 All right guys so since we have enough for a quorum we will call to order. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? All right approve the minutes of Monday April 17th. Is there any discussion on the minutes? All right hearing none so moved is there any board correspondence? Are there any public comments? All right hearing none reports to the board that to you Jamie move right along. All right so you have my report in hand I'm just gonna give a real brief just couple legislative things. There's a lot of exciting things happening that were in the report. We're really excited the agency I just wanted to highlight two things the agency education was out at the White River Unified District on Friday looking at our community schools grant and then they are out in Rochester Stockbridge tomorrow looking at some of our literacy work in our work and around our primary grades and work around the science or reading so we're excited about that so I just wanted to highlight those two things the otherwise legislative update universal meals got through it's going to be within the ed fund and then otherwise everything else we talked about nothing was really actionable right so in regards to the bills we have been talking about around Carson v. Macon that died in said of ed they didn't even really take it up the bill that got out of the house that some folks spoke I know board members wrote supporting senate ed committee really didn't discuss it once they got there and then the other bill that we are still awaiting I haven't seen that the governor has signed is that they did extend PCB testing in additional two years and then provided 100 coverage around abatement if schools were to find that they had elevated PCB levels and again that bill I haven't been able to confirm yet the governor has signed that bill and there was some talk that that one could possibly face a veto so I need to go on the the website for the legislature and look at the governor's time stamps and then I'll be able to give you an update on when those things are signed and I can send an email to the full board letting you know when the actions are taken and then the other one is the early member we talked a lot about pre-k and four-year-olds those programs offering full-day pre-k trying to get a 1.0 average daily membership because we do educate them full days five days a week and the house ed discussed that I think they quickly realized that that wasn't going to be something that was going to be palpable as far as reconciling that adjustment with the senate and so they went ahead and focused on providing subsidy for childcare but didn't touch anything to do with public school funding around pre-k which was too bad and so really a lot of these things that we talked about and that were in the legislature really did not the senate I would say it's the farthest apart I've seen the senate and the house on many bills in a very long time so we'll see if any of these get picked back up next year and I'll entertain in questions folks may have Bill Yeah, Jamie and your report you talked about finalizing our plans to create a makerspace at the Belville campus that will be accessible to both our community and students across the WRBSU as I'm learning a lot could you fill us in on what this all about it sounds great yeah so uh as part of the member the White River Valley Middle School was a recipient of the community schools grant two years ago and so that work now is starting it took it it's the grant was written in that it was focused on the middle school then was going to expand out to the high school we've actually started expanding already in year two across the SU like having our community conversations things of that nature and then the third year the grant is focused on SU wide work around how do we bring community partner with community get more community into our schools and then provide more opportunities for our students to get out into the community and so through that work we've had some educators along with on the Adams visited the generator which I did link in a link into my board report around what the generator is about up in Burlington that's actually offsite this concept around a community-based learning space that provides hands-on experiential learning for kids right but is done in a community setting where you're you're partnering student learning with community and so what we're looking to do is host a space like that in the White River Valley Middle School and we receive funding to put in things like 3d printers laser right cutter cutter thank you ray there's some technology that we're going to have in place there that kids can then use with the idea being that it would support pathways learning but also support things like our science and math teachers for example that they could bring their classes into the maker space and have applicable learning so the exciting thing is we're looking to launch this at the Bethel school this coming summer we believe we're going to have enough community school funding then to support learning spaces like this in all of our middle schools and possibly our high school so that we could have maker spaces at newton a maker space of course space is more challenging in some buildings than others sarah's smiley but ideally having a maker space in all three middle schools and in our high school this will be will we getting federal funding for another year or is it continue beyond this the community schools grant is funded at 250 a year for three years so we have another 250 000 next year through the community school grant and then part of why the agency was out here was to do an assessment around like what might we need for sustainability purposes around further funding that grant we were the largest recipients when we received that that grant so looking at for sustainability purposes how do we continue to pursue it the other thing we're looking at for grant funding because we've leveraged some of this money to start after school clubs up for our middle school is that we are up for another 21 century grant funding for the su that grants up at the end of next year and the agency of education has been supportive of us pursuing 21c funds to expand our programming through our middle schools to continue to support our after-school club work that we've been doing um at the white river valley middle school and hope to expand again to first branch and provide some more opportunities at the newton middle school well and so i was excited thank you all right anything else for jamie guys all right okay thank you um in my report uh this month you saw updates on where we are with assessment both locally and statewide uh as well as we sort of um kind of hurtle towards the finish line on this year year long work of proficiency um across all our content areas i've been getting updates on on that and reviewing all those documents um so i'm happy to take any and then there's a report on the academic report i can take any questions on the my main report questions guys go ahead bill so are we talking about the um the test results at this point is that the question you're asking if we have any questions or sure we can talk about that on the same page okay a couple first of all in your cover sheet on that you mentioned three different testing programs you talked about the first one has to do with um the the tmp that is what we're utilizing right now to measure the performance of our students k through k through eight right right then you mentioned d i b e l s decibels into the year assessment for k through two students and as as i wanted to get a sense of what that's what that's trying to measure that um tmp isn't measuring um put that in kind of context and is it measuring you know math reading and science or what and then you mentioned um v cap which we had a phenomenal sound like implementation of that um and that's a state um measurement tool so could you just kind of how those relate it seems like the first two are helping us figure out how our kids are doing and what we need to do to get them to move forward and the v cap was basically the state's assessment of our progress um um is that about it or uh help me here sure sure thank you bill uh and i do i have worked really hard not to include acronyms that i haven't defined but i think as we get towards end of the year i i forget to redefine them also when we have new members so thank you for the reminder so correct the benchmark assessment right now that we're using in kindergarten through eighth grade is track my progress that measures both english language arts and math and those are the results that you saw in you know after october and january so we're looking again right those now dibble stands for the dynamic indicators of basic early literacy and it's a um a series of one minute measures on foundational literacy skills um and that we this is what we have implemented new this year through um our with using our literacy interventionists who have been in a pretty intensive professional um learning course with me or i'm taking i'm taking alongside them uh on how to use this and then also use different instructional tools to really improve our literacy instruction for kids so um that is we are using that with all of our k two students universally and then um in some cases with grades all the way up to six um with interventionists if they were seeing students and wanted to use that as an additional tool um and then you're at the vt cap is the vermont comprehensive assessment program that is the state summative that um we are in the initial year of it uh i would like to think that it could be helpful i think at this in in measuring how our students do and using that information i think given that we will not see any sort of results until um at least august at this point i don't know how helpful it will be in this coming year um but hopefully as they are able to iron out any of the challenges with reporting and being able to move up that reporting window we could have the information sooner and it could help us um prepare for the next year and see where our students are and how we want to start the year off and what we want to make sure that we have in terms of instructional um focuses for those students in different grade levels but at this point i don't i don't think that one is as helpful to us as the other two uh in meeting our students need yeah absolutely i mean sounds like track my progress is right away before we get onto the longer tutorial um if i may um the su results i compared them with the uh r said results rochester stock bridge and they as you would think they're different and got me thinking about um our six different districts um do they all march to the same drummer relative to uh like rochester stock bridge uses bridges for their elementary math programs and they use um uh direct instruction for for um for reading and spelling and are all our districts using the same tools or not and because the reason i ask is we have different results and i'm curious about the analysis are the results based on what and one of the questions i have is it are they based uh the results based on different programs that we're using in math and in english um language art so are we all on the same do they all get all six all school elementary schools have the same programs or do we have two or three that we're utilizing and measuring at this point so bill i'll field this actually because i actually have i made this decision this this came from the superintendent's office so what i have said since i've started here is that we were not going to mandate a one size approach for what instructional tools we use as an su because as i toured here and as the board interviewed me three years ago it was clear that there was a desire for some local decision making around teaching teachers and principals making informed decisions around what instructional tools they wanted to use and a reminder like our curriculum meets our speaks to the ends that we want our kids to meet and achieve at things like di or bridges are the instructional tools we may use to get there and so what we have done as an su is say that districts have to settle on the same instructional tool and so in mathematics right now we have two instructional tools bridges and envisions being used in our elementary schools and one of the pluses i think of that is it has allowed us to start to monitor data our student achievement um and be able to start to compare some of that across those districts so we have two districts using envisions and then the rest of our districts are used in bridges and then in literacy and has been working with principals and teachers to make certain that we are selecting research based tools to address the science of reading in phonics and phonemic awareness and and i can go into which of those tools we're using currently universally but again what we have said as an su is that as a district you have to choose the same instructional tool and that it has to be research based and i'm a i won't even go back to my prior career but um we had little city halls in boston because each neighborhood was a little different and um that was quite successful the reason i'm asking the question is we've got some good data now and the key data that i look at is annual progress rate in both math and in reading and it seems to me that um we don't have much time to reach our goal of 2025 and if you look at the numbers of those using bridges and those using envisioning those using di versus something else um something may or may not pop out but it seems to me that i like your guidance but if it's clear that one methodology is better than another it seems to me it's beholden to us to be aware of it and make a conscious decision why we wouldn't move more quickly to a more universal methodology if that of the data shows that if it doesn't that's something else but the reason i ask is the board does not have that data nor your analysis and my my request is that at some future meeting we have a sense of that going forward um we're making tremendous gains and if there's a a laggard results based on a methodology then the question i would ask is should we move it along to another methodology or more training whatever the case is yeah i know i appreciate that bill i would want to have that be the sentiment of the board because that is certainly not the direction i was given from the board when i was hired or from my local district boards that they wanted a one-size-fits-all approach to instructional tools so i would need better direction from the full board about whether that's a desire is it so it's been several um more than the decades since i've been in the classroom but but um when i was there uh one method didn't fit everybody is that still a accurate assessment or not well on there can certainly jump in i mean what i would say is is that we try to select teaching tools so that there's a predictable scope and sequence for kids right and what we also try to say to teachers is we also trust your expertise and so what i would say is that we want folks to implement these tools with fidelity but i also think like we talked about a menu of interventions the approach that we use for kids has to be personalized and individualized and so you're right sarah i would say that i don't think that a one size always necessarily meets every kid right hopefully universally meets 80 percent of our kids and that's sometimes why we have interventions in different approaches to gap fill and that's why we have a menu of interventions um and so you know what i would say too about comparing district to district right now is i would also say that we are all in a different place around implementation with what we are currently using with fidelity and so some schools have been implementing an approach with fidelity and longer than other schools and so i would worry about making universal like significant decisions on what the best program is right now because we're pretty early in an implementation phase in some of our districts anything else on the right guys thanks great feedback and tara good evening everyone you have my report and i will answer any questions that you may have i outline a couple different areas in this report along with providing the budget overview for all the districts and then your quarter three projections any questions for tara all right thank you tara let her off easy tara do you want to just highlight anything on the projection still trending to a surplus but really i the only adjustments i made since the last projection where i put in a few items in the area of overspending where we make it we'll have to make adjustments which some of it we'd already gone over as far as new teacher assessments copier leases and then in the advertising so those are really the only areas that changed in this projection go ahead bill yeah hi tara i'm looking at the second page of the fiscal year 23 projections and i'm looking at the second page of it all and i'm looking at the last three lines summary of financial operations 20 um 19 20 21 and 22 um i'm assuming 22 is going to show up when you have that information oh it must have got cut off on my print it was on there bill sorry well maybe i printed out incorrectly so i apologize for that i didn't mean to do that um help me here why would fisker your 19 and 20 have the same number is that one of our funds that we had to do further um clarification on that's why we had the same amount that was our what's we call um fund 12 which is our shared funding so when we have positions that are being held at the supervisor and we build back the districts for those positions that is the fund where that's allocated from so there was a surplus in that fund that we cleaned up in 22 okay great thank you you're welcome all right all right thank you tara um and i skipped over a net so it's a net it's turned out thanks you're welcome so in the special education department we're just working hard to wrap up the school year and plan and prep for the next school year so if you have any questions i'd be happy to attain those all right any questions for a net all right a net that was easy peasy thank you all right and ray great i'm gonna bring up my report and would be happy to field uh any questions in person or virtually bill yeah i want to again congratulate you and your team uh in each school to um to be prepared and to handle the new v-cap testing protocol and and and all the the computerization and that going on and it sounds like by your report that we were one of one of the best in that and also that sounds like our results are going to be pretty darn good too um my question is that you indicated with modesty that the SU used federal funding to help the way i read it upgrade replace our technology equipment from computers to whatever else you want to call it and that helped us be prepared and to handle the v-cap um first-year rollout and i wanted to it seems to me that's a great example i'm jayme you've used that before where we were trying to use federal monies to help build our capacities going forward not in a dependency way but in a way that um can allow us to have better results are possibly more efficiently provided so um is that basically what we've got here that's right bill uh so these numbers in the reporter from last thursday as of midday today we were 94 percent done two percent in process and four percent remaining i think but more to your question uh it is the superintendent's expectation that each of us in our departments do our part to forecast and plan as best we can so yes we used uh esser money to replace wi-fi access points in many of our buildings and also to buy chromebooks that would have been 14 months ago in july 1 trying to do the math 22 i guess in advance and we were also the first people in the state to know that we were getting a new assessment so we had some advanced notes we forgot about that um again congratulations thank you all right guys anything else for reg all right moving right along white river valley policy committee board civility and code of ethics policy um we just voted on that to move it out of committee and to the full board and perspective boards to look at um and hopes that it will be move along and go through for adoption i believe we were thinking august timeline if but so we would like everyone to take a look at it email any feedback to jamie or myself and so we can make sure we get those he can get get those changes in um and we will entertain any questions if you've had a chance to look at that policy and i know there were some changes that were made do you want to highlight those jamie yeah sure so um based on the feedback we received from eric lopez uh through the strafford board you'll see that it makes this um it clearly starts to define in paragraph three that board members shall um act within their scope of their official role or before it talked about they would commit um so it really speaks to when you become a board member here the policy is that you shall act this way um and so that uh the policy committee last month determined would strengthen the policy um and then based on feedback that we received through the white river unified district board and specifically through board chair andrew jones there were some changes made to the complaints of board civility and code of ethics that gives the board some more um i guess they can differentiate in regards to how they may act if they find that someone um has um violated the policy and so the tools that it provides is not just censor censure um but the board can um also cross could decide to formally request that a person resign um and that this language and andrew can speak to it further is based out of the language that um corresponds with the vsba code of ethics as a way for the board to handle a possible violation of the code of ethics within their um essential tools manual essential tools yes correct andrew yeah that's right i was along with the uh that they had kind of a sample um model policy and so i had taken kind of the the steps from that and just adapted it to kind of our situation and it seemed like they had a good model policy and that it gave some discretion as to you know if there is a complaint depending on the severity there's different steps and then depending on the severity um and then if once you decide whether you want to you know hold the hearing at the board level then there's some different options for what can happen so it seemed like it was well fleshed out so i thought it'd be good to put that in i haven't read this i apologize for that but there was conversation at the strafford board um several times about people who make complaints complaints and um the right for the the the board member to be able to see the person so uh whether it's virtually or in person for that person for that person to be visible to the um to the to the board you know to the board that's that's hearing it is hot in there at all no it says the person can actually just issue a written complaint to the board doesn't actually say they have to come forward to the board with their hearing what happens then the board could just take up the written complaint it says any other questions guys and and definitely think go ahead bill i thought that's an interesting point my question is uh back on the day um members of my team would come over for a while and say hey we're going out with a bunch of um people it could be somebody that does business with the the town or the city whatever the case may be and uh they want to pay for a round of golf or somebody says they'll kind of go out with a a vendor and they pay for my my lunch or my cup of coffee so i think back in massachusetts there was kind of a a finding a dollar limit on how you did to find that um that amount uh a certain supreme court justice seems to have stretched that a bit but is there a law like that or regulations in vermont and how do we handle you know just the person just wants to pay the tab is that okay or is that a de minimis um so i'm seeking clarification rather than pointing suggesting a point of view on this view on this we have a policy on it bill okay and it says zero that's current policy coincidence or not that was my policy too and um it just keeps it nice and easy um so that's that's handled separately than this yeah thank you jame all right guys anything else on the this policy we'll be watching for the feedback and if we don't see any jamie we'll move it forward to to go for the the number of readings that requires um to get it warned and approved all right um we're evaluating superintendent evaluation committee superintendent 23 24 professional goals so the superintendent evaluation committee worked with jamie and we've came up came up with a set of goals for um the 23 24 school year and we'd like you to take a look at them and then we would also like to act and approve them if it is the flavor of the group tonight so we can get them into jamie's formal evaluation do you guys have people had a chance to take a look at them do people have questions about them this is a really easy yes ma'am if nobody has any questions or any question they would like to have so i make a motion to approve the superintendent's evaluation goals as uh written i second all right is there any discussion just can i just because not some board members are new just before you vote i wanted to just go through the process we do for new members so uh just so and current members so just so everyone knows i i receive feedback from all of our board members on leadership proficiencies that are identified by the vsba and all the admin team members that um i serve so our principal central office administrators that data is compiled it's then shared with the evaluation committee which has membership on each of your boards we then they meet they review the results with the vsba i then come and meet with them we talk about what areas might we want to uh further focus on or revise from the current professional goals i have then they worked on um their thoughts around that i drafted up some goals we then met for an hour again last thursday the committee and myself to combine our thoughts and that's how we get to this document i just wanted folks to know there's there's that's the process we used to get to hear and jamie i would just add to that it's it's the survey that comes out right around march time um that that is where we compile this information so not everybody filled it out so we need your input on on this so when you get it even if you're leaving the board um it's really important that you give that information because you have at least a year or two of experience on the board to add into that and that's really important for us to have for us to have that information thank you sir a very good point um michael um so i'm i'm curious when i look at the language in um number one a recommended actions for 2324 the very first one is meter exceed uh student achievement goals and targets and then if you read the rest of the language produce produce produce recommend work with develop collaborate continue i it's not that i don't want to see us continue to set um goals that we're trying to achieve um i have some reservations about telling the superintendent we have to meter exceed certain goals in terms of the pressure that that implies and i'm just curious jamie about your thoughts about that and i think you know me well enough to know that i'm interested in seeing us do a better job and have the kids succeed but that language to me is not consistent with the rest of the document i just have a question about that thanks michael um so so and the board can certainly speak to this as well this was that task was included after the board adopted those benchmark achievement goals last fall so then it was included as part of my professional goals and my sense is to create emphasis on us meeting that goal um i don't want to speak for the board my sense is that once we produce social emotional goals and targets that they're probably going to expect us then to meet or exceed those but i'd be curious to have the board feels i appreciate the question um we also did talk about um the importance of keeping the board abreast of all these and that i would say to the board and i had said that to the this to the committee that some of these actionable tasks are stretch yes um there's a lot here right and our strategic plan is a stretch plan the work we're trying to do um and so those would be my my answers to that question michael i would just end by saying that as a academic leader for a few years in the past i want to make sure that we're encouraging you and the faculty and staff in the schools to do the best they can without having administrative people pressure leaning on people to do something that's outside of a reasonable expectation because then the the net result is counterproductive and so how we assess that and balance that i think is going to be an interesting job for all of us on the board um and i just want to raise that as a concern now thank you thank you know hi mike i think those are very good points um a couple comments first of all the language the actual goals that were adopted by um the su board the goals and um and the language came in our request of the superintendent to develop goals to be able to monitor and hopefully um get the best we can out of our kids within a certain period of time that's a definition of a goal or an objective so and by definition um goals need to be worked out with in this case the superintendent um and so this wasn't done absence of of jamie saying it can be done he also mentioned the word stretch and i use the term sometimes back as kind of risk we go after goals that are risky in the sense that we might not be able to achieve them why are they important is that with a foundation of trust and teamwork and organization can it can achieve more than sometimes they even believe that they can achieve and if it wasn't for that stretch goal once in a while we might not be that gotten there so quickly but the underlying that is the teamwork and trust and if if staff felt that we were just trying to shove something down the throat and looking for an excuse to um to have them come out and hang out and dry um the whole goal setting process would be a farce we don't have that here and we're blessed by having a really good team and we work these things out together and i think quite honestly every series of goals there should be some stretches in there um it isn't like my goal is i'm going to show up at work and put in an eight-hour day so um i i think your comma is well taken i think we've got the building blocks of trust teamwork um and an organization that can achieve in some places in vermont the unachievable and um i'd love to see us be there first and we're on that path and the goal setting is helping us get there so so michael i would say that since we started this process with the bsba and the goal setting and um the way we're doing the evaluation process now each each year that we've done it we've set these goals and we've talked about them at the end and if if so one of these some of these goals may be goals from that we're expanding upon from last year so i don't i don't think we're trying to set expectations that are unrealistic because i don't believe in doing that either but i think that we like to get them on there so we so it's more of a where we want to end up um not put too much pressure on jamie to get this all done in a year we know sometimes it's going to take more than one year to accomplish the goal so it's not yeah i don't does that make sense it does and i i don't think we're on a different page um and and i'll just stop now i i think i would rework that a little differently in the future and i'll just throw my two cents in in the future so okay so i don't i don't want to derail the conversation i just want to point that out for the record because i think i'll raise it again yeah no and i think it's a really important conversation to have um i put put a lot i think we put a lot of effort into this process to make sure we do a good job so i think any and all feedback is welcome um dustin yeah thanks yeah i'm of course new so i'm still coming to speed on a lot of this stuff and uh yeah i like how uh these goals i do appreciate that they are uh tangible you know like that's one of the we get cold sweats you know i work at hitchcock you know we have to come up each year that time where we had to come up with our goals for the for the year um and then we come up with the tangible ones and one of the things that we have to do is actually uh we have to check our progress every now and then so uh do we have things in place to so that we can you know support you in these goals like are there um progress points that we check uh that we can you know have checkpoints yeah i mean i think part of that is of how i'm i look at it part of my my monthly reports to you guys dustin should be hitting on these topics right and so that my written reports are progress monitoring these areas um and then you know what we did last year was the board actually aligned their goals to support the superintendent's goals so the and when you're going to talk about your current goals here in a little bit around progress monitoring those and so um what i would say is is that i think that that has felt as bill was alluding to is that it's not just these are not just the work of the superintendent these are the work of the organization um and um certainly the work of the board because the board aligned their work to support the the superintendent's work in pursuing this um it's also why i thought that i think the first line is so important um within these these proposed goals is that it's you know it speaks to that the superintendent's professional goals are aligned in support of the work articulated in the strategic plan so i think it's important that we are really framing all of our work that that strategic plan is guiding the work forward of the s u and so there's really not anything within these goals that i don't believe you would see a close link to within our strategic plan and so i and then i think it's even more powerful when the full board looks at these goals looks at our strategic plan and they commit to goals as a board that are supporting that work of both of those things so do we have a motion yeah we were at discussion okay is there any other discussion on the second yeah all right so um all those in favor say aye any nays so so moved superintendent goals are approved thank you everyone i only have a couple more gray hairs now i'm just and i do want to say that for the for the process of the the work that we do with the vsba on this um the the review and evaluation process it was excellent for jamie and it was we got really great feedback from all the people that filled it out but sarah's right we really need all the boards to to get on board and it's it's um sometimes you're not sure but we're sometimes you get that email we're going to try to make sure we send it for more individual board members instead of from the bsba so it doesn't get lost in inbox but it's it's really important to have everybody's feedback so that um we know we're going in the right direction and it helps jamie a lot for your progress monitoring board goals so discussion review and progress monitoring of 2223 right river valley s use board goals is next do you want me to facilitate this yeah so um this was a request by bill bill did you have anything to add before i start the conversation talking about the the board goals for this for this year yeah yeah um well it's as um several of you have mentioned the goal setting process um was a collaborative one between the um the superintendents evaluation committee and then the full board and the superintendent and um it was the logical and essential piece of that process is to have board goals so that their superintendent is aware of and is in basically moving in the direction the board wants so it's an opportunity for us to to articulate the important areas we want to focus on emphasize on improve hold the line whatever the case is it could be fiscally it could be facilities management and operations it could be academics or social emotional and so we did that and many of the goals that were adopted by this board um reflected the goals of the superintendent because even though he's carrying them out with his team he needs the support guidance and assistance of the su board and the district boards if he's going to succeed so it's a very logical linkage and what you're looking at is what was uh voted on um last year and um part of the process is that we're going to hold the the superintendent accountable in his teams we should hold ourselves accountable and so i don't know how much time we have it kathy and i don't know whether you want to have this as a conversation or it lead to some sort of action um but it speaks to how did we do and where did we fall short and those things get us thinking because very soon from now whether we do it in a retreat or early next year we need to establish goals for this next coming academic year so it's a very important step in this process so i'll turn it back i've got some some comments on how we did but i just wanted to delay the framework first and give it back to kathy so what i what i was going to suggest to the board is is that um i think the tool that we use to monitor my goals allows board members to think through provide comments and rate the goals of the superintendent i was curious to the board's thoughts about us developing a google form for you that we would send out similar rating scale that we use to measure my goals to collect board member rating and feedback on your own goals and that we would have that data collected in in a in a ready to use form when you go into your board board retreat so that was a possible idea that i was going to offer as how you might consider progress monitoring to this doesn't mean you can't discuss some of them now but i i'm curious to your thoughts around if that would be helpful i think that's a really good idea actually jamie i think that gives people an opportunity to take time and think about it and respond sarah i i agree too i think it then it would be a good jump off place for for discussions to have that data um and then i think the discussion would would not be so random so i would agree with what jamie just proposed i didn't mean to do that again okay so uh this is something jamie we could produce how would we how would i'll take care of the survey and getting it out to folks i'm just i was looking i've only heard from the cup like i'm just looking is there a census from the board like can we do a straw poll or that i kind of get can i get a thumbs up on from the board members that are feeling like this is a good good idea and a way to to do this looks like everybody right yeah this is great idea and it gives people a chance to like think through and um give some good feedback i think instead of trying to do it on the fly at a meeting and then we can talk about that at a meeting all right so i'll i'll work to get a survey put together and out to board members with a cover letter of the why because not every board member is here tonight um by the end of next week thank you all right thank you very much all right so um whatever valley of full board retreat date time focus of meeting um we we had a full board retreat last year it went i the it went really well there wasn't a huge we didn't get a huge turnout we got a fairly size turnout but we could have done better sort of like the superintendent survey but we had some focus and some icebreakers and things that really made it a pretty good meeting so we'd like to start getting some ideas on dates that we could do this we picked a i think it was a week night we did it right we did it on a weeknight last time and we did it at um the high school any thoughts um is it something we want to do right after the board reorgs do we want to do it at before at like in june before um we all take off for the summer or do we want to do it when we come back what are people's thoughts i think that doing it in the summer um allows for you know um i don't know what people's work schedule are but but sometimes it tends to to allow for a longer period of time so that we can really flush out some things that we need that we have the time to do that so um so i would go and i think maybe august would be better than june because june gets so tied up with graduation and and end of the year stuff and um not that august isn't busy too but um those are my thoughts but i do it anytime anybody's available i would do it anytime too and i i think august would work work well selfishly because june is going to be crazy for for our family so for a lot of families all right so do we want to work on an august date yeah yeah um i've had not success now i haven't had i have not had great success when i've sent out doodle polls to board members we tried that last year and we got held up a bit so um what a what does the board feel like if we were early in advertising and we said we were going to take the august su date i'm just using as an example right that everyone's typically accustomed to going to and we said we were going to lengthen that and make it into a retreat or we we moved that like i'm just thinking instead of asking the full board to come out twice if we said we're going to have an august meeting but it's going to be longer and it's going to be a retreat and we start communicating to that to folks sooner rather than later tanny what times are you thinking i mean i school starts for me on the 22nd which is the next full board meeting in august um so i mean what what times did you have in the past i wasn't i didn't it wasn't there i think you did come to me actually we did it in the evening we did if i'm remembering right in february we started at like five and i think we went to eight or eight thirty and we had dinner am i remembering correctly folks remember at royalty it was definitely into the we we didn't we started after school was out that night i think it was i would say it was five five ish that we started it couldn't have been because i i wouldn't have gotten there until like quarter of six so i think it started at six o'clock um people came in late but you know or after we had started to i don't know if you were one of them but no i was there before anybody else oh so i just i'm yeah i i'm but i maybe do some kind of survey jamie i don't know after we've restructured um i don't know jamie what about the 15th which would be the third tuesday that has board meetings happening right now the second tuesday's open i can do the second tuesday eight okay with that but i do like the idea of doing it during our regular slotted time towards the end of august well i could narrow a poll down to two dates all right at times we could offer the eighth in the regular meeting and just see what we get the most sounds good all right so you're going to have a survey and a doodle poll come into your inbox your job is to make sure you respond to both and tell your fellow board members to also check their inbox and respond to both or you don't get dinner at the retreat that's right no dinner dinner was really good we actually played what game did we play we played a game too it was fun so you can have games and food and get to hang out with some pretty cool people i'm working asked for um all right so electric bus rebate program yeah so i just wanted to give the board an update because we haven't talked about it for a while that our work as an su around remember we received funding through the epa through an electric bus rebate program for sixty thousand dollars in infrastructure to provide a charging stations to support three electric vehicles across the su and then they would they would provide us funding for three buses so we've of course switched contracted service providers and one of the things of this rebate program is that we needed to be able to demonstrate to the epa that we had taken three current diesel buses off the road and so we wanted to make certain that we were working in conjunction with our new transportation provider to be able to do that we're feeling like that's going to be fine that they're going to be able to take three diesel buses off the road and then Tara and i um have been working with the epa we did get an extension um not to request payment for the vehicles because we haven't placed in order yet um we requested an extension till december to make certain we had all the infrastructure worked out that it was going to be covered by the grant that we knew that electric vehicles were going to be supporting three runs and that one of the things that we're working with the epa and it with is they find that the rating for electric buses in colder states uh for example uh thomas buses their range load uh i'm just throwing this out don't don't i'm not saying this is accurate is 120 miles without needing a charge that in the cold months that that can go down as low as low as 60 we could lose half and so where we're at currently right now is working with our new transportation provider around mapping out our routes providing that with the with the technical support at the epa to ensure that electric vehicle would be able to actually navigate our routes in the cold months and also right now we are working Tara's working to set up site visits with green mountain power to work in conjunction with them to seek out where is the charging infrastructure making the most sense based on the 60 000 we have we're looking to pursue um building mounted charging structures they're level two i'm already learning more i wouldn't ever say level two to you a month ago so they're level two charging um stations which you can also use with an electric car is what i've learned um and so what we're looking to do is walk with green mountain power make certain we have the infrastructure which has to do with the the actual like transformers that feed our buildings and then our panel boxes within our building so we need green mountain power to help us with that to make certain we have the capacity ideally if you remember we were looking to pursue the electric vehicles in Stratford and Sharon and so we're only running two large buses there next year so that would take two of them and then the other site that we're contemplating right now is possibly in Stockbridge just because the bus is parked in front of that school all the time and so having a a infrastructure right there made a lot of sense um and based on the scope of their route so we're feeling like those are the three areas where we could launch the electric vehicles looking through the lens of the length of the route and the ability to have the infrastructure in place so that's the update i have at this point Tara probably can tell you what i missed um and then i'm going to invite i mentioned this in my written report Stacey Emerson who's the general manager for student transportation of America because they have implemented electric buses in Berry they were one of the first districts in the state to implement electric vehicle and i think there's just been some lessons learned through that process that i want her to share with the board um next month and then the board could ask even more questions um because they have been maintained it's been a few years for them now so they've been able to handle maintenance and things of that nature so i just those are where we're at the next steps i didn't want the board thinking that this just stopped we're continuing to work on Amy what is the dollar figure on this uh rebate program yet here do you remember that figure 1.2 million thank you i did not have that figure off the top of my head i knew it was one something all right thank you for that update any questions okay whatever valley s you fuel and propane contract for 23-24 so i've continued to work with competitive competitive energy who is the buying group that we utilize to obtain our fuel oil and propane pricing and currently the range that we are working with for propane is a dollar 40 to a dollar 52 per gallon and for oil it's two dollars and 80 cents to two dollars and 92 cents per gallon so i would like you to take action if you're willing to accept a contract for up to a dollar 52 per gallon for propane and up to two dollars and 92 cents per gallon for fuel oil so we can lock in early and get these great prices do i have a motion so what tara just said second is there a discussion on the motion tara how does that compare to this year quite a bit better much better yes yeah it should be great we have budgeted in most most like four dollars a gallon for fuel oil so yeah all right any other discussion all right hearing no other discussion all those in favor say aye thank you any nays thank you all right hearing none the eyes have it thank you very much tara all right and we are on to public comment is there any public comment so we have a few people on now one more chance for public comment okay resignations new hires uh and that put in her report we do have um some special educators who are not going to be returning um next year she highlighted those names in her written report for you um but and then she also did make um a hire that she talked about in her report you want to talk about that okay so um so jennifer um is going to be replacing diane double day um as a occupational therapist um and jennifer comes um from the wilder school um in the harford school district um and she has prior experience also as a pe teacher um so she she comes with a wealth of experience in ot and so we're really excited to um to have her she'll be a great addition to the team um she'll be working in um the south railton and sharing campuses um next year where diane double day was currently um serving students and diane's retiring and diane's retiring after june how many years oh my gosh decades yeah so i i want to thank all the staff members who are leaving us for all their service and put a special shout out to diane double day who's retiring after decades of service um to rsu and to the students um in her role as an occupational therapist all right uh any other business next meeting is tuesday june 27th at 6 p.m and if there's no motion to adjourn except for bill just raised his hand i know but kathy skipped over 13 which is future agenda items and i was going to suggest two one is our retreat that's important we want to do it and the second one is board goals important we want to do it so i think that would be both of those would be appropriate for future agenda items to see how we're doing okay thank you bill welcome perfect all right second the motion to adjourn all right all right thank you guys