 We're going to call our meeting to order at 6.20. Welcome, everybody. This is the Washington Central School District. First meeting of the year. Happy new year. Everybody is so great to see so many of us. And this is a great setup. I can see everybody pretty good. So I want to start the year just by wishing everybody a happy new year. And after I took Shelly's class, which we will talk about it later, I got hooked in this blog from Maria Prolova. And as I was starting the year, it had this little snippet on beginnings. And it said that to begin anything, a new year, a new practice, a new love, a new project, is to cast upon ourselves a spell against stagnation. And I feel like that's what we're doing with our new budget, our new vision for district, our core beliefs. And beginnings are like little notes. We always say that we have to play all together like a symphony. We all play a different role in the board. We all play a different role as administrators. So beginnings ask us to break the pattern in our lives and recognize that afresh. It takes great courage and turniness to start the year for all of us. And beginnings are an opening towards the gifts and the growth that are stored upon us. So often, when the year is ending, we discover new beginnings. And hopefully, our heart is ready for fresh beginnings for this year. So with that, I was going to start the meeting by changing the agenda. Do you guys have any modifications to the agenda? Talking about anew. I would like to add, one, we just missed that. So under 5.5, we had approved the mailing and ballot. It's been in all of our meetings, and we just failed to put it on. And we finally have approval from our five towns. So I would like to add that there. And also at the very end of our meeting, I would like to add an executive session for personnel. So they have a motion to accept the agenda as amended. Thank you, Ursula. Second. Thank you, Chris. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. And you're opposed? Seeing none. Reception of guests. I see very many members of the public. Thank you for being online, too. Any public comments at this time? I see a few people online. Please raise your hand if you wish to make a comment right now. All right. I see one. Honey, go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tony. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You're muted. I think you're double muted. So we can hear you. One second. One second. It's on our end. Yeah. And we're going to stick to the two minutes, OK? But thank you. Honey, can you try again, please? Sure. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. My name is Honey Bean Barrett, and I am the current fifth and sixth grade teacher at Doty. I would like to speak to the proposed cuts to counseling and nursing at Doty. And the ripple effect these cuts would have for students, families, and staff. During past board meeting discussions about these cuts, I have heard board members ask why we are making so many cuts to kid-facing staff. I have also heard board members question these cuts and seek creative ideas to keep full-time counseling and nursing in all schools, noting that we are not and we are not going to be in pre-pandemic times again. I echo these questions and concerns that you have. Our Doty School counselor has many jobs within our building, including teaching our health curriculum with our school nurse and acting as our school-wide behavior support person. The ESSER funds gave Doty a full-time nurse, and that has been life-changing for students. Together with our counselor, these two individuals work to be a proactive force to prevent students from dysregulating into crisis. Not to mention, our nurse being the first line of dental and medical care, and our counselor being the first and sometimes only mental health care available to some students. The staff at Doty is very good at multitasking and supporting each other to take the best care of kids. We are a caring and effective team. Without a doubt, our staff, our team, will be incomplete without our full-time counselor and nurse, and we will be stretched further and we fear that we will be less effective. I encourage the board to find funding for a full-time nurse and full-time counselor so that Worcester students and families can continue to be cared for and supported in all the ways they need to be. Thank you. Thank you, honey. Any other members of the public? Seeing none, we are going to move to you, Celia. Thank you for your first stop. Thank you for hosting us. Of course. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Chef Jake has on the blue table in the back he made a pasta carbonara and a salad for everyone this evening. He broke out the fancy place. He was like, ooh, I get to cook you very fast. So please enjoy that. Compliments of our food service team here. So I, let's feel a little, what do you need me to do to make it go up there? Can you share your screen? I can do that. What do you do? Can I share my screen? Oh, from here. Yep, hold on. Let me pull my life together. Probably can't do that. All right, I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to share this one. Light the light. All right, I'm going to stand. This feels a little weird. OK, so I was, you all asked to present on what social emotional learning looks like here at Berlin Elementary School. I think it's important to ground up. And sometimes SEL gets thrown around as like education really likes jargon. I'm sure you all know this. But we like lots of different words for SEL. So I want you to take a minute. A lot of the resources and the framework that when I think about social emotional learning for our students come through the lens of CASEL. And I'm not going to get the acronym right. But it's a body of research that takes a lot of different methodologies and looking at social emotional learning and puts a framework around it. It provides schools with sort of a framework to anchor our work and kind of provide direction to us. So when I'm talking about SEL and this presentation, I'm going to read this. I'm going to not read anymore. I'm going to try not to read any of those. Social emotional learning is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. If you go to CASEL.org, there are lots of videos. Like, I could have done this for much longer and you would have been like, OK, I feel you. But there are individual videos for all of the topics that we're going to talk through. They're like little, quick, little snippets. If you are interested in learning or digging a little deeper, capital is a great website. OK, this is a great visual to think about SEL, right? And true, full, school-wide SEL takes years to develop and it takes a long-range plan. Our building here has some strong SEL bones and we are working, or one of my goals with our team, our SEL team and our support staff is really to develop some stronger systems to support that SEL work and also to make that visible. I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But thinking around these five areas of social emotional wellness, so self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness. I think I said social awareness twice, self-awareness. So I think when we talk about SEL as adults and as adult learners, you might be finding or thinking about like, where did my New Year's resolution land me on this wheel, right? Am I thinking about relationship skills? Am I thinking about my self-management or my time management, things like that? In zooming out, that's sort of thinking about that three to five longer-range plan. How does SEL impact our school-wide culture or authentic partnerships in our community and then aligned learning opportunities up and down? They're curriculum. OK. OK, so what's planned? What are we going to do tonight? So we're going to talk about the why, kind of wear a little bit about the heart of Berlin. Being a new administrator, it's been really fun to get to know our community and get to know our staff. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that. Sort of the building blocks, how our students supported here. We're going to engage in a group experience together, and then we're going to talk about what my hope and my plan is for what's next here at Berlin. Questions? Great. OK. In order for a school to move forward, we really have to ground ourselves in why, right? Like why are we here? What do we want our community to play? What do we want this building to be for all of our students? And spending time working through that together is super important. You might notice around the building, there are mugs that have stickers on them. Or teachers carry them around. At the beginning of the year, as I kind of get to know you, I give everyone a coffee mug. We talked about taking care of ourselves and our social-emotional beings, and then put stickers on them to represent who we are and what we bring to the table. So if you see them, or if you're in our building, and you're like, why not all the teachers have stickers? And why are they all these crazy colored mugs? Because we had fun. OK. So we looked at our core values as a staff. And this is the paw that we came up with. We boiled down. We took Bernay Brown's 50 core values and boiled them down. The grumbling in the room when I said, go pick. Of the 50 values, I said, now pick 10. They were like, oh, they now pick five. They were like, no, no, maybe. So we got two, three, and my challenge was come up with one core value. So some of them were really struggled by coming up with just one. So this is sort of the place where we've reflected and come back to. We've had some sticky situations this year, and we've come back to this as a staff and reflected on this and said, like, what are we doing? Are we living true to our values? Are the ways that we are responding to students here living proof of what we want in our building? So we said, this is what we want for our students here in our building. And then so I said to our teams, what do you need? We said, here are global views for everyone in our building. And I said, so what do you need from your teammates to make that happen? Sorry, they make me laugh every time. This is some of my interventionists. This is my two of our school counselors, our librarian, our PE teacher, our music teacher, and our school nurse. Their task was to come up with an artistic representation, also lots of grumbling when I asked for that, but an artistic representation of sort of what you and your community need. I can't honestly remember what the glittery sparkles are. We could probably all come up with a lot of different reasons of what those glittery sparkles could be for this particular team. But these are the things that they were looking for from their colleagues. This crew really went after it. It's one of my favorite things that hangs out in my office. I should have brought it down. I'll bring it down and you can take a peek at it later. But there's individual words on each of the flower petals. They had a lot of fun. So that's sort of the why. We, I know that in order to create a strong social-emotional learning environment for students, it's about creating relationships with adults and with students. That's the baseline. That's the why of what we do. So this was a really great visual representation of sort of what's our foundation? Where are we going to build from? I'm new. You all are getting to know each other and new in different ways every year. And this is sort of where we started. Thinking about that, that's our foundation. That's the why of the work that we do. That's the vision of the culture and the environment and the world that we want our students to live in every day. Now I want to talk a little bit around the wheel of how we target these things in each area in our teaching. So thinking about self-awareness, we're really wanting students to acknowledge their body in space, how they show up, and how they are interacting with others. So direct teaching during morning meetings, supportive decision-making with caring adults. So I might say, may I pick a new floor? I might say, floor, it looks like your body's really busy right now. Do you need to go to some office shops? Or is there a fidget that might be helpful for your body? Or check in, what do you need? Starting with one of my first grade or second grade teachers every morning talks about what I need time and they do a full Maslow's check-in of, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Am I tired? What is it that I need? How am I going to check in with that? I'm thinking about a student today who often uses taking a rest as part of his day. And at lunch, I was like, we're looking through his chart. I was like, why are you doing such a wonderful job? And I said, so if things go silly, what's a tool you could use this afternoon? And he goes, I could probably take a rest. I was like, that would be a great tool. So opportunities like that. Opportunities to practice, providing positive feedback. Like when a student chooses a task, why are you really worked through that? Seeing something in practice, having an adult model it, having a peer modeling it, then practicing it, then being able to try it on yourself. Go give it a try, see what that looks like. They're just, I was like, how do I boil all these things down? I can't. So they're just some pictures of connected adults in our building, helping create self-awareness. I don't actually know what the adults were doing in these. So they're not all totally connected. But this was an adorable interaction. This was one of our long-time pairs. It was the first day back from break. And they were just so excited to see each other. So self-management is something that I think, I can speak for myself. I think it's all something that, it's always a growth management for me. I'm like, where do these things go? And how do I reorganize this space? And how do I take care of myself and my being? So that's something that we do in this building a lot. You'll notice when we engage in a group activity that a lot of our students are talking about zones of regulation. So really thinking about where am I at? I want to be in the green zone. I want to be ready to learn. I'm going to do that pulse check in the morning. What do I need? Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Then I'm able to be in the green zone. If I'm getting the yellow, I might be a little silly. I might be a little chit-chatty with my friends. If I'm in the red zone, I'm mad. I am not regulated. I am running around the building. I am in certain activities. Whatever mad looks like for you, right? And blue is I'm tired. I'm sick. I'm sad. And we have lots of skills. I know that some of the other administrators have talked about some like strategies that you could utilize for that, whether they're learning tools or grounding tools, things like that. So some other things, accessing regulation tools in classroom spaces. All of our classroom spaces have a peace corner. And you'll see as we walk around, there are some other spaces in the building that are used as calming regulation spaces. This space on the bottom right was actually created this year out of student need. We moved a bunch of offices around after the first month of school to create a step down space or a step up space. If the classroom regulation space isn't working, it can come in. There's a swing. The sensory wall actually was falling down in this picture. I'm surprised I didn't notice that. There's this really fun, like, you know those shirts that you can move the sequence up and down? It's a big wall like that. Super fun. I would recommend. And actually, one of our students helped create, like, directed where the umbrellas hung from the ceiling. And they were very invested in this. So this doubles as a learning and a calm space. Social awareness is a lot of the work that we do every day, right? It's recognizing what's the group plan? What is everyone else doing? So a lot of that just happens organically. It happens in direct teaching in our classes, in our guidance classes. And it happens in organic conversations that we have with every student. I had that conversation with a kindergarten or two day in the lunch room. I was like, he's just happily sitting away and eating his lunch. And I was like, I noticed that no one else is left in the cafeteria. And he was like, huh? I was like, what do you think you should do right now? He goes, I should back up. I was like, yep, you should. So lots of things like that. I'm just creating that culture where any adult in the building can come in and say, do you need this or what do you need there? What can I do to help you? These are some opportunities for social interaction that we've had this year. We did a game day. This is my new special educator up on the rockwalk. We had a whole school recess at the beginning of the year. This is Chef Jake on game day coming out of the kitchen. It's like, I don't know what is the rock and succumbs. It was like rowdy. It was really fun. We also did a full game of hungry, hungry hippos in the gym. Do y'all remember the scooters? OK, so you lay on your belly and you take a basket and you scoop out. So other opportunities to build relationships with students here. Providing students with leadership opportunities. So we have a PBIS in-house leadership team that consults with our school counselor that gives feedback. We had students that did a really wonderful job meeting with the representative from Snot Center for Creative Leadership. It's what's the big company that's helping us with all of our vision. Great school. Great school. Great school. Thank you. Thank you. It was not. It was in my brain, I think I laughed. But they gave great feedback. So kids that are really invested in believe in our school. And they're psyched about the leadership opportunity. So I also think thinking of things like learning one of the big relationship skills in schools and students who have experienced trauma or loss or have varying life experiences when they come to us. Often it's hard to trust the people around you. So really leaning and creating structures where students are thinking about other people. So one of the things that we've been working on is ask three before me. So check in with three of your classmates before you go to the big bus, before you go to the teacher. Ask three other people to help tie your shoes. Ask three other people in the classroom. If you need help knowing what's the homework assignment. Ask three peers before you check in with the first adult so that we're creating more webs of connection for students. It's more opportunities where kids, adults have been checking in with kids. Part of that relationship building is also connecting students to the wider community. So we created some food boxes for families in our community. And students got to see that. And we were able to support lots of our local campus, which was lovely. And responsible decision making is something that is part of a supportive discipline model and really helping students understand how their impact, what their actions did, and how that took away from the community that they were a part of. So for example, I had a student that was like, well, I'm not sorry I did that. And I said, OK, well, I'm not going to make you apologize. But what do you need to give back to those kids that you distracted from their learning? So what are you going to do? What's your plan? Are you going to make copies for the teacher? Are you going to organize something? How are we going to give back to the harm that, I use harm in quotes. But from what you took away, you were distracting your peers. What are you going to do? So really trying to get them to understand that they are a part of the system of the whole is sort of the goal across all of our classrooms. And encouraging kids to be a problem solver. So when they, you know, so-and-so did this and that, what do you do about that? What do you think? You know, I have a good friend who called them, like, she always says let's make it right muffins. I'm going to try to make it right muffins. But the idea around that is how do we make it right with the people around us that, and recognizing that we have an impact on everyone. OK, so now that I've been talking at you, we're going to do a group experience. So you have heard and probably know and know about other, like, regulatory experiences. Maybe for you, it's a podcast. Maybe for you, it's just like a quiet moment of breath. Maybe it's a run. Maybe it's a call to one of your good friends. What we're going to do is actually today something that is unique to Berlin. Our interior here operates as a lap space for a lot of our students. So if kids are getting wiggly or students need a movement break, they can hold up a number to their teacher. If I show you two to my teacher, that means I'm going to take two interior walks of the school building. And then the teacher kind of knows about how long that's going to be. As you notice, when you walk around, students are still supervised. There are adults that are around at kind of every corner. So the thought process, as you walk around, you will see some other of our regulatory spaces. There's a wikisick wall. There is a great motor movement, motor planning spot. So I just thought it would be great for us to think about what's one. We're going to practice what we preach. And we're going to do a little self-regulatory walk. So you don't need to show me your numbers. But we're going to get up and move our bodies. And you take what you need to feel calm and centered. And then I'll wrap up when we're done talking at you. That sound good? Yes, ma'am. OK. Is it one or two, Mike? Is it one or two? So how many? Five lines. OK, five lines. Negative. Keep going. It's five lines. I mean, we were all in half lines. OK, please. Yeah. I'll be right back. Do you have any choices? No. They are coming up. We're good. Oh, cool. We can do two. I'm going to put this in for you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm doing great. I'm good. I'm doing. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. See? Thank you. THE videos were taken by others. I'm really sorry. CRUSHED TOurance Excellent. Oh, that's weird. I'm sorry. The Yun cácino has exceptional skills. She's the most beautiful little girl. She's the queen or the best compliment, so I am happy. I feel like you're going to learn Oh, we can see what it regulates, everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Which is just off. Oh. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, okay. I don't know. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I was busy staring at folks as I watched. Oh, that's amazing. Do you know where the mountain place in Carolina is? I love Carolina. Oh, and I say I like it. I'm the first housekeeper. Go ahead. Go ahead. Right. No. Okay. I think we're going to turn the back on. Yeah. Come on up. Turn my camera up for a minute just because I'm supposed to see my... See you eating? Yeah, and especially noodles. Okay. Yes. Me and you, real. Me and you, real. Okay. I like it. Me and you, real. Real. Okay. I like it. Okay. You have this spring. Yes, I think I'm still on. This is still me. Yeah. So I have just one. Yeah, yeah. I work with farms. Ooh. Yeah. What kind of food have I got? Next time I'll just give you any food. No, you're not too much meat with it. Oh, it's great food. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if you travel or have... Well, if you need to... Yeah, we used to do tours before, but now... And also, I love the energy. Yeah, I do. I know... I'm a little worried that that camera is right on my noodle. Here, do you want me to stop sharing? Okay. You're okay. I was hungry. I don't know if you could hear my stomach growling. Okay. Okay. Yeah, the room is still muted. Zach is saying, yes, because we're eating. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. Keep an eye out. All right. Okay, we're going to keep going, guys. So if you're getting your food, I'll be quick. No, no, no, no. I'm just telling Zach that people are grabbing dinner. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, they're not on the rug. It's on the rug, really. Joshua. Yeah, you're on the rug. Well, grab your dinner. Grab your dinner and come over. Grab your dinner. Grab your dinner, but they're moving. You're all doing a great job taking care of your needs. In the event for the sake of time so that you all still mill about, okay? Take care of what you need. I'm just going to finish up the sort of what's next and where I think we're going to head. So provides 10 indicators of school-wide SEL success. So they provide a couple of rubrics. So our SEL team, our in-house team, our PBI combination of our PVIS team is sort of going to, there's some great rubrics that we're going to work through to see how we can set ourselves up for better success moving into next year. So those are great overall indicators that we'll kind of look at. Again, CASEL is just a framework for us to sort of think through our work. So some four like immediate next steps are working with our SEL team. I want to create some clear roles and also increase our membership here. Our SEL team is also called our SST team. I think it's when I think about our SEL team, I think of it as our PVIS team and our SST team and our in-house camp. It's like melding everyone together and then giving some clear roles. I think continuing our commitment to deepening our understanding, our learning of what SEL is and how we show up for kids here in our building and then making a clear plan for PD. What is it going to look like for us? I think aligning curriculum across grade levels and identifying a clear screening tool to meet any unmet needs students may have will be really important for us. And lastly, I think that identifying and making clear a plan to showcase our SEL work for our families and our community at large will be some of our goals in the next few years. Most definitely for next year really thinking about how to make that clear. There should be one more slide that is not there right now. I don't know where it went. Essentially, I was just going to end by saying there was a great quote that was around relationships and relationships. Our relationships with our students are only what are going to make the learning stronger. So that's really what our goal is to make meaningful connections with students so that they can learn. If we don't have meaningful connections with them, we can't move forward. That's sort of what SEL is like in our building. Thank you all for humoring me and enjoying and I hope you enjoy your dinner. Thank you. Are there any questions for Celia? I spent a lot of time on this website and I'm just curious if you have utilized the survey, the staff survey, to look at, because social emotional learning is only successful if we as educators and staff are feeling like we can model that and have you support if you don't feel centered. So I'm just curious if you've got a pulse. You're the only one who's talked about CASEL explicitly. I have not used the specific survey. I think that that would be a really great tool for us to use. And thinking when I think about that with my staff, my goal in getting to know them is really to set them up for success and creating more of that individualized check-in and making sure, seeing how people are at, what do you need, what do you need is often a question that I, like what can I do to be helpful, sort of engaging that. But I think that sending on a formal survey would be a great tool. Yeah, yeah, it's a great tool. You know, it's not just, it's like environment too, like you have a dedicated space. Yeah. And we heard about some examples, like some examples that fit in different schools. Yeah. Absolutely. Any other questions? Otherwise, thank you so much. Thank you for, dinner is delicious and thank you for making us walk too. So with that, now we're going to be very efficient in the rest of our meeting and we're going to give it to our student to do the report. Hi everybody. Well, I'll be back after not being in the last few minutes. Willow obviously is not here today, but she sent me a voice message that I will play at the end of the summary. So, we are just coming back from holiday break. There's lots of sports games. Success in the sports games, new year, so new semester is starting up soon. On this Friday night, there's an art bash or an art show. That's from 5.30 to 7.30. I encourage you to show up, support. For sports, girls and boys hockey type games tonight. We won, the girls team won 6-2. We played Mrs. Boyd. And the boys are playing at Rattleboro at 7.15. For boys basketball, tonight they're playing in Lemoyle. And then the girls are playing tomorrow versus North Country at North Country. And then there's a big game at Montpelier at 7. It's boys basketball. It's Friday. It's going to be great. And then we have a lot of seniors that are looking at colleges. We have a few that are committed. It's really exciting. And then I just wanted to comment on one thing. There's a public comment and I used to go to Doty. I graduated from Doty. And I just wanted to kind of like shine light on how important the guidance counseling was for me. Maureen was my guidance counselor. She had a really big impact and not just on me, but on a bunch of other students. And I just really think that it's important to continue having that because like Mrs. Honeybear, like she said, I don't know how to pronounce her name. Like she said, it's some of the students only support. And I think it's just really important, especially for elementary school students, to have that support and just make sure that they feel safe at school. And they feel safe in general. I just wanted to say that. Now I'll play with his voice message. I'm not sure if it's going to be loud enough, but I'll turn it all the way up. Logistics and details of what your day is going to look like and what we're asking you to come in. Most likely the days are going to be Tuesday and Thursday. That's the most responses we got about those two days. So keep your eyes peeled. Should I play again? I'm going to try not to hit the course this time. Yeah. Mark, is the owl muted? I see the red light. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any questions? Let's move on into our board of operations and discussion. Revealing for vacancies. As you know, we have quite a few. We've got the email from Maggie today, too. So they're listed on the warning, too. So the idea of reviewing the vacancies today is so that we can plan. We have a couple of people interested already for the callous seats that are going to be available. And then, otherwise, Natasha has already picked up her petition and is working on it. So anybody else that needs guidance or no, I'm looking at you because you had said that you were not sure. So have you picked up your petition or not yet, but you're running? You're running. Okay. So any others? I know that Amelia, you have your petition. Zach, who's on mine, has his petition. And you, Kelly, has her petition. So any questions? Not? Okay. All right. So we can move into the warning. So this replaces, this was the one that Melissa emailed out. It's just updated with Maggie's. So the one in your, she didn't want to separate out your packets. Ignore the one in the packet, the one that's coming around. It's the current draft. That's okay. Yes, I can hear you fine. Okay. No, we have others. So are you looking for action on this morning tonight? Tonight we're just going to review it. We're going to do action at our next meeting because we would need to know the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes we have approved it without the num, you know, when we were going to talk about the numbers. But I'm just looking for you for more eyes is why we were hoping more eyes on it. And if we're missing anything to please let us know. That's the plug that we put in because once we send it to the printer, it's a really, really big deal if it has an error. So even typos, we won't be insulted. We will welcome you telling us. And you'll see it again. Yeah. And we're going to talk on 5.4. Actually, we can bring that up right now as we're doing this. We're going to talk about the stipend that we have right now for Clark is $500. We're going to talk about increasing that stipend. That would be our new district clerk is Melissa. Sorry, I keep taking it just getting used to being here and being able to see this. So, yes. A couple things. Other than the clerk, you talked in the past about the directorate chair, stipend increasing. Ten percent. I can't remember. Did that go up this? It went not in this warning reflects exactly what you did last year, but you did increase it last year. Yeah. It's just that you didn't do the court. So folks who haven't been around, we had gotten into a practice of having it go up, I think $50 a year. Just to build in a way to keep up with inflation, basically, and a little more, frankly, so that from an equity point of view, people are getting properly compensated. We're still improper. But less improperly. So I would propose that we continue and maybe even go a little more as a fraction of the budget. Yeah. It's tiny. Do you have that in mind? I would suggest that we go to $1,200 on directors and stay with a double that for the chair 24. Definitely support that. Okay. Should there be a motion? $1,200 and $2,400 for the director and for the chair. Can we increase? What do other people think? The bigger point for the future is I think we should just keep this going and keep pace. I feel like we've had numerous conversations about the hardship of accessing volunteer opportunities and that this is critical for people who may need to pay for elder care or child care or gas. I mean, there's so many components that make this restrictive opportunity for people and promoting that is something we've also talked about, like really emphasizing the fact that this is a volunteer opportunity, but there also is some degree of compensation available. Should we have a motion? Yeah. So do you make that a motion? I was wondering if we could do all of them in one slide. So we're in sort of agreement on the board. I don't see any. I have one other question. Yes. So on Article 6, the last sentence, I believe in the past is talking about being very explicit about this is our increase for people. I know that's been required by statute, I believe. Because this is the new language. This is new language? Thank goodness. Is it? I want to actually confirm that. I want to check because you are like people is an old concept. I think what you're, thank you for bringing that up, Kari, because the law is, it is no longer required for you to include this and you have the discretion and that happened last year right after you had already put it out to the printer. So thank you. I think this is actually, is that last sentence? Yeah. Might even be the last two. The last two, yeah. So what would you do? I'm supposed to keep it because it's information for our. It's misleading. It's misleading. It's very misleading. And we worked really hard to get that moved. I was confused. We just approved the career center and it's just three sentences and that doesn't mean anything. It isn't really, Chris, it doesn't really reflect what our percentage increase is. It's just language that the state put into practice, but really it's another one of their formulas that doesn't really connect to the reality of what we're saying is our increase. If you're saying you'd like to see language in there that tells what the increase is, then that's different, but it's not this language. Okay. I mean just to take it out when it may be informational for our community, I'd rather keep something in this, but it's accurate and based on the current measures that are being used that we're measuring upon. Well, at least it seems like it should convert to the average daily membership, which is the new measurement. I don't even know if we're going to have that. Right. People count. You know, and I almost wonder if it's, you know, because part of the challenge, and I apologize for my back being to some, is that because of all the moving parts, we don't really know once we approve a budget, what it's going to, there's the potential for us to really not know what our increase is. Because again, that's what they've been telling us, that once you approve your budget, additional information may come in, which then we may not meet that benchmark, or we might not get the waiver, or whatever that information is. And so there may be a shift or, you know what I mean? There's that variability. I'm wondering if there should be a statement in there just as a heads up. I don't know what the statement would be. But some kind of an explanation to the fact that given all the moving parts this year, as opposed to even more than other years, what we vote may change. I think, I mean, from my standpoint, and it's kind of related to your comment, Chris, the spirit of that language, frankly, was put in, the law put it in to make it expressly clear to voters what the difference in your, how more expensive is it per student compared to the last year? And they did it by design because they wanted people not just to look at a big meaningless number, they wanted to look at the increase. So it was put in for that express reason. The question, I think, for the board is knowing that this language isn't relevant either way. The spirit of it would be a different set of, if the board, the board has the option of not having anything, the board has the option of putting a version in that at least reflects how we actually count students. It would have to keep the word projected into your point, Diane, but that's how it did it before. Because even this would have changed. I also wonder about the, we've talked a lot in budget meetings about what the board controls is the expense side of it. So you could opt to put in language that simply shows your expense increase from the previous year. But anyway, we can put, the board has the discretion to put in, put whatever or nothing. We're also then, someone representing what we think the increase in tax rates will be, but that's kind of beyond our control. So maybe that's what we have to say. This is what we anticipate will be based on this, but there are other factors that come in later that just because to avoid any repercussions of saying you misled us. But are we, go ahead. Just, you know, information for our community. I would offer, I agree with you, but I would offer that tax rates is the most variable item. Yeah. And you may risk, so you may risk actually making it look even more, more like you're hiding something. Right, and that's what I'm trying to avoid. Go ahead, Daniel. I was just going to say that that information is helpful. It also seems like it's sort of veering away from the concise language that goes on a ballot and more into sort of the informational meeting content that we could provide for those interested who come to our meeting. I somewhat agree with you, but just to remind it to no one who comes to our meeting. If we could get it out there some other way. I'm just leering of putting too much, too much nuanced language onto a ballot. I agree with you on that. But we should have other ways of communicating rather than just people come to the visit. Sure. OK. So, to summarize, Megan, you're going to check and see what is required? What is required is simply that you are now allowed to take away those last two sentences. OK. That's all the law did. Yeah. The last two. Both of the ones that reflect liberalized people. I'll move them and strike those from Article 6, the last two sentences that begin. It is estimated in ending the year, the last two sentences there, as our law has moved beyond them. I'll second that. OK. So, can you say that again louder, Chris? Sorry. Yeah. And so, you need to strike from Article 6, the last two sentences, the first of which begins, it is estimated, and then the second one that ends in year, period. And the reason to strike them is because the law has moved beyond that one, which is pretty confusing to our voters. Any more discussion? I would just add, I am fairly confident that what I said is true. I will also triple check it for you. So, when you see the final version, I will make sure it's those last two sentences that you're allowed to strike. Yeah, and we did review, I just pulled out the Career Center because we just did this, and the only language that was required, we add a couple of things that they require about where we are meeting, because that's how. But they shelled the borders of Central Vermont Career Center, approved the school board to expand X, which is the amount the school board has determined necessary for the support of Central Vermont Career Center for ensuring the fiscal year, and that's where it ends. So, yeah. Okay. So, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Okay, hearing. That was just Article 6. That was just Article 6, and it was moved by Chris and second by Carrie. Okay, so let's get back to Article 5 for a minute. So, for the clerk, I did several phone calls, and there's no record from the state because district clerk, district school clerks are something that came up after unification of districts, so there's not a database in what other districts have. I know that Barry and us have the same stipend right now, 500, and it has been really hard to recruit because it's just, it's more work than $500. So, in some other districts, they have an hourly rate, which I thought would be too hard for us to put in the ballot, right? So, it's a $20 hourly rate, and then the other one is 15. So, what I would suggest is if we are adding to ourselves to raise that to 700 or 750 to sort of do it in comparison to what we have done for ourselves unless somebody feels that we have to go higher. Is that enough for the amount of work it requires? I mean, just rough hours? It is hard to tell because it would be, like hourly would probably be... We tried to figure out, we tried to answer that question and didn't have a satisfactory answer. It's a little hard, it's the counting of the ballots, it's also the connecting with the town clerks, and hard to pin down a number, which is why we said, I wonder what other people pay, which floor just answered. Did anyone consult with Rosie? Yes. The sentiment is simply, the current one is too low. Too low. And it's the same sentiment. Do we want to say like an even thousand to make it just look a lot better and a little more appealing? I support that. Yeah, we can definitely do that. And then even if we divided that into 20, it would be 50 hours of work, which is probably what it is. That's probably realistic. Is Melissa tracking this year? No, that would be a good thing to have her. That's a good idea. And then she's doing some learning too. We're also asking her to go and she's been doing some learning, so it is hard to completely separate it, but we can ask her definitely. So I pose the question, so say she tracks her hours and it comes back and it is 15 hours and we just said it's going to be a thousand. I don't think we would take that back. So the only reason I'm bringing that up is should we temper how we raise it until we know the number of hours? I feel very confident that she would spend at least 50 hours just by the amount 50. I thought you said 15. No, no, no, 50. 50 hours. Sorry, 50 hours, 50 by 2. That was the other one. No, no, no. Just right now going back and forth with emails, with clerks, we have spent some time. It was just a misunderstanding. 15. That's also odd hours when it gets to election time, so are you considering a pay differential because this isn't something that stops at five o'clock or six o'clock? Yeah. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of hourly. I think it should just be flat compensation. Thank you for doing an amazing job. This is a really challenging thing to do managing five towns. Like a motion for all three, then? Yeah, and then so should we do anything about treasurer? I feel it treasurer. What do you think? The treasurer, I think. Treasurer feels okay, but we got everybody up, so I also don't want to be... What does our treasurer say? Mary. But I did not check with Mary. No, we did not this year. I would, and I would... I do believe, though, when we looked at this last year, the thought was that all looked good except for the clerk. That does not mean that we've asked her since then. So I'd be clear, not misspeaking, but I do recall what was jumping out was the clerk. Well, I can make a motion about the three, and I could be willing to call Mary in the next two weeks if that would be helpful. I think we could also just increase it, but what we were doing before was $50. We just increased ours and not put her in the position to have the lobby for her own, and if it's not enough, then we will move it next year to what, and do it all today, as it's late. Would you be comfortable making that motion, Carrie? Yeah, well, what were you thinking for a treasurer for an increase? So I was thinking of adding $50 to this. How much? You've since added $100. $100, that's your favorite. So I make a motion that we increase the rate, stipend for the clerk to $1,000, the treasurer to $6,700, directors to $1,200 each, and the chair to $2,400. Thank you. Okay, moved by Carrie, seconded by Chris. Any more discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, step by step by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Yes. Okay. My agenda went away, sorry. Okay. So, I'm going to leave the communications and engagement planning for the budget to the end because we've covered it. So approve our school, our mailing ballots. I would need a motion for that. All of our towns have approved them now. I attended the Berlin meeting last night, which was the last one, the holder, because they were not so sure, but we were able to convince them last night, and we have all of our towns now. So we could, that would help Melissa get started with her work, too. We've had a motion to approve mailing ballots for the Washington Central School District for this town meeting. So moved. Okay. Second. Thank you. Okay. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, step by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Sorry, did you say mailing or mail in? Mail in ballots. Yeah. For the district, for Washington Central School District we have authorization for our five towns. Five select boards. And Kelly, it was not that I couldn't. It's just, it was a very last minute. And yeah, I'll talk, I'll tell you more about it. I was telling Diane that I did not totally drop the ball. No, no, no. You did not drop the ball. It was, it was coordinating with Rachel and Melissa. It was, it was in New Year's. No, no, no. I just wanted to make it totally clear that I did show up at one point. It's just to be clear, it took three meetings. Kelly attended two. And then I just came in at the last minute to just like, just like really, I literally, I just bagged them. That's in. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Rachel has been really supportive and it's just, they were also having a hard time getting enough members. So it's, but it's all good. We have the five towns and we got it. We got it. What was their hesitation other than security of ballots and security of ballots and I don't I just don't feel like I'm political in this. Well, yeah, the security of the ballots that it doesn't really make a difference and it's not all of them. There was, you know, so I don't want to, you know, that they did it. I think they needed a little more information to understand and they did it. So I'm just going to leave it at that. And policy. Right. Did I move? Did I forget anything? Oh, communication. Sorry. Yes. But to your point, we did sort of talk about that last time in terms of the mail. So I can give an update. We had talked at the last board meeting about when we send out our annual report, taking the card and QR code, which is what we did last year, and turning it into a trifold for the budget. So we've got a draft of that from Ben Merrill, which looks great. And so we're working on the next iteration of it. Basically, we approved the concept and he'll now have his designer working on it. And that is the update. I don't actually know off the top of my head how quickly he'll have the draft if he has it in early and after. We're hoping to have it for the next meeting. And Megan and I are working on a joint statement. So the board, because we also want a mini paragraph in that trifold. And that's it. But he has a good start. Yep. So we'll make sure you. So the greatest extent possible, you'll see it on the 17th. We'll have all the numbers, but yeah, because the 17th is when we will approve the budget, but we'll approve the narrative and the guiding principles. Yeah. Okay. It's January 17. I'm just, you're probably right. Hold on. We keep saying January 17. It's January 17. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. 20th was December. Yeah. Okay. So now, Chris, this is to you. Let you run policy. Okay. So we're here to review and approve for adoption policy B20, which is personal recruitment selection and background checks policy on page seven. Policy number B22, library media center selection policy policy A30, which is policies and procedures. A20 for meetings agenda preparation and distribution. Policy A22, notice of time discrimination. We have a motion to move them as a sleet. Why did they pass the stand? We did change the number. We did change the number. Did you double chat? Did you triple chat in the policy bidding? Your mental instincts a stand-wee tool that we would not use to make the word like that. I have no comment on the policies this time from once. Can I ask a question? Emotion. Yeah. Should policy B20 be personnel recruitment rather than Is this person in the title? Check the policy. Oh, you're right. Yes. Thanks. Oh, I missed it. Oh, you missed it. Ice. Ice. Okay. Can we have a motion and a second? And then we'll discuss it. How about I move that we pass the slate of policies as we're doing the package? Thank you Ursula. A second? Second. Thank you. Daniel? No. No, why Joshua? Joshua. Okay. More questions? With Daniel's amendment. Daniel's amendment. Yes. Yes. So if we're going to go there, can we pull up protection, almost entire line registry to one complete line? It's a formatting issue. Where are you? Policy B20 definitions item three. Yeah. Ah, great. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Okay. With the reformatic. Yep. So. Yeah. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. No. Aye. Ah, okay. I can also, if it's helpful, so policy committee talked about it. This is the VSBA model policy, U32 before consolidation had a camera policy once they started putting cameras in the building, that didn't make its way into the transition. So it looks like a brand new policy. It's not completely brand new. And the policy committee, at its first read, didn't recommend changes from the model policy. But that's for you to discuss. I don't see any hands up, Chris. So I do have, go ahead then. So the log, number ten, the district shall keep a log of any persons accessing, how long? I mean, will it be annually, it will it be, you know what I mean, how long will you maintain that? And I was just glancing through it, I apologize for not reading it earlier. Does it say how long the recordings are kept? Yes, that's number nine. Thank you. And to the first part of your question, so Amy sits on our policy committee, so she usually will share what U32 has done. I don't know if you know the answer to that question, else it's off of your head, Stephen. Which one, which one? Number ten, how long will, how far back does the log go, basically? I think that's a, that policy will create a new procedure for us. We hadn't kept the actual log of those things, because that wasn't in our previous policy. So that procedure will have the days? Yeah, that's a procedure we'll have to do. I would, yeah, I mean, I would suggest legal be insulted on that, you know what I mean? In terms of how long? Yeah, okay. Okay. I think we might have to see if that's a part of the student's permanent record, and then it really, it was very well defined. Is that enough feedback for you? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, and I just wanted to clarify, we usually do not do policy in our first meeting of the month, but because we table that, this will allow us to be back on track. So I'm not trying to get you to be here longer, but now to consent agenda to approve the minutes of December 20th. I have a motion. First of that, thank you. I move that we approve the minutes from December 20th, 2023. A second. A second. Thank you, Maggie. Any comments? I didn't see anything. Appreciate our meeting minutes. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you. Joshua, do you go by Josh? Josh. Joshua? Yeah, so there's a couple spots. Okay. Oh, I didn't even pay attention to that. No need to go back in there. Are you comfortable with going forward? She does, Joshua. Yeah. Okay, and then we don't. All of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. All right, who's going to do page 44? Approve new teachers' resignation. Who has it? I don't think. Go ahead, Ursula. I move that we approve the long-term substitute for the 23-24 school year. Anna Garrison for U-32 English. Thank you. A second. Thank you, Natasha. So, Ursula and Natasha. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. All right. So, since that was the only one that we had, we're going to move, it takes me a while to go back and forth. Should we look at the board agenda right now or move right into, let's move into our board plan and then we'll. Yep. So, board work plan in this case is relatively easy. The 17th is your final budget presentation. So, you've given us some requests for some new information. We will present that back to you along with any new CLA numbers were released today. And so, Suzanne is calculating that. So, you'll see what that impact is. Do they seem helpful? No. No. I don't know. You all received the email, VSBA send an email. Yeah. Early. I remember a decrease in the CLA is not good. Yeah. And she has it spelled out. She will have it spelled out for her community. She'll also have it in time for a finance committee. So, and maybe the board may even want to see that even earlier than the packet finance committee can decide that. We'll approve the warning too. We'll also have the superintendent performance evaluation surveys coming out shortly. Yes. That's right. Yeah. That answers my question. Yeah. We did talk about it right before she left the office. So, be in. Yeah. But set aside some time. Yeah. That was going to be on the last part. But yeah. Okay. Let's do board reflection now and then we can go into executive session and let people go so that you guys can unpack and not try to hold you up. Any board reflection begin of the year. So, meeting. I can't do to appreciate these travel to different schools because we see things that we do not otherwise say and it really does create a continuity. I think most are schools and the board members seeing all the different schools and hearing from the principals and thank you very much for your presentation. Very good. And yeah. Yeah. I would like to thank Celia for defining SEL. I've been waiting. I would just say that the meeting structure overall seems to be really working well having the one business meeting and then this other meeting. It's more educational last year. We had Phil Gore's curriculum and that was great. And this is something different and seems to be working. I'm just thinking back when I came back four years ago. We were in a very different place. I mean the board was had been meeting for hours and hours and it didn't seem possible to have a structure like this where we would be thinking about being done by 8 o'clock or something like that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So now thank you Celia and thank you, Jen and Stephen for being here. But thank you Celia after you're new to our team and it's really exciting to start this year with you too. So this was great. Now I'm going to look for a motion to move into executive session for personnel. So moved. Bye Ursula. Second. Bye. Do we need to include anyone? Oh yeah. Our superintendent. There we go. Oh yeah. We can. A classroom is fine. A classroom is fine. Sorry. Sorry. What did I miss? Ursula moved to go into executive session. For personnel. For personnel matters. Including Megan. And McKaylin. Second that. Okay. Do we vote? No. Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? You shouldn't take long so you guys could pop your stuff and you'll be for a little time too.