 We have a quorum, so I'm gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order at 534. It's the recording started. Does anybody have any adjustments to the agenda? I had one and that was to add changing our regular meeting time from 5.30 to 6 o'clock. That would be easier. Yeah, so if we can do, I guess, 7.3 or 10.2 actually, both, right? 7.3 discuss and 10.2 vote, possible action. Okay, is there any other adjustments to the agenda? No other adjustments. We're looking at approving the minutes of Thursday, September 7th, our last regular board meeting. So, second. All right. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Aye. So moved. Beautiful, see if I don't need to print it out, it's there. Okay. Oh, thanks. Yeah, this is our agenda. Did you get an aye from Patrick? Patrick? He's muted. He's muted. He's muted. Hi. Hi. Sorry, I'm having some issues with my volume. Okay, well, we're just taking a vote to approve the minutes that have been moved by Robert and seconded by Bill, just to approve the minutes from last meeting, a regular meeting on September 7th. Yes. Okay, great. So moved then. Thank you for clarifying that. I thought I'd heard him, but I had not. Okay, so moving on to public comment. Do we have any public attending virtually? There's no public in person. Nope. Okay. Great. Well, then we'll move on to board comment. All right, Bill. Yeah, there's two great articles in this week's for Randolph-Herald about one article about what's happening at the Rochester Elementary School and initiatives and changes staff and bios and all that, and another one about what was happening in the Stockbridge Central School. So spreading the news, the good news, change in the team makeup, which is really nice. And so I just wanted to highlight that. That's what we need to do is do it right and then get the word out. That's exciting. Was it a letter that was sent in from our staff? No, it was two articles that were, I think, generated by the... Martha Slater reaches out to meet with all the new folks. Oh, great. Yeah, it's there at the end of the table. What do you want to take a look at? All right. Wonderful. That's exactly what we were talking about. We're on a brumb board comment at this point. Bill's just commenting on the wonderful articles in the paper of both of our school buildings. Just want to say I thought it was a reproductive retreat. Great. On Saturday. I was very happy with it. Excellent. It was fun. It was good. Is there any other board comment? Me made an adjustment for 7.3. Well, just in time we can move on to the superintendent's report. Is he just like through the door? With his haircut and everything. I did get a haircut. Yeah, nice. Yeah, sorry for running late tonight. Everyone's got packets. Yeah. All right. I want an extra one, too. So you have my report in hand. You know, I would say that we're, I want to emphasize we're finishing up academic testing. For the fall, teachers are going to be meeting with principals and then some central office folks to continue to analyze that data to make informed decisions both for universal instruction, but also for interventions, goal setting, things of that nature. I'm excited to share that data with you. You'll get that full data report at the full board for the SU later this month and then at your local district board in November. The AOE still hasn't provided us permission to release any individual student reports for the VT cap. So stay tuned with that. We were hoping to be able to release that data back in the middle of September and then all of a sudden the agency put out a memo saying that we needed to hold off. So I don't know if that's about calibration or what's going on in that sense around the New Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program. And what department is that? The agency of Ed. Ed. And then finally, I just want to remind folks that we do have our full board retreat. Everyone's invited. It'll be in South Royalton in the library next Tuesday starting at 5.30. And I'll entertain any questions folks may have. And so I recall last, I'm sorry. Go ahead Bill. I have a way of just birding out. Sorry about that. As I recall the last time we did this SU retreat, we were dined. Is that a runnable meal with great chocolate chips and oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert. So is that still just letting people know? That's incentive right there, right Bill? If you're lacking any incentive to join. Is there any other questions for the superintendent in regards to this report? Okay, well then let's move on to the principal's report. So you have my report in front of you. We are up and moving. I would say things to add to this. We have completed all of our September emergency response drills which includes a fire drill and an options based practice drill. So those things are done and I didn't put that in there but what reminded me was the policy for tonight. So we've done that. We've also had several joint opportunities where preschools got together and went apple picking together and then our fourth, fifth and sixth graders have been together at the temperature fair. Unfortunately snorkeling was postponed due to rain and we're still trying to work on a reschedule for that group. But yeah, I'll entertain any questions. Bill. Yeah, I've been attending school meeting, board meetings up here since I moved in 2001 and I read your principal's report. I'm not one, not two, not three, but four teams that have been developed in our side. The leadership team, a targeted support team, a universal support team, intensive support team. We're practicing what we're preaching, which is to do it, we've got to do it together and we've got to do it at all levels at every school and make everybody responsible for that and caring about that. So I just wanted to highlight that to the board. To me, that is something that we haven't seen here in prior administrations. I remember the highlighting field trips which make me feel good and they're important. I don't mean to make light of that, but if we're talking about moving our kids socially, emotionally or academically forward, boy, we've got to be able to know what's going on and share that information, analyze it at the cohort level as well as individuals. And here's an example of how we're doing it in our side and Jamie, I assume this is what we're doing throughout the SU. And it gives me great confidence that the games that we're making has been measured and I don't see all the measures and everything else are gonna be sustained and strengthened going forward. So I just wanted to mention that and going back, if it's all right with the chair, Jamie mentioned his report. Two things, one is a video about alternative pathways that you can access on the SU board and it's like three minutes or six minutes. Really, really great stuff and it really makes you think, wow, wow, wow, we're using the media and they were telling our story and it was very, very, very effective. And so I appreciate that. And the other one is that we've got a curriculum now that we have on the website. Every course, the main course is K through 12. That's never, as far as I know, ever happened before. So if you've got a third grader, you wanna know what these key things are that they're gonna be doing and we're gonna be pushing to achieve. You go to the third grade or the fourth grade or K and the 12 and so that's a lot of material there but for those of us that are in a learning mode all the time we need to be, it's a good source of information about what's happening in the classroom. So that was pretty impressive. Thank you. Yeah, that's great. I think that's something we have spoke about before, wondering what are the classes doing and so that's great that that resource is out there for everybody to look at. That's great. Yes, great report, it was three pages. Yeah, and then I'll just add that tomorrow we get our first delivery of pellets tomorrow afternoon and they will be here to- Are we talking about rabbits? No, we're talking about pellets. What pellets for the boiler? For the boiler. Because the systems are balanced, which I guess means they work efficiently in both, I've learned a lot of terms. So we will be able to manually test the wood pellet boiler tomorrow afternoon. Wonderful. It's a little warm, but- That's okay, we want to do it before it's too cold. That's exactly, and then the controls will be in place for it to go automatically. You're in the next two weeks. Excellent, that's great. Is there any other questions for the principal on her report? Just, will we be able to go automatic on the propane right now, or we have to wait for the controls? Not automatic, but we can use the manual options on the front. Does that answer the question? Yes, it does. We do have heat. We do have heat, it's up and going. It can be. Excellent, well thank you for your report. Tara, business manager. So you all have my report. I'll answer any questions you have. Only update I have that isn't in the report is that the auditors will be in our office next week to complete the final stages of physical audit. Go ahead, Bill. I had a question for you, but I didn't write it down, so. This will give you a chance. I get great satisfaction of looking at Tara when she mentions the auditors are coming. And look at how relaxed she is, smiling. It's like, well, you know, it's like going down and getting a six pack of whatever your favorite, whatever it is. So that gives me great confidence. We all have great confidence in your team and what you've been doing financially, and that's one thing we don't have to worry about. Are the numbers right? We have to figure out what's the best use of the resources that we're doing, so. Thank you for that. So is there any other questions for the auditors? You know how to get me, how to get you. When I first read through it, I had a question, but I didn't have the paper to write down, so. I know where you live. I know where you work. You probably live there, actually, at this point. So, okay, is there, if there's no further questions for Tara, then let's move on to policy committee update. Just update that the policy committee met and we've created a working document. And Patrick, you should have received an updated version of that today. Thank you, Ray, for helping me with the links and the spreadsheet. So we're gonna be prioritizing a review of policies based on like a tiered system. First being reviewing any policy that we feel like as an admin team needs attention. That's just not working for us. Then we'll review policy in regards to what are required and have been updated by the VSBA since our last adoption. And then the third tier will be those that we have in place that are recommended and may have been revised since. We're pretty much in good place around all the required and recommended in place. So this is really about reviewing what we have in place that makes sure it's working for us. So you're probably going to see some policies coming in front of you that we already have that are gonna have suggested revisions in them over the next year and a half or so. Great. I know we had talked about wanting to get into reading and more familiar with our policies. And I think this is probably a way that we will be doing that actually on an SU level, so. Great. Okay. Is there any questions for the policy committee? Okay. And let's move on to policy adoption. The first one we're gonna look at is A20 board civility and code of ethics policy. This was adopted by the full board. All three of these were adopted by the full board last Tuesday. Is there any discussion on this first policy? If not, I take a motion to adopt. Also move second adoption of the code of ethics. And I would like to say this is important. We, this board, I mean, because we've talked about it under your leadership at and Ethan at our retreat. I think it's just we're built in to be civil with one another. Our role is also to be civil with anybody who wants to talk about, they're interested in what we're doing and what they care about. And this puts it in writing so that, oh no, I wasn't talking about, I wasn't representing. I happen to think that now the amount on a school board, even though I'm not wearing my orange hat or black hat, I'm a representative of the board. So somebody gets me talking about educational policy. I've got to remember that I represent and how I'm supposed to conduct myself. And so this makes it very clear. And I think it's very helpful. When we stumble that way, it just hurts. It's like an unforced error. Billy Buckner fumbling that ground ball and I'm not even talking about that. But so anyway, I think this is great. Thank you. Great, there's a motion and a second on the floor. There's been discussion. Is there any further discussion? All in favor of adopting the board member's ability and code of ethics policy, a 20, say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, so moved. Okay, next we're going to look at F 32, fire and emergency preparedness drills policy. 34. Yeah, probably should not be working with numbers, so. We'll do it. I know. We've seen this before, our board had some suggestions and I really like the way the policy committee has taken ours and probably other board suggestions and I do actually really like the way this policy is read and the approach that it takes. So I look for a motion to accept fire and emergency preparedness drills and policy. So moved. Second. Robert moves it, bill seconds it. Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So moved. All right, let's move on to F 35, access control and visitor management policy. Okay, access control, that's access to our school site. Is that, that's the access to the control? Right. Okay. Is there any discussion on this policy for a motion to adopt it then? So move. Second. Bill moves, Robert seconds. Is there any further discussion? Yes. Just, I mean this deals primarily with building access, but I guess we're, I see that with regard to grounds access, it's not that we're controlling it, but we, I'm not sure where we have policy that governs when people come on site and what they're allowed to do. We have a building use policy which does cover the access of our grounds. Okay. So that includes. Utilizing those. Okay. You revise it, the policy committee is looking at that. Well, it'll be part of what we'll look at, but we currently have one that is about accessing our grounds. Because as most schools, there is public, I mean, public use is our playground and such. Yes, right. And that's not a problem generally, but what happens when things go wrong? Right. And that is one that needs some looking at because we want to be community schools and there's actually pieces of that policy that I think have created some problems around access. So that is one that I think at the admin level, we're going to ask that they wouldn't really look at. Okay. And you said facility use has its own policy. So facility use being a basketball game would have its own set of policies that wouldn't really go under this policy. Correct. Okay. All right. Is there any further discussion? All right. All in favor of adopting F-35 access control and visitor management policy, say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. So moved. Okay. The policies have been, those three policies have been adopted. Nice growing policy committee. Yes. Very good. All right. Well, let's move on to draft one of the student support budget. So Lindy can jump in or Tara. I mean, so just like we, we have over the last several years, we start by looking at student support. These are the big catch areas in regards to personnel in regards to student support. So it's essentially your administration, your interventionist, your student support folks like guidance, nurse, folks that support our teachers via paraeducators, regular ed, it's not special ed, your substitutes. And then we also do have a school-based clinician that has been supporting the school via Claire Martin as a contracted service that your students have been accessing for therapeutic supports. That's something we're looking to move into the general budget if we can. We've been leveraging Essar to help support that service along as well as some other type of grant funding that we were able to pull in at the SU level. This is draft one. So what you're really seeing here is everything. Do know that there could be, as we were going through the budget process, that is an area that we might look to offset the additional 40,000 if we needed to. But that level of support and service, it's clear that it's important for us to continue. So the rest for, and I'm mostly Cynthia, this is your first go at this process. We break it down by student support. We talk about that. We look for the board to give us kind of their thoughts around it. You'll get all the faculty and staff next month, including this as part of draft two for student support. We take feedback then. December, you get the full budget with all expenses and budget lines in. We look for feedback there. We try to get you a pretty solid draft in January with the idea that sometimes we'll do a special meeting in January, or you guys can actually adopt in February because you're later in the game. It's typically in February when you guys approve your budget. Our school meeting, school budget meeting is in May, and most other towns do it on town meeting in March. So it's usually a rush. We have a little more leeway, and we can take a little bit more time in the early winter months, so. So we start with personnel the first couple months because that's the biggest chunk other than tuition, and in general, tuition we don't have really any control over, right, around what can select. But we start to dial that in for you in December. January, Tara tends to have the real announced tuition numbers that we are able to use, and so really we try to shoot for February adoption. So we have a little time, but we try to start here. And then, Lindy, I think it would be helpful. So Tara has these figures you're seeing an account for negotiated raises through your collective bargaining agreement. And then Tara can talk to you about what she's using for insurance numbers right now for projections. And then Lindy is projecting, looking for an additional 0.2 FT in reading intervention, and then also looking to add another pair. So Lindy, could you just talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so two things that I'll say is this is probably a little closer in terms of intervention to what we're actually providing. So currently that position, she also does library as well, but she's spending majority of her time on literacy intervention so it makes more sense that we're supporting that in the right way instead of trying to short change that and that we're using best practice that those kiddos are getting the support that they need. With frequency, yep, with frequency. And then in regular ad para, this kind of supports the K1 or just a cohort of larger students that just require that additional support, not necessarily academically or behavioral, but just because we're five and six and we're all together and there's about 20 of us and that helps support the classroom teacher with routines and expectations and really allows them to not miss a beat. So it was K1 and five, six? No, sorry, they're five and six year olds. Oh, okay, five and six year olds? No. Yes, okay. Angels. All of them. So that would be the biggest one and then I'll just speak to the school-based clinician that is someone who has a full caseload within both of our buildings. It's a shared staff member, but. So is it, it's currently being administered by Claire Martin? Right, she's in a, yeah, a contracted service. It's a contracted service through Claire Martin, but this, it was being funded with different money before, so we need to bring it back into local funding. Okay, okay. So we get a full-time employee for that $40,000 figure. Yeah, okay. For that contracted service. Okay, yeah. And this is, we've had this person, this position currently, this is not something new. No, she's new to the general fund. Right. Right, she's been here for three years. We added school-based clinicians across our districts two years ago. We've been lucky that the school-based clinician we have at Rochester Stock Bridge has been here the whole time. We've had trouble, well, by we, our partnership with Claire Martin has had real trouble filling these positions in some of our districts. I see. Like, in sharing the strafford, we were never able to fill it, and same at First Branch, we haven't been able to fill it. So we're very lucky. They handle, my impressions, they handle kids that really have, are struggling, social-emotional. And to the extent that we don't handle that, the kids continue to struggle, the parents, and then it can swing right back into the classroom and it can impact everybody. So am I got that right about this importance of this role? Yeah, I mean, what it does is it allows us to provide that therapeutic intervention in the school and for our families not to have to try to figure out how to connect with a, you know, a therapist, per se, like, having to go to Randolph for having to drive over to Middlebury, the theory would get that service right here in the building. So the likelihood of action, positive action, sooner or quicker action is reinforced if we have it right here, then parents trying to find and chase and do that makes sense to me. Yes, Robert. And it's also more timely is the most important. Yeah. Just trying to understand these figures. We have reductions between 24 and 25, but there are reductions in the proposed amount, but no change in FTE. Correct. So on the salary and benefits, we last year, based on the information that we had been given during our meetings with Visbit, which is our insurance provider, we had projected substantial increases in workers' compensation based on claim rates, medical expenses. So some of this, the rates didn't go as high as they projected, so I was able to bring them back down in this budget. And then also in your regular ed pair, as we had budgeted primarily for a family health insurance plan, and that wasn't utilized. So when I build your budgets, I'm building your budgets based on the staff you have in your buildings today. So I pulled down the master salary spreadsheet for all of our buildings, and that's what I use to build the budgets. As far as health insurance, dental insurance, I build in increases based on information that we were given. We don't get those rates usually until the end of October. So right now in the budgets, we're using a 13% increase on health insurance, and that's based on a 12.7% was the actual increase last year, so there may be an adjustment once I see them, and a 5% increase on the dental insurance. So that's also what's currently built in here. So again, once I get those rates, these numbers on your first draft will be adjusted to represent the actual rates that are being filed with the State of Vermont Department of Insurance. And just so the board knows, just a reminder, if we, let's say we don't know who's gonna work for us, we always go into it budgeting a family plan. Because right now, a family plan is $28,000. So if we didn't budget for a family plan and you had someone come in right there, that's a substantial amount of money that's not budgeted for. So we always use that as our placeholder. Great. Okay. So thoughts, I mean, you'll get all your faculty next month, and that will give you a much better sense of what we're looking at just based on those increases around our bottom lines. I mean, we have the rest of the pieces, but. I mean, considering we're looking at trying to add the school-based clinician currently right now, Diana Perra, I was really excited when Tara provided us this first draft, because I was not as optimistic as I was being at that point right now. So I'm feeling, we'll see what the rest of it looks like, but I'm feeling okay. No, it looks pretty good. Just on that question of the decreases in the, specifically the regular Ed Perra, we're trying, we're going to increase the FTE, but yet we are still down. And that really is just because that workman's comp. And that was the health insurance. There was budgeting for a family plan, but the person who actually hired for that role didn't take the family plan. So it gives you a little bit of leeway in the 25 budget. I think that person stays employed and doesn't change your health insurance. Wow, that's amazing how much it can swing them. Like that's a whole position. It is. That's a whole position. Wow. The salary for a support staff is almost the same. I mean, when you look at the whole package, we're, you know, you're pushing almost 60,000, but the health insurance is almost half of that. Okay. All right, well, thank you very much. Is there more questions on this first draft of the budget? I agree with what I'm seeing. I think that this is the right way to go. This is increases that we need for Perra and then definitely having the interventionist in school, the contractor position there. I think it's all very important in literacy intervention. That's what we're trying to do is get them right. Get it into the intervention as quick as we can and having the bodies there to be able to facilitate that. So does anybody else have any more comments or direction that we want to give our administration in regards to what we've been provided today? Great. I'm gonna leave you all to get to it. Thanks. Okay, thank you very much. I didn't bring my computer, so I'll jump on. Okay. So now we're gonna move on to seven two, follow up on the board retreat. I thought it was a great retreat. I do feel like we kind of left some stuff hanging at the end, but we did talk about having a follow up. Retreat in say January, so I didn't get out to everybody to bring their calendars to this meeting, but if we can definitely by next meeting, bring our calendars to, or maybe even throughout the month of October, I can send out an email of a save, so we can try to meet again to do another retreat to kind of finish up some of the board goals that we were talking about. I do have a list of kind of action items, some things, some specific stuff. So. Yeah, I was gonna, excuse me. Go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt. I was looking at you, go ahead. The, we talked about our protocols, and I think we're pretty set on that we've got good protocols and I'll come back with a score sheet of how we self-evaluated ourselves, but it seems to me it'd be timely to have that on a, like the November agenda and just put those, vote the thing that we, those protocols and then we can change anything we want, but going forward. And we also have governance principles, which are the overriding things there. So that was one thing I thought we could do sooner. And if we're gonna have FY 24 goals, I think we need to do those sooner than later. And if the agenda in November can do it, I think my sense is a lot of the goals we had for this year, concluding in June, it would carry forward, but we also need to see if there's any new initiatives that we need to attend to for the, for this academic year. And so if you're like, I can draft something up on that, but I would, and get it out. I think we need to say, yeah, we're together on where we want to head. And again, we did a lot of this fresh work. We had a committee last time with Justine and Ethan and myself, and then we spent a lot of time. This time I think it can be more straightforward, but I think we need to make sure what are the things the next few months and we need to pay attention to and do we want to formalize that in a goal or not? So that would be one of my suggestions. And then the third thing is I've ordered books and if I had done it right, I would have had each one sent to the individual addresses, but then I realized I don't have your addresses. So they're all sent to me. Some will be used. So there'll be some, you know, highlighting and everything else. I've got one for the superintendent that's especially highlighted. So he can just skim through and read this in an hour, but if I can get these in hand and get them to you and I'll probably email you and just say, what's your address? And then I won't publicize your address, but if you'll let me know, I'll try to drop them off soon. And there's a good starting chapter is, you know, why school boards are so important. And you think, oh, you know, we walk on water. No, but there's been a lot of work on that. And so it's a great way to kind of reinforce the importance of our role. And then that obviously talks about being effective in that role. So I'm going to recommend through the chair that if I get it to you all in time for the first chapter, we have that as a possible agenda item in November. The final thing was we were talking about a possible review of looking back since we've been together now five years that whether it would be timely now to look back and how we've done and the possibility of community and parent input on that. And so I don't know how we left that and how you left that, but that's something that's, and that'll take a time. I committed myself to kind of recommend kind of a framework for that, but you need to give us the guidance on when and how you want to do that. Yeah, we had talked about... I took a picture, sorry, it's really tight. No, no, that's okay. We, yes, in our meeting, in our retreat, we had talked about surveys, student survey, parent survey, community survey, and we did write down that Bill was going to put together a framework. Okay, so I've... Okay, so I've just... If you're still willing, we did write it down. It was taken. It'll be a draft. Right, yeah, yes. I think also we do need to schedule some time in the future as it's required by the merger agreement that we do a five-year review. Right, this is the beginning parts of... But then use that language. But do we have a target date that we want to do that by? I'll try to crack something up. Okay. And I do have some notes, you know, and I think pertaining to the goals, and I do think that's... I'm happy for Bill to look at what we discussed and just try to kind of... I'll rough it up. I'll send it to you, you give me, and then we'll have something for the whole board. Yeah, and including I think that one of our goals has to do with... And we discussed this is that this reading together is a valuable tool, and I think that that's... I think that's a goal. I really do. I think that's a goal for us to continue to educate ourselves and to participate in this. Yeah, and Amy, I just want to say thank you for the leadiness in that retreat. It was a very productive retreat, and... Thank you. You know, it's like we're somewhat like herding cats, but I think sometimes we're a little better than that, but nothing wrong with cats. No. But it takes somebody to take the lead and organize and keep us moving, so thank you. Well, I definitely appreciate that because you always worried that... You want everybody to have a full say, but you also want to keep the train moving forward. You have a good way of doing it, kid. Okay, well, thank you. I definitely appreciate that. Does anybody have any other follow-ups from the retreat that they would like to bring up at this time? Okay. Great. All right, so, 7-3, we're going to discuss changing our regular meeting time from 5.30 to 6 o'clock per suggestion by one of the board members. I do love the 5.30 time, because it gets its out earlier, but 6 o'clock is just as fine, and if it's going to save a world of... Whatever. I get it, so I would see 6 o'clock as an appropriate time. If that will work with administration, with the other responsibilities they have on the same night. You can partner it up with the right board to be able to do it like that close. Good. All right, well, I'll entertain a motion to... Well, I thought that just goes under action item. Sure, we can wait till action item, so that's fine. All right, so then let's move on to celebration of the hour to be announced. So I am going to turn it over to Ms. Donna. She's here tonight to talk about, at the end of the year, after our June meeting, because we meet so early in June, the fifth and sixth graders in Rochester and Stockbridge participated in a United Book Club together on the most costly journey, which is stories of migrant farm workers throughout Vermont, and it's done at the Vermont Cartooning School. They work together, and so Donna's got a little presentation. And Ms. Donna, you tell me when, and I'll bring out the other things. Sure, you can turn up the slideshow, that'd be great. So as Lindy said, this was the Vermont Humanities Council, Vermont Reads Book of the Year. And when we were designing what this book club would look like last year, we are very fortunate to have Dana Decker as our equity coordinator in the SU, and she wanted to be a part of the book club as well. So we settled on this book, which has 19 different stories in them, and we felt that 15 were appropriate for fifth and sixth graders. And so we came together, and it all happened in June, because the rest of the year got super busy, but it ended up being a really beautiful thing because we were able to meet, the students were able to meet twice a week at Stockbridge and then at Rochester, and then we had a farm tour field trip so that connected back to the book and thinking about migrant workers and their journey to get here and the work that they do. So I don't think I have the capability to turn, great. So we met twice in Stockbridge, we met as a big group, and then adults had shared reading. Some feedback we got immediately from the students is they want to be able to do the reading, which will be the plan this year, but the story's told in the form of a graphic text. So there were different New England cartoonists who had drawn up the stories after meeting with different migrant workers. A big part of the experience we wanted students to get was the idea of how other people live and also what people are willing to do for work and for their family on behalf of their family as well. So we came together, we shared some of the stories together and had discussions and did a lot of brainstorming. And then each time we met, students also had a chance to work on a project. So the first day was after reading four stories, they came up with their own multimedia project based on their takeaways from that. And you can flip again to the next slide. So this is them working on, and this is in Stockbridge working on some different projects. And we wanted something to happen that first day and we were super impressed by what students had come up with. And then on the subsequent three days of meeting together to read, students chose which project they wanted to work on. So we had brainstorm possible projects and they included murals, a podcast, slideshow, and also students creating their own comics. So they had a choice of which they wanted to do but they needed to commit for the three days with their group to see that project through. This is them with their original first day projects. So some of the feedback that we had gotten from students is they had said things like, I never really thought about how other people lived before or I didn't really understand why people left their homes in the first place or even understand the danger that they had in coming to America. You can keep flipping, great. This is students working on their mural and they decided as a group that one group was gonna work on what it looked like in Mexico, another group was gonna create a mural based on the journey and the last mural was based on arriving in Vermont. We also made time each day. We came up with some cooperative games for them to play but then they had a time just to have recess and play together and also have lunch together and snack. These are some pictures from when we went on the farm tour. It was great to be able to go to Rochester and go to Liberty Hill Farm and then to be in Stockbridge and go to Birdsong Farm on Music Mountain. When we were at one of the farms, we students had a chance to meet some migrant workers as well and also the farmer and a big part of the student feedback was how lovely the relationship was between the workers and the farmer and a lot of respect and care that was given. So it was really great to have them notice that on their own. So this is just some of the things that we had, the themes that students identified, some of the discussions that we had which were pretty powerful. And that was in the book that in itself was a big message that came across that kind of to withstand some of the hardships we can experience in life, finding your passion and making time for those constructive things is really important. Having a strong work ethic will take you very far and how important communication was. And of course that was a big message in this with there being a language barrier but how people still managed to be able to communicate. So we were very happy with the outcome of this project. I think students were really thrilled too. And I don't think anyone was opposed to getting together initially but I think they were really overjoyed with having this larger group of students to be able to think and work and read with and play. Those are some of the comics that students created. And the books, by the way, we had written a grant to the Vermont Humanities Council so we were able to get the books for free which was great. And that is all of them. Yeah, and I think Lindy has some of the murals still. So last year's book club in June was so successful. I think we have plans to do maybe two this year. Maybe two this year. I like it, I like it. So this was three full days? This was three partial days? Four, like from like nine to one. Wow, okay. Roughly. Nice. Maybe 12, 30. Yep. So there's the welcome to Vermont. I'm not sure if anybody's saying anything but it's muted. If someone is saying anything to me. Sorry. I've only heard talking about murals, Ms. Donna. So we had a welcome to Vermont. We had aggressive Mexico, right? Before they left. Right. How do you know it's a sad face? What an incredible, just the whole experience of what the kids got out of it. It's just really incredible and... They did a great job. Yeah, it just really warms my heart to hear that type of feedback and critical thinking that they came up with. Just a wonderful project. I'm glad to hear that this idea is gonna move forward. They're excited about it. And I think I'll share, Ms. Donna, that the podcast, if we can, we'll find a way to maybe email that to you guys to listen to. They interviewed, the group that did the podcast interviewed all their classmates. And naturally came up with that they were like the R-Sed Book Club, 5.6 Book Club and that they liked having different opinions together. And those are some of the themes that came out together. So I think it was pretty powerful for cohorts of kids who are used to being with each other since elementary school. And then we're doing that. Yes, and I think the podcast group had also wanted students and teachers alike because they interviewed teachers too, to kind of put yourself in that position and how might you react? How might you feel if you had to travel that far from home or that you can't communicate with a place where you might wanna work? So it was great that the podcast group came up with their own ideas of what they wanted to know more about and wanted their classmates' opinions and stuff. But it was pretty neat. We were quite delighted. We had an idea, of course, of how it would all go, but you don't really know until you put it in students' hands and where they might take it. So we were very pleased. Excellent. I'm very pleased. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Donna. Yes, thank you so much. That's the best part of our meeting right there, our celebrations of learning. I'm serious. Yes, please go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I... His mother is illustrator. Over 50 years ago, I was out in California in the war on poverty as a VISTA volunteer and part of I was working with migrant farm workers. And we've come a long way. We were talking about stoop labor, extreme heat, pesticides, lousy housing and food. No, the whole fight was to unionize the farm workers so that they have some benefits and that sort of thing. There's Margeston, Sacramento and that sort of thing. We've come a long way. Cesar Chavez, Vermont's doing it better. I think the country in 50 years has come a long, long, long, long way, but we can't forget how important it is to treat people properly and be aware that for the most part, they're not as privileged as we are, but we need their services. We need their labor. And so to be able to have that in our elementary school to tell that story in Vermont, I think it was very heartening and I commend it. Everybody who's involved in this project, nice job. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. Any further comments or questions or on the celebration of learning? Not this bad. Great. Thank you, Donna. Yes, thank you so much. Welcome. My pleasure. Truly, thank you. Okay, let's move on to 10 action items. 10-1, flood-proofing areas of concern specific to high school building to mitigate flood playing concerns through the use of capital reserve funds. It's a mouthful. Sorry, it's a mouthful. And I sent a proposed motion to you, but I'm gonna suggest maybe we change the amount that we actually use in capital reserves to find pending further digging here. So let me just, so Robert and I have been joining the re-envisioning group for the high school. And so we've been meeting on a fairly regular basis about once a month. And I think in general November 2, we could give the board a deeper update about all this work because I think there's some really exciting momentum happening in regards to leading up to the possible vote in the sale of the high school. And so we're currently in the process of finishing up our phase two brownfield study. We'll get those results, hopefully here in the next couple of months. That's a really important step to get that part finished. And so what the other piece is, if you remember, we've been trying to work on is making certain we mitigated the floodplain concern so that upon the sale of the high school building, that the town would then be able to tap into federal grant funding to help support that project. And one of the things that needs to happen in order for that to occur is the mitigation of the floodplain. And so the last step to this mitigation appears to really be us. If you were to look out at the high school right now, you'll see that by the auditorium, there's a set of double doors and a single door that shoots out to the field here that during Irene there was some flooding that occurred. And so they, through working with Dubois and King, one of the things that we can do to mitigate that is to install these like steel barriers on the doors. So what they do is, and this is all recognized as an appropriate mitigation in regards to mitigating the floodplain. And so what they do is you instill these panels that you can then, if we were to hear like this summer that there was flooding, there was a concern that was gonna happen, you literally go in and you slide in the steel barrier and it stops the water from being able to enter the building. And this would then hopefully be the last step for us. In regards to being able to mitigate that floodplain concern. So compared to what it could have been originally as we were talking through, we were worried about excavation and things. This is a really cost effective way to do it. And so I'm here tonight to say to the board, I think it makes sense for us to take this action because that will take care of this floodplain concern as we move forward with the town looking to, as soon as essentially once this level two Greenfield studies completed, I have every indication to believe, sorry, Brownfield. Yeah, what did I just say? Green. Sorry. Sorry. Study, completing that the town is going to be working with this Envision Group to move forward. The other thing I would say is that, that group that's been doing a lot of this work around re-envisioning is also looking at possibly becoming a nonprofit to help support the town with this next step. So there's a lot of seriousness about this and significant steps taken to address it. So the cost of each one of these barriers is 5,000. And then. We are also taking care of the door on the auditorium. Yes. Besides these other. Yes, three doors. Three doors, right. So the total cost in the parts, the barriers would be 15,000. And then we'll need to add somebody to install them. I had Tara do research on your capital improvement funds. Rochester itself does still have based, so when you sold the down the line day care, there was 70,904. We used $57,020.93 for the alarm system. That leaves 13,088.307 left in that reserve. I was thinking of considering that recommended that we would use the rest of that. That's not, remember we created this new Rochester Stockbridge reserve. This would finish out that reserve. And then the administration, me and Tara Lindy and I would look to use what you already have budgeting, your typical maintenance and improvement budget lines to find the rest for installation in that last couple of thousand. You said 15,000 for the barriers. The barriers themselves are gonna cost 15. Lio felt like we could get them installed for less than five, but five was the number I was using just because to be safe. So what you had sent me before was not to exceed 20,000? Is that's? Correct, but that would still, that was me thinking that we would cover all of it in capital reserves, because remember you have to give us explicit permission for the capital reserve. So I was gonna suggest that we, you would move to do this project and access the 13,088.307 in capital reserves to pay offset the cost. Then we'll find the rest of the money in the local budget, but that would, a big chunk of this would come out of that Rochester fund and it would cover 80% of the. Discussion? And do you have anyone else have any questions for me? Cause I'm gonna jump in with G-HUD. No, that's why we need capital reserve funds, for example. Thank you. Is there any more discussion? Okay, then I would like to make a motion to provide permission for the administration via the capital, the Rochester capital building reserve fund to install the floodgates in the areas of concern at the high school with the cost not to exceed, to draw funds from the Rochester capital improvement fund in the amount of $13,883.07. So move. Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion? Yeah, just what do you think your arm in? It's great. I mean, there were other proposals that were more expensive and automatic and things like that, but this was the most cost effective. And you know, the one on that's basically what the area underneath the music room. I mean, that's really isn't used much. So I mean, though, we can just leave them and install it most of the time and just open it up if we have to store something there. It used to be used for the tractor. So the only one we can worry about is still there. Oh, it's still there. All right, so the tractor's still there. So. Yeah, well. And then the other would be the auditorium, putting that in and out. All right, is there any more discussion? The motion has been made and seconded. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All right, so moved. Okay. Is there any, oh, yeah. 10-2. I would like to make a motion that we change our regular scheduled meeting time from 5.30 the first Monday of the month to six o'clock the first Monday of the month, alternating campuses as we have been. I can make that motion. Okay. Second. Moved and seconded by Robert and seconded by Bill. Is there any discussion? Right, all in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Well. Okay, so moved. Okay. Now we'll move on to new hires or reservations. I think we're good. Okay, are we still looking for? We're settled. Right, unless a point two world language person comes out of the woodwork, we are staffed. Okay, so we're always, we're still looking for language, but. Okay. All right, well then let's move on to 12 public comment. Do we have any public on? No. Okay. I just would like to mention that we had discussed doing some temperature monitoring in the high school. I have just installed for my own house what I think is a good candidate system and I'm trying it out while I go to California. So. Ooh, okay. But. How long? Pardon me. How long? Oh, in California? Yeah. Two weeks about. Have you got the permission of the cheer? We had a party yesterday. So you'll be back by the time of our next meeting. Yes. Oh yes. Absolutely. Just checking out. So are you in touch with, is it Lindy that you're talking to about these temperature monitors? Lyle, who? Yeah, I think it was recommended by Perkin and he had emailed, but I also in looking for something from where myself came up with this other and I'm trying it out. Okay. It's how easy it is. When I have it tested, I will get back and it's actually, you know, it is accessible from anywhere rather than from life through the Wi-Fi system. So. Only thing to keep in mind is if we use power, the generator doesn't power it up. Right. I don't know how that impacts all of that. That's good to be aware of. Yeah. I'm not that type of. Okay. Well, all the individual monitors are battery-powered. Okay. Rechargeable battery powered and then there's a hub which doesn't need power, but we might come up with a battery backup for it. Okay. So we'll put something together. But it means we can, and it'll alarm too. So I'm not sure, I have to get back to find out which areas we need to. Set it up, yeah. And then we'll go through and figure out how many hubs we need, depending on what the range, the hub talks to the Wi-Fi to the outside world, but it then talks by either ZigBee or a different protocol to all the sensors. Okay. Well, I think that's beneficial. We wanna secure this, save this building as best possible way, keep it safe and secure. So, okay. Thank you. Sounds good to me. Thank you very much. So, I actually didn't print out the second page after public comment. All right, so, our next meeting date is going to be Monday, November 6th at six o'clock at the Stockbridge campus. For future agenda items, I already have the protocol score sheet and quite possibly chapter one of Book Club. And I possibly, the goals will be able to board goals. Does anybody else have anything they want to bring up at this point for future agenda items? And you can always email me or call me throughout the month. We usually try to get at least a week before a week and a half before we try to finalize the agenda, so. Okay. Great. Well, if that's it, then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So move. All in favor? Yeah, yeah. Aye. Thank you, Pat, for joining us. Oh ho. It's a cutie.