I'm going to call this meeting to order. It looks like we have a quorum. The first thing is to review and approve the agenda. Anyone have any changes to the agenda? Yes, Jennifer. I'm going to recuse myself. I just wanted to show up. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Jack, if you're talking, you are muted. Cameron's working on getting the sound working so we can hear. Do you want us to wait a minute? Can you not hear us very well? Right. Okay. Audience can't hear. Okay. Most of us can hear. Okay. Fair enough. Well, I don't mind hanging out a little bit while Cameron waits for that. I suppose I imagine it's useful to you if one of us keeps talking so that you can continue to check. Make sure that it's working. I can't hear at all. I think that's as good as we're going to get. Okay. Right. Jennifer will be accusing yourself for the rest of this meeting. Any other changes to the agenda? Okay. So it looks like there's no changes. So we'll consider the agenda approved. So on to general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for anyone to make a comment on any topic that is not otherwise on our agenda. So if anyone would like to do that, now would be an okay time. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Steve Whitaker. I want to raise an issue of a health emergency. The garbage around town all got picked up on Friday anticipating the town-wide event, which apparently was very successful, except the bike path, the multi-use path garbage was not. It was overflowing on Friday and it's overflowing worse today. It's just a lack of coordination among town departments. Everybody pointing the other direction. Secondly, somebody defecated along the bike paths on Friday. Left soiled paper in multiple locations, Taylor Street and right at the block benches near Confluence Park. This is while the transit center bathrooms remained closed during 11 to 230 in violation of the lease. I've brought that to your attention. I had a conversation with John Moore and he tells me that the city manager has consented to his leaving those closed. The clause in the contract in the lease agreement requires they be made available eight to six, five days a week and the violation of that. There's a caveat for unavailability of staffing, but I've been told by the staffing that they're willing to work more hours. They just won't give them to them because they don't want to pay benefits. Meanwhile, I just this few minutes ago got the AOT coronavirus relief and ARPA funds. There's 10 million dollars that Green Mountain Transit has obtained in federal funds. For us to allow our city manager to throw for, you know, Montpelier residents and tourists under the bus and crap in the public way and then it got thrown into the river, over 15,000 dollars of extortion is unconscionable and a health hazard and I wish I would really get to the bottom of this quickly. No pun intended. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, so moving on then. So we are moving on to a response to open meeting law violation allegations. And for this section, I think we have the opportunity to go into executive session. If we would like, Jack. I have two motions. When I move that premature public knowledge will clearly place the public body at a substantial disadvantage concerning pending or probable civil litigation to which the city is a part. I'll second it. Okay. Any further discussion? I have a discussion if you're allowing the public. Sure. Yeah, go ahead, Steven. I don't dispute that the council has the authority to fill a vacancy. The question is how the council went about this and you could have avoided the whole charade just by picking somebody that you chose and appointing them. But to run a charade of a public process, invite people to submit petitions and some people are apparently invited to the forum where you made the appointment and others were not with no explanation of who got noticed or why. And then to have two people candidates, I spoke into two of the three candidates that weren't selected. And it just feels like it just seems to all observers as and even residents in the checkout line at Shaw's that this is just dirty pool, backroom, hardball politics. And it's, I'm having to say we're better than that. And I haven't insisted we'd be better than that. But to make a call after two people show up and make their pitch to go into executive session and then decide neither of them is good enough. It's a kick in the teeth to the people that did show up and had run before had petitioned and actually run for office before. And then to make a call of which we will never hear the contents of there was no recording and no public oversight of that telephone call.  It's just unconscionable. It erodes faith and trust in the process. And it makes y'all look bad, you know, it it will read be remembered, you know, going coming coming election time. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so there any anyone else. Okay, there's been a motion a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Now before we actually vote to go into executive session, Bill or anyone else want to say anything about these allegations, I mean, we can, we can also talk about it after, but I want to make sure that we folks opportunity. If there's any I'd say that you should talk about it and you should invite myself and attorney Tarrant into executive session. Okay. Jack, do you want to do you want to give it some preface? I saw you had your hand up. Go ahead, Jack. You're not coming through zoom. I was just going to make a motion to go into executive sessions to receive advice from our legal counsel concerning the potential litigation for which we've made the finding. And Madam Mayor, one more comment before you make a comment, Steve, Donna, I was going to second the motion. Great. Thank you. So motion to second now is an opportunity for further discussion about that. Even go ahead. Just the key step that Bill just announced in public open session, who else is necessary and why to invite into the executive session. This is the part of this gift in the session that I filed the violation. You did not announce that you needed the candidate to speak with a telephone prior to going into the executive session. Jack, I should have been clear that that motion includes inviting the city manager and city attorney into the executive session. But not the candidate. And right. Oh, okay. So and and okay. So I think it's probably worth saying, Jennifer, your intention is not to join us for executive session now. Okay. All right. So Bill, anything else you want to say before we go in? Okay. All right. So there's been a motion in a second. All in favor, please say aye. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. All right. So the motion passes. We're going to pop out of this Zoom. And I'll see those of you joining us in the other meeting. And we'll be back. We'll return to this one shortly. Donna, yes. I didn't have an executive session in the agenda. Okay. I'll forward it to you. Thank you. Okay. See you soon. Also, do we have a motion to come out of executive session? So move. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And opposed. All right. So the motion passes. We're back in public session. And at this point, do we have a motion? Go ahead, Jack. I move that the council determine as follows. One, Steven Whitaker alleged that an email dated September 3rd, 2021 that this council violated the open meeting law during its September 1st, 2021 meeting. Two, that no violation of the open meeting law occurred as alleged. And three, that no cure is necessary. And is there a second? Okay. Okay. Multiple seconds. And now so on to discussion. So for this part, I'm going to turn it over first to Michael Tarrant. Good morning. Thank you, mayor. So I thought I would just give a brief rundown on the open meeting law and executive session and the purpose that I understand the meeting was for to replace Daniel Richardson with a new appointee. Under the open meeting law, when it comes to executive sessions for discussing the appointment or employment of a public officer or employee, executive session is allowed. The only requirements are that there be a two-thirds affirmative vote to go into executive session to discuss that purpose. Under the executive session statute, the board has the sole discretion to invite members into that executive session, the councils, excuse me, to discuss the matter that the executive session was called for. In this case, I believe there were members who were there and members who weren't there who had either petitioned or been nominated for that replacement position. So during that time, the council had the ability to discuss in its discretion within that executive session the people who it needed to talk to and then come out of that executive session. So that's the basic framework for executive session and open meetings related to appointments. I'll be happy to answer any questions from the council if there are any. So if I may clarify, Mike, also I'm not sure I clarified you are an attorney for the city of Montpelier. Is that more or less accurate? All right, I'll introduce myself. Yeah, my name is Michael Tarrant. I'm an attorney at Tarrant Gillis and Shems in Montpelier, working with the city as a general council baseless here today to discuss the allegation that Mr. Whitaker has raised. Okay, great. Thank you. And just to clarify, so the council's practice of or the habit that we had been have been in in terms of inviting or clarifying who is going to be in executive session is actually, I was going to say, is sort of where you're going. Yeah. Okay, never mind. I'm going to Is it required to list the folks who are invited into executive session? And under Vermont law, the answer is no. The open meeting law does require minutes be taken of all open meetings. And it does require certain things be listed. When it comes to executive session, however, it expressly states that minutes need not be taken. And the only provision that requires anyone to be listed is under the minutes section. And if minutes for executive session need not be taken, then you wouldn't need to list the invitees. Okay, thank you. Just wanted to make sure we're clear about that. And then I also just want to make sure it's clear that from the council's perspective, the intention to or the the intention around calling the two candidates who were not present at that meeting was really to give everyone an opportunity, every opportunity to participate in the meeting if they were able. And we are also we were also informed that everyone did, all of the candidates did receive the same notice. So just to make sure that all those points were clear. So there's been a motion and a second. Anything further? Jack. I just want to say based on that that I believe that the claim by Mr. Whitaker is utterly without merit. And that any claim that efforts made by this council to increase participation by members of the public was somehow a way to make a secretive and inside decision is simply absurd. And so I'll be voting favor of this motion. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, so there's been a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, so the motion passes. And I believe that is the end of our meeting. I just want to make sure that I am not missing anything here. Yep. Okay. So without objection, we, anyone, anything else folks want to say? Okay. All right. So without objection, we will consider this meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody.


Everybody likes pasta salad. Let me show you how to make the best pasta salad from a box. You have a seasoning pack. We're going to throw that away. Boil your noodles. While our pasta is boiling, we do this. Extra virgin olive oil, about half a cup. White wine vinegar, some red wine vinegar. And you're going to need Dano's original. Now you're going to grab the Dano's cheesening. That's right. I said cheesening. That's the cream top. The tablespoon of some coarse ground Dijon mustard. Add our chilled pasta to the bowl. Small sliced black olives. Now we add our diced tomato. Our Italian vinaigrette that we just made. Now it's time to send it to the next level. You're going to need the black top. That's the Dano's Crunchy. Give it a stir. Now we get a bite. You hear that? That's why we call it Crunchy. Adds a little crunch to anything. Super cheap. Super easy. Pasta salad. Yum yum.  Leave a comment. Let me know what you think. Would you try it? Have you tried it? We'll see you next time. Keep spring going.


Alright guys in today's video I'm going to be showcasing how to transfer all of your WhatsApp messages from an Android phone to an iPhone. Now I've got a Google Pixel 4a and an iPhone SE these are a couple of spare phones and I've just got some sample messages that I've sent with a brand new SIM card on my Android phone. So these are the messages that you're going to see me transfer to the iPhone so just some sample messages I've sent as to individual ones friend one friend two and I've created a group chat as well. You'll see that there's some media and some pictures of my MacBook Pro that I've also shared so I'm going to transfer the media across as well. Now the SIM card is set up in my Google Pixel 4a so it's in here so what I need to do is I need to get all of these into the SIM card when I transfer it into the iPhone. Now this works with any Android phone and any iPhone so I just have a couple of couple of now I just have a couple of spare ones by default natively there's no way to do this you can't back up to Google on this and then restore it on an iPhone using a Google account that's not possible to do that and I haven't found any way to do this other than using an external software and this is the one I'll be showcasing. So this is called Wondershare Mobile Trans a lot of you guys have asked this question to me in my previous video when I transferred everything from an Android phone to an iPhone after 10 years and I wanted to showcase to you guys how to actually do that. Now just a side disclaimer this is not free you'd also have to pay to do this unfortunately that might be the only solution so for a WhatsApp transfer version of this app it's around $40 I went ahead and done the full features for $50 so I can transfer pretty much anything from an Android phone to an iPhone. The last thing I want to mention is this also works the reverse way as well so you can also transfer your WhatsApp from an iPhone to an Android phone. So let's go ahead and set this up so what you'll need is the original cable that came with your Android and your iPhone put it into your MacBook or whatever laptop you have even if it's a Windows one just make sure it's the original cable so this one only has USB-C ports so I have the USB-C to see for the Android and USB-C to Lightning for the iPhone. So let me go ahead and connect this I've now loaded the app here so what I'm going to do is first select WhatsApp Transfer and this will give you very basic on-screen instructions that you can follow so when I go ahead and hit transfer it will take me to the first step I will select transfer WhatsApp messages now as you can see let me just zoom in a little bit so this is asking me to connect the first phone so whether that's the Android or an iPhone whichever you want to transfer from connect the first one and I'll just put that into the USB port here and it should detect it so you'll see there's a message that pops up for you to enable USB debugging via developer options there's some instructions so quickly go ahead and do that via settings on your Android phone once you've enabled developer options you go into that and then click on USB debugging allow that and now you should be ready to transfer as you can see it's now given a confirmation that you need to authorize this on your phone so let me go ahead and make sure I select always allow for this computer click on allow and this is now detected as a google pixel 4a now I'm going to connect the iPhone and then on the iPhone just make sure you select trust enter your passcode and you'll see that now the destination and the source are connected so I don't need to open up anything I'll just leave it unlocked let me just put this on the side there so you guys can see it so now both phones are unlocked I've just left them on the home screen I'm going to follow the on-screen instructions and click start so now you have two options you can either select to keep the existing data on the target device so if that already had WhatsApp on there which it doesn't I've downloaded the app but it's just detected it as it being an active WhatsApp user all you need to do is select no if you don't have any other WhatsApp messages and then you can proceed if you get a confirmation to turn off the chat backup on your source device then go ahead and do that so you go into settings you go into chats when you go into chat backup you need to just make sure that backup to google drive is set to never this would allow it to transfer over to the iPhone okay as you can see it's now starting so all I need to do is just wait for this to finish so now you see there's confirmation that the restore has been completed so now the iPhone is actually restarting itself so once I log in and then I can transfer over the sim card that's on my google pixel 4a into my iPhone and the WhatsApp messages should be there so now I'm just taking my sim card putting it into the iPhone once it's registered and you see it appear on the top left of the screen you can now log in to WhatsApp okay I've just confirmed with my name click okay just turn off the backup for now and there you go and there you go you can see all of my previous messages if I just go into one of them here's the ones that I was showing you earlier with my media so if you have all of your photos and videos that you've shared with people they can also be transferred and saved into the gallery so all my messages are there it was successful it was pretty straightforward just need to follow the on-screen instructions using the app so let me know if you guys have any questions this is the app that you can download now for Windows and Mac the link will be in the description below if you did like this tutorial make sure you go ahead and subscribe I've got plenty of really useful tutorials like this coming out in the near future make sure you like this video and I'll catch you guys next time take care


It is the annual reorganizational meeting of the Waker Valley Supervisory Union full board, so I'm going to call the meeting to order at 6.04. And I'm going to have a suggestion for an adjustment to the agenda, but does anyone else have any suggested adjustments? We're still going to repeat, right? One, two, three, four, five, six. So my suggested adjustment is going to be since we have two White River Valley High School graduates here tonight to present a celebration of learning on pathways that we would move that underneath right after 4.1 to 4.2 to let them do their presentation, and then we could complete the rest of our board re-work and not have to have them sit through that. Are there any objections to that suggested adjustment? We're not enthusiastic about seeing how this level of local civic government works. Well, yeah, I'm so appreciative that they graduated and we're going to come back. Yeah, no, I'm very excited to hear what they're going to say today. I like that. I like that recommendation. I can't wait to hear their presentation. All right. I don't think we need to assign a time or a timekeeper, so the next order of business would be to elect a chairperson. Do we have any nominations for chair for the White River Valley Supervisor? You didn't pull forward. I nominate Kathy DeLuzzo. I'll second. Are there any other nominations? Move to close. All right. That was seconded. You're now closed. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of Kathy being the board chair. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Kathy, you're not opposed. No, I'm just joking. All right, Kathy, thank you. It's all yours. Thank you for the nominations. So thanks for your support. And you guys, we really appreciate you. We are going to move on to the celebration of learning. Of course, I'm sorry to have to watch you. So if I could just introduce, I had the opportunity of filling in at the White River Valley High School as principal for a few days. And so I had the pleasure while I was there to be able to see Lucas's presentation on his senior pathway project where he demonstrated multiple proficiencies. And then I was not able to see Maria's actual presentation. But what I was able to do was sit down and hear about all the work that had gone into her presentation and learning experience leading up. So what I've asked is for Mr. Boyington, who is our pathways coordinator at the White River Valley High School, is to join these two students to really just provide a table talk and to give you some information about what their experience was via our pathways program and allow board members to ask questions to try to start to bring more of a narrative in these learning experiences that we're providing for students to life. Because as you know, in our strategic plan, the goal is to provide multiple pathways toward graduation across all of our member schools and to provide experiences like this through capstone projects starting in two years. And so what you're hearing tonight is yes, two graduates from the White River Valley High School. But I think it's going to give you some great examples and abilities to ask questions so that you can start to get a feel of what that might look like at the different levels of our organization, educationally. So Mr. B, I'll hand it over to you and... Sure. I'm trying to get into the frame here. Hi. Ben Boyington, flexible pathways coordinator. I'm really not going to say much, except that it was a real pleasure to work with these two young people in various ways in the last year, but it's really their show. So I'm just thrilled that Mr. Kearney was able to attend at least one and to be in conversation with Maria and that, you know, glad that he was inviting us here tonight. So I'm going to turn it over to who wants to go first? I'll go first. Okay. So I'll let them tell their own stories because I don't, you know, it's all about them, right? So... And for the board members virtually, if you're having a hard time hearing, let us know and we'll increase the volume, meaning our graduates will talk loud. Hi. My name is Lucas Turkey, and I'm a graduated senior from Library of Valley High School, and I'm here to tell you about my experience in flexible pathways in Mr. Boyington. So this year I started off at Randolph Technical Career Center in the construction trades and management program, and my ideal goal was to work four days a week and be in the classroom one day. And when I got there, they first told me that that was going to be okay. As I progressed through the school year, they told me I was only going to be able to do like two or three days, and I wasn't really happy with that. So I did what everybody would do, and I looked out to see what my options were, and I had my dad call down to the high school because I was in school, and he was able to set up a meeting with Mr. Boyington for me to see what we could work out to help me get what I wanted for my high school senior year. And so I met with Mr. Boyington the following day, I think, and he laid out my two options for me. My first option was virtual studying through VT-VLC, and my other option was the flexible pathways and like co-creation, creating my own learning program and how I wanted to do that. I thought about it because I wasn't really sure what was going to fit my needs better. And I talked about it with my family a lot, and I thought that creating my own learning would be a better experience and be more tailored to what I wanted to learn. So I started off with co-creation. And my definition of co-creation is a one-on-one meeting featuring students to discuss what we wanted to learn, how I wanted to learn it, and what I would need to do in order to be able to meet the standards. And the textbook definition of co-creation is co-creating with students is a process by which students collaborate with teachers and design their own learning experiences. So co-creation for me started off fairly heavily relying on Mr. Boyington because it's hard to jump into a role like this without ever doing it before. So the first unit I started off and was the Roman Coliseum, because I've always thought it was really cool. I wanted to learn more about it. So I kind of did that idea out to Mr. B. And he kind of gave me some guiding questions and what he thought I would need in order to make a presentation or an essay at the time. We hadn't fully decided. And at this point, we discussed about meeting like every Monday morning for about an hour or so. And that's typically what we went through the entire school year. And so he would give me the questions to start off and I'd do them. And I had like five units this year. And by the fourth unit, I pretty much had waited all out on my own. Like I'd look back at previous examples that he had given me. And I'd kind of like take those as a guide, made my own guiding questions, what I thought I would need and then I would share them with him. We see if he thought they were good, what else I could add in this overall revisions. So most weeks for me during the school year, what I was working, I would work five days a week. I would meet Mr. Boyington at 8.15 like every Monday. And I was usually out of there by 9.15, 9.30. And we would email back and forth during the week and do revisions or other sort of meetings if I needed them. And that was going to last for a better senior year. It was fit right to what I needed. I think some of the most notable things that I wear in this year, like outside of school, like characteristics were like self-control, dependability and grit. And I chose these three because a lot of this work is all on your own. You're not in a classroom being guided. It was all at home for me. So I think that shows self-control because you have to be able to rely with getting your work in on time and not have to rely on somebody else to push you to do it. And I think that goes the same for dependability. So it's like kind of on you. And sometimes work is hard, so you have to push through it. And that's why I chose grit. And there's always like ups and downs. There was a little while where I was like moving along pretty slow. And I would ideally want to be done by like April or so. And that didn't happen. I finished up first week in June, I think. So I think it was very flexible and fit exactly what I needed. Mr. B, do you have anything to add? I don't think so, really. I mean, I would say that Lucas came to this with a lot of drive already. So that is a fortunate situation. He was able to pick up those reins and really run with that sort of co-creation model and start to kind of drive his own bus after, as he said, about three or four projects in. And that was a big deal, right? And that was really important. So I think this was one of the most successful purely academic flexible pathway that we did this year. And that has as much to do with Lucas as it does with me or any other adult in the government. That's tough. Thank you. And I ran off to the restroom. Did you mention you created your own business? And you didn't highlight that? I do think that it would be great for the board to hear. Like you created your own LLC. You had a mentor. Yeah. I created my own LLC almost a year ago now in July. And I've been working full-time in carpentry under a mentor. And just doing what I love. I think I chose to go. I wanted to be out in the field to learn construction. Because I think you can learn a lot in the classroom at Randolph Technical Career Center. But I think you can learn more in the field personally. Nice job. Sounds good. Way to go. Thank you. We didn't. Go ahead, Michael. Is it OK to ask a couple of questions right now? Yes, definitely. Lucas, I'm just curious that I have a bunch of questions. Because I'm really interested in this whole arena. So one of my questions for you, and that would go for both of you, both students, is what do we need to do as adults to better prepare your peers? When you think about your peer group, how do we better prepare them to be able to take advantage of this program? Because I think it was just stated that you were pretty ready for this in some ways. To take advantage of reaching out to an adult and working on your own. So do you have suggestions for us to think about as we try to imagine more students getting involved? I think that's kind of a hard question because it needs to target a specific group of students. I don't think you can really just choose anyone. I'll be honest, until my dad called the school, I had no idea this existed. I think a little publicize it a little bit more would be a way to start. Because I feel like the students who would take advantage of this class don't necessarily know about it. And if they knew about it, they would go to it. I feel like if they actually wanted to be in it. I'd also add get it out to the parents as well as the students because that is a really important thing. Because if the parents know, the parents sometimes know their kids better than the kids know themselves. So if they know their kids and know maybe the traditional learning in the classroom doesn't work or online learning doesn't work and there's this other option and they're like, oh, maybe this might work. If I reach out to the school and talk to Mr. Boyington, then that might be a really good option for my student. And that's something that we can put in place at the beginning of the year.  How am I supposed to do this? So especially for seniors, when you have that credit that you have to get in that doesn't necessarily fit into your daytime schedule, getting that information out, but also really even pushing it to freshmen as well. So it's an opportunity for them. I think that's really important. I mean, I know I had an amazing experience with the flexible pathways option. Were you two able to present to your peers at all with what you did or not? No, I know. But I think that would be epic, especially once you see what I did. Are you two willing to have your work presented to students in the future? Yeah, definitely. OK, because I agree with you. They need to be able to see what this looks like to get a handle on it. So all right, I'll stop there. I've got a whole bunch more. But thank you very much. Thank you. I guess I'm next. So I'm Maria Gray. I just graduated same class as Lucas. And I had a very a few different things that I needed to target with flexible pathways. So I needed a history credit because I learned that online classes do not work for me. I just couldn't find the interest in it. It wasn't something that motivated me. So I'm just like, all right, this isn't working. Mr. Boyington, what can I do? And that wasn't until I was about halfway through the year. Future, that's why I really pushed getting it out there at the beginning of the school year. I do not advise trying to cram a credit's worth of history into a happy year. I have some interesting background with reenacting. So I managed to make it work because I reenacted Revolutionary War as well as Civil War Calvary. So some pretty interesting things. But I came to Mr. Boyington around October and November. And I had met a person through reenacting who knew another person who happens to be a master gunsmith. And I'm just like, you know what? I want to try this. And I want to see if I can build a gun from scratch, 18th century flip-slop. And I'm just like, you know, Mr. Boyington, what can I get with this? What credit can I get with this? How can I tie this into school and figure out that this project that I'm going to undertake will end up being something that will further my high school education? And he's like, well, let's kind of see how it goes and you'll do it. And we'll supplement some other stuff as well, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But I had the privilege to apprentice under this amazing gunsmith. And it turned into so much more than I actually thought it would, aside from just the flexible pathway part, I am currently actually working as his paid apprentice this summer, which is way, way beyond what I even thought back in November, October, when I first met him. What happened? Do you want to hit the next slide? So I, because I was told to show pictures, because pictures are awesome. I started out with just a lock and barrel and a piece of wood. Those are pictures of the barrel. There were some few changes that I had to do it, had to do it as well. Next slide. But just so you get an idea, I really did start with just a block of wood, saw it down, everything, using as many hand tools and historically accurate 18th century tools as I could to really learn the craft of gunsmithing the way it was learned and taught in the 18th century at the time of the American Revolution, because that was really something I wanted to get out of this project. I learned just so, so, so many absolutely invaluable hand skills, filing. Those are all examples of filing various things that need to be filing while building this piece. Next slide. Welding. I learned that I loved welding. It's really, really fun, settling torch welding, as well as I did venture a little bit into electric and gas welding as well. That, I was told, demands its own slide. That is what I called learning how to beat things. I was a little nervous about whacking metal and I was just like little, tiny, little tap with the hammer. When you're building an 18th century flintlock, that does not work. You got to really beat the snot out of it. So, my, the master I worked under managed to capture a picture of it at the time, which is something I still find quite amusing. And as you can see, I am in a full 18th century kit. I rarely did that in the shop, but I did for that weekend because I wanted to break in my apron and make it look more dirty. And I definitely, definitely worked, but I learned how to chisel and inlet barrels, ramrods, locks, so many different things. I really went from knowing next to nothing about hand tools. I mean, I could run a bandsaw, I could run a handsaw, chainsaw, that stuff, but none of this fine really craftsmanship that was required for this project. And that was definitely a barrier that had to be overcome. Rasping wood, as you can tell, I'm not just bandsawing all this out. This was handsawing out with a hacksaw and then rasped away, filed away, chiseled away. And you can really start to see it coming together there. More, I had to learn how to carve things. I can tell you I was absolutely terrified about carving at first, because you can't put wood back once you chisel it out. It's out of there and you can't mess it up. So there was a lot of pressure under that. Next, that's more of the fine carving that I had to do. I had to carve a, it's called a rococo shell on the piece of wood there, on the stock. That's once the carving's almost completely done. That risk discussion there was probably one of my favorite parts of the project. That is fine silver. So I carved that out of wood first and then made a delft clay mold. Put it in the mold and then you melt silver to about 1800 degrees until it's completely liquid and you pour it into the mold and it comes out like that. And you engrave it and sculpt it afterwards and then inlet it into the stock. But I love just all of the entire project, every single step of the way. I can't really say there wasn't a step that I absolutely hated. It was all very, very interesting. This you can tell is obviously not 18th century tools, but we had to make some things work because we didn't have a hand peddling lathe like they did back then. But I turned the ramrod down on the lathe as well as the buffalo horn tip, which is the picture on the right. So these are some interesting pictures of my progress. I learned looking through pictures, I have about 300 pictures of this entire project. I did not have a picture of the entire piece of wood before I actually did anything to it when it was just a block of wood. But it's just interesting to see how it progresses and gets closer and closer to the real thing. So that's as it progresses further and further and further. Top left picture and then it's down to the bottom left picture and then you scoot over to the bottom right. That was when we had that heavy snowstorm back in March and I saw it cropped up on the bench inside and I got to see what this looks like outside.  And then that's after the other two pictures or after staining it. And these are the finished pictures of the finished product after, I think a total of 300 hours of work, probably 400 counting research. There's more pictures, I believe, so I did not do the engraving. I cannot take credit for doing the engraving. The master gunsmith I was working under did the engraving. I simply with the deadline I have to get it done before the end of the school year did not have the time to learn the skill of engraving. I mean, it's something that these gunsmiths in the 18th century worked on forever. So that particular slide right there is quite profound to me, at least. That middle picture is my English Valor. And then the other two are two original English Valors. The top one, I can't really quite see. OK, the top one is from about 1770 and the one, the bottom one is from 1760. And I had a huge compliment from a world, absolutely world-class gunsmith who said that if I were to just rust up the barrel and rust all the metal up a little bit and maybe beat the wood on the ground and get some scratches on it, that I could actually put it behind glass at Fort Ticonderoga, which was my goal the entire time. I wanted to make it as historically accurate as possible representation of the true craftsmanship of the 18th century. And something that I loved. These are from when I first got to actually shoot it, amazing experience, actually. I learned that it does have quite a bit of recoil. It weighs a total of five and a quarter pounds. I just re-weighted today actually while I was at the shop. So it has a super light barrel, meaning it has quite a bit of kick. But it's beyond anything that I ever thought it would ever look like at the very beginning, because I'm just like, I'm never going to actually be able to accomplish this. I doubted myself, but I had Mr. Boynton and Mr. Thomas and Mr. Clayton, as well as my entire family behind me, like saying, like, yeah, you can do this. You got this. And I think I think I even surpassed their expectations of the project. And it's something I definitely never ever going to forget. As far as the other, and that's it for the slides, that's the other stuff. As far as the other part of the history credit goes to, because I still had to get that extra history credit, kind of like what Lucas said, of like sitting down and talking to Mr. Boynton. We had quite a few meetings of, well, what's your knowledge already? Because, and that's because of my background with re-enacting, I know a lot about history and I've always been a history nerd. I think I read every history book I can get my hands on, as well as I love diving deep into primary source documentation and finding primary sources of the time period that I'm interested in, whatever it may be. So we had a lot of conversations of, what do you know? What are those? What things do you know that meet the standards? And what other supplemental things do you need to still know? And through that, it was a lot of talking, figuring out things out, what would work, writing a few papers, procrastinating, writing a few papers, procrastinating some more about writing some few papers until it's about probably five weeks until the senior grades close.   I that's why I really think it's really important to start at the beginning of the year. I do not recommend getting your final project done for history the day before graduation. So don't don't do that. Really, that's why I really push to get it started at the beginning of the year as much as possible. It wouldn't have been as much crammed in and it probably would have been more enjoyable, the actual history writing part of it as well. Great job. I Mr. Kanani, I did come directly from the shop. So my father is currently sitting in the car. You cannot break it. I cannot. It's not technically school property. We appreciate it. Maria, how accurate is it when you shoot it? So I actually haven't cited it in yet, because it's only been done for about three weeks. It should be accurate in five inch group, like five inch grouping around like poles I up to 85 yards, but it has not yet been cited in. You don't cite it. You don't touch the site until you shot at least 100 rounds. What do your friends think of this project? A lot of my friends don't really know or they don't really understand like how much really went into it or how much work really went into it. And I also finished it so late in this year that a lot of people actually have a chance to actually see it. And have you shared that slideshow with anyone? In other words, if the school wanted to be able to access that, is that something you might grant them permission to show parts of in the future? Yeah, I mean, I. I still definitely need this, so I'll be tweaking it as it goes. So I might just make a copy of this presentation and I can share that. I've actually been asked to do more in-depth presentation of this because I did not go into the history at all with you guys, but going into history at historic battlefield sites, I was asked to do it at Fort Tech, Kondoroga, Hubbardton and Saratoga to apply the historians there. So I mean, that's another huge privilege as an 18 year old getting asked to do things that people have been doing for their entire lives. So awesome, videotape it, OK? Yeah, for yourself. That's great job. Really good job. Thank you. Wow. That is one of the wow, that's pretty amazing. Exciting and a really quick topic to get to do. I mean, that's cool. It's even more beautiful in person. Yeah, it's even more beautiful in person. I don't know if anyone wants to step out to the parking lot. I shouldn't say that again. I said I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm going to step back in for a second because first of all, I mean, these two young people just astound me. So my heart is full. But the other thing is like I want to drop this sort of awareness of what flexible pathways can be and where people get learning. So, Maria, we had a lot of conversations around history, history of the United States and particularly that time period. But beyond that as well. But one of the things I thought was really interesting that I think is worth saying out loud here is that this reenactment. Engagement that she's involved in is it's astounding. And what she has learned about, and I'm going to say, probably not just you, but you absorb very well. But what she has learned from hanging out with those people, you know, who are very erudite, the leaders of the captain and the commander, you know, very, very learned people, but just talking, sitting around the campfire after they set up for a reenactment once the night before and they just sit around and they talk about history.  It's kind of funny because I think reenactments really get a really bad rep, mainly thanks to the SCA, so like middle-aged run fares and stuff. But if you're really with a good regimen, like mortar regimen in particular, the campfire discussion, I mean, it's like college level. And there's all these guys talking about debates, picking apart battles, but even picking apart like the mindset of the men at the time while you're fighting in the war as well. And I mean, it does dissolve into silliness. We have one commander who rants for about four hours about the Beatles, but then you get him on the right subject and he'll talk for hours about the Revolutionary War. I mean, he's actually now a published author. If anyone is interested in World War Two and the 10th Mountain Division, he has an amazing, amazing book. I definitely recommend Heroes in Good Company by Skyler Bailey. Absolutely well written, very well researched. But it's just the quality of their education and their pursuant and passion of the time period and their knowledge of it has expanded my own and expanded my own interest as well. So I think it's I think it's really interesting to see Lucas and Maria in the same meeting because Lucas had to do with the more standard fashion of read things and kind of go through that research process. And Maria got to sit at the feet of people who work next to people who are talking and have that knowledge already, which are both really valid ways to learn. Not everyone could do what either one of them did. Those models, that's flexible, so those models don't work for every student. Just like the classroom doesn't work for every student. If we had switched places for them, I'm not sure it would have worked the same way. I don't know what they're learning, you know, learning styles and their approaches and their kind of ease of learning. But regardless, like I get to be proud. So that's that's my excitement, I get to be proud. So thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I would just like to say that both of the students have a really very good way of presenting themselves and their information. Your your voice and and your ability to be clear in what you're presenting is really you do a very good job at that. And I just wanted to give you that feedback. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's I was actually a terrified of public speaking. And when I did the presentation at school, it was a little terrifying. But well, you did a really good job.  And you you were I thought you did an excellent job. I used to coach people on that. So I just you did a great job. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have questions? Just to follow up, I think that the kind of polar opposite approaches of your projects and subject matter of your approaches really kind of exemplifies the beauty of flexible pathways and the success that we've seen. Like there is true flexibility in being able to like pull the string into your own kind of modes of learning. And so I was really pleased to see two wildly different approaches to the programming. So congratulations to both of you and to the adults involved as well. I certainly was not apprised of like how deep this program goes. And it sounds like it's really working out for you guys. That's great. One just quick question I had was what would you estimate the time commitment was for this project compared to a regular class? Sort of seem like it was more, but is that more which one? Yeah, I guess each. I mean, I would say to me it's trying to study much different than normal school, because I'm not in the classroom every day. It's just at home learning. And I think those are very different things because in the classroom, I think you can pick up way less than you do. Like just at home if you're working at your own pace, most days. I would say I probably spent an hour to an hour and a half, like, roughly each night working on it. But like some nights I didn't do work, some nights I did a little bit more. It really fluctuated. But I would say usually about an hour and a half. Well, as far as my English father goes, I think, again, if I had known more at the beginning of the year that I was definitely going through with this project and that I could have gotten out of school early to do this project and could have had my schedule arranged so I could do so, it would have been a lot easier. The way I had to do it definitely was not easy. I spent and I had to do a lot of finagling and arguing with teachers and talking to the principal and getting him to back me up on this. I left on Tuesdays around, I think, 11 or earlier if I could manage it to go to the shop and then every weekend I spent at least one day at the shop. But if I could have managed it, so my schedule could be arranged because I only had four classes throughout the day. And if I could have had all those four classes in the morning and then leave my afternoon's free to go to the shop, it would have been a lot easier. So that's definitely something I would advise for students who want to do flexible pathways that requires them to leave school campus. That's also something I advise for underclassmen who can't leave campus. If that's something that can be figured out, that flexibility in there that they can leave campus or even get help transportation, because that was a big thing for me as well. But and then the actual history part, the writing part. Again, I did it a lot differently than Lucas did and I wish I hadn't. But a lot of that was procrastinating on my parts and I can say that that's that's my fault. I think I crammed at the end of the school year in probably about normally I pulled out the papers and I'd get them done in like two nights and probably about like five hours each night. I do not recommend that. Don't do that. So that's not definitely something that remember that as you go off to college. Yes, yes. And another thing I forgot to mention, actually, because this was figured out way at the beginning of the year. Yeah, I got half a credit, half a gym credit for the reenacting that I do. Half, oh, sorry, half a physical education credit for the reenacting I do. And we managed to figure out that all the reenacting I do and everything I do at reenactments from charging up hills with up hills with about like 30 pounds worth of gear actually equated to a physical education, half credit at least. So that was something that was easily figured out. But yeah. And I knew this question wasn't asked, but I think that since Maria has brought up some other names, I think we should recognize, I should recognize the other adults who were pretty instrumental in all of this. Obviously, Mr. Thomas, our principal did was very, very supportive all along. Helped out in a lot of ways. Maria did not talk about the week long young gun builders workshop that she went to in Ohio, which the school helped with financing scholarships. The school helped get her there. That would bring in Mr. Jeffrey Clayton, our community based learning coordinator, who did a lot of time and a lot of work and Maria also had many, many meetings with Mr. Clayton takes villages, they say. And I would not want to forget Mr. Christopher Kate, our school counselor, who's played a big role with all the flexible pathways work and particularly with these two young people as well. So I think we need to name those folks. Of course, Mr. Crony has been very supportive of this from the beginning in pushing forward all the options that we can possibly do. So thank you to all those people for their help as well. It's not it's not it's not I can't do it alone. I don't do it alone. They don't do it alone, right? So we have all those folks and I'm glad the board's been so excited and supportive to figure about this stuff. So thank you. And I forgot to add actually or which can add I learned so much more than just history or just like Jim, I mean, something I forgot to mention is I wrote a grant actually in Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clayton helped me write this grant to get the parts for this English power that I made. So I learned grant writing. I learned that, oh, if you write well enough, you actually get the grant. And then I learned how to write a scholarship that I swore I was never going to get to go to a workshop out in Ohio and work under two world-class gunsmiths, which was an absolutely amazing experience. And then I learned, oh, when you write well and you have people who know how to write well and they help you write well, then you get a scholarship and you go on an amazing trip. And then if you have if you have two people who are really pushing you and they are like, go, go talk to Mr. Thomas about this or go talk to Mr. Clayton, go talk to Mr. Canardy and advocate for getting airfare to go to Ohio and then I'm like, no, no, no, I don't want to do it. I don't want to ask that much of anyone and everyone really pushed me like speak up for yourself. This is something that maybe you can figure out. You never know. And really this whole experience boosted my confidence, but it also taught me to speak up for myself and know that when you ask and when you reach out to people and ask for help or ask just like, yo, do you have any idea how this might work that you end up going places? I guess so I think that's an important sidebar. I would say I learned way more this year than I ever learned previously in school. Definitely. It's like I'm always a waiver and you learn better when you actually are engaged in the topic like standard school. They kind of like force it on you where in this I was able to choose what I want to learn and being more engaged, you receive more information about it. Because we never we never actually said what your work was. Can you tell them what you said? So I started off with the Roman Coliseum. I kind of wanted to learn more about Rome. And then I kind of like wanted to stay in Rome. So I went to like Roman war and tactics and technology. So I wrote a paper on the war or on like kind of like the broad army and how it all worked and then like different technologies and tactics and I made an infographic. And then after that, I kind of stuck to the tactics and technologies and wars. And I went to World War One and then I did research on the Ukraine, Russia war that's happening right now because I was very present and I kind of wanted to be able to like see how technology had evolved through time, which it has evolved a lot, but they all studied the exact same purpose. Purpose, pretty much. Just I wore your skin. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you. I definitely advise pushing this program. I mean, Mr. Boynton is kind of humble about it. It might push it a little bit at like school meeting, class meetings or whatever, like whole school, high school meetings, you might like say, hey, guys, look at this. But it's really something that should be pushed because it goes so far beyond just normal classroom settings because normal classroom setting doesn't work for everyone and really being able to tailor what you want to learn can and has meant everything to me. And it really helps. It also really, as a senior, helps focus, helps me focus, at least I can't speak for the people, on what I want to do going forward with my life and my career choice and my degree choice. And I think those are really important things in high school to really develop, as well as developing that self confidence, self advocacy, as well as just the knowledge base that you're building at a pace that you're comfortable with, but also something that, well, you got to maybe sometimes you got to buckle down and do it, even if you don't want to. But it can mean a kid sitting, struggling in a classroom, struggling how to learn something, maybe because maybe it's something they're not interested in, so they're bored, they're not invested in what they're learning between that and the student really speaking up for themselves, saying, this is what I want to learn. I help me do this, please. This is what I'm interested in. And I want to do something with it to learn more because I know this opportunity now exists and it's something that kids should really take advantage of. I think with that, though, we should also be careful who we offer it to. Because yeah, there's nothing kids that would think this is a walk in the park. And they just show up and they like not do a lot of work. So as much as I think we should try to give it to everyone, I think we should also target who we choose and shouldn't allow everyone to have access to it unless they've proven their kid. It's definitely not something that can just be like undertaken for somebody who's like, I just don't really want to sit in a classroom and I just want easy credit. I mean, I could speak to any student and say it's not going to be an easy credit. But that definitely pushed for it, nonetheless, either way. Thank you guys. All right, you can stay and hang out for me if you want. I'm pretty excited here. Thank you guys. All right, guys, we're back to four point two on our agenda. I'll elect a vice chairperson. Do I have any nominations? Non-lominate Sarah Root. Do I have a second? A second. Any other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of Sarah Root for vice chair, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, Sarah, through the vice chair. I'll elect a clerk. I have a nomination for the clerk. I nominate Stacy Peters. No, thank you. I'm only an alternate on this committee. So who is your clerk now? Chvon Neal. Oh, I don't know who your clerk is now. Our clerk was. Maggie, I think. No, it was not. It was being nominated hooker for clerk. Maggie. Yeah, she's not on the board anymore. She's not on the full board. No, I nominate Sylvia Moore. Sylvia does great job. I'll second that. Any other nominations? Hearing no other nominations? All those in favor of Sylvia for clerk, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any nays? All right, thank you, Sylvia. Because they asked you, Sylvia. I'm just kidding. Sylvia does a great job. Reporting secretary. So we've been using Parker, I believe. I nominate Parker. I'm down for that. Second. All right. So that's an appointment. We don't have to go right next time. We'll appoint one member for signing AP and payroll. Right now, I think it's Brittany Rodney and I. Yes, I'm going to. Give it a go. It hasn't been signed in a year. Rodney, you're going to be marrying from me. You're the one that needed to sign. I think I'm going to be on that one. I'm not too bad, but I don't have to get you yet. I am happy to continue signing. I have a pretty good system now from my office or the internet. So unless somebody else is interested, then I'm happy to. But also the fun. If it's working, do it. I have to say, keep it going. Are you happy to be out there? Yeah, yeah, I can be. I do the you do that, right? I mean, it's not even doing electronically. It's pretty nice. All right, so Rodney is I'll do. Rodney, I'll be the signing of number and Rodney will be alternate. Designate newspaper radio station for official notices. We had the Valley News. They held in Great Eastern Radio. That work for everybody? Yeah, OK. Set date, time and location of regular board meetings. On the 4th, Tuesday, the month at six. Anybody have issues with that? OK, so I say we keep it the 4th Tuesday and here is what we've said. And here I think we keep it here too. It seems it doesn't make posting places. So we have all the town clerks, all of our schools. And that would meet our requirements. So we've been in the past. So that work for everybody still? If anybody has an objection or wants to change something, let me know. We'll keep it the same. It's been worked very well this last year. Prove them. OK, so that is it for reorg. Approve the minutes of Tuesday, May 23rd. Is there a regular board meeting? So moved. I have a second. Do I have a second for the minutes? I'll second. Any discussion? All right, hearing none, so moved. Board correspondence and communications. Terrigating something. Your annual notice for this bit for our charge program. Can you just say what it was for time? So the renewal information for this bit, the annual multi line contribution, that's the number I need to give is 313,671. It's down 8,776 dollars. From last year. That was the correspondence that gave me. Are there any public comments? Do we have any public on? Are you just a celebration of learning? And we are on to report to the board. That's a good evening. You have my report in hand. We're going to talk a little bit about electric buses here later tonight here. And I think you'll have more home update then. I did mention that in my report. I just I wanted to highlight and I what I was reading through other administrators reports prior to going in packets, just the fact that schools don't really close that we are open for business. And so I think I just wanted to highlight to the board that just how proud I am of all the work we have happening over the summer. You know, I've always think that school organizations are like huge tankers that are really hard to to move, right, the trajectory of the tanker. And I think the work that you do in the summer to set yourself up for the next year is critical for organizations that are focused on continuous improvement. So I just wanted to highlight and remind the board that we have a lot of work happening over the summer. I know we're not we are not having board meetings in July. It does not mean that we are not working throughout the month of July on focusing on what the work is ahead. School teams are going to be meeting in leadership teams to focus on how does what are going to be the actionable task within their school improvement plan that align to the strategic plan. So the strategic plan articulates a roadmap forward. The focus now is how does that work then come out and happen at the school level? And so school based leadership teams are going to be meeting to do that work over the summer as they're planning things like faculty meetings, in services, early release time for the year ahead. And then I created a I put a document that's linked in there. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, I strongly encourage you to because you hear us talk a lot about data teams and leadership teams or intensive teams, and that document really speaks out around what are these teams and what is the role of these teams within our framework? And so I did embed that document in there. I encourage you to give it a look and then I'll entertain any questions folks may have. It it's been it was a I would have the opportunity to do some reflection with our admin team last week, Wednesday afternoon, during our admin team meeting. There is so much as an organization, I think that we we should be incredibly proud of at multiple levels, both instructionally. When I look at the gains that we've made in mathematics across the supervisory union, the work that we've done to lay the groundwork for making certain that we're addressing the science of reading in regards to phonemic awareness and phonics in changing our approach to lead from literacy instruction. Many of you have had celebrations of learning at your district board meeting level around that work. We're going to be showcasing those celebrations of learning to the full board in August so you can get a sense that we are all engaging in that work and we have similar tools that we're using. But those tools have been chosen by teachers. And I wanted to just give a compliment to on Adams and the work that's happening at the curriculum department around giving teachers that voice to choose if we want teachers to implement with fidelity, then they should have a voice in what they're implementing. And then also, I'm really excited about the rollout that we're going to have to you coming soon around our revised curricular documents. I think that you're going to see that they are forward, I mean, forward facing and usable by multiple stakeholders, which is what we've been looking to have happen. And so these are a few things I just mentioned that have all taken place really over the last year and a half. And also the fact that we have over six million dollars of capital improvements happening across the Supervisory Union right now around replacing three failed boiler systems HVAC and then lending across our schools. So there's a lot of exciting things happening that when you step back and say and look at it and reflect on it, I said to the admin team, no wonder we're all retired. And so I think it's good that we're recharging and from folks that I've spoken to at the Best Institute, it feels like our educators are doing some really great work there this week. And we have over 45 educators engaging in work around their social emotional systems. Every school is represented at Best. And I would tell you that we are less on the corrects me in our neck because they're there. My sense is we are certainly the largest organization at the Best Institute across the state. We're over one seven. And that includes the entire state. There's a lot happening. And I'll entertain any questions folks may have. Jamie, I don't have a question, but I have a comment and it's around that. Your comments early on in your thing around the continuous learning. And when we had the celebration of learning at our school board meeting in Stratford a week ago, I guess it was maybe a little bit longer than that. Which was the primary level teachers presenting their readings and reading and writing program. And I love that they were so engaged that they were so excited by it and that they were learning from each other. And I sort of reflected back on, you know, when I was a teacher and and the information that they're getting and the opportunities they're getting to work together and to learn together were things that I didn't really have when I was in the classroom. And so I just think it's so powerful. And I just really appreciate your pushing that and you and on to both doing an absolutely outstanding job. At least I couldn't be happier with that. But thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Jamie. I probably talked something about. Jamie, it's Michael. Could I ask you a quick question? Absolutely. You know, that the celebration of learning used to pick up on Sarah is my favorite part of any board meeting. And, you know, it's really interesting how diverse those presentations are. And I'm wondering if there's a way for us to be able to access or get a sense of what's being shared at other schools. So, you know, like the the field day experience at Sharon, which is not a traditional field day, was an amazing learning experience. But, you know, nobody knows about that. I have no idea what was shared at the Newton School and what those teachers are proud of and what they're learning. So, you know, again, there is a tab on the SU website called Celebration on Learning where we're trying to collect all those. OK, great. So and I would be I would welcome feedback on if that's meeting that. If you think that that's meeting that or not, Michael. OK, great. I'll take a look. Thank you. Great idea to Michael. I like that idea as long as what's happening around in other schools. I know Jamie's totally thunder and all that. I don't have anything else to add. It's a. You do have a report if you if you had a chance to read it, you see it. We are in the in the throes of grant writing season, which is, you know, a great time to both be reflective on what we have accomplished this year and all that we are trying to accomplish in the coming year. We've already had some success with a number of grants coming through that were competitive grants around assessments and stronger connections. And so we're, you know, I think grants are terrific. They create it to create a little bit more work. But all of that goes into our schools and to our teachers and students. So I think they're they're all good. They're all good things. I don't know if I've got anything else to necessarily report. The best institute we've just finished up day two and at night with our nine teams over at the Killington Resort there. And it's been really, really powerful. As someone who doesn't know that many people in Vermont yet to be able to walk around the room and know most of the people in the room. I see them all the time and they still have really, really interesting conference and we just are having great conversations in teams. The set up of the conferences that you are in the morning, you're doing learning that you signed up for a strand that extend over the four days and in the afternoon, they set this up so you really have time as a team to take that learning and put it into practice. So the team I'm with, we had, I don't know, eight different activities to finish this afternoon that will be able to sort of be rolled right out to the rest of the staff. That's not at the Institute and then implemented in the fall. And I think that sort of that model for a conference and not expecting people are going to remember everything and sort of put it together sometime in August and hopefully it's going to get rolled out. I think is really is really a wonderful way to sort of set this up. And so we have again, nine teams that are are working on all those different projects and from an early childhood team to teams representing all of our schools. And so it's it's been really, it's been really great to be able to be there and support the teams. You see what they're what they're excited about, what they're working on, what's working well. We did have one person make a comment that, you know, a lot of conferences that are focused on curriculum instruction, get a lot of a lot of support from central office and conferences like this that are more focused on social emotional behavior tend not to. I think we have flipped the script on that for sure. In terms of, you know, finding out all of this is important for our students and our teachers and administrators. I think having this level of support before it has been powerful. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you very, very much. Yes. Hi. Dino to a lot of what Jamie and I have said, this one thing that I would like to highlight in some of my report is that throughout this school year, we, the Special Education Department has been part of a lot of monitoring of our practices and also how well we how well we do our paperwork.  We went from scoring 30 percent my first year as as your director to this year. We scored 80 percent, so we went up 50 percent in like a year and a half on our post secondary transition plans, which is part of a high school IEP. So it's kind of what what we're doing as a team with our student and our families to get them ready to be successful beyond high school. So I just wanted to highlight that, even though we're not at the standard yet, but I just think the amount of work and effort and teaming that's going into producing those those plans and and really doing them with fidelity and having success with our students is just key. And I just the number of dropouts from the last graduating class to this graduating class is just so significant. You know, we were at like 20 percent last year in this year. I think we can actually count it as students as like one or two, you know, which is just such a huge, huge difference. And so I just wanted to highlight that, which is something that's been such a success this year. And I just have one resignation. I have Ann Mills, an occupational therapist for First Branch, has given her resignation, her family's moving out of state. But I have a possible candidate when I have a conversation with them on Thursday. So they all have a replacement soon. Anything for that? Congratulations on the number. Thanks. It's a big, big number. So you all have my report that outlines everything the business office is working on in July. And then the only thing I wanted to add is after reviewing the AP calendar projection for Fiscal Year 24, I met with Jamie, we're going to adjust it. So any of you for your boards who are the warrant approver as well as you, Kathy, we are going to adjust it and we'll have two AP runs in a row. So the first AP run for Fiscal Year 24 is going to be July 7th versus July 14th. It does take AP off the same cycle as payroll, but reviewing when checks would be issued on the 14th after boards or days get signed by the warrants for the boards and then checks physically get mailed, that means my July bills aren't really getting out to vendors until nearly the end of July, which is unacceptable. And I didn't want all those late charges. So we had to make that adjustment. So we've prepared for two in a row. And then other than that, summer food service application has been submitted waiting for final approval on that. And then that credit goes to Misha and Haley for getting that done. And then the food service application for next school year is due in July because we're running a program in August and stay tuned for a lot of correspondence and notices around the need and necessity for the free and reduced applications. We're going to be starting our provision two year over again, our base year. So we will be collecting free and reduced applications again for fiscal year 2024, but also that's where they're going to be rolling out the direct reporting for students that qualify for Medicaid. So that's also hopefully going to increase our direct certification numbers, which ultimately will improve our free and reduced percentages because they drop significantly for the current school year. So those are my big updates. And I see any questions. All right. Thank you, Tara. All right. OK, as I bring out my report, I would like to mention that my department, it's PO's in renewal season, getting things ordered and ready for the fall. And also, in terms of data management, we are wrapping up the end of the year report. And it looks like that will be done early, which is just nice and different than my first year as I was inheriting. And so I would entertain any questions here in person or online. Thank you, right. And policy committee wants to run with a policy committee. Stacey, you want to? Oh, sure. The policy committee met just prior to this board, as many of you know. We did advance two policies out of committee tonight. Those were the access control and visitor management policy, as well as fire and emergency preparedness drills policies. So you can look forward to seeing those up for reading or if not action soon. Jamie had mentioned that the State Board of Ed was hoping to get those pushed forward fairly quickly, fairly standard. We also expressed our support for the Narcan procedures that we have put together. There has been further discussion on the board's ability to ethics policy. There was a little further discussion around some of the additions that were brought forward last time, and I believe Kathy made the great suggestion that those who have contributed feedback as this policy has evolved now over several months, maybe free some time to turn up on our August meeting so that we can hopefully get to a point where we're addressing everybody's feedback and sort of not revising your good comments and thoughts out of those documents as we move it, hopefully closer to completion. So that committee meets next right before our August meeting, which is on the 22nd, August at 5 30, those of you with continued interest feedback to that policy that's stopping, hopefully we can get to the end of the road. It's been some great discussion, but it's still not quite there. Did I miss anything? No, I think that was great. You bet. Any questions of the policy committee, guys? Discussion, full board retreat. I have a bad toad. I did not finish my survey on this. So I was going to give you so the feedback is that we didn't. So we had nine people say they could do the eight, but we now have a different board retreat on the eight, just so folks know. Stratford, right, Sarah? Is that the eight? Yes, right? Sorry, I was off. That's that's our meeting, not our retreat or your meeting. Right. So I've got a board meeting on the eight now. And so. That that data so we did get seven respondents who said they could do a board retreat on the 22nd, which would have been our policy and full board meeting. My sense is we'll have a quorum. We typically do on our full board nights. And so I guess we just need to decide like, do we want to have like on the 22nd, maybe do policy and then do a retreat? There's no necessarily business that has to happen on the 22nd. And if there was, we could do that business. Or otherwise, we're punting a retreat into September, probably, because we've got other boards doing retreats. August is fairly full here. Quickly, because F Buds on the 14th now. These are the first branches on the 14th. I say we try for it on the 22nd. There's seven that can do it and we're supposed to be here anyway. And then we work for us meeting in with it. Michael, here, here, you can't do that. I mean, I'm not saying don't do it on the 22nd. I was looking at my calendar and I can't, I just want you to know I can't make it. I won't be there. Not that that changes anything. I don't misunderstand. I know Mr. Canary is weeping right now. The thought out I won't be in attendance, but well, we definitely need nine.  What we found last year was just to go back to the board. We found as we put out surveys, we never got to a number that we felt like was a large enough number. And finally, the board decided at I think it was December or January. Finally, we just said we're going to warn it and we're going to see what happens and we ended up getting a decent turnout. So. You know, my sense is it's not going to pick a date and roll. It just the question is, is it the 22nd or not? I get a thumbs up from the group here on the 22nd. I have a little comment before that. I think the retreat is valuable for everybody. But my thought is that it's also really valuable for people who are new to the SU board and the boards. So I'm one, you know, so I want to say that. I think that that says to get as many new people as possible would be really important. I agree. Well, I could certainly put out that correspondence and emphasize that with mentors. In mentees, I could put out an email to those folks here to emphasize that. I think that, you know, that that's I mean, I think it's valuable to all of us, you know, I'm not trying to minimize the value of it. And I think there's an added bonus for people who are new to their boards. What what if we looked at it? What if we did pick a date tonight in September? You know, I don't see a reason why September is off the board. Can everybody just take a look at their calendar that's on here right now for like September 12th? I'm free. Anybody else? Andrew, could you do the 12? I think so. Works for me. Works for Will. Stacey, Robbie. Yeah, I think so. 12 that is. We're going to get a date lock. All right, so it looks like we're going to lock the 12. And for me, if everybody at their regular board meetings, please push their other board members to come. I mean, it's a full board retreat, but there's a lot of great information. A lot of stuff you can learn from other board members. And it's fun to get to know other board members. I mean, that's the most fun I had last year was we were playing like a trivia game and we just got to know each other and talk about things. So I think a lot of really great stuff can come out of the retreat. And if you could just pull up here, pressure on your fellow board members to show up, that would be really appreciate. That would be a good board. What's the timing going to be? Yeah. People think like 530. We started at 530. We did last time. 530 will meet for a little while. We'll have some dinner and then we'll get together and we'll do like an icebreaker. Have dinner and then we'll we'll do some board retreat work. Mission vision has been on your board goals. And I do think we need to revisit that so that could be a good. Yeah, that'll be a good topic to work on. All right, so 530 says I'm good to everyone. And if you can't take it right at 530, don't feel like you shouldn't come. Like if you like I can't wake up there till six, six, have dinner and then do the rest of the meeting, so just. It's OK to come late for that meeting. I'd rather you be on time, but it's OK to come late. I mean, it's true that Christy puts that it's on all of our agendas for August meeting. Yeah, it's in the top of our head. Right. Thank you, everyone. Electric bus rebate program. So this was in my report. I just in so I had originally said I was going to have Stacy Emerson, the general manager at STA, join us tonight. She's going to join us on the 22nd. She's cleared that in her calendar. She was able to make it tonight. I think that's OK. Anyways, because I think we're going to have a much for presentation to be able to provide everyone. So where we're at is we've got Tara and I have done site visits with Green Mountain Power at the Newton School at Sharon and at Stockbridge. And the infrastructure is we're going to be able to do for under a thousand dollars, meaning at the whole infrastructure with transformers at each one of those sites. Now, we were awarded $60,000 for infrastructure for level for charging stations. We're looking to pursue level two after Tara and I have met with a consultant with the EPA. Level two charging station, eight hours with a full sized bus. It would be fully charged. And then the recommendation would be that you would then plug it back in during the day and that we'd be able to get full charges throughout the day at both ends of the routes. And so we were looking at locations where buses couldn't park, traffic blower parking. And so at the Newton School, we're looking at the transformer down as you're driving out of the driveway on the left. There's an overflow parking at the bottom there on the left. And there's a pool that parking. I talked to Tracy, she didn't feel like they necessarily needed that day to day and that that could work fine for bus. Hook up there for a level two charging station at Sharon. Will Davis, our board member and chair at the Sharon school board has been in touch with the town of Sharon. And I've been in touch with the Sharon Academy about a level two charging station in front of the Sharon Academy Middle School, where we could hook up a level two charging station there off of that pole and then Stockbridge already parks their bus right in front of the school, much to my secret. I just may I don't like it, but it's a perfect infrastructure right there. So I'm going to feel better about the bus being in front of the school now. It'll be a level two charging station. And so anyways, the infrastructure looks to be that terror would go out to RFP around this so we could get bids. The infrastructure looks to be well within budget. And so now the next step that we're taking is Tara and I are working with Student Transportation from America to get our roots in those three towns to the EPA. I think they're going to help us just to ensure that electric two vehicle in the dead of winter worst case scenario can complete our roots. That's the next big question that we're looking to get answered. We should have the answer for you in August. STA does have experience with electric buses at the Buried Unified Union School District. So I think that they can answer questions board members may have just around, you know, upkeep. Do you have mechanics to work on all those those types of questions? Are you actually seeing the roots that they project still stay? In fact, accurate years later, I'm probably giving you some of the questions I continue to ask. But I'm assuming you have questions too. And just so folks know, we did receive an extension into August from the EPA with this, with the agreement that as long as we were making progress, that they would extend out another three months before we actually had to, you know, have purchased the vehicles. And so we're still good within our timeline. I do feel like we're making good progress. And Tara, what did I miss anything? No, you hit it all high points. So any questions folks have discussion around it? I'd love to hear your guys's feedback. You know, what I would say to you is that we we I meet with STA every other Wednesday. It's on our agenda tomorrow. One of the things we're looking at with these electric buses is to probably pursue purchasing like middle, like forty four passenger buses for those three locations, because that's the capacity that we currently have on our routes. Now we operate smaller vehicles in those towns. And so that would make the most sense in regards to the purchasing for the electric buses. It does not mean within our contract, anytime we need a larger capacity bus, we have those. And so if you're thinking about what happens if we have a fuel trip and 60 kids are going, we always have access to a 60 passenger vehicle. Well, yes, I mean, that was kind of my question. But just, you know, are those are those routes and those schools that are being served, you know, close to already hitting that bus capacity? Like, are we going to, you know, over the next five years or 10 years now? OK, no, now based on our projected ridership and what we've had, like I said, we already use smaller buses in those towns. It wasn't that we're going to a smaller bus. Yeah. OK. And my only question is, is there we have to take out some kind of like bridge loan? Is that how this works? And then get reimbursed after we buy them? It's a rebate program. And depending on where the proposals come in, that will be the next discussion. If we can get the buses and the infrastructure that we need within the confines of the rebate, I know we won't have to get additional funding. But if the bus route, if the buses come in higher than what the rebate is, yes, we will have to look at alternative funding. We don't expect that. I just think because it's a reimbursement, we have to make the purchase, right? And then get the money. We have to show proof of purchase. So basically, I have to show the EPA that the purchase order has been processed and accepted by the builder. We don't have to lay it out. OK, they will get it to us. Upon proof of purchase. Just got our PO's. Thanks. Yeah, the question that I had was whether there was any lead time from order to actual delivery. I mean, it seems like everywhere else in the world, if you order a car, you're looking at a year. So I'm just curious as to whether there's any estimate of we've been told. I've been told eight to ten months. OK, thank you. Any other questions on the electric buses, guys? Thank you guys for looking at any action. And there's no public. I would say to the board, as far as action, I'm going to look for you to take action on this in August, because I think it's a significant decision and it's one that deserves board action. And so we will warn it for possible action. If you're not ready to do it in August, you don't have to do it then. We will need to do it here sometime. I would say October at the latest based on our timeline. So you will start to see this worn for action. And when you're ready and then you can make that decision. Any reservations, the buyers that are going to focus. Any other business? Is that my session, right? So I need a quick executive session with the board. And then I will set you free. Depends on how long it will be a minute. Yeah. A motion for a second. Can I get a motion to go into executive session for personnel? Going to go into executive session for personnel issues. Second. All right. So moved. It was recording. Cool. Motion to come out of executive session. So moved. No action taken. With no action taken. And do I have a motion to adjourn for the night? So moved. All right, guys, thank you. Thank you.


Jim, I also want to talk about Nordstrom potentially looking to go private. This is very big. I mean, I know Nordstrom followed it for a long time, interviewed Bruce Nordstrom, who's the driver. He's 15%. Nordstrom has long felt and has always traced out a little bit of the last conference call was not about this. The notion we have all profitable stores, the notion that we have spent a lot of money on e-commerce, the notion that we're ready to take on Amazon, the notion that our customer service is still good, the notion that we have a long-term game plan for off-price, which is the rack, and where I come back and just say, this is, they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. It's a family-run business in the end and they're mad as hell that people do not give them any credit for what they've done. I think this deal will happen. I don't know the price. I often also think that maybe that's hubris. Maybe they shouldn't do the deal, but that's not up to me. If I own Nordstrom, I would sell a quarter, but I think I'd let the rest run for a couple of days. Ultimately, probably want to have a half-on, maybe a week from now. Why? Because Bruce Nordstrom owns 15% of the company and he wants this deal done, according to my sources.