 Two of us, if you folks are willing to talk a little bit, is to try to really get the ball rolling again. You know, we're post-COVID. We had some good turnout on some nights last end of last year when we were able to get the open forums going. And then some nights there weren't a lot of folks, which is understandable. They're late evenings. But a lot of it is, some of it's like what I call comfort conversations. If there's stuff that's going on in the community that's in the district that people are hearing about that want more information on, this is a good place to talk about it, to ask about it. And everything is open to be discussed. And so usually we kind of start out there. But one of the things that I'd like to do a little bit, as well a little bit later, is just kind of get a list of priorities. So things that folks feel that it's really important that if I'm going to do some education with the community about what the district is working on or what's happening in the district, what should those things be? That people should know more about or are interested in that you're hearing. And so I think those are the two biggest things. And then the last piece is that these open forums is that when we start to discuss bigger potential protocols and policy changes and things like this, this is the best place for feedback. I also do run listening sessions with the staff. Those are usually right after school between the different buildings to kind of get input from them. And then typically at least the RUHS, the student leadership group that's here to try to draw on as much information as possible. But in terms of just general questions or thoughts or concerns or things that you want to learn more about and nothing's off the table. Yeah. Well, I think something you just said registered for me. I feel like sometimes parents or community members are so quick when they have a concern or a grievance, they go right to the school board meeting. And the school board meeting is really not designed to have a good back and forth in information sharing and learning where these are. So I think just hearing you say that was very useful. I think getting that message out there, which should use these forums more. Yeah, since people may be watching, the school board meetings typically, folks will come to open comments. Sometimes that's by design because open comments one way. And so it gives them an opportunity to talk about what's on their mind and kind of get things off their chests. But because of the open meeting laws, if what they're talking about is not something that's been posted on the agenda, the board can't take it up. And so that's why they don't respond. It's not that they don't care, but it's that piece. But typically the person who's kind of best in the know is usually me or one of the other building leaders. And so we're usually the best ones to kind of talk to about that. I think even if it's on the agenda, there seems to be instances where the board just won't respond. If you're trying to air your agreement, it's incredibly frustrating to be one-sided. And people are going there. Some people are knowingly going there knowing it's one-sided, but I think a lot of people don't. If you haven't gone on a regular basis, so I think sometimes this is great if people use it more. So would a communication kind of explaining think help? I don't know what would help, honestly. I think it's just people's knee-jerk reaction is, take it to the school board. I don't know why, but I think that's what's known in the community as the next step. Yeah, I think this should be the next step. Yeah. And these are meant to be. One of the reasons that they're public in there is because it should be kind of low-key and formal. Everybody's here. Everybody knows what people are saying. There's a really good example before you got here. Bethany was explaining how somebody posted on Facebook about the new schedule. It sort of started to go negative right away because they didn't know why it was done. And Bethany was able to share the logic behind it and what's good about it. And it turned the conversation around because she was part of meetings like this. So that's a good example. Or if people came to these things more often, they wouldn't need to go to the school board meetings or they would know what to go to the school board meetings. Yeah, no, it's a very, very good point. But one of the things it might help and what I'll try to do is craft a communication to just go out and try to explain the differences and the rationale. You know, why one versus the other, which I think is a good point. Thank you. I wrote that down. I'm just going to say that. Yeah? And one of the things I had said earlier in the beginning was that I feel like I still care about the school, but I don't have any kids in the school. And I feel like the minute I didn't have any kids in the school, I had no idea anymore what was happening in the school, except for the negative things you see on Facebook or whatever. And I don't know what the best way to do it is, but trying to find some way. And you post things in front of the forum and stuff. So that's great. But that was like this meeting is coming up or something. And sometimes it's informational too, but a way to sort of get the information out. Like this is what happened. This is what was talked about. These are the things that are happening. If there are big changes to a schedule thing, like write an article about it or talk to somebody about it. Or as we were joking earlier, I think right when you walked in about make a TikTok about something that people will see. So that the, I think prior to COVID, I was in a group that you think maybe were one of the people who pulled it together. I can't remember about that group with other people from the community trying to figure out how do we make a better connection between the greater community and the school and make it feel more integrated. And I feel like that was making really good progress. And then COVID came and knocked it out. But I think it was a really valuable goal to do. I feel like having people, I mean, the school, what's happening in the school is still important to people who don't have children in the school because it affects the whole community. So it's important to try to figure out how to bring community into the school and the school and to the community. Yeah, no, I had a fantasy too that with the things that folks post on Facebook and social media that with the open forums, if they're hearing stuff and they're not sure about them that hopefully they would come in and ask questions about it. Because like I said, everything's on the table. There's not much we can't talk about just so that they're hearing full context or if there's misinformation out there, we can kind of correct that. But a lot of it is, and actually you're bringing up some good points about if we do a better job of kind of communicating what it is that we're talking about that might spark people's interest to make them, make it more desirable for them to come in. And so those are some things that I might hit the three of you up for tonight is what would those things be? There's a million things going on in the district, some that folks know about it. I'm sure you heard about a lot tonight that's happening at the high school. But what things do you think would be a good draw that people would wanna talk about? I do think that helped last year. I remember when you put out some topics. One thing I asked about in the earlier meeting was the homework policy. Just looking for an update because I think it's a great idea. The early draft that I saw was great. And it just seemed well thought out for flexible for different age groups, but it was really ramping up as they got older and made them more responsible as they got older and just got them used to the idea of studying and working outside of the classroom which I think is important, the older they get. So I was really interested to see that get published hopefully this year. Yeah, so the current plan on it is is that there were a good group of folks that were very supportive and folks that weren't. Typically with anything that you work on. A lot of it I think that people didn't realize was it wasn't, the idea wasn't okay, it's homework every night. We've been doing a lot of curriculum work. We've been identifying what are called foundational standards. What do I have to learn in this class so that I can be successful in the next class that comes? Because those are things we wanna make sure that the kids learn really well. Cause that's what's gonna carry them through and allow them to advance as they go through their careers. And also what the teachers were working on this year when we started off school was okay, thinking back, taking a look at the test scores, taking a look at our own kind of internal assessments that we've done, what are the weak areas? And all these things that you've taught the kids over the years, what are the five or six areas that you taught it but the kids didn't really get it well? And so what we've talked about and how we've kinda set up that homework policy is that yeah, you can do more homework if you want to but at a minimum you should have a nice well-designed assessment that connects with both those foundational standards and those targeted standards. So you might be talking 10 to 12 good assignments a year. And they're really important because they do two things. They help the kids with the rehearsal, right? I've learned it and if I go over it again once or twice it's gonna stick with me so I get that retention piece. But the other thing that it does is if they're well-designed is since these are areas that are really important to make sure the kids learn, the teachers are getting the feedback right then and there. But yeah, we did the instruction, the student did the work. I can see if they got it right here and now. And I know it's okay to either move on or I've gotta go back and do the work. So the group that seems, excuse me, most open to it is math. And so to slowly kinda introduce it as opposed to overwhelm everybody all at once, the idea is to roll it out with math, get them up, get it working very effectively, move on to ELA and then move on to science and then maybe go beyond that, depending. And so that's kinda where we're at. So the math, it will be discussed the next time we have a math meeting which is coming up early October. So yeah, it is on target. I like the regular reading of mine. My youngest is a fourth grader just wasn't reading a lot on their own so I like that she's getting into a habit now as part of her teacher's homework this year. Yeah, which is good. And I think some of the discussion, even though we're starting more in math, I think it sparks some teachers to think, hey, this is something I can do anyway. I've noticed with Ryan, my youngest student's a junior this year, he's coming home with homework most nights. And it's not enough that it's killing him to get it done but it's enough that I know that he's getting the foundations down really well, which makes me happy. Jackson's carrying a backpack which is a whole new concept for my grade apparently. And one night he said, I had my computer upstairs because I was doing homework and I almost fell out of my chair. I would say with the kids, the younger ones, I do like that they're asking them to read. I feel like for my child and even myself because I've been so out of the homework routine, like it would be great if they would send her home with an actual book and like said amount of pages only to like take away that piece of like, now I've gotta find a book she can read and like, you know, how many pages do I make her read? You know, that way I just kind of have like that targeted admission for her because reading has been a true struggle for her. And she, so I also struggle because I don't really know what I should be having her read right now. Because I don't know where that ability is, you know. And I struggle to help her at this point with it because she's far enough fine that I'm running out of it with that. So I kind of avoid it honestly. So I think kind of they could send home, I just thought of this as I was sitting here but I was like, so I'll tell her to do that because that would be helpful for us. No, I've got the note down. It's actually something that I've seen some schools do is that they do have a list of books by grade level, you know, that are really good for the students and that's easy for them to produce. You know, and this has been several years that I feel the teachers are then sending home, like, great, 20 minutes a day and have your parents sign off on it, like, okay, great, but. I recommend you tap into the librarians. We have adopted a new folate system and the folate system allows teachers and librarians to access titles based on reading level and interest. So if your daughter has, like, maybe has a high interest in female protagonists and horses, right? We can choose books that have those elements and are at either currently reading level or a stripe a little bit higher, like, to challenge. And I would tap into the librarians for help on that. Is it called again? Folate. And honestly, it's available online through our website but not with all the detail that the librarian and teachers can access. Like, so if you knew the name of a title, you could see if we had it in stock, right through our website. But you're looking for basically a reading list, right? Like, here's some. I mean, I kind of want the book in her backpack, like, I want to be, sometimes it's 7.30 at night. Yeah, right. Like, oh, this is happening, so, yeah. I've had really helpful help from the librarian in Kimball. I just brought my daughter in there and kind of started talking out loud about, oh, this is what you like? Yeah. And she just jumps right in with suggestions or you just ask her and she'll come up with some suggestions. Yeah. Yeah, they're really good. The kindergarten students and our first and second graders go over quite frequently to have reading sessions over there and get ideas in terms of books, so, yeah. Yeah, and that's a really good idea. What other things do you think folks might be interested in to talk about that? Get them to come in and get them engaged in what's happening in the district? I sometimes think, like, putting topics out that are, like, before decisions are made, obviously, so that people do feel heard and they have that chance to come in and be heard. You know, that committee that Dave and I sat on last spring here at the high school, like, they pitched that homework scheduled to us and I know Lisa to pull out a feedback from us on that and the cell phone policy and all of that and it surprised my son when I was like, yeah, I knew that was coming, you know, the cell phone policy and I said, and I voted for it, you know, and he was like, might, you know. So I think that just made me feel good about all those things that happened and if people maybe had more of an opportunity to share their feelings before they felt like it had been decided for them, they could just feel better about it and get behind it. Communication and education is key for the parent and I know it's hard and again, I kind of go back to like, if you don't vote, you can't pitch, you know, so like, if you don't show up to these things and learn, then. Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe there's no problems in the district this year because it's out, right? It's been, to be honest, it has been unusually quiet. So, you know, we keep saying that and then it's like, boy, we hope you didn't just curse things, but it's been unusually quiet. People are tired, you know, they're tired of kind of, I wanna believe they're tired of the Rift. Fighting. Yeah, I hope so. Can we get on a good cause and... Yeah, there's actually, there's been a lot of good. I mean, some of the things that as we go through the cycle through the year anyway, you know, we talk about the, you know, where the students are scoring, we talk about, you know, how we're rating, you know, relative to the state and we're actually doing quite well and that's despite the fact that we came through the COVID years, we were one of the few districts that was advancing things as, you know, in the midst of COVID while the other districts are dropping. So we're not in bad shape at all right now, you know, relative. I think the topic might be, we covered it a lot from ground tonight, but just how are some of these new initiatives going? So I mean, it's probably a month away now, but I'm hearing good things about the cell phone policy, about the schedule. If we're not putting in people's face, they might not know how well it's going. We just hear it's changed, it's new, but it seems like some of those things are going well. And are there things we need to tweak? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and around the athletic expectations. Athletic eligibility, habit scores, we heard some good things about fake sensors and the positive that's coming out of that. Yeah, a lot of it, you know, we had a really strong discussion, you know, it goes back to the idea that, you know, what is the climate, you know, and what are things that can be done to improve it? And when we did the analysis, it was this idea that five, six years ago, seven years ago, the state came up with this idea that, you know, it should be restorative practices. You should be getting away from traditional discipline. Restorative practices are, you know, if something bad happens, you know, the students sit down, they talk it out, and I restore a circle or an affinity group. But the problem that that incurred, it almost seemed like in some cases, it worked really well, but in other cases, we were actually enabling more of the behavior we were trying to prevent. And so that's one of the reasons that we're kind of shifting the gear a little bit on the expectations and the standards and what we're going to hold kids accountable to. And I think it's going to have a good impact overall. That's the hope, but we've got to keep checking in and see what the data's telling us. I mean, so far, I think there's a sense from students and families that the school's cracking down a little bit this year on the aversion, that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah. I've not heard one complaint from parents about these new initiatives that have been implemented. Yeah, and the students will be happier, the teachers, their lives will be easier. And so I think it's going to get us a good place. And it is foundational, you know, if we get that under control and the kids are feeling really good and really comfortable, it's just going to help them even more in terms of the academic side of things. They're just feeling good about themselves. Really celebrating the athletics and the fact that they are saying they're going to have a music ploy again this year and there's that many kids participating in the arts. I mean, I think that's fantastic. And just the more that we can all rally around those that are doing that and just kind of, because I don't care if you do it or not, you can still come support it and cheer it on and be a part of it. And the more of the community that can have some ghosts of spirit and pride and get behind all these kids, it's just all the better, I mean, it's... I should have asked this at the earlier meeting with Lisa, but there was a senior project last year that lay with you at around just school morale, school spirit, she did rallies. But I know she also set up an organization that we could live on with other officers. And I'm curious if that didn't actually survive and is active yet this year. What was the nature of the... Pep rallies, mostly, but a lot of school spirit, like blue and white day or dress up as certain something that day, just a lot of school spirit stuff. So I think it plays into the theme. So it's standards, expectations and recognition of excellence. And part of the recognition of excellence is this idea of establishing new traditions, where we're celebrating what the kids are accomplishing and what they're doing. What that could be, those definitions of what those new traditions could be have been left up to the principles that develop, so that it's kind of specifically the schools and the needs of the students and what's gonna impact the students most, but that's an expectation that they are developing those this year. The other expectation that is on the principles is bringing back a true student leadership team across the district. The big expectation last year, which it sounds like you were a part on, was to start to get the advisory councils up and running so that they could do the vetting and start to have the discussions about the changes that were coming. So they've got a lot of good things that are going. But if there's ideas on what traditions, like one of the things they're planning is if that field house ever gets done. The floors are great. Yeah, as they have them. I took pictures the other day. The maple is in. Did they get the... I saw it like three days ago, I don't know if they've got the coatings on. No, I haven't seen any coatings. Yeah. Yeah, something like I had suggested in that group last year was, we've settled on this new imaging for the mascot. It's a new gym floor coming in. Like, I celebrate this. I'm stealing your ideas as you're talking about it. This is from yesterday. Yeah, I did get in there. It's the unveiling ceremony. So, no coatings. At least yesterday. It's like an alumni and gets to get some donations going. I've had my students ask about, what is the middle of the floor gonna look like? Even people who don't go here, they're curious what the surgery is going to be. So, the center of the floor is gonna be the REU symbol that they've used for years and years. It'll be dark blue lines on the two ends. It'll say ghosts. And then we have the artist already lined up as soon as they can get in there once a lot of the remaining floor work is done to actually put the mural back on the wall that the students have decided on. You should cover it with a big sheet. That's actually, yeah, that's a good idea. I just like, bring the community in as much as possible and just like, let those kids be proud of being shirts and a pillow, planning a party, and, but just build that spirit back up. There's some people that don't have kids here and like, they live for coming to basketball games. Like, that's literally what gets them through the winter is coming and cheering these kids on. And I don't feel like that's been there quite like it used to be, you know, you can get some, you can get some world-known band to come and play. Yeah. Anybody got any friends that know? Get the kids, they said there's a rock band playing out there. We used to have Battle of the Bands back in the day. Was that auditorium or was that field camp? We did it in the gym. Like, they cleared off the weights and they put the kids up there and you'd hate to come to it. And it was Battle of the Bands and they battled it out and you like, they bowed it and somebody won and yeah. Actually, if those are, that's a tradition. So are there others that folks remember from the time here that have gone away over the course of time that were kind of fun and quirky and? Cheerleaders, no. Okay, just the rallying like at the different events. Cheers that they had and things that would happen. But I think that actually laughed. I felt like when we were here around like events, there was never any sweatshirts or gear that people wore. And I thought it was so cool when I came back after being gone for so long. Like, wow, the high school actually had sweatshirts now. That was pretty cool. But all the sports teams used to do a skit with the bonfire. They're doing that again after a bit of time. Weeks, right? They ate something. That's happening again. Pep rallies. Did they do them three seasons or was it just for the? I can't remember. It seemed like if somebody was going to something big and even if it was like before the, what's the theater event that happens from the fall? Like the competition, like short skits, they did nine or six. Well, that's something that disappeared too that can come back. I used to do like one around that. And then like if the teams were headed to the playoffs, we always did big pep rallies around that. So were the rallies more just celebrating and cheering on the teams? Or did they do like competitions between the classes? No, it was more like around the teams, but I think incorporating something like that is, you know what I meant, donkey basketball. Not on the new gym floor. Not on the new gym floor, but the donkey before like the donkey basketball was really fun. That was a big fundraiser. And it was so fun to watch the teacher, like because the teachers would be on the team and then there was like students and you were a donkeys and played basketball on this. I remember that. Yeah, for sure. There's reasons for that. Many, many years ago. Um, I don't know, things like that just bring people in. So the the big discussion, um, and we got to find a way to actually, there's two big discussions. We got to find a way to kind of connect the community on and get some feedback on the first is this building, which includes the tech center. In the second in conversations with the town as they're trying to get their police force back up and running, there's a lot of pressure on the school for a school resource officer. So I'll just throw those out there with no other piece on it and get a feel for what people. The resource officer, like. So to ask of that. So typically I've I've the two districts where I was a principal, we always had one they were awesome to work with. Um, they serve a whole variety of purposes from counselor. They do a lot of the what I call the the community policing. They're just getting to know folks so they get an idea of what's happening in the families and whatnot. So if they're ever called and have to show up, they they have a better way. They know how to better approach a situation. The kids tend to build a lot of trust with them. So the kids share a lot of information on things that might be happening in the the community like this is where they're buying drugs. This is and so they get that information that way. But it also helps us out in here is a part of as we're trying to wrap up the standards and expectations, you know, if we get a kid which after COVID, you know, with the trauma based behaviors, we could get gets out of control that we can't bring back. You know, sometimes having the officer there helps us to kind of control and contain. And so they serve a lot of things. They often will talk in the health classes, especially when, you know, they get to talking about, you know, alcohol and drugs and things like that. So that's someone who was in the police force. They're active officers. They have special training that they go through. Typically, you know, the police will hire them and then we contract them directly from the police department. And it could be any police department in the state. The trick is finding the right individual that's a good fit. I remember hearing Lisa explain to you how before the town police was suspended being known to the students that they're having a mental health crisis or something, there are known quantity that they're much more approachable and it's much easier than having an unknown Vermont state police come in and just barge in. It's just what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna cuff the gate or whatever, like having a local known face. And they can do state police, like when the Randolph police force was not here, right? After things were kind of falling apart a little bit with Orange County Sheriff, state police won't do things like safety checks. So if we have a student that says, you know, I don't feel safe going home or I've got some suicidal ideation or my parents do. We didn't have the ability to call anyone to actually go and make sure that people were okay and get them connected with the services that they needed. And so that's a real important service that they provide. But yeah, I've always been, and a lot of it was because my experience it was so positive with the ones that I've worked with, I've always been very pro. Typically when I brought it up in conversations and open forums a couple of times over the years it's mostly negative and it's hard to kind of suss out why. But again, it's also not a representative group. And so it might be something that I need to put a survey out on, but I'd like to get some communication out about it in a nice way so that people know, you know, these are the possible benefits, the pros and cons and so they can make a good kind of infrastructure. How many schools in the area actually have one? Because that's what I was thinking listening to talk about it. The only real thing I've ever heard about school resource officers is all the negative stuff and mostly it came from the only school that I know for sure that had one in this area was Lebanon High School and there was a lot of, there was a lot of back and forth in the Valley News about whether that was a good thing or a bad thing and a lot of people felt like it was a bad thing. And I don't remember if they ended up ending it or not, I can't remember. So that, it would be interesting to know from some of the schools. You think that might be shading some of the opinions and? Right, but even just if like, are there other schools in the area that are doing it and hearing from them about what their experience has been because that was a pretty negative one. Do you remember why things were negative? Like I don't remember. I don't remember. I have to look it back up, but I don't know. And I remember there being negative reaction last year but I can't for the like, you remember, we have a problem with having an extra resource available for our kids in the school and for safety reasons, in the case of an emergency. Yeah, they help out with the Alice trainings and they're also security. They're making sure the doors are secured and locked as they're wandering around. They do quite a bit. And some families sort of send a message to that the police are the enemy and it provides a really safe and trusted adult in the school to undo that negative thinking about, right? And also I anticipate the number of them in Vermont schools is going to rise very sharply this year. After last year. Because the agency of education just released the opportunity for grant funding to fully grant fund. This person for this year, they've just released it. So if we write this grant, we would have full compensation. And I anticipate at least 10 to 20 districts across the state will say, I'm going to jump on that. And at least we can try it without any cost and see what that looks like. Yeah, the only one off the top of my head that I know that had one recently was Montpelier. But usually it's a budget issue. So I'll talk with Libby about what her experience. I'm sorry, David, do you want to speak with that? I was going to say the same thing almost, but the school resource, would they bounce around the different schools, I assume, their time? Because, yes, you know, the places that are most active, the places most active is usually the high school and the tech center. But the nice thing is that if they are on our payroll, right, because our tax money comes from the three towns, they would serve all three towns. It would be a full time. Full time, yeah. And they could also do truancy officer work because currently our principals are truancy. And so it's difficult for a principal to go out and do a home visit, you know, because they have all the students who are present. And we don't have currently a person who does that. And you gotta have somebody who can bring the paperwork to court because we're required after so many days to report to the court and then to actually be there for the hearings and whatnot. And I assume they'd be allowed to be armed while they're here? Yep, yeah. And I think a lot of it, my guess is, you know, to kind of add on to what Heather was saying was, you know, we had that swatting incident last year where they had the group that did the robo calls into half a dozen agencies across the state saying there is an active shooting event going on in, you know, these 15 schools, we were one of them. And so in that case, you know, we didn't have Orange County Sheriff at that time or the Randolph Department to show up. And so it was the state police that showed up eventually. Again, limited resources. They did an exceptional job responding to such an incident, but we didn't have a heads up. So, you know, we had two officers coming through the door with, you know, the assault rifles out and, you know, it can have an impact. Whereas if we've got the officer here, they've got direct communication and can really assess what's happening and whatnot. That topic will bring people out. Well, Lebanon did vote to keep their school results. Nice. But it was a close vote, 800 to 600. Was that like recent or was that in the past? Last year. Last year. But I know the debate was happening for like a couple of years, it feels like. I think a lot of it, you know, I may be mistaken. A lot of it is, it really comes down to getting the right person. Yeah, because like I said, I worked with two very exceptional officers. They just got laid the groundwork for that and Loretta almost did before she went to Royalton. So I feel like we have a good kind of peace with that. And I think once Scott was gone for that brief time, like that was felt, I know Lisa shared that, so hopefully. Well, Loretta was, she also, what do they call it? They don't call it dare here. What was the lead program over at the elementary? Yeah, she used to do that. It was great to come in and see that, you know, the celebration at the end. Yeah, and so that's one of the things that'll probably be one of the hot topics this year, especially as we, the budget season starts to kind of grind up and Heather's been our grant person and so she did identify the grant that's out there, so we can try to go that. But it'll be hard to bring somebody on unless we know it's going to be sustainable over time. And then the other piece, you know, that's open for discussion, kind of wide open at this point in time is the state of this facility. We were, you know, rated by the state, this facility is in terms of being closest to the end of its useful life of any building in the state. We've had issues that just come from age at this point in time. I mean, it's between 50 and 70 years old, depending upon which part of the building that you're in. We talked about kind of, you know, potentially renovating a piece at a time. But, you know, I think the, we learned our lessons with the Fieldhouse. You know, we got in there and they started pulling up the floor and the water encroachment that had leaked into the concrete under there. I mean, literally you could pick up the chunks of it and grind it away in your hands. And then you had the biological stuff that was growing in there at the same time. And so anytime that you hit that stuff, you know, the cost of getting the work done goes up exponentially. And so we're in this weird kind of place where we've got a lot of major repairs that we should be doing because of the age of the building. But it's like, okay, should we be putting this kind of money into things if we're potentially thinking about, you know, replacing? And then what would the replacement look like? You know, do we keep all the district the way that it is? Or, you know, do we consolidate, you know, everybody into one campus or possibly two campuses? You know, so those are the kind of discussions that we're having. We're going out for a request for proposal. So we're checking in with an architectural company that's got some engineers on staff that have kind of put together what it would cost to do what they call a survey, you know, come out, take a look at things, say, yes, you can rebuild on site and this is how we recommend you do it. This is how we recommend given your academic needs, given your student population, given what the projected population is going to be, this is what we recommend for a building. If you redo the building because of the new efficiencies that you're going to have, this is the cost savings that you might have that would offset, you know, pan off the bond. And those sort of things. So my push has been with the board and they've been supportive so far is to at least get the survey done because they'll have real data that we can go out. Yeah, if we do X, it would cost this much. If we, you know, renovate it, it'll cost this much and these are the pros and cons of each. If we consolidate everything into one building, this is what the savings would be. This is what the impact on the taxpayers would be. When you say consolidate everything into one building, do you mean all of the, when you say in the district, Brookfield, Braintree, Randolph, Elementary, like all of the school, I mean. And that's a, so that's not a, that's not, I want to be very clear. That's not necessarily what I'm espousing for, but what I'm saying is because we have this once in a hundred year potential opportunity, we should look at all the possibilities. And so, you know, one of the possibilities is we have a central campus that's right here. And then we convert RES into the tech center. And so, you've got everything centralized here, got the tech center over there. And this is where all the students would come. Yeah, not saying I'm recommending it, but I'm saying that's one possibility. Braintree is, as a building, is actually in really good shape. Brookfield, for folks that are up in the Brookfield way, I think folks are familiar with the water issues up there. They are not able to be remediated. We drilled the second well after kind of going through the protocols. They told us to try to repair the first one, which didn't work. And the water in the second well was even worse than the first. And we had the state geologist out there, you know, telling us where to drill and how deep to go. So there's that chronic water issue out there. We're going to put in an osmotic filter to at least get the kitchen connected to get pure water from the well. But there's problems with that too. It's a fairly costly process. And what it does is you get the pure water on one side, you get all the concentrate on the other side, all the stuff that's in it, and some of it's radioactive and things like that. So we have done the testing for radon up there. We're clear on the radon. But that concentrate potentially is toxic waste that would have to be disposed of in a special manner with a cost that goes along to it. Our interim piece is we've been sitting with them bringing in the bottled water, so they got the drinking water. The water's fine for flesh and toilets and things like that, but that's about it. It would be fabulous to consider, if any of, you know, like if you're dreaming big, to consider incorporating in some way and the idea of having, if you have to build something new, some kind of community center involved and having it be more, you know, a building that could be used by the community in more period of time or whatever. Incorporate, I know the tech center used to have adult classes. But I think we're pretty popular, thinking about all of those different options that also used to happen. But I feel like the need for a community center in this area is really big. There's not really anywhere ideal to put it, but to really be able to bring people together and offer options for people, non-sports related options for people after school in addition to the things that they've already offered. In terms of a vision for a community center, which a public school should be, what would you think be the most critical need? Is it just classroom spaces for people to use? Is it the athletic fields? I mean, if we were to build a turf field with a, you know, a nice rub core track out there and lights, you know, would that be something that people would use? What would be? I don't know, the first thing you'd have to fix around, if you were gonna build it back here in the same place as the traffic flow. Yeah, well, that's a part of their study. Yeah, that is a part of their study. But I just see it as like, well, you've got the media center, you've got the theater, whatever you do. Like, that would be your big, your big. Would Shandel be upset with us? Depends on what you do. I'm not saying like, yeah. Running track would be used. I think a track would be used. I know you said non-athletic, but honestly, a group of guys struggle to get any kind of regular access to use the basketball gym and the town doesn't have an indoor track facility. So like, they don't have. Well, I don't mean not to have sports stuff. I'm just saying that. I'm saying there's a need for, like an indoor basketball court in the town and so we struggle trying to get in. Like, BTC is often busy because they've got teams in there. Wintertime, this facility is used because of those teams and like, sometimes we can get into the elementary school, but it's hard because of janitor availability or the policy or just a such a tiny little gym. Yeah, last year the janitor piece was top. Yeah, it was, yeah. And it's a small gym. It's not like we can't even play normal 505 basketball. So it's like the town needs something but probably couldn't afford it on their own, but maybe there's an extra gym that the school gets to use for practices. Well, I think the town was involved in if it was a community center and if it was doing that, it could be also combined with the rec department and it could be like a all integrated, a more supportive unit. I think when you present this, you're just having the different options and then all the data as the pros and cons behind each one. So again, people feel like they can see, they're making an informed decision and it's not just, oh, we just want to build a new school. I mean, coming from Gifford, we have a 100 year, 100 plus year old building that we have called along and made a choice a while ago that like we were keeping that building we had to. Okay, I've got ideas for Gifford too. Yeah, because we originally wanted to build up on the hill but we instead decided we couldn't leave that big footprint in town and so they've had strategic plans of just how to maintain that physical plan and one thing we present to the board like with our energy communities, it's like, we put this set amount of money into this new lighting system. It's gonna, we're gonna pay it, it'll pay for itself within six months, you know, and they're just like, sure, go ahead. And they sign away and it's just partnering with the efficiency of the month. So I think having, pulling in those aspects too, like what would the heating system look like with Gifford and the green energy? Although the vision would be the heat exchangers as much as possible and then, you know, solar and try to get most of the HVAC. We're getting to a point, it is getting warmer. I don't know if the trend's gonna continue forever or not, but every year the fight within, especially the two small schools, actually Randolph Elementary was hit too, was the mold. You get the humidity in there, you know, you got good ventilation, but it doesn't matter if the air that you're pumping through there is 90% humidity. And so we've been starting to, you've got a good grant air-conditioned brain tree but a lot of it, the reason they allowed us to do it is because they know the mold problems, so it keeps the mold out of there. I kind of couldn't believe that Randolph Elementary didn't have it, right? Yeah, so it's a quarter century now. Yeah, it's... What? Yeah, it's a quarter century. 30 years, it was built in 1995, right? Almost 30 years, not quite. Yeah, but it's still a beautiful building. But yeah, those should be retrofitted, but with a new building, you also get all the efficiency savings. You get modern, efficient heating and cooling. You know, if you connect it with the solar, depending upon how much the state would actually let us generate, we used to have a cap on that. You know, you might be able to get, you know, 50% to 75% of that cost covered. One of the problems with this building is that it's just, it's a giant sprawling, and that's not energy efficient. You build up when you want energy efficiency, right? And so yeah, there's a lot of discussion there. But the biggest one and the hardest one with the town is gonna be, okay, you know, do we wanna consolidate or do we not? And I wanna be able to say, if we don't, this is what your taxes are gonna be, and if you do, this is what your taxes are gonna be. And that'll, yeah. And it should be. Yeah, giving up local elementary schools, no matter where you are in the country, it always is. But you know, if the cost savings difference isn't that much, then it's not a big deal. But if it's tremendous and it might be, you know, that could change minds. But, so those will be the two big ones this year that we'll be talking about, at least in the district level. And the principals are doing an amazing job, especially on the expectations and the standards and getting stuff in place to really get the kids kinda connected, you know, doing what they're supposed to and achieving the way that they should. Not to swing topics, but I have a child very ready to get home. It's fun with practice. But I did just wanna briefly discuss the elementary school mascot change at Randolph. I know that, you know, Ms. Robertson put in one of the first newsletters that came out, that the change was kinda, it made it sound like it was happening. And that just kinda startled me a little bit, because I was like, this is the first I'm hearing of it. Like, why are we changing the mascot? And so I did reach out to her and we went back and forth several times. And I guess I don't have any deep affection for the wizards like I did because being an alumni, but because I came from the Brantree County mountains. But in an elementary school, I don't feel like it's as deep as it is here. But it's just the fact that I felt like all of a sudden we're just gonna open this can again of like, no matter what we pick, something is gonna bother someone. And I've been a little bothered that my daughter in third grade, some of her friends came home and said to mom, my teacher told me today that it's because of the wizard from the cool blood splant. You know, I'm like, you're in third grade. Like, why is that you've been being talked about and why are you talking about it? My daughter said, well, there's something throughout the ravens. I think I wanna be the ravens. And I was like, well, you know, I think of death when I see a raven. Like, I just, I guess I don't understand why. Because the state passed the law last year that has us reexamining. Right, but I felt like it was portrayed in that like, this is happening versus we're talking about it. But my understanding of the state law is that we talk about it. It doesn't have to change. I felt like coming off the heels of everything that happened here, like really, we're gonna go down this road again. And I don't think it will stir up nearly the controversy that it did here. But to me, I look at it again as like a taxpayer of like, it's taking resources, like you're spending time thinking about this. And I know you have bigger fish to fry and there's like, my kid needs to read. You know, there's things like that, but I think on a personal level. And same thing with like, I look around the school at open house the other day and I'm like, is there just everywhere? Like, there's so many things like money. They're gonna have to time the money to change all these things. I'm like, why? They have the cutest song ever about the wizards. You know, there's just little things that I just. No, very good, very good points. Yeah, and I think, you know, a lot of it is the discussion around it. And we'll see what comes out of the discussion. I just don't feel like it's been a public discussion really. I mean, it sounds like it's being talked a lot about amongst the kids there. Did they have their advisory board? Well, this was at the elementary school. I don't sit on an advisory board so we don't have your school. There was a PTO now, an active PTO. Yeah, because usually that's the reason that those boards were put in place. I can check with Melinda. But the reason that those boards were put in place was to do that kind of vetting and have those discussions. And of course, they're open to other people who want to come in and talk to them those nights. I can follow up a little. You're right. I know. There's a movie I've come to. I think the PTO reps will be there. Yeah, so I'm happy. I just felt like it was really put out. Just practicing? No, I can't join you before. I'm just visiting. I can't join. We're being told it was happening versus it's in discussion or not being coming. It's a topic big enough that I felt like it should have happened. And more people should be involved in this. Yeah, no, it makes sense. And I'm happy to check in with Melinda because I don't know the full details. And not trying to make room of it either. Well, we talked about perceptions in the other one. There's a perception in the community that I've heard is, here we go again, one or two people complained about something that made you a little bit on the level of silly side. And now everybody has to talk about it. Everybody has to change because of one or two people who complained. That's the perception I'm just sharing the perception. Where sometimes you can just say no to one or two people and bring on with it. So it sounds like on that topic that, because I had talked during the strategic planning this year about starting to identify mental models, right? Beliefs that people have, they could be true, they could be not. But it's the beliefs that people have within a community. And part of that is, as folks earlier were talking about, the videos and getting the good stuff out, is being able to put together a PR plan. So what were some of the things that came up or some of the things that didn't come up that are more kind of district related to be able to connect with and maybe that'll help us, like I said, develop our PR plan and how we kind of address them. We talked about the new schedule. We talked about the cell phone plan. Yeah, these were more high school focused. More policy when that finally finalized might be a good one. I can't say I know as much at the elementary school, which I feel bad because I have a daughter there. And they do send out the newsletters and they kind of talk. But I guess, yeah, I'm trying to think of what would be. The power school app we talked about, that's, again, high school level. Is that positive or negative in people's eyes? It was positive for me. I had a really negative experience for six years prior to this. And all of a sudden, the last two weeks have been great. Like I have an app on my phone. It notifies me if my son's late, if he gets a grade recorded. I know it like that. And the teachers seem to be actually using it. I mean, it's early still, but the past six years we're not, it wasn't half of them. Good. Yeah, one of the pushes that we talked about this year too, again, is trying to, you know, the expectations aren't just in terms of the kids, but it's also the teachers. And so the teachers are doing a really good job of actually, you know, assessing the kids and whatnot. But when they're recording the grades, you know, this one's doing it in Excel and this one's doing it in another spreadsheet over here. And then only when the final grade is due do they actually go in and they put it in power school. And so you lose all that resolution and detail. So over the course of the year, we're trying to standardize that and get all the teachers to use. So that should be coming. At the elementary STEM, farm to school, science of reading. There's a lot of cool things we could highlight. An active PTO, I think. Yeah, there we go. That's a good one. They're gonna get field trips going soon. So these will be the things that we can have them focus on for the writings, right? It's a good one. Yeah. I have an intern. I'm serious. Oh, that's true. But yeah, no, it's good. This is great and I hate to leave but he's... Oh, not a problem. And I realized that folks were here an hour earlier. I apologize that I brought that concern to the school board before coming to you, but I did panic because it seemed like it was like the end of September, like it's happening. And then like talking to a friend on the school board, like she didn't know anything about it. And I was just like, I just kind of panicked. I felt like that was my last chance to have it come out in a bigger. And I didn't want to take like a social media aspect because I felt like a lot of parents weren't reading that newsletter and didn't know. And so I just wanted to apologize that I had to take it to that so quickly but I didn't know what to do. But I was glad Dave brought up the like educating people on the steps and the roles of the school board so that they know. I think people don't know that they can't respond to them. So I would, I appreciated that Hannah like said that the other night in the meeting that like, just please know we can't respond to you. Well, they've got a really, they've got a, this quirky, they're under the policy governance. And there's a lot of good to it. But my concern, and I express this to them a lot, is you've given me too much power. No, nobody should, you know, that we're supposed to be a team here. We're supposed to be working together. And so usually it ends up getting deferred to me, which is fine. So I'm happy to sit down and talk. Big thing is I got to get myself a little bit more educated on it by going over and kind of talking with Melinda and seeing what process they're using and what they're up to. I think people are deterred from getting on the school board also because it is so, the policy governance, like they just kind of feel like they aren't going to impact the people feel like if they get on a school board that they have. So that's just what I hear like, oh, and then. And under their policy governance, it's true. And one of the things I've been pushing them on is I want them more involved in things. And I give them an awful lot of credit. I've been through version 102030 for school boards. They've always been very intelligent, kind people. Version 30 that we're in now, they're actually taking the suggestions. They're building their subcommittees. They're doing some of the work like in a district, I'm not supposed to be the one that's presenting the budget to the community. I'm there to recommend and say, hey, these are the things that we need. You gave me the parameters and this is what I came up with. But they're usually the face of that. So there's a lot of little things like that. And I don't mind doing it, but it would help them get out and connect a lot or with the community and hear what they're saying. But so they got like four subcommittees now that are standing committees, which is awesome. They're actually giving me feedback or trying to set up a system to give me feedback. Because my only feedback in my six years here is I do these executive limitations reports and an end report. And as long as they approve those, then that means I'm doing okay. But there's no talk. It's just, yep, we accept the reports. But are there things that you want me to do on your behalf? You know, tell me that. So, yeah, it's been interesting. But they've been a really good crew to work with. I couldn't be more tickled, but I'm also happy that they're picking up some parts and pieces. They're good people and it's important that I stop going. Oh, yeah, I want 100%. Well, this will have more of an impact on what happens day to day. Because I do need the feedback. We get lots of wild ideas at times that look really good and these meetings help ground it. And they also, you know, if we do have some good ideas, they also help enhance it. We get some things that we can kind of incorporate to help things along, so. I think the more we can advocate, you know, the more educated those that do come are and can advocate about the community, that's just true. They also offset some of the social media parts and pieces because you get people that are in the know who, you know, when people are bringing up, oh, I heard this, it's like, well, that's not really quite, yeah, you know, it's in the ballpark, we're not quite there, so it's helpful. But, no, I appreciate it. And, yeah, and thank you very much.