this meeting we have a lot of discussion about board outreach and other board governance things, our goals, et cetera, with the annual agenda as well, which we discussed last month, and I need a leading evaluator if someone would be willing to volunteer to get this meeting evaluated, that'd be great. Thank you, Ian. What are we going to do? There's a form in the back of that book. I actually threw a copy in the orange for you, just to save you the hassle of having to dig through. It should be somewhere in there. It might be on the top. And on the board since I was 23, it's time. You've never done it? No, I've done this many times. She's like the only person who volunteers. I'm probably doing this time. No, I think that's correct. Actually, it's strategic. I volunteer a certain number of times a year. I pace it out. Yeah, exactly. All right, so we have made public for public comment, so let's move on to the proof of annual agenda, which we did talk about last time and we made a number of changes which are reflected upon the document that we have around. Paul, do you want to present that in any way? Yeah, so I think, let's see, we added some of the governance in and then we added the, let's see, I don't remember. I think we added one of the discussions earlier on for the budget stuff. And then otherwise, I think we removed quite a bit of things. We added in a discussion of negotiations for the unions. And then the ends, a lot of the ends monitoring, the old direct monitoring. The one question because I was making the changes from what the board had suggested last time is in the very last column on that June 8th. If you go down to ends monitoring, it has RTCC senior profile. I didn't know if that made more sense now being over on in May 11th just because that's an RTCC meeting or did you want to keep it separate? That was the only odd question I had after looking at what people had suggested last time. But they have the data that they need by then and now. In terms of the senior profile, they should. Well, then that would make sense. The only, yeah, so that doesn't overlap with their open house then because usually the RTCC meeting is on the open house, but we could do it on the board meeting instead. Okay, so we're going to move that. So we'll move it to May 11th. And when is the open house? It's not May 11th, I assume. It's always a Thursday. And I can't remember it's the first or second Thursday of May. Yeah, that's true. It was right around the ninth or something. Yeah. We'll just separate that RTCC meeting from that open house then. So we did move traditionally the high school ends monitoring has been this month, September. We moved it to October because the SBAC results come out right around when our meeting is. So last year it was just, it wasn't able to do a full report. So we've moved that to October now. And because of that we moved some of the policy governance trainings. So we're doing one today, even though we had one last month. So we'll try to separate those out going forward, but it just seemed like next meeting will be really long. We tried to do everything. Well, what is it? The policy governance. That was one thing that we, if you... No, it's not on here now. It's not on here. Oh, yes it is. Right up in the board development. It's under board development. There's three of them listed. Right, right. But we're going to do one today. That's why we told you to bring these policies. Right, but it's not listed. You're right. It's not, it used to be out on October. It was listed. So we probably took it off and... Oh, so you took it off and just forgot. Probably, yeah. Yeah, put it back. Mm-hmm. So I can actually add it. That was one of the other questions is, did you want policy governance in for every meeting or... We originally talked about doing it four times a year. Besides having some sort of workshop, which will be another evening workshop, maybe with Val or someone else like that. Mm-hmm. We can change that if we decide that we need to have more or less than four. Mm-hmm. But I think four is about, you know, we can aim for four. And if something comes up and we feel like we're not adequate in the governance that we're doing, I think it's certainly going to add one. I think I saw that email. There was an email from Rutland. Oh, the Rutland. Yeah, they'd come over and participated when we had Miriam Carver here. Oh, yeah. And so they were pulling one together to see if anybody else was interested. There was a date, but it's coming pretty quick. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 15th of September. Oh, yes, Sunday. Yeah, it was on a weekend. Oh. That's different. It's an odd time to have it. Yeah. But they were trying to fill out the ranks and they kind of opened it up to anybody else who wanted to participate. Got to follow the model we set. Have they brought someone in or is it just me? It was a name of an expert. Miriam apparently is not doing them any more at all. So it was somebody that she had recommended to them. But it's not somebody I'm familiar with. So are there any other changes that people see that need to be made to this annual agenda? Do we feel comfortable approving it today with these changes or do we need to talk about it again next week? Is there a problem with approving it today and then amending it later? I mean, it seems reasonable now. But if something comes up and we're like, oh, wow, we should really have that on. Like, is this the only time of the year that we can absolutely... I think these just set parameters. Yeah. And it's really a work in progress depending on what comes up. Great. Wonderful. I think it's good. Yeah. Good as is. Yep, good to go. Okay. We'll have a motion then to approve the annual agenda as amended. So moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. So we have our annual agenda at least. Next is the board outreach discussion. So we launched, as everyone knows, an outreach to the community to just try to gather data and input as to where we're being successful and where we're not and just trying to be a little more transparent as a board. So you guys all posted one on July 4th. And so I asked Ann to present to us what were sort of the trends, both of suggestions and complaints or grievances that people had for us to know? I think there were a lot of the trends where people feel like we could do better at foreign language or language instruction by having more of that earlier. Some folks even suggested preschool.  Better communication came up a couple of times for things we could do better. Between ourselves or between the schools? Between the schools and the community. The community not knowing well enough what's going on with the schools. I'll tell you, I did not know when the last day of school was until I got the menu. Really? Yes. And I'm on the school system. Yeah. Yes. So, yeah, that's a good point. Not the only school district doing badly at that. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And when it was set, I have no idea. And then there were different like different like RTCC had a different day and high school had a different day and elementary school and it just was never communicated from our school when our last day was until we got the menu. I can tell you, though, from managing a staff of people with small children, we weren't the only school district not communicating that. Or about when the first day of school starts. I actually had to help people look that up online several times. The first day of school you can look up online. That doesn't change. Right. The last day of school changes. It does. And that throws people for a loop and really can get their employers. We had four snow days and we are technically supposed to make up a couple. But there's quite a lot of discussion whether we were or won't. Yeah. But it's important. Right? It's important to be able to put that out there, you know, to say, because we had this snow day, the last day of school is now. Simple for me. Simple. But for the rest of the people. Oh, no. Another thing that people were concerned. People really liked that kids seemed to be gaining confidence and improving their skills, the ones that they are encountering. They, people really liked the, they thought we needed to really work harder at inclusiveness and helping students understand what that means. And cause, and that we should really work more across kind of cultural awareness. But that, I mean, that's hard. Yeah. None of these things are easy. There certainly were very positive comments in the mix. You know, how one respondent said one of the things that we need to know as a district is kids need to learn to be responsible. They shouldn't be running a school at school. But another person said these are challenging times for educators and your work is important. That's what they wanted our schools to know. So, one of them, which, there's one here that I liked, I wanted to point it out to you because it was a child. Response 13 was a child. So. I like school. I like school. It was her. Well, I want the teachers. What she wants the teachers to know. And that she wants to learn more about, she wants more musical instruments in Spanish. So I guess going forward, so the next steps.  All across the board, really, all types of input. Yeah. What do we do with it? And, you know, so what are our next steps? I think that there was value in asking the questions and not themselves. Because if we're, if all the communication we do is out, we're not. Right. But when someone fills out a survey, they expect like that information to be used somehow. I know. And so. In my mind, the two, if we, I think if you were to collate the July 4th, the first one under the date of that was in Memorial. Was that block party, it was like the first week of June. The first week of June, that's what it was. If we collate the two, I don't know that there's much the same. No. It's kind of all over the place. It's very personalized. So I've not really seen any trends to say that it's data that could be used necessarily unless there's something that is an outlier that we look at it as a group. Right. And I think the sense is that, yes, this one thing that this person brought up is a particular issue. I don't know that it's actionable material. No. I think maybe we take it, we set it aside, and then we ask the same questions again, roughly same time period this coming year. And then we look at the data and see if there are trends. Consistent trends. Yeah. Right. I didn't see anything that jumped out at me. It was like, oh, this guy is saying almost the same thing that this guy is saying. And this girl is saying the same thing that this other guy is saying. I didn't see anything like that. It was like some of them are just polar opposites. Polar opposites. Absolutely. Polar opposites. Right. Unless until you can find that trend, I don't know if there's anything. But that might be your trend is consistency. That might be the question. But next year we still find that there's polar opposites. Polar opposites will realize that there's a gap. From student to student, there is a gap. One student is having very good time, another student is not, or whatever that might be. Like you said, there might be the, why isn't there more consistency? Why wouldn't there be? Is there some sort of a cultural gap between different families, different backgrounds? Are there folks? But you're not really going to know that. You're not. You're certainly not. But if there continues to be that, maybe there's still a culture that's not, it speaks to that in some way, but you're not talking to the same people from your area. Well, I'm wondering if it would make sense to target school by school. So I think it has to be towards the end of the school year just because it's a new situation every year. So say, April at some, and I hate to have it as part of something fun where no one wants to take the time, but say something at Brookfield School at the end of the day, or whatever, we ask the parents to fill out the survey and then at Braintree, and maybe then we'd have a little bit more actual data to reflect on. I'm social. I'm trying to, you know, entice them to stay or to come by to talk to the school board and do that. I like that idea. Kind of like an end of year exit interview or something. Something to do, because I mean, if you just say we're going to have a meeting come talk to us. No. They're going to have your kids and you know. With kids too, you could say what was the hardest thing about this year for you. Yeah, but that's not informative for us. But you know, I'd like your idea. I'm wondering whether we could, because a lot of parents aren't going to come back, especially ones who are busy in the evenings and this and that. You know, we're only going to get a sort of a select section. So, but maybe if it's after something like a little league game or a concert or a, I don't know, or maybe we give it out before the concert and you know, so they have some, they're waiting there for their kid to come. Yeah. They couldn't fill it out. As a senior, they could fill it out on their phone.  As they come in and give them a business card with the survey, they just go into it and there's a student there. I just, okay. I'm so mad, too. So this looks like, I think we need to back up and look at what our role is and why we're linking with the community. And what I'm hearing is what the individual schools might want to, and it's all about parent feedback. And we are more than just parent feedback. I don't, I'm not saying it's parent feedback. I'm saying, we're trying to reflect upon how we are achieving our ends, right? Our goals and how the community feels about the job we are doing as a district. The only reason I suggested going to schools is that then we can sort of say, okay, so maybe Braintree is different than Brookfield. And maybe the way we're doing things in Randolph is different than we're doing at the Randolph High School. Like, because these, so far, our surveys have been everyone, community, parents, everything, which I think is great. But we have no way to see whether it tells us any useful information. And the sheer number of respondents who refuse to even do the question there because they're like, I don't know anything about the schools at all. I don't have a student in the school. I don't have any idea about it. So what do you think? And if you look at our, so creating and maintaining a linkage between ownership and the operational organization to represent the informed voice of the owners, this linkage will include seeking input regarding owner values on issues of ends and actions. So that's where we need to sort of be changing them on, here's where we're, this is because we're asking them, the questions we're asking them need to be sort of, are we getting? Is it too open-ended? Yeah. And it's more, it can be operational, which is not really our purview. We're saying, these are the ends that we've put out to the schools to meet. And this is, we need to go out to the community and let them know, here's where we are. This is where we are with our, at the elementary level, at the school, at that school, at that school. And it needs to be more than just parents. And that's where as we, you know, I think it's a fairly, I think we still need to sort of think about how we're going out. And remember Val said, you know, you can go to the Rotary Club, you can go to the Chamber, you can go around to these different organizations to sort of get their local employers who are employing some of our students. We need their input to set our ends. Right, exactly. And we need to have that give and take. Are we still, are we on track with our ends? That's the, that's the why of why we're going out. The community relations piece, I think is important, but I'm not sure it's the role of the board. That might be more the role of the individual schools or the superintendent's role in terms of, I want to see if we're, you know, communicating well enough and people know when the school ends. You know, that sort of thing. That's an operational, that's not how we're doing toward our ends because we're way up here and I think we need to keep our focus on that or we're going to get sidetracked into, you know, how people are feeling and is, how is brain tree different from that. I think we need to focus on our kids' learning and learning how to read and do math and science. Or maybe they don't want them to learn how to read. Maybe they want them to learn to ice skate. I mean, we should be eliciting that information. Are we on track with sort of where we're focusing our push for our direction to him to say these are the outcomes we want you to have? And that was, I was going to say, you said it beautifully. Part of the responsibility is you have to go back and revisit the ends. This is one of the ways that you do it. Lots of times, you know, they'll stay static for a long time, but if there are social changes or social pressure changes within a community or across the country or the state, you know, those may change. But you brought up a very valid point as well is that because our, especially at the elementary level, the schools are in such different communities and serve such different populations of students as the ends might be different a little bit depending upon, you know, which community year is and what their current needs are. And that could definitely be why this seems so scattered because it's all free communities. Because each of these were at events for the community. It's not like a random thing. It was everybody was involved. I mean, the parade, I mean, that was, there were so many people from Massachusetts, Maine, and Hampshire, that it was difficult to find somebody that lived in the area. I mean, there was people from all over. So I think that's probably a good point and that's why it's so scattered. I think there was somebody who took our questionnaire and said they're going to mail it back to Williams. Yeah. And we're not, I wonder if we want to sort of look at sort of getting a form of section and I don't know if there are events in Braintree or Brookfield that are big community events that, you know, that would be a good place to gather information. There are a lot of community events in Braintree. I mean, we could do town dates. Braintree is where I get folks to go to school. I mean, they go to the other town. The largest cross-section of the entire community is town people. Right, yeah, school or town people. I'm wondering if next time as we do this we identify who the person is, not by individual, but by group. So we come up with the groups, because one of the things we were discussing is do we want to target the outreach? And so if we say that parent, business owner, senior center, we identify what we consider groups are and then we'll start lumping them in so that we can see what the perceptions are amongst different groups. And then we could use that to say if amongst the business owners we know or business, people that self-identify as a businessman or a woman, we can go and then go to Rory Club and say this is some stuff we're noticing from people. What are you noticing? Because Rory Club is business. And maybe that would help us with our reaching in that sense, but right now it's all scattered. It wasn't really helpful. I think that's the lesson we learned is the way we went about it wasn't necessarily helpful just because the data is kind of scattered around it. It's just so scattered. It's too open-ended. The only thing... You probably could almost put the town of residence on there too. Right, yeah, exactly. Locate it whether it's parents or friends. So if you had like through checkpots as you would pick a new town and then a category, whether it's business parent or... Student. We had several teachers fill out. Or even multiple categories because you could very well be a business owner in Randolph and a parent in Brookfield. Right, yeah. The last piece that I would offer is that when patterns, if you get to the point where there's patterns that are emerging where it's possible, it's not always. Try to always tie it back to some objective data to see if, you know, that gives you the differentiation is this perception. Do we have a perception problem here which can be pretty critical or do we have a reality problem here, right? What's the data telling us? Because how you treat either of those, how you go after those in terms of pursuit to make things a little bit better is different. No, actually we're doing really well here but the perception for whatever reason is negative or the perception is really positive but we're really not doing too well here. So that's important to kind of suss out if you can. We'll get there. And so it sounds like, to summarize, so we're interested in furthering this project but we need to better define our goals for what type of information we're trying to elicit and we want to, you know, add these check boxes so that we can better sort of define who is the respondent and what else? What else do we want to? I think we need to have, I mean we've had these ends and we've had end reports which we sort of clip together in that piece that goes out to the at the town meetings. We sort of can go a little bit of a but I wonder if we're finally at and who's with what should we leave? Are we at the point where we can our data is still not really Last year as far as I can tell you would have to tell me I wasn't here before but last year I think was a dramatic shift in terms of the end report. You had a, had an actual physical report in your hands. It wasn't just data. It tried to explain trends. It attempted to do a shift to objective data so that, you know, stuff that was reliable and valid and that was a first attempt at it. But the basics of what you have in your your goals, your vision statement, your ends, those basics would still be true. Doesn't mean that they couldn't be tweaked. Doesn't mean that more could be added or even some taken away. But I think that they would still be true. So if you're worried about having to revamp everything. What I'm thinking is what might be useful is to have some sort of short not too long, but this is what you told us were the things that were important that you wanted students to have for skills. This is what the district came up with for how, you know, the benchmarks of what we were going to look at. And here we, this is how we are in terms of how close we've come. Are we on track? Is this where communities want us to be? Or is this still relevant? And I think rather than just finding one location I think we, you know, we go to several different places. Remember Val said you don't have to do it in a board meeting here that, you know, go to, you know, a chamber meeting and get on their agenda and say, okay, this is where we're at. But what we need is we're all lately, you know, we're not educators. At this point I don't feel like I could say this is where we are is on our ends, you know, it would mean sort of something that's digestible that's not too overwhelming for a noneducator to sort of understand and say this is where we said we were going to try and be in meeting, we break it down by, in the elementary schools this is where we said we wanted to be. This is how we're measuring it. And just because that's what we need to go out to the community for is to say this is where we are. This is what we planned for the last 10 to 15 years almost since we've revisited those ends. Are we on track? This is what we're using to measure and this is where we are. Even so much. Even perhaps not even say this is where students are now but even say when we set out with these ends these were the values that our community had. Are these still are these things important to our community still? And if these things are not on target to what you value what changes should be made? The simple ends that's the ends that we came up with as communities whenever that was we could definitely publish this and the paper and other places website and what have you and say these were the goals we set as the important core values of our educational system. Are these still the ones we want to focus on? Is there something we should add? The other thing I think here we have a perfect opportunity because October is the ends report by the high school. Let's broadcast that. This is what anyone knows how the high school is doing. Come and it's the first part of our meeting so you don't have to wait until 8 o'clock for it to happen and sit down and hear it. That end report I was doing district line anyway it's the elementary, it's the high school it's the district as a whole So it's being held in Brookfield that meeting I think next month but let's put that out in the herald and on the website this is the add out on the herald try to get people's attention and then maybe try to get so one week to take the add out and then another week try to get just go down and talk to the reporter one of them and try to discuss it That's a great idea. I think that's a more effective way to say this is what we're doing then going out and rehashing that or regurgitating that Get it from the horse's mouth the principals and administrators they all be there Typically what we did last year was me doing the big overview because they come like Jason just did they come to the smaller meetings along the way to present just their schools October's a good time because you've got all the like I said I focus in on the objective testing you've got all the objective testing that's come in we've got the S back across all the grades that take it 3-9 Science still doesn't exist because they haven't given us any data yet for the two years that they've run their new science exam but we've got the AP scores we've got the SATs which are all things worth taking a peek at in terms of overall health starting with this year so that data will probably be coming into play as the year gets a little bit later and the principals are coming to present they've also been given a mandate using the interim assessments which provide a lot more detail into where the students are strong and weak as well as to track my progress so we've got those as well kind of on the internal side the elementaries also have their common formative assessments that they've put together it does kind of the same thing to track my progress in the interims too but it's a little more tailored to what they're expecting to see from the kids just common core so there's quite a bit of data there right I think it's worth listening to I like Paul's idea of having a full page at and then following it up with the next week if nothing else it'll get them to cause there are quite a few that do watch on keeping I like your idea of publishing that and calling it the ends would sound kind of strange but these are our goals is this still relevant what the schools should be teaching to meet these goals if you have opinions on what our goals should be these are the core values in our schools you can contact your school board there is not the logistics of it that's theirs depending upon how big a project you want that to be and how much involvement if you're at a point where you think that statement needs to be revisited and hold there's a facilitated well that's a question for you there's an easy facilitated process for it I'm going to ask the other people we put a lot of structures in place this year with the budget and that's been my hesitation but if it changes a little the only thing that I would see coming out of it if you're looking at this stuff and listening to the news it's going to be a cultural awareness type stuff that social justice type stuff is the only thing that we do we've got social studies but I don't know that that speaks to what people are hammering up like the legislature just passed that we have to do that so that would probably be to somehow fit in here that's the only thing that I could see somebody saying that needs to be added in there that isn't there I don't know what's not coming it could be a data point under life skills life skills or social studies or communication I mean it could be any of those or even from our survey here there's a lot of focus on foreign language maybe our community considers that to be a life skill no you know I don't know okay so to sum up this discussion we will so we don't have a communications person now Ben Merrill left Ben is still he's under contract he's a fairly kind of web management that's the primary piece of the salary he's doing it from Georgia he comes in once a month he flies in and checks on his places but it's something that we probably want to talk about going forward after this year well yeah I'm wondering like if we wanted to put in a full page or a large ad in the Herald who would take that responsibility and Ben still can too he's got those contacts half a page would be plenty I think the only reason I said that is because the last couple of times we've gotten the paper there's been full page ads like on the back page it was like oh that's odd it's not expensive either I don't know what a full is so we'll take that so that should be the third season every couple of weeks well I think the rest of us too I mean I don't know but anyway is that what you're no no no people Facebook front porch forum I think we should hit it up on the number of fronts because not everybody is I have access to all those so I'll send it out of all that would be great and maybe post it on the different schools websites I know the high school is setting out we get these reminder emails if you're a parent at a high school but I don't know if that's elementary school you've gotten no email they do I'm making them use it this year that was the school messenger I bought two years ago so it's actually in there it's in their emails this year that you've got to use it at least zero but I thought I should contact the principal before I brought it but I haven't opened house and I couldn't face to face email so the ad will go on in the third okay and in the tenth I'll contact Zoe and just give her a little verbal update so she will be a little mini article okay so besides that is what action do we want to take in or do we want to take any action as far as getting input about the ads so I wonder if we can get a number of people although again probably just going to get a smattering you mean at the next school board yeah but maybe at that point we figure out a way to just get feedback in terms of are we on track you know that can be sort of something that they I wonder if so we present what the second Monday of October we'll be doing the presentation what if that Thursday we asked to put an insert in the paper in which it talks you have you know just I don't know a page or two of the data that you think is you're going to get an actual written report like you did last year as well as the presentation so the if I abbreviate or limit the scope of the report the report can just go out I'm wondering if that would be post a link on the website or something I'm just thinking to get the most I don't like to go on to Facebook I don't like Facebook I email that school message I can put it on the front porch forum it can go in the paper and Zoe can take the parts that they think is pertinent to throw up there Ben can meld something together too from what's in there I think it would be important that Thursday after we have our meeting that there's a bunch of information if we're trying to say come to our meeting come to our meeting it's so important Thursday after the meeting and it's good context because hey thank you for the big budget increase this is the reason and this is what we're using it for these are the areas that we're doing really well because of what you've given us in previous years again the impact of last year's budget won't be felt until the end of this year earliest but also yeah these are the areas that we've known have been weak for a while and this is what we're doing about it because it adds that context to the conversation we're not running around clueless in terms of what we're deciding to do with the budget that's coming in another survey we need to have more specific questions we're leaving so open-ended I think so you leave it open-ended they're going to give you that range because then you can tally things so if you narrow it down at least then maybe we can find some common trends if I can find it again I sent it I think the first year but I'll send it around to the board there was a massive survey which actually probably about 60% of the district did every year that the PTO at Marblehead had put together I had two folks that actually had advanced degrees in putting those types of surveys together that built it if you guys want to see those just as possibilities to rip questions from it but it is it's not an easy read and by that I mean it's just they had a lot of questions they had a lot of things that we were targeting in on trying to get information about but there might be some different communities there I'll see if I can find the thing again down to five questions well I think we need to again sort of focus it on our outcomes because that's what we're trying to do if it's community relations that's more we might want to alert him that hey we've heard this from people but that's not really our goals is the outcomes that we're in I think in the past we've gotten good responses from things that have kind of like like rank things that have actual numerical outcomes instead of just this open-ended stuff that we did but also I was thinking I lost my thought but we have had good results with that in the past I mean some people do turn those over but if they do that's what they do it's good it's all good the marble head survey will be nice about it even if you don't use any of the questions you can see how they were so it might be a good model that would be great alright let's move on we've got to discuss budget parameters in relation to negotiations that one's me yeah and probably can't get into specific numbers we've probably touched on this a little bit with a discussion I think that Paul brought up at the last meeting which I thought was really good one of the problems with negotiations especially this year is that negotiations won't start until the earliest in January by that time you guys have already had to do your vote on what the budget is and what's acceptable so what it might be worth doing before we go into negotiations is for the board to make a determination in terms of the potential budget increase for the staff and staff salaries this is the range that as a board we would be willing to accept they don't need to know what that is we can make that determination in the executive session as part of the strategic planning around it but it might help to put things a little bit in context and make things a little bit easier for the negotiating team obviously if I think the main parameter around it would be not offering nothing so if they're coming in and they're just asking for the sun sky and the moon but not offering anything in turn that's a value to us towards meeting the ends that this is the range if they come in and say hey we're willing to offer these additional services then it would come back to the board and say hey as we do in the negotiations but it might be worth setting what that possible range could be the other piece that probably should be in there is what I've traditionally done with the admin usually for their yearly raises I just keep it the same as whatever the teachers are getting or I try to budget for that that's something that you guys should have a say in as well in terms of doing the vote the average for the admin salaries and other one of the reasons that I've always tried to keep it at what the teachers are is because the teachers union usually negotiates pretty hard for a value that they're getting and it keeps the separation between the admin work and the teaching work it keeps whatever that gap is consistent over time that's kind of a thought so do you want to have an executive session on a clear month to discuss that I think as we get a little bit closer that that would be good so that we know kind of what we've got to work with going in kind of what is the first meeting so they I didn't see it yet they did come down and we're getting ready to get the letter together for because they have to provide a letter that's asking to meet with the board to enter in negotiations one of the things that they were going to add to that was keeping everything the basic ground rules the same as last time which I thought was a good idea I like the idea that it's open so that we can talk with the community about what's happening if we want to but how things are working in terms of negotiation all depends upon the state contract that they're trying to negotiate right now it looks like that is definitely going to go to fact finding and probably arbitration so the earliest given if they go through the whole process which it looks like they're going to do that they might have an answer and something finalized is late December yeah neither side union nor us would be interested in entering into any kind of negotiations before that point in time because we don't know what the cost impact is going to be it's hard to negotiate about other things if you don't know how much the new health care changes may cost so probably what will happen when that letter comes out is they'll be asking for the first meeting to be probably mid January and that's to make sure that it's after they've agreed on the state contract there is a date set in law that certain things have to have to happen in terms of that state contract and I think the last piece the arbitration I think it's December 15th that has to happen if they haven't reached agreement by then how long the arbitrator gets to decide after that I don't know but so it looks like January should be the earliest we meet so one way or the other there's going to be a statewide all insurance by law to the teachers and I think I'm supposed to be they haven't all they told me was that's in arbitration we're in a mediation so that's going to be you know and it's different depending upon whether the union sent them or whether the states I hate to say it but I believe the union a little bit more in terms of what I've been reading and what I know how things are set up is that it's set for binding arbitration that means at the very end if people can't agree they take the last best offer from both parties and they look at it and they decide it's all of this one or it's all of that one so I think what the strategy is again no one said this but kind of watching what's going on is the state kind of put their best offer on the table and they're just kind of letting the days go by until they get to arbitration and keeping their fingers crossed that's the one the arbitrator decides they want to accept things could change in fact but I think that's the strategy that's playing out right now alright so we'll try to put that maybe on as budget negotiations get closer then we'll put that on an executive session board governance budget you have ten grand and you usually have money left over but it was twenty on my first year but it was because you had planned the previous year for a speaker and we generally use that for personal policy governance training if you want to go to a workshop or a seminar and as a group policy governance training with a facilitator what do we have to do just discuss how we're using that decide what you want to do and we work with Robin to get it we don't my senses will probably have an evening session in March or something like that I'd like to ask some of these other boards that are doing policy governance to just even show us how are you monitoring and how are you monitoring just to see how it is see if we can learn from Zunuski is pretty far along yeah that's what I want to see and these guys in Brandon I think they've been doing policy governance for a while it would just be interesting to compare and see it's going to say should we just show up at their board meetings right I mean if we could contact them and say you know we'd love to see what you're doing could we sit in on a board meeting contingent of us or I bet we could watch or maybe even what I thought I might do is go look on their website see if I can see some of their reports do you want to do the research on that and get back to us? Sure I don't know how quickly I can do that that could take place in one of the policy governance trainings we could have we're in the longing I think that was great well we could add if I follow this it'll be after November too soon whenever you're ready we could even vote to move that up okay I think that would be great a great use of our time Sue had one what was her name? Val Val had one that she brought up on the screen remember that she sent us a bunch of things yeah plus it would be good for a model for me too cause like I said the one I created the other one had a scratch last year which was fine they were great the ones that she put up it was like oh my god that's collegiate level maybe I'll contact her cause she's sort of on again out of retirement right? yeah she's not in retirement she's not so you do the research and let me know when you're ready to present after the year Paul this was something you were going to discuss what we wanted so for the board goals we had all these policies and whatnot and we reviewed them on this re-occurrence every meeting we have a new one that we so as an example we're going over what ELS 2.0 this time and 2.8 and so we always do that do we want to have last meeting we talked about we were kind of unhappy with some of the policies but when we go over the policies we're looking at more of the lanes portion of the interpretation and the rationale and evidence to support it but we don't actually go over the policies so do we want to set a goal of looking over certain ones that jump out at us that are not developed how we would like are we okay with how they are currently and just leave them as is but I kind of got the feeling at our last training our last meeting we kind of had some policies that we were kind of questioning the wording so it's kind of an open-ended board policy review do you want to review the policies alright so how would we want to if we do want to do we want to just take and say something like one month we're reviewing three so policy title 3.0 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 so you would come prepared to the meeting to discuss any changes you want to see in policies 3 so that would mean all of those not just 3.0 does that make sense instead of like we do with Lane instead of breaking them down by individual policy just take them into groups executive limitations board management delegation and governance process does that sound like that's the feasible way to do it or why are we doing this well each time we pump a training you ask a lot of questions and then we go why are we doing this we might have disagreements about what is written and so it was kind of a way to force us to discuss them and get them to a point to where we feel happy with them since we wrote these a long time ago they haven't been updated they were adopted in 2016 but mostly have been written long before that usually three to five years is a good review right and we haven't done it and really the question is do we really want to take the time and do by each individual policy or do we do it by groups chunks what's the consensus I don't know that there will be a lot of change but at least the opportunity to how were they written were they written with a model of some kind the carver gave us a carver model they gave us a whole bunch of examples templates from others but as you saw Val Gardner when she put up a big evolved drastically since we developed these and we've never evolved and so perhaps it goes kind of hand in hand with what you find out maybe we can put it off until we find out more information but these are very elementary compared to what Val kept showing us for policy 2.1 boom it was a lot more in-depth than what we got maybe we don't want that I don't know but a lot has changed since we developed these I think some of the reason that they stayed so elementary is that we were very there was a lot of effort and energy that went into each and every word pretty much I'm not disagreeing no I'm just saying I'm not saying that it's a good thing to know over them just going over them doesn't mean we have to change them there's been a lot of evolution do we want to include some of that in our language or are we happy with it and looking back over the last few years could we have avoided any troubles if we had changed if they said it went more specific and if is that something that we could anticipate happening again if we don't the metaphor was always you want your finger in as few bowls as possible they're like mixing bowls they're stacked how many mixing bowls do you want to put your finger in to control do you want to leave as much freedom of movement of those bowls but which ones if they fell out so what I hear you saying though is that this is not my expertise at all it would be very helpful to even start to consider changing these is to see some of those other policies what exists other people have already created and are using them I think we benefit us to have those as a template or at least a sounding board as a reflection of where we might go the goal might be to for this year is to simply gather material from other schools that are using our policy governance type model so gather material so that we can be prepared for more in depth policy review I don't know why we couldn't be that it's good things a while and when we do it I'd like to hear about doing it by groups and then if we come to a certain policy that 2.1 has more issues then we can go a bit more depth but if we don't move on that's a good idea if there isn't any questions everyone's in agreement spending the time to do it but if there is more questions then our recommendation piece is that since we're just talking about kind of the budget for the board is maybe build a little extra into the budget typically if you're starting out on a project like this you get a facilitator in for the first meeting or two just to kind of show you the best way to move it forward and then after you feel comfortable as a group continuing the process that they've set up and you can just kind of do your own thing but it might be worth if you decide that to have a val or somebody come in just to facilitate the first two meetings for you that's a good idea and she would have access to some of these materials that would be harder for us to access well the first the first person I'm going to ask is we have this going on to this I'm not leaving that topic but the policy side committee we're meeting with Sue of the VSVA the different set of policies but I would definitely ask her about who is practicing policy governance and where we can get started who might be able to help us with that anything else about the policy review our own policy review that Paul was talking about I like Lane's idea about getting the facilitator I would say if it's about we would maybe perhaps just ask for the materials up up front before she comes to so we have a chance to review it before she gets back we haven't seen the material so it might be better to get the information up front and then we could digest it and talk so, is this something you want to put into our agenda for the fall of having starting this work in the evening outside of the school board calendar are people willing to come and spend a three hour workshop some evening outside of school board so do you want to contact Val? do you want me to contact Val and just sound her out on whether she's available I can't contact Val I would just need your information if you have it I don't have it I have her you don't have a bill somewhere accounting is really like and 6.30 to 9 tends to work okay for everyone and then it's two and a half hours do we have a month that we prefer don't budget after budget after budget so in the spring no let's do it she goes on it earlier I mean we could use her twice so we could do like a November if we're up for November tends to be sort of a less busy month for many people okay it's a terrible month for you it's a terrible month in general November and April whatever you want to do for a policy whatever okay okay the last part of our board management is the first meeting of policy subcommittee which we're still working on scheduling and I did email Rachel Ling and Ashley who are subcommittee we have a couple of dates in mid-November so hopefully we'll suit that since Rachel is free on November should be good alright email monitoring okay we have the two reports 2.0 and 2.8 which were in our packets last month for primary for first review and so today we need to accept them I don't know if there are any further questions for Lane or any other discussion on either one of those reports policy review but when we do these EL reports this really should be our time to be looking at our policy and saying is our policy getting us the information or or do we feel like we're getting what we need from this policy or not because in a way we're almost every time we do monitoring the report we're doing that policy but the policy should be driving our our focus on the actual right and do you have any questions about the policy as you reviewed the report this month I did go into into the OSSD office to look at some of his evidence for 2.0 and I felt comfortable with it but I don't know if other people have gone and asked for further information I think that really is our due diligence feeling comfortable with the information that he has given us we're possible I'm trying to just put it in the report but that was head personnel information which is why it was in the notebook it's not always possible so does anyone have a further question or something they want to highlight from those two monitoring reports if not do I have a motion to accept EL reports 2.0 and 2.8 as submitted last month by Lane so moved is there a second all those in favor of accepting both reports as written say aye aye any opposed all right we've accepted 2.0 and 2.8 scholarship investment report which is imposed on the agenda Lane do you have anything to say about that yeah we found my notes I had a couple parts and pieces here so for especially for the new board members there are two scholarships that there were sizable donations for and that the school district kind of maintains on behalf of those donors the Aisle Hall and the community scholarships so every year we do a report kind of to show you where things currently stand in terms of the principal that's still available to what was doled out to the students for each class at the end of each year I did have an opportunity to talk with the donors for the community scholarship one of the things that they're asking is that they would like to see that money used up that's the $2 million one I think the intent was never to have it last in the perpetuity my guess is I think as they're getting older that they would like to see it used up in their lifetime so you're going to see an acceleration when you look at the grid in terms of what's being paid out on that scholarship previously it was about $25,000 a year that was going out to the students I think it was closer to about $94,000 and then the other thing to know about that scholarship especially for the new folks is that that's a four year scholarship so like the very first year we look on the disbursement column that they gave money out in this they gave out $22,500 the next year they gave $25,000 out to that class but they were still paying the $22,500 for the second year of the first so you see the total disbursements on the right so that's what's going out every year to account for the new scholarship money plus those that are in the pipeline for the four years and that one they're supposed to return 10% of what they received that's possible it's written in the contract and the students sign it but I don't know so this would be the first class the 2015 class just graduated so it would be interesting to see so and they want they don't so that means that's going to continue to feed into the scholarship well see that I had a pretty good conversations with them they didn't mention that they were interested in getting the money out as fast as possible as long as the students met the spirit of the scholarship right well if you read the in the contract it says that they're going to pay back 10% of what they bought I'll take a look and I'll actually ask them about that they might be very willing to change that at this point in time they were also willing, they opened that scholarship up to all students that attend including the students that are coming in via school choice which was interesting but again they're a wonderful wonderful couple getting a little advanced in age and I think I'm not 100% sure but my takeaway was is that that's what's concerned or you might talk with Simona who does the scholarship stuff I'll ask about that because I do that with students and I think now Kelly Tupper is collecting that paperwork but the kids have to hand in that contract that says they'll pay back 10% and there's some other things that they have to do or receive and so it's going to always sort of it's been making quite a bit of money I mean overall I think it's about 5% when I was doing the calculations on it since its inception it's been up and down so it's making quite a bit it's going to be hard to do given the limited number of students we have even if we're given it to 10 or 15 students a year it's still not going to make it that much that's amazing too what are the requirements for the students basically just they have to be gone to a school in Vermont a public university in general or college or anything and then they have to pay public not private and they need to pay 10% of whatever they get and then originally they had to be from one of the three towns but like I said we have much in state of a college probably fairly limited and there was a need clause in there they had to have a demonstrated need so that's a little bit more but it was funny they came back and one of the comments that they said is that when you're giving the money out it doesn't have to be the same amount big thing is that we don't ever want a student to ever have to take this receiving scholarship to ever have to take along for anything I hope they're all the students are required to write a thing they are they are just wonderful people the other one that was an oddity this year was the Brown Scholarship that one actually its inception was at least 50 years ago I think it was 1971 if I remember back and because it was part of an estate the way that the laws were in Vermont at the time was the court had to oversee whoever was managing the estate which is people's bank now despite all the name changes that have happened so every year the court requires them to do an accounting which requires us to do some paperwork as well what the court did is on it's own kind of filed with itself the fact that it didn't want to oversee that anymore felt that there was no need to do it we had an old job with nothing questionable in the 50 years of service so that paperwork has happened that's the only other change in terms of the scholarships I also put down the other scholarships that were given out there were 30 other scholarships that were given out in addition to these that came to $118,309 the district handles the A's also and that one's used I think if I remember it's $2,500 a year to two students so $5,000 a year that one sits around $100,000 and that one again the way that things have been going lately that one will go under perpetuity if the interest rates stay the way they've been the last five years huge this is amazing for students it's really awesome and things are in very good shape we do have the dual control in place and Leo over at Edward Jones has been doing his job whatever check is written to pay for any of those scholarships he calls and talks with both Robin and I separately so that we're both reviewing the amount making sure that it's right and then giving him the approval unless he gets approval from both of us separately nothing happens so that was part of the dual control that we put in on it so that's a procedural thing part of the one of the Yale reports financially Yale reports the first year that was the only thing that I noticed could be adjusted to kind of get better in alignment what the limitation was requiring so what's the scholarship the scholarships that's just a traditional annual report it looks like the board has always done it's not really an Yale policy it said 2.3 maybe financial management financial conditions and activities which it would relate to so it's really just oversight of the financial health of the district okay can we move on to facilities monitoring report so the easier if we can get them to you in color so kind of to remind folks where we're at is we kind of adjusted this a little bit just to make sure that there were eyes on the ground whenever anything was being purchased or whenever work was being done so what you'll see anytime the work has been completed if it's got my initials next to it or Robin's initials, the LWM it means that yeah, we've gone out we've checked the materials are physically here or the work has physically been done we've actually had our eyes on it and can confirm that anything that is checked off by me that's been inspected it said that direct observation after this month we'll come off the report so that it doesn't get confusing and then the new work that's completed I'll go out and do the visual inspection on it Robin will if I'm not around and mark off that it's happening there are a couple of things that I've highlighted for myself part of the way down and we already kind of talked about this but it was just a reminder on the paving and the loading dock repair the board had approved money for that to happen this summer we went out to bid there was one bidder it was actually the person who gave us the estimate that we paid for their bid came in about 70,000 over what their estimate was so we said no, we're not going to do the work they had made a mistake on the original estimate about the cost this is one of the materials that goes into the asphalt they had done the miscalculation of the estimate so that will be on hold until next year then we'll go out to bid again we'll try to get out to bid in February and see if we can get a better price for that there is a piece on here for athletic field work it's planned, we're discussing it what that is is we've never had like a greenskeeper to go out there and actually do real work on the field what happens with athletic fields over time is as people are playing on them the soil gets compacted does two things that makes it hard to grow the good grass that you want the second thing that it does is it makes it dangerous for the kids so we're considering at least for one year maybe two potentially getting a groundskeeper to go out there and do some work on those fields just to keep them safe keep the grass grow all the way that it should if it gets too compacted and the grass starts to die it's mostly crab grass out there now we'll end up having to rotate through the fields and I don't know where we'd rotate the kids to we'd have to actually literally take them off the fields for a year have them play somewhere else I'm sure we're trying to prevent that from happening I think ours were aerated yearly when I was in school there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done on it's never been done here in memory but folks that are still here work orders this is just interesting to point out so since January they've had 359 work orders submitted by teachers 311 of them are complete they have a system called school due that the teachers put in their work requests into the last one for me this one was highlighted for me more for a question was about the fitness rooms middle of the year last year when this bit came in and did it's kind of yearly survey to make sure that things are in compliance we talked about this fitness room or not looks like they've done all the repairs but I've got to check on this one I think this was the actual reconstruction of the it's a raised floor of the structure underneath that makes sure that it can handle all the weight so I still got to do the visual inspection on that but they have replaced and repaired all the damaged actual athletics that's it they've got some new steppers and things like that which is kind of neat one that's in progress which is important is it's on the last page third or fourth one up from the bottom it's the emergency 911 the E911 we've got to get all the sites set up some of them already are but all the sites set up so that when somebody makes a 911 call the addresses that are responding know the actual room number it actually shows up on the call so that's kind of set up at the big yeah it's set up at the big schools they never set it up at the smaller schools because they figured the schools were small enough but the law has changed it has to be done not only do they need the E911 set up but the number to dial 911 has to be 911 otherwise it's not 9 to get out so those are the big ones unless there's other questions does anyone have a question for the question so let's move on we need to approve the minutes from the OSSD meeting in August I don't know if anyone has any amendments or changes questions about those we also have to approve professional staff contracts the list is here we've got a new pre-tech program hire was that the only one? oh and then a brain tree title teacher she's already 80% that's just her dother 20 so we're going to vote on this the consent agenda is this late and then approve backup check signer in absence of the treasurer this was we have the new treasurer so Theresa Godfrey is here if she is ever out if she goes off on vacation we still need somebody to sign the accounts payable checks people's paychecks whatever is going out to vendors so you used to have a stipended position for that they called it the assistant secretary we just need a backup so we checked with the auditors the board performs that role we checked it usually takes between a half hour and an hour to actually sign the checks so we figured $50 an hour so again that would be my recommendation to the board is to have a motion to put Linda in as that backup check signer that would be $50 per hour hopefully address fingers it's Dan do you need a motion? I am better since my broken arm this winter let's approve the other parts of the consent agenda and then we will approve Linda as the check signer we need to approve the minutes from the OSSD meeting in August and to approve the professional staff contracts do I have a motion to approve those two things second all those in favor any opposed okay and now I would need a motion to add or to make Linda the backup check signer in lieu of the treasurer so all those in favor who was the second any opposed okay congratulations Linda no thanks I believe there's the actual bank paper yeah there is in that folder okay perfect next we have the superintendent's report which was enclosed in the agenda may you have something to add or elaborate on just kind of two new pieces to add integrated field review we've kind of mentioned that was happening this year that's kind of like the old accreditation that Niasque used to do the state has kind of taken over that process I'm just happy to announce that I've got a team together I had nine people that stepped up for that so I sent the names off to the state the integrated field review for the district should be happening early November they haven't given me specific names yet so is that those people from within the district that that are voluntary so I'm happy happy about that the other piece is the we had talked a little bit about the I'm shed here just to give a heads up that eventually if it looks like we can get the work that I may be coming to the board for reserve funds the initial estimate that we've got is somewhere between $12,000 $8,000 and $14,000 but I'll have a full solid estimate if I'm in that time are there any other questions that anyone has for Lane about his report concerning his report okay also we've got the director of principal's report and financial report do you want to give us any heads up about what there is reported there actually it's actually the easiest way to say it is the finances are all very good right now of course it's only been one month there were a couple of things on the expenditure sheet which is pretty much the last sheet in the book that show up as negative right now they're not quite what they appear it's because that the money has been encumbered already and will probably end up being less than what we've encumbered it for but other than that everything looks as it should the only one that's a little bit over is repair and maintenance where it shows the negative 7.17% the reason that that one is legitimately going to be over is because we actually work with a software vendor to maintain our financial data from central office offsite we had that ancients I don't know how old that thing was that ancient server that was in that front room that was so old they were still using the old magnetic tapes like this to preserve it and so what would happen is every night Sue would go in there and she would copy all the data onto one of those tapes and then take it home with her for safe keeping and then bring it back God forbid anything would happen to it so this was just part of the financial piece just making sure that we're preserving our records the way that we need to so right now every night it's uploaded to the cloud it's available to anyone who needs it who has the proper access from any location and if the building burns down we still have it because in that case if the building burnt down they might not have been able to find anything to read that tape you're exactly right I haven't seen those tapes since the 80s is the last time I've seen them so that was he had one of the barn around here somewhere it's a great expense then I mean we'll be fine in the end in terms of the overall budget it's a couple thousand dollars it's a drop I had a question about why the tuition from last year was 3400 34 almost 2 342 well now it's 290 is that an unexpected drop which on the left it's on the revenue it says local revenues tuition 342 about 341 and then now it's 290 that's currently what we're anticipating remember we're at the start of the budget year so when we start out it's what we anticipate doesn't mean what it actually is do you expect that number to go up? I do well I'll have a better answer for you when we do the end report because I pulled the enrollments in October when I look back we did try to gauge what enrollments were going to be a couple of months ago what I saw at that point in time was a steady state at RES and a steady state at RUHS but then increases at the two small elementaries of about 20 to 40 kids but that would then you think that there would be more tuition revenue than last year less? it depends on where the tuition is coming from if I have a school choice student coming in that's worth about 17,000 to me if I have a new student in the elementary schools because that's not under tuition it's coming from the state funding that's worth about 10,000 so if I got all my kids coming in at the lower level I'm earning a little bit more but it's not worth as much as a school choice kid I guess I would still expect an increase rather than a decrease but we'll see I guess in October let me what I will do which I think because it's an important question as well if you're willing we'll revisit it at the next meeting I'll talk with Robin with the details but typically you're anticipating especially this early in the season what you're expecting any other questions about the financial reports any other additional information? what's your question like you said Robin the last question I asked her when I looked through stuff with her is do you feel good? it's early but I feel very comfortable that's good to know board evaluation Ann I have an incidental information for Lane I have a question last year a member of the community asked about main plates for everybody and you had the RTCC guys do that where are we on those? we have the actual name plates that I can give you they carry hazards class was working on the developing the bases they were trying out different models which is kind of neat but I don't think they settled on one so I gotta put some pressure on them now that they're getting up and running again to get that done but we do have them so now that the students are back perhaps we could get that accomplished do you want to see them they're in the back and we have nothing identifying them that was last year's October meeting full year as we talk like we know each other and nobody's ever been on film and here and what was that again? they're kind of nice they got too much else on they're good here they are they kind of they kind of changed a little but they did this is the main piece they actually did this on the new laser cutter so they cut it out and then the kids had to figure out how to get the laser to cut at the right depth so it didn't go all the way through the wood so this was out of the innovation center but as part of the STEM work all the schoolers were doing they were working on designs at the base and they had actually sent some videos out they had half a dozen different based designs but if you've got yours in there we'll have to see maybe I'm not sure if they've done one for Brian I don't think they had that but we've got to get them updated which is a big point so Ashley but she came on to where Brian is so when we talk we hold our hands up so just Brian I think yeah but they could still feel you don't get a name you just get a title no name just title you have to hold it up when you speak towards the camera say Paul no it goes with it it goes next to it there it is right there hold on okay Anne Howard our evaluator how did we do I think we overall commendable and between commendable met our best expectations I don't think we had any significant detractions from our accepted decorum and behavior no we didn't we didn't yell and scream at each other we didn't bully each other so we're all good alright and we've got Brian with the main part of the meeting at 8.18 so we are going to have an executive session