So four, thanks everyone, four said she's going to be a couple minutes late, so hopefully she'll be here before too long. So first agenda revisions, I have a few. I'm going to suggest that we add an item 2.4 about the Washington Central Unified Union School District, thank you. Organizational meeting, I believe Susan Clark is going to be talking about that. I'm going to suggest that we add 2.5, which is just briefly discussing and taking a decision about the last day at school this year. I'm going to suggest that we add 2.6 and essentially an executive session to discuss the staffing issue. Are there any other revisions to the agenda? Are there any public comments or correspondence? Any executive committee comments? Is there a motion to approve minutes of March 27th and March 28th? Second. Is there any discussion? Okay, hearing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes of March 20th and March 27th and March 28th, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Expansions? Motion carries. Okay, so we have a 2.1. So we have a contract issue to discuss and I'm going to propose that we go into executive session to discuss this contract and that we would invite Lori Bebo to join members of the executive committee in that conversation. Okay. So, if I could have an addition. I move that we go into executive session to talk about contract or personnel issue. Is it a combination of two or one more than the other? It's a contract issue. Contract issue. I second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. to have as much of this interview as we can in open session. But we're going to talk about the monetary aspects or we're going to talk about references specifically. And I want to do that in a good session just to kind of, you know, for Peter's privacy. So I'm going to go with that. Peter, I wasn't being, yeah, I wasn't being a good host. I don't know who I'm talking about. I'm just wondering if you could just go. I really appreciate your coming up. And so I think everyone is aware that Dorothy and I had a chance to meet with Peter already and talk generally about what we are looking to do, which is hopefully conduct a search for an armed superintendent for a period of one year. So we've had an opportunity to kind of have a little bit of back and forth already. And I don't really have a protocol for how to proceed here. I think that it could be appropriate for maybe to ask Peter to introduce himself and to provide a little bit of an overview of his take on some of the things that we discussed. And then we can kind of go from there in terms of asking questions or everyone's had a chance, I think, to review your resume at least. And we've got about, we can take up to 30 minutes for this conversation if we need to. OK. Well, as you saw, I was retired about three years ago after 46 years. 10 of them are not failure. Seven of them down in Bronx, New York. And three of them at an independent school that I was head of that was an expeditionary-based high school, which was probably one of the most interesting things that I did. The fun expeditionary? I didn't even hear that. It was a school in which students and their teachers spent three months on the road that think an educational version of outward bound. And so it was a leadership program. And based on those principles, an outward bound came to the United States based on the principles of an educator by the name of Kurt Hahn through Philip Sandover Academy, Josh Minor. And those same principles were the same principles that are at the basis of the Peace Corps. And that's where Sergeant Shriver went to get.  They'll be back in two weeks. And so he was looking for a kind of leadership development program. And the Gordonston School in Scotland put those two things together into a holistic educational approach. And the idea was to bring that back. It was very exciting. And it would still be in existence today. Only the 90 acres that was chosen by the founder to site the school the year we needed to expand. We couldn't find a place to perk on 90 acres. So I was to say that that idea went south, literally. So anyway, it was somewhat of a disappointment, but I closed up a shot there. And I went back and finished in the classroom. Because that first year, I wanted to deal with the fiduciary responsibilities.  We were able to make everybody whole. And still have money left over from the money that we had raised to contribute to educational nonprofits in the state of Massachusetts, which is one of the things you can do if you're a nonprofit when you're closing up. And going back into the classroom, it turned out to be that first year. I said, I think I want to keep doing that for a while. Because I was able to write a lot of curriculum, work with high school kids, develop curriculum, religion, ethics, and world history. And then three years ago, I retired and came back up to Vermont. And I happened to meet with Steve Dale. And I said, so what's happening? I want to come back. And he said, well, honey, you should ask. And so there's this major legislature initiative that's going to be difficult. But I think you have a skill set to contribute to that. That was based on the work that Ryan and I did in Montpelier, which was a lot of strategic planning, a lot of community engagement. In order to develop what is now, I apologize to people, Act 77, which is a state mandate, community-based learning, personal learning plans, all of that stuff, was all a part of the work that myself, the gardener, other educators at that time were interested in. And we were interested in it because when I got to Montpelier, even though Montpeliers, and I think similar profiling in 32, very high graduation, a very high articulation rate to college, but also an inordinately high dropout rate, which was, I think, 7% to 9%, which was almost 35 or 40 kids that never made it. They started in his ninth grade and never got to the end. And that was just not acceptable to the community. It wasn't acceptable to me as an educator. It wasn't. And we had to figure out how to do that. And so all of those things, and as I say, I apologize to teachers, we developed those things in order to keep kids in school. Now there are mandates. And nobody responds very well to mandates. It's much more fun to solve a problem than to do so creatively. But they came about in that sense, honestly. And a lot of that work, I'm very proud of. So it was that community process work that I really love doing. And I wanted that service to be a hallmark of what I did as a semi-retired educator. So I did 12 or more studies. Most of them passed. Two of them didn't. They were all difficult in one way or another, helping people find common ground. In some places, we were successful. In other places, we weren't. And then I did three or four alternative studies because those made the most sense to me to work on. Because there was an educational argument to be made. And I think three of them were accepted by the state board. And one of them was not. And so I wish I could have found help communities find educational and common ground on every single one of them. But some of those were very difficult. And some of the problems were intractable. And I can go into that more, but this is really about the superintendent search. So I started my own LLC. And I did that work. I have been mentoring principals in Vermont during the last three years, which is incredibly rewarding work. It gives me a really good sense of what is happening inside schools and the challenges that are occurring. And the last piece of work has been curriculum development at the middle school level and strategic planning work. A lot of them have a very good sense of, well, if you decide you want to merge, and now you have to create this new thing, what's that about? Well, you have to go through in order to do that. And some of the most important pieces, at least that I wrote into the studies that I help lead, was the importance of the board focusing on cultural and community-building efforts. Because as you all know, this is a difficult process. And so continuing to keep a community engaged as you build or reinforce the vision that the school has, there's an opportunity for a reset, but there's also an opportunity to communicate. There's an opportunity for people to better understand what the schools were about because they're sort of paying attention because this is all very new. So the more you can engage and more inclusive, you can create a process to better. And then the last piece of work I've been doing is nobody's built any schools in Vermont for a long time for the very obvious reason that there's been no state aid, something that is a problem. And so in one of the places that did decide to merge Slade Valley, a lot of the elementary schools do not have critical masses of seventh and eighth graders. And so their program has been contracting at a time when a middle school person needs their world to open up. And so Slade Valley, the community really wants to explore the creation of a middle school. And in my lifetime, I again led community-wide processes, one in Montpelier that led to the renovation of the high school, and then four others in the course of my lifetime. And I know how to write educational specifications and work with architects. So when you think about all of that experience in terms of the work that's in front of you, you could clearly say, well, he hasn't done a superintendent search. Well, I've been part of a number of them. I know what material is helpful to a candidate. I know that a district has to put together a clear profile of who it is and what it's looking for. I mean, if you're looking for an interim. And you have to try to be clear about what it is you want the interim to do and what it is you don't want the interim to do, because in your particular case, I would say that it's pretty challenging. And clearly, I think one of the things, at least, talking with Matt and Dorothy is, clearly, you want the train to run on time, for lack of a better way of putting it. And someone who is skilled and experienced in that regard. But it's also happening against a backdrop of change, which is going to be hard, probably, for that person to keep out of in some kind of way. And I did speak a little bit to Matt about the board maybe thinking through what the next year is going to be about and what aspect of that transitional year, given the uncertainty of where you lie versus this required merger and the current court case that you're engaged in, which is important to the community. How to move forward in that way? Because one way or the other, by 2020, when this person's term is up or when you get to the fact of a new superintendent coming on, things are going to be different. And the superintendents for whom I have been working with who are leading merger processes, trying to keep the trains running on time and do the things that are necessary so that the school is ready to educate kids in whatever form that's going to take in a year and given that uncertainty is challenging. And so I think it would be worth, even though you're focused on an interim, to try to think about it in the larger context. Because I think the person, when you get to the interview stage, is going to ask, so yes, there's this, so what about this other thing? What are you expecting in terms of this? Or how do I navigate? And how is the board going to get the support it needs in order to move forward in whatever ways the sort of the fates allow, I guess, in some way? So that's a general overview in terms of how I'm thinking. I think what you wanted somebody to put together really clear materials who writes well, who can represent well. I think one of the things that people appreciated is that I listen extremely well and it can translate that into a value that basically captures what the values and of the intentions, if you will, of the people for whom I'm facilitating. And I'll be able to do that.  We'll turn it up for questions and for people to have. Have we introduced ourselves? No, but that would be fine. Let's introduce ourselves. I wonder if there are younger faces that newly, when I was younger and not on this old person that would, please don't say, I was in your class or something like that, because that would be at this point extremely embarrassing. So yeah, let's go. Why don't we start with you? I'm a floor, the Izmit. I'm leaving Eastmont Failure. I'm on the board at Eastmont Failure. And I'm an architect. And I'm Carly Bradley. We met earlier. You gave me two boards. And I'm Christine Baffin. They're on the board. No, I see. Hello, again. Nice to see you. Did your husband eat all the donuts? No, I got my own. But he was appreciative. I'm Joaquin Cowell, school board.  So what do you think? What's on your mind? You know, I'm going to open up just a little bit, because we're in a difficult situation with this transition. We don't know a lot about our communities. We're also very humble in spite of the nutshell. There are a lot of very damaging issues that this is causing in our community. And these problems aren't going away. So to some extent, we have to have some of these youths who say that keeps the train on the rails here. We don't want to cause a huge amount of disruption in the education through this transition process. And then we also have to have some of these not just indoctrinated into, and this is just about education. This is also about health of our community. It's a much bigger thing than just education. And I don't care what anybody says, it plays to that. And that's what's on the people's minds. So we need the communities themselves over this next year and this transition are going to be, if we're forced, this superintendent, even this temporary superintendent, is going to be a part of this conversation. I think it's going to be important that they would have the right attitude toward helping to facilitate that conversation to keep it productive rather than split. I think that's a really important person piece in this conversation. Because this can be written, these communities are not done with this issue. It's two of the issues that have been done in this group. And they have severe impact. And I think that it's going, we have certainly not reached the peak of public awareness about what's going on. And so that, I think that's the characteristics of this person. They're going to really have to be good at facilitating that conversation. I would agree, Richard. I think you're going to be looking for a person that has a level of maturity and a capacity to differentiate between themselves and all of the stuff around not to personalize. And someone who's probably not conflicted first. I mean, if I had, as a consultant, been conflicted first, I would not have stepped into Act 46. I wouldn't even have gone down to Bronxville, New York after 10 years in Montpelier and the amount of work that we did.  But at Bronxville, it had seven principles. No, I think it was 10 principles in 12 years, almost, or seven in 10 or 12 years, which was not necessarily a prescription and not something that I would have taken on had I been younger, because I don't think I would have been up to the task. But I understood once you understand what those are, there are leadership qualities that can help even the most fractious communities come together. So I think the challenge is going to be how big a pool can we get even for an interim. And for lack of a better way of putting that, I think you're probably going to be looking for someone who is certainly not in it for the money and has some sense of mission and love of children and love of education that understands not only the breadth of what they're facing, but even the limitations that go with it, but to make a contribution. In other words, to make it about the community and not about them. And one of the things that I think sometimes interims do is they're like, they're like me right now in terms of I'm a grandfather, okay? And being a grandfather is really great because you can love the kids and you can help the kids and you can support the kids, but you go home at night, they're not yours. And I think in that sense, you need, maybe that's too, a wise grandmother or a wise grandfather in that sense that is skilled and can help people hear one another as best they can and who understands the importance of community building throughout the process. Even at the best of times, even when we did the bond in Montpelier, that was not a slam dunk. We wanted to build a new high school and that didn't happen. And we had to go back to the drawing board. And if we had lost patience, if we did not listen, if we did not understand, then nothing would in that sense have been gained. And so I think those attributes that you're talking about, whoever's gonna come here is going to know exactly what you just said. And so then the question is, what kind of partnership is this going to be? And how can I contribute? How can I help in the short time I'm gonna be here and make a difference? And sometimes, there are people that go into this for the very reason of helping communities through transitionary times because they're so good. They're so good at it. And there's a great deal of satisfaction that goes with that. And that's something that's really needed. And that's just that objective, yeah. That's along the lines of my question is what are the opportunities that the interim status offers us? How can we take advantage of that? Well, I think you're looking for a particular kind of individual at a certain time in their life.  And so I think for the community to basically say, this is the elephant that's in the room and this is what needs to happen is going to be reassuring to, I think, a candidate who is at a point in their life where that's the kind of contribution that they wanna make. They'd still like to have an impact in their career. And they're not afraid of the challenge and feel, well, if I do this work, I'm not just, I mean, this is where I would sell it. I would sell it as you can come here and make it a real difference, okay? That the people are, I don't know, the people are in conflict. But helping people through that, I mean, for me as an individual, I've never been shy about that. And that's always, maybe that's the old Ohio boy style.  And maybe you don't sell, after 46 years, I mean, education is not where it is where I thought it was going to be. I mean, I thought we could fix the whole kid in Kaboodle and sometimes I look back in my career and say, you know, I don't have, I feel like by times I only move things an inch forward. But I think about the kids from whom that inch was important. Okay? And so what I'm modeling right here is what I hope you're going to hear from the candidates that we could find. And what I think is important in terms of what I can bring to the process is that's what I can articulate this job is about. Because if somebody just wants, I mean, there may be somebody who wants to do it for the money, I mean, there's always people or you know, that misunderstands the difference between service, which is what I'm talking about. And you know, I'm God's gift to education and this is a mess and I'm going to come in and fix it. I don't think that's going to serve you very well because you're going to need someone with real capacity to listen, to mirror, and to bring those things back. And if we were putting together, you know, the profile, I would start with what Richard is talking about and try to articulate it in terms of this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity to add to the service that that was important to you. So I think in that sense, you're looking for someone that sees education in some senses as a mission in your life. And there are people that are still out there that for whom that still matters. What is the, I'm assuming there's going to be a balance if you're involved in this between guidance and prodding in terms of the search forward. Where do you see that? Which in terms of when you need to do which and how you do each, because you've had quite a number of leadership positions in school, pretty much school. I'm sure you've been on the giving and receiving end of that. So how have you developed that? On the prodding end, I think you use a network of people that you know, and even people you don't know. And put together something that allows you to say here's what this opportunity is and try to take recommendations. So I think putting that out in the paper isn't really going to be enough. And one of the things that, if you work with me, one of the, I think, strategic things we're going to have to decide. So are we going to just look in Vermont? Or are we going to look outside of Vermont? And if we look outside of Vermont, how are you going to help whoever this person is? It might have to all the skills we're talking about, but it doesn't have a clue as to what they're dealing with. And so what is the supports you're going to put in place for that person? And one of the things I suggest into Matthew is, yes, I can do the focus and I can limit it to the notion of finding you an interim. Or perhaps we can use that as a first step in building a larger relationship that says, let's find the interim. Maybe in that process you decide, we like the facilitating skills that you're bringing to the table. And so we want you to stay on, not only to help whoever this person is, mentor them and help them with all the things they don't really understand about this process and also act in service to the board in anticipation of the fact that one way or the other you're going to have to do a longer term service as opposed to you get that done and then you find another individual and then you move on. I would not suggest that if in that initial relationship with me, you hit a point and say, this person's way out on the field, okay, so let's just get this part done and find somebody else in terms of the long term. But if there's the possibility of continuity because of the kinds of ways I'm framing this, that can help so that the person is not walking into blind. This is very difficult because they're going to hit the ground running and who's going to support them in that process. And I think the more contextual support and I think that's where potentially my mentoring skills become extremely important because the fine line of mentoring is not telling somebody what to do, okay, particularly an experienced superintendent but helping them think through. I mean, there are superintendents that I unofficially mentor because they need time and someone who's sort of neutral just to think about all the things that are on the table right now with these mergers, okay, because it's systemically complex, even if everybody's happy and not everybody is happy. Even the districts that you think are happy, it's hard. This is really hard work. And so if you're walking in from, let's say Massachusetts or New York, and I think the key there is at least to try to find someone who even though they might not necessarily have been from Vermont, at least understands the regional demands. So let me give you a contrasting argument. When the superintendent that I worked for in Bronxville left, they ended up bringing someone down from Saratoga, New York, who didn't have a clue as to what Western Sister County was about, what Western County was like, and he was basically a fish out of water and the board did not provide him any kind of support and it went south pretty quickly. Even though the administrative team tried to be as supportive as possible. So it has to be some kind of context for understanding, even if they're not from Vermont. And I think you need to think seriously about what the supports this person's gonna need to be successful with him. So that would be the larger piece. But I don't know how big the pool is in Vermont. And maybe we don't have to go very far from home to find the kind of profile of the person that we've been talking about, but it's possible that we may. In which case... How do we fill that gap again? That is a big issue. This transition year is, this isn't just walking into a gap year, this is walking into a major transition within the school system. So the lack, if somebody from out of state is not gonna, they're not going to be dialed into... Right, so if you find somebody in state that understands what this transition is about, fine. But even so, that person in my experience is gonna need support. If you have to find someone who is not familiar with what's going on, they're gonna even more degree of support. And that's something that, because no one wants to come to a place to fail. So I would think at one stage of the interview, they're gonna sense, you know, this is a pretty big thing you're talking about here. So what are the supports that are gonna be in place? And I think, even if that is a team of, you know, kind of the informal support team of board members and a consultant and, you know, some faculty and et cetera, you know, the better off. But to just simply throw them in and I hope they are still around in three months, that would be a mistake. I think you can plan for success if you're honest about the challenges that are in front of you. And that's what I would hope I could help you do. So I have a... Which one have you got about five minutes? So, I don't know, this might be too far deep in, but the board, as a board, we play a big role, right? In creating that culture. And I feel, this is just a personal feeling. So, I feel like that our leadership team and every school right now does a pretty good job of being that professional learning organization that they've been working on. And we have, as a whole, we have all our student learning outcomes and all the stuff. What role would you play in even just getting what we need for the superintendent in creating that culture as a board? So, we're gonna have to work with the community. We're gonna work, but as a board, we need to model the change that we wanna see. So, that is a little bit of a challenge right now, so that we are all, I think we all care. We are all for kids. But we're in that moment that we really have to decide how we're gonna lead. Not that it has to be tough down, but if the school board is not functioning at a high level, it's gonna be really hard for that interim person. So, could you have any suggestions for your insight? I would think that part of the charge here for your facilitator is, could be if they have a skill set, and I believe I do, to think about board development. Because that will make it easier as well. I mean, I don't know exactly where that stands, but a rational thing would say, okay, so we're going through this difficult time. And maybe some of us want A, and some of us want B. But the advantage I think at this point is, if you can take a step back, is that that's been set into motion. And so, if you can sort of take a step back, what's the Buddhist word for a little, I'm thinking, disseparation, okay? Detachment, that's it. And advocate like heck for the outcomes that you want. But when we're talking about the day-to-day, life of the district, which directly impacts the quality of the student's life, can we come together and set that as a larger goal? And maybe we need some greater ground rules in terms of how we talked with one another and all the rest of that, in order to serve that greater good of the kids right now. Understanding that I fully expect and appreciate that you are going to do whatever it takes, given what you're engaged in because you're looking for this kind of outcome. And that's not easy for human beings to do. But I think there are skills in ways that in terms of board development that hopefully we can agree to disagree on some things and understand that the greater good is X and to have honest conversations about that that are facilitating. That's true. What are you reading right now? What am I reading? Well, I am reading, you know, this is like this. Not professionally, no. I'm reading professionally. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, Sarah Palin felt that, because I read a lot. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. You're not as much as I read at all. But no, I have so much of my kindle right now. You read all the newspapers? Yeah, I think there was very much of that. No, no, no, just like to try to break it up from, usually we try to ask either what is your favorite book that is better than interviews or what are you most proud of? Just to try to get to know your, so get to know your little bit and not just, because ultimately we're all gonna be human beings working together, so. I read a lot of science fiction. I read a lot of philosophy. Right now I'm in the middle of Doris Kernswin's book, Whale Next Year, about the Boston Red Sox and having a ball, so. And we, you know, my wife and I tend to pass kindles back and forth, okay? She finishes something, I had to read this. For example, The Boys in the Boat. I think that was great. What a great book. If you haven't read The Boys in the Boat, we'll have to read The Boys in the Boat. So, anyway. I know that there were nuts and bolts that we didn't get to, if you wanna talk about that, later in terms of cost, et cetera, that's fine. Yeah, we should at least get a cost study. If we have to be in the executive session, or just. We can have it. Sure. Have it, just we have apples down here. You wanna quickly move them to executive session or contact issues? I'll text you. All in favor? All right. All right. This session at 7-1 with no action taken. Great. I know it. Everybody come. And, was there a fresh one? It was, but I just, I just thought. It was all over it. It was all over it. It was all over it. So, I'd like to welcome Mark Andrews. Hello. Roy and I had a chance to speak with Mark last week, actually, and then again, earlier this week. Very helpful in kind of our next interview, and approach, you know, the concept of the search. And so, we're pleased to have you here today. Maybe we should quickly go around, introduce people that failed at the end of the year and you had things to meet. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Start. The floor. The estimates for me, some of the others. Next to me, here. And I'm Karry Bradley. I'll have a U32 board. All right. Do you have to speak back from the new Romney board? Yes, I know. That's the nailer. Oh, the door. I'd like to see you again. Thank you very much. Richard Cain from Calis, Richard I. Here, from Berlin. It's an SU board. It's an SU board. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So we're going to do as much of this conversation as we can in the session. We talked about keeping two areas if we need for executive session one is sort of the monitoring aspects. And then we'd be, if we want to discuss your references and we'll do that in the executive session for privacy review and people. Sure. I provided them. So, but it would be great. Maybe if you would want to start by introducing yourself and kind of giving an overview of your thoughts from having talked to me and Dorothy or kind of what you see as being our challenge and how to approach it. That'd be great. Well, let's start with the reason there's a good body. The challenges are always going to be there, right? But you might be interested in why I would be interested in this line of work. And I guess the greatest reason is that I want to continue to contribute to the field. Having retired in 2017 as a still vertical superintendent, I still had a lot of life left in me and felt that I wanted to continue to be part of this great conversation on how to serve boards in the good work that you do. I have allegiance to this SU, I'm a colleague of Bill's and you know, several members of your leadership team. I live in a little more county so I have a sense of how it works in a multi-count organization like this SU. But I know that this is probably the most important job that the board has is hiring as a CEO or a superintendent and I would play a role in that in my capacity as a retired superintendent. I would be honored to do that. But I think a particular interest again is because of my allegiance to the new SU. So that's really the primary reason. I also want to stay current as a retired superintendent. It's been licensed for only five years. I was a K-12 principal and superintendent. It allows me to stay engaged in the good work that's happening because not only am I interfacing with boards and a sense of community when I get to spend time with quality educators and administrators as well in this capacity as a consultant. And I live in Elmore so it's close by. But this is a good thing that I might consider. I think it's a good thing. Can you give us just like a brief? Everyone's senior resume. But just a brief kind of overview of your background and kind of maybe how you would propose to approach a search like this. Sure. Well, you have seen my resume. So I came through a nontraditional door. I was never a classroom teacher. I worked in mental health for a number of years in the private industry. And what's led me to, I guess, if I understand the question, Matthew, I really felt the best, the greatest impact I'm going to have as a person, professional and personal is to lead. And my thesis has always been it's not how many people follow but how many leaders I can develop along the way. And so I feel that in this capacity as a consultant, whether it be a search consultant or team development or board development, it allows me to work with staff and with the board and community to be pushy and power and find your voice to be able to really transcend some practices that need to be addressed. And I think your governance model here is an evolving model. More is left to be determined in that case. And so having, we're going to be a part of the work here in this region in Vermont, helping boards sort of rethink governance is also something I think is lends itself nicely to my interest in leadership. Did that all make sense? Yes, great. Thanks. And I did start my teaching career in the mall county in Hyde Park in a one room school house. I don't know how we've changed since 1977. Kids with disabilities were not allowed in the classroom. So I had an old Volkswagen bus just to look for a walk here. And the only time we were allowed to go to high school was just for lunch and throw him in the van and hope he won. And now it's our 30 minutes of inclusion so we've come a long way. Yeah. I just prayed that the Volkswagen bus would start before. Yeah. Parking on a hill? Yeah. It wasn't a random transmission. So Dorothy and I had a chance to speak with you, obviously. So we want to give a chance for others to ask questions or... How do you think you would approach engaging... Well, this is what you're for. How would you balance planning and guiding in terms of moving forward on a superintendent's search? With the group that you're going to be working on? Yeah, I'd love to use the latter, thinking that it's more guidance than prodding. But what Dorothy and I, Matt and I talked about, your time is on the essence here. And we've got to be really aggressive coming out of the gate. I mean, I've fleshed out a proposal that I emailed to Matthew. I don't get the chance to answer that. And I've also fleshed out a timeline that might look like Dorothy and I asked that I do that. It would be presumptuous of my part to bring that forward tonight. But you don't have a lot of time. And I think under the ideal circumstances, we would have more time to go deeper into some visioning. Do we have a consensus within the SU board and etc. What are the qualities that you're looking for in your next leader? And to understand where your community thinks about that. Not only your parent business and non parent business community, but also your educators and school leaders. That's really where we need to begin. That over here, because it's April 4th, I think that I would want to present what I think is a plausible way to approach this. And again, I'm using the word as aggressive because it is. We would start on Monday next week. I would want to start with the Executive Committee, you folks, and minimally taking a look at what are the minimum qualifications that you'd be looking for in a candidate and what would be the ideal? How do we blend those? But again, we don't have a lot of time to discuss that. That would have helped to frame what your school spring or what your ad is going to look like. I think we'd want to put just a boilerplate ad in school spring. I think it needs to be aligned with what your beliefs are and what you're looking for. So really try to sequence some activities that all sort of scaffold up to the point where you're offered contact hopefully by the end of May. So getting back to the question of prodding and guiding, I'd like to think there'd probably be a little bit of both. I'm not really a certain person, but I also know when you flip up the hourglass, you've got to move on things. So one of my requests would there be a more liaison from this committee that I'd be able to work with? It's much easier to work with a group of seven than it is a full supervisor union board. So bravo that your board delegated to you that big responsibility. But that said, I still need someone who I can be able to communicate with on a regular basis as well as one of working with both bills, colleagues here in central office. But I would put that out there and hold us accountable to it. So you don't have any, you can't negotiate that. You have to get it done. Is that helpful? Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. Would you be committed just to the interim or would you be interested in continuing with us? And I know that that's another question in front of us right now, but since as a, to try to start creating that culture, it would be important to have that one person. Well, it's a fair question and I'm glad you raised it. It may not belong here tonight. Yes, very good. No, no, no, no, clearly as I told Matthew and Dorothy, it's the body of work I want to be engaged in going forward. I've taken a year and a half off and I've done some other things and I'm ready to get back into some service. So if there was a need in the part of this executive committee or your board colleagues, then absolutely I would not go to the invitation to chat about that. Here's also what happens if you don't get this process doesn't yield a candidate. And I mentioned, I think to you guys in my proposal that I can bring it to the finish line and hopefully a candidate's going to emerge. But if not, there's got to be a plan B that the executive committee has on uh-oh what we do now. We shouldn't wait for that uh-oh moment. We should start planning that now and again, we can have those conversations but it's going to be incumbent upon this group to put that plan in place and your community is going to look for that. We thought a little bit about the pros and cons of seeking a permanent versus interim. Yes. But from your perspective, what are the opportunities that we have with the interim status and how can we take advantage of those? Yeah, that's a great question. You have just an amazingly strong leadership team here. And I'm not saying that just because the old man that we left us sitting here, he's done some really amazing work over the last six years in this SU building that capacity at the leadership team level. So I think the advantage is that you've got a real strong engine and you've got a very cogent plan and you've got sort of a blueprint that is leading the team forward. So an interim's not going to disrupt that. If you had a candidate pool and we went out in December or January of 2019 and you had more viable candidates then a full-time person might make sense because they've got that time to study it. But as an interim, that's off the table. I mean, you want to make sure that your ad or your interview process is crafted in such a way that you're not asking them to make any significant changes other than the things that need to happen at the operational level. So I think that that's a strength of an interim. There's not going to be a lot of parents. I can tell you that. When I facilitated the search process in the Southwest back in January, we had 22 applicants. I think I brought forward seven in a first round of interviews. So that shows you a lot of people can apply but they're not meeting the expectations that you will have identified before we start interviewing. So that's another advantage of an interim is that you might find someone who just is going to think that one-year role and they're going to have to make a commitment beyond that. I might be all wrong. It might be people lining up to come up. Why not? They're very strong communities. They've been for years and years very strong bonds. So this issue is divided. That doesn't mean that strength is not there yet. It's the issue itself. It was very poorly crafted in the legislation in my opinion that's really divided not only us but many. What would be important, I think, to my eyes here is so much of this is still in flux. We've got the court case sitting out there. We have the communities. There are certain things they do not want to give up and they want to structure. I mean, they have to figure out how to structure within this framework in a way that they can keep some semblance of what they believe in. And so- He's thinking about the board. I'm talking about the board. The person, the interim person, and if that interim person turns into a long term or whatever, I think what we're going to need is somebody that can really work with the boards and to some extent keep their hand on that community. There's also a little bit to help translate those desires and those real concerns into something that's productive for not ramrod, a boilerplate of any kind. I know we're in a position where we've got a lot of things that just have to have to keep this ship from falling, not falling apart, but we don't want it to deteriorate. But we also want to enable its growth in a healthy way and in the community itself. Yeah, I'm aware very anecdotally on some of the struggles that you guys have experienced. It's only through premedia that I've been made aware of that, you know, Boulder School of Education doesn't just share with me any of that. But I also recognize and you do as well, it's not one person who's going to change things. It really is a community that's a great metaphor. You're going to hire someone as an interim. They may or may not have. We want them to be very aware of Act 46 and sort of the dynamics that are at play, but it's not going to be an interim who's going to move that needle forward without the support of the board. Hence, I started with you have to have this bigger conversation about what you're looking for because you don't have the time. Recognize that you may not have the right, you might not find that interim that you're really looking for to help support the board. You may need to augment. You might need more capacity around technical assistance. Maybe there are other people in the field along with an interim who can assist in that area. I've been out of it for two years. We helped facilitate the merge between Shit and Central and Essex Town, which was amazing in that work. But it paled in terms of how dynamic it was compared to trying to merge multiple boards. So there are people like myself who've had those experiences, but you might find someone who hasn't. Therefore, there might need to be some augmentation around that level of support boards that we're looking for. But I totally understand that, and it'll take years to just repair work that hasn't happened. That's obvious to me.  You know, the way I thought about the, whatever that ad looks like, there are three main components to it. One is you want someone who's got some experience with managing a multi-level tiered variety soup to nuts organization with fiduciary responsibilities, personnel, the operations. That in itself is a huge job, right? And I know that you've got capacity in your central office team that assist with that. The other piece is about how they support the good leadership and good instruction in what's happening in this district already. So you need someone who knows how to work with a real talent team, and then help people get stronger in that years period, hopefully. And the third piece is what you're speaking to, Richard, is that it's a piece around governance. How do you reestablish trust in good communication, competence, making sure you're really clear on roles and responsibilities, which also can be a betrayal of trust if it's not clear. Transparency in that engagement piece. And finally, good creative problem solving. So we have this problem, how are we gonna fix it? So those are the three big components that I see, and that's a big job. And again, that person's gonna need your support and his or her ability to take that on. I'm not sure what my job is that. I'm gonna bring forward to you viable candidates. And that's what this is about. That's what this is about. And it will be your job to decide whether or not they're the ones who can do what you all are looking for them to do. My job is to get them to the table. Through some guidance. And maybe some product. And maybe some product. And maybe some product. Would you, in your role, be willing to stay through to the viable candidate here? Absolutely.  No way. No way. I think there's gonna be an element of head-hunting here. I mean, we can put out the obligatory, here's the ad. Right? And you're gonna get people from a far away as we're gonna apply. I'm not kidding you. But how viable are they? It's just gonna be, wait and see.  I'm sure Peter has contacts. I have contacts. Bill has contacts, the VSAs. You know what I mean? There's gotta be a little bit of that advocacy and a sort of this on the part of the consultant to shape it up a little bit. It's not just this parcel. Let's see who applies. We've gotta be working on it. So you have a prod, Peter. There's a prodding there, yeah. And I think you would, in the proposal, or at least in my range of activities need to be engaged. And I really would recommend having your contract reviewed ahead of time by an attorney. Making sure that, I'm sure it is, commensurate with what you have to have in statute. But making sure there's some incentives on the table to attract people. Everything from salary, benefits, to those sorts of things. But some sort of review, albeit maybe even a curse review would be improved. So they're really clear about that. So when people ask the consultant, well, what's the contract about? I don't wanna be wavering. I got a check of Matthew here. You wanna be really clear about that. I'm sure you know that's a little bit different. So we have the timing. This is sort of awkward timing in terms of going out to do a search. In terms of how we typically work. We're not going to get the sort of educational recruitment of a leadership usually happens. Yes. We also have a very short time frame. So those are two big obvious challenges. Are there any other sort of, pit halls or sort of potential obstacles? Is anything else come to mind if it could possibly derail or you're really interfere with that? I don't think so, Matthew. I would hope it would not be derail. I think one obstacle may be people understanding what you're trying to accomplish here. And so as part of my proposal and part of the sequence of activities, there needs to be a, once you've had a couple of sessions under your bill to identify minimum, ideal qualifications, you need to start framing what your communique is gonna look like with staff soon. First, John, respect to them. And then shortly after that, a communique or using your robot messenger service or Facebook or Fort Ford, whatever, to let your care and building non-staff community know. So not letting them know. You don't want to keep people in the dark and there needs to be a real strong rationale on why you're going later on and not permanent and sort of laying out what the process is gonna look like with some timelines. And again, that builds trust that they will have in you as trustees of the organization that you're doing the right thing for the right reasons. So that, if you didn't do that, I'm sure you notice that that may lead to some confusion and some false starts. You'll make it through. I promise you. No, we won't. If you've been down rows bumpy like this before, you'll make it through. What do you see as the strengths? I mean, from my perspective and I've been wanting to tell us this for 20 years now, I see these communities that should mount very tightly. This has been divisive. That 46. Sure, and it's a problem of the way it was constructed, it was long. But that, what strengths do you see? I would see this as actually being in a positive for people. This has been a strong industry for a long time. Or a group of districts. And did this issue in a lot of places? It is. So how would you portray that as an attractive position points to be? Yeah, I mean, I think for some people it would be a reason why they would wanna take that job on. And it's more than just listening. I think it starts with listening and hearing the story. You know, what anybody brought to the table, I brought to the table for your consideration would have to have that background knowledge about how divisive it has been. And then it's not an unanimous that this was the best piece of policy that came out of a lot earlier. But I do think some people would be attracted to the opportunity to work with local communities in that regard. Outside of policy issues that you have to work on as a standing, but how do you get to know your community even as an interim on here with those stories are? And to start rebuilding, I think people would be, there are people who are really good at that. Whether they also wanna be a superintendent and take all the other stuff on, I'm not certain. But I know there's some great community leaders and I see Bill as not just a superintendent but as a community leader. And I hope, and I know that superintendents become lightning rods for some of this work. It's not our fault. You know, I mean, we're just trying to follow the law and do what's right. Have we communicated, engaged enough, leading up to decisions that we have to make? Sometimes we haven't had the privilege at that time but I do believe the superintendent, whoever it is as an interim basis, would wanna work with you in terms of what does that engagement look like? And it may take more than just the superintendent. I said that before, it might be other people who can do some community building with a community palace to get a sense of where have you been and where do you want to be. And at some point, when you're told a candidate, we have to get over it. At some point, by fiat, someone's gonna say, this is what you need to do. Well, that's not really the case. What's probably gonna happen is that this whole system is going to morph because it probably will fail some levels. That's foreseeable, it's a done in other states. So this is going to be a learning process and it's going to morph in both directions. And I think that's what's important in the end is the outcome for the kids in the communities to make sure that it doesn't, that we end up with healthy communities and a broad sense. So that's what I expect. And there's one thing I've seen with an education is there's a blindness to the bigger issue of community health sometimes. It gets so caught up in its own little world that sometimes the surgeon is killing the patient. So I think we moving forward, maybe this is less of an issue for an interim, but if it's something that carries forward, we want to have that vision of where, an open vision of where we need to go, what really is best, not what we're being forced into, but how do we continue to mold this forward? And if there are, and you're right, you just said what needed to be said, it's an interim position. Now keep in mind, there might be people who come to the table who you think, oh, I wonder if you'd be interested in a full-time job. There might be none in person, so you always have to be thinking long ball, right? But they're going to always be some, I guess I'm just being pragmatic. There's gonna be some constraints around what you can and cannot do. And I think the superintendent needs to work within those constraints, but also know how to bend things, bend that line so we can meet the needs of folks in Calis, most importantly, the kids. And again, so I'm out of my, it's out of my wheelhouse. Let me ask, that's not anything I've really experienced, but I think there are people out there that would fit the bill. So we've got a couple of minutes. I just want to ask if the stuff that Mark has already shared is sufficient for the community to consider regarding the monetary side? Yes, yes, yes. I think so. Unless there's any nuance on that, and what you've already presented. I have shared the sort of outline of who it was all being used. The one I sent you? Yeah, I hope I wasn't being presumptuous. No, no, no, no. I'm gonna be able to jump off some of this. Yeah, it was good, it was good. Yeah, it was great. No, there's no nuance, it's straight up. Yeah, yeah, it's money. I don't know if that's competitive. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get some more ideas. So, I have a question, Mark. If you, once you talk to the leadership team and get a better sense of who we are, you know, I see this process also as an educational opportunity for all of us. So if you came to the conclusion that we needed a little bit more for development, I think. And to, to the same with the community, you would be willing to bring that up and say, you know, hire an interim, but you should also be doing some, some, you know, some board for, for development or some education around the web. That's a request that this committee made that I'd be more than happy in a judicious way to say here's what some things you might want to think about. There's also other, there are other great resources in the state and in this region that could help support good governance and good practice at the board level. And it's something that if you're already operating at a high level, I would always want to check your assumptions on that. Because again, it's going to be a new, new landscape. We want to make sure everyone has the types of records with skills and under predispositions going into this, this work. Yes. But I'd be more than happy to offer some, some observations. That would be helpful. Yeah, the idea being that we can be better support the interim person, you know, like, that's what this is about, right? So that it also starts with us. So that we can all start working on that. I agree. I would meet with the leadership team, again, very soon, an essential office team. I think it's important to recognize both, both groups of, both teams are really, really integral. And I think it's important to meet with them separately, even though there might be some overlap. I also think it's important to meet with faculty, but we don't have the time to do that. Last question. What are you most proud of? In my, in, in what way? Or why would you say it's a positive? Personally or professionally? I've had a great career. I mean, I started in 77 in a one-room school house, and other than a short stint, doing some private work outside of Boston. I'm very proud of, you know, what I've accomplished and being able to work with people and get people to be able to have people see a bigger, brighter, better future. I tend not to focus on what doesn't work right in the world. I tend to focus on the things that we should be happy and celebrate about and use those assets to build stronger community of care. I think I've done that. As a practitioner, I'm also a superintendent. We should both go to the bus right now. Well, that was, that was, that was a 68. I just, I just sold a, I just sold a Westphalia last year. Yeah. Yeah, I took it out West and I came home and I said, ah man, I don't know, a little bit too risky. So I sold, yeah. I saw it, I decided to drive like one day, driving home. What's he doing, getting rid of that thing? I actually asked him, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah, well, I'm right-sizing, as they say. I wish you guys well. And if I'm not the chosen consultant, please know, I don't personalize it at all. You'll make the right decision. And if I am selected, I'd be more than, more than honored to serve you guys. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you. I'm going to take care of my water. I'll do it. I'll do it. Good night. Good night. Good night, Bill. Good night. Thank you. Yeah, I'll walk you out. I'm going to suggest a way to take maybe like a two or three minute recess. Who has two minutes? Is there anyone? What's that? Did you say Susan and Susan? I'm not sure she's here yet, but that would be a time to expect any conversation. So, if people want to use the restroom, grab the water, or we'll come back from our recess at 6.36. So, seven? All right. There you go. I'm like six, it's 1934. Yeah, sorry. I was kind of pretending we were earlier than it is. Yeah. Let's do time. Yeah. So, yeah, I'll suggest that we table our discussion item around the superintendent of search consultant and we'll move to 2.4, since I need you to join us. To talk a little bit about the original meeting. I'll just go back out for a second. Sure. You know, I'll be back. I'll be back. You guys do copy, I'll be back. You're going to copy the warning, so you won't have to. You asked me to do that, and I totally forgot. And I actually, so my understanding is that this kind of came about sort of in a conversation. Do we do it? Yeah, so, yeah, I'm not sure. I can guess kind of what you wanted to come talk about, but I won't guess, so I'll let you say it yourself. Well, I wanted to just walk through the warning and see if there's anything that, well, I mean, some of these articles, obviously, are things that aren't just yes or no, you need to take embellishment, you know, to establish, you know, and so, I wanted to just check and make sure that there's, you know, preparation, you know, for content and obviously stuff might come from the floor as well. I wanted to touch base on the, well, first of all, Bill and I walked around the space at the outermost room and the gym, and maybe you talked about this already, but. No, I didn't, we didn't talk about it at all. Okay, well, yeah, we sort of talked about the merits of the two spaces, and other places and minuses to both of them, and finally I just decided to pass the buck and ask the 10 clerks if they had any opinion, and they all unanimously wanted to stay in the outermost room, and they said they felt that it was, because we were wondering, geez, they didn't have room to spread out in the gym, you know, more work for the polling, which kind of got people congested, but they thought that the reason it got congested was because they had placed the ballot box in the wrong place, but they liked the fact that the gym was comfortable, they liked the fact that people could see each other. They worried, as did I, about the lighting, because it's hard to see from the front of the room, and Bill and I played with the lighting a bit, and it's, if you turn down, there's certain lights that, I mean, the room is intended to be able to see the stage, which is not what we want to know, it's a reverse, and if you turn down the stage lighting and turn up the lighting in the hall, I think it actually looks really well, and we talked about moving the podium to that. Yeah, we're gonna put you up on the stage as the podium, but there's a whole new sound system and podium system in there, since we were once here, so it's actually, technically, I think it's not gonna be presiding officer, it's gonna be God, God, just God, this is the sound, he's like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, yeah, so it's good. Two roving microphones so that people can go around.  You know, in terms of the time of clerks, if it's gonna be new or internal, is there any sense of actually splitting them to different parts of the auditorium? Because having them all, you know, everyone was going there as opposed to different parts of the auditorium, which, on the sides of the auditorium. Yeah, they did have some thoughts about that, and so they, what I basically said to them was, do what you want, you know the space, and you are the election officers, and make it work the way, you know, and Bill, I know, sent him an email and just said, let us know what you are. So then they mentioned that it's doing an art stage, but I do that behind a curtain, you could do it, open a curtain, you could, I mean, that's, that's open to space, I'm glad it's somehow. It's, it's hard to get involved with everybody, don't help the hallways through the work side stage. Yeah, upstairs, upstairs, yeah.  It's not a missing window. I just hand you that February 19th, and I couldn't quickly find the one that's published for this time, I could probably go online, but you remember that we're starting at item three. Right now, exactly, yeah. So, and I think the acoustics are better in the training as well. So given that they, there was like, maybe we had no questions, but they wanted it in the other training, and we were kind of in the, or hope we're going to be in the training. I think the only thing I asked for is if we get a few smaller tables, not quite as big tables were the check-in, but something I've received so far. Oh, they asked you that? Yeah, they said, do you have some five or six foot tables instead of eight foot tables we were kind of congested and re-ordered a little bit? Yeah, yeah, they wanted to move a little bit. Yeah. Okay, so I think they know what they're doing. I would like to, I'm not sure if this is going to work. What I would like to do, the first order of business is to elect a moderator, and I was very honored to serve as the temporary presiding officer. I felt really badly about the way that I'm enrolled. I felt really bad about Paul. I called him the next day and we just, it's not how we should treat our moderators. And it, anyway, that was really unfortunate. I was glad to serve it because it seemed like it was necessary. What I would love to do is to suggest that maybe Gus Seelik would be a great moderator to be elected for this spot. Number one, because he's a school moderator. I'm a town moderator, and I haven't been a school moderator before. Gus has experience as a school moderator, and I also just kind of think it's not best practice. I mean, I know it's not best practice. I have somebody who's been outspoken on an issue be moderating meeting. And Gus hasn't been, and I have been. I mean, I feel like I can do it, and I feel like I have the trust of the group. So I felt comfortable, but I don't think it's best practice. So if Gus is willing, that's what I'd like to suggest and I wanted to let you know that and see if everybody, and I think he's super well-respected. He's been the executive director of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board for 30 years. He knows the kind of content that we're talking about here. I think he's gonna own in the five towns. And he's the, he's the town's, he's really, really good. You didn't even ask him if he'd be available? I asked him, and he said he had problems. He hasn't said yes yet. He said he had problems. So I was trying to get him before this meeting. So if he won't, then. So the question would be if, so we're doing that, shouldn't we keep that option to the committee?  So give the same opportunity to Paul Highland and take, you know, maybe not Paul, but so that we're not, again, putting the community in a position that we're in. My guess would be that Paul's probably not gonna try to do it again. Oh no, I mean, so Bryce, he would be. But you're sort of raising a question, which I think is an important one, which is that, you know, we obviously have an interest in supporting this meeting with all these logistics and community talking about how we can try to ensure that it goes well for the voters. But it's not our, you know, to run the meeting in any way that we don't have any authority there. It's not our meeting to, it's not our meeting, you know. They're gonna elect only one. I mean, it seemed to me to make sense to look at our resources of our town and school moderators. So I'm thinking, all right, well, there's Michael Dwayne. There's Susan Clark. There's Gasteelik. There's Paul Gales, who is actually, you know, one of the lawyers on the Huntington at 46 lawsuit. And we were missing Paul. So of those five, Gasteelik seemed like a likely suspect to me. And he was at the last meeting and we talked to him afterwards. He's a very, very good moderator. You seem to be nominating him. I think that would just, that would be a way to do it. But you'll be presiding, though, at the beginning, right? Yeah, it's probably better if I'm not, if I don't do it. What's better if you don't? Who would be presiding then? I'm the temporary presiding officer. And if there are any shenanigans, like there were last night, I would be handling them. Meaning before the first article comes out. But the first article is to elect a moderator. Right. But I'm just saying like you can't nominate people yourself because you'll be presiding over them. Yeah, that would be kind of weird. Yeah, I get it. Right, so. That's what I was afraid of.  One of us could nominate Gus, but. Or somebody else could. If he's there. So would you smooth out with Gus that someone else may nominate you? And then we would kind of be in the same position as we were with all of you. That could happen. What I would probably say is, I mean, first of all, I just kind of wanted to talk to you to see if anybody was like, Gus, see it, I gotta hate that guy. You know, because, you know, if it. That's because what we do here. He seemed like a good choice to me. But I just thought I would start here. Well, I started with Gus, actually.  Okay. So, at the last meeting, who nominated Paul Pannon? I think Matthew. Yeah, pretty sure. Yeah. So what about you nominating Gus? No, that didn't go well. I don't think so. I don't know. No, I just like. I'm gonna be trying to be as in order as possible. Okay, you're gonna be up in the back of the water. Nice, yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm glad to do it. I'm polarizing enough as it is. We need to find. They're like Avera or somebody like that. Avera. No, I don't mean that. I don't mean that as an insult. It's not a, I mean, Gus is wonderful. I was a moderator. Well, I've talked to people in the house who just there. He's calm. He tries to think of people there. I mean, I don't find somebody. I don't, it's not really a problem.  You would find somebody who nominates Gus, who's it? Yeah. Well, I think too, in that, yeah, I mean, it's not a problem if I take the nominant. I mean, in that house, I mean, the reason that was so nasty, there was old stuff in there. It's a lot of distrust in that room. That was distrust, exactly. And that, and so, how that's done is really important in that. If it's done correctly, that will, people will evaporate. So Gus, I'm a little confused. Why do we have to, like, murderator again? Right, yeah, weird.  That was me. And that person was only gonna be presiding until we elected the moderator. And we never got that far. And we did get that far. Exactly. So it was just a temporary little, do a half-hour job. You know, we have a look, we've got Dr. Roberts Wilson. I mean, there isn't any reason that I could, could not, I could do it is what I'm trying to say. And if Gus doesn't want to do it, I can, if you guys want to. I'm perfect about you. I think you're gonna have to be a moderator. So remember, this is for the year, and so on and so forth. Yeah, this is for the year. Do we have, right now, a mario experience? Not as a moderator, not as a moderator. We'll get to those next two pieces, but. Yeah. So, sort of. I think it sounds, I mean, I, I don't know Gus, but it sounds fine. I don't know any problem with it, and I don't know who to suggest. I mean, so anybody here can make the motion. I will not, but. Well, you'll find somebody. I will. Okay, but if he finds somebody else. Okay, do you know Gus? No, okay. All I want to say is that when Gus takes the podium in Calus, he talks a lot about how it's our meeting. He wants to make it to go our way. He wants it to be fair. You know, I hear from this person and that person, the Goya can come back again or anything. The usual stuff that moderators go, but he has a presence about him, and the way he expresses that, it's very, I want to say calming. He has lost his temper once or twice, thank you. But, you know, other than that, I think he would be very good in making sure it was a fair meeting and we accomplished what the audience wants to accomplish. Okay. Good. Well, I'd like to see if we can get him on. And then if you come up with any other ideas in any time, let me know. Thank you. Did you want to go on these? Yes, yes. So you have suggested, the first article is the moderator, we just talked about Cliff Treasurer. It sounds like you have somebody you love. Mary or Cliff? Mary or Marie. I know you had talked. Okay. To Laura, I'll go now, I do. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. Very helpful. Perfect. Yes, she does. She does it for Calis and U32 in Washington Central. And does somebody, do you guys have a suggested date and location for the awarding of history? So to make a timeline, we need to go all the way to a budget vote. Before July 1st, we need to have an election on May 21st. On or by? On. Because there's six Mondays we have to have in a row here if we decide to go Australian ballot. So to have that six Mondays, that would get us to May, Well six Mondays. May 20th, and then the 21st we would have an election and literally the warning to be able to be for a budget to be voted on, which would be June 25th. It needs to be posted by the 24th of May that Friday. Okay, so May 21st, 2019. Yes, sir. So. And I should, I'm just gonna ask the executive committee, should I re-send out that timeline that I had sent that on there? Right, I had it. Yeah, it would be good just to do it. Yeah, okay. And then you, that's the same as how there were the votes for other Australian ballots. If it is Australian, we can actually back it up some because then it's just a 30 to 40 day notice. It's the six Mondays that give us that power out to the 21st, because we have to have six Mondays for an Australian ballot. And it only gives basically this week that you get to get between the 8th and the 15th due to petitions. And so this is for the first annual meeting and all subsequent annual meetings. So this one, if you're suggesting that somebody would move that it would be May 21st, all subsequent, would it be on Saturday or whatever you have that kind of? My recommendation would be town meeting. That's what we've been doing. It can be move again later if we decide something else. But it's been the tradition around here that school meeting happens on town meeting. Right. So that would be the motion, whoever makes the motion. This is the first annual meeting. And all subsequent, I see, yeah, yeah. So the first annual meeting May 21st and then all subsequent would be town meeting today, basically. Yeah. I mean, that would be the motion. That would have to be freeze that one, right.  I'm not fussy, I mean, I just wanna be clear that this, I would be sad if this agenda, if it wasn't obvious to me, some of these articles, you read it and it definitely needs more information. You can't just stand up and say so moved. And that's all I'm doing. It's just raising the lifelike. I have a question about the annual meeting, the annual meeting is actual meeting. How are people gonna? Right, so that's what we do. That's what you have to decide if it's gonna be. And so one of the things that was suggested at the last time was that you actually move that question to after you know whether you're doing things by Australian ballot, that would make more sense. That's what we're gonna talk about back in January, is that you actually have four and you ask the moderator that we'd like to move that until we know, because how you vote on the Australian piece will tell you whether you wanna on town meeting day or not. That's easy to do. Well, it is, but there's a specific way of doing that that might sound alarming to people because the actual way to do that is to move to suspend the normal rules of order in order to do item six to position four. There's something more of this. Yeah, that's what you do, you suspend the rules and what you can do, you can just do it by what doesn't sound alarming is if you say unless there's an objection, what I'd like to do is reorder this agenda. And that's, you know, misconsent, which is how you suspend the rules secretly. It's the moderator's best friend. So unless there's an objection, I'd like to suggest that we move article two to become article four. Article five, article six. Article six, we're gonna go article four. We'll maybe just do a very flat explanation of why. We're gonna have that. Yeah, and explain why. Do you say article five and six, man? Article five. I think you should do five and six. Five and six. Two and a half to talk about this. Five and six will become four and five. That four really becomes after six. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a, so it's these two to determine whether to vote on the district's budget and all their public budget is by Australian balance. So just basically reverse these two? That'll be four. That's it. This would be four, this would be five and then this would become six, right? So just so you know, you guys have, yeah, and you guys actually, your numbers are not. Oh yeah, yeah, we have an old rate and all we have is the old one, but all of them anyway. Right, that's one. So I guess, I guess then this would be two. That can make Australian balance. This is one, right? Yeah, that's one. So then whether to vote on the district's budget and all their public questions by Australian balance would be two. Two, okay. And then to determine whether to elect members of the district board by Australian balance would be three. And then this. The other one then. The day and time. Would be four. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and that, in Dorothy's way, you were saying about do you want it on town meeting. It also would be able to tell you whether you need six Mondays or not because if you're going to Australia you need six Mondays, but if you don't, you can move things up and get more time for Australian, for the budget piece later on. You won't be, because right now the six Mondays is what's really affecting our timeline to get something done before July 1st for a budget. It buys us time. If we're going to go 30 days, it's like 30 or 39 days with a little bit of time. Yeah, I think you gain also a little bit. Yeah. So, okay. So is there someone willing to, is there someone in this room who just followed that conversation who's willing to do that actually? Because. To move there, not to just say the date, so to move there. So with that objection, I'd like to re-order the agenda so that these items are two and three. I'm happy to do that. And you don't have to say with that objection, that can be the monitor. You can just say, I'd like to move that we move particles. Yeah. Two and three. Then you would speak to Gossum about the intent behind that, or about that? Yeah. And if people are funky and somebody says they object, then you just have to have a vote. It's a vote to suspend the votes. And it, that has to pass by two thirds. So. Would you be doing this now with this, Goss? I'm sorry. Is Goss the first line of business? This is the first line of business. So if Goss says yes, and is elected, Goss would have to run this. But I'll tell him all about it. It's not, that's pretty, that's not scary. That's not scary. This you should be ordering. For somebody who, for a moderator. Oh yeah. You're very sure. Not for the moderator. Like, those things actually. Those aren't part, I don't think. One last way. I think the best way to do it would be instead of say two or three is just to actually read what we were moving up or just say the number. Oh, move, move, using the numbers of the articles when you make those.  And I'm just clarifying. I just, because I think most people would, I don't want to make it confusing. And I think most people would want to know what. That's right. The proposal to move. Right, and explain why. Explain why. OK. So I just want to, so it is coming up to 8 o'clock, which is the warrant end of this meeting. We have not gotten to about half of our agenda. OK. So I just want to check with the committee. It seems like we're going to go late, possibly an hour, hopefully not more than an hour. I need to leave at 8.20. 8.20, OK. The thing that I wanted to do was just make sure that you know that if you sort of read through each of these articles, some of them are going to require somebody to make a motion that's more than just so moved. And so. Can we do that, though? Can we, do we have to move to amend the article to include the language before? It's like filling it up blank, or like. No, right, yeah, it's a war. Yeah, it's like composition for board officers. You'd say like, I move that we compensate board officers at a rate of $1,000 per year or something. Exactly. Or whatever it is, like, you know. So that's, yeah, that's all it just means. It just means somebody needs to have at least a starting place. Right, perfection. Yeah, and so we don't have to go through this now. If you've got other things that you'd like to do. I don't mind doing it. I just wanted to just check with the group that just a noting that we're going to go past our schedule time. It's OK, it'd be about the thing that we're going to do. I mean, the other ones that looked like those kinds of articles to me were to determine and approve compensation. There are two of those. And so somebody's going to need to say, I move that we kind of amount for those two. And we do have this sheet that we can pass around, which sort of, yeah, we've talked before about compensating board members, but this is kind of, I think, what Mary currently gets for taking treasure in a quarter. It's a total of what the three do they come up to for clerk and treasurer, but yeah. I think that one of the things that I forgot to mention is though one of the things that we talked about was how useful it would be to have a PowerPoint ability. It would have been really helpful if you were doing amendments last time, when people kept on asking you to read the amendment. And it's just, I wouldn't want to have it on all the time. But if somebody has a proposed wording for an amendment or in this case, for a compensation wording for any of these articles, it'd be nice to be able to project it and say, OK, so this is my motion. And then people can actually read the motion when it's not what's on there to learn. So there was somebody there who was going to. Yeah, we're still working on getting that person. Yeah. There's not a lot of takers right now. No? No. People are like, I don't want that job. I'm going to ask him a question. I'm going to get out of the booth. I'm going to get out of the booth. So we're still working on it. Clear. I mean, seriously, I know that. I know I tried to be very serious. I think it's a really good idea. I'm just saying I've asked a few folks, so I'm going to keep asking. I mentioned this early, and I know you didn't. It was a great idea. I really like that you're using students for these kinds of jobs. What? You're using students? I know that it'll be a bill that's like, well, we've got schoolwork to do. I think it's super educational. And if you have somebody who's a high achieving student who is willing to spend a couple of hours, it's a, you know, and all we're asking them to do is, here's my word, and can you type this? They're all better at typing than any of us anyway. So anyway, just a thought. We always have, in middle school, we have kids carrying microphones at 10 o'clock. I love that idea. I love it. I was really just asking, and we didn't have any this year. Yeah, it's hard to get them. They're busy. And maybe not. Maybe they're busy to do it. Maybe Lucy can do it. Lucy would. You could ask her. I was thinking, she actually read our civil indication at our table. That's what I was thinking about. Maybe I should have to read a civil indication at this meeting. Anyway, a type this would be great. And so yeah, those two about compensation and then to establish provisions for the payment of any, you know, I think we'll have to figure out what provisions. This body is going to be established. What? Right here, kind of. This is number, this one's number nine. Yeah, the established provision for payment. Well, that's actually new, but it's very similar because it is establishing not only for before the fiscal year, but continue on to provide for in lieu of taxes. Well, actually, that's the number 10 on the one we're looking at. But the provisions piece is that's new because of the merging of this district of expenses. And we already have expenses going on. And how do you pay for those? So what do you think, if you were going to move that article, Bill, which I knew, aren't? Yeah, I'm not touching anything on there. And what would a person who wanted to move this article say? I'm going to move to kind of a rundown of the SU because that isn't jointly contributed to. So we've been checking with our auditor if that's actually legal. Chris Leopold does not think it is. You'll have to call Chris. So what other source would there be that one? What you do is basically saying that you, because the next one is about taking out a borrowing money ahead of time. So that's where the money is going to come from. That's the source, Chris. This is saying that. But then, I was going to say, should we rearrange these? We can rearrange them in what way. Yeah, that's all right. Establishing the ability to borrow money before they are providing information. And then, you know, it's kind of looped. So what are those numbers you'd like to reverse? To establish a decision, what numbers have you? 7, 8, 7, 8. You can make 7 contingent upon 8,000. I think it makes sense to reverse that. So that would be another. So would that have to be right on the start? Let me just have a second motion. Is that a motion? Yeah, I would have a second motion. So that we don't make it confusing. Oh, yeah. We could wait until you get to that. It would be easy for us because we're used to it. Yeah, I would be too. So you would do that, Chris. You would change the order of the S. Basically, this too would change the order. And then, if you did reverse the order, you would first need to authorize the district. That's just the answer now. And then, to establish provisions for the payment, I would move to, I'm not sure what the word would be. Yeah, let me, I'll ask, I can ask Chris Leopold for the local 50s guidance from wording. But I think it's really, I move that the Washington Central Unified Union School District pay any expenses occurred at a time. And before July 1st, vendors that provided service, that's where I would, that's how I would do that one. The first one is to borrow, you know, I should have reversed it, Chris, which makes a lot of sense. You know, we are, that's where the money's coming from. Because I mean, our auditors already told us in meeting with us, we have to, we need to be tracking these things pretty closely. So I hate to be this guy, but I am this guy. We're done. That's awesome. Yeah, great. That would be one of the ones. Okay. Okay, well, on the bottom. I appreciate the opportunity to just go through. Yeah, this is great. Sure. Yeah. And I will just let you know when I hear from the best patroller, and if you have any thoughts about that, or should I just let you know if you have any? Sure. Okay. We knew that. You know we've got something to do with her. I, yeah, we will, we can have a conversation about that. I don't know what I'm going to do with this right now. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So given that Korea has to leave at 8.20, and I would like to get his thoughts or opinions entered into the decision about, you know, which console I'm going to go with, I guess I would propose that we move into the executive session so that we can have that discussion. Right. I would like a motion. Yeah. And we'll do, go into the executive session at 8.09, what was that? I'll go first. I'll go second. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'll be there. Yeah. All right. So we've come out of the executive session at 8.21, and is there an emotion? Make an emotion to the higher mark. Andrews, the third superintendent, the third consultant. I'll second. Second. Is there any discussion? Thank you. All in favor of the motion, you say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? All right. I'll stay all night. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. Let's see if we can march through. So we offer to meet next week. I'll be traveling from Tuesday onwards. Yeah. So the contingency planning is essentially speaking to members of the leadership team who have super intended licenses about possible contingencies as this unfolds. As Cara mentioned, he spoke to them and set up a time that he'll be away. So Floor and I are next Wednesday, I believe. Is that right? Yes. I was going to say it's 10. But you're also going to schedule a meeting to meet with Mark. Is that what you mentioned? Yeah. It seemed like you could meet Monday. We can talk about that. We've got to talk about when our next executive committee meeting is going to be. And it could be Monday. So we will want to talk about that, too. Well, it can't be Monday, isn't it? This is district organization. Yeah. Yeah. Unless it's after the decision to work. Well, before or after the decision to work. Well, after the decision to transition. The other thing the committee could do would be to designate a couple of people to work with Mark on the postings specifically. And just authorize them to post it even. Yep. And then we can move forward that way as well. I'm comfortable with that. Yeah. So. All right. Thanks, everyone. Good night. Good night. Good night. That's pretty much it on 2.3. 2.5 is the last day of school. Right. So as you all know, we had a snow day last Friday. I want to really thank Paul for the middle sex. You really was hopeful in that. The, right now, currently, the last day for elementary schools, if we do 100,000 days, is June 21st of Friday. And for U32, because they're making up a day this Friday, would be Monday, June 24th. I was working with the Labor Management Committee and talking with them. I have not talked briefly many different conversations with the leadership team, but not a whole, because we usually try to wait until about April vacation, because there had been snow and there's snow in the forecast for this Friday. So I usually try not to wait until then to the last day. But I wanted to bring it to all of you, because I knew if I started with every local board, once I say it, one place, one board approves what we're doing, it's just better to have it all in uniformity. So I would recommend to you that the last day of school for U32 be on the 21st. So it'll be one loss of student days. We still keep 190 teacher days. That's the contract that they're under. And then you move the elementary to Thursday, the 20th, so they have 179 days. We're allowed to have one day short? You're allowed to have 100s. You must buy state statute, you have 175 days. Oh, so we're just going against our own? Our own 180 that we do. So there's nothing through state law that's requiring that you need to go 180. Oh, no, no, no, no. So a good issue for the teachers? So we need to keep them at 190, so they're gonna. Oh, they're gonna have 190. They're gonna have a 190, otherwise we get into payroll issues and all that. So they're still gonna, that way they would each have two in-service days. We had to move one for U32. This was all due to the water main breaks that happened in Montpellier, so we were down quite a bit. The associations asked me to look at one of the water main days. They were here for half the day, but staff was not. And we can't give them that as one of the in-service days. I said to them, I think I'm kind of in favor of that, but we're gonna talk about the workload that they did for work. You, in terms of family and daycare, yeah, it seems to me keeping the elementary kids on the same day as the high school kids. So that's where the problem arises. So we had that conversation later management and they said, remember those last three or four days we're in exams. We're in what? We're in exams at U32. So that the kids, the high school kids are, some are there and some aren't there. I know that the middle school doesn't have exams. So I'm fine going both the same day. I'm just, yeah. That's what I think of it. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. Because that, that's fine. The whole point. Yeah, okay. You know what I'm saying? That's fine. The whole point. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, okay. I actually am going to bring in two groups. Okay. Okay. That way. Yeah. Just for practical purposes. Yeah. I'll move that we amend the school calendar this year so that school for our entire supervisor union ends on Friday, June 21. Is there a second? Class of 2021. It's ready. And that's an anonymous motion. So if it gets out to the ground, we don't know who said it. We don't see it. We don't see it. No, David. No, David. No discussion of the nuances of what we were doing. I think we got up there in all camps and Andrews. Just a minute on me. Whole point. Full attention. Is there any discussion? Motion. Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those abstentions? Thank you. Thank you. So before we get to the last item on our agenda, which will be executive session, so that we can let people go. When do we want to schedule our next committee meeting? Is it going to be for purpose? That is a good question. Yeah. I guess if we designate a couple of representatives to work with Mark and a posting together and out, if the committee is comfortable with that, then it wouldn't be necessary for us to meet immediately, I think, except possibly not for the purposes of reviewing other meetings and conversations that might happen, I suppose. And also to discuss communication. And I can think of reasons why we might want, rather than I would, okay, so if we designate several people for Mark, it would be, wouldn't necessarily be a one meeting, if it's more, how would subparment number that we have to worry about? So it should be three, then to avoid farm issues or meeting issues. I would suggest, I mean, he was, what he was saying is he wants a board liaison, so we should, we might want to determine who that is. Yeah. I think two is probably enough, unless you feel like there's some, I think we could have an offer. I would say three. I would go to the max, that people are able to. Yeah, I was saying that at least have a backup, so that. Yeah, for schedule reasons. It might be impossible for three to meet, but certainly two can. Right. Okay. And all three should be there. Right. And that way, if someone isn't, yes, they have room about to speak. I already, I can't meet on one day, so that there's a sense of urgency about sort of being marked right away to move things forward on that day. I'm not available, so. So you're gonna be at the district meeting, no? I'll be there, but I'm just saying during the day, I do be down on Brattleboro for work meetings and things like that. But let's do the first of it. So like, you can be the board liaison, since you're the chair, I think that's comfortable with that. And then get your suggestions to other people that would, that would work. You know, I would like to be part of that group. I would like to be part of that group before. But you know, that kind of depends also, again, when the meeting, the get-togethers would occur. The occurring like, in the morning I can do it later in the afternoon, I can't, midday just doesn't work for me, so I would defer to what works best for everybody in that. I can talk to Mark. My schedule's pretty flexible, usually. And I also have video conference capacity that works really well and it's easy to use, so I can set that up for folks too. I would like to be part of that group too, but I also, you know, there's more voices here. I would like to go ahead with Chris and Matthew, and you would respond to me. Are you okay with that or would you like to be part of that? You guys, I'd be really comfortable with that kind of view, isn't it? Yeah, all of that's a good team. I'm fine with being a liaison informally, and I think that requires a motion, but I think if we're gonna designate three people to actually do something in post and possession. I'll move that we have Chris on the floor, Matthew work with Mark, and that Matthew be the official liaison. Or maybe we don't need that part. It's okay. I think it's to prepare and post. Oh, you want me to be more specific? Okay. Prepare and post superintendent opening for interim superintendent. Okay. I just wanna check with the recorder. I'm sorry, I forgot your name. Tiffany. Tiffany. Okay, this is what I have. Motion to have Chris for Matthew work with Mark and Matthew be the official liaison to prepare and post superintendent opening for interim superintendent. You can take out the part of the liaison. I think it's fine for me just to do that. And I would just say that. One of these things that he lists that we need to do is essential qualifications. Will that be? It's gonna be part of that. Okay. I guess it was kind of, okay. I'm going. Is there a second to the motion? No, sir. I can't because I'm just wrong with it, so. Bear a second. I'll do it. Any further discussion of the motion? All those in favor, we say aye. Aye. Opposed, extensions? Thank you very much. Still, one would be next meeting of the executive committee, though. Do we want to say it again at a time? Should we do it next Thursday again? So it doesn't, because you're saying it can't do Monday or two? Well, we couldn't do it Monday anyway, but. What needs to be done, I mean, do it just will the board, will they need to, you want, we wouldn't need to leave. The following week is the break week. I don't know if people have plans to be away or. Why are you closing suggestions? Yeah, I've done it. Once you get that, you've got probably two to three weeks. And I think where you're gonna want it, the thing you want to do is, I think, you're gonna want to decide from this board and from the SU board, what information do you need to gather? I.e. do you need to, do you want any input session? Or do you want to just do a survey? And I think with the time you're having, maybe just be a survey. And do you want something with a leadership team? I mean, I think that's, like, that's about as far as you can go with the time constraints. And, you know, Mark was being pretty aware about that. And so, the next time you want to think about gathering, my suggestion is coming back from April break as a committee. We have a lot of board meetings going on that week, but I think we can figure something out. The transition board, they have one piece of work they have to do next week, which is getting more. If there's an Australian ballot, well, either way, they need to get a warning posted for an annual meeting, whatever that is. And that's essentially what I'm hoping Monday night, I know Matthew emailed the transition board member saying, hopefully Monday night that can be done after the district organization, assuming the district organization goes forward, because you won't get that thing. So people can get petitions if it's Australian or whatever, as soon as possible. Should we talk to Mark, I mean, to see if there's any house cleaning that we can do next week, or even with partial? Yeah, I think that's one of the things. Matt, you should reach out to him. I'll wait. I'll write to him tonight, and I will likely talk to him tomorrow. So, you know, there's some reason why it seems like we need to call a meeting sooner, I'll just let him know and try to figure it out. My piece is just, I'm just thinking of general search timelines and how they work that first. Once you get a posted, you have two to three weeks, things kind of sit, but you want to be gathering, who's your committee, and what are the attributes you want to be looking for? Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. And that can happen that week coming back. I'll get into it, I would think, Mark will advise you on that, but we're just running principle on right now, so it's kind of the same idea. It's just, where do you put the dates? Well, I think prior to that, if we can, it's getting that leadership team feedback, all of those pieces, we have that before going into that meeting, I mean, it strikes me that the more we have, the better. I mean, I would see what Mark says in terms of what. Yeah, I'll chat with him. I think so. I got the general impression from Mark that he wanted to meet with a leadership team with maybe one or two of us, rather than the leadership team and our full executive board. Yeah, well, we can finish that, but I just want to see if we can set a date while we're here. Looking at this, Matthew, and it looks like the, Yeah, I don't remember in front of you about that. Yeah, so it looks like the only date that there's, so it'd be like the 26th, which is a Friday. Let's, well, I'm sorry. So if we look at right after vacation, there's a meeting every day, except. This is a fun schedule. Yeah, Berlin, especially on the 26th. Oh, yeah. So the 23rd is actually just the Berlin special election, there's not. That's Australian vows. That's Australian vows. It's not a meeting. So what about Tuesday, the 23rd, or people don't plan on that date? I'm going to share. But I'm just thinking, we're going to have a meeting. And on the 23rd, and we, if you could be here, Chris, I believe, and if people are also available, we could actually start meeting a little earlier. Because I think it was from Mary Lynn, who was coming from down south. Oh, for six? We're setting the. 530, 530. Is 530 work for everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The 23rd. So the only thing left on our agenda is to have an executive session for a staffing issue. And so if we are ready, there's no other business. And we can. And we're going to do a second session at 837 for the person that should, for staffing issue. I'll second. Personality, I'll second. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye.