer. I think alongside of this work, we need to look at the role of guidance counselor. So what she does in this building, in my opinion, and I think probably anyone who watches her is opinion is she's stretched way too thin. She teaches guidance classes. She sees children individually and in small groups. And she's part of teams for kids who are in crisis. Doing that in two and a half days a week for over 200 kids is becoming harder and harder. So what we've done is we whittled away her guidance class teaching time so she can see kids. But then she's, by doing that, she's not proactively in the classrooms as often as other guidance counselors are. So there's this kind of push and pull and where she's needed and how to use her resources, which she's an incredible resource. In times when a child, she spends every recess and that she's here, out on the playground, navigating social situations with kids, trying to help them talk through issues. But when she's only here two out of the five days, a lot happens in those other three days. So it's that kind of thing where a lot goes on in the time that she's not here. And then Michael and I are filling in for that role, which we can certainly be bodies to fill in, but we don't have the skillset or expertise. So we're putting band-aids on. I'll meet with kids in crisis, he'll meet with kids in crisis. We'll take lots of notes, we'll talk to families. And then when she comes in, we kind of dump on her. Everything she's missed in the time that she was out. I'm sure it's an overwhelming feeling when we dump, but it needs, I mean, she's the one with the skillset and the expertise to do that. And it's not that we can't talk to children when they're in crisis. We absolutely can, but we don't have the same. We don't. And she's given us great tips along the way, or she shared with us, in this situation with these kids, this is what you can say, this is what you can do, this is how you can handle it. I know in other buildings, the guidance counselor is mostly used for doing investigations and doing all of that. And that's nothing that she did. She can't do any of that, and we have Michael to do that. So it's this, what is the role of guidance counselor? Looks really different in every one of our buildings. Berlin School has a full time we share with catalysts because it's, and they have just over a hundred kids and we have well over 200. And she's doing jobs over there that she doesn't do here because there's just no commonality. What's the, what would be the difference between a guidance professional and a social worker? What would the social worker do differently than what she would do, or a guidance professional? I think it really depends on how you structure either of those positions. In my mind, I see a school social worker doing a lot more outreach with families and in being that liaison between the school and home. So we have, we a lot of times for kids in crisis have what's called an act 246, or a coordinated services plan meeting where we call in professionals from DCF and Washington County Mental Health because we don't have, we don't go into the homes, but they can, a school social worker would do more of that. So I don't know, is it part time guidance? Like what we have and keep that going and part time social worker to fill in the holes. And I feel like I'm not the best one to tell you at this point what that should look like. I feel like it needs to come from all of the staff and those who work with these families and kids every day including Mary Beth. And just because it was so, you know, such a short turnaround, we just haven't. Yeah, I would say, I mean, I push you on the social worker because I've been in places where we had a school social worker and for our kids that are in the highest degrees of support, it really helped to have that flexibility of a social worker than a guidance counselor. To go into the homes, work with the families. It really, it really made a difference there more. But you know, as Alicia said to me, she said, well, Mary Beth works with families too. And I said, I know it's hard to really define where that line is, but it's that piece of, I think both look at the whole family along with the kid. I think the guidance counselor's a little bit more focused on they're both focused on the kid. I think the guidance counselor's more an academic where the social worker's more of that social behavioral being ready, what are the family supports around it. But it's really amorphous. It's really hard to say there's a clear line. What's in place in other schools in the district? We don't have any social workers. Even at U32 now? No, well, we have one there for, that supports the SAP work for 0.6 of the day. SAP. Safe and it's more for drug and alcohol. Okay. Sorry, I lost it. Substance abuse. For prevention. For prevention. Prevention. Couldn't get it either. I was on social. The guidance counselor's on a different pay scale than teachers. No, they're on the same as teachers. So a full-time guidance counselor costs $100,000? Can if the benefits are separate and the education levels, right? That includes the benefits. And the years of experience are right. We have some personnel that are teachers that cost $105,000 in this issue. Not their salary, they're better. So is there, Mary Beth is right now half-time, Callas half-time us, she doesn't really have more. Does she have more time? She doesn't have more time. She is in her current state, no. Yeah, exactly. I've not had that conversation with her either. Callas is in a similar situation to what we're in, which is. Well, I've seen her in action. And sometimes for me, even on Wednesdays, when you have two or at least one, her and I used to be here at the same time. Like that Wednesday, when she was not here, it was where we needed her the most. You know, like even just to ask something or whatever was happening. So, and I know even for my own chat, she was really resultful and she didn't have the time. So I would be on the mindset, and I know that we're not trying to come up with a solution tonight, but to try to investigate that and possibly end up with a full time, if possible right now, even though, because we don't know what the future is for us. This is just, right? It's something that we were gonna have to negotiate. It's a larger district. So, try to be a herd of the curve or that, and then try to use the Plainfield. Plainfield has all of the migrant workers. You know, that's what Plainfield community, the Plainfield Health Center does too. You know, like so they have the ability to do all of those health parts that they need. And we know that this is one of the biggest things for our, we're trying to work in an achievement gap. So I agree with what Ruben was saying. This could be seen as an intervention. So getting more time of Mary Bethel or whatever it is. Be united into the healthcare. Tier two investigation with the big federal grant. And that's happening regardless. So I guess my question is if, you know, I mean, the timing is according to what you were saying. Yes, what it is. And what would happen, I mean, I've never been, I haven't been in this position so forgive my ignorance, but if we said for the budget we wanted to make sure there was room for a part on FTE. And then the Plainfield thing worked out so that we actually didn't need any, could we, and so we put out to the town the budget, best we know that we might, we'll need this. So that happens every year. This is just on a bigger scale. There are estimates that are in the budget all over the place. Yeah. So it's not unheard of to do. I think I'm sort of stealing Steve's for a point, which is that we don't tell you how. So I mean, it's useful to have an understanding of what is going into your decision-making process. But I don't think we're here to tell you yes, do it this way or yes, do it that way. I think the real question is, are we willing to put 50 or $70,000 toward some better, for lack of a better way to put it sort of wrap around supports for families that are in crisis? I've been quiet. I have no intention of voting for more money. None. None. So I don't really need to participate in the discussion. I would say our administrators have the ability to create a full-time position with the budget that they're proposed. They would have to eliminate some things to do that. We're not preventing them from doing that. And that coupled with the possibility of what might happen with the Plainfield Health Center, I don't want to allocate money in saying, and I don't want to allocate, I mean, floor, we could get more in the next three weeks. I mean, that's a volatile population. In the next three weeks, eight could leave and we would have fewer. May not be the trend, but it's a volatile population of students and they're apt to move a lot. Yeah, but I think that's why I was focusing more on the guidance council, because I think we can do, she already meets with families. Like we can do better, even if she, let's say those six students move out and we don't need that trauma. There's still work to be done in the building that she is not getting done right now, because she's so split up. The only reason I bring it up right now, because I'm not gonna tell you how to do it, is that she can't, she doesn't, even as a real person, she's already half and half. So this is a much bigger conversation. If we are gonna attempt to hire somebody, there's two school, you know, she's gonna have to decide which school she wants to go and then the other school has to find somebody. So if we don't give you clear guidance, if we're willing to add or not add more to the budget, it would be, to me, hard. And as I see the budget right now, I don't know where, I know that she can be very creative, but I don't think that we're providing, I see it as an intervention. I don't think we're providing the services that, and we're doing a good job, but I think we could be doing more with the guide, like working more with the, for example, they can't even remember what a mindset, a mindfulness, like she doesn't have as much time as she had before to do this mindfulness work with the kids. It's just like, it's incredibly important for, and that's something that can be taught to the families, to the teachers, they're taking the course, they're going to be much better versus. And she can spend more time, I see her almost as a coaching position in the school too, with the teachers, you know, there's some teachers that are much better with kids in trauma than others, and they've been working on this. Yeah, we definitely are as a staff. As a staff. Building our toolkits around, everyone around kids in trauma. It's something we've needed to do. Yeah, mindfulness is like, it's for everybody. It's not just for the kids. So maybe Rubin, I can give you some contextual information from across the district. This may help you with this or not help you with this decision. I'm not sure which way I'll go. Each of you take a packet I sorted for you. There's a eight. One of these is in your packet, but it's just easier to look at on an eight by 14, instead of eight and a half by 11. The first one I'll go to is the one that's the eight by 14, which is the budget function for this current year by school. You've seen this in prior years. You'll notice if you look under the EMES column, to the right of that are percentages. So that's the East Montpelier Elementary School's percentage as function of the budget. So the instructional services are a total of 1.4 million or 36% of the budget. Now that's not all the instructional services, but that's what they're. And the cost per equalized pupil for East Montpelier, I'm just teaching you how to remind you how to read this, is $7,443. So just understand that after this was printed, I realized again every year, I should put solid black lines that go right down the big EMES and right next to the Romney column, because all of that is EMESs. So I just wanted you to see what three columns are your schools and then you can look across. So up top. Where is the 7,000 again? Bill, sorry. If you look, go 36, okay. So if you take the large column that's Romney to the left of it and to the left of the EMES, that large column, that line, those borders, it kind of made some bold lines there. So up top, we've got some demographic data for you. We've got what your enrollment is, pre-K through 12, as of October 1st. The next one is the ADM. The next one is the big number for tax rates and that's equalized pupils, okay? It's 193.8 for this year. Then we get into square footage and number of meals per day and pre-reduced lunch and spec count and enrollment of pre-K students. What we did was go down through and these are the major functions of the budget and if it's yellow, it's low for across the district, like you have a yellow for your guidance services, you have the lowest cost per equalized pupil. And then the high, there's a high one there for, which one? Debt service. So, okay? Why? But if it's green, if it's yellow, it doesn't mean, because it's the low, it doesn't mean you're necessarily good and if it's green, it doesn't mean you're bad. Just, it's a way, you want to look relative across and one of the things that I said to another board last week was, hey, what is ours compared to the relative across? And, you know, if it's, if it's like, hey, ours is lower high, but it's only like 5% difference than the relative range, it's not that bad. We were looking one at Romney, like the paraeducator cost was 50% more than any other school in the district. So, you know, it started to go, oh, well, we should maybe ask some questions about that. So, this is really a tool to ask questions about and you use to kind of look at where are you as a school. And then down below are some other information divided by other divisors besides equalized pupils. So, for operational plan, we do it by square foot and then we include in the capital fund and then the capital fund and debt. And then we have the food service support per meal per day and then we add pre-K per pre-K enrolled and special education costs per sped and student transportation. That's really not much different. It's a very small range from like 73 to 694. So, the range is really tiny. There's some rows here. We didn't put greens and yellows on because there are SU assessments going across and they're done by equalized pupils already. So, I give you this as points of information for this year. But I want to take you to the other sheet and I'm sorry I'm going fast, but the other sheet I think really kind of breaks it down for this current year and next year's budget that you just talked about. So, if you want to take this sheet that's right here, if I'm going too fast, stop me. Good? Okay, so the top here is a whole bunch of information and this really gets you to tax rates. So, your total expense budget for the EMES this year is 3.9 million. I'm literally going to read down this with you because I think it actually makes it easier for understanding tax rates. The offsetting revenues that before you calculate for taxes are 183,000. So, the total local ed spending, which is the numerator and getting to a cost per pupil equalized pupil is 3.8 million. You have this year you have 193.8 equalized pupils which gives you a cost per equalized pupil of $19,645. The next two figures are there if you were to receive any federal funds you don't. You have some indirect things through the supervisory unions like Title II and services that we bring in there but we didn't calculate that in. Any questions about how we got to a cost per equalized pupil? Because that cost per equalized pupil is what drives your tax rate and because we're in a dollar yield now, your tax rate is $1.96, equalized education spending tax rate before CLA. Okay, I'll tell you what it is later on down below. So, the budget you have in front of you without either of those positions, this is from draft one budget so it's a little bit higher but you were 1.96 before, you're 1.92, is 4.06 million. The offsetting revenues for the budget you have from draft one was 172,000 so that gets you to a local ed spending of 3.89 million. Your equalized pupils, this is a draft from Michelle and Laurie. We still, we were supposed to receive it statutoryly by Friday, we still haven't received it from the agency what the equalized pupils are and we won't for a little while. So it's, and their estimates are really good. Is 194.59 or an increase of 0.78 equalized pupils. I would have you just look across that row, you can see what's happening in other schools. Yeah, rough. Okay, I can tell you the district population in the next five years, we're projected to get down to a little over 1,300 and we're just below 1,500 right now, we're dropping. So you can see that your cost per equalized pupil is 19,994 with draft one. You'll see that you're above the threshold, black is for above the threshold, that's the next one. If it's red it means you're exceeding the threshold. I should say below the threshold, thank you. At least you're below the threshold of 192,000. You'll see anyone that's in red there is above the threshold. Jody's draft two became below and Callis's draft two will become below Thursday night. Romney is not sure what they're gonna do. I have a question about the threshold. The threshold, I thought it was like a set, like $2, it's not a set, it's a cost per equalized pupil. Right. And it's in excess of 132% of the average cost. Set back, I'm really simplifying it. It started back in 2015, they locked the threshold figure and said it could grow via CPI. The cost for education spending in CPI is like two graphs like this. So it's getting greater as we go out because the cost of ed spending is going faster than the consumer price index. And so actually what that does is suppress. There's a factor added to that 2015 state budget amount. And then the 123% of that. But that's not like a single figure for the entire state, like $90,500. There's a single figure for the entire state. So I'm just confused how Callis was $18,000. What happened was if you look before, they had revenues last year of $109,000 from offsetting revenues for, and they went down for their offsetting revenues to 85, but you see they had $53,000 in federal grants for this year they have none. So they lost their Title I funding and they lost their small schools. But I guess my question is the local ed spending per equalized pupil. Is it lower than yours? Yeah, it has to go back to what you were at 2015 as a district. Okay. It's a rate of inflation growth rate too. So it's not just state, you've got to look at all those. For more details, I can get the format from Lori. That's okay. I just was curious. I thought it was like straight up 19-5 for every school every. So your tax rate for this year with CLA of 2017 was $1.90. And looking at if it were a merged tax rate across the SU, one district, you can see how we have the district column on the right, I talked about that. It would be $1.79. And if we applied your CLA from this past year to that, that means that the East Montpelier tax rate would be $1.87 or three cents lower by the merged tax rate. So down below we have a line there while CLA's at the end of this month, but what the differential is by town for tax rates between the merged and their draft one budgets. One of the other things that I want to tell you and give you a warning about, East Montpelier U32 has their last bond payment for one of their two bonds in next year's fiscal year, which is $430,000. When that bond goes away, because it's allow, you guys know this very well, it's allowable expense that doesn't go to your ed tax. So if we stayed level funded, not level service, level funded in a merged tax rate, we will be $100,000, you can see we're $528,000 below the threshold right now. We would be $100,000 below it and the healthcare costs this past year at U32 for this fiscal year budgeting for the next year is $130,000 increased just on its own. So I'm forecasting that as a merged district will be there. I will also tell you, people said, well, maybe that means the merger is not good. When I look at all the individual entities, if you look at how far you are away, thinking Berlin might be the only district that wouldn't be in the penalty next year, thinking about salary increases and merge and healthcare increases for FY21. So we're looking at the FY21 year being either way, merged or not merged, having to look at some serious cuts around this SU because of the cost of, it's the human resource cost. And it's that, you know, when Stephen was asking how someone $100,000, it's the benefits and the salary increases. So I just wanted to give you all that for context. The reason I do this is because I know in the transition board, someone's gonna be asking for this information. So I figured why not get it out early? So you guys can look at, I'm not sitting here advocating for the same amount of dollars per equalized pupil at every building, but I want people, you can't have the discussion about what a student's need without knowing what are the dollars behind it. Because then we can go get the student performance data that you guys do a great job of looking at for use in my career, but looking at that for all the schools and what's it look like for the student needs in every school, because that's different as well. So what you said about the E32 bond hypothetically, I mean, I know you said we have $130,000 health care increase, but we would potentially decrease taxes by 300,000 or the district. So they have been planning that once that bond went away and they've been managing their capital fund, they need that money in their capital fund because all their ERVs right now are failing on the roof. They're 20 years old and they've been taking care of it with their capital fund but the plan is for that to go into the capital fund instead of having the bond. But now it's not money and Ruben, you are gonna stop you from doing it because you'll do it for me. It's good fiscal planning, but it counts against your local, your spending per equalized people where before when it was bonded, it didn't count against your spending per equalized people. So planning ahead is the best. No, planning ahead is fiscally responsible, but irresponsible from a tax perspective because our legislature doesn't understand fiscal planning. Right. So this is all just so you have this knowing, I mean, I heard the executive board pretty loudly in August when they said just put the budgets together separately and I give you one of the questions is, someone said, someone, one of your fellow board members said, well, I assume that everyone would have the same cost, get the same amount of money per equalized people. And I said, well, I think there's a question before you say that, should everybody or should not? What's that do for what you're trying to do for kids? Well, that's, it's like asking the same question to the governor, like when they were saying, they're gonna give 13,000, if we don't want it at that level, why would we want it at this level? I think the answer is that only if all of the other factors are equal would we be able to take equal money. Yeah, so I just remember, I've been saying this to all the boards, I just finished a paper that I wrote about two or three weeks ago about what's the, some of the highest factors in student success in rural super, with rural superintendent leadership and it's, and from the district level, what's really astounding is that there's very little research on rural superintendencies and rural districts, most of it's on suburban and urban, but what's- Easier to study. Well, it is easier to study in some regards, sometimes it's easier to study the rural actually too. But what it is is that that's not usually where the money is to support the studies. But there's four main factors and the first one is being focused on student achievement, the second one is being willing to put the resources where the student need is and not necessarily saying all things are equal. So to go back to this budget. Yeah. This is my summary of what I heard in this presentation. Suggests we should be fiscally conservative and really be super mindful of adding positions because they're likely gonna have to be cut in a year or two. That's what I'm telling you. I'm telling you that in a year we're gonna be looking at some. And Addison Central went through this. I mean, it was, because they decide are we gonna just try to cut a little bit every year or re-structure. As much as I don't like looking at it from a political angle, if we're looking at a three cent tax decrease, which I would like to just make note is vastly different than what the alarmists in certain districts in the Supervisory Union have been howling about for the past three years-ish. Not that that drives me at all. Thoughts are different. Yeah, thank you for that. Mindfulness, you know, we all need more time with. We're not there yet. I would be very mindful about feeling too comfortable about the fact that our tax rate is potentially going down. And I would encourage us to be real mindful of the optics of spending more. You know, if- What kind of in Steven's spot? I'm not spending more. Yeah, and I'm, you know, I heard your presentation and I do understand that, but I'm seeing that, I know that you say yellow doesn't necessarily mean good, but in guidance we are low across the, across the district. And if I subtract, I know that you said 152 might not be low, but if I subtract $50,000, 513 from our 150 to 161 below the threshold, we still are 101,000, $648 below. So, so I just, you know, I always say- We're a second and a half closer. Yeah, we, we, kids don't have a year to lose. If we have to make a change in a year from now, but we at least get the option to seeing if this sort of intervention will work. And if we need the time, I will leave it up to, to Alicia and you to see. Didn't we reduce what guidance just a few years ago? We did. Only because we could, we shared with Calis. Yeah. We, we, we have tried the practice and it's worked very well of hiring together when we both have a right. We've done that a number of times and it's worked very well. So a person can have a full-time position. We did. We went from a 0.8 down to a 0.5. And that's when Michael became the behavior person, isn't it? No, we went from a, that happened before Michael. And then we went down to a 0.6 when Michael came. And then we went- That's when I remember that it got reduced. Yeah. And I think that the, with the intention behind that of being Michael would be here every day and could pick up and he has, and he absolutely has and will continue to do that. It's just a different skill set. And the other thing to me is that, to remember that part of what we, why we have Michael is so that Alicia can be the instructional leader and not the behavior police at school. So we can't forget that. And that absolutely has happened. I mean, I love working with kids with their problems. I love that. And I still do a piece of that. But that is, that is not- So what I mean is that that's not why we reduced the counselor. Well, well, you know how I feel on the budget part. But we've also just spent time in the executive committee and at the full board talking about priorities and priorities across the SU. And this is not a priority across the SU. Prior to course the SU is increasing, decreasing the math gap in literacy and math and increasing the performance. But how are students supposed to achieve whether they're supposed to achieve if they're not ready to learn? So, yes. This is a means to that. Yeah, I would hear that. I would hear this. To me it's too much of a trickle down economy theory. Same word. I want to see more direct instruction. There's all kinds of things we could do that would put the students in a better frame to learn more. Well, I think the course- But are we doing everything we can do that is very clear around improving what students can do in decreasing the gap? I'll just be quiet. I'm not gonna- No idea. All right. I'm not gonna try- They're too cute. Everyone knows where I stand. And it's even more so because there may be some services free to us by playing field. So why do we want to spend any money if something free may address our- Or let's see how much we can do. But that's socially. Yeah. At a minimum. We've been here. Confusing, but I'm sorry. On my mind for multiple years has been getting us from the top 10 in the state per pupil spending down to a reasonable level. And we're getting closer and closer to doing that. For the first year and a number of years we're not battling the threshold or being real cautious of the threshold. In my mind, that's a good thing. And I don't want to start saying, okay, we're well above it now so we can be more generous. We've fought hard to get what we're gonna get. It's not gonna get any easier in the years ahead. I'm just adamant about not digging us another hole this year that we're gonna find ourselves cutting programs next year to pay for the budget or cutting a classroom teacher and increasing classroom size. I don't disagree with what you're saying. I guess I do have a fear of the playing field thing falling through. I mean I spend a good portion of time here. And I see that there could be, I see people working with some kids and I can see where there could be help and needed and used. But with that being said, are we looking everywhere that we could for some of these grants and funding? I mean is there, whose responsibility would it be to kind of? Our income level doesn't really open us up for grants, school grants. I'm sorry but the community here, Lindy's exactly right. We aren't poverty. You're yet, you're not. Well, but you see what I'm saying. So hopefully the playing field thing comes through but what if it doesn't and we'd see the need? Like, I mean, it's the same need that we've been seeing growing. This is not a new need. This need didn't pop up this year. Agreed. Right, so well, I totally understand the need on every level. I, you know, anecdotally, experientially, we all know those kids that need more. And on a human level, I would love nothing more than to give every child everything that they need, right? I mean, that's, but I think given the reality of where we find ourselves, all of the different pieces of it, right, that I think we're pretty far into this budgeting cycle. There are a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of questions. There's a lot of unease and uncertainty. And I think adding new spending from a timing perspective now would be, I don't think it would be a good idea. I don't disagree. One of the things I was gonna say was I also don't wanna add more bad blood, which I think is what you were kind of alluding to earlier. So. I needed to let you guys talk it out. I asked Alicia and I to pull out. And so if you needed to, no, you have to decide where you are as a board. You heard our information. You need to decide where you are as a board. That's one of my governance theories. You guys have heard it from me before. You speak as a board. So you need to decide that and talk about where you're at. I realize we're looking forward, not backwards, but we used to have a group home in town. And we had some real needs in the school with lots of Washington County mental health people in the school. And I realize our society's gotten worse because of where I work and see. But I just, I'm not comfortable with more manpower. I think the course you're offering is a great step for helping the staff deal with what is coming down the pike and what we are seeing. I think it's a great organization. I think he's gonna do a great job with the course and understanding is so important for the professionals. I would go further. I think it's, understanding is important for the taxpayers too. I don't think, I think people, we tend to get comfortable in our view of Vermont being this idyllic place that doesn't really have problems. Well, read the paper. Yeah, I mean, but you just can't let people who don't work in schools understand what's really going on in the schools. I don't think our world in schools is just, I didn't know till I was a teacher that children were hungry, that children were beaten, that children were these things. Because my parents shielded me from that. But then when you're a teacher and you're making sure your drawer is full of wheat thins and crackers and things that you can make sure they're fed, we have better food services now than they did when I started. But it's, you don't see it. You don't see it. Did you want to say something, Floor? Well, I think I said my share. I think that kids spend, I don't know, 80% of the time outside school, they don't spend all of their time in school. And the skills that they gain from the guidance counselor are, and it's that community. I see the playing field thing happening as more of a healthcare and other things, like an on the side kind of thing. But anything that we can do, well, we have them here, that's all we have when we have them here. Then they're out, they're out of, so we have those, whatever it is, eight hours, six hours to really try to make a difference and make that connection with the parent if possible. And I think what the course that they were gonna be doing today will be great, great resources and maybe teachers being able to do home visits like the kindergarten teachers do or something. But I just always feel like kids can wait. The income inequality is not getting any better in this country right now. So there's very little social mobility and we recognize that as a community, we can do better. So if we, that's the best we can do here. But I know that we have to deliver more with less. But it seems to me that even if it's just adding three more hours or maybe it's not 0.5 or 0.25, I don't, I don't know. I would like to see, as long as we understand that this impacts our achievement gap, that we stop hitting ourselves, that this doesn't impact, this impacts our achievement gap considerably. And so that's, I haven't actually said I say. I would actually add to that and say like while I support the teachers getting that education, I think it's great the more we rely on teachers to handle the 90% of what their kids need. 90% of what their kids need, the less instructional time they might have for it as well. I don't want to add to the budget either, either. I just want to state my point, I'd like to bring us back to that. I've talked about it for a long time and provide guidance if we want to add it or not add it. I'm hearing a pretty clear consensus that we don't want to add it at this time. And if anybody is. I do have to add that, so I'll just say that. Yeah, I'm not hearing unanimity. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. I'll clarify my statement that I don't, it's not a wish to just blindly raise taxes or raise money, but I also want to be very conscious about making decisions for the kids, which is. Yeah, and I also want our administrators to know that if we're sending them to explore things and look at data and look at what might be needed that we have some flexibility, right? So if we're sent, because otherwise we should just say, I don't know what we would say, just go up and explore, but this is a command without, like they do at the legislation, right? This is what you need to do, but there's no resources. So if I'm sending you out, I want to say that there's some flexibility. But I think this goes back to our discussions around priorities. Yeah. And I understand that there's legal room in these priorities and there's a lot of interpretation that has to happen. And that's a little bit by design as well, right? So that you as administrators can interpret our priorities and execute them in the way that you as professionals, which we're not, see best. So I, even though it's a little bit of a, there's a long tail on it, I actually think that what we're doing with the priorities work is really important because it gives that really long term, this is the thing that we're aiming for. And if we want to adjust that by a couple of degrees over time to make room for more social services because we've decided that that's a priority, I think that's a healthy conversation to have as a board, either this board, probably not at this particular time, or as a full board. And this conversation I think may look really different in a unified board because instead of trying to solve this on a per school system, on a per school building basis, we would be talking about it on a school district basis. And I think that's really important. But if we are not identifying the need here, you know, like how, you know. Well, I think it'll follow, I think it'll work, right? The work gets laid out. Yeah, the work is not going to stop. We need to be a more clear, a clear direction of what they need, I think. I think that'll be helpful anyways. So even though this may not be the answer from the board that you want, I'm glad that you brought it forward. I think this is an important viewpoint and perspective and conversation. Yeah, I feel comfortable, yeah. And I think this was a great conversation for me to hear and for you to have because it is, this is our current state and it's not just the small players. It's in all of the schools. Okay, thank you. So, I hope you have some sort of time. That was a good long time on that. Do we need a motion or did administrators understand our? No, I just tell you the next steps with the budget is that we've heard your direction and we'll be taking it to the transition board. So that's the last coming back to you for the budget. There's another, can I? I've been trying to get us on task all the time. We approve this budget. No, you don't. Okay. You don't have authority to do that anymore. But, so this budget gets approved. Yeah. There's nothing to say that all kinds of things couldn't change. They, that's right. All kinds of things. So even if we put in $50,000 for something, it may not happen. That's $50,000 because we use for something else. Correct. Right. So, Either way. You had another reason not to put it in. Okay, okay. 3.2 act 46 update. Yeah, so there's a couple things here that I need to talk to you about and Florian can talk to you about the articles. You'll need to think about your transition board membership. The articles have changed so that if you want to have someone else besides the clerk and the chair, you can so appoint them for that. I would tell you that the town, right, as I just talked to you about the budget process and what the executive committee, as you saw in my email from last week, we had to repost the warning. So that's now on January 14th. I believe that the transition board will be busy the first two to three weeks on getting ready for an election and articles of agreement election. So I think they'll probably start the budget conversations in late January, beginning of February with what I've been plotting out literally today. The town, so there's work for them to do. If you remember, the transition board has three responsibilities. One, to set up a, if an article's agreement committee comes back with amended articles, they must warn them. They don't get to choose whether they go or not, that the committee has that power. The, they set up a process for elections of a new unified merge board. And they recommend a budget to the new merge board. They don't approve it, but they recommend one to the new board. The new board then takes that approved budget. It takes that budget, does what they want, and then recommends that to the electorate of all five towns. So it's just the budget that gets to the electorate. The electorate, the electorate. Well, the electorate elects the board members as well. The board members. Yeah, basically into articles or not. We're gonna talk about, articles are, there's a lot more I learned today about articles. So there's a lot to go with articles, which I really don't wanna get into all the detail on articles in this meeting. But there will be, because we could be there for an hour or two right now. The town, I also put town reports on here. I'm just trying to give you this information and then like some feedback and what you think. The town reports, I made a decision about a week ago that the town reports that will be in the town report, that sounds really redundant. The school report that's in the town report, how about that? We'll focus on what's happened this year and last fiscal year, because we always give at least a statement about the audit. But if you remember, about three quarters of that town report was information for the new budget. We don't have that yet. And if we were to have some of your fellow boards have asked about, well, wouldn't you put it in there if there was an injunction and we had to vote on a local budget? We're already past the time right now to be ready for town meeting. If we were gonna run election approved budgets the way we've always done it. We still need a special, we now need a special meeting if we were to have six different districts. So we're not, we're off the town meeting timeline for budgets already three weeks. You know, we've done three weeks of difference. We're in the third week of it. And so we can't go back. We can't be ready for town meeting because everything has to be ready to go to print about January 10th. So things that would be in your town report would be the board chairs report, the principals report. Some of, I can't remember for Eastmont Pillar without looking at the sheet. Eastmont Pillar I think does salaries. Yes, salaries at U32, Washington Central and EMES and then the independent auditors report. So those would be the only things that are in your school report section of your town report this year. There wouldn't be a whole bunch on the, there would also still need to be elections for the local board because this board has authority over operations to June 30th. And then there would be one more meeting of that board to accept the audit and dissolve the board. So we should run. Yes, I'm asking you all to run because we need you to run to fill out your running, you have the authority right now over local, over the local operation right now all the way to June 30th. So, you know, what does that mean? We need, if I was going to get to be a minimalist, the minimalist is. The audit. No, you really need to approve board orders. And if we have either a staff or a student hearing. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's. So you need to do your petition. Yeah. And. You still do the same process. You and Steven. It's you and Steve. We'll, we'll get out more. I'm going to get out a lot more information and information out to the public. My sent out, or I didn't send it out, but Krista sent out at about five o'clock tonight, the first of a series of videos that are going out around act 46. I filmed with this weekend and it's all ready to go up on YouTube. It's about 13 minutes if you want to listen to Bill. Just to update them where we are with act 46. I'm going to try and do it every week. I think that's really important. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Because I think people are trying to figure out timelines, what's really going on. Right. And what I'm saying there, what you can say to folks is it's literally changing. I know. So it was the expectation that at town meeting, people are going to elect. They're going to elect two different boards. They're going to elect. Okay. There are actually three different boards. There'll be a U32 election. There'll be an East Montpelier and then there'll be a Washington Central Unified Union School District Board. And is that, that one? Is that, are we voting for people from all five towns? You vote from all, you elect two representatives from all five towns. So if you sit here in East Montpelier, you'll vote for two folks from East Montpelier. Wait, it's not proportional to that. No. And two for Berlin and two for Calis and two for Worcester and two for Middlesex. And there will be 10, hopefully. And five for East Montpelier through next, or through December 2019. Right, right, right, right, right, right. And the budget vote, you had a preliminary date for May 30th. June, actually April 30th. I've got for you right now. April 30th, yeah. I have, here's a timeline. You updated it? Yes, a timeline. That's updated. I'd like the extras that are there back, but. This is getting updated. So a little bit of an oddball question. Sure. If there was a member of this board who wanted to run, I don't know, just imagine one of you who's up for election also wanted to run for the. Merge board. Merge board. They can do that. Can you do that? Anybody else could run. I think in the next, I think probably somewhere in like the first or second week of January, I'm going to give a whole thing about boards and running and elections and all of that. But frankly, I know I'm just not there yet. And it, because there's so many questions that I don't have answers to that. And I'm meeting with the town clerks on Thursday. I'm buying them all lunch and saying, hey, let's sit here and figure this out. Okay. Sorry, one more question. So the transitional board would run from now into the town meeting? Well, or until when the board seats because there's actually some one of the things. I just, I don't want you to get, I don't want you to put it. I don't want an exact date. I just want to. That's what I'm saying. And I don't want you to even put like a town meeting on it because things could move. But it's prior to July 1st. That's right. Somewhere there, there'll be a new board. So we're, so maximum of the transition board is till July, whenever that date is. Yeah, that would be really late June 30th. But I don't think we'll get there. Well, that's what I'm just, please know. You just never know. But I mean, that's the thing, it is moving. It's changing. Yeah. It changes all the time. Thanks. So that's what I have for you, Floor, you've been in a lot of it. So what did I miss? What do you want to highlight? I don't think you missed anything except we were having a meeting on Wednesday on articles of agreement. We're still waiting for a draft from the lawyer. We have to form a 706 proportional act 49 committee, sort of like the 706B to write this article of agreement. And I know there's new information, but we're still hoping to have a hearing and have a vote. Yeah. The nice thing is that that can actually go going forward before the transition board. So you'll see the dates on here. I actually was able to, because of the warning mistake that I made that was able to kind of flip flop them and still get everything done. I mean, there are a couple other means that aren't on here that are in my, I have a paper calendar now going in my office that has all the way to June. And there's some, especially in the first two or three weeks of June, there's almost something going on every night. And Bill, you had, I thought we had talked about January 3rd or 7th. Yeah, I think I wrote it wrong on here. Okay. Yeah. I think you'll even see I spelt first wrong on here. Yeah, because I thought January 3rd. This is how, I mean, this is literally moving. Okay. What you saw in email, I haven't, I've updated this on Friday. I emailed you yesterday for those dates. And I think I checked this and I can't remember. The articles of agreement meeting that long, when the minutes are on the website? Not yet, I think. Oh no, yes, they are. They are, they are, they are. I looked and now I can't remember what I saw. They are, they are. We have one, one article to, to do a second reading and the rest, I think we, I feel pretty comfortable. I think we did a good job. There's some things we need to go back to, but. Yeah. Yeah. So those minutes would include the articles? Yeah. What? Okay. I think, I don't know if the articles are up there. The articles are not up there. It just includes. But you can get it from what's in the minutes when they've talked about how they wanted to adjust them. Yeah. Okay. And then there's a lot of community. And I think the main thing, at least for me for the articles is going to be around community engagement and making sure that people understand that if you vote no in this article of agreement, it's not voting no against consolidation, but it's voting no. And we end up with the draft articles of agreement, not with, with what we drafted. I think that's going to be super important. So it's, that is, that is going to be super important in this very narrow timeframe that we, that we have. It's going to get really complex. Yeah. That, that it's much more complex. And I'm afraid that's where the rumors and the, what people in the past, we've had people throwing out numbers and throwing out things that were not accurate. And it's the loudest ones that people hear and remember. So that's why I think your YouTube idea of constant, what's real is really important. Hopefully people pay attention. The only fear I have being at drives people to click on something and watch, we need to really speak to as many people as we can. Yeah. And I think even people that have been very vocal against act 46 are much rather have the new, you know, the amended articles of agreement that they're also agreement. So as far as I understand, they have pledged to help. So that should, that should, that should help. Because I think we've heard from the same handfuls of people and people who may be questions or fine with me, aren't the people we hear from. And that's where I worry about the loudest voices making people believe something different is happening than maybe, I appreciate the public notices that you're making or I haven't seen one so. Tell me how I did it. I made it screencast by some of them I'm just going to do with my phone early and say I'm going to talk to you about a couple of things that are going on here. I'm going to throw it up there because people are pretty forgiving with videos these days. Are we going to put them on Front Porch Forum? They're up on our, they're going up on our social media sites. So the problem with Front Porch Forum is after I do two a month. Oh yeah. I start getting charged and it's not cheap. Now if an individual does it, you don't get charged. If just a citizen posts it on Front Porch Forum. Or just put something up there you might want to look at something. They want the public to look for it. And I could add the link. Edie and I drafted a really long post that I shared with you for the signpost. I haven't put it up in Front Porch Forum yet because I have to wait for it to be released in the signpost so I don't like take the floor and we edited another one that is much smaller but I wanted to clear some more dates before because that one was so specific so I might need to take- I could have started going this far out with dates right now. It's just too far. We have to think of other ways of communicating. If we have to wait three months, if we have to publish something now for a date, say a date now that something's going to be published in two weeks, it's too much of a gap because these things keep moving on me. I can't nail them down. But I guess what we were trying to communicate in this is the importance of attending that first hearing of the organizational meeting is really important for the community to be there. It's the January 14th. Yeah, wait, nine. 14th. 14th. The articles will be, I'm trying to keep the articles on the night. That's when you are deciding that you're voting by Australian ballot. That's when you're really organizing that's why it's the organizational meeting so it would be really important to reach out to everybody and be there. So which one of the ones that the public should be at? Both or the 14th most important? It's either one, one day will be the ninth will be the hearing for the new articles where they'll be feedback given and then on the 14th is the organizational meeting where it's held like a town meeting for all five towns. And the new articles of the ninth is gonna be at U32 as well. Yeah, okay. So will we even have a school meeting at town meeting? You will need to have a school meeting. Yeah. You will need to present a warning. I'm not sure what your warning is beside your elections. I'm still working on what that warning should be. Because they'll show our kit video, be pressing for questions. There's gonna be lots of questions about where we're going and I'm going to do that. You're going to book it right now. Is that enough? One thing it just made me think of, I've seen Kari's postings about the budget and just something you might want to think about. I'll put something in this week's newsletter just that where we're at, but that might be something you want to post. I'm gonna do that one. Did you do 3.0 right now? Nope, I'm still waiting for it. Okay. So we have gotten through 3.2 future meeting schedule and content. So this is something that I asked Rubin that let's put this on here just so you could have a discussion as a board. I kind of already alluded to what the minimum responsibilities are, which are board orders and any hearings. Your meetings right now are, there's a January scheduled for the third Monday and then there's a carousel scheduled for February. And then in March, there would be a reorganization of this board and I would assume I would say the same point. I know with my time with all the meetings for all my focus needs for myself needs to be on the merger and doing all that work. So I think you'll have Alicia here and myself for most of the meetings. Miss you guys, but I think I've got to work on that to keep the focus because it's just the project plans getting pretty big and the number of meetings between the different boards. I think the transition board's gonna be meeting weekly and then we're gonna have negotiations with a couple of things going on. So I wasn't sure what you wanted to focus on for your meetings here and where you want to go with that. So that's why I was asking with that kind of a question. But I think our board meetings are gonna become the way to communicate with the public about where we are at every, who's the most transparent and information that we give them that would be. So maybe not, we already are gonna have a, oh no, it's not, it's the 15th. You say we had a January 3rd meeting? January 3rd, yeah, the 15th. So that we have no comment there. So we might have to move it around to make sure that we use that time together to either talk about the Articles of Agreement or do some kind of community hearing. Maybe it's largely Act 46 update. Yeah, yeah. Board orders. Does that make sense? Board orders and Act 46, yeah. And I'll continue to just share principles reports as I've been doing and keep you apprised of what's happening. Yes. And I think I covered kind of three, four, I don't know why I made two pieces there for you. Okay. I think I just wanted to make sure that everyone was clear what the local board timeline was for responsibilities. And I told you already about June to June 30th. That brings us to page nine of administration report. Tell you a little quick. In my house, funny, Lacey came home from when the governor was here and she was like, he doesn't even know how to cope. That is true. He learned a lot that day. And he was very engaged. He's just cute. Are we going in order of reports or can we ask questions to any reports? You can ask him, ask away from me. I have a question on the pledging of aligns. What, the pledge of allegiance? Pledge of allegiance, sorry. I couldn't grew up doing that. So I'm assuming that there would be some provision, for example, for a sixth grader or if there's a kid that doesn't want to do it, that doesn't need to do it or? No. You always have a knocked out. Yeah. You don't need to, yeah. They don't, okay. It's not mandatory. It's not mandatory. No, so it used to be something that happened here every day and I think with, honestly, I think with construction and when the flags left the gym and it kind of just, I don't know what happened after that. It kind of, some classrooms can do it and practice it most days. We have a very, and they're actually here tonight, a very vibrant Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts who take it very seriously and a lot of members that are students here. So what's gonna happen on January 2nd when we come back, the first day back, we're gonna have an all school assembly and our Cub Scouts are gonna do, lead us in a flag ceremony and kind of teach the whole student body, those who've not done it. And we'll do it together as a whole school on that one day, which is what we used to do when I first started here. You did? I don't remember. You don't remember? I don't remember. Yeah, we did. And some schools have never got out of the practice and still do it every day. Yeah, as long as there's still room for, I could just see some. Does the pledge still have the words under God in it? Yeah, so it's just. There's a whole group thing piece to it that I am uncomfortable with. I think it's good as long as there's room if there's like the protest that athletes are doing right now. As long as there is, I could see some, especially as they get older, that we would encourage that, not this courage, that they're able to. Not make them. So in over the month of December, we purchased a number of books to do as we'd allows the history of the pledge where it came from, how it originated, who wrote it, how it came to be into practice. And so teachers have been reading it to their students and having discussions. So it's not like we're just out of nowhere having this happen. They've had a month to kind of prepare and talk about it. And in the upper grades, that may be a topic of conversation. I haven't heard that it is. And every class has its own personality and the personality of this sixth grade class isn't such where I could see last year. Maybe it would have been much bigger issue. That's what I was thinking. I mean, it's just, it's personalities. But if that were to happen, it would be, it's all part of education and teaching them. And when they're out in public, all of the games my kids play, varsity sports and they sing the Star-Spangled Banner, right? And you salute. And it's just, it's out there. It's what happens. And so I surveyed the staff to find out, where are you at? What, and they, every classroom teacher said they want to bring it back. So I felt like that was something that we should bring back. And do parents know about this? Or is there going to be any other, anything other than the kids bringing it to the future? What did you say? I would suggest some outreach. Yeah, so I don't know at the level of classroom teachers what they have. I can certainly share in this week's newsletter. I was going to suggest maybe doing that. And the, so the club scout group, which is quite a few of our parents are kind of involved in that piece. So there, it has gotten out there, but outreach is, yes, important. I thought you said outrage. No, no. No, no. I was thinking about that. It's not a pun. You're not what I meant at all. Okay. Any other questions? I have a couple of things to share with you that are in here that I said I would share, but I'll wait to see if there's other questions first. What is the Life Is Good Kids Foundation? So it is, it's actually a part of the Life Is Good, like the- Those t-shirts. Right. Except there's a whole educational side of it that works with children in drama. Yeah, okay. And we had a couple of our teachers who participated in a training down there in Boston. And they went to a training over the summer and felt like it was incredible. They brought a lot back to us as a staff this year. Little things that you can put into practice in your classroom. So one example is, so it was Beth Parker and Jillian Zalinga who went down. There's something called News Ball. You know, in morning meeting you do sharing and kids can share. And for some kids, they wanna share. And other kids, it's like the worst thing in the world and do not want to participate at all. So this is called News Ball and you have a ball and you can toss it. But before you share, another anxiety producing thing for children and adults is not knowing the reaction someone's gonna give you, right? Like you may say something and you think it's great and they have a horrible reaction or the opposite. So before sharing your piece of news, you say, I'm gonna share something with you and I'd like you all to react by saying, oh wow or go team or whatever. So you aren't gonna be surprised by the reaction. It's something we've been doing in classrooms as part of morning meeting and just periodically in some classes to learn that. So it's my turn for the ball and I have something really exciting to share and I want you all to be really excited with me. So I'm gonna tell you. Or I have some really sad news and I want you to say I'm really sorry or whatever it is or give a hooray. My team won the game last night. So little things like that that just help us to be aware of kids and the pressures that we may put on them when we don't even recognize. So anyway, they're coming here. Two of the people from the foundation are coming here in January to do some more training with our staff similar to what they got, Jillian and Beth got. And we have Kelly Bushy and our school psychologist and the person who is leading the alternative program at U32 are gonna join us for that. So that's great. Thank you. Fiscal report? I have one more. So I had said in the grounds that the quotes for the we had talked about last month, the actual quote came in today for from Goslin, which is the concrete. Can you just change that word to the estimate? Estimate. An estimate. We have two estimates. So there's a huge range in price. The price of concrete is $45,900. Which is basically taking out that steel edging that is getting caught up in everything and is sticking out in the hazard. And then pouring the sidewalk. Two, we have an estimate for just putting down taking out the steel, putting some crushed gravel in and then putting some asphalt on top, which is there's kind of two sections. We had them do it into two sections. One section was $6,200 and one was $6,800. So 13,000 for the whole thing to pave. Versus 140,000 or so. No, 45, almost 46,000. So how often do we have to repave though? I can tell you we paved the basketball court nine years ago and we never did it again. We've done nothing to it. So it's not a traffic, it's more of a safety really and to actually have the sidewalk there because it's not right now. So those are, I will obviously not go do anything more with this concrete. I hesitate to even ask this, but if we pave, are we gonna be compelled to like create a paved ramp around the stairs? No, no, no. The stairs are okay. The stairs for some reason meet. It's just not gonna like change the classification of the egress path or anything like that. It is and we do use that escape path every single day. I mean, it is something like that. I wanna make sure that. So I can't say that to you for a hundred percent. For like ADA. I'm pretty sure. I just wanna make sure that doesn't change the. ADA change it, the way it's being interpreted is starting to change. So I can't tell you that for a hundred percent. I agree with what Alicia's saying and what Floor's saying, but I can't say that to you without any certainty. So then we need to just be aware that at some point after we do this, we may find ourselves having to put a paved ramp around the stairs. You might. I don't think, I think the risk is very small, but I will tell you that we've had some things change just in this past six months at other buildings. That's why I asked the question. That we use the ADA code and then went back and it isn't. So I wanna say that it's interpretation of regulation. Okay. So who would interpret that? The architect. Whoever in our project. The fire code. Yeah, but we can call it, and there's a new one. I think that applies to everything we do. We act as best we can on current practices. And we're not doing anything new. Being mindful that something may change, but the best information we have in front of us is it's not likely to. And we're not putting in something new. We're replacing the materials. So it's short of a guarantee. But it's understood. No, I wasn't asking for a guarantee. I just wanted to make sure that we were. We were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way you worded it, you were. So I'm not gonna give you one. Okay. Fair. I just wanted us to be thinking about it because it has, we've experienced the no good deed goes unpunished. Before. Yeah. I can tell you the current practice what Todd does because he can't get the snowblower on the stairs. He shovels the stairs and he has this like little path on a grass. That if you can't go down the steps that you just go into the grass, that's also. Okay. Plow down. Thank you. He snowblows the rocks. Yeah. Put things in against the windows and they break and they're expensive to fix. But I think that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Fiscal report. So there hasn't been much of a change here because we're running the budget. I did, you haven't seen any updates in September. We haven't really, we had just open enrollment for benefits so we'll know that hopefully for January but Lori is really, she and her staff are really scramble on right now with a lot of work that they have to do. Not only with the Act 46 but all the new fiscal accounting system. We have to move accounting code change and the new fiscal software system. I did want to point out something on page 16 to you though. One of the things that we've learned in the past two weeks in the Act 46 is any fund that's been designated by the voters or given to as kind of like the Jonathan Miller fund that has a purposely given as endowed that moving into a new organization they must stay with the same intent. So like the capital fund that has put money has been put aside for this building that would stay for East Montpelier. The unless the new board went to the electorate and asked them to repurpose the funds which they could do, they could say that electorate the electorate could say those funds but it is assumed by our attorney and reading and the way they've worked with other voluntary mergers is that those funds stay for the purpose and they're the first ones drawn down. A piece of good news. Awesome. The only other thing on the front page of that page 15 is the reduction in the music teacher is not in here so you will see that. So there may be moving of funds in June that you want to do at that point but and the meal service hasn't been, Lori and her crew are just, we've been paying extra hours so. If you need something that we're not giving you please let us know. But it's not like we're mismanaging it or anything else. Just like it's not, it hasn't been that many items or no. Executive committee. I think it's fair to say at the last full board dealt with what the executive committee's been dealing with. It's really been focused on that student learning so unless there's questions. I think what we presented at the full board was exactly what has been the workings policy committee. We haven't met since the full board meeting and I reported then that we can't agree on our charge as a committee. So we have to bring it up again in this last meeting we didn't have a forum. So sorry, not necessarily this committee but just in general what happened when we saw subcommittees. That depends on the new board. I'm gonna recommend, I've got three I wanna recommend. But there's gonna be what? 10? 10 members. 10 members. I did see that you looked at that student freedom of expression policy. We didn't have a forum to do. Oh so you did, it was just on your agenda and you looked at it but didn't get to it. But we couldn't take any action because there were only three of us there. We take that, we have that one anyway. We have to follow it anyway whether they take action or the board takes action by the way the law is. Nobody had a problem with it that we're talking about. And I explained that it was from BSBA and it just needed to revisit it. Yeah that was something that was brought up to get our attention to make sure that we had it. Thank you Lynn. 4.6 negotiations. Steven, poor guy. Do you want? We work on one item which is? Yeah so there's a, as in years past there's a statement that goes out after, are you shaking your head? No, go ahead, you'll find out. I don't remember what it is. It goes out after each meeting and it's posted. But it's a general thing and we've talked about one item and we've kind of cleared up the manner in which we're gonna conduct the meetings and those kind of things. So it's ground rules, thank you. But this is just for one year, right? So one year contract. I believe that brings us to the action agenda. I am so sorry, I forgot to tell you something. I knew there were two things. Too late, too late at least, we've moved on. Gosh, I'm sorry. This is just to let you know. And this is part of what your ongoing operations of the building, we have some babies coming this year. And so we have our PE teachers going to be going out on family medical leave to have a baby. His significant other will be having a baby in April or around April. So just know that that's coming and he's working on the paperwork now but he's hoping to take some time off. And this doesn't go to you but just to let you know because it's gonna go to the executive special educators. We have Ashley Gilstead, our new special educators also going to be having a baby in April. So it's nothing you need to do anything about but just so you know, we have some babies coming. And we'll be looking for some long concepts. Sorry. Good luck in the special ed fields because there's such a shortage. You weren't kidding? Action agenda 5.1, except the audit report, which starts on. It was sent via email. It was emailed to you. Thankful to not have one of the spaces hanging out. Can the motion just be to accept the audit report? So I'll make a motion that we accept the audit report. I'll second it. Is there any discussion? Excuse me. Any discussion of the audit report? Could we just get clarification that there didn't seem to be any. There's no recommendations or findings. There were some subtle suggestions that were already put in place. But no findings. Okay. No, I have no. Further discussion? So none. All those in favor of accepting the audit report, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. I recommend approving the school quality committee recommendation for SU-wide goal related to student learning to the transition board. I would make that motion. I'll second it. Do you have the agenda? No, you don't. Well, I do. I take the other agenda. Okay. So the motion I made was exactly the wording under 5.2. Discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Appoint representatives to the articles of agreement committee. So this is the one that's happening right now where we need one member. We need one member? Yeah. This is the... 5.5 is the one where you need to have three. Yeah. Okay. All right. This is just because the articles of agreement was supposed to finish by December 3rd and they're still working. Got it. So it's just kind of like you're reaffirming your floor being your representative. Would anybody like to? I'll make a motion to your point of floor to the articles of agreement committee. Second. Is there any discussion? Just to continue what they're doing, correct? Right. Okay. Further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Appoint members to the transition board. So you need two members. The clerk and the... If you table this with the clerk and the chair are the default. And forgive me, who's the clerk? I am. Lindy. Is this different than the next one down? Or... Yes. Five people. So just wondering. I have a recommendation for someone who's not in support for the next one. Oh, the next one doesn't have to be board members? Yeah. Okay, so I would cheerfully let somebody else have my spot on the transition board. And I had to talk to you about it. Right. So Lindy, are you in? Or does Steven wanna? I don't wanna do it. You don't wanna do it? I was hoping that you would do it. Well, thanks a lot. No, no, I want you to do it too, but I was, because I thought that you would run for the board and Steven is not gonna run. I'm not up to run. Oh, you don't wanna run? I'm not up for the regular. You mean for the transition board? No, for the unified board. Just because Bill had said that we were gonna meet once a week. So if you're on this transition board, you can't run for the unified board? No, yeah, you can. Oh, yeah, you can. I'm getting confused. Yes. No, you can. I think it may get, I mean, when I plot out all the work between now and first of March, I could see one or two weeks of not meeting, but I think it's gonna be almost every week. But there'll be an evening. That's what you're trying to say. Yeah, in the evenings. Not articles where they were all doing it. No, no, they're evenings and I think they're, I'm hoping they're a couple hours. I hope that we can speed up the way we do work a little bit. I would love to speed things up. I think we need to. Well, not exactly this process, but we had a chance three years ago to vote. So I was, I thought as clerk, I was on it and I was okay to do that. Okay, perfect. Got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I have nominations for Floor and Wendy. Wendy. I don't actually have a motion. I'll make a motion to points Floor and Wendy to the transition board. May I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All of those in favor of appointing Floor and Wendy please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Thanks. 5.5 recommend membership for an act 49 committee. So I believe there's going to be three meeting at the most three meetings, possibly two. Could be more than that. Maybe I'm being hopeful for an act 49 articles of agreement committee. Can you just explain what that means? That means the, in order to amend the draft, to amend the articles of agreement given to Washington Central Unified Union Board from the agency of education, you need to have, according to act 49, you need to have an articles of agreement committee. It must be, it must have very similar configuration as a 706B committee. I said at this SU board, I thought we could get away with six people on it. After reading act 49 again and consulting with our attorney, I was given strong advice that you should have the makeup be proportional, which is what I sent in the email that memo I sent last week. So there's three from East Montpelier, three from Berlin, two from Calis and middle section one from Worcester. So all the boards except for Berlin, I was able to catch them in time. So they're appointing the correct number of representatives for East Montpelier. Since you need three, you can appoint who you'd like. You three or two will not have any representatives and Kari's been part of the subcommittee right now. And I would recommend to you thinking about appointing Kari. I have not talked to him or asked him if he's interested in being on that, but I think he is. I would agree. I think that's a logical person to be on it. So what do we do for the appointing? Because he's East Montpelier. You can appoint him, and he's not willing. He's not willing then I would come back to you and ask for you to have a special meeting to appoint another person. But he's been doing, basically what this committee will be doing is this committee will be doing the, taking the recommendation for the committee that you voted before, to continue the work on the articles of agreement. So it's like the new articles of agreement committee. Yeah. A proportional article. That's what I wanted to meet the legal stand so it can stand. And then this committee approves the articles to go to vote. The transition board has no authority over what the article say. Right. This committee, all the transition board is empowered to do is to warn for the election of whether to approve the articles or not. Okay. So is there anybody else? I'm assuming you would like to be there. Yeah. And I was thinking that Lindy would want to be on that but now she's on the other one, so I didn't know what. I think Darcy's just picked that straw, right? I don't know, I just find, yeah. I think it's going to be hopefully two meetings, but it might be three. So I'm hearing Darcy, Flora and Cary. Yeah. I'll make that motion. Thanks, Steve. In a second. I'll second. You second. I'll second it, Lindy. Thank you. Is there any discussion of the article, sorry, Act 49 committee membership? Seeing none and hearing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. I would take a motion to approve the board orders. I would make a motion to approve the board orders in the amount of $22,008.34. I'm pretty sure I heard a second. I said yes. I had actually wrote it down this time, so I think it was a bottom up. It's all for a paragraph. It was in front of me, so I just assumed I'd make the motion. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Aye. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Future agenda items. I think we talked about that before. It was Act 46. Yeah. An argument and reports. Board communication. I think we talked about that too. Board orders. And I do believe that brings us to adjournment.