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And it was that all of you are elected officials who work for your communities. You don't work for the school district. You don't work for the superintendent or any of the other administrators. You work for us. We elect you to be here to represent the needs of our communities. And I think that sometimes.

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somewhat because of things that happen in this room, sometimes things that happen at like

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the SBA trainings, that you can be convinced that you're all supposed to work as one unit

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and always have to be at a consensus or always speaking with one voice and I just want you

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to know that that's actually not true, that's not how democracy works, you actually work

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for your communities and you represent your communities and you can actually have opinions about

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these processes that do not necessarily agree with the majority of what this board says.

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I just want that reminder, if it's helpful for any of you, it was helpful for me.

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I just wanted to pass that on.

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I've heard lots of things, well, I've read things in writing and I've heard things spoken

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by this board saying that this is the beginning of a process that we are not closing schools

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consolidating schools that we are at the beginning of this path that there's a lot of

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time we're going to engage with community. But the reason that people like me keep coming here

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and talking to you is because we're not seeing any alternatives. We're not seeing those community

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engagement opportunities. We're not seeing other plans being talked about this RFP that you have,

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that you're going to potentially approve and send out to people tonight, has one little sentence

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about the potential, the people who will be accepted to perform that process to look at,

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I believe the word is like reasonable alternatives.

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It's just really, it's just really two words, but it seems to me that this board is saying,

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we have this consolidation plan, and we have this status quo.

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I haven't heard anything about anything else.

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Last time when I came, I shared all sorts of ideas about magnet schools, community schools, community partnerships.

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These are actually not fringe ideas.

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These are things that really creative school districts are doing around the country to solve budget crises.

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But I don't hear this board looking into any of those things.

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All I hear this board doing is looking into closures and consolidations.

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And that's the same thing that's been going on for multiple generations of the people who have sat in your seats.

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One of those was me years ago.

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I do not believe this community wants this.

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I think you're going down the wrong path.

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I think any sort of bond or process that is tied to multiple closures is going to be voted down.

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I think you need to think better of this now and do a better visioning transformation process.

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there are other options on the table and I'm really confused and I have been really confused

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for years why this board does not want to look at any of those things.

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If you ask people do you want lower taxes, they will almost always say yes.

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If you ask people do you want lower taxes because we're going to close your community school?

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In my experience, the answer is almost always been no.

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This is a cost benefit analysis that I do not believe you are doing properly and I really

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hope that some of you maybe are thinking something in your mind and it may make you speak up

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and try to shift course here very very soon. Thank you. Thank you Peter. Okay Michelle.

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My name's

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Michelle Baker. I'm from Waterbury. I was formerly on that side of the table as the director

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of finance and operations for many years. I stand before you tonight to address the agenda item

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of the request for proposal for yet another feasibility study.

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Our district has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into previous feasibility studies

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over recent years with very little tangible return on the end of that investment.

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Before we commit more taxpayer dollars to another costly endeavor, I believe the board

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and administration should take some more preliminary steps.

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I think rather than jumping into a study, perhaps you could take these immediate actions.

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One of them was gauge community sentiment.

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Can we conduct a comprehensive survey to gather public feedback on the proposed consolidated

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school location, perform some due diligence, investigate baseline site feasibility,

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specifically

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requirements before hiring outside consultants to do a more detailed study, provide transparent

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enrollment projections. I haven't seen, and I would like to see, and perhaps they're

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available, and I just haven't found them, updated enrollment data, and clearly just

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find why constructing a new facility is superior to optimizing our existing school buildings.

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Also, establish a long pre-K through 12 master plan, clarify how this proposal aligns with

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the district-wide vision and explain how hard-wood union middle school high school fits

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into the funding priorities given the low likelihood of voters approving both a renovation

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and a new school construction.

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In short, fiscal responsibility, detailed specific budget adjustments to handle new debt service

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given that our district consistently operates near the exespinning threshold, had the I feel

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personally that had hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the past studies, been directed

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towards physical building and site improvements, our schools would be in a far better state

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today regarding deferred maintenance. If we want to break this cycle of costly studies, we must

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commit to long-term strategic planning that dictates our short-term actions rather than funding

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projects in search of a plan. I urge this board to exercise true fiscal stewardship, prioritize, transparent, low cost, internal research and community engagement that answers these critical questions before asking taxpayers to fund yet another study. Thank you.

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Thank you Michelle. We are talking in enrollment numbers tonight. Just so you know.

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Yeah, I'll check it out.

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Is there anyone in Zoom who would like to make a comment?

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Okay, thank you. We appreciate you coming and speaking to us.

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Looking for a motion to approve the agenda.

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Emily, do we have a second?

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Second, all those in favor say aye.

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Okay, first item on the agenda is our potential new board member from Watesfield. Her name is Alexina Kaffer. She's in Zoom. Can you either promote her?

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She's going there.

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Oh good.

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She should be able to see her.

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Okay.

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Yep.

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So, Alexina sent us a resume and a letter of interest to join the board.

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We are super grateful.

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She had an endorsement both from JB and from Bobby, the spot she's taking and she's here tonight

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to talk to us.

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She's out of town right now.

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So, if we're appointing her, she will get sworn tomorrow or when she's back

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down. So how are you Alexina? I actually have everyone nice to be here with you. Star

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there's a little background noise. I'm on a work trip right now. It's weird. That's

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okay. We can sort of hear you and something's going on here technically, hold on

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just one second. Like it's just coming on a piss computer. It's there. Okay. Is it on my

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outside? Nope, there you go now. Okay. So welcome and we really appreciate you stepping up to be

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willing to jump in in the middle of it all. That's we're grateful for that. And you can address

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the board if you'd like everyone is here and can see you just go ahead. Hi, everyone, I think you

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received my letter interest in my resume so I won't read that to you, but my name's Alex and a

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there. I live in Wayfield with my three sons who are in preschool, fourth grade and seventh grade

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and that definitely is a huge impetus for me wanting to join the board. I've worked for nearly

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two decades at the intersection of public health education and food policy and I'm hopeful

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that experience will help the board in our community and this next chapter. I'm happy to answer

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any questions about me and my experience and interests that you might have.

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You're background in food policy. Do you have any thoughts on the current food that we serve at our schools?

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Yeah, I think we're really fortunate to partner with local farmers and producers and have the food that we have.

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I mean, just having universal school meals is fantastic.

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A lot of research shows that food at school, even though it gets a bad rap, is healthier than a lot of meals.

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kids eat at home and it's a vital part of the school day. So really happy that we're able to

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commit to that for our kids and based on my experience of seeing a lot of different

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catheterias. I've worked predominantly in the York City, the nation's largest school district,

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but also in Tennessee, Arkansas, California, DC, New Jersey, Florida. And I can say that

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we filled and the Harvard Unified School District is really fortunate to have the meals that they have.

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and the engagement, both from the kids and from the cooks that work with our for our students.

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I have ideas that we can always do different things if wanted.

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We work the organization that I work for called Wellness and the Schools works a lot with food education with kids in tandem, culinary education with school cooks to increase crash cooking.

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So those things together, we find really makes a difference in both participation and the nutritional value of school meals so happy to weigh in, but I think just off the bat, I'll say that I think we're doing a great job.

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Thank you. That may come up. You never know.

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I hope so.

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Make in. Do you have a question?

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I really have a statement, I guess I wanted to make them how it's going to kind of respond to it.

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I just wanted to offer my endorsement.

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I've had the chance to

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delete the early setting her

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towards to your own horn.

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I just went to point out that Alexei does run an advocacy arm for a nonprofit.

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She really understands advocacy beyond just food security and thinking about stay level in a national level advocacy.

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She started a small business.

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Uh, so she has an entrepreneurial spirit, you know, for the same mention, all while having

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a young family in the valley.

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So I just wanted to stand up and, and, uh, endorse her and, uh, really excited about her

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interest in the cork doll of you to, uh, to support her.

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Thanks, Mika.

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Pam,

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I really appreciate you putting your, um, name in the ring here for the seat.

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And I was curious about your appetite to be out of wellness committee in addition to serving

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on the school board.

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I'd love to.

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Okay.

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Good. You're volunteering and you're not even on the board. That's a great.

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Any other questions, anybody? Comments. First Charlotte, then Emily.

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What like new perspective

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do you hope to bring to the school board into our district? You've worked in a lot of different

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places. What kind of insight do you think you can bring to the board in this sense? That's a great

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question. I'm happy to provide any insight, but first I kind of like to get a lay of the land

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learn from others that what's happened to start before just kind of inserting myself, but I can

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say that I've seen a lot of different educational models, including obviously the food part,

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but more so different models for school that I think could be valuable from urban settings,

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so rural settings and everything in between. And I am excited to share that perspective as it fits.

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I, so you're potentially joining the board at a, I'll be one of the most difficult times to join a board.

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So I'm just curious if you have been able to take the time to just kind of familiarize yourself with, you know, any of our like past meetings and ideas to sort of some of the obstacles that we're all getting ready to face.

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And I'm sure, you know, I felt even a little intimidated in my position, listening to public comment.

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There's a lot that's that is about to happen and so just just curious to how you feel about getting into the board during what could be a very contentious period of time with the community.

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That's a great question and I will say I have familiarized myself a little bit just as a parent

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and then as someone who's interested in joining the board and I've had a lot of conversations

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with other parents who share similar concerns and also different concerns.

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I think I still come to the board with an open mind.

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I don't have a clear cut answer right now in my own opinion.

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And I feel, I care deeply so it is hard to hear any type of, you know, discontent, but I think it's impossible to not have people who, people are going to be disappointed. One situation, one outcome or another, and I think a lot of my work in through policy, in particular the last few years, has positioned me pretty well for people being disappointed, unfortunately.

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And I can sit with that and I'm not always perfect but I try really, really hard to listen to people without reacting right away and sharing what I can, you know, opinions or solutions, but just listening.

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I think it's a big part of our way forward too.

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Definitely. Communication seems to be the name of the game right now.

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I also have three kids for a very different ages and are also often unhappy with me at all.

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I'm just kidding.

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So, you know, I'm used to people not getting what they want.

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All boys.

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All boys.

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All boys.

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Rob has a lot of boys too.

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Okay.

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Any more questions or comments for Alexina?

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Okay.

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So I did do diligence and I called Brian Schupe who is the chair of the way it's field select board. He does not know Alexina, but when I said that the recommendations came from Bobby who was was giving somewhat reluctantly giving up her seat and from JB who is friendly with her that they really that felt good and he did he they don't have a meeting until next week, but he was going he yesterday emailed their their group their the select board and told them and

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If they were going to get back with anything, you know, like her police records or anything,

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kidding, totally kidding.

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That he would have done that by now.

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So far hearing anything from them, which I don't think we will.

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In that, is there any further discussion?

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Because if not, we could make a motion right now.

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Discussion?

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I moved to nominate her to the position to take over Bobby's back.

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Second from JB, all those in favor say aye.

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Aye.

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Awesome. Any obsessions or no votes?

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Okay. So the motion to, for the open seat and weights field,

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the two year unexpired seat, which the appointment

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until town meeting of next year, 27,

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when hopefully you will run from that seat.

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You won't run screening. One of those.

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All right. So if you're welcome to sit and listen to this meeting,

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and I recommend that you do, because there's going to be a lot of good

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stuff in here or a lot of interesting stuff. But we will when you get back to town, we will

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have you go get sworn in at your town office. Wonderful. Thanks everyone. Thank you. We're really

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psyched. Okay. All right. Moving on. Moving on to board reports. Everyone saw that. Our report. We don't

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to talk about its students, what do you

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got?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Next slide.

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And we have another parking lot update.

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Continue from last meeting.

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Seniors get to paint their parking spots this year.

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So the senior class will be basically like a lottery.

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You'll get to choose your spot.

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And there will be a requirement like a payment

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and to fundraise for the senior class. Anywhere from I think like $5 to $50, I'm not quite sure

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it's still in the works, but students will get to paint their parking spot and next year the

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rising seniors will get to paint theirs. So the parking lot will be a lot more colorful.

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An admin maybe you can paint your parking spot. If you really want to, wouldn't that be fun?

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Sports are doing good. We don't have a slide for that. We don't have greedy here taking photos

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but sports are doing good volleyball in the gym right now. Emma has some stuff about early

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college. Yes, so I am at Norwich this year for early college as well as I think four or five

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students that go to Norwich, and then several students going to CCV. It's going really

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well, we are definitely getting in the swing of things starting with our first exams. I

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have my first exam on Friday. So yeah, it's pretty awesome.

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I always have to take questions for the

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first meeting. I don't have a written report, but I've had a lot of questions from board members and

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about enrollment. So the state's marker and our marker is October 1st. That's the day we look.

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That's the day we take kind of a snapshot. They call it a snapshot. And then we run many reports

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throughout October and give the board a pretty comprehensive review. So I always start with the

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caveat if I'm giving something in early September that this is still very preliminary.

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It's

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between now and then October 1st snapshot, but that's for yearly comparisons, just your apples

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to apples comparisons we use October 1st, but going into a lot of discussions, I thought

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it was important to share some of this information. So I provided an email to the board, but I

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went through some of the slides to give some perspective. So we were starting the year with 37 students

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fewer than we had at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. And again, these are preliminary.

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There's a couple of different numbers I'll use, but I'm just giving that as a year over

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your comparison. If you're comparing it to what we had on our October 1st snapshot last year,

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it's 29 students. Lisa is also working on some modeling. She's going to give you a part one to night

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And then a more in-depth part two at the next meeting because it's the board knows from

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work that those number counts greatly impact our funding capacity.

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So, a drop of 29 already has leethen aye. Concerned.

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What percentage is that? 2.3. Thank you.

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So district wide, this is just going back. We went back through, I went back through some reports. We have online.

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So Michelle referenced some reports and if you go to our website and you can just go to the little Google search bar and click and roll and search for enrollment and we'll bring up our past

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enrollment reports as well as the projections that we have completed by the

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New England Study Council every year. But looking back from roughly the

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2016-2017 year to now, we were down about 178 students. So that's also another

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just informational piece that's about a 10% decline. You can see we had a bump

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during COVID just because of our location in Vermont, our location within Vermont.

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A lot of people moved here that kind of stemmed that tide and in Lisa and I started in the

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2022, 2022, 2023 school year. We enjoyed a couple of years of relative stability until we started

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seeing a more decline last year. These are two slides that Lisa shared last year. This is just

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a reminder when people ask, you know, the reason, while there are some nuances, I would

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say the general reasoning is it mirrors national trends.

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It mirrors birth rate, the client of birth rate.

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This is going back, this is a long view going back to 1980.

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The solid green line is Vermont, the light green dotted line is the U.S. numbers, and we

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seen a steady decline Vermont ranks in the in the very bottom tier. I think I think we're

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number 50 if I'm correct or somewhere close to the bottom. This is just another view of this

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from a data map of where Vermont stands and this is one that I can't see my notes. I can't remember

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exactly where we got this front, but it was a national governmental organization, where

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Vermont has the lowest, and if you see the little lowest pointing to Vermont, we have the

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lowest birth rate in the country.

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This is just a snapshot of building snapshot from the end of the year to now, and again,

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that people, everything seems to be complicated, that we have from our funding formula,

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that how we measure enrollment, we've switched back and forth between our K to 12 enrollment

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and then our pre-K numbers.

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The reason we try to generally use the K to 12 numbers is because our pre-K students are

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only here a portion of the week, and we also receive some students who come from another school

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district because of the way Act 166 works.

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You can live someplace else and have your child in one of our buildings so there's capacity.

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but this is just a comparison of where building stand from last year and what has been real

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striking this year. I spent some time talking to all the principals, but what has really been

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striking in the last couple of years is the decline at Whitesfield. I think everyone knows I'm a

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member of the Ann River Valley Rotary Club. I had breakfast this morning. I had breakfast with Carol

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Oxford, you know, a long time principle. She retired in 2004. She was peppering me with questions,

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very good questions. And when I told her that wait's field had a hundred and four students

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and told her the size of her kindergarten class. She said, Mike, she said, now it's been

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a couple of years, so don't quote me exactly. But she said, when I was a teacher at wait's

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field, we had around 180 students to give you some perspective there. When I was talking

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And the KIS, you said during COVID, there was a period where they were up to close the 170.

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So we've seen a pretty precipice drop.

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Number of buildings, just because of the way the numbers are, Harwood has slightly increased

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although we did see it decline and part of the reason for our decline of 10 of going into

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their senior year is we heard from Emma.

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We only get partial credit for funding for college, for early college students.

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So that's partly what counts there.

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So this is what we're looking like in the valley from last year.

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This year we've declined so we're at about 412.

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I know JB's committee has talked about potentially looking at the school of capacity of 450.

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That's certainly within the range of what the board is looking at that.

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But that number will be certainly in the range of what you'd be looking at.

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And I've also received some questions and I want to make sure that we're looking at both the valley.

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and Cindy reminded us to talk about Waterberry and Ducksberry.

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So that's the valley to give you a perspective on Brookside.

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Now this includes pre-K because I wanted this show kind of a fully loaded number.

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It's not significantly different.

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You'd reduce by roughly 30 students.

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The last, if you're just looking at K to 12.

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But in the 2016, 2017 year, that your Brook had 439 students.

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we were talking about this with our small administrative team, John Mandi, Lisa and I were talking

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in China and we're talking today and Mandi pointed this out because she was a special education teacher

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at Bachelor Brook at this time. So when you're looking at size of buildings we had 439 in

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an elementary school 10 years ago and that buildings down by roughly 100 students since then.

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So that's again, it's the preliminary snapshot.

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We usually don't provide a more detailed snapshot in September,

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but I wanted to give some numbers just because there's been a lot of questions.

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So have it to take any comments or questions on this or anything else in within my realm?

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You said it was 37 fewer.

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What's the total number of enrolled students in?

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It's like 1750.

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The four.

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Total.

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Well, it depends on, again, it depends on what you're looking at.

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So as of today, if I take a look at K-12, that number K-12 is 1561, if I look at loaded with students, our pre-K students, that number is 1670.

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for the twenty-six twenty-seven year for the twenty-six twenty-seven year and again that won't be the official number week we use that snapshot will be

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in a couple of weeks last year we were fifteen ninety-eight k-12 and when you factor in our pre-case students not just our pre-case students who are in our buildings it can include

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ones that are funded through x166, that number last year was 1722, so you're probably thinking

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about that number from previous years.

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Like everything else we would say with our system, it's complicated.

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Thank you, Mike. Those are some pretty scary numbers. It's really powerful to see that decline.

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That concretely, do you have any information anecdotal or otherwise on where, like the majority of those students are going?

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Like it's in families moving out of Valley or Vermont or other schools?

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I think when if you take a look at the enrollment spreadsheets, we last year, we had a senior class of 116,

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and this year we have a kindergarten class of 97.

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So it's it's it's it's birthright. I would say yes there's other factors where there's there's some families I know have moved.

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Other for various reasons, but I would say the general trends are the cloning birth rate.

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Going back to going back to that slide that we looked at, that's my spreadsheet.

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Let me go back to the presentation.

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I usually have my desk.

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I use multiple screens and it makes it so much easier.

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Could I show a slide on this?

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Sure, just give me one second.

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And then I'll go off.

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But when you look at this slide,

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I think this is the slide that tells the,

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tells part of the story.

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And the fact, you know,

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the multiple reasons with Vermont,

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where we're all state.

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We don't have a lot of housing.

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We don't have a lot of commercial industry

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for a lot of the reasons people love living here.

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It's one of the reasons why it's making it more challenging.

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You know, we have a lot of part-time residents, particularly in the Valley, who have homes and don't have children.

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You have people in their late 50s like me, who move here, who children are in their late 20s.

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You don't have bring children. There's just a lot variety of reasons.

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And it's a trend that we're seeing.

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stop sharing so you can jump in Caitlin.

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Well Caitlin's getting her

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slide up I just wanted to say too like I know like my son's class he has

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three new kids in a class so these numbers are a decline even with students

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coming in so like this isn't I think we hear from the community a lot like

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well sure but people could be moving in people could come in and like no we're

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having this decline and we're having people moving like it's it's a both and you

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I appreciate public comment.

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I appreciate citizens who want to look at creatively,

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and I'd love to have conversations with people

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who have really good concrete solutions

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because even with a magnet school,

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we are still Vermont.

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The legislature's funding system

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doesn't account for creativity.

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Here's your students.

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Here's who's enrolled.

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Here's the weighted amount.

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Here's your CLA.

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Here's everything together.

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and you produce your numbers and that's the numbers we have to operate.

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We don't have the ability to create revenue as a public school system.

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We also don't have the ability to turn students away with higher needs and we're also seeing

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students with higher needs for ready reasons.

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So there's similar to what Dr. Mike was showing over all population in the U.S. is declining

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in migration is the reason the only reason that we're maintaining population in the U.S.

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population is declining Vermont. It's been declining since 2022 and then births in Vermont.

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I think the trip on the right is really what you want to look at, but it's just for your

365
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baby's being born and it's just not enough migration. That's more bitter than the slides,

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I have, that's a very striking slide.

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Listen.

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Excuse me.

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Excuse me.

370
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Just looking for some, wow.

371
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Yeah, Ben.

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Nice.

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Right, sorry.

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Go ahead.

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So looking at this data and then also just hearing like specifically looking at the decline in weights field,

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which is a startling number.

377
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I mean, back when my daughter, my oldest daughter was in weights field.

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That's an entire class.

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That's an entire classroom of students.

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that is no longer there. And as hard as it is for the community to hear us talking about making

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changes with buildings, whatever that ends up being, it's the reality that we're faced with.

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We have to figure out how to do it the fact that there are less children every year coming into

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our schools. And while it may seem inconsequential to hear that across seven schools,

384
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But there's 37 less kids, but again, that's a big number, that's three classrooms, or two classrooms at least of students.

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We are going to get to the point where we are not filling all of our schools.

386
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Is it going to happen in the next five years?

387
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No. It's going to happen in the next 25? Probably.

388
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Like, anyway.

389
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And the other piece I would share just from from discussion, John, John, Mandy, myself, or just because the nature of our jobs are regularly in buildings.

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And we are just hearing from staff increasingly as I know the board is that it is getting harder and we've made significant reductions over the past couple of years.

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and we have buildings that have very scant staff.

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We have full-time principles, and those principles any time you go into a building, you'll see

393
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a principle who's filling in for a paraprofessional who's out or in the cafeteria or helping

394
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do their traditional jobs of helping improve instruction, but the margins are getting so thin

395
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it gets becoming increasingly challenging, John, John just talked about this today in relation

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to special education.

397
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It's talking to a principal today who found time to talk to me when she was cleaning the

398
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kid's Chromebooks that didn't get cleaned over the summer.

399
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So that was the time that we found to talk today.

400
00:36:40,670 --> 00:36:41,990
Yeah, I was talking to Mike today.

401
00:36:41,990 --> 00:37:04,030
You know, I think when we, my lens into what's happening, might be a little different than some other people's, and while I think we have incredible staff all the way through our district, the impacts of some of the choices that we've been forced to make are impacting different groups of students differently.

402
00:37:06,050 --> 00:37:13,610
And the majority of our students are doing great, and then across all areas, but the students

403
00:37:14,790 --> 00:37:21,790
who's needs require some extra stuff, some of our most vulnerable students for wide variety

404
00:37:21,790 --> 00:37:29,210
of reasons, they're the ones who might be impacted the most, and also the least likely to

405
00:37:29,210 --> 00:37:29,970
able to.

406
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:48,720
We share their stories or even fully understand the ramifications of these things. And so it was something that I brought up today with Mike. And I just, you know, I'm happy to talk more about that, you know, in different times. But I did think that was a important variable to bring to this conversation as well.

407
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:59,880
Okay, like we've talked briefly about this in the past couple of months last year, even.

408
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But Brookside went down from four classrooms to three for their grade level.

409
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Was that because of numbers of students declining? Or did we increase numbers of students in classes

410
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above both? Both. The population declined to the point where we could reduce

411
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but that also increased class size.

412
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I think that should be made clearly that we have already been reducing, you know, the fact

413
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that we've reduced the classes and inside from four to three for a great make and go ahead.

414
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,340
I see you have your hand up your virtual hand.

415
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Yeah, here we go.

416
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:48,520
Okay.

417
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Both are not too loud and it could be weird.

418
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:55,980
First of all, thank you for this data, Mike, and I look forward to diving into it and I

419
00:38:55,980 --> 00:38:58,480
just one of the comment on a few things here.

420
00:39:01,220 --> 00:39:03,540
I've been trying to get my head around this moment

421
00:39:03,540 --> 00:39:08,900
that we're in and it seems like there's two things

422
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that we have to kind of deal with as true

423
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at the same time and I find myself jumping between the two,

424
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all the time with people.

425
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,580
One is Vermont schools are too expensive

426
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and the other is we have too much school for Vermont.

427
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And I think that those are two important ideas that are different.

428
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And when we talk about Vermont schools being too expensive, I think we can really get focused

429
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:40,480
on healthcare insurance premiums, special education, and how it's structured, there's a lot of

430
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:46,060
reasons that we have seen rising costs, you know, the sense of like the per pupil costs.

431
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:51,180
And I think we know well that a lot of those are out of our hands, but nevertheless they're rising.

432
00:39:51,180 --> 00:39:54,360
And I think that's something people understand and can quantify pretty easily.

433
00:39:55,460 --> 00:40:01,280
I think the second is actually much more difficult, which is just a loss of ambition

434
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,940
in our state that is quantified in its population collapse.

435
00:40:05,180 --> 00:40:09,380
And I just wanted to say, Mike, I really appreciate how diplomatic you are in this,

436
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:13,080
but I just want to point out, like, Vermont outperforms on this, right?

437
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,840
We should not hide behind a shadow that, oh, everyone's going through the baby boom.

438
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:22,480
like we get the baby boom, I know world war two haven't, right, for mine has gone above

439
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:27,080
and beyond, and as the representative from war and I can speak that war and has gone

440
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:33,200
even further. And I think we need to be honest about a community that has benefited from rising

441
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:39,520
second home ownership and a lot of economic activity that has been at the cost of children in

442
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:45,780
schools. And for all of the concern about the loss of theirs and the use of where I live,

443
00:40:46,300 --> 00:40:50,620
we should be concerned about the loss of children. Because the number one way we can make

444
00:40:50,620 --> 00:40:55,180
education more affordable would be to have more butts and seats. I don't see a lot of really

445
00:40:55,180 --> 00:41:01,000
good ideas around that. But that said, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to solve a lot of that

446
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,560
as a school board. And so we have to, I think, accept some of these projections and really

447
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:12,140
are planning on it and I just wanted to say as a father of three young children in the valley who

448
00:41:12,140 --> 00:41:16,720
went to small business, I have to accept something that makes me sad that nevertheless,

449
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:21,880
accept something that feels like a consensus viewpoint that's capital, Scott Popular,

450
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:28,140
and really informs the large majority of voters in my community. But I appreciate seeing these numbers

451
00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:32,220
because I think they really informed this sort of duality. We have to be conscious of which is,

452
00:41:32,220 --> 00:41:35,920
Yes, our schools are expensive and we need to address that.

453
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:40,460
But yes, we also have too much school where our state is heading, only have to be honest

454
00:41:40,460 --> 00:41:41,420
about that.

455
00:41:45,500 --> 00:41:46,180
Thank you, Megan.

456
00:41:48,220 --> 00:41:49,140
Go ahead, Pam.

457
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:50,440
I promise to be quick.

458
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,960
I just listening to John Cummins and Dr. Mike Cummins and making Cummins, and then even

459
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:59,560
the public Cummins from earlier, I think there's this idea out there that we haven't thought

460
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:05,920
about other options, but I think if you look at all of the decisions we made over the past

461
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:12,820
several years. They were all the other options because our towns hadn't wanted to consider

462
00:42:12,820 --> 00:42:17,360
closing the school. And so we made the choices to cut down on staff and it's now impacting

463
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:21,600
special education. We've made the decision to consolidate classrooms and now we have

464
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,660
larger classrooms than we had before. And at the end of the day, there's still things outside

465
00:42:25,660 --> 00:42:32,800
of our control, namely this loss of population that we can't force people to have children. We can't

466
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:38,140
people to move here with their children and now is to make us point. We have more school than we need.

467
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:43,680
So it's like we have thought about alternatives and we have been trying to engage in those alternatives

468
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:45,360
and yet here we are anyway.

469
00:42:48,180 --> 00:42:52,280
I can second that not too long ago. I got a memory up, you know,

470
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:58,480
when your memory is pop up on Facebook and it was when we we fished for an independent school in 2016

471
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:04,100
in Warren and we had 150 people come to the meeting. People were interested but we couldn't get

472
00:43:04,100 --> 00:43:10,120
enough grab to make it stick and that was just for the war in school. So a lot of people have

473
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,900
tried things over these years. Who was up? Jill?

474
00:43:16,860 --> 00:43:18,000
Because I know that I'm new to all of

475
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:25,280
that, but remind me how much of the budget is going towards healthcare. Right? It's like

476
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:29,260
going to stat, right? No, but I mean to that at least point, it's the staggering amount, correct?

477
00:43:29,860 --> 00:43:34,340
Is there a way, and I recognize this is not necessarily something the school board could do,

478
00:43:34,340 --> 00:43:43,400
but the community of standing in front of the Green Mountain Board and demanding that all schools

479
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:49,260
have some kind of deal with the UVM hospital system insurance, whatever, where it's pulled

480
00:43:49,260 --> 00:43:56,980
down. Like an internal something, something that is because it's killing the state. It's not just

481
00:43:56,980 --> 00:44:03,840
killing the schools. I mean, it is nobody can live here because of the healthcare issues.

482
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:10,080
So I mean, is there a, I guess I'm, I recognize we can't, I'll just, but could we get like

483
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:19,280
community come together and demand change there because that I think could really actually potentially do some real change.

484
00:44:25,010 --> 00:44:30,010
So I joined that committee to help negotiate the healthcare contract, though.

485
00:44:30,710 --> 00:44:31,970
No, but maybe.

486
00:44:35,330 --> 00:44:42,090
That, to all of us who've been doing schoolboarding for a little while, the fixing of healthcare,

487
00:44:42,170 --> 00:44:47,570
it just feels like we're, you know, knocking on the door and nobody, nobody wants to talk

488
00:44:47,570 --> 00:44:49,210
about that or fix that.

489
00:44:49,270 --> 00:44:52,590
I mean, and that's at the administrative level of our state.

490
00:44:52,910 --> 00:44:59,730
But I think that the more outspoken we get, you know, we've invited our local reps here and

491
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:23,460
We've invited Phil Scott himself. We've invited Amanda Genu in just in the last few days. These are points we need to make to them. When they're sitting in front of us and they're saying, oh, but we're not hearing a lot that people are bombed. Really? Because we're hearing a lot that people are freaking out about that. And we're talking about $45 to $50,000 a head for these insurance plans.

492
00:45:23,900 --> 00:45:27,580
I don't know that the public is quite aware of this, right?

493
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:28,220
Like, we're aware.

494
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,860
But I think the public here's things like, well, the material costs, right?

495
00:45:31,860 --> 00:45:33,800
The buildings are so expensive, the upkeep, right?

496
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:34,740
Stuff like that.

497
00:45:35,340 --> 00:45:37,550
And I think we need to outreach and make them,

498
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:39,820
and I know that's part of what's happening, right?

499
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,340
But make them so incredibly aware that, like,

500
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,060
this is where your tax money is going.

501
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,460
And this is where the whole that is dissolving our schools.

502
00:45:49,920 --> 00:46:00,920
And it's not sure our gold tax that's going up our own, I mean, sorry, our own personal health care regardless of whether you work for this day to the schools or whoever health care and Vermont is absurd.

503
00:46:01,820 --> 00:46:04,610
Go ahead, Jake, then, then make and JB, then make and.

504
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:16,440
I guess my first question was are we waiting for October 1st to roll any sort of enrollment slides into the official outreach plan.

505
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:18,720
That's my first question.

506
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:23,320
You're welcome to use anything I have, and we'll just update them in October.

507
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,100
Yeah, I just picked you back on that.

508
00:46:27,340 --> 00:46:33,560
I said it at the committee meeting, but I'm finding it hard within the confines of this committee in doing what we're supposed to do,

509
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:40,800
although I honestly overwhelming support from people that I know for the path that this board is going on.

510
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:44,800
but the story still remains to get out there. And I said it during the meeting about

511
00:46:46,380 --> 00:46:50,700
Midie, parallel to the way it's filled with wastewater projects. And now it's failed 20 years ago,

512
00:46:50,980 --> 00:46:57,520
and it's a huge success right now. And it's all about telling the story. And we have all the pieces

513
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:02,680
of that story. I'm not trying to put all this on the outreach committee, but that story needs to get out there.

514
00:47:02,860 --> 00:47:08,120
And all of that needs to be with on with Caitlin's doing, and we need to make it so people understand

515
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:13,500
They hear bits and bits of health care cause are going up, but they're still not understanding

516
00:47:13,500 --> 00:47:14,160
the story.

517
00:47:14,720 --> 00:47:17,620
I know that's what you're trying to do, and I think it's still for it's awesome.

518
00:47:26,170 --> 00:47:29,530
I had a follow-up for Joe, but JV, did you, are you done?

519
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:32,940
Ashley?

520
00:47:34,240 --> 00:47:34,560
Sorry.

521
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:35,580
Yes, he's done.

522
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:36,080
Go ahead.

523
00:47:36,620 --> 00:47:40,880
So, JV, I mean, I appreciate both of those points and, well, I mean, as a member of the engagement

524
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:47,820
committee, I appreciate the incognito guidance, like we need to do more everywhere and the

525
00:47:47,820 --> 00:47:54,440
on that, but appreciate that. Jill, I just wanted to respond to a really honest question.

526
00:47:54,700 --> 00:47:58,160
And I hope we all can talk about the excellent notes part being on Zoom to do that.

527
00:47:58,380 --> 00:48:02,560
It strikes me that I joined the board a few months ago, and I feel like I'm just getting

528
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:08,400
over my focus on healthcare campaigns, and I'm moving to like enrollment as like the story

529
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:13,260
that I want people to understand. Like I found it outrageous that there's all of these

530
00:48:13,260 --> 00:48:19,240
cost drivers in terms of why education is super expensive, that we can't control, and I also

531
00:48:19,240 --> 00:48:23,720
find it challenging to talk about, you know, the things we can, which is really a number

532
00:48:23,720 --> 00:48:29,260
of teachers that then trigger all of these costs, but like, that's one side of the equation.

533
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:36,540
The other side is the fact that at least we're in, but also as a district. I may be the major

534
00:48:36,540 --> 00:48:40,940
trend, the major reason we're having this conversation is the loss of kits. And so again,

535
00:48:40,940 --> 00:48:46,140
I'm modulating between schools are too expensive versus we have too much school, but as we

536
00:48:46,140 --> 00:48:49,460
moved down this path and I think the way you put it was what's that story we want people

537
00:48:49,460 --> 00:48:54,720
to understand. Obviously it's both. But what you're talking about is really pointing out

538
00:48:54,720 --> 00:48:58,460
we need to address these rising costs. And honestly, if they were like, yeah, let's do it.

539
00:48:58,540 --> 00:49:02,880
I don't know if that would actually solve our problem. Again, I'm just really on this question,

540
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,880
I'm starting to think that enrollment is really like the thing we should be being pots and

541
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:12,920
about because it's not like we should try to change it. It's more like we can't change it and it's

542
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:17,260
going to drive our decision-making. But I'll leave it there. I just would love some thought about

543
00:49:17,260 --> 00:49:19,400
those two kind of points and how they play together.

544
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:24,480
I think though it's a both and not an either

545
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:29,700
or because families can't afford to live in this state anymore. I mean, I have a two physician

546
00:49:29,700 --> 00:49:37,600
household and we are like losing money in this state. So it's just to me it's just like there's

547
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:43,620
it's both, right? Like, people can't come here and have little kids and have like one of the

548
00:49:43,620 --> 00:49:50,540
parents home with the kids, for example, and make it make it work. So I do think it's a both

549
00:49:50,540 --> 00:50:01,250
hand, but I just want to comment on that. I actually had a conversation with a mom from

550
00:50:01,250 --> 00:50:09,890
and she was saying about the story. She was saying you have to tell the story of how we fought

551
00:50:09,890 --> 00:50:15,150
against losing our schools because people are going to come to our meeting and they look at

552
00:50:15,150 --> 00:50:20,530
us as a group now and they think these are school closers. They're coming for our schools.

553
00:50:21,170 --> 00:50:27,470
When in fact we are the carnage of all the fights to keep all the schools open. So my questions

554
00:50:27,470 --> 00:50:36,350
for this board are, how do we create the story, which has a past, a current, and a future

555
00:50:36,350 --> 00:50:40,550
that we're not selling it, we're telling it.

556
00:50:40,830 --> 00:50:43,670
Like, what is that story and what are the components of that?

557
00:50:43,690 --> 00:50:46,410
Because that's all a little amorphous for me.

558
00:50:46,470 --> 00:50:50,270
But I hear when JB says we need the story, I agree with that.

559
00:50:50,810 --> 00:50:56,370
And I think back to Lang gave a little chat about how hard would came to be in the 50s.

560
00:50:56,370 --> 00:51:04,510
took 11 years, three failed bonds, numerous committees, study groups, feasibility work, all that

561
00:51:04,510 --> 00:51:10,550
happened, but it still took 11 years, you know, it's like, people, we as humans, we love to

562
00:51:10,550 --> 00:51:17,770
fall back on what is familiar, we don't, we'll take familiar that sucks over age, that is hard,

563
00:51:17,950 --> 00:51:24,690
in our, it's hard for us. So I want that story to be real, and I agree that that is a big piece of

564
00:51:24,690 --> 00:51:29,850
of having this conversation with community. Peter was frustrated that we haven't already done it.

565
00:51:30,230 --> 00:51:36,090
I would say to him, we're on meeting two. We're a public body. We do our work in the public.

566
00:51:36,290 --> 00:51:42,230
People will have to be patient and as frustrated as they are, we're frustrated. So we're all in it

567
00:51:42,230 --> 00:51:44,990
together as part of the story for me.

568
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:49,880
That was really good. I do, I think,

569
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:56,580
for me, letting the story does hinge on understanding how we got here and looking at the past

570
00:51:56,580 --> 00:51:57,520
and the decisions that were made.

571
00:51:57,580 --> 00:51:58,820
I think that's a great point.

572
00:51:59,060 --> 00:52:01,140
And we need to understand those decisions

573
00:52:01,140 --> 00:52:04,580
in order to chart the best path forward tonight.

574
00:52:07,810 --> 00:52:07,990
Lang?

575
00:52:08,310 --> 00:52:09,930
Well, this will be that we'll wind with Lang,

576
00:52:10,010 --> 00:52:11,030
because we gotta move on.

577
00:52:11,210 --> 00:52:11,610
Go on, Lang.

578
00:52:13,570 --> 00:52:15,490
Sorry, this iPad's very difficult, too.

579
00:52:16,170 --> 00:52:18,770
Yeah, as far as the story, I mean, yeah.

580
00:52:18,910 --> 00:52:20,370
I mean, obviously, a building vision committee,

581
00:52:20,530 --> 00:52:21,810
we had a meeting, we talked about it,

582
00:52:21,850 --> 00:52:22,590
a bunch of stuff tonight.

583
00:52:22,610 --> 00:52:24,890
We're gonna talk about that as a emotion,

584
00:52:25,010 --> 00:52:26,590
but I think coming up the backside,

585
00:52:26,590 --> 00:52:29,030
I think that getting as much

586
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:49,680
Like, not back at the neck and not mind to be the vessel, but to data out to people to understand what the long-term goal is and where the cost savings are and where we can bring services back and how we can provide a really quality education to all of our kids and also try to be fiduciary responsible.

587
00:52:49,940 --> 00:52:57,180
I mean, I think that's the message that we need to get out because people have to understand that we're not, we don't want to close schools, that's not our goal.

588
00:52:57,180 --> 00:52:59,780
We just want to provide the best possible service to our kids.

589
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,200
And we want to do that in the most financially responsible way.

590
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:05,700
And I think that's, I think that's our,

591
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:06,580
all right, it's coming.

592
00:53:06,820 --> 00:53:10,160
And as you said, we can only really do this work in these public meetings.

593
00:53:10,180 --> 00:53:14,000
And that's what makes it really difficult for us to move forward and get that information

594
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:14,820
up to the public.

595
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:17,420
But I think there's a thirst for that knowledge.

596
00:53:17,540 --> 00:53:19,040
People are still open-minded.

597
00:53:19,060 --> 00:53:20,840
And I think if we give them some of that information,

598
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,480
I personally would like to see how the numbers work out as well.

599
00:53:28,470 --> 00:53:29,270
Thank you.

600
00:53:31,670 --> 00:53:40,510
We should just mention that we do have community outreach meetings and that everyone can join if you're interested in learning more about how we are getting that together.

601
00:53:42,610 --> 00:53:43,190
Okay.

602
00:53:44,170 --> 00:53:45,310
Thank you for that.

603
00:53:45,730 --> 00:53:45,750
Mike.

604
00:53:46,050 --> 00:53:49,970
And in my last comment was just the board approved a trip to Denmark.

605
00:53:51,290 --> 00:53:56,770
We do it almost a year ahead of time and Matt Henshin's the organizer of that trip, he's a teacher at Harvard.

606
00:53:56,930 --> 00:54:01,890
I think most of you know him as he's gotten discussions over the summer with the school.

607
00:54:02,390 --> 00:54:05,370
The timing that was originally proposed does not work for that school.

608
00:54:05,490 --> 00:54:07,530
So it's actually going to have to be a little earlier.

609
00:54:08,950 --> 00:54:13,610
The positive going earlier, it'll be less time away from the students for their break.

610
00:54:13,610 --> 00:54:17,890
So we have a formal process for the board to approve it.

611
00:54:18,030 --> 00:54:18,590
You approved it.

612
00:54:18,650 --> 00:54:22,850
I just wanted to make sure you were aware that the dates that you were approved are being

613
00:54:22,850 --> 00:54:23,590
changed.

614
00:54:24,750 --> 00:54:26,270
And there's some discussions we can have them commit.

615
00:54:26,810 --> 00:54:31,030
But I think it's just acknowledgement that that's I think you're going above and beyond

616
00:54:31,030 --> 00:54:33,470
and exploring potential district and mergers.

617
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:42,480
This is, that's the, okay, that's the way we last right out of the joke.

618
00:54:42,780 --> 00:54:45,160
I think we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're

619
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:52,340
You know, that's a really hard work to merge with the Denmark district, but that's a great idea. Maybe we can explore it.

620
00:54:53,140 --> 00:54:53,900
They all speak fine.

621
00:54:53,900 --> 00:54:54,700
No bad ideas.

622
00:54:55,460 --> 00:54:56,320
So we're there.

623
00:54:57,460 --> 00:54:59,200
Thank you for the comic relief.

624
00:54:59,980 --> 00:55:00,120
Okay.

625
00:55:00,660 --> 00:55:04,620
We are going to move on to the finance report from Lisa.

626
00:55:07,180 --> 00:55:08,240
We'll pull that up.

627
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:15,040
But just to be able to put context to those numbers for health insurance, health insurance is 12% of our overall budget.

628
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,100
And of benefits, it's actually $6.7 million.

629
00:55:19,540 --> 00:55:21,500
It's 60% of our benefit budget.

630
00:55:22,340 --> 00:55:23,880
So it's increased year over year.

631
00:55:24,380 --> 00:55:29,400
And on average, it's increased in the last five years,

632
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:33,960
45% on average is over 10%.

633
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:37,760
And I'm already budgeting for fiscal year, 20, 28.

634
00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:41,660
And increase of at least 11%.

635
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:50,500
So just really quick on my report, I have only just a quick report,

636
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:54,500
it's in the actual document.

637
00:55:54,900 --> 00:55:55,500
Can you pull it?

638
00:55:55,500 --> 00:55:56,920
Can we have access to it?

639
00:55:57,060 --> 00:55:57,740
Oh, you don't have access?

640
00:55:57,840 --> 00:55:59,080
Can you just give it?

641
00:55:59,100 --> 00:55:59,460
Yeah.

642
00:56:00,720 --> 00:56:02,540
Well, we don't have the same thing that we are talking about.

643
00:56:02,620 --> 00:56:02,940
Yeah.

644
00:56:03,860 --> 00:56:05,160
I was working on it.

645
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:06,700
I haven't finished it.

646
00:56:07,020 --> 00:56:07,220
Okay.

647
00:56:07,860 --> 00:56:08,160
I would.

648
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:10,420
Oh, I did it to her with that's why anyone with links.

649
00:56:12,300 --> 00:56:16,840
It's right in the agenda, in the agenda within the agenda.

650
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:21,980
So in my report, my first report is actually part of the discussions today.

651
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:31,160
It's really the request to increase our capitalization from 5,000 to 10,000.

652
00:56:31,980 --> 00:56:35,280
I gave my reasons, and then we'll also have it drawing discussions.

653
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:38,960
So if you have any questions on that, we briefly talked about it at the last board meeting.

654
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:44,600
I also wanted to include just a review of a fiscal 27 budget.

655
00:56:46,020 --> 00:56:53,440
What I did was, you know, when I passed the budget, we were always talking about 72%

656
00:56:53,740 --> 00:56:54,900
as human resources.

657
00:56:59,290 --> 00:57:01,130
No, no, no, no, no, no.

658
00:57:01,610 --> 00:57:02,430
Oh, I haven't.

659
00:57:02,610 --> 00:57:03,470
You can put that up.

660
00:57:03,650 --> 00:57:04,270
You share it.

661
00:57:04,570 --> 00:57:06,650
I'm not inside in.

662
00:57:09,180 --> 00:57:10,380
I gave the access.

663
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:11,540
Okay.

664
00:57:17,300 --> 00:57:18,660
I'm re-fracting.

665
00:57:18,660 --> 00:57:19,480
Now

666
00:57:21,340 --> 00:57:23,660
You all on

667
00:57:23,660 --> 00:57:26,060
You have

668
00:57:29,180 --> 00:57:32,220
Repot into the agenda if that's a new blinks

669
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:35,360
I'll share with you right now

670
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:40,820
shared

671
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:50,600
Okay, so what I just wanted to do is I wanted to review our fiscal year 27 budget

672
00:57:51,140 --> 00:57:52,780
When we're talking about it

673
00:57:52,780 --> 00:57:58,180
Before we had the actual budget approval our salary and benefits were running around 72%

674
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:03,820
we're actually up to after we said and done all the contracts and all the contracts are signed.

675
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:11,460
I reloaded the budget and it actually is actually 73.33% of our budget, so it is increasing.

676
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:16,160
You got it? Perfect. Okay.

677
00:58:17,540 --> 00:58:23,360
So I broke it down based on salary wages benefits and operations. You'll see we're at 51.8 million

678
00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:31,520
dollars are approved budget and that is our breakdown which total 73% of our total budget.

679
00:58:32,260 --> 00:58:40,640
Next slide, what I did was I just, I can be here what I did is I displayed key programs

680
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:47,320
including salaries in these different programs, but I can slice the projections however

681
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:48,820
you want me to show them.

682
00:58:48,820 --> 00:58:57,120
What I wanted to be able to show is this is including salaries by function or programs, and you'll see

683
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:11,920
Obviously general instructions is the largest at 18.9 and then special special education health services and so on and so on. I know that scale is very small, but you can increase that in larger.

684
00:59:13,300 --> 00:59:21,380
And the last slide, what I wanted to do is everybody's been asking me for a school budget by school.

685
00:59:21,700 --> 00:59:26,000
So I broke it down again, salary wages, operation by school.

686
00:59:26,220 --> 00:59:28,720
So we can share that information out.

687
00:59:29,580 --> 00:59:34,380
So I just wanted to review the fiscal year 27 approved budget.

688
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:38,840
And I've also been working on forecasting for fiscal year 28,

689
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:45,880
using the new spending threshold, I don't like to say excess spending threshold, spending threshold,

690
00:59:46,020 --> 00:59:47,980
Mike and I agreed to say spending threshold.

691
00:59:49,340 --> 00:59:53,940
And so I've been forecasting that, I'm going to be sharing that at the next budget meeting.

692
00:59:54,460 --> 00:59:59,980
I've forecasted that with my projections in terms of salary and health benefits and transportation.

693
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:29,980
Next year, we're going into our third year of our transportation contract. We already know we have an increase in transportation for 8% budgeting health care at 11% because this is what I'm kind of hearing in the in the works, but we don't, you know, we don't know what's happening, but I'm going to budget just for precaution. We also are going into negotiations, so I'm putting some assumptions in there, and it is, you know, an eye opener for fiscal year 28.

694
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:45,020
that I'm forecasting. And again, remember starting in fiscal year 28, the excess spending threshold is dropping down to 115% and then a good down 1.5% year after year.

695
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:48,940
So in forecasting, I'll share this with you at the next budget meeting.

696
01:00:48,940 --> 01:00:55,940
I forecast that it was my assumptions for the next couple of years plus the excess spending threshold plus

697
01:00:56,580 --> 01:01:03,700
what our long term weighted average would be when we factor in our decrease in enrollment.

698
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:12,180
Before we get to questions, I did want to point out two things that Lisa and I talked about with this slide.

699
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:18,560
First is you really have to focus in when you're looking at buildings on the right hand side on the operations piece.

700
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:31,300
And one of the reasons I always remind people who are looking at school line budgets is that you could have two buildings with the identical number of staff.

701
01:01:31,620 --> 01:01:37,440
One building has teachers who are at the very top of the salary schedule. The other building has them all at the bottom of the schedule.

702
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:46,560
It's an extreme example, but they may have the exact same number of staff, but they're going to have different costs for their staff.

703
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:49,640
because of the education level and experience level of their teachers.

704
01:01:50,460 --> 01:01:53,520
So to get a good comparison, it's good information to have.

705
01:01:53,660 --> 01:01:56,220
It's very important, but you have to keep that in as a caveat,

706
01:01:56,740 --> 01:02:00,280
but really look at the operational cost and then I want Lisa to define

707
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:02,760
to district-wide does not mean central office.

708
01:02:03,140 --> 01:02:06,000
District-wide means positions that are district-wide.

709
01:02:06,260 --> 01:02:10,420
So our English language teacher, she is a district-wide position.

710
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:14,360
A number of our special education teachers are district-wide positions,

711
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:16,800
even though they may be housed in a particular building.

712
01:02:17,100 --> 01:02:19,740
Am I missing any other key state?

713
01:02:19,740 --> 01:02:22,520
Does that include nurses who share their time between campuses?

714
01:02:25,390 --> 01:02:27,970
No, they're actually allocated based on their percentage.

715
01:02:28,150 --> 01:02:32,250
So if they're 5% at one school and 5% at another school, they're salaries broken out.

716
01:02:32,610 --> 01:02:38,470
But district wide where we actually have someone either shared amongst all schools what

717
01:02:38,470 --> 01:02:40,770
we've done is just raised it up to a district level.

718
01:02:41,410 --> 01:02:46,670
Erica's director of food services district level. There's certain people that are district level that we do

719
01:02:47,070 --> 01:02:49,410
We share that at that level

720
01:02:49,970 --> 01:02:54,090
District also includes and when you're looking at these expenses, I want to keep in mind

721
01:02:54,690 --> 01:02:55,250
district

722
01:02:56,090 --> 01:02:59,450
We also have all of the

723
01:02:59,450 --> 01:03:07,390
Below the line again, what the difference between above and line below the line above the line is salary and benefits and below the line is all operational costs

724
01:03:07,390 --> 01:03:24,490
So, special education costs are also pulled in at the district level below the line because what happened was we decided to do that is when a school was working through their approved budget during the year.

725
01:03:24,890 --> 01:03:33,290
They are special ed budget could be thrown off completely and they'd be in an overdraft based on special ed for their expenses for special ed.

726
01:03:33,290 --> 01:03:38,230
we did as we pulled all of those expenses at the district level. So when you see the district of

727
01:03:38,230 --> 01:03:42,750
the number so high, that's because of all special education expenses are at a district level.

728
01:03:45,630 --> 01:03:50,810
If I could actually, if I could just hold it, can we have just for a second?

729
01:03:51,350 --> 01:03:57,410
And that's why if you look at operations district wide, the operations is much higher than salary

730
01:03:57,410 --> 01:04:03,410
benefits that the personnel cost because essentially we say that's John's budget.

731
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:10,280
But, but again, it's put there because you could have one student who requires an extensive

732
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:16,600
level of service who, if that student was in a particular building if they were in, you

733
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:22,680
know, this building in Harwood, it would significantly throw that building's budget off because

734
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:25,440
of the required needs that child had.

735
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:31,220
And I, I don't, I'm just one more thing, I just wanted to remind everybody where we used

736
01:04:31,220 --> 01:04:37,260
budget 110 of the average salary for a teacher with health benefits last year, two years ago

737
01:04:37,260 --> 01:04:38,020
it was 120.

738
01:04:38,460 --> 01:04:43,760
We're closer to 136 this year, including benefits for an average salary because of benefits.

739
01:04:45,180 --> 01:04:46,680
So not even a high end salary.

740
01:04:47,660 --> 01:04:47,680
No.

741
01:04:47,980 --> 01:04:48,180
Okay.

742
01:04:48,300 --> 01:04:49,200
Go ahead and make an amendment.

743
01:04:52,320 --> 01:04:56,700
I mean, first of all, if I just wanted to say this is really terrific, visualization

744
01:04:56,700 --> 01:04:57,480
of it.

745
01:04:57,540 --> 01:04:58,900
I really appreciate you putting it together.

746
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:02,680
I mean, I have some feedback about it that's meant to make it more effective, but I just

747
01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:04,860
I'd like to thank you. I know it's a lot.

748
01:05:07,140 --> 01:05:09,920
I think the way this is presented is really powerful.

749
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:16,480
I think we don't serve ourselves by presenting district wide as a peer of the schools.

750
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:24,880
I would refer us to the letter we received from our governor that reflects a prevailing popular sentiment,

751
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:29,700
which is that education and Vermont struggles with administrative bloat.

752
01:05:29,700 --> 01:05:34,880
And I just wanted it as a side point, say, I find that a sensitive based on my understanding

753
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:40,980
of our administrative effort and the hardwood district, but nevertheless, I worry we

754
01:05:40,980 --> 01:05:46,400
lead with our chin by putting out a stack that's the second biggest school in our district.

755
01:05:46,540 --> 01:05:50,140
I would rather see the school districts broken out as light for like and then a separate

756
01:05:50,140 --> 01:05:55,480
section unpacking this because it may be a way to educate how it's kind of a different

757
01:05:55,480 --> 01:06:00,580
kind of thing, but I just worry that, showing our ministry of costs as the second book is

758
01:06:00,580 --> 01:06:07,320
school and our district is going to be a lot of fun for people who kind of loved the politics

759
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:07,820
ingredients.

760
01:06:08,200 --> 01:06:11,240
I just might want perspective, but again, it's fine as it is.

761
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:14,740
I just wanted to flag it and I really appreciate you breaking it all out.

762
01:06:15,700 --> 01:06:19,680
No, actually, I think that's a very good point for us because it's, it's, it's, it's

763
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:27,080
is not administrative cost. It really is the vast majority are costs for students for programmatic.

764
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:31,480
Yeah, but if I might, I think you would agree if I'm coming to this cold and I see this,

765
01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:36,540
I just call that admin cost, right? Because it's not a school. 100 percent. We agree. 100 percent.

766
01:06:36,620 --> 01:06:41,860
So what I can do is I can break it out and have it a different scale and actually give detail

767
01:06:41,860 --> 01:06:44,360
for what those expenses are for district wide.

768
01:06:48,630 --> 01:06:50,850
So unfortunately, I cannot properly see the

769
01:06:50,850 --> 01:06:54,150
probably slide that is up in front of us because I still don't have access.

770
01:06:54,510 --> 01:06:56,510
No, I just want to pick on you for that for a brief second.

771
01:06:57,010 --> 01:07:03,550
But my actual question is, is I think that in talking about students that are participating

772
01:07:03,550 --> 01:07:10,890
or needing special ed or assistance, however we want to refer to a additional support?

773
01:07:11,630 --> 01:07:18,150
Do we have an idea of within our schools, how many pupils we're talking about?

774
01:07:18,150 --> 01:07:29,030
Because I think that that is something that could be really helpful with the community when we're talking about some of what our costs are that we have say.

775
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:48,720
600 elementary kids in our district and 250 need these additional services. I think that could be a number that might resonate a little bit better than dollar amounts to sort of thinking about what some of our overall costs are.

776
01:07:49,020 --> 01:07:58,700
That might be something that the average individual who doesn't get all crazy about numbers might be able to relate to that looking at them.

777
01:07:58,700 --> 01:08:10,220
So, 336 students out of how many total students, out of 15, you know, that's a good number of students that need additional support and services.

778
01:08:11,220 --> 01:08:17,860
And that's a big part of our budget, but that's a very important, you know, that's 350 whatever number you decide.

779
01:08:17,860 --> 01:08:29,080
It is, and I don't want to leave everybody thinking that that is the total number of students who receive support in our district that's above and beyond.

780
01:08:29,880 --> 01:08:32,760
And if Mandy were here, she would be able to share a lot more information.

781
01:08:32,860 --> 01:08:36,640
But that is just the number of students who are served with IEPs.

782
01:08:37,060 --> 01:08:43,860
There are probably almost an equal number of students who are receiving supports in other ways,

783
01:08:43,860 --> 01:08:49,240
which is something we're super proud of as a district that we are able to have students access

784
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:56,000
what they need in the least restrictive way possible. So it is a big number and certainly

785
01:08:56,000 --> 01:09:02,360
the students that that that's a big number. I just say it's not all of it either.

786
01:09:02,360 --> 01:09:10,680
Big, but it's a carol. Oh, sorry Steve. Steve first.

787
01:09:13,500 --> 01:09:18,840
Yeah, thanks. I think the cost for

788
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:26,980
special ed was about 9.2 million on one of the slides and that works out between 50, 15 and 20% of

789
01:09:26,980 --> 01:09:33,700
our budget. I'm pointing that out because we always hear the complaints that education costs in Vermont

790
01:09:33,700 --> 01:09:41,100
are so high, group of people costs are so high, but many, many states cover a portion of special

791
01:09:41,100 --> 01:09:46,540
ed costs out of other state departments, doesn't come out of the school budget. And as Cindy

792
01:09:46,540 --> 01:09:52,980
has repeatedly said, the same thing is true for mental health costs. Most states cover those

793
01:09:52,980 --> 01:10:00,480
out of the department's mental health. So it's not an apples and orange comparison when people

794
01:10:00,480 --> 01:10:06,040
say, oh, Vermont for people costs are so high in my state. It's much lower, et cetera.

795
01:10:08,480 --> 01:10:10,140
It's just a point I want to make.

796
01:10:12,490 --> 01:10:13,590
Thank you. Go ahead, Carl.

797
01:10:15,170 --> 01:10:18,550
I'd have followed questions. Thank you very much for putting all this together.

798
01:10:19,290 --> 01:10:25,650
One question I had was on. You mentioned the staff, the percentage of the budget that is staff,

799
01:10:25,650 --> 01:10:30,650
salary and benefits has been increasing and is now 73%.

800
01:10:31,410 --> 01:10:38,090
I've heard at least anecdotally I think that it's kind of over the past few years of cutting budgets.

801
01:10:38,370 --> 01:10:41,350
We've been trimming places outside of staff.

802
01:10:41,690 --> 01:10:51,350
Is that reflected like where has that number changed in terms of the percentage of the budget going to salaries over the past few years?

803
01:10:51,690 --> 01:10:52,930
Is that something you have?

804
01:10:54,350 --> 01:11:00,150
Yeah, the percentage of the salaries used to be, well, we'd have to take a better analysis of it,

805
01:11:00,490 --> 01:11:08,090
but we were roughly around 70%, and we've cut, even though we've cut operations, the biggest,

806
01:11:09,050 --> 01:11:15,830
we've had over the couple of years that actually have spent FTEs, because there's not that much to cut below the line,

807
01:11:15,830 --> 01:11:21,350
below the line, many of them are operational cost fixed, operational cost, heat, electricity.

808
01:11:22,670 --> 01:11:28,150
So there's very little discretionary funding that we've cut over the last couple of years.

809
01:11:29,110 --> 01:11:32,090
And I can go back and add it all up to for you.

810
01:11:32,090 --> 01:11:35,650
And I think we shared it in your slide too, all the different cuts.

811
01:11:36,150 --> 01:11:39,370
But predominantly it's been the FTE, so over the last couple of years.

812
01:11:39,370 --> 01:11:46,630
Thanks, and then you mentioned with the budget presentation that you're doing next meeting.

813
01:11:47,950 --> 01:11:54,290
I, just overall, kind of the budget, being new on the board, the budget process and kind of what,

814
01:11:54,370 --> 01:12:02,650
kind of when the board and the public can expect certain information is a little bit unclear.

815
01:12:02,650 --> 01:12:07,830
I'd be interested if you would be able to walk just like at a high level what the timeline

816
01:12:07,830 --> 01:12:14,830
is for that budget, kind of leading up to the election day.

817
01:12:16,030 --> 01:12:20,270
So I do a budget calendar and a budget timeline and I normally present that early October,

818
01:12:20,650 --> 01:12:23,270
but I'm actually going to be presenting it at the next budget meeting.

819
01:12:24,010 --> 01:12:30,530
And I present a timeline in terms of when I could, we talk about the discussion that what

820
01:12:30,530 --> 01:12:38,490
charge will be and then what if there's different scenarios that the board would like me to bring

821
01:12:38,490 --> 01:12:43,850
back and then I start sharing my preliminary budgets because right now I'll starting to meet with

822
01:12:43,850 --> 01:12:52,310
my administrators and forecasting and I will have a draft of the preliminary budget by mid-November

823
01:12:52,310 --> 01:12:59,770
and I'll start sharing the first and the second meeting of what the numbers will look like

824
01:13:01,030 --> 01:13:04,930
And based on also after next week's presentation, or

825
01:13:04,930 --> 01:13:08,170
next board meetings presentation, then the board will

826
01:13:08,170 --> 01:13:11,110
start discussing of what do we want to look like and

827
01:13:11,110 --> 01:13:14,630
what are the charges, what do we want her to bring back to us?

828
01:13:15,410 --> 01:13:18,630
So in November and December, you'll be seeing lots of different

829
01:13:18,630 --> 01:13:24,530
scenarios, budget projections, especially with the new

830
01:13:25,270 --> 01:13:27,190
spending threshold and how we would look.

831
01:13:27,190 --> 01:13:57,170
And then comes early January, after the break, we come back, we look at that again, and then by mid-January, we make a decision, the board votes on EA or Nae, to move forward with the budget we presented based on the scenarios, the different scenarios, and then we need to warn the budget by, I don't have the exact date in front of me, but it's towards the end of January, it's the third week of January, because we need 40 days.

832
01:13:57,190 --> 01:14:07,490
before and town meeting day. And so by the end of January we basically have the proposed budget

833
01:14:08,030 --> 01:14:16,570
then we prepare our annual report. And then I present an annual budget meeting the night before

834
01:14:16,570 --> 01:14:18,770
our town meeting day.

835
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:29,940
I don't know whenever comes. Yeah. The great thank you very much for that.

836
01:14:29,940 --> 01:14:59,920
And so, it sounds like the real decision-part points are kind of in the early October where we start laying out what are the scenarios that we want to look at, and these are kind of, you know, we don't have infinite time to explore every option, we have to kind of choose where are the areas where we might want to try and and cut and then we go through in that kind of,

837
01:14:59,940 --> 01:14:59,980
You

838
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:08,340
November, November, early December, that's going to kind of the iteration done. It gets done in kind of some of the real decisions get made.

839
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:24,360
One thing I want to point out is we everything is preliminary and I'm basing it. Everything on the current yield December 1st is when the tax letter comes out. And that's when I then get my what the preliminary yield will be.

840
01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:30,780
And again, remember, our enrollments are really not solidified until like the end of October.

841
01:15:31,360 --> 01:15:36,860
So I normally don't get my LTW ADMs, my long term weighted average.

842
01:15:37,280 --> 01:15:42,320
And if you recall, we have two last year's vision 13.

843
01:15:44,220 --> 01:15:46,020
Probably until January.

844
01:15:46,360 --> 01:15:52,240
So I'm always the numbers are going to constantly be changing and told numbers are solidified.

845
01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:59,920
So early January is when I finally get, I hope to get the finalized LTWADM.

846
01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:04,140
So those numbers are always constantly changing, and if you recall, we don't actually

847
01:16:04,140 --> 01:16:08,380
finalize the yield until the end of spring, so everything's projection.

848
01:16:08,380 --> 01:16:15,320
And last year when we started the scenarios and the discussion of the budget, the yield was 88,

849
01:16:17,580 --> 01:16:23,980
98, I think, 88, and then it actually went up to 9,241.

850
01:16:24,760 --> 01:16:25,700
So it changes.

851
01:16:27,160 --> 01:16:35,540
And next week, next meeting, you kind of tease some ideas about the general ballpark of what

852
01:16:35,540 --> 01:16:40,320
what level of cuts we're going to need to make from the level service budget is really

853
01:16:40,320 --> 01:16:45,100
so what I think I heard you say. Do you have a set are you going to be able to share that

854
01:16:45,100 --> 01:16:50,920
or a preliminary numbers at that next meeting or is that do I misunderstand what you are?

855
01:16:51,180 --> 01:16:56,040
Like you just said there was some eye opening numbers that you had. Is that the type of detail that

856
01:16:56,040 --> 01:17:01,240
you're going to be able to share a general ideas or what I'll be able to share is the projections

857
01:17:01,240 --> 01:17:09,640
of our overall proposed budget, and then how that is impacted with the new spending threshold.

858
01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:14,400
And then where we sit with that, because you remember once if we go over that excess spending

859
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:19,780
threshold, we're penalized, if we go over a cost per pupil, our projected cost per pupil,

860
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:20,640
we're penalized.

861
01:17:21,160 --> 01:17:26,960
So I'll be able to show you what it looks like with the projections, and then what I've also

862
01:17:26,960 --> 01:17:30,400
done is just also looked at what it looks like based on inflation.

863
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:35,020
and so overall I'll be able to share that with you and then the board will need to make some

864
01:17:35,020 --> 01:17:42,820
decisions. That'll help shape the charges that the board wants to share with me and what

865
01:17:42,820 --> 01:17:44,820
I should bring back to the board then.

866
01:17:45,020 --> 01:17:47,020
Great. Thank you very much for playing that.

867
01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:53,500
And I do appreciate earlier in the meeting when Macon told me I was being very diplomatic and kind

868
01:17:53,500 --> 01:17:58,400
of cut to the chase. But sometimes I decided when I'm going to be diplomatic and when

869
01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:04,320
not there wasn't article in July that I'll share with the board that I also want to highlight

870
01:18:04,320 --> 01:18:09,640
as we're talking about special education costs and this is not in any way a criticism or

871
01:18:09,640 --> 01:18:15,340
negative of our teachers in our district. The work John does, the hard work everyone does,

872
01:18:16,900 --> 01:18:21,800
but Vermont was one of four states cited by the federal government for not making positive

873
01:18:21,800 --> 01:18:26,580
progress in special education. When I moved to Vermont and this is a conversation when John

874
01:18:26,580 --> 01:18:33,680
started together four years ago. I was shocked at the little level of statewide support guidance

875
01:18:34,780 --> 01:18:39,900
services, technical training, assistance provided to small school districts like we haven't

876
01:18:39,900 --> 01:18:46,140
Vermont. I was absolutely shocked. The article points out that Secretary Saunders has been

877
01:18:46,140 --> 01:18:52,040
trying to do work to reorganize and provide those services. But all of those services were cut over the

878
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:59,180
or not provided it all, and there are services that I had to take advantage of as a superintendent

879
01:18:59,180 --> 01:19:04,440
as pulled resources. That's one of the reasons why people said that's that start ceases,

880
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:11,820
or shared service agencies, which is a heavy lift for state where you're giving that work to people

881
01:19:11,820 --> 01:19:14,280
who are already running small school districts.

882
01:19:16,340 --> 01:19:18,740
But Vermont at risk of losing federal funds and it's

883
01:19:18,740 --> 01:19:21,240
but we're not provided with the level of service.

884
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:31,580
There has not been a special education director at the state level, since the people who've been here since John and I have been our positions.

885
01:19:31,820 --> 01:19:34,220
It's been a revolving door.

886
01:19:36,460 --> 01:19:45,880
The salary for the statewide director is, John knows a better than I do, but for the special education director for the entire state of Vermont,

887
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:48,340
something I think they're offering something like $70,000.

888
01:19:49,180 --> 01:19:52,600
Yeah, so there's been John knows this better than I do.

889
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:57,860
Since this is my fifth year in this role, there's been three state special ed directors

890
01:19:57,860 --> 01:20:03,960
and probably about a year and a half total of no state special ed director two times ago

891
01:20:03,960 --> 01:20:12,840
when they offered the salary I believe was $67,000 and they did bump it up to about $83,000.

892
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:20,020
they're looking for a person with a doctorate for that role so it's it's it's been a tough

893
01:20:20,020 --> 01:20:28,160
cell and it has been very impactful and obviously not having anybody in the role but not having

894
01:20:28,160 --> 01:20:33,640
consistency there so hopeful moving forward but it's been a challenge but that's an area again it's

895
01:20:33,640 --> 01:20:40,000
not a fancy glossy area but it's an area where there is a significant lack of coordination service

896
01:20:40,000 --> 01:20:46,040
and it's a professional guidance provided to school districts especially when you're looking at

897
01:20:46,040 --> 01:20:51,880
school districts that have smaller scale and that's I think a failure of our state.

898
01:20:56,440 --> 01:21:00,320
I just want to respond a little bit to Carl and some of the stuff about when we're expected.

899
01:21:00,940 --> 01:21:06,120
What I always have remembered about the past couple of years of doing budgets is that at some

900
01:21:06,120 --> 01:21:12,560
point or other Lisa and Mike come to us and say and so how much are you willing to present what

901
01:21:12,560 --> 01:21:17,180
percent of you willing to increase. We've had two percent. We've had seven percent. We've got 11 percent.

902
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:23,300
And as a board, we have sat here and talked at great length about what that is and what direction

903
01:21:23,880 --> 01:21:31,300
these guys need from the board in order to come up with a budget that we could even potentially pass.

904
01:21:31,740 --> 01:21:37,000
So, and when does that happen? You begin to need to hear from us. We'll hear lots of your

905
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:43,300
information, but then at what point would we as early as possible, I share. Probably we're talking

906
01:21:43,300 --> 01:21:46,540
about early November. Okay, okay, so that's all.

907
01:21:49,480 --> 01:21:52,200
Okay, thank you Lisa. That was really informative

908
01:21:53,980 --> 01:21:59,280
and we still have quite a bit to do but first of all I want to shout out to the students who I know

909
01:21:59,280 --> 01:22:06,080
this is dry dry as I know that. And you guys are very patient to

910
01:22:06,700 --> 01:22:10,380
sit there and listen to all this. And if you have some serious, if you have some ideas

911
01:22:10,380 --> 01:22:16,620
for ways that we can. Yeah, give more for you to engage you with to make it a little

912
01:22:16,620 --> 01:22:21,460
more. We're wide open, but we realize that it's really, it's really dull. And if you want

913
01:22:21,460 --> 01:22:28,560
some to like self impose some jobs on yourselves, tell me, make them up, figure out, do

914
01:22:28,560 --> 01:22:29,840
Some, I don't know.

915
01:22:30,080 --> 01:22:43,480
I know it's boring. We know it's a little boring. I mean, and I'm frailly it's only going to get a little more boring for a while. But anyway, we just want to recognize that for young people are sitting here while we're all like, wow, it's getting hot.

916
01:22:44,100 --> 01:22:45,960
All right, Caitlin, you all.

917
01:22:49,580 --> 01:22:52,020
Caitlin, talking about our.

918
01:22:52,220 --> 01:22:58,340
From building use and visioning, we're at the updated draft of the outreach committees presentation.

919
01:22:59,340 --> 01:23:08,180
Yeah, so I shared a draft last one last time we met and I haven't done a ton of additions but I wanted to walk through what I had and hopefully get some feedback as well.

920
01:23:08,340 --> 01:23:12,040
So the start is we do again if we're looking at what we're actually trying to accomplish.

921
01:23:13,020 --> 01:23:22,340
We're looking to make sure that voters have informed choice, that voters are familiarized with the broader challenges, all the things we talk about that are like now I feel very

922
01:23:23,280 --> 01:23:28,700
conversational in but I was not three months ago and then this third point to give

923
01:23:28,700 --> 01:23:32,300
photos the opportunity to collaborate on potential solutions. I mean we heard

924
01:23:32,300 --> 01:23:36,080
this in the open meeting session. The goal with this is that once we feel

925
01:23:36,080 --> 01:23:41,040
comfortable with this story that we're talking about as a board and that we do go

926
01:23:41,040 --> 01:23:45,880
out and so that's I think what I'd like to talk about at our committee meeting is

927
01:23:45,880 --> 01:23:51,340
starting to schedule those meetings. So if anyone is interested or has connections

928
01:23:51,340 --> 01:23:55,780
with any local groups that you can help schedule meetings with, I really want to start getting

929
01:23:55,780 --> 01:23:59,880
those on the calendar so we can actually start getting groups together and presenting this

930
01:23:59,880 --> 01:24:06,500
beyond this room. This is the same chart that was in Dr. Mike's presentation, I'll update the numbers

931
01:24:06,500 --> 01:24:12,200
based on what he had. We saw this, I haven't changed it. Budget keeps going up, that's the same

932
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:17,260
cost started declining. I just added this bubble while we were talking that the 12% of total is

933
01:24:17,260 --> 01:24:22,500
care, so that's half of the benefits. And then again, just given what we were just talking about

934
01:24:22,500 --> 01:24:26,060
this idea of the special education being almost 10% of our total budget, and this is

935
01:24:26,060 --> 01:24:31,280
special education after salaries are removed. So I'm going to probably reach out to you, John,

936
01:24:31,280 --> 01:24:35,720
some members for the students that this helps. I think that'll give a good additional context,

937
01:24:35,760 --> 01:24:41,100
and I'll make a slide about that as well. The other thing is, as we add more and more conversations

938
01:24:41,100 --> 01:24:45,280
to this, they'll be more and more slides. The idea is depending on the group that you're talking

939
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:50,580
through, you can hide slides and then bring them up. But as people have questions, we'll have

940
01:24:50,580 --> 01:24:55,860
hopefully answers for them. This slide hasn't changed since last time. This is the slide we're

941
01:24:55,860 --> 01:25:03,760
talking about in terms of cuts Carl. So we cut 27.5 staff in the two years ago. For last year,

942
01:25:03,860 --> 01:25:09,460
we cut another 20 FTEs, depending on how you look at it, in addition to some other

943
01:25:09,460 --> 01:25:16,440
Um, operational restrictions, and this is a section where I do want to get help.

944
01:25:17,280 --> 01:25:20,340
Um, as we were talking, you can see I just added this third bubble.

945
01:25:20,560 --> 01:25:22,340
Thanks John for that example.

946
01:25:24,280 --> 01:25:28,480
Um, but we have the example of how those cuts are actually impacting people on actual levels.

947
01:25:28,480 --> 01:25:32,520
And this is where we can bring in our own conversation, um,

948
01:25:33,200 --> 01:25:39,060
how I pilot that Dr. Mike and Lisa were in the cafeteria serving students because we didn't have enough staff.

949
01:25:39,060 --> 01:25:43,720
have the example of a nurse without a nurse on site, teachers, or spending time in classrooms

950
01:25:43,720 --> 01:25:47,960
putting on bandages that they could be using for teaching, but they can't, and then

951
01:25:47,960 --> 01:25:52,280
the fact that the only time at the principal had to meet with the Director of Special Education

952
01:25:52,280 --> 01:25:55,040
Students Sports Services was also cleaning Chromebooks.

953
01:25:55,460 --> 01:25:57,740
Clearly, our staff is multitasking across the board.

954
01:25:57,960 --> 01:26:01,260
The more examples of this, that we can find, and actually the students is a great example

955
01:26:01,260 --> 01:26:06,240
for you guys to wear either points where you feel like there's just not enough staff or staff

956
01:26:06,240 --> 01:26:09,220
doing like three things at once. Maybe helpful.

957
01:26:10,280 --> 01:26:15,200
This came back up. I was thinking about it earlier when we were talking about just like the whole discussion.

958
01:26:16,820 --> 01:26:22,180
Currently, as a senior, TAs are a teacher advisories. We meet with them every day.

959
01:26:23,240 --> 01:26:32,380
And even with like just thinking about like there is this decline in enrollment, but it even like more shocking when we don't have enough teachers

960
01:26:32,380 --> 01:26:40,320
to cover an entire grade for TA. So these freshmen, there's not enough teachers to have like

961
01:26:40,320 --> 01:26:48,700
a reasonable size TA. So my TA, along with two other senior TA's, have brought in 10 freshmen.

962
01:26:49,060 --> 01:26:56,040
So 30 freshmen are with roughly 30 seniors because there are like even with such a small amount of

963
01:26:56,040 --> 01:27:03,080
kids. There's not enough teachers. Like we've we've gone down to the bare minimum. And like that's

964
01:27:04,160 --> 01:27:10,940
it's like very shocking. Especially like TAs is bought where students are really supposed to be getting like

965
01:27:10,940 --> 01:27:18,520
just a teachers help and not even academically, but just like socially getting their ducks in a row. And that's like not

966
01:27:18,520 --> 01:27:20,880
happen thing as it should

967
01:27:23,220 --> 01:27:29,000
quick or clarification TA stands for teacher advisor great thank you.

968
01:27:35,930 --> 01:27:45,570
So what's the ratio now? It's different for some other other senior TA's had to give up their

969
01:27:45,570 --> 01:27:55,410
kids so two TA's combine. So then one of the senior TA like who would be a senior TA this year is now

970
01:27:55,410 --> 01:28:03,170
freshman. That's happened the past couple years, but because my teacher being among one,

971
01:28:03,390 --> 01:28:07,790
like my teacher advisor, she was like, I don't want to give up my seniors. I've been with them for

972
01:28:07,790 --> 01:28:16,030
three years, along with a couple other ones. So they took on students. So usually it should be about

973
01:28:16,030 --> 01:28:30,450
10 to 1 for T.A. And my T.A. is 20 people. So it's like it's it's large and it's just like not what a T.A. is supposed to really look like.

974
01:28:30,470 --> 01:28:32,330
You're not getting the individualized attention.

975
01:28:37,640 --> 01:28:38,160
Yeah.

976
01:28:38,520 --> 01:28:40,440
I would also just like to add.

977
01:28:40,640 --> 01:28:46,060
I have a sister who's a freshman and she was one of those students who went into a senior T.A.

978
01:28:46,600 --> 01:28:51,660
And she came up to me after the first day of school and she was like, I'm honestly really confused.

979
01:28:52,300 --> 01:29:00,700
I don't know what to do. I don't know where I'm going and she just didn't have those people to tell her her way is around the school.

980
01:29:01,320 --> 01:29:08,460
And I think especially for freshmen, it's incredibly important to have a person to trust and to be guidance.

981
01:29:09,380 --> 01:29:12,360
Did she saw their freshman with no TAs letters?

982
01:29:12,500 --> 01:29:14,160
It's just the TAs or spreads so thinly.

983
01:29:17,060 --> 01:29:19,280
Let's thank you for that, JB.

984
01:29:21,260 --> 01:29:22,440
This is really small, Kaylin.

985
01:29:23,140 --> 01:29:24,060
And maybe I'm wrong.

986
01:29:24,260 --> 01:29:30,240
Were you guys the least in like you were serving lunch way more than once last year?

987
01:29:30,360 --> 01:29:33,700
Unless maybe that just seems like maybe was one incident.

988
01:29:33,800 --> 01:29:36,320
Maybe we could tweak it just to reflect the realities.

989
01:29:36,660 --> 01:29:37,580
It was more than once.

990
01:29:37,580 --> 01:29:45,220
I also have to speak up for our principals that our principals do pretty regularly and if you

991
01:29:45,220 --> 01:29:50,420
go into across the Brook any day doing is usually running the register to help out number

992
01:29:50,420 --> 01:29:55,220
one but also it's one of his ways to get to know all the names of the students. But our principals

993
01:29:55,220 --> 01:29:59,860
to help out all the time so I don't want to make it sound like Lisa and I did anything extraordinary.

994
01:30:01,700 --> 01:30:09,260
Our administrator assistance custodies get pulled in every occasionally too, so everybody's lending a hand.

995
01:30:09,480 --> 01:30:16,340
I can rewrite that to be a little bit more inclusive there. And again, if there are other teachers, I don't actually think you had one that maybe we can add as well.

996
01:30:16,680 --> 01:30:18,200
Are there examples of this? Just how full of you?

997
01:30:18,200 --> 01:30:18,940
um,

998
01:30:23,560 --> 01:30:28,240
how much she comes home like exhausted because she's one of the principles at Cross

999
01:30:28,240 --> 01:30:33,920
of Brook, but she has to, she'll be like, in between meetings, she'll have to juggle

1000
01:30:33,920 --> 01:30:40,780
like four different classes for, um, substituting and then also deal with behavioral issues.

1001
01:30:41,220 --> 01:30:47,520
And it's like, I know it's very similar with the elementary schools, just because, yeah,

1002
01:30:47,520 --> 01:30:55,500
our spread super thin and it's just like it's unfortunate to see how much the teachers and

1003
01:30:55,500 --> 01:30:57,120
administrators have to struggle.

1004
01:30:59,160 --> 01:31:01,680
Perhaps it just goes to the multitasking, but I know last year

1005
01:31:01,680 --> 01:31:06,720
during my son's IEP meeting, the principal attended on the phone while she was shaperoning

1006
01:31:06,720 --> 01:31:11,880
a trip so she was on the bus and taking the meeting. So they really are multitasking.

1007
01:31:13,440 --> 01:31:16,580
They are when people were saying, well, it's just cut principles.

1008
01:31:17,600 --> 01:31:20,980
Number one, there is EQS standards that you have to meet.

1009
01:31:21,300 --> 01:31:23,820
Number two, there are most flexible employees.

1010
01:31:27,830 --> 01:31:28,590
Okay, sorry.

1011
01:31:29,410 --> 01:31:30,050
Typing that way.

1012
01:31:30,250 --> 01:31:31,390
Well, I pre done that.

1013
01:31:31,510 --> 01:31:32,770
No, that's super helpful.

1014
01:31:35,340 --> 01:31:40,340
To tell us that, that's, you're, you're telling it to the whole community right now.

1015
01:31:40,420 --> 01:31:41,280
That's the role,

1016
01:31:43,800 --> 01:31:43,800
right?

1017
01:31:44,200 --> 01:31:45,860
Oh, and those examples in.

1018
01:31:45,860 --> 01:31:54,520
Um, this is just an explanation. This doesn't change at all of the, um, spending threshold at the excess spending threshold.

1019
01:31:54,640 --> 01:31:58,800
So when we present this, we'll walk through it. Hopefully we're all aware of how that works.

1020
01:31:59,060 --> 01:32:03,500
This doesn't change either. This is again, the same presentation of how that's going to impact our budget.

1021
01:32:03,860 --> 01:32:12,100
Similarly, here, these two slides are the same information is just one is all the information and one is just the right big takeaway,

1022
01:32:12,100 --> 01:32:19,880
which is that as this excess spending declines, our overall budget goes up even with just maintaining

1023
01:32:19,880 --> 01:32:24,620
level standard. This is based on the projections that Lisa gave us at the end of last year,

1024
01:32:24,840 --> 01:32:28,820
so as we get new budget numbers, we can put these in and keep this up today.

1025
01:32:31,100 --> 01:32:35,860
This is a new slide. I'm stunned by this slide, but I think it's really important.

1026
01:32:36,840 --> 01:32:41,480
The excess spending threshold is a result of Act 170, and when I checked all of our representatives

1027
01:32:41,480 --> 01:32:49,340
voted for that which is pretty disappointing. So I put that in there and I put their quotes in

1028
01:32:49,340 --> 01:32:52,660
there as well as to their justification for that but I think this is something we can talk about

1029
01:32:52,660 --> 01:32:55,100
with them when they do, when they do come to the meetings.

1030
01:32:57,560 --> 01:32:59,540
So the way can we do the death by 1000 cuts

1031
01:32:59,540 --> 01:33:08,240
hasn't changed but I did add from the report all the photos of some of the fun ways that our buildings

1032
01:33:08,240 --> 01:33:15,900
need help. This is just a selection of the most visually appealing versions. I didn't do all

1033
01:33:15,900 --> 01:33:19,780
of the electrical stuff, which is just pictures of electrical boxes, but talk about how

1034
01:33:19,780 --> 01:33:27,880
heaters that were installed in 1996 are about to go offline. There's a time here that can be pretty.

1035
01:33:32,090 --> 01:33:37,950
I think with this slide and thinking about community response, this is one of the things where

1036
01:33:37,950 --> 01:33:43,370
unfortunately the community thinks that the school boards in general when I say boards over the years

1037
01:33:43,370 --> 01:33:49,610
has mismanaged money by ignoring the fact that schools need to repairs and that's the exact

1038
01:33:49,610 --> 01:33:55,030
opposite. So I think that could be an important thing to put in the back of our heads for the

1039
01:33:55,030 --> 01:34:04,010
community outreach is the reason why this hasn't been addressed and it's not because school boards

1040
01:34:04,010 --> 01:34:06,710
didn't want to put money into our buildings.

1041
01:34:09,190 --> 01:34:11,850
And I would also say, I had a question for Lisa.

1042
01:34:12,010 --> 01:34:15,890
The question came up with the amount the board has spent on architectural services.

1043
01:34:16,590 --> 01:34:21,390
And since we've been in our positions, it's been roughly $150,000.

1044
01:34:23,090 --> 01:34:25,870
$150,000 over the time before.

1045
01:34:26,370 --> 01:34:30,490
And the significant piece of that was the building evaluation,

1046
01:34:31,310 --> 01:34:33,910
which if you remember when we talked about that,

1047
01:34:33,910 --> 01:34:42,850
Well, while Ray knows buildings and maintenance, he doesn't note the degree that systems that needed to be identified to that process would be.

1048
01:34:44,530 --> 01:34:52,230
So when Lisa and I came, the work you see here is not the accumulation of the last four years since we've been here.

1049
01:34:52,690 --> 01:34:58,290
It looked pretty much like that when we started. And at that point, I think we had in capital reserve around $2 million.

1050
01:35:01,250 --> 01:35:04,390
So the $150,000 the board has spent an

1051
01:35:04,390 --> 01:35:09,050
on our opinion on needed services to give us some guidance and direction.

1052
01:35:10,790 --> 01:35:13,750
It's not taken away significantly from the

1053
01:35:13,750 --> 01:35:15,910
tens of billions of dollars in deferred maintenance.

1054
01:35:16,490 --> 01:35:19,390
Nor has that would have seen if he can land it to the

1055
01:35:19,390 --> 01:35:23,050
$2 million that we found when we started our positions.

1056
01:35:23,770 --> 01:35:26,310
I think making has Sandraised.

1057
01:35:31,750 --> 01:35:32,430
I do.

1058
01:35:32,530 --> 01:35:32,930
I do.

1059
01:35:33,250 --> 01:35:35,090
Or should I wait to the end?

1060
01:35:36,970 --> 01:35:39,610
I'll handle the people as best I can.

1061
01:35:39,930 --> 01:35:41,850
But if you need to make and go for it,

1062
01:35:41,970 --> 01:35:43,610
then we'll have Cassidy after that.

1063
01:35:43,670 --> 01:35:44,830
Go for it, make it.

1064
01:35:45,870 --> 01:35:46,750
Well, first off.

1065
01:35:46,970 --> 01:35:47,090
I can't.

1066
01:35:47,210 --> 01:35:49,190
I just wanted to say this is awesome.

1067
01:35:49,390 --> 01:35:50,330
I saw an earlier version.

1068
01:35:50,370 --> 01:35:51,530
I really appreciate all the work

1069
01:35:51,530 --> 01:35:52,750
because I'm putting this together.

1070
01:35:53,510 --> 01:36:03,710
And I just wanted to share kind of a top line piece that frankly is that it would be additional content, but it may be content we already have.

1071
01:36:03,790 --> 01:36:07,750
But it's based on what I hear from people when I have been trying to talk to them about this.

1072
01:36:08,730 --> 01:36:12,930
I think what you're describing is a budget to deliver educational experience.

1073
01:36:13,410 --> 01:36:18,210
Our students give and we don't do a quick description of what that is at the top.

1074
01:36:18,210 --> 01:36:26,950
And I kind of made this point to Mike at our last meeting about his job description and kind of defining those educational metrics that are really driving our strategic plan.

1075
01:36:27,670 --> 01:36:28,250
And I'm not.

1076
01:36:28,470 --> 01:36:35,110
I don't think it's that complicated, but some basic questions I hear are how many teachers do we have and or would in district.

1077
01:36:35,610 --> 01:36:41,750
How many have we had the last five years? How many do we project in the next five? How many classrooms? How many students?

1078
01:36:42,290 --> 01:36:53,230
Because I think to some extent what there's a chicken in the egg, what the community wants is a multi-year plan for us that says we've decided this is what we want to provide.

1079
01:36:54,410 --> 01:36:57,890
And we think it's going to cost this much, maybe there's different scenarios how we provide it.

1080
01:36:57,890 --> 01:37:03,490
But if all we're doing is just talking about how much something costs and how it could be cheaper, we're not going to win that.

1081
01:37:03,490 --> 01:37:06,570
There's just no outcome where someone's been like, oh, that sounds good.

1082
01:37:07,070 --> 01:37:11,990
We have to ground this in what we believe the kids deserve and then stand behind what it

1083
01:37:11,990 --> 01:37:12,450
costs.

1084
01:37:12,730 --> 01:37:17,150
And that may mean higher class sizes, but we need to just be bold and say that.

1085
01:37:17,490 --> 01:37:18,270
So people can do it.

1086
01:37:18,270 --> 01:37:21,730
I'm going to tell you about because there's a couple exercise that actually get into it a

1087
01:37:21,730 --> 01:37:22,270
little bit.

1088
01:37:22,290 --> 01:37:22,650
Love it.

1089
01:37:23,030 --> 01:37:24,270
Then think I should always the end.

1090
01:37:24,430 --> 01:37:24,750
For sorry.

1091
01:37:24,930 --> 01:37:25,310
But love it.

1092
01:37:26,710 --> 01:37:27,010
Um,

1093
01:37:29,580 --> 01:37:29,960
I think it must.

1094
01:37:30,000 --> 01:37:55,720
The other point that we don't want to lose is that it is not just the school board that's responsible for some of this work not being done. Our communities have turned down one bond vote. They turned down a budget that caused us to pull another bond vote off of the table, both of which were involved with a lot of maintenance and taking care of buildings. So it's not just that this school board has done this, but we all have done this as a community.

1095
01:37:59,350 --> 01:38:03,870
So, this is based on the work that Chex Collins did last October.

1096
01:38:04,390 --> 01:38:09,250
I believe this is the report that you were referencing Dr. Mike where they looked at

1097
01:38:09,250 --> 01:38:11,850
every building and came up with a comprehensive review of what it would cost.

1098
01:38:12,450 --> 01:38:13,470
So, this is not my work.

1099
01:38:13,630 --> 01:38:15,210
I'm hopefully, I'm summarizing it correctly.

1100
01:38:15,370 --> 01:38:17,430
If there's anything incorrect here, please let me know.

1101
01:38:17,850 --> 01:38:21,690
But what I understood from this chart is there's like party one, which is like, this

1102
01:38:21,690 --> 01:38:24,710
stuff is a big problem and you need to solve it right away.

1103
01:38:24,710 --> 01:38:27,530
Party two, which is like, things are at the end of their life.

1104
01:38:27,530 --> 01:38:32,110
This is the 1996 heater that needs replacing, and then Party three, which is like other stuff,

1105
01:38:32,270 --> 01:38:38,650
which is probably like, you know, the column that is decorative, but, you know, needs replacing.

1106
01:38:39,830 --> 01:38:44,430
When we put it all together across all of the schools, according to the analysis that Tricks

1107
01:38:44,430 --> 01:38:52,250
consted, the total cost for all of the priorities needed, I see, would be, and I do have this

1108
01:38:52,250 --> 01:39:01,930
correct. So it would be the 1-21 million per everything. Which is a third of the total replacement

1109
01:39:02,810 --> 01:39:07,570
cost for just if we just started from scratch with all these buildings. So what this is saying

1110
01:39:07,570 --> 01:39:14,290
basically is that the cost to update phased in to with all of the priorities that we're seeing

1111
01:39:14,290 --> 01:39:20,050
is half of the cost of just replacing phased in from the ground up. Am I reading this correctly?

1112
01:39:28,580 --> 01:39:32,320
I've heard a couple of times here with people who actually have looked at these numbers.

1113
01:39:32,740 --> 01:39:37,400
So my first thing is we need to take this slide and this 2x work and we need to put it

1114
01:39:37,400 --> 01:39:41,560
in the story, but in a way that's not a bunch of numbers so people make it part of the

1115
01:39:41,560 --> 01:39:42,960
story so people can understand it.

1116
01:39:43,100 --> 01:39:48,580
People who have looked at this table, the couple comments I've received have been, well look

1117
01:39:48,580 --> 01:39:52,520
at Harvard, it needs 73 million while you're closing the elementary schools with nearly

1118
01:39:52,520 --> 01:39:56,880
total 48 million. So we need to answer that. Okay.

1119
01:39:59,610 --> 01:40:04,810
Okay. No, no, it's good. So then based on

1120
01:40:04,810 --> 01:40:08,630
this, based on the cost and the total replacement, one thing that we are considering as

1121
01:40:08,630 --> 01:40:13,450
a board is consolidation. The church columns had some additional benefits, so I've added

1122
01:40:13,450 --> 01:40:18,050
them. There's fewer overall staff needed. We talked about last time. Easier hiring was something

1123
01:40:18,050 --> 01:40:21,990
that wasn't in here last time, so a lot of the small school districts are looking for part time

1124
01:40:21,990 --> 01:40:26,090
work, a lot of staff are looking for full-time work, if you're part of a larger school,

1125
01:40:26,430 --> 01:40:29,230
you can get a full-time staffer at sometimes easier to find those.

1126
01:40:29,590 --> 01:40:33,870
Increase collaboration, if you're part of a larger school, teachers and staff have more

1127
01:40:33,870 --> 01:40:39,210
opportunities to collaborate on different work streams, and there's also a social perspective,

1128
01:40:39,510 --> 01:40:44,530
you're not just you and three other teachers, it's you and many, a larger cohort of teachers

1129
01:40:44,530 --> 01:40:46,230
that you can provide support.

1130
01:40:47,030 --> 01:40:50,430
The less infrastructure to maintain, that's the same number we saw on the prior slide.

1131
01:40:51,410 --> 01:40:56,550
The budget freed up is a question mark that hopefully we can get more information about.

1132
01:40:57,190 --> 01:41:02,970
And the incentive by state is, you know, they're offering $50 million for the whole state if the school districts consolidate,

1133
01:41:03,290 --> 01:41:09,330
but we saw the estimated cost for new buildings and renovations are, I guess it's whatever we saw in the prior slides.

1134
01:41:09,730 --> 01:41:11,590
So a lot more than $50 million.

1135
01:41:12,570 --> 01:41:15,070
And then the peer's for students,

1136
01:41:15,730 --> 01:41:18,250
scale loss, or specialization, particularly in a secondary school.

1137
01:41:18,810 --> 01:41:22,610
We've seen this and I have another slide coming up on the benefits and drawbacks

1138
01:41:22,610 --> 01:41:28,150
of size of classroom at a high school level.

1139
01:41:29,250 --> 01:41:31,890
Smaller classes, but more classes in the same building,

1140
01:41:32,530 --> 01:41:36,290
allow people to find their peers whether they're interested in robotics or sports.

1141
01:41:37,350 --> 01:41:38,610
I went to a lot of small schools.

1142
01:41:38,950 --> 01:41:40,730
My brother did two and he was often not.

1143
01:41:40,730 --> 01:41:42,430
like he just couldn't find his people, right?

1144
01:41:42,430 --> 01:41:44,790
You can't find your people when you're into like weird

1145
01:41:44,790 --> 01:41:46,410
niche things until you get to college.

1146
01:41:46,930 --> 01:41:49,210
So there are benefits to bigger communities.

1147
01:41:50,290 --> 01:41:52,690
Drawback can also be a larger class size though.

1148
01:41:53,710 --> 01:41:55,510
Potential for less and privileged-sized attention.

1149
01:41:55,650 --> 01:41:57,910
And if you get up to a 30 person classroom size,

1150
01:41:57,990 --> 01:42:01,370
then you do start to see some declines in effectiveness.

1151
01:42:03,010 --> 01:42:05,730
Town centers and by towns, you think this is something

1152
01:42:05,730 --> 01:42:07,030
that the community feels really deeply,

1153
01:42:07,130 --> 01:42:08,570
and we probably want to elaborate on this

1154
01:42:08,570 --> 01:42:10,290
and get more information from the communities

1155
01:42:10,290 --> 01:42:15,670
as we talk this through about how we can, if we do go down the root of consolidation, how we

1156
01:42:15,670 --> 01:42:21,370
can maintain town centers for places like more town where the school is the center there.

1157
01:42:23,310 --> 01:42:27,010
And the initial outlay of money from a bond is something that we really need to talk about.

1158
01:42:27,170 --> 01:42:31,410
So this is the note on class sizes. This is one of those slides that we can hide if we need to.

1159
01:42:32,010 --> 01:42:39,010
But I just pulled in some reports that talk about the benefits of class size in elementary and high school.

1160
01:42:39,010 --> 01:42:41,330
And there are a number of different points.

1161
01:42:41,330 --> 01:42:49,690
You can see the citations in the bottom, but basically, in a 13 to 17 students compared to

1162
01:42:49,690 --> 01:42:54,610
22 to 25 students, there was positive academic effects, but they're pretty minor, and we looked

1163
01:42:54,610 --> 01:43:00,250
at the difference between like a 35 reducing a 35 per student class to a 22 student class.

1164
01:43:00,370 --> 01:43:05,190
You basically gained a month of knowledge from the sizing down.

1165
01:43:05,190 --> 01:43:09,130
And so it is there, but what these studies are saying is that there's more effective ways

1166
01:43:09,130 --> 01:43:16,370
to get that additional teaching benefits and then one of the studies found that very,

1167
01:43:16,370 --> 01:43:20,410
actually I think this was a meta study found that very small classes don't necessarily

1168
01:43:20,410 --> 01:43:21,870
produce better peer relationships.

1169
01:43:23,110 --> 01:43:27,850
So again that idea specialization if you're in a class of eight, you might not find a good

1170
01:43:27,850 --> 01:43:34,030
friend if you do, that's awesome, but I was in a, I was in a, I was in a grade with

1171
01:43:34,030 --> 01:43:39,030
five people and I just have to say none of those five people are people I talk to now.

1172
01:43:42,020 --> 01:43:47,660
High school I talk through this on the other side, but we have smaller classes are really great.

1173
01:43:49,560 --> 01:43:53,240
But that larger cohort is really important for specialization.

1174
01:43:56,000 --> 01:43:59,100
This is also something I pulled from the committee work.

1175
01:43:59,700 --> 01:44:03,360
So again, please call me out if I've done this incorrectly, but this is all the different options

1176
01:44:03,360 --> 01:44:08,040
that we asked Tricks call instillic into in March of last year.

1177
01:44:10,160 --> 01:44:14,400
One of the things I added, and Lisa, this is something that I want your help with, is the

1178
01:44:14,400 --> 01:44:17,360
impact of

1179
01:44:19,480 --> 01:44:21,380
a bond on a five-year budget.

1180
01:44:22,320 --> 01:44:27,460
So we have the 30-year savings, which is what Tricks Collins was projecting, and then I did

1181
01:44:27,460 --> 01:44:34,080
a very, very back of the envelope sort of incorporating of a bond into what it would cost,

1182
01:44:34,080 --> 01:44:40,240
additionally in the budget and then how that would affect tax rates. So that might be

1183
01:44:40,240 --> 01:44:44,880
something that we want to talk through as we start to look at budget numbers. Especially

1184
01:44:44,880 --> 01:44:49,120
if we want to, like I think it is important we've heard from folks that we want to look at

1185
01:44:49,120 --> 01:44:54,900
the status quo potentially with a bond to fix the buildings. We've heard from the community

1186
01:44:54,900 --> 01:44:59,140
that they want to be able to look at things apples to apples so I want to make sure that we

1187
01:44:59,140 --> 01:44:59,980
I'm on the 2nd round.

1188
01:45:02,760 --> 01:45:28,920
I think the building committee said you guys were looking at keeping one elementary school, maybe two. And then there was like another step after this where you decided that it was best to have one elementary school and one way of water break. So that's this option G1. And then it turned out that we sealed actually, didn't have the capacity to be expanded correct.

1189
01:45:30,040 --> 01:45:44,600
But you can see here, when you compare the different numbers in terms of savings, that option had the most savings over 30 years and actually has the least impact in terms of a five year budget projection, which is why we ended up choosing that as opposed to choosing other options here.

1190
01:45:45,200 --> 01:45:50,100
There's a really large study that we can point people to if they want to get into the weeds on this.

1191
01:45:52,940 --> 01:45:54,400
This slide hasn't changed.

1192
01:45:55,500 --> 01:46:04,160
This slide hasn't changed. The final slide is our asks of a community. One is to do what we asked for on this slide.

1193
01:46:04,740 --> 01:46:10,740
The second is to work with us this budget season. This is why we want to start getting this out in front of folks in the next month.

1194
01:46:12,020 --> 01:46:23,180
You know, we heard from the community input that they're looking for us to ask for more community input, and I think we need to go out and get it.

1195
01:46:24,040 --> 01:46:33,580
awesome. Like I would love to hear them in more detail and we can talk about them. So let's find ways to do that.

1196
01:46:34,500 --> 01:46:52,260
So this is, I find this a really thorny question of, again, part of the reason I wanted to hear from Lisa about what the budget process is, is that one of the takeaways, they're very small window, at least for this initial budget of

1197
01:46:52,900 --> 01:46:57,440
what we can investigate when we can give feedback.

1198
01:46:58,540 --> 01:47:02,980
So, I do think it's important to ask community to partner with us,

1199
01:47:03,300 --> 01:47:07,300
but I also don't think that we want to give the impression

1200
01:47:07,300 --> 01:47:10,820
that we want their feedback only to when they come to us.

1201
01:47:11,100 --> 01:47:14,720
I have to say, sorry, we really can't take that.

1202
01:47:15,220 --> 01:47:18,260
So, I think it's important to think about what,

1203
01:47:18,260 --> 01:47:25,500
carefully about how we want to talk about this. And I don't have the answer, but that's my worry

1204
01:47:25,500 --> 01:47:32,760
is that saying, having an empty, we want to work with you is going to be worse than being honest

1205
01:47:32,760 --> 01:47:38,900
about what the levers that people actually have are.

1206
01:47:39,340 --> 01:47:47,280
Fair. I think there's two side space. One is we have to get the budget through for next year,

1207
01:47:47,280 --> 01:47:53,380
And that is going to happen, has to be finalized in January, or, you know, and vote it on a march.

1208
01:47:53,920 --> 01:48:00,800
Two is the broader question of, as we start to explore options for that five that 10 years,

1209
01:48:01,040 --> 01:48:05,200
where we know we're seeing the decline in population. We're seeing that our current route is not sustainable.

1210
01:48:05,540 --> 01:48:10,020
We're seeing the yield and the foundation for a mode which is going to hit in five years.

1211
01:48:10,820 --> 01:48:14,900
We start working on that now. I'm not expecting maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I'm not expecting

1212
01:48:14,900 --> 01:48:19,580
us to come to a conclusion on that by the by the time time meeting date rolls around, especially

1213
01:48:19,580 --> 01:48:22,400
if we're just asking for RFPs.

1214
01:48:25,370 --> 01:48:29,630
Yeah, my thought is that there's there's like Caitlin said, there's two tracks here.

1215
01:48:29,870 --> 01:48:35,050
One is the budget and separately the long term planning of where a district is going and

1216
01:48:35,050 --> 01:48:39,630
what that process looks like and if we can do a bon vote or not, if there's another solution

1217
01:48:39,630 --> 01:48:40,110
or not.

1218
01:48:40,350 --> 01:48:46,910
And I think the way they overlap and connect is next year, Lisa's forecasted for us tonight,

1219
01:48:46,910 --> 01:48:51,210
that there's going to be some shocking numbers and budgeting is going to be really hard and

1220
01:48:51,210 --> 01:48:55,290
it's going to impact your community because it might shake them away to realize how dire

1221
01:48:55,290 --> 01:49:01,190
the situation is that's pushed us here to make them really want to participate with us to

1222
01:49:01,190 --> 01:49:07,450
make a meaningful change so that when we are talking about the future we are making sure that

1223
01:49:07,450 --> 01:49:12,150
we understand like the example that comes to mind is like the tone centers like if that's your

1224
01:49:12,150 --> 01:49:17,770
How can we make that work for you if we have to consolidate and so it's like a it's like a

1225
01:49:17,770 --> 01:49:22,550
Two track thing they overlap and that the one might scare them into participating in the other

1226
01:49:23,430 --> 01:49:28,730
Well, so I think there are a few things that I take from that that I think are really important number one that of

1227
01:49:28,730 --> 01:49:30,770
Of kind of differentiating those two

1228
01:49:31,350 --> 01:49:33,690
areas like this year's budget

1229
01:49:35,010 --> 01:49:37,910
It should be paying pretty upfront that

1230
01:49:38,690 --> 01:49:42,310
There are going to be some really hard decisions that we have to make on this year's budget.

1231
01:49:42,710 --> 01:49:48,190
I don't think anybody's going to be happy with them, but we just, we don't, we don't,

1232
01:49:48,350 --> 01:49:53,090
we have realities and we're going to have to react to them without very much input.

1233
01:49:53,670 --> 01:49:55,430
I mean, this is, this is, again, just a hypothesis.

1234
01:49:56,370 --> 01:50:03,510
I don't know for sure about that, but there is a longer time window for some of these larger

1235
01:50:03,510 --> 01:50:04,190
changes.

1236
01:50:06,730 --> 01:50:13,450
If we believe that, then I think we should say that as a part of the message, so

1237
01:50:13,450 --> 01:50:19,450
that people don't come into this feeling like this next budget just knocked their legs out

1238
01:50:19,450 --> 01:50:28,650
from under them, which it might still but, you know. And then I guess the other thing was I forgot

1239
01:50:28,650 --> 01:50:30,850
and so maybe it'll come back to me and you can continue.

1240
01:50:33,210 --> 01:50:34,370
JVD, do you have a comment?

1241
01:50:35,910 --> 01:50:39,050
Kind of, I just, I think I understand what you're saying.

1242
01:50:39,170 --> 01:50:47,950
I'll not sure, but I do think there is not just the need to deal with 28, but we need,

1243
01:50:47,970 --> 01:50:53,850
I think the community, most of the community, is wanting some sort of long-term vision.

1244
01:50:53,850 --> 01:51:03,890
So I do think we can't just kick that candle down the road and deal with 28. I would like to see 28 dealt with as part of the long-term planning. I think a lot of people would.

1245
01:51:05,090 --> 01:51:10,310
Yeah, I think we need to at least lay the groundwork for that. I see Steve's hand up, Steve.

1246
01:51:14,180 --> 01:51:15,140
Yeah, thanks.

1247
01:51:17,200 --> 01:51:25,480
First of all, I want to thank a lot of people for making really good suggestions about what sort of community outreach we need,

1248
01:51:25,480 --> 01:51:28,080
what sort of issues we should focus on,

1249
01:51:28,080 --> 01:51:31,660
and maybe focus less on the boss drivers we've been pushing

1250
01:51:31,660 --> 01:51:34,820
as a theme and more on declining enrollment,

1251
01:51:35,100 --> 01:51:37,100
as forcing our hand, I mean,

1252
01:51:37,120 --> 01:51:38,760
I really appreciate hearing all that.

1253
01:51:39,900 --> 01:51:41,680
The other thing I wanted to say is,

1254
01:51:44,120 --> 01:51:46,040
the outreach committee has been focused a lot

1255
01:51:46,040 --> 01:51:48,060
on getting the message out,

1256
01:51:48,360 --> 01:51:50,720
but I think Carl mentioned last time,

1257
01:51:51,080 --> 01:51:54,080
maybe there's a need to receive messages

1258
01:51:54,080 --> 01:51:56,160
It's a better way to hear from the community.

1259
01:51:56,420 --> 01:52:04,500
A lot of us are being kind of, well, just deluge with lots of comments from community members.

1260
01:52:05,060 --> 01:52:12,260
We've passed some of them on to Mike and Lisa to the point where Mike sent us out that email saying,

1261
01:52:12,900 --> 01:52:16,280
hey, you know, don't bug us on every single question you get.

1262
01:52:16,500 --> 01:52:19,500
We just don't have the time and some of the resources are available.

1263
01:52:19,500 --> 01:52:29,980
So, one thing, some of us have been thinking about, and we'll discuss at the outreach committee meeting next week, is to have district webpage.

1264
01:52:30,000 --> 01:52:44,900
We say, this is the place where the community can ask us questions. Maybe one page about the budget, one page about consolidation issues, short-term and long-term, and then we'll answer those questions.

1265
01:52:45,460 --> 01:52:52,740
Many of them, the answers will be, we don't know yet, but many of them will be like, yes, we have the answers to this.

1266
01:52:52,740 --> 01:52:58,860
look at this link. Look at that link. So in particular in the public comment tonight

1267
01:52:58,860 --> 01:53:04,680
when the woman whose name I don't know said, well we should do a survey to get the

1268
01:53:04,680 --> 01:53:13,400
community's sense of consolidation. We did one in 2024 and the support for consolidation

1269
01:53:13,400 --> 01:53:21,060
was 10 to 1 and also as Dr. Mike addressed she said, well we should, you know, maybe do some

1270
01:53:22,120 --> 01:53:29,100
cheaper consultancy work but you know we've kind of done all this stuff so I think this

1271
01:53:29,100 --> 01:53:35,960
is a failure of the board and maybe me in particular to communicate better and I'd like to

1272
01:53:35,960 --> 01:53:44,200
move ahead by also finding a better way to kind of absorb communication from the community so

1273
01:53:44,200 --> 01:53:46,280
we're not always bugging Mike and Lisa.

1274
01:53:50,190 --> 01:53:53,730
Thank you solid points for sure they have a lot on

1275
01:53:53,730 --> 01:54:00,250
play it is hard to answer to 14 people who have a lot of questions. I like that idea how to

1276
01:54:00,250 --> 01:54:04,790
other people feel about that of a page for where people could host questions.

1277
01:54:05,510 --> 01:54:09,570
I think it's a great idea and I sort of thought that we've already had some conversations with

1278
01:54:09,570 --> 01:54:15,990
some of the stuff that make them spend doing. I mean, really some of that stuff is just general updates

1279
01:54:15,990 --> 01:54:22,510
to the website and making the board information more accessible, but I think that's really honest

1280
01:54:22,510 --> 01:54:26,390
to make sense because there's going to be a lot of the same questions that are going to

1281
01:54:26,390 --> 01:54:34,330
be coming along and then that can be something an area where we can collaborate in a public

1282
01:54:34,330 --> 01:54:41,110
fashion, we're not breaking any of the open meeting, you know, the information is there

1283
01:54:41,110 --> 01:54:46,590
and when people come to us with questions, we can just say, actually we've got this great page

1284
01:54:46,590 --> 01:54:47,910
you know,

1285
01:54:52,300 --> 01:55:00,100
not to state and obvious, but I mean, would it be beneficial to have like a

1286
01:55:00,100 --> 01:55:05,760
social media handles for with little snippets right now these long-winded emails that come

1287
01:55:05,760 --> 01:55:12,960
out that for the public that is more just like hey, let's break down act, you know, whatever

1288
01:55:12,960 --> 01:55:16,940
in two minutes because that's the attention span we all have anymore.

1289
01:55:17,460 --> 01:55:24,220
So, my thing's off, I don't know, anyway, with that be something that might be a better

1290
01:55:24,220 --> 01:55:30,400
use of public outreach where people actually then are going to have a little bit of information

1291
01:55:30,400 --> 01:55:33,840
about some of these things rather than reading a whole thing at once.

1292
01:55:36,480 --> 01:55:41,280
Yeah, the idea was to craft the overall story with like all the details and every time we talk

1293
01:55:41,280 --> 01:55:44,800
about it, there's more questions, right? And then everything should be there as a repository

1294
01:55:44,800 --> 01:55:50,140
And then from that, when we're all aligned on what that storyline is and how to tell it,

1295
01:55:50,340 --> 01:55:55,000
we can adjust it for various things, whether that's a front porch form post or a social media post.

1296
01:55:55,460 --> 01:55:58,900
Personally, I don't think the HUSD should have a social media handle,

1297
01:55:59,380 --> 01:56:05,280
but maybe we put together things that we can share as individuals or other places.

1298
01:56:06,000 --> 01:56:06,820
For sure.

1299
01:56:11,620 --> 01:56:18,000
Um, just thinking about like community and I know student body, like, I mean, students have

1300
01:56:18,000 --> 01:56:21,500
even a lower attention span than adults.

1301
01:56:22,540 --> 01:56:28,640
Um, but in past years, there were border ports out of assemblies and I'm currently writing an email

1302
01:56:29,320 --> 01:56:36,100
because, um, to, like, assembly, like, teacher, um, Miss Clark, um, to hopefully incorporate

1303
01:56:36,100 --> 01:56:41,640
those back in and not in a way that's just like here's the information and it's going to be

1304
01:56:41,640 --> 01:56:47,800
really bad and it's going to be really hard but maybe like putting it more interesting

1305
01:56:47,800 --> 01:56:56,320
spin on it to engage students like the student level to see how that goes so we'll probably get that

1306
01:56:56,320 --> 01:57:04,240
back in assemblies which will hopefully like I mean if adults are hearing it from their kids like

1307
01:57:04,240 --> 01:57:15,980
Like, like, so do you like the idea of that Jill just proposed of smaller, like, chunks of this information that you could share rather than giving a boring board report?

1308
01:57:16,140 --> 01:57:25,220
Like, what would it, what, what, yeah. I mean, like, such as their hard to follow, especially from, I mean, there's 14 year old wait, how young are freshmen? Like, young?

1309
01:57:25,780 --> 01:57:36,520
Yeah, um, yeah, like shorter information is easier to follow. Like, just like, after a month

1310
01:57:36,520 --> 01:57:42,040
pile up, like so much changes in a month, if it's shorter, just like quick updates, I think

1311
01:57:42,040 --> 01:57:48,780
that is where we can benefit from just like outreach and social interaction. We'd like to see

1312
01:57:48,780 --> 01:57:53,160
what would come of engaging students on this. That would be interesting, I think, for the board

1313
01:57:53,160 --> 01:57:53,900
to hear more.

1314
01:57:54,780 --> 01:57:57,420
So, okay.

1315
01:58:00,340 --> 01:58:00,540
Yeah.

1316
01:58:02,420 --> 01:58:03,520
Go ahead, Caitlin.

1317
01:58:04,060 --> 01:58:04,440
Are you done?

1318
01:58:04,680 --> 01:58:04,880
Okay.

1319
01:58:05,060 --> 01:58:05,700
Mike, go ahead.

1320
01:58:07,640 --> 01:58:08,440
Just two pieces.

1321
01:58:08,920 --> 01:58:14,680
One is a piece of feedback that I've shared with a number of parents recently that has

1322
01:58:14,680 --> 01:58:16,300
kind of struck a chord.

1323
01:58:16,860 --> 01:58:18,060
Then we talk about transportation.

1324
01:58:18,240 --> 01:58:25,640
And we talk about organization of schools that have some kind of image of our district.

1325
01:58:25,640 --> 01:58:33,680
We're 240 square miles, we cover six towns, we are bordered by the green mountains on both sides,

1326
01:58:34,180 --> 01:58:36,540
and we average seven students a square mile.

1327
01:58:37,200 --> 01:58:38,940
And I gave the I gave the comparison.

1328
01:58:39,300 --> 01:58:41,780
Many people said, well, how does that rate to your experience?

1329
01:58:41,920 --> 01:58:46,460
And I said, well, it was in a school district of less than half that geographic area

1330
01:58:46,460 --> 01:58:49,400
with about 40 students a square mile.

1331
01:58:49,880 --> 01:58:52,060
And that impacts, again, it goes to scale.

1332
01:58:52,060 --> 01:58:55,580
So, however we could represent that, this is just an idea,

1333
01:58:55,700 --> 01:58:57,320
it may not possible, but this is an idea.

1334
01:58:57,700 --> 01:59:00,140
The other piece is I just wanted to speak up for Lisa and I,

1335
01:59:00,200 --> 01:59:03,180
we are always happy to answer the board.

1336
01:59:03,700 --> 01:59:04,980
We don't want to seem like we're grumpy,

1337
01:59:06,360 --> 01:59:08,420
but I think Steve said it well,

1338
01:59:09,440 --> 01:59:10,540
a lot of people are really interested,

1339
01:59:10,940 --> 01:59:12,980
so we're getting a lot of questions about,

1340
01:59:13,060 --> 01:59:14,140
hey, what about this information?

1341
01:59:14,300 --> 01:59:17,080
Can we get this information from everyone?

1342
01:59:17,400 --> 01:59:19,360
And that's kind of why I gave you that composite,

1343
01:59:19,480 --> 01:59:20,600
because a lot of the information,

1344
01:59:20,980 --> 01:59:26,420
And we, is out there and, and defined a way to just share that on a very quick site, some

1345
01:59:26,420 --> 01:59:30,680
of the information that, you know, Michelle Baker, who spoke, who was our former finance

1346
01:59:30,680 --> 01:59:31,260
director.

1347
01:59:32,680 --> 01:59:37,580
When you're not in it every day, you don't realize kind of the level of work that's going

1348
01:59:37,580 --> 01:59:38,080
into it.

1349
01:59:38,120 --> 01:59:41,060
And it's not because people, people are trying to be helpful.

1350
01:59:42,040 --> 01:59:45,820
But it does, you know, when Lisa's trying to clean up the audit, and I'm trying to get a school

1351
01:59:45,820 --> 01:59:50,580
running, and you want to be responsive, I try to remember I work for the board as a whole

1352
01:59:50,580 --> 01:59:56,500
So if there's something that we talk about at the table that you want or if it's something that's really quick available

1353
01:59:56,500 --> 01:59:59,960
But it's difficult to draw

1354
02:00:00,000 --> 02:00:06,920
We're going to drop what you're doing and kind of go digging back through the last year's board meetings, but it I think it was helpful.

1355
02:00:07,380 --> 02:00:13,980
Having this question asked us to compile those resources and kind of a more easily accessible area.

1356
02:00:14,200 --> 02:00:25,640
So I think Steve's idea of getting those ideas and then making sure we're delivering on them in a timeline that works for our community, but also works for us.

1357
02:00:25,640 --> 02:00:36,300
Well, the disclosure, all the information in this deck came from taking through those files, so maybe like a FAQ, or like, yeah, we have me.

1358
02:00:36,960 --> 02:00:39,320
We got to be more like an AMA, yeah.

1359
02:00:39,320 --> 02:00:44,020
A little more, I like the idea of people being able to ask their specific questions.

1360
02:00:46,320 --> 02:00:48,220
Okay, we're going to move on from that.

1361
02:00:48,220 --> 02:00:48,820
Thank you.

1362
02:00:49,800 --> 02:00:51,060
It's sounding good.

1363
02:00:51,880 --> 02:00:56,600
Okay, the next part of our meeting is draft superintendent goals.

1364
02:00:57,360 --> 02:01:01,300
I promised I'd bring back a draft and then discuss some later.

1365
02:01:01,940 --> 02:01:06,380
I took everything that was shared and I broke it down in a couple of different areas.

1366
02:01:07,360 --> 02:01:11,300
The first area is instructional and some feedback I got.

1367
02:01:11,720 --> 02:01:18,920
It was a positive comment but it seems like we're layering some goals on other things that have happened

1368
02:01:18,920 --> 02:01:26,280
And that's very true from talking to our principles, from talking to John, Mandy, Shannon Leslie.

1369
02:01:27,420 --> 02:01:34,460
One of the things that has been kicked down the road for many years is taking a, and having

1370
02:01:34,460 --> 02:01:41,180
a comprehensive approach to reading and a comprehensive reading program for the district,

1371
02:01:41,280 --> 02:01:41,980
the reading series.

1372
02:01:42,200 --> 02:01:42,880
We don't.

1373
02:01:43,100 --> 02:01:47,140
We're still, we're still a vestige of the day is when we were a supervisor union and we

1374
02:01:47,140 --> 02:01:54,800
individual school districts within our supervisor union. And it is a need. An instructional

1375
02:01:54,800 --> 02:02:00,440
need. And that but there is a price tag that comes with that. But I put that down again the way

1376
02:02:00,440 --> 02:02:06,680
I like to work on goals as to develop a plan for implementations. But to the year we come up with

1377
02:02:06,680 --> 02:02:13,280
the ideas of what we need, how we would organize it strategically. So the board can look at it and say,

1378
02:02:13,280 --> 02:02:19,040
that's a great idea or do you think about this or maybe we should do this instead and then by the end of

1379
02:02:19,040 --> 02:02:28,760
the year have a plan that we can implement. So we we see a great need for a common reading program. There was a good bit of

1380
02:02:28,760 --> 02:02:41,220
there was some positive news today. We we the individual student reports from the VT cap, which is the

1381
02:02:41,220 --> 02:02:50,780
bar goes the statewide data until a certain point, and overall our reading scores, our assessment

1382
02:02:50,780 --> 02:02:56,300
scores look really good from a year to year comparison. So I think we've put some emphasis

1383
02:02:56,300 --> 02:03:00,460
in that, we'll come back to you with a report, Shannon Leslie's working on something, but that's

1384
02:03:00,460 --> 02:03:05,600
an area we see as a priority. EdTech is another area we continue to see as a priority, especially

1385
02:03:05,600 --> 02:03:10,500
with emerging artificial intelligence. We're going to come back in October and give you a

1386
02:03:10,500 --> 02:03:14,020
snapshot of kind of where we are at the elementary level, but that's something else.

1387
02:03:15,400 --> 02:03:22,680
Number three coming up with an easily comprehensible way to share our measures.

1388
02:03:23,920 --> 02:03:27,240
And I would also give a lot of credit to the agency of education in this.

1389
02:03:28,060 --> 02:03:32,880
They have been doing a lot of work in the last year to make the reports that are shared with

1390
02:03:32,880 --> 02:03:39,380
districts in the public more understandable. We saw we spent some time again today hearing this

1391
02:03:39,380 --> 02:03:45,440
preview from the secretary and I was very impressed with what I saw and then leadership in succession

1392
02:03:45,440 --> 02:03:51,980
planning. That goes not just for myself, not just for Lisa, for all of our key positions and

1393
02:03:51,980 --> 02:03:59,500
really the thought there is finding ways to build internal capacity and to give the board a plan

1394
02:03:59,500 --> 02:04:04,740
so that whatever we look like in the future that you have some internal options.

1395
02:04:07,610 --> 02:04:11,710
So kind of our thought was this to put this out, whether you have feedback verbally tonight

1396
02:04:11,710 --> 02:04:16,650
or you want to send it to me individually, I would kind of refine this in the next two

1397
02:04:16,650 --> 02:04:21,210
weeks based on any feedback I received, and then we'll put it on the agenda at the next

1398
02:04:21,210 --> 02:04:21,810
board meeting.

1399
02:04:24,860 --> 02:04:28,440
That sounds like a great way for us to not talk about it too much more because we're really

1400
02:04:28,440 --> 02:04:30,520
running over a little bit.

1401
02:04:30,820 --> 02:04:39,040
Does anyone, okay, with that in mind, if you have any comments or ideas about I know Steve

1402
02:04:39,040 --> 02:04:44,600
does I'm going to have an email mic if you have or call the individual email me so it

1403
02:04:44,600 --> 02:04:47,960
probably probably would be good if Steve and I but I know he's out of town right now.

1404
02:04:48,320 --> 02:04:54,060
Yeah so let's that's two weeks away so if you have a comment on mic schools they're in

1405
02:04:54,060 --> 02:05:01,920
the agenda and you can do that an email. Thanks, Mike. We're having goals.

1406
02:05:04,360 --> 02:05:07,060
Okay, um, right.

1407
02:05:07,060 --> 02:05:12,340
Okay, the next topic is the merger study group discussion.

1408
02:05:12,620 --> 02:05:20,120
We touched on it at our last meeting that discussion is that we are currently in the

1409
02:05:20,120 --> 02:05:25,920
Wineski Valley group, which is very Montpire and the Payne Mountain Small Schools.

1410
02:05:26,880 --> 02:05:37,040
We've had some interest in looking at merging, not merging at all, but in being an

1411
02:05:37,040 --> 02:05:47,220
called Group 13, which is MMU and CBU, we talked about the reasons we like that a little better

1412
02:05:47,220 --> 02:05:52,280
because it just makes a little more sense for our geography. We touch with them, we're similar

1413
02:05:52,280 --> 02:06:00,300
size communities. If anything were to come to be forced upon us in the future, it would be good to have

1414
02:06:01,280 --> 02:06:10,640
a pre-established alliance. I'm not an advocate for merging districts right now, but it

1415
02:06:10,640 --> 02:06:19,080
would be, I think, more palatable for our district to consider that than to lump in with

1416
02:06:19,080 --> 02:06:26,920
the very monthly area. It just doesn't feel as, it doesn't feel like us as much. That's

1417
02:06:26,920 --> 02:06:34,900
opinion, but what we need to do is we need to decide relatively shortly like today.

1418
02:06:35,900 --> 02:06:43,020
If we're going to stay in the assigned group or let them know we'd like to look

1419
02:06:43,020 --> 02:06:49,120
else look at this other group. So does anyone have any commentary on that go ahead Emily?

1420
02:06:50,340 --> 02:06:55,180
I think it makes absolute sense that we suggest that we wish to remove to what's at

1421
02:06:55,180 --> 02:06:55,680
air.

1422
02:06:55,920 --> 02:06:58,120
Group 20, is that what it is?

1423
02:06:58,460 --> 02:07:05,400
From 2013, because I agree completely that that just our geography, the size, the

1424
02:07:05,400 --> 02:07:10,060
schools, the kind of community, it just feels like it's forcing us, I don't want to use

1425
02:07:10,060 --> 02:07:15,320
the word city because Vermont's not really like a city state, but it would feel like we're being

1426
02:07:15,320 --> 02:07:21,740
grouped into, so I'm all for it and I say let's do it.

1427
02:07:25,190 --> 02:07:29,650
Yeah, I think the Carl made a point last time where he said sometimes.

1428
02:07:30,000 --> 02:07:53,380
Going with someone who's different than you could be beneficial. And I think that was a really good point because I don't think always going with people, you're similar to the great idea. But in this case, it concerns me when I'm reading in the BT digger that Barry still doesn't have a school budget for this year. And I find that very concerning. So regardless of whether they're like us or not like us, I want to be grouped with people who can pass a budget.

1429
02:07:56,020 --> 02:08:02,480
Cindy? One of the reasons I tried to step up to the plate to be a representative on the

1430
02:08:02,480 --> 02:08:07,860
merger study committee was that I was very interested in the idea of a shifting our merger

1431
02:08:09,660 --> 02:08:18,560
interest from 20 to 13. I think of highly of MMU. I don't see you there both very fine

1432
02:08:18,560 --> 02:08:24,040
schools and I don't know. I just thought it was a good idea and it's one of the reasons why I

1433
02:08:24,040 --> 02:08:30,000
up to be the major committee representative because I was interested in moving along to that.

1434
02:08:30,120 --> 02:08:33,320
So I would encourage us to do that if it was possible.

1435
02:08:35,590 --> 02:08:37,750
Well, it is possible. Does anyone else

1436
02:08:37,750 --> 02:08:42,370
Caitlin gone? I'd be curious to hear from our student representatives in terms of your interactions

1437
02:08:42,370 --> 02:08:48,850
with students at other schools if that if you have any thoughts.

1438
02:08:50,970 --> 02:08:56,670
In terms of like

1439
02:08:56,670 --> 02:09:07,790
have with other schools. I mean youth 32 and hardwood like there's always rivalry there and

1440
02:09:07,790 --> 02:09:17,070
I mean like MMU, CVU, don't interact with CVU a whole lot. I mean they don't I mean in my mind

1441
02:09:17,070 --> 02:09:24,250
it's crazy to think that Vermont school has 2000 kids in it. So I think that's definitely something

1442
02:09:24,250 --> 02:09:29,150
consider but in a district so large like they have to be able to get things done so

1443
02:09:30,170 --> 02:09:36,910
like I think we could interact like you might not interact at all yeah it would be

1444
02:09:36,910 --> 02:09:42,390
in ten theory it's an SU potentially which would mean we would just sort of operate like we

1445
02:09:42,390 --> 02:09:45,530
up right now about the chair services.

1446
02:09:49,110 --> 02:09:49,670
Ella.

1447
02:09:51,010 --> 02:09:51,670
Yeah, no problem.

1448
02:09:52,610 --> 02:09:56,070
Last semester, I'm a previous year.

1449
02:09:56,670 --> 02:10:00,210
I was a member of the Harkness class.

1450
02:10:00,670 --> 02:10:03,470
And we had the pleasure of having a Harkness discussion with CVO.

1451
02:10:04,210 --> 02:10:08,910
And we invited them to our school and had a discussion about an excerpt that we read.

1452
02:10:08,910 --> 02:10:15,890
And it was a really wonderful experience and they all had a lot of good insight to offer and I really enjoyed it

1453
02:10:15,890 --> 02:10:21,010
But it was a really cool club and it wasn't even a class on there and it was a club

1454
02:10:21,010 --> 02:10:25,670
So I think in that respect. They have a lot of opportunities that we necessarily may not offer

1455
02:10:26,310 --> 02:10:28,210
Great point. Okay

1456
02:10:28,970 --> 02:10:36,070
All right, well, unless we have more commentary on that I am looking for maybe a motion to amend the agenda

1457
02:10:39,730 --> 02:10:45,190
those we need to add it if we're going to vote on it right now to switch and the reason

1458
02:10:45,190 --> 02:10:51,610
to switch now is there is a theoretical cut off on the 15th of September where a little

1459
02:10:51,610 --> 02:10:56,470
how it's all it's it's it's it's it's all it's a little fuzzy about when the real cut off

1460
02:10:56,470 --> 02:11:02,490
is but rather than get stuck we might as well just take care of it right now so Cindy's gonna

1461
02:11:03,250 --> 02:11:22,350
There's some light there would be the parliamentary piece since you already adopted the agenda, as you first have to make a motion to amend the agenda to include changing merger studies, and that's the pass with the 75% vote, and then you have to make a separate motion to change.

1462
02:11:24,010 --> 02:11:33,470
So while Cindy's doing that, can I go ahead and make the motion to amend the agenda to allow us to add the

1463
02:11:33,470 --> 02:11:37,610
switch of the mergers study groups from 2013?

1464
02:11:39,610 --> 02:11:44,730
Okay, first from Pam, second from JB, any other discussion or comments?

1465
02:11:45,430 --> 02:11:54,180
All those in favor say I, I, any nays or abstentions, all right.

1466
02:11:54,440 --> 02:11:57,640
So based on what you said, I wrote something so Cindy can type it in.

1467
02:11:57,820 --> 02:11:59,460
So I'll read as a suggestion.

1468
02:11:59,840 --> 02:12:00,200
Yes.

1469
02:12:00,400 --> 02:12:01,340
What I wrote.

1470
02:12:01,700 --> 02:12:02,540
Okay, that's the first part.

1471
02:12:02,640 --> 02:12:03,180
We've now amended.

1472
02:12:03,200 --> 02:12:08,660
So as I move that the hardwood unified union school district board vote to request that

1473
02:12:08,660 --> 02:12:15,460
U.S. D. B. or sign re-assigned for mergers study group 20 to mergers study group 13.

1474
02:12:20,320 --> 02:12:22,220
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Spirbord.

1475
02:12:24,900 --> 02:12:26,020
Thank you.

1476
02:12:26,020 --> 02:12:27,400
Did you memorize that?

1477
02:12:27,700 --> 02:12:33,340
Yeah, can I go ahead and move for the H.U. U.S. D. School Board to vote to

1478
02:12:33,340 --> 02:12:37,140
uh... wind a men the blah blah blah

1479
02:12:38,260 --> 02:12:38,960
the

1480
02:12:38,960 --> 02:12:41,620
re-acyanus from merger group

1481
02:12:41,620 --> 02:12:43,220
twenty to merger group

1482
02:12:43,220 --> 02:12:43,960
thirteen

1483
02:12:44,390 --> 02:12:49,720
to get close to the second second over here do we have all those in favor say aye

1484
02:12:49,720 --> 02:12:50,740
high

1485
02:12:50,740 --> 02:12:54,160
any no votes or abstentions

1486
02:12:54,160 --> 02:12:56,760
okay unanimously we are going to

1487
02:12:56,760 --> 02:12:58,400
switch groups thank you

1488
02:12:59,120 --> 02:12:59,820
correct

1489
02:12:59,820 --> 02:13:07,220
So would you like me to notify the lead facilitator, and I'll also, with your permission,

1490
02:13:08,000 --> 02:13:11,140
just give a courtesy to those superintendents, so they're aware.

1491
02:13:11,960 --> 02:13:12,820
Absolutely, thank you.

1492
02:13:14,060 --> 02:13:17,540
And we should let them we know that it's full of the trigger on that.

1493
02:13:17,540 --> 02:13:21,180
And we'll let them, and you know that they knew we were going to have this conversation.

1494
02:13:22,100 --> 02:13:26,300
They are interested in us, like we are interested in them.

1495
02:13:26,740 --> 02:13:27,520
Whatever that means.

1496
02:13:28,880 --> 02:13:33,860
purely platonicly, of course, I'm just gonna say it's like, sort of interesting.

1497
02:13:35,040 --> 02:13:36,060
Wait, there we go,

1498
02:13:39,860 --> 02:13:43,740
so we've done that thing, which was, that's one thing. Okay, next is

1499
02:13:44,280 --> 02:13:51,360
first read of the E22 capitalization of assets, policy first read, did we, everyone read that?

1500
02:13:52,600 --> 02:13:55,980
We just have to say if we read it, did everybody read it?

1501
02:13:55,980 --> 02:14:00,060
Okay, there's no real motion for that, right, unless there's questions.

1502
02:14:02,560 --> 02:14:04,280
Oh, give me a second to make pull that up.

1503
02:14:13,120 --> 02:14:20,890
So let's see. It is a first read, but

1504
02:14:22,300 --> 02:14:28,950
we should amend it so that it's a first reading and we should have an action knight that we should

1505
02:14:28,950 --> 02:14:39,390
have an action item to approve a policy warning for it would be October at this point

1506
02:14:39,390 --> 02:14:44,090
until we can get it in all the proper warnings and the proper papers, but it should be

1507
02:14:44,090 --> 02:14:46,590
approved for warning for a policy hearing.

1508
02:14:47,010 --> 02:14:48,210
So we need to amend the agenda.

1509
02:14:48,890 --> 02:14:49,210
Again.

1510
02:14:52,170 --> 02:14:53,030
Pam, are you listening?

1511
02:14:53,410 --> 02:14:54,550
Remending the agenda again.

1512
02:14:54,670 --> 02:14:56,130
You're going to get ready.

1513
02:14:56,130 --> 02:14:59,970
to approve for warning D22 capitalization.

1514
02:15:01,360 --> 02:15:10,300
I would like to move to amend the agenda to approve for wording the e20 to capitalization of assets policy.

1515
02:15:11,380 --> 02:15:18,540
Do we have a second? Over here, all those in favor say aye, aye. Great. Okay, now.

1516
02:15:18,540 --> 02:15:19,500
Now you have to.

1517
02:15:19,500 --> 02:15:22,340
What do you mean, the agenda too, so I have to get that.

1518
02:15:22,560 --> 02:15:28,800
Under action item to for a policy warning for each 22 capitalization of assets.

1519
02:15:31,160 --> 02:15:31,680
22.

1520
02:15:32,680 --> 02:15:36,120
Do you have a man at the agenda for another action item after there are?

1521
02:15:36,200 --> 02:15:36,360
Yes.

1522
02:15:38,930 --> 02:15:39,530
Other.

1523
02:15:43,880 --> 02:15:43,920
Okay.

1524
02:15:45,940 --> 02:15:46,840
Now we're at the motion.

1525
02:15:49,040 --> 02:15:49,460
Okay.

1526
02:15:50,000 --> 02:15:50,920
We'll just.

1527
02:15:59,920 --> 02:16:00,940
Good morning.

1528
02:16:01,600 --> 02:16:01,620
Good morning.

1529
02:16:01,620 --> 02:16:01,860
Good morning.

1530
02:16:05,240 --> 02:16:06,440
Good morning.

1531
02:16:08,660 --> 02:16:13,440
So it will be October 14th.

1532
02:16:18,890 --> 02:16:22,540
All right, do you want to make the motion sense?

1533
02:16:23,120 --> 02:16:23,760
Okay, right.

1534
02:16:23,900 --> 02:16:24,120
You might.

1535
02:16:24,880 --> 02:16:25,460
I move it.

1536
02:16:25,700 --> 02:16:26,780
We approve the policy.

1537
02:16:27,740 --> 02:16:27,860
Okay.

1538
02:16:29,040 --> 02:16:29,980
Move it.

1539
02:16:30,120 --> 02:16:31,060
We approve policy.

1540
02:16:31,500 --> 02:16:34,520
22 for warning on October 14th.

1541
02:16:46,300 --> 02:16:47,760
Now we're about.

1542
02:16:49,300 --> 02:16:49,940
Okay.

1543
02:16:50,200 --> 02:16:50,360
Okay.

1544
02:16:50,360 --> 02:16:57,640
Okay, now we are moving on to the building use and vision and committees update and the proposed RFP.

1545
02:16:57,760 --> 02:16:59,160
I hope everyone took a look.

1546
02:17:00,220 --> 02:17:00,960
I know it was long.

1547
02:17:01,200 --> 02:17:06,000
It was really good though and really detailed and I appreciate everyone's work on that.

1548
02:17:06,900 --> 02:17:08,620
JB, do you want to have that comment?

1549
02:17:10,320 --> 02:17:14,200
If that's a really great discussion this evening.

1550
02:17:16,020 --> 02:17:21,440
on everything you do with the path forward and the situation we're in and we'll have a lot more to come.

1551
02:17:21,960 --> 02:17:23,960
This, however, is not that time.

1552
02:17:24,720 --> 02:17:27,200
This is just to take a look at this RFP.

1553
02:17:28,000 --> 02:17:30,460
We had a committee meeting last week, I believe.

1554
02:17:31,740 --> 02:17:36,640
We went through this draft RFP and made some changes.

1555
02:17:37,220 --> 02:17:40,880
Went through it afterwards and suggested changes and we came up with,

1556
02:17:40,880 --> 02:17:47,880
think what is a relatively solid and complete draft? It's still under legal review, Mike.

1557
02:17:48,540 --> 02:17:50,580
No, it's good to go. Do you want to hear what he said about

1558
02:17:51,600 --> 02:17:54,060
bid versus RFB?

1559
02:17:54,140 --> 02:17:55,200
I don't change the language.

1560
02:17:56,360 --> 02:17:59,760
We just changed the language. I think it was section 10.

1561
02:18:02,060 --> 02:18:09,780
It was evaluation and awarding the RFP, so we just changed it rather. It needs to be

1562
02:18:09,780 --> 02:18:16,760
We originally wrote it where there would be criteria and we would give points to each criteria and he

1563
02:18:16,760 --> 02:18:26,380
recommended that we do it as a bid proposal that it's it's out for bid in terms of we have to take of the three the least

1564
02:18:28,600 --> 02:18:32,580
At least was it was the actual sort of edge least in

1565
02:18:32,580 --> 02:18:34,420
So, basically a little bit.

1566
02:18:34,440 --> 02:18:35,060
The little bit.

1567
02:18:35,300 --> 02:18:37,220
I mean, there's certain verbage in there.

1568
02:18:38,060 --> 02:18:42,140
Essentially what he said is it's on the line between being a professional service

1569
02:18:42,140 --> 02:18:46,680
and a bid service, because it's a defined package.

1570
02:18:47,280 --> 02:18:51,520
And this is one where again, we had some really thoughtful public comment tonight and what

1571
02:18:51,520 --> 02:18:57,340
I would say to the board is having been a superintendent who's been involved in a couple

1572
02:18:57,340 --> 02:19:00,840
hundred million dollars worth of renovations, projects.

1573
02:19:00,840 --> 02:19:11,820
This is one where if the board doesn't get an opinion on whether this is feasible you would potentially go to public meetings and people would say

1574
02:19:11,820 --> 02:19:21,340
Well, how can you talk about this if you have no idea if it's even possible if you don't and you go and and say we're going to do an RFP and we're going to spend whatever it is for service

1575
02:19:21,340 --> 02:19:23,040
Then people are going to say

1576
02:19:23,040 --> 02:19:28,300
Why you spending money? Why didn't you so if this is one where I think it's it's a it's a no wins

1577
02:19:28,300 --> 02:19:32,160
you're going to have criticism on either side, and I think if you're going to be responsible

1578
02:19:33,260 --> 02:19:39,320
in pursuing that as an option, at least I think it makes sense to at least go through

1579
02:19:39,320 --> 02:19:39,740
the process.

1580
02:19:39,800 --> 02:19:46,660
The board can put out the RFP and see what the responses are and say, no, we're doing anything.

1581
02:19:51,160 --> 02:19:52,060
Any questions?

1582
02:19:52,400 --> 02:19:56,980
So the only thing that I really didn't like about the RFP is it didn't specifically address.

1583
02:19:56,980 --> 02:20:01,660
I know we're all trying to get rid of sports. Nobody wants sports anymore. That costs too much money

1584
02:20:01,660 --> 02:20:03,240
The fields

1585
02:20:04,100 --> 02:20:10,060
They're owned and run by a wrecked apartment. They're not ours. So trust on

1586
02:20:10,660 --> 02:20:12,620
All right, so they have to be scheduled

1587
02:20:12,620 --> 02:20:19,160
Who's gonna use the fields when upkeep and all that stuff? I just wanted to see that as part of the proposal

1588
02:20:19,820 --> 02:20:25,520
And how that would work if it's gonna be that area or completely different area at the site

1589
02:20:27,040 --> 02:20:32,540
are you okay so there's a lot there so first of all the fields are owned by

1590
02:20:33,740 --> 02:20:37,840
Kingsbury they're released by the wrecked district and then in turn whenever

1591
02:20:37,840 --> 02:20:44,060
Metabella Valley Soccer Highland across where he is so yeah I mean it

1592
02:20:44,060 --> 02:20:49,200
presents a great opportunity potentially I mean that being said you know we

1593
02:20:49,200 --> 02:20:54,160
don't have you know our elementary students they go play soccer for Matt River

1594
02:20:54,160 --> 02:21:01,920
They play for waterberry and waterberry plays with my river in the spring. I mean, that's, you know, we don't really have a elementary school athletic things.

1595
02:21:02,540 --> 02:21:16,200
Well, what we need there are fields for playgrounds for green space. If there is an opportunity to work with direct district slash Kingsbury, that's great. I mean, I think it's potential very beneficial.

1596
02:21:16,680 --> 02:21:20,900
Um, you know, there's other things about walking from the school to the field, and that's a whole separate thing.

1597
02:21:21,280 --> 02:21:26,220
So I don't see that anticipated, if it's a relationship we can foster in the future, should we go down this road?

1598
02:21:26,280 --> 02:21:29,740
No, that's great. That's exactly what I'm saying is that it is a separate entity.

1599
02:21:29,940 --> 02:21:34,000
It is a completely separate thing that I want to make sure that in the RFP,

1600
02:21:34,620 --> 02:21:37,040
that we are recognizing that that's completely separate.

1601
02:21:37,140 --> 02:21:40,460
And that we still need those playground facilities.

1602
02:21:40,600 --> 02:21:45,440
We still need those additional pieces of the puzzle, a baseball field, a soccer field,

1603
02:21:45,440 --> 02:21:47,720
whatever it's going to be for that school.

1604
02:21:49,200 --> 02:21:50,020
Playground, really.

1605
02:21:50,060 --> 02:21:52,560
Playground, I don't think we need,

1606
02:21:52,680 --> 02:21:53,700
I mean, unless I'm missing something,

1607
02:21:53,940 --> 02:21:55,760
I don't think our other elementary schools have them.

1608
02:21:56,040 --> 02:21:57,220
I think it's a great question,

1609
02:21:57,360 --> 02:22:00,620
but I think that really it's the next,

1610
02:22:01,160 --> 02:22:03,400
like if we're never gonna have a relationship

1611
02:22:03,400 --> 02:22:05,540
with them if we never do the project.

1612
02:22:05,700 --> 02:22:07,380
So it's a little bit stepped out.

1613
02:22:07,540 --> 02:22:10,460
I'm not sure if anyone's really considering that we're...

1614
02:22:10,460 --> 02:22:12,120
Well, if that's the case,

1615
02:22:12,200 --> 02:22:15,020
I just want to make sure that part of the RFP

1616
02:22:15,020 --> 02:22:21,640
is that they're planning that there is a recreational area for the kids, a playground, whatever

1617
02:22:21,640 --> 02:22:22,280
it is.

1618
02:22:22,440 --> 02:22:22,980
I don't care.

1619
02:22:23,380 --> 02:22:26,040
I'm not saying that we have to look into Kingsbury at all.

1620
02:22:26,260 --> 02:22:27,580
I don't want to do that.

1621
02:22:27,580 --> 02:22:29,900
I want to just make sure that when they're...

1622
02:22:30,000 --> 02:22:37,340
Going through this process as part of the planning phase is that we have a space for the kids.

1623
02:22:37,580 --> 02:22:46,020
There is 7.03 acres around in and around it and part of it's a big parking lot, but there's there is seven eggs.

1624
02:22:46,600 --> 02:22:53,840
But we also have to plan for school bus routes, turning around, parking for the teachers and staff. I mean, I'm there's a lot in that.

1625
02:22:53,840 --> 02:22:59,840
All right, I don't mean to interrupt, but how many acres are at our current schools that are being used?

1626
02:23:01,280 --> 02:23:09,060
They're right, they're different. They're all different. How many acres is that brook side outside? Yeah outside, not much.

1627
02:23:10,140 --> 02:23:19,200
Right, so we're also talking about a flag lot to. I know, but I feel like this is getting a little like two Ashley's point.

1628
02:23:19,200 --> 02:23:24,800
I think that those are very valid questions, Rob, and we want to make sure that there's

1629
02:23:24,800 --> 02:23:29,900
enough space for the children to play outdoors and have those activities, but you look

1630
02:23:29,900 --> 02:23:35,020
at WayTill, WayTill is very, very minimal space outside.

1631
02:23:36,100 --> 02:23:44,360
So I feel like that might be getting a little bit off track of what this initial goal is,

1632
02:23:44,360 --> 02:23:49,160
because we would make sure of course that there's space for,

1633
02:23:49,160 --> 02:23:51,100
that it's a lot more kids too.

1634
02:23:51,200 --> 02:23:51,860
So we need more space.

1635
02:23:51,940 --> 02:23:53,800
Lisa has a comment that will help this.

1636
02:23:55,120 --> 02:23:56,380
Just, but Lisa.

1637
02:24:00,200 --> 02:24:03,760
It is mentioned under 4.6 concept designs

1638
02:24:03,760 --> 02:24:05,280
outdoor learning and play.

1639
02:24:05,740 --> 02:24:07,600
So that's part of the concept designs

1640
02:24:07,600 --> 02:24:09,500
and some page four.

1641
02:24:10,240 --> 02:24:11,700
So that is part of it.

1642
02:24:11,700 --> 02:24:12,380
Amman Cindy.

1643
02:24:14,500 --> 02:24:16,880
Yeah, I think that one of the things I really liked about

1644
02:24:16,880 --> 02:24:20,840
this RFP is that it's very narrow so I think one of the concerns we heard from the public

1645
02:24:20,840 --> 02:24:24,380
comment tonight was that why are you putting this out to to bid we've already done

1646
02:24:24,380 --> 02:24:28,400
up on just stuff out there it's like this is pretty narrowly focused we're not going to

1647
02:24:28,400 --> 02:24:32,420
get you know thirteen options come back from tropes colon so this isn't that scenario it's

1648
02:24:32,420 --> 02:24:37,300
where it's we're looking at one site to see if it's feasible or not and it might not

1649
02:24:37,300 --> 02:24:42,600
even be tropes colon again it just like this is very narrow is this feasible or not what are

1650
02:24:42,600 --> 02:24:50,400
numbers like if it could work. Like it's very, it's very narrowly tailored for Cindy

1651
02:24:50,400 --> 02:24:56,900
have a comment. Yeah if we really wanted to include the issue of recreational space on

1652
02:24:56,900 --> 02:25:02,160
our motion at the end of our motion, right now the way it was written in our agenda, we could

1653
02:25:02,160 --> 02:25:07,200
just add way to feel for use as an elementary school with appropriate recreational facility

1654
02:25:07,200 --> 02:25:09,120
or if you want.

1655
02:25:12,600 --> 02:25:16,820
Well, um, but first you, then you, then line.

1656
02:25:17,380 --> 02:25:17,940
Go ahead.

1657
02:25:18,140 --> 02:25:18,400
Change.

1658
02:25:19,080 --> 02:25:24,520
I don't think this is the right RFP for this, but I want to flag that this is very specifically looking

1659
02:25:24,520 --> 02:25:27,760
at the, you know, feasibility from the budgetary perspective.

1660
02:25:28,480 --> 02:25:34,420
And I want to raise for the points in the, in the, in the beginning of the meeting,

1661
02:25:34,420 --> 02:25:40,900
are we going to be looking to do other studies on the community implications of consolidation

1662
02:25:41,820 --> 02:25:48,780
whether that's like a community meeting like there are ways to get at that in similar ways that this

1663
02:25:48,780 --> 02:25:54,280
is one side of the coin right which is like will we save money and how impact students education

1664
02:25:54,280 --> 02:26:01,360
but since we've heard from communities from a wreckfield perspective too I mean a lot of

1665
02:26:01,360 --> 02:26:06,100
they don't own them, but there are red fields nearby, and the school is part of this.

1666
02:26:06,280 --> 02:26:07,300
How is that impact?

1667
02:26:07,620 --> 02:26:11,880
This probably isn't the RFP to put it in too, because it would be a different consultancy

1668
02:26:11,880 --> 02:26:15,500
who looks into it, maybe we do it ourselves, but I just want to flag that.

1669
02:26:15,720 --> 02:26:19,640
And I would just say too, from the perspective of at least that I've done construction work.

1670
02:26:21,560 --> 02:26:27,440
We need to know what the board needs to know is not even the community piece of it.

1671
02:26:27,440 --> 02:26:32,700
is can you take that building, which is an office building of about 32,000 square feet,

1672
02:26:32,920 --> 02:26:38,860
and can you convert it to a school, is there space to add large scale, because for that

1673
02:26:38,860 --> 02:26:43,600
size school, rough numbers, you're looking at probably a 60,000 square foot facility to

1674
02:26:43,600 --> 02:26:50,540
accommodate that many students. So it really is a very technical RFP question of, is it possible

1675
02:26:50,540 --> 02:26:56,560
to make this building into a school? Yes or no? There's a whole lot of points to it, but that's

1676
02:26:56,560 --> 02:27:01,180
essence of what you're requesting. The following question from the community is going to be like,

1677
02:27:01,340 --> 02:27:05,460
why are you asking this question specifically and not the other questions that are equally as valuable?

1678
02:27:06,720 --> 02:27:11,260
And I would say the first one, you have to know whether it's even possible before you can have

1679
02:27:11,260 --> 02:27:13,080
those other conversations. Okay.

1680
02:27:15,950 --> 02:27:19,050
I think I want to what a flag as I agree with the comments that

1681
02:27:19,050 --> 02:27:24,290
this isn't the right RFP to do it, but I do think that listening to the community, one of the things

1682
02:27:24,290 --> 02:27:31,390
that I hear and experience as a really great thing about the Valley Schools is the amazing

1683
02:27:31,390 --> 02:27:40,090
outdoor space that they have access to, the woods, the fields, and so I think that at

1684
02:27:40,090 --> 02:27:46,970
some point we should be engaging the community in how could we make a school at this location

1685
02:27:46,970 --> 02:27:51,410
have some of those same opportunities, but I don't think it's in this RV, but I just want

1686
02:27:51,410 --> 02:27:51,910
to fly it.

1687
02:27:52,190 --> 02:27:52,630
Thank you.

1688
02:27:52,630 --> 02:27:58,230
Thank you for that line go ahead. Yeah, I mean when J.B. and I talked about this like the

1689
02:27:58,230 --> 02:28:02,590
the homework that the building vision committee had was to establish if we could use the

1690
02:28:02,590 --> 02:28:09,450
one 93 home farm way as a school and when we parsed this all down it was can we put a school there

1691
02:28:09,450 --> 02:28:14,390
and if you look at four dot four evaluation of the central site it talks about can we put in fields

1692
02:28:14,390 --> 02:28:18,610
can we what are the bus turn around is going to be like and that's that's what this is targeted for

1693
02:28:18,610 --> 02:28:22,310
I would love to have that larger conversation about what the whole thing is going to look

1694
02:28:22,310 --> 02:28:22,990
like at the end.

1695
02:28:23,530 --> 02:28:27,550
But right now all we're doing tonight in the meeting is just approving this RFP to fair,

1696
02:28:27,550 --> 02:28:32,070
if cab didn't even make sense because I think that's a big question because can we make

1697
02:28:32,070 --> 02:28:32,630
it work?

1698
02:28:33,070 --> 02:28:34,270
Is it economically feasible?

1699
02:28:34,590 --> 02:28:36,030
So that's kind of my two cents.

1700
02:28:39,230 --> 02:28:39,330
Yeah.

1701
02:28:39,330 --> 02:28:44,670
I think the community question is a piece of it and I think that that's going to be done

1702
02:28:44,670 --> 02:28:50,890
through community conversations and part of that iterative bidirectional process with

1703
02:28:50,890 --> 02:28:53,490
communication, I think it's more to learn whether the community

1704
02:28:53,490 --> 02:28:57,230
even likes this building, but I think to even know if it's feasible or not

1705
02:28:57,230 --> 02:29:00,250
is a separate question. So I think they're like two separate things. But I

1706
02:29:00,250 --> 02:29:05,630
think the other piece I noted is Theo and Jillian and I went to the

1707
02:29:05,630 --> 02:29:09,650
Waterbury Select Board. They asked us to come talk to them last week. And

1708
02:29:09,650 --> 02:29:13,490
the question we got asked several times in different ways was how much money

1709
02:29:13,490 --> 02:29:16,430
will we save by moving there? Can we move there now? Can we move there? Like

1710
02:29:16,430 --> 02:29:19,010
they just cared. Like I don't want to say that we didn't care about

1711
02:29:19,010 --> 02:29:24,850
community in moderate, but the question we got asked at this like we're meeting from a couple of different people was how much money are you going to save

1712
02:29:24,850 --> 02:29:27,390
He's like well, we don't have those numbers to give to you

1713
02:29:30,340 --> 02:29:35,280
What I'm getting to I mean it as I said for the most part I've had nothing or heard nothing, but support

1714
02:29:35,280 --> 02:29:39,040
But the question still lingers is what we still need to see the numbers. So I think you know

1715
02:29:39,740 --> 02:29:45,780
What more pressure on Lisa? I just wanted to say that 4.6 alleviates my concerns. I'm good

1716
02:29:46,240 --> 02:29:48,720
Well, that was nice. Thank you

1717
02:29:48,720 --> 02:29:58,100
So, let's do we have more discussion on this before we take an action to vote on this RFP?

1718
02:30:00,000 --> 02:30:29,980
One in Zoom, lying your hands still up, but you can take it down if you're done. Thank you. Okay. All right. So, we have a recommended motion on the proposed RFP, which I can read out right now. I think do you already have it on it? You got to build. Okay, cool. Great. Yep. We are making a motion for the bill.

1719
02:30:30,000 --> 02:30:35,100
building, use and vision and committee recommends, I can't think of something's talking.

1720
02:30:37,550 --> 02:30:37,570
Go

1721
02:30:37,570 --> 02:30:38,190
head JB.

1722
02:30:40,550 --> 02:30:44,230
I move at the board authorize the administration to advertise a proposal request

1723
02:30:44,230 --> 02:30:48,550
for proposals for a feasibility study of the potential conversion of the cabinet, Creamy

1724
02:30:48,550 --> 02:30:54,950
Creamy Cooperative Corporate Office Building, and Wade's field for use as an elementary school.

1725
02:30:55,790 --> 02:31:00,150
Oh, second time. Okay, we have a second, so we don't need to make a full motion.

1726
02:31:00,150 --> 02:31:06,950
I was saying actually you don't because that's being brought to you by a doly authorised committee of a board as a motion already you just need a second

1727
02:31:07,810 --> 02:31:09,270
And then we don't although

1728
02:31:09,890 --> 02:31:11,990
Okay, we do have a second

1729
02:31:11,990 --> 02:31:16,850
I tried the second it I don't know if anybody heard me all right lying you can be second

1730
02:31:16,850 --> 02:31:20,290
No, thank you. Okay, all those in favor. Please say aye

1731
02:31:21,030 --> 02:31:23,370
All those against say no

1732
02:31:24,450 --> 02:31:25,410
Any abstentions

1733
02:31:25,410 --> 02:31:28,550
All right, we're moving ahead with the feasibility study

1734
02:31:28,550 --> 02:31:33,250
ready RFP. Thank you.

1735
02:31:36,320 --> 02:31:43,680
All right. We already did the, we already did, we added the action item,

1736
02:31:43,800 --> 02:31:55,060
but then we voted on it, right, about E22. Yes. You did both parts. Did we have that?

1737
02:31:55,060 --> 02:31:59,780
We need to do both as an action.

1738
02:32:00,320 --> 02:32:01,680
We added it to the agenda.

1739
02:32:02,460 --> 02:32:03,980
So both merge or study?

1740
02:32:05,340 --> 02:32:05,840
Yes.

1741
02:32:06,040 --> 02:32:07,780
I thought we'd disposed it on that.

1742
02:32:08,840 --> 02:32:11,160
We just voted on adding them.

1743
02:32:11,300 --> 02:32:11,780
I'm asking.

1744
02:32:12,120 --> 02:32:17,120
We just voted to add the merger study group question and the E22.

1745
02:32:17,560 --> 02:32:18,640
To the action items.

1746
02:32:18,860 --> 02:32:21,560
We haven't taken those actions yet, right?

1747
02:32:21,580 --> 02:32:22,860
I don't think we have.

1748
02:32:22,860 --> 02:32:26,260
We didn't we just voted on the amendments

1749
02:32:31,890 --> 02:32:32,550
agenda.

1750
02:32:38,300 --> 02:32:40,600
Okay. So now I'm going to vote the warrant.

1751
02:32:41,680 --> 02:32:41,740
Right.

1752
02:32:41,740 --> 02:32:43,100
Action items vote.

1753
02:32:43,680 --> 02:32:44,420
Go ahead.

1754
02:32:44,460 --> 02:32:45,160
Warn it.

1755
02:32:45,160 --> 02:32:45,820
The warrant.

1756
02:33:04,950 --> 02:33:10,670
Okay. The second two action items are the ones we've added. Hold on.

1757
02:33:11,070 --> 02:33:13,410
I can't talk if I can't listen to this.

1758
02:33:14,890 --> 02:33:18,830
They are to change merger study groups for 20 to 13.

1759
02:33:18,830 --> 02:33:30,350
And to have a first read of the E22 capitalization of assets policy on October 14th, do I have a motion?

1760
02:33:32,610 --> 02:33:36,970
Second, over there, all those in favor say I, I, okay.

1761
02:33:38,010 --> 02:33:41,110
So we, all those action items are in place.

1762
02:33:41,110 --> 02:33:48,110
Our last item is the consent agenda, and that is going to include the warrants.

1763
02:33:52,760 --> 02:33:55,960
Yeah, we did it, oh, we did it as well.

1764
02:33:56,820 --> 02:33:57,100
Sorry.

1765
02:33:57,300 --> 02:33:58,560
Oh, my god.

1766
02:33:58,700 --> 02:33:59,260
I have, sorry.

1767
02:33:59,420 --> 02:34:00,280
I did that wrong.

1768
02:34:00,520 --> 02:34:02,760
Really bad at the process on certain things.

1769
02:34:03,420 --> 02:34:03,620
The set.

1770
02:34:03,860 --> 02:34:06,380
So the one we just voted on was the merger study group.

1771
02:34:06,560 --> 02:34:11,200
The second one is the E22 capitalization of assets to be.

1772
02:34:11,200 --> 02:34:18,700
have the first read on October 14th. Do I have a motion to warn it, to warn it, warning it,

1773
02:34:18,920 --> 02:34:29,800
seconding, all those in favor say I. So that will be on the I. I. I. Okay. Not you. All right. So both

1774
02:34:29,800 --> 02:34:35,580
of those will happen timely. The last is the consent to agenda. Lange, can you bring up the total

1775
02:34:35,580 --> 02:34:38,080
for the since that's your line of business.

1776
02:34:38,440 --> 02:34:40,340
Do you see the total because I don't,

1777
02:34:44,290 --> 02:34:45,290
where is that?

1778
02:34:47,320 --> 02:34:50,400
So we have a, we're gonna approve the meeting minutes

1779
02:34:50,400 --> 02:34:55,980
from 826, 2026, and we're gonna approve the warrants

1780
02:34:55,980 --> 02:34:58,040
in the amount of, what's that?

1781
02:34:58,040 --> 02:35:03,660
52,942 dollars, and the other one is Ford.

1782
02:35:04,400 --> 02:35:04,860
Hold on, what?

1783
02:35:04,860 --> 02:35:07,500
$1,667,2531.

1784
02:35:08,140 --> 02:35:11,660
I think those are in the... I think they're right.

1785
02:35:11,660 --> 02:35:13,000
So we got the one.

1786
02:35:13,840 --> 02:35:15,380
Yeah, he's got you. Okay.

1787
02:35:16,180 --> 02:35:17,980
Yep, he has it.

1788
02:35:18,480 --> 02:35:22,520
Do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda from JB?

1789
02:35:22,620 --> 02:35:25,780
Do I have a second? From Pam, all those in favor say aye.

1790
02:35:27,240 --> 02:35:27,600
Okay.

1791
02:35:28,340 --> 02:35:28,360
Yes.

1792
02:35:29,580 --> 02:35:31,840
Students, you may go.

1793
02:35:32,480 --> 02:35:34,840
Everyone else, we're going to go to an executive session

1794
02:35:34,840 --> 02:35:35,960
and we need the motion.

1795
02:35:36,960 --> 02:35:44,060
Okay, the link has gone out to board members in Zoom for our executive session and to Curtis.

1796
02:35:45,060 --> 02:35:46,460
Alexina, thank you so much.

1797
02:35:46,640 --> 02:35:48,280
We'll see you when you're back in the valley.

1798
02:35:48,440 --> 02:35:54,080
I'm going to your town hall to get sworn in and then we'll get you on with email and all those other pieces.

1799
02:35:55,360 --> 02:35:55,640
That's good.

1800
02:35:56,120 --> 02:35:58,480
Yep, look her email from Dr. Mike.

1801
02:35:58,720 --> 02:35:59,780
Okay, great. Have a good night.

1802
02:36:00,540 --> 02:36:02,560
And thank you, you too, and welcome to the board.

1803
02:36:03,560 --> 02:36:12,960
There's a suggested motion at the end of the agenda to someone want to read that to enter into executive session.

1804
02:36:12,960 --> 02:36:13,540
All right.

1805
02:36:13,540 --> 02:36:14,200
Go ahead, Emily.

1806
02:36:15,860 --> 02:36:33,640
suggested motion to enter into executive session with all board members, Superintendent Dr. Mike and Director of Finance Lisa Esler for the purpose of discussing labor relations agreements with employees because premature public knowledge were clearly placed the public body or person involved at a substantial disadvantage.