It's called the Special Meeting of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified Board of Directors to Order. Alright, any additions or changes to the agenda? Yeah, I'd like to add the School Forest property. Okay. School Forest property. We'll add that right after the campus point. Okay, throw it at it. Yep. Thank you. Great after additions or changes. This is how the public is here. We can get them all on the agenda. Let them say what they need to say, discuss what they need to discuss, and then let them go home. Rather than having public comment is set. Yes, now, the integrated field review. I think we all got it electronically, but there it is in paper form. Also pass this out. Two policies. Use of educational technology and pre-kindergarten and kindergarten registration, or basically the dates when you can have your child start school. They're trying to get that unified throughout the whole SU. And also there's some training opportunities for the board members who might have seen this. I think probably as soon as your mail hit the SBA, they will send you this stuff. So please go if you can. And if you want, you can get Christie to sign you up by calling the SU. So to clarify this pre-kindergarten and kindergarten policy, has it occurred policy and you're just showing it to us or is this something we need to adopt? We need to act on it because right now everybody's got a different time and date and we just need to kind of unify that. So this is the first reading? No, it can't be. Because policies always have to be worn. So what we need to do is can we please make sure that Christie puts the formally on the agenda for next month and we'll do our first reading. As far as the third page of this, the school board professional development piece, the block in the middle, the essential worker Vermont school boards, I would recommend for everyone that hasn't served on the school board, if you can make April 16th in Rutland or April 10th in Montpelier, it's going to be the closest ones of Blitzers. Or there's the webinar on 423. That might be the simplest if you've got reasonable internet at your house. But it's really pretty helpful. They do a good job of kind of stepping through the different roles of the board, how the board should relate to administration, how the board and the SEA work together, kind of all that sort of stuff. They do clarify a lot of things and it is a fairly worthwhile presentation. The other thing I don't see on here, but if any of you are interested in participating in contract negotiations, they don't have a seminar listed for a guy named Joe Blanchett that gives talks on how negotiations work. You know, it's the general model. It's kind of like the court system. It's an adversarial bargaining system. It doesn't mean we hate our teachers. We want them to make a dollar and it doesn't mean our teachers want to not have to work and to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. The idea is that while you're trying to work together to come to consensus, everyone on each side is holding their own agenda as a primary one. That's very good. Again, it's not listed here. If you see the opportunity or the VSBA e-mails you about that and you're at all interested in participating in negotiations in the future, I recommend that you do that. As a matter of fact, there's some talk at the SEA level of wanting to require anyone who's on the SEA negotiating team to have gone through that seminar. All right. So let's start out with, I like to jump around a bit. The first thing I wanted to know about is we had asked for some clarification on how we actually go about rescheduling the annual meeting. We will post it. Basically sign the warrant, get it posted. We will make sure that the warrant is vetted by our attorney. But there's nothing that we have to do with the Department of the Secretary of State or anything because we're changing an annual meeting. So all we have to do is have the proper communication, the PR about it. I think we will send it to them what we're doing. They don't have to post it. I didn't know if there had to be some kind of paperwork we filed or I've generally been, I mean I've had budgets go down and have to schedule a second annual meeting to a special budget meeting but I've never, you know, I've never moved an annual meeting before. We've, Chelsea and Tundred said there was the day before yours last night and then I think they had to move theirs as well because they were trying for April but there's no way that was planned. Yeah. Now can, I think, I do think we need to put something, we need to send something to the paper and put something in there that says what's going on. Why don't, I mean, so that needs to be done by Tuesday. Why don't, you know, why don't I write something up that's pretty generic and I'll send it around, everyone send their comments back to me and, you know, I'll tweak the words and we'll send it out to the paper and say I don't want to, we don't need a chapter in verse. We need to say that we need to, you know, it's our, we're committed to giving you the most accurate figures we can and we didn't feel we could by the date we sent in February so we're moving into this date. Well, it's more important to have an accurate budget than it is to rush. It is, absolutely. But I mean, so basically that's the gist of it. I mean, I'm talking, I'm thinking it's something that's going to be, you know, a paragraph, the, you know, letter to the editor thing and seeing it. Perfect. And then we can, I know in Rochester Liz Stevenson has a huge list of e-mail, you know, people that have signed up to get information and send it through an e-mail blast, maybe post it. I was going to say front page, we'll do the same thing but that same paragraph from front page form and all that just to make sure everyone's aware of what we're doing and that we're doing it thoughtfully. Sounds good. All right, so now let's move into the budget discussion. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? Budget discussion or the campus building plan first? The budget's going to be the big thing. So why don't we get, right? So why don't we get the Rochester campus out of the way and then the rest of the town will be the budget, right? Yeah, we'll do it at this force property then. Why don't we actually, let's do that for first. Okay. Well, because the other three are all kind of more, are more sort of intertwined. Okay. So as you guys are aware of in our articles of agreement, there was this bingo property. It's listed as bingo road forest land property in the list of property to be conveyed into the new district. Upon review from the lawyer, let me... This is David Rue. This is David Rue, yep. The force property is actually a trust. It is not actually owned by the school district. Okay. It is a trust that the principal and the high school students, not the elementary students, the high school students are trustees of. Okay. The purpose of this trust becomes frustrated or fails when it gets brought into the new, this new district. So we need to... What does that mean? So it's ended? No, it, it, it's, that was the legal word he said. It gets frustrated and it fails. The trust fails. So it's a good point. It gets worse. It gets not happy. It's because how the trust was set up is no longer being... Oh, there's no high school. I think it's the reality that there's no high school. Right. There's no high school. Or it was causing the trust no longer to be... By the law. Right. Which the terms of the trust then fail. So there is a couple of different... So, you know, basically the Rochester school district doesn't actually own this property. Right. Which we thought we did when we put it into... Sure. I do have copies of the old deed that, you know, talks about it being a trust and how the trustees, or who the trustees are and how they're to deal with it. So if the new district fails at this property is of great value to us and we do want to bring it into the new district, we're going to have to go to probate court and reform the trust. Okay. Who does it do? Is there people that the trust... If the trust fails, are there people that are, you know, descendants of whoever made that trust that are going to get it? Like, was it the... No. One of the long past did get it. It's kind of... I'll let you read this. But if the principal and the students vote that they do not wish to use benefit or control the said real estate, the officers of the town school district, that's the school board, conveyed their interest in the land back to the town of Rochester. Okay. So if... But it's a little time-sensitive because we weren't going to have a high school in a couple months. Right. So if that is something that this board is... I mean, I wanted to bring it to you to this board first and talk to you guys about. We can... If reforming the trust seems to be just too much to do and we don't want to do that, we could release the... This would be the Rochester Board and the principal and students would release the property back to the town. And if we felt, you know, we could possibly ask the town to convey an easement on it on the property for educational purposes if we felt we wanted to kind of still have our hand over there but not really go through, like, go in a probate court to try to get it into this new district. Right. So I just... I want you guys to have that information and I'd like to know what... Well, what is it? I mean, do you guys... Does Rochester have an opinion? I mean, I've... I wanted to bring it to you guys first because I felt it was more important and I just got this information and it just kind of worked out perfect that I got the information to be able to bring it to you. I mean, I don't even know where that is on Bingo Road. Yeah, I actually went out there and took pictures of it yesterday and I do have a little map. This is the map of where it is. So there's a river. It's across the river. It's there's some flat area and then it's a big upslope. There's lots of trees on it. It's out Bingo Road. So it's nice, right? It's not easily accessible. It's not an easily accessible piece. Mason lives up in Bingo so he might be able to... Oh, yes, I know. Give a better description. Mason's raising his hand. Can you tell us about this property, Mason? Well, I was hoping maybe Amy you had some history that you knew about how the high school students did participate with this piece of property. I do know. I see there's this little sign that they wrote... Where the bridge used to be but there's no bridge there anymore. Do you know the date on the deed? I've got the deed right here. 1950, March 17th, 1950. So back in those days when the school and the students they were active out there doing activities. They built a log cabin out there. And then we created computers and they... participating with nature. I guess. But with students... there's a question. With students who live in this town but they're now going to school in Randall they're still Rochester students. Correct. So there is a student body. For the rest of this year, that is correct. But they're still... I mean, that's the question I was going to ask. That's what he's getting at is...  So he's a Stockbridge high school senior. You got to tap into the Sharon Academy. Or sorry, he's a high school junior. That's wishful thinking. But isn't he considered... he's enrolled in Sharon? Right. But I would be... I'm curious what the... what the exact... whether Deed or someone thinks that those kids would count. Next year you mean? Yes, because there's still... I mean, there's kids that are... Rochester high school students that are being tuition. I mean, the Rochester board is still in charge of those students. They are your students. The Stockbridge kids are mine. So I mean, I think it's interesting to get that opinion. I think that... I don't know the land. So I don't know if it's worth... I mean... you know, is it worth fighting for? Is it worth jumping through a hoop or two? I generally think that for us... you know, I kind of agree with Mason that our kids spend a little too much time in front of screens. And I think having some trees to balance out the screens would be kind of cool. And how have you guys talked about doing experiential education in the new form of whatever I like? Using the stochies out there or whatever you... Is probate a big deal? I will say it's not probate. At our meetings, this parcel comes up and there is very interest in the town to have it come back to the town. So it goes round. That's where it goes round. Then Stockbridge platform is right here. Just because... I know it's probate a big deal. It's the only part left. So the town wants... Rochester town wants the school to turn it over to the town? I mean, from what I've seen from the Stockbridge media, I've worked in media videos. There's a few people that have been in the crowd and have asked about this parcel and have interest in seeing it in terms of town. So I think... And I don't know all the facts because I'm not a Rochester crowd. But I've heard that there is some kind that the Forest Service wants it. It's surrounded by the dogs. And they... Yeah, no. It's as soon as attending said... So that would be enough. And that there's some kind of other trade they want to do for some land around the sewer system. Oh, that is... I'm not sure that's the parcel we're talking about. The Forest Service might own that parcel as well. And so it would be a swap? That I've not heard of. I just know that in watching the select work in media videos that this parcel has come up by Nancy Woolley. Harlan, there's been a few residents that have been bringing up the select work asking about what's going to happen to this parcel. Seems to me it's worth keeping. My understanding was that one point the kids voted to keep it rather than give it up. There was one vote. And that was going on. And that was voted not to give it up. And as far as the tuition student goes, when I look at the language and it says, set property shall be under the sole and exclusive control of the... I hate having to read over my glass. Under the sole and exclusive control of the principal of the Rochester High School and the students attending said high school. So that's to me... So that limits what's going to be... Right, the tuition kids, the tuition kids couldn't do that. So I think that goes to your point, and I think this gets, whatever the board wants to do, gets much more complicated when Rochester High School ceases to exist. The other thing I would just say... Just one thing I would add, and I'm late to the party, I know that I'm sort of the new kid on the block, but many schools are struggling to find outdoor areas and to provide outdoor experiences. So I would just caution that you don't move quickly. Right. And give it up when, in a couple years, we might be saying, why didn't we even do that? Right. Is there some regulations, though, about, like, because where the bus would have to stop is the road. I mean, it's a dirt road and there's not a lot of traffic on it, but there is no parking there. There's no area to create any parking. So we say it might not be feasible to use it. It would probably be something like, the bus would have to drop the kids off, the bus would have to go down out of the road, get out of the way, and we'd have to make sure there was a walkie-talkie or something, so if there was an emergency, the bus could be called back. So, I mean, it'd be logistically difficult. But it's... I mean, we don't know that we can't do something in the future, but one, number two, if the forestry wants it and the town wants it, why don't we keep it? Because maybe... Maybe it's something we don't know. Maybe we saw that we don't want it. We'll sell it to them. We won't give it up. Do we know... That's another thing I don't know is when we've got a national forest right there... Right, that's what all of that surrounds it, that you don't see any loss. Right, right. But you've got a barn. I mean, so there's that barn space that I think has, it's got like a meeting room classroom space in that ranger barn, the forestry. There's no meeting space. I don't think there's any space. I don't think we should give up 20 acres. I think that would be too much. No, the bills know the barn where they have like the... Where you go and you get your maps and you want to get a Christmas tree out of the forest. In the old farmhouse looking ranger station, the barn outside is all vehicles. Oh yeah, I know. I'm sorry. There's definitely a meeting area. Right, so I guess my question is... Oh, I always smile. Does the town... I mean, I'm assuming the kids go to the forest there. No, they haven't... The forest service, there's not a good relationship between the school and the forest service. Yes, good relationship, but I don't think... I just don't think they access it. I don't think we've ever accessed it. I graduated from here 20 something years ago. We never used it. We didn't even know we had it. What? I will say a benefit to both of our towns. A benefit to both of our towns in Stockbridge and Rochester is we are in a unique situation of being surrounded by a national forest, which is the land of many uses, which means you have the right to go hiking and establish trails. So, I'm not sure if it's worth a fight, but I don't know how much of a fight there really is, but I do know that people have asked about it. I'm curious about what's going to happen with that parcel. Yeah, and the lawyer that you guys are using to hire a lawyer is this guy in town. No, this... That's part of Dean's firm. Okay. Norman, David Rue. David Rue, he's the one who's doing all property transfers for the district. He's the one that did the title searches. Can we find out what the probate would mean? Yeah, can we get more of an idea of what that would mean? Do you want him... I can contact him. Would you also like me to set up that we call him at our next meeting on the 3rd? Because he said he'd be happy for... That might be a useful thing to do. I will set that up for him to ask him what it would take to... Is this your copy of this you have? It is. If you... To ask him if we were to keep it on the list. Thank you. But I do have a copy of the deed. Yeah, Frank just gave me a copy of the deed. Okay. But yeah, I just want to, you know, just what the probate entail. Okay.  You know, the town wants to take... Or the far... I don't want to swap that for some other land. Does that... I'd like to confirm that with... I don't know whether that's true, but that's the... That's the problem. Because I know that the far service... The parcel south side of town is far service and it is... The town uses part of it. Okay. It's not going to interest. I know... You should check that out. Right. Because, I mean, I don't know if that... If it's for that sort of reason, I think, you know, would the far service care if we got an easement to use it? You know? Because, again, I don't... I don't want it to develop it. I don't want it to... Yeah. You know, to log it. I don't want to tap it. I just want, you know, I want the kids to go play in the brook. So, let's talk about... Maybe you see what an easement if the lawyer could ask. So, also could ask about if we did convey it back to the town, how we could put... Well, and as we said, we could put legal verbiage into it that would convey an easement that we could use it for educational purposes. Right. And that, I mean, I think that would make it... Yeah. I mean, what can we do there that if we owned it that we couldn't just do anywhere in the national forest? Right. That's what I would... Anywhere along that road, road at Bingo Brook, we could go walk it. Right. Right. But I mean, just parking or... I'm sorry. Camping or... I don't know if we wanted... I don't know if there would be a difference in what we could do camping lines or whatever. Well, and up there is... I mean, in Bingo is... Very primitive camping at the end of Bingo Brook Road. So, there's no facilities like bathrooms or anything. Right. You can go up to the Bingo Brook and camp and there's, you know, bathrooms and some wash. Frank? Correct me though if I'm wrong, but this is the responsibility of the old board, not of this board. That's correct. But it means that this is the new board that it was told it was going to. So, I feel that it's this board's... But in terms of taking action... Correct. It's the old board that's responsible for that. That's correct, Frank. I agree with that. But I feel it's very important that this board talk. You've been in... It's our choice here. Yeah. I would like to know what the moment is before we get on 259 because I'm going to have to size or we'll talk. And I'll set up so that we can do a call in with him on next meeting and that's going to be in Stockbridge and we... Right. My cell phone doesn't work, but... Yeah, we have a phone. You guys have a way. Okay. Great. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, the building plan, can we get a hold of... We've had... Let me hand out something while we're chatting. We've had one conversation with Coop. We have a conference call set tomorrow at 8 o'clock. We'll certainly know more after that conference call. Let me just give... No, that's the audience. I'll call. I got you guys a different... Those are two sides. Let me start these around. Haha, you got me. Okay. I did it again. Is this the same thing? No. There's two pages. That's okay. I did it that way. Thank you. Just let me walk. Okay. Yes, it is. They're coming around. So, what you have here is just my attempt to show you what the current status is, what the situation is that we're looking at and working with. If you'd consider the first page, it says elementary building. If you'd just consider that page one and then high school building, page two. I'm going to start on page one. Frank, yours is double-sided. One's on the front, one's on the back. I'm going to start up in the upper left-hand corner of the elementary building. That is the classroom configuration that faculty and I have identified works best next year given the number of students we will have here at Rochester in the teaching position. So, we will have six different classrooms. If you then look at the elementary school map, you'll see, with no particular designation for grade or teacher, you'll see where I've identified classrooms one through six. Six being down here on the far right. The library is up in the upper left-hand corner. And then the other functions I've left as they're being used now. For example, you can see the office right across from the gym. You can see the staff room. You can see the Title I tutoring space, the nurses' office. So, those spaces at this point are maintained as is. If you go to the high school building, that would be your page two. What I'm attempting to show on page two would be the functions, the programs, the functions that need to be transferred from the high school building to the elementary building if we were to house the ed program solely in the elementary building. So, you see on that page there's art. There's music. There is one planet. That's our after-school and school vacation program. There's maintenance. There's guidance. And then there's the tech support, which is a little rectangle up here above the comments. I did not identify the classrooms used by our fifth through eighth graders because they will be in fifth graders will be back with the elementary wherever that is. If you go back to page eight, they'll be in choice middle school somewhere. So, I have an identified classrooms here. So, then if you go back to page one, here's what I would like you to look at. At the bottom right-hand corner, you'll see all of the programs and functions that are in the high school. So, art, music, tech support, maintenance, administration, small groups. Small group guidance, what I mean by that is Dia has a space here now in her office here where she has a small office in the back that she meets with parents individually. Plenty large enough to do that. Then she has this front space where she can meet with small groups. Three or four groups of youngsters for working out some difficulties or making a plan or something like that.  If you look back at the elementary building again, the ones I've starred, the functions that I have starred, art, music, tech support, one planet, and some small group guidance space, are activities that I cannot find space for in the elementary building. So, for example, there is not a good space in the elementary building for the art program. If the art program were to come to the elementary building, if the board's decision is to have the entire pre-K to 6 program in the elementary building, art would probably have to be more like the art in a car model that a number of schools historically used to have. What does Stockbridge have? We do not have an art room. I didn't think so. We do not have a teacher's lounge, we do not have a conference room, we do not have a staff lounge, we have blockers. Our music and art is in the gym. That's right. All the bed services, they're in a closet in Stockbridge. What's that room on the far left? That's 123, that whole area. What is that? Elementary. It's the place we have to meet with parents. Where do we meet with our parents? In the classroom. In the closet? In the closet. It used to be a closet. What does one planet have in their office? They have all their records, they have storage for some of their programs. Where do you guys keep the sensitive records? You just have a locked account. All your health records and your medical releases and all that? There's a lot of closets in that closet. There's a lot across from the Casey's office or whatever. I think there's a file cabinet in there. I think there's probably three of them that are in different places. There might also be, some of the files might be upstairs in that space above the cafeteria. And we have we're trying to stop for just 50 students and we have 90. 90. And what is I'm sorry go ahead. So all I'm trying to show is visually the programs that presently exist. And the fit it would be if we moved to the elementary building and then you could look at it conversely and go the other way. If you took the high school map and you went around and counted out six classrooms those are the six classrooms we need for the configuration. That's what it would look like if the program were to move to the high school building. We would maintain the art room. We would maintain the music room. The auditorium one planet would continue to have space for its after school and vacation programming. So high schools pretty sporadic. It seems like you would need fully functioning high school building. And the high school is the one that's got the charged sprinkler system. The high school has got the charge sprinkler system which is on our list for tomorrow when we speak. In the elementary school I mean so we the original thought that have been discussed was we can get everything into the elementary building and really shutter more square footage in the high school building what do we know about the negatives of shuttering the elementary building. We're just about a day too early for me to answer that question I'll have a better answer to that question when we speak. And what about modifying the elementary school to place some of these things in there? The original plan that came we were going to we were going to cut the library in half and maybe make some of that the library is a nice nice place but it's big and that's a possibility you could do that and in either both of these models where's the pre-K room? It would be one of the six classrooms Carl I see I see the ceremony first grade grade fifth grade I intentionally didn't do that because teachers are wondering where they're going to be I see that this area down here Jenny's asked about the far left if you start at room 115 that's a special ed room we have a number of youngsters I'm guessing Stockbridge does too who have OTPT needs in that room is for the occupational therapist and the physical therapist work with kiddos the next office is a early ed special education office and then there's Dia's small guidance office that would be part of the space she has over here so there would be a place for a guidance office there but they're tiny they're like two person cubicles and then we have special ed space and then we have it looks like four special ed spaces one of those special ed spaces would have to be the principal's office or the tech support folks 120 has functioned as a principal's office someone told me that yesterday it would be fine for a principal's office it's just way far away from the I guess the issue is the equity 120 that is bigger than our our office that's the building they have this but at the same time I see Stockbridge residents going wait a minute we do art in the room and you know we don't we don't need those not that we don't need, not that we wouldn't love to add but we don't so therefore it leads to inequity and I'm sure our community would not um abide that my concern would be I think it would, and I know parents from tuition towns are already looking to what officers are going to be doing but do you think that it might well they're not voting they're not voting but there are revenue for our people I know but we need to get it through no no I know I think the issue you will have and I'm just trying to be objective I think the issue you will have and I understand that the Stockbridge building looks more like our elementary building than our high school building I certainly understand that I'm not sure that you will get support for your budget in Rochester if you back these programs I mean Rochester is very wedded to the music and theater program you can still have the program it just won't have its own room not if we don't have to be over here Jane we'd probably close the, we'd probably close that section off because we wouldn't be able there's only one classroom that abuts it and I would say the same thing for music what we said in DuPont in the library that was like you know we were trying to figure it out it's not, I mean perhaps what we should have done maybe is taking a walk it really isn't, it really isn't that large I don't, it's a small it's a medium sized classroom it's not a large classroom it's not the size of the room and I don't know what room Jenny we were in that night we had the meeting down there what classroom but it's not the size of the classroom you would basically it's the purpose of those rooms I mean right now they're filled with books and computers and things like that but it wouldn't it wouldn't become I have a quick question I have a quick question I have a quick question have you evaluated the heating system in this building that's what we're starting on tomorrow so we have a pretty outdated oil system but the tank what plane of the White River that's what $300,000 are you asking questions you know I'm trying to remember but it seems to me that all there's some interesting expenses there that are coming up I mean regardless of what happens we're going to have to heat this building to some degree we can't just let it fall into well that's been the informal input has been saved anything by not being in this building because and I don't know these people are accurate but they're saying to set the heat much below 66 in a building that has a charged system is basically asking for difficulties I think the option that the board has to consider is if there is any kind of increase in population we're going to be shoehorned in here there's just no way that the element there's moving to the elementary building leaves no option for any sort of growth either in program or student population we will basically be you know in the six classrooms those will be the options that's where the programs will have to take place I also think that one of the things that folks spoke about the quality of the music program that we have and that we're hoping to connect with Stockbridge for I think it's unlikely that you would you keep an excellent music teacher if they're really in a situation where they're moving from room to room or their music on a car or because the number of instruments that she's been able to build up since she's been here there's no place to put them in this building they won't be able to travel with her the keyboard the kids carry them back and forth with them so I guess the issue is you know do we want the two schools to be identical is that the goal that we want to take one schools programs and move them back until everybody's at the same point or do we want to try and raise all the boats I mean there's two ways to look at this you can either lower all the boats or we can eventually over time try to raise all the boats right we needed I think what we need to hear is you know again I don't think I don't think the reaction is you know is a knee jerk you know if it's not in mine it's not in yours but understanding how you know the the programming can be comparable in Stockbridge because the answer that you know the feeling that's going to come across is that is the idea well you know we just we have a room you don't have a room you know and figuring out how that can be made to work you know short of saying well fine you know I mean we'll bust the kids I mean do all the Stockbridge kids come here for Heart and Music Day and how would that look some sort of there needs to be something that's put forward that says if we're going to continue these you know we're going to say we can't this robust music program in Rochester is going to be continued but if you have it in Stockbridge that message won't fly at all but if there's yeah no I understand that that's what I mean I think it needs to be looked at more than just you know I think what we're getting into here as we're looking at this conversation is we're going from what was supposed to be you know kind of just a space planning conversation to saying well space planning ties to programming programming you know there's there's an equity and certainly I think it's understandable that there's more FTEs of you know of art staff when there's more kids in Rochester to be taught art to I don't think you know I don't think that there's a feeling in Stockbridge that art teacher only needs to be around for a day that you need to educate all your kids in a day and have shorter art or bigger classes you know I think that there's an understanding that there's more students and I think there'd be an understanding about space but I think where it is where you do get into a pain point for the Stockbridge families is the idea that there is you know because they have the advantage of being able to tag team on to the high school space where there is a dedicated art space that there is you know a dedicated music space and how can that be worked around so that the answer is not well we have to cut these programs back so that your kids are all you know in an area because I think in Stockbridge we'd love to have a music room we just can't afford it we don't have the base to support that my question also is what do Stockbridge residents really value for a program and that kind of goes back to the survey what do they really want there music might not be huge on their list but they really want to get into the school, STEM might be maybe we can look at increasing the STEM in Stockbridge because that's what Stockbridge really values whereas Rochester really values you know possibly really values this music right and this is where I think we're kind of up against it we would have been in a lot better shape we'd have the principles we started with and there had been some of this dialogue ongoing as opposed to people just trying to keep the ship afloat this year I would like to know the outcome of the phone call tomorrow because I think we really have to think about this it's not fair to punish you guys because you have the building we already have it and yet I want it to be equal for us don't forget about the number of kids the number of tuition kids that benefits both of you you have to start looking at this as for all of you not just one town or you're all of you that's just the conversation we just had about the land it's not going to be just Rochester kids out there it's going to be Stockbridge kids too and if we lose Hancock and Granville because Little Barry offers a better that's why I think we really need to know the finances I mean we also need to be thinking again thinking about it in more just what we have a music room let's use a music room here and more in okay we know there's going to be this difficult conversation how do we prepare for that and how do we do that what kind of programmatic adjustments can we make for example one of the things I mean I don't have an idea but you know there's a kitchen in Stockbridge you know could that be turned into a music room in Stockbridge could the kitchen here in Rochester be turned into a music room in Rochester and the food do we need to have two full kitchens both in those are both in the elementary building so I think it gets to be a bigger conversation but you know I think it needs to we need to get some thought around that maybe the scheduling is and we were talking about bringing kids here for music for an hour and then busting them back maybe you have a schedule that brings them here for tech ed and music together you know one after another and then you bust them back or something like that sure and then you know they want to be efficient with that time so that they're not sure well I mean and I think one of the things that we've talked about in the meetings earlier was it's more problematic in winter to get you know 17 pre-k and kindergarten or kids into their gloves, into their boots into their mitts, onto the bus sitting down on the bus, buckling their seatbelts on the bus no really buckling your seatbelts Jimmy take your finger out of Bobby's ear you just spent a half hour right there in one direction and so that's where this the busting piece becomes problematic I think we need to we need to think about how we can you know how we can can manage that better or differently or just to understand what we're doing I think one of the issues that the board you know we'll have to grapple with and I can only guess this because I wasn't here at the time of the discussions but I could almost guarantee that not a lot of people were thinking how we would have to downscale this many programs to make this program fit in the elementary building I mean to be honest I don't know where band would happen in this building I don't know you know I don't know anything you can say well when I was in school 25 years ago we all fit in that building we were all just really happy well you didn't have a special ed like it is and you didn't have speech therapy like it is and you didn't have you use what you have you use what you have you use what you have we have both we have both I guess the argument I'm trying to decide is what I'm saying you did not show what an elementary would look like if you adjusted that's what I did here take out the locker rooms take out the conference room see what you can really fit in there what I tried to do was show the essential functions I know what you're trying to do it's going to cost us money to retrofit these buildings to take out the locker rooms maybe take the library it's going to cost compared to keeping two schools open I'm sorry I'm the only one here that thinks I understand what your point is we have to figure out how to make it fair that's the thing we need to work on and we need to get an understanding of um and is there a way we can't use our we can take some of the stuff out of you know your school and do you have more open space in your school like I'm not sure what your building is you know I think they're a multi-purpose room where the cafeteria has all sorts of stuff right it still wouldn't give us that's what they need every day they use it every day there's really not anything extraneous in that building because they don't have space for it to be in that building um you know it's it's very problematic and I'm sorry Jeanne I didn't mean to be at all disrespectful what I've tried to leave here is what is what is required the required functions that we're now using for example there's been a number of schools are lockers required I don't have any lockers in here right here the locker room it's the locker room there's no air, windows there's old showers right could that be used for offices could that be you just put X's through them one of them this X down here that's a heating room there's a boiler in there and pipes and same over here that locker room above it um there's very poor lighting you'd have to spend a fortune on lighting if you're going to make that an office there's no fresh air, there's no windows it's a dark dank hole I wouldn't want to work in it I would guess most of you wouldn't want to work in it if we went over there there's dangers in stock which working in closets well this is worth we've got some closets over here Jeanne one of these special edge rooms is actually a closet I'm just saying that that locker room I think you would have workplace issues it doesn't have to be a main area or something like that maybe it's going to be in those rooms maybe a suggestion would be first of all let's get the information from tomorrow's phone call to see exactly what we're dealing with the second thing is at least for me I'm very much a visual learner I would like to I would like to walk around the elementary school I would like to see what could be done or walk around here especially once we know what the possibility is and let's all try to get together and walk around and see what we can do and see what we can make use keep thinking that these buildings will be Stockbridge's buildings just like the Rochester buildings I know it does but it's true the voters in Stockbridge and the families in Stockbridge didn't vote necessarily to join the unified district to bus all their kids up here nobody's asking them to bus no but I mean when you say these are your buildings use them just drive your kids up here if there's a play we understand that we talked a lot about the special programming that was going to happen between the two things and the way we're going to build collaboration working forwards I just think it's a matter of we need to we understand that we're leading with figuring out the building spaces on this side because we have to figure out what we're closing and what we need to re-engineer to make that work but again I think that bringing in establishing we're going to have dedicated music rooms and dedicated art rooms when the gym, the auditorium, the cafeteria the art room and the music room are one space at the building yes I understand that there's more kids here but there needs to be more creative thinking about how if we're going to use those resources can we get at it like what they have for the preschool program trailer or a modular unit in the stock bridge to be a music and art space where it's a small there's a modular classroom that can be dedicated and if it's usually those things are big enough we have all the art stuff on one side all the music stuff on the other side so it's not music in a cart or art in a cart it's a space where the kids can rotate out to something like that those are the things that we need to get ideas on quickly so that's the beginning of having all the votes rise yes that's right and I don't think anyone wants all the votes to lower but I also don't think anyone wants the votes to be the votes to be left at different places because there's yes there's space here but there needs to be thought given that can we have the principal the interim principal look in I was just thinking too the gym is a pretty big space too they could divide that in half two half sides and gym can be on one half side and use the other half for gym cafeteria the other half for classrooms are what some of these things on the bottom right on the side of the page I mean our multipurpose room because of this room actually smaller than this room yeah way smaller than this and we have all of these things plus more in that room but that gym over there could be divided in half I want to look into the module I think that's a great idea that was the next point I was going to make was about the gym which is also that you know yes that's a full size gym it's a regulation basketball court but there's not going to be a basketball team playing exactly and they sewed this way and someone told me and I don't know if this is true or false it's just part of the historical lore someone said that when Rochester was still K-12 and the population was higher than it is now they did some looking into trying to divide that gym because they felt they might have to do that given the population because it is a full size gym with a high ceiling somebody said the costs were close to $65,000 to put a wall in there can you put like half walls or whatever in there you know like the open classroom dividers yeah I don't I think that's I think a walkthrough would be very very good and just look at those spaces that have the edges and I think I know like those spaces on the elementary with the kitchen I think I know what those spaces have in them because it's all it's all storage and filled with food and whatever but for example I don't know what for example 129-130 to the you know to the left hand of the gym I think 129 is a furnace room Frank there's a boiler there is the locker room but 129 is the boiler room but I think a walkthrough would be useful I think that would be very beneficial we're looking at this from a cost perspective or a feeling of inequity I guess both so regardless if we could come off with a cost that was great it really wasn't going to cost a lot of money but it felt that it was inequitable but that's why I like to investigate the module I think that is awesome I think it's a great idea we do need to give Stockbridge more space because you guys don't have enough space you only have three classrooms right four classrooms they have talked about adding space for pre-k because you guys have full day they talked about it but this might be an answer to that actually because remember when we got the bids last year it was expensive to do it well remember that's not a long term answer right but it's a two things to keep in mind when we were looking at the module unit last time we were looking at how it's pre-k program so that meant you got a module unit to have some sort of plumbing that has a lot more that's why I thought it might be a lot less expensive to bring something in that doesn't need to have the bathroom facilities for three year olds and four year olds that can be a space that isn't necessarily because it's not being used all day every day you don't have to worry about it the class is trying to eat something it gives a space that we can expand out into because as Jenny says yes when you have to we don't have one of the things that happened we had we've had student issues we don't have a place a seclusion room or a place where the kid can be removed to regain control of him or herself and be reintegrated so the ability to move we don't have a room like that you don't have something like that here we don't have a room we're not using a room like that we don't have a room set up for that right now we don't need one one of these little offices could be turned into that but we just don't have a need for it I was looking at six bedrooms you don't have a room where you can move and again thinking about just how we can like will you know that's a fairly large tech support room for it's right there do you need I don't know that you would need that much tech coverage for an elementary school this is the room we're actually thinking about for the tech room which is the little where the athletic director is there right across from the office we don't need an athletic director's office anymore that's gone we don't have one we can and will there still I don't know what the schedule is for here and they're going forward I assume it's going to be reduced in stock bridge I think a day here that might be a person that doesn't need to walk and running so they plug things in and walk away and come back in two days and see how they're right again I'm saying that's a person you can say fine if you're going to test something or burn something in that could maybe be done in the locker room space you know because the guys here once a day once a week as a tech person we're kind of mopey you're kind of mopey you know we're in that screen sorry Mason we kind of do get in there so we have the a vault over here at the high school and so that would need to be moved to the elementary school or it could be maintained here depending on because we don't need access to it daily there's some stuff stored in there now just because people put some office supplies in there in the vault alright so next step is we're going to bring a modular vault in Stockbridge we're okay to share your vault I would like Stockbridge to be at the house more than this because how are we supposed to bring in more programs to Stockbridge if there's no space for it no I agree with that I agree with that how are we going to do STEM in Stockbridge if there's no space so let's look into I think that's a good idea like I said I think that our first look at a trailer when we're looking for a pre-K program I think a lot of the expenses that were in that were for the pre-K regulations and all that do you remember what the cost was we ought to tour Sharon because they have an awesome pre-K program in temporary right but it's been that'll make if you show people that and their minds the price they're going to go up they'll want something nice cost them a whole heck of a lot of money no well Barrett got a right Barrett got them used for those 11 and he's now put a foundation under them and roofs on them and they're pretty permanent I think it might be a good way a good way to start up in bridge and if you bought something used and then we ended up doing something more permanent because as we see how things work out we either like you said you do what everyone does around here and you put a foundation under the modular home and you put a better roof across the top of it maybe some external insulation we also have to remember we need to keep moving forward on this but Rome was not built in a day yeah no absolutely we need to be looking far and taking the right steps to get there right and that's one of the reasons the last one I was trying to make about the modular idea was just that it's something that I think we're not committing to try to build an addition on Stockbridge this summer right so that we have a space there we're putting something in so that we have a solution that in two years if we do say you know what we do need an addition over here this is how things are going to work out excuse me for now is it to make them feel good for now I'm just saying that's how I feel the point is our kids right now ask Jenny how she feels about this oh you know how I feel well I think if I could change his heart well I don't know how else I can get a music room or how we can take the decision for that but I mean I don't know why you need a music room we have that whole huge gymnasium like why can't I don't know what you are we should go over there it's huge see it yes I understand the gym is huge I also think one of the things we have to do is we have to do more than imagine what it would be like to have a band in a gym I think you have to go stand in the classroom next to it when the band is playing and say what actually your teachers have said that band is disruptive to them when it's going on and I'm not saying that's good or bad that's just their observation I can't imagine there's any school in the gym that isn't disruptive to the classrooms right around it that's just the way it is and I understand how hard this change is I'm on the board over the mountain and we unified seven schools two years ago and we consolidated and brought some smaller schools together for different functions none of those things are easy to do sure and I think that a lot of these solutions are going to have a negative side it's saying we're bringing in a place to have special so we can have more space in Stockbridge but you're going to have to walk outside to get there is less accessible than walking down the hall maybe handicapped accessible I think where we need it has to be here too I think that what we need to be doing before we move into the budget numbers is acknowledging that we need to come up with some creative thinking to keep a sense of equity and keep a sense of fairness and like I said I don't think the answer is to say fine you guys all have to cram into teach your special kids your special kids in the hallway but I think we need to sort all this so that everyone feels that the informal information that's coming in is anywhere near accurate we may be in a situation where at least for next year we pretty much stay where we are so we will the informal information says we'll have to continue to heat this building so maybe the programs that are on the high school map maybe they stay right where they are for next year our music one planet maybe they don't move classroom programs stay right here and it it may not even be possible let's just say the board decides to make this move yes we'd like it to go into the high school it may not even be possible to do that by September based because we don't know yet what we have to do nor what the cost of having to do it is so in many ways we're still just third or fourth step in a pretty long way here absolutely but we need let's get the information let's also take this as a signal that we have to look at what we're doing for both campuses of this district and make sure that everyone no kid is feeling like a second class citizen Lonnie, does family and consumer science pertain to elementary students? no we don't have that program we could move if we needed to heat the idea I thought was to kind of turn down this section to it's like a cooler temperature and keep that section and that's still a question if we did that can we not just keep our art and music over there and then have our kids walk over and then we could even move one planet exactly into the family and consumer center the only really warm room over there so one of the questions on our list is can we do exactly that how low can the heat go down over here can we maintain use over there but it does make sense to have them all in the same section then spread out it makes perfect sense if we're going to heat that and still be able to use those two classrooms a couple of days a week because we have to heat that side heated and we can pull this side down then we can move one planet into the FCS room and then this side there's the door here there's the lobby there's ways to shut down the score but like it more officially there's ways to more insulation there is give all the 6 bitters that shrink wrap stuff and tape it up so also when they're looking at the heating and if there only reason that they couldn't go below a certain temperature in certain areas is because of the sprinkler system being charged I think our next question is then what's the cost to make it a not charged system that's on our list can you make this a not charged system and that over there stay charged because I believe we'll be in fire code violation if we have kids in this building and you dismantle the sprinkler system I don't mean dismantle it can we keep them that one on and this one discharging oh ok I guess I was also thinking that is one way the other option is to make the system so that it's still a sprinkler system it's just it's air in the lines and when it gets triggered the water goes through which is what is in the fire house in Rochester so I'm assuming that that is possible yep you know I'm assuming it is if it's in there I don't know a lot about a lot of people Amy knows a lot of things that surprise you she is so upset at me whenever we go anywhere come on mom do I talk to this person again come on mom yeah so um ok thank you budget alright yes alright you're on now do we have a new budget to pass around I do but before I do that I want to talk a little bit about what I'm passing around ok I think that if I read the tea in this board what I perceive is some frustration that we're not further along with the budget than we are I know I for one as a business manager feel that frustration I know that in Freshbench you know my district where I was last night presenting the budget they have developed a similar schedule for working on the budget in fact next week they have meeting on Monday and Thursday two nights the following week they have one meeting where they finalize the budget and then they want it that night and the annual meeting is one day apart from the annual meeting from this board of this district last night after putting in significantly more than 100 hours I was able to develop the budget and process for them so that I can meet on a Monday with them and on a Thursday and still get the stuff done in between because things are lined up in a particular direction because the board has made clear what their goals and objectives are my experience here is that things are not lined up so we're not ready to do that so you can see some things tonight some things that have really made solid pretty good and some things that maybe even took a half a step back because I'm trying to get everything lined up and not throw it out to whack it's also been a challenge for me personally to professionally not personally professionally to hear the multitude of voices that I hear from this board and try and respond to each of them and so I think if we're going to be successful next week in getting to the budget for the meeting on the 10th this board is going to need to work more closely at getting a common voice and getting common directions and clear directions to me and to Bruce because part of the that being where I want to be where you want me to be is dealing with multitude of questions about this that and the other thing instead of the clear direction the one clear direction that I have and that's what I'm going to hand out first is the tuition question because that's what I heard from a number of board members that there was real frustration concerned that tuition numbers were not what they needed to be the accuracy was not there so with I didn't have over 100 hours work on this budget but I did on the first branch and you'll get your 100 hours in due course but this is true for tonight so what I did devote some significant time in was working on the tuition payments which is a large part of our budget because it was a board concern so what I'm going to tell you what you're seeing here is you'll notice that in both columns there's a double line going horizontally across everything below the double line do you see that in Rochester it's below the ninth grade students and in Stockbridge it's below the seventh grade students all those all those students that are identified as 8-1 9-4 or whatever are specific students who are on tuition bills for this year and so 8-1 is somebody who is a seventh grader this year and we're expecting them to move on to eighth grade next year and we know where they're going this year and so we expect to continue there until we learn otherwise so that's the one of the pieces that goes into the solidity that's behind these numbers so there are specific people that everything below the double line is double horizontal line is specific students and a particular place where they are with a few exceptions for example students that are identified as residents of Rochester are coming to Rochester this year and there are several who are ninth graders this year the assumption was made that they would since there wouldn't be a high school here next year that they would be somewhere else and so the logic until I hear a better logic is to put them into the Royalton High School or what will be called the White River Valley High School in Royalton South Royalton so that's an assumption that goes over here and likewise there were a lot of students who who have been taking part in participating enrolled in Bethel Middle School High School and they have been also migrated to the Royalton so you're putting them in as placeholders because we haven't heard that they're going anywhere else this is on the Rochester side I want to say I do think that by saying most of our students might go to Royalton that's a significant $16,000 but I do feel most of our families will choose Middlebury or Randolph or the Scharn Academy as are probably our big ones that's where our majority of our students tuition doubt and I think that the cost of the difference between Royalton and Middlebury I think we should try to balance that I guess they're not too bad we just have to make sure what he's saying I think is it's just a name right now I'm just making sure that $16,000 the school that these kids are going to so I don't want to underestimate by saying our kids are all going to go to Royalton where it's $673 less to go when in reality we're going to be paying Middlebury tuition or Randolph tuition but you say that there's only four Rochester students that he's placed in Royalton and those are all ones that are currently enrolled in enrolled in okay and that's right whereas before the double line so that's going to be a good balance so before we get to this let's talk after the double line first we're talking about one time at a time so is it the mind of the board that you would rather have a budget that was more conservative raising more tax dollars for a higher tuition assumption than a lower tuition assumption I think that's what I heard you say was $16,000 I guess if it's only $673 I guess it's not that big of a difference I think though I think though that we have we have overestimated with the amount of kids going to Woodstock that is a lot higher than that is true I was deliberately chosen but also TSA is a lot lower so I mean it and then where's Middlebury Middlebury is kind of in between what's in it was that an online homeschool it is more or less like that so there's another one at 7th grade so this year we're in we've got two storage resins so those are your you did a balance I'm sorry what was the meaning of the double line the double line every student below that is on a tuition invoice for the current year at the school where they where they are estimated for next year if it exists right pretty much where the kids go Bob don't kill it escape we have stalked her snack did you want to save it and do what with it take to the forest we've got 20 acres we still have 20 acres why are you jumping so much I hear you let's get rid of it so you can see above eliminate that Mason above the double line there was an attempt to try and to balance things out by having a low cost TSA being a low cost and a high cost would stuck so that perhaps the other information we've got somewhere to go and I am hopeful by our next meeting at least on the Rochester side a number of our kiddos who sort of hadn't been making decisions now seem to be making decisions so hopefully we can get you some specifics if there is more information it will be fed into us why is there a zero for the first senior in Rochester that one is a choice student and in which terms there there is a vacancy in the receding school so basically right it's under the quote it's under the lottery so basically Middlebury just had one spot so we have to pay for the other three three and eleven is paid number one in the 12 party next year and in Rochester I like the way you say we that's about we that's good we've got to use the we word this is the meaning this is this is so different from the one you passed out of the last meeting because more students have made decisions no this one is different because this one I spent the time looking at tuition yeah and this was also one of the topics that there was a lot of miscommunication between now and the last meeting between staff at Stockbridge and staff at the SU and board members and it sort of went this way and this way and this way so I said I got to get to the bottom of this so that's what you have you got the bottom of this so this is where it really is this represents the paperwork exactly below the double line there's an invoice for that student this year in that school at the grade less than it is indicated here which Frank I mean having not Frank having not been at a choice school understand that there's a ton of certainty about the people below that double line but there will still be kids that were changed there will be someone that the families change where they work in the direction they're going and so that they drive to get a different way there's been a few at Stockbridge not a ton but I know a few students have changed so what does that mean do you get your money back from the school if you move a student like a child decides to change the school mid-year if a child decides to change the school I think most schools bill on a semester so usually if they change you lose the semester in general there's not a lot of I mean there've been times where I know that like a kid has started somewhere and you know within like the first two weeks it just doesn't work out well that's too soon the bill usually comes somewhere around at least in my experience like a month and a half six weeks or so into the semester so sometimes the bill comes then someone leaves and then it gets corrected but in general once you've paid Woodstock for a semester if the kid leaves a month early or changes it doesn't they don't get credited but if they change to another public school they don't you know the other public schools I mean they go they go from Woodstock to Bethel and Woodstock collects semester money and Bethel finishes educating the kid for a few months that does happen in some situations but it often happens that tuition is paraded by day so if you're going to keep moving into your school on October 1 as a receiving school you're not going to educate them for nothing through to the end of the first semester you're going to charge a bill I yes that is a fight that I've lost with Windsor Central when we trade kids we should program this by day that's what that should be and they're like nope we build for the semester you're not getting that money back it just depends on how big a fist you have it's the way you get your way about it the other thing to know is that this year we have not despite what you just said the practice is varied in the field and we have not yet received a bill from Woodstock for the whole year we have not received a single bill so yes this is how the system usually works but there are let's not say that too loud my experiences it comes back to haunt you two years down the road you'll get your bill that's actually a big thing we have been pursuing the bill but they've been as busy as we have been I'm sure implementing your accounting software we are doing the training together so we know our counterparts down there very well and we know what they're undergoing so what you see here is data that's being scrubbed down to the bottom thank you thank you that's what you were looking for I wanted to produce on day one but I couldn't do it on day one but it's on day whatever we are on now this has been incorporated into the budget as things change here as we get more information it's really a craft shoot how you interpret the value of your information so it may be that a parent goes into the principal's office to Bonnie's office and says I'm thinking that I'm going to take my kids out of Royalton and put them over here so Bonnie tells me there's three kids that I'm going over here you've got to evaluate how useful that information is if you really want to go that way in our experience in our experience especially because with little kids parents' minds it's a lot more fluid about where they can fit the flower wherever they land we really wait because I'm going to take them there that they often don't in our experience we don't shift things until we know so we've seen a piece of paperwork the records request from the new LEA the other thing that happens in many districts is that over the summer two buddies on the same streets are talking about oh I'm going back to U32 so all of a sudden all the high school students in Roxbury, Stucco and U32 because all their buddies are going to get and that changes in the end of July yeah I know it's 6th grade because mom wants them to go one place so it's going to win so that's the best we can do for right now now we have the budget itself and I'm calling this changing the naming to try and get it somewhat to make easier for us all to refer to it it's like I couldn't find a draft forging when you sent me that message I couldn't find a form you said I had 3 and 5 I don't think it's having a number so I was calling it for because I was looking for a form I was awesome so let me give you a quiz every document that you see that I would produce if you look at the bottom you'll see the file name so whatever it says at the top here the file name should be down here and the worksheet number so this one tells you that this is FY19 RSUD budget draft 5 and it's the expenditure worksheet in that budget as a routine 1% of the time I don't do it but this is one way to know where you are when you're looking at a whole bunch of members so you can look up here at the top I think I found a way of calling it now which will be useful for us to be all on the same page so that somebody won't look and say well I didn't get a draft form so now there's a date where it says updated for 328 and it says draft 5 so when I work on draft 6 for the next meeting I will be working with the principal and we will have updated 330 and when it finally gets ready for the board it will be updated for 43 I think it's the date of our next meeting and it will be called draft 6 so what I've done a quick check to see that the salary amounts are correct related to the salary and benefit worksheets that are in the budget that flow into here automatically those salary and benefits are 80-90% lined up but there's still not the 10% to line them up they are lined up in the first branch so that on Tuesday we're going to meet next week and somebody says we want to move from a 0.6 to a 0.4 I can just change the 0.4 and all the benefits of online income can be seen immediately they asked if we could train the course of the meeting and in the context of that I'm going to say the next meeting I will bring with me a projector so that we will look at the screen so we will be all on the same page on the same page on the wall we have something up there whatever it is I don't know what technology we have in the different places we meet but this will work so having said that there's a couple of smaller areas in column A on row 15 I made it explicitly clear that field trips is excluding the passing because it was not in the number and the passing will show up somewhere else can I ask you a question about that one since we're there why is the cost over in the personnel is that this 350 and is that the cost for you're right that is an error that needs to go across over here that's a good catch if there is a revenue budget there is not tonight but there will be on the next meeting and a tax input so I think probably the discussion that is most one of the points that will be useful for the board to be care about is the FTEs between the two schools and so if there is any concern about that talking about that tonight so that it can be prepared for the next meeting in a way that the board would like to see it so I believe those numbers are true the guidance is of 1 in Rochester in 0.3 in Stockbrook Jenny what was 14 yeah that was one of my questions what do we need so Bonnie and I talked about this and she is prepared to wonderful I don't want to restake the obvious but she feels very strongly that this is important and wanted to be able to defend it one of the issues and I know I keep saying this and I don't want it to sound right because day to day it has an impact there is a difference between 50 youngsters and 90 youngsters and the family dynamics and the family situations and the outreaches we've also eliminated our SAP counselor you'll see on line 106 we took all of the SAP counselor funds out one of the situations we believe is that there were sometimes too many people working with the family can be difficult the family can't sort out who's who so we opted to go with the guidance counselor who is prepared to do the work the home visits the home contacts the family work that and then move into the typical guidance ed group kinds of things that you would typically see a guidance counselor do so in many ways you know I don't think 1.0 is that out of line if we look at 0.3 at Stockbridge and we have not exactly twice as many kids but close to it that would put it at 0.6 and then picking up the SAP services did Stockbridge have SAP? you guys what is SAP? it's a drug and alcohol prevention counseling substance counseling so not behavior issues is that typically a elementary school typically SAP counselors do a great deal of work with high school students what our dilemma is at the elementary school is we have parents who are dealing with those challenges yes we have a number of them actually it impacts a significant number of youngsters at our school and this was not a decision that we made lightly it was a decision that we really felt we needed to provide this level of service and I guess the difficult news I have for the board is that's a growing number it's not a lessening number we are trying at the other schools to push it down lower so it's more preventative crisis so we're having these conversations at the middle school and the new middle school where do we put that SAP counselor so they can be the most effective in trying to work on prevention and stuff now do we get any funds for this type of government for this type of counseling specifically for family crisis and the addiction alcohol drugs it's one of the title areas that we do receive some money from and does that offset this salary maybe then why did you cut SAP services out because the guidance counselor can't help with that yes the guidance counselor can do that work at the elementary level through educational groups so does SAP do that for us SAP was in your budget that's the same thing in both schools so why can't you just do with SAP because we don't believe it's an immigrant enough to I'm sorry I think you can see as we're all over here I think Joanne had a question I'd like another head count and I'd like it accurate this time and I don't think homeschoolers should be included I didn't think homeschoolers should be included that's not the information that I got maybe it's erroneous but I've been told that there's a lot less than 90 in the school I'm not going to say because I don't want to get in trouble but I was told that it was closer to 75 and I think that's really important I can go get the numbers right now as soon as we're done this discussion but it is not 75 actually I might have that right here for you I think I have I don't know what we need for these students but I do understand specifically in Rochester that there is a lot of families stuff going on I sat down at a lunch table and the kids were openly talking about what was happening at home where steps that their parents were in recovery from and I sat down and within two minutes the kid across my mom was a drug addict too but she's better now but I still can't see her until I'm 18 years old I mean this is we've had it's not just Rochester but it's everywhere I don't know what the right answer is but we need to support these kids they need a place to talk about this what is that I can only speak for Rochester but we have a number of youngsters I believe who are basically raising themselves they're basically responsible for themselves can we I just want to stop and say this this is a sidebar to this conversation it's very important Bruce can you please make sure that the staff at Stockbridge and the staff at Rochester understand the mandatory reporting laws because if kids are actively talking about things that at least the mandatory reporting training that I've gotten would trigger a call and at least the news we've heard is that it may well be because sometimes the AOE you know is more interested in tripping up the independent schools that they are they cut more slack towards the public schools I'm not trying to get into that conversation now but at least the stuff that I hear about mandatory reporting I think it's important that everyone knows because there is a big pile of trouble that comes down if one of these kids you don't have that DCF history of all the mandatory reporting calls that you may these are kids that I know are through the DCF system they're living with grandparents now but to hear that conversation it just reminds me because one of the rules the law that just changed is it used to be that if I was at the school and I heard something that involved a child living in neglect or a child living with parents are unable to care for them because they're under the influence I could tell the principal and the principal would say thank you and I was done but the rules now are if I heard it I have to say it and if it was said at this table you know David, me, Bonnie and Bruce would all have to call we could make a call together you're allowed to as a group file a report but every school employee is required to report within 24 hours and it's a fairly granular list and it's not just Bobby came to school with a black eye because drunk daddy hit him it's just neglect you know the kids that are raising themselves we do this training every year we're all mandatory reporters and if we don't report we get caught doing that we'll lose our license that's why I wanted to stop the conversation to make sure that we're reviewing that with our staff and that it's on the record that we're doing that properly because that's not an area where you could say oops sorry I really want to examine this because I don't think it should just be based on numbers from what I've heard this year at Stockbridge there's a fair number of real family issues which are causing extreme behavior issues at least two of the classrooms also although our numbers are smaller our special ed budget is more so I don't know that we can just go by numbers the guidance and everything is needed with the families at Stockbridge as well the crisis of two of those classrooms the only reason I mention numbers here is numbers do generate more families typically to work with more kids in crisis more situations that have to be more mandatory reporting our guidance counselor you're exactly right everyone who sees a particular incident that carries a license is a mandatory reporter in the school but guidance counselors tend to be sort of a channeling mechanism to make sure those reports are completed make sure they're done in a timeline then follow up with a child then follow up with a family because for every report you make you've got a child who's just experienced another type of trauma and you just can't make the report and say okay that's enough response from the school the other thing we're hoping to do through this model is have guidance in schools typically is once a week the SAP counselor would come somebody else so that might be a second time a week what the model we're looking for because we think it's more efficient is that it would be the guidance counselor that would be in every classroom twice a week instead of one person being there one time and one person being there another time so we're trying to consolidate the effort that leads to more relationship building and also leads to more people knowing what's happening it leads to more trust on the part of some families the other big issue we have to address here and I need to let the board know this because I think it's going to be ongoing I don't know how this is reflected in the Sockridge we have probably 30 youngsters if not more who are tardy 40 50 60 days out of the school year so far some who have missed 17 19 21 34 days of school they just don't show up they just don't come and the guidance counselor is doing getting more and more involved in those situations I'm moving forward with two if not three DCF mandatory meetings for with parents who simply do not get their children to school on any sort of a regular basis that number is also growing so we hear about this crisis we have this opioid crisis we have in the state of Vermont schools reflect it day in and day out the youngsters of those situations end up in our school doors and I'm sure they're just I don't know but for Starkridge the SAT should be combined similarly down into guidance I don't know what we're going to get better we're going to get better served is Mary Dolan and so what is her 0.4 0.6 she's our guidance counselor 0.3 right and who's is she doing is she just just just being paid out of the SAP line as well or is she not she only there 0.3 the SAP so there's someone separate for the SAP well is it a million a million of the dog true yes yeah have you ever seen this so would that be a possibility to give that Mary Dolan to fall that same far somewhere else so she's only available so she could only do that well I things change but she doesn't just work in Stockbridge right no but I just I mean we just we just heard the reasons why you know having one person you know following you know being consistent versus being tag-teamed by the SAP you know the guidance counselor dealing with the kids problems and the SAP person dealing with the parents problems you know probably I mean that they want to be in Stockbridge and I understand that if Mary's schedule doesn't allow her to take you know the extra money in the extra hours that would be an option but I be interested in hearing at the next meeting I'd have to go back and find out whether some of her funding comes through the SAP right well that would be good it would be good to know that it would be good to be giving that same type of a thought to the Stockbridge campus and I have I'm sorry I have the numbers here just on the head count we have 86 youngsters without our three-year-old preschoolers because we don't know we haven't done and what's that done I usually date everything this was done about a month ago probably one nine one nine I think it's that doesn't include homeschoolers oh sorry one nine ten no it doesn't include homeschoolers so I don't know where you got your information but it's just not accurate it's just not accurate is the difference perhaps that how many how many tuition kids are here yes you can't count the tuition kids because they have the expenditure can't count them for finances have to count them for services because they're here we still got to give them a sandwich you got maybe excluding the preschool four-year-olds no because it was the same for ours okay just as an idea right right it was I was not including too because you can't count on those tuition kids next year they may follow their older siblings going to other schools that's definitely something that could happen if they know they're not going to continue they may go to the elementary school that's something you should think about well I think we always think about that right now we have to provide a service plan for the youngsters who we believe are going to be here because this is our chance but are you going to ask the tuition students if they are going to continue to come back I hope so I think the issue in Hancock and Granville is that they it's problematic more problematic to have the young ones on a bus a long distance middle school and high school kids seem to do okay with that for the younger kids maybe not so much half an hour over to middle school that I want to say that they it's way different than to Rochester and Granville that's all if there's times when there's no one in guidance in Stockbridge and there's availability from the Rochester person could they come over that's what this is all about that's what this is all about right if you particularly if there is a crisis let's say youngsters walk through the door one day and say A, B, and C happened and you know you have classroom teachers and a principal and a cook and an art teacher and they are like well I mean yeah and the purpose of this is to try to do that you know more and more all the time I mean we've talked about that already with music and it just seems this is a necessary service I don't know about that it's going to a point four that's where the time is and it's point two listed on here at the point I'd like to I don't think David believed it was finalized finalized that's what this nice discussion is about is to see what more we want to have let's let's let David finish going through this you know group by group or I don't remember if we were walking through this when we stopped on the SAP stuff no we had gone from field trips and then directly over to guidance I'd like to just say one thing what Jenny's point is before we move on is that if the board can see its way to do that you will always get higher caliber folks that will stay longer if you can have full time positions I've been in a smaller school before where every year it's a rotating door as soon as a full time position comes up someone is applying and hired if they're excellent and so it's a good thing Stockbridge has lucked out with a lot of their specials they get somebody who's working someplace else and so you guys have benefited but the music piece we had left it at was looking at what the day would look like and the week schedule would look like you know could if we increase the music could one person do both you like that person Ethan's point was the current teacher might like that role we don't have a current music teacher we do I thought was she staying I think we ought to go into this you're right we weren't in non-public before I thought in the last meeting we should have been we probably should tonight at the end to get back the thing we were waiting for from you guys was as far as putting aside who would teach the expanded music position would that work in the schedule would you have time if you had a point for music teacher at Stockbridge would they have something to do would you be able to adjust all the other curriculum when I asked and the teacher said they really would like it what were they interested in they thought it would be a great idea and they would make room for it but they would be able to do that in that kind of schedule and we'd have to sit down because that would be a perfect time for us to do that what can't you do and when do you need music and what can we move and how do we make that happen I mean that's not at least in my mind it's not something that was left to the board the board said wow that sounds neat how can that work with the day schedule with the staff member schedule and then with all the other things you know the stuff we teach it besides music so were you on nurse were we on that oh I didn't think we had even started going through line by line we were talking about guys I just like I said I didn't remember we got the guys because David skipped there we skipped her out I don't think nurse right now is 50-50 isn't it 80-20 well that's nice so we're starting to do our dance yes we are so why don't you guide us back to where we are when I was talking about the nurse yes it used to be like this but what is it the board wants to be working towards what they want to see in the budget next time around it's not 50-50 no we can't we just have a full-time nurse like we have now and it doesn't need to be determined that it's for our district for our district we have the nurse for a full-time nurse as we do now determined by need of the campus we have 0.5 here 0.8 here and you have a 0.2 at stock we have a person who's a one FTE I think what Amy is saying is let's leave that let's leave that and let's not say we're sorry you fell on the playground Susie the nurse will be here tomorrow to fix your knee we've got one nurse for the district that person's expectation is he or she will go where they are needed and we'll we'll do it from that historically nurse is the one position that can bounce significantly from year to year if a youngster moves in with a very high medical need we're going to have to sit down and move that position around to which I understand we do have one it's worked out since September but we did have a significant one the question I have is do you want to leave it as 50-50 well no we're saying we're leaving it as 1.0 FTE for the district leave it on the budget for 50-50 and it'll be where the nurse will go where she needs to go so you can take the 50 and 50 off and just leave the 1.0 well you want to leave it it's a joint resource it's shared between Buzz and Lyud Lyud there is 50-50 we're just saying it doesn't have to be because none of us know who's going to show up in our preschool population correct and you know at a certain point of time these are elementary school kids there's going to be a point in time where 80% of them have lice and the nurse is going to need to spend a lot of time in that building going through and through the Coleman and I don't want to do that anymore which is a point of need to mention nope you can't even send them home we can talk about it later we're in the midst of that we'll talk about that later we'll talk about the budget the budget to pass this as far as what we've just been talking about the last 10 minutes one of the things one of the things that we can do is that we can try and allocate percentages to artificially percentages sometimes it's real sometimes it's artificial so 50-50 is artificial because we have the expression whereas wherever this needed where it'll be so it's artificial in that respect so one thing is to put it down at any number the other way to do it is to not include that in column D and E and just have it in column F as a 1.0 that's what I'm suggesting so we don't need it broken out we do for the murder document we need to have a side by side for this first year yes that's an article of agreement that's why you're doing three budgets and not just one or that's why you have all these extra columns yeah but I mean that's why it's not really through but that's why it is segregated like this so what do you want to show just leave it like it is .5 and .5 because this is a person that's going to go where they need to be and if they don't need to be in one place over the other which is basically what happens now I know she's been called back from Stockbridge one day come up here because of an injury and I know she was called down to Stockbridge one day because of something I don't know if it was an injury or a situation and that's just what happens and I think the difference here is that art is scheduled music is scheduled the classroom activities are all scheduled those FTEs are really fixed to a building that is shared and roams back and forth so if we follow the same logic that's just been expressed in the last minute or so if you go to row 180 the schoolboy area that would be an illustration of what actually was expressed a few minutes ago which is to say we're not going to fill all around we're just going to go down the level half and half yes but when it comes down to row 197 we're going to offer assessments that will be the actual numbers that were calculated for the existing district going forward next year it will be different next year there will be just one number for just the Stockbridge Unified District but this year there are two historic rounds that we can bring in same for the special education right we may still the board may think about it depending on how this budget process goes depending on the temperature of the communities David I do have a point we may need to break things out into a narrative to discuss what's happening in each campus but yes this year we can't not do that what's the equipment line 175 Stockbridge is it over 12,000 which line are we on 175 175 is that it I don't know what that means I believe we need a new firewall or a new server there's some piece of equipment that is our turn in the replacement cycle I just have the number 12 can we follow up with Mark and make sure that that's not just being taken off is that I know what it is is it the five I cut no it is a a right now if you go into the Stockbridge computer room it's pretty disarray but a disarray of wires all over the place so we were going to use e-rate which you get back later to be able to buy something to organize that room and he had put bids out and had three different bids on what it was like a rack and sure it kind of squares us away so that's what I know that's why it's so high because they really need I knew there was something I didn't remember what it was it's a mess in there right now and it needs to be cleaned right and you just make a note that he's got everything that's not just for that it's all the technology needs on both campuses just asking him to verify the numbers that he's given us and they're still where they need to be back to you David so we carry on down to say for example another area of interest might be the custodian facilities and grounds 225 225 so there we're showing 2.0 FTE Rochester and 263 and Stockbridge is that an area of confidence? yeah that is I explained a meeting or two ago that was based on walking around the grounds here and I don't remember what she said about how much Bruce did with the guy in Stockbridge but looking at that FTE we understand to be disparate because there's just physically more there may be two thirds of the kids in Rochester and one third of the kids in Stockbridge but there's a lot more land and facilities the body says that she went through and did a detailed what would you do how would you do it analysis so on road 228 the Crescent Guard shows up here previously it was showing up higher in the instructional area down where it belongs in security which is the goings area goings backwards can you explain the magnitude of difference for the school office of the principal sorry no that's going I think the biggest difference there is the administrative we have a 1.0 administrative assistant that's year round is Casey year round at Stockbridge she's school year and then we have a 0.5 administrative assistant because our 1.0 assistant really functions as a I want to say a assistant business manager again I don't know what Casey's tasks are but Lisa spends a great deal of her day with bills invoices well that's we can bring to this that's another thing I had asked I don't think we know the answer to it yet we may have to deal with that for a year but that's just how much of the like Pittsfield for example did not I mean they paid for the business manager they paid for the business officer they wanted to keep everything in their own treasurer so they aid the cost to do all that I would just want us to understand again I don't think it's worthwhile trying to solve that but this year's budget to bed but looking at what Lisa does and how much functionality she's duplicating what's happening in the business office because we pay the business office for a reason and you know she can deal with paperwork here but she could also put an envelope and let David's staff deal with it there and that's a comment so what this your half minutes year round in ours isn't what to deal with that a lot of use in this and I haven't been here in the summer so I'm just talking about what I hear historically there's a lot of summer use here the Suzuki campus here for a week somebody else is here for a week she has her own vacation that she takes because she's a year round employee there's two at least a week or two at the end of the school year where she has to get everything buttoned up and dealt with I just went through what I did is I just had people list their functions where it is that they do and looked at some time commitments for those tasks and again I know I keep saying this but it is part of it is a function of just having more kiddos well and the function is at least it does you know in terms of attendance and tracking registrations is the nurse because the nurse isn't there places the nurse still yeah Lisa's the nurse still not as often as Casey do you feel that your administrative assistant should be maybe more than I don't know what we need there for the summer but then again I don't know what you need for the summer I'm not recommending that we be equal I heard Joanne in the background I don't know why we wouldn't have someone if there's someone here I mean our buildings are used in the summer as well we're renting them there's PTO programs going on the kids are there all the time we have the summer camp at our school right you do is it here why wouldn't we have someone yeah yeah right but I mean Suzuki's not paid for by the school we did reduce this by a half a position this year there's 2.0 we have 2.5 we have 1 but she's not full time she's full time during the school year the program that's in Stockbridge in the summer is the one planet program so they pay for out of their budget the person there to open the building close the building deal with the no they don't have the Suzuki pay as I understand it Suzuki pays the school independently so they wouldn't need an administrator here for that I would think they would need someone who represents the school somebody has to be in the school phones ring alarms go off Suzuki is like an outside program people can't get in and out of rooms so Stockbridge should cover that well I would assume we're going to share we'd be getting the revenue too because the revenue comes to the district if there was a need Bruce can you find out if we need someone there over the summer I'm not saying we need someone there but I'm saying if there's someone here over the summer I guess you're wondering a little bit more about why do we need someone here over the summer to do that I guess I'm just trying to say as I look at the other schools and the way they're staffed in the summertime I don't really believe that Stockbridge needs that well we can talk about whether Rochester needs what it has but I don't think that Stockbridge needs that do you think Rochester needs it Lisa does things that a lot of other people don't do and that's what I'll say about that because she's been delegated those things and that's part of her job I don't know I'd have to parse that out to find out so this is the conversation we're back to the idea of what business office functions are being duplicated locally here and should we be paying for that and can we make an accurate assessment of that in this budget cycle and the other thing I will say and it's the same situation with some other positions that I mentioned these folks they're called administrative assistants but they're really sort of the faces of the school it's the first person you see when you walk in the first person you follow and you want to rent or anything like that again for some of these folks if the position isn't full time it will be a revolving door on those positions there will be people coming and going because most people need full time employment and so that's always the balance on the other side of what are we saving if we go from 1.5 to 0.85 we may not be saving anything we may be just needing to hire someone every couple of years for that position Lisa also I don't know how it goes on in other schools but she also tracks all the inventory receives all the stuff that comes in in the summer all the teacher supplies does all that piece, sends all that paperwork yeah I was going to say we need supplies we need to track it and then to receive when the principal was full time they were in the building they were in the building with the summer having work been associated with the school that didn't have a full time principal and didn't have a full time administrative assistant there was a fairly significant amount of loss over the summer stuff was delivered only to find out when they came in at the end of August to open it up this is gone, that's gone, this isn't here we don't know if it was ever delivered we don't know if it got misplaced we don't know what but there's a fair amount of materials that come in in schools in the summer that really need to be monitored and again Stockbridge too yeah it may also be that part of Lisa's job is now going to be receiving everything for Stockbridge and so that we can just show up in August and just pick up all our stuff that's been accumulated I mean there's I don't think I don't think we need to get equal number of EPS deliveries but I mean we can offload some of our we can maybe offload some of our work on to Lisa we can receive things the part that concerns me the most is like I said I never understood why Pittsfield paid an assessment for a central office and then paid someone to do the work that they were paying the assessment for the central office for the site that I think is the most let me address that it seems like there's a gashan understanding of it I think I can fill it very quickly I doubt that there was any duplication of efforts different tasks in the process were happening correct so the assessment that would be in charge for that time for Pittsfield they were not paying for the same work to be done there which was already being paid for over here just like now does the work that she's doing now I would assume because this happens in most of the schools in our district in most of the districts in Vermont is that at the school level there's an interest in maintaining some kind of control over the ordering of supplies and things so what that means is that a small piece of the business function happens at the local school level so a teacher will come and say I want to order these books or these crypt markers or whatever it is or the principal will say that I need to register or whatever and then it needs to be entered in as a purchase order and typically in a school district in a supervisor union that entry level happens at the school because that's where the information is correct and that's where people want to have the most control over it so as we implement our new accounting software that in the design so far I haven't heard this opinion from anybody else the design is for that sort of process to continue at the local level there will be somebody in every school in every district who will be responsible for interacting between the teaching staff or the staff of the school and the ordering process they don't do any other kind of business function besides that but I'm aware of I mean they did but that's what I mean I don't know what these functionality is I was just saying and then the design that's being implemented with the new software and which is going to become more efficient because a lot of the process can be done digitally some of that for example there will not enter a purchase order it's going to enter in requisitions here and the requisitions will administratively be turned into purchase orders and the approval process will all be done digitally I hope that includes board members being able to sign warrants digitally that's important I'm hoping that you'll speak to your colleagues who will support that notion because I would love to have that because the amount of time we spend waiting for board members to come in because they got busy lives we understand that and then pour through the documents there we are hoping that learning of board but for district treasurers I said that for the camera district treasurers will also be willing to join the digital age so that all the information that a board member would need and that a district treasurer would need they would still get but it will be digital and when they're satisfied and reviewed and satisfied that they can fill their functions and their signature will be digitally recorded in the accounting software as the principle for approving requisitions would be so when the principle presses the button it will automatically go on it will go to the next step and then it will be available for the board I get that there's no duplication there may be an additional step that Lisa may be able to do some analysis can do it sometimes the principle says how much have we got left on the supply line she can do that and they will go to the administrative system and they know how they've been trained and we will do this for the new software to go in and print out a report sure and I would hope that everyone, every administrative system could do that I just want to make sure that the functions that were not it's like going to the restaurant and saying okay well don't worry waiter I'll go back and grab my food and I'll bring that food back and it's a duplication I do not know what Lisa does it's very busy I don't know but I know she is very busy what roles have been given to her and are any of them business office roles that should be done by your team let me say that there's a great advantage to districts and to schools and districts for having business services centralized it may not be obvious to people if you want to look at my inbox and my email you wouldn't understand that being a business manager it's not simply making sure that checks are properly signed or properly issued for bills that come in properly there's all sorts of body of knowledge I don't know how they are the person whose business function can keep track of all the things that are changing at the state level I suspect that they don't in their defense they were a non-operating district so they were dealing with for the record they just note that it's a non-operated district which means that no students none of those reports that operative districts have to do right but they did they did handle they were not they were writing their own tuition checks for example they were doing all of that and then it actually what the previous business manager or two business managers three business managers said about that was that it was actually more work for her office to deal with the fact that these tuitions had been reconciled and dealt with separately and doing all the report that needed to be done on that so it was actually a lose-lose let's just look at the small picture the big picture is that the state requires these many reports and that every time you've got a manual or an alternative system over here that physical system manually ended into the accounting software in order to generate the so it's not just talk about Rochester and Stockbridge I think we are talking about Rochester and Stockbridge I think this is a really important point and I hope you're listening carefully because the question was raised are we in fact paying in Rochester twice for the same service and I think you need to understand what the breadth and the depth of the services are that you're getting for repentance there's a very small portion of what it would cost you if you had to pay for somebody to be doing it here correct, which is why if she's doing functionality that should be done for a pittance in your office that would be the way to do it sounds like some of this functionality is more of a district, Rochester and Stockbridge but it's certainly just Rochester that would be doing it well some of it, like I said, if she's here in the summer it seems silly for you know, to tell UPS that they can only come on Tuesdays when the principal is there UPS can just come here so we could pay someone full time and have Rochester delivered to Stockbridge so I think the important point was it could happen, why not that is the difference between the school and the district from a financial and a budget point of view that's a very important distinction to understand especially in the new situation because it was always true of Stockbridge but it now will become true of Rochester that the secondary students who are residents in Rochester used to be part of the Rochester school they are no longer part of the Rochester school they are part of the district and so there's district activities that will need to be done for them such as paying tuition and things like that verifying residents all sorts of things a lot more than you can imagine so the difference between the school and the district is it can become sharper as we move into this unified district it's being sharper for Stockbridge than it's being for Rochester especially in Vermont where so many districts have just one school in them I've worked in a number of them but if you work in Burlington as I have as business manager and you have five elementary schools the whole question of equity between schools it takes on a different flavor so it seems like there should be some efficiencies but there are some feelings about equity because that's what was being discussed about half an hour earlier tonight and it's important for people in this port to understand you're not reinventing the wheel it's really been happening out there and people out there have found strategies to measure equity and to feel equity because the emotions around this road tonight have been very sharp at times and it's understandable we're in transition things are changing and we are aiming for a point where we can talk about things without getting all choked up and I'm not pointing a finger at anybody I'm not you may think that I'm pointing a finger at you but I'm not because they were feelings all around the room it's not easy work all around the room but you're not the only one who had feelings yet tonight you express them in your way and we respect that I don't think everybody around here looks down on you for expressing your feelings that way I certainly don't quite the opposite I really think that once people go through stuff like this and you come out the other side you're stronger I think what you need to hear is that the systems that you are struggling to figure out how to work here are systems that are being struggled with in other places and they found a variety of solutions not just one solution and you will find the solution that works here just as first branch the solution that works there and White River Unified District we've got four unified districts and each of you are going to find different ways to deal with equity and budgeting and all the other things that come and the other thing that starts happening and again I'm going to speak from experience of over the mountain is that these are all our kids your kids are 15 miles down the road from Austin our kids are 15 miles down the road from you seven or nine well but they're all I don't believe any Stockbridge board member sitting here doesn't care about Rochester's kids and I don't believe any Rochester board member sitting here doesn't care about Stockbridge's kids so if the last question we ask ourselves on every decision is how is this good for our kids I think we'll keep chugging along and moving forward let me jump to the very last road 268 269 I'm forgoing to the last road Jenny wants to go to 269 it's pass over you guys I got to go to brisket so the attempt here is to develop an indicator that is useful for reviewing equity there are five I think five major counts of students some of them are one-day counts some are multiple-day counts some are averaging, some are averaging for a couple of years some are talking about the students that are physically in the building and some counts are for those that you're responsible for so for example in the ADM the average daily membership is not the number of heads that are in the building so we find a significant anomaly between ADM and Rochester for the most recent one compared to the enrollment the number of heads that you have the number of students that you're actually educating in your building that you need a music teacher for and an art teacher for and supplies for so the attempt here was to use the count which the state calls the enrollment it's a technical term it's not what anybody thinks it means when the state talks about enrollment they're talking about one in this kind of context it's a total one count it's a specific it's a membership it's not in attendance so if you counted the heads you would get it wrong it doesn't matter if it's in attendance or not there's a concept of membership in a school some of you have enrolled and registered in a school and those terms are used interchangeably in some places and quite differently in other places in Bramite but the bottom line is who is the responsible for educating the homeschools they're not the responsible they're the responsible of the district and not the school and the district is responsible for accounting for the education of those kids who are homeschooled in order to do homeschooling in the state of Bramite you need to get permission from the H.C. of Education and that gets reviewed by the superintendent and perhaps the principal whoever else gets them so there are people who are not enrolled in this school who this district is responsible for as well as the grades that are not being operated so what this number does is October 1 count talks about the students who actually are members of this school not the homeschool not the tuition kids going to another place it includes the tuition kids who are coming here because these are the students who are sitting in front of the music teacher music teacher needs to have the resources and time to address the music educational needs of those kids who are here they include the residence kids social needs kids and the state place kids and the different kinds of kids who might be in a group and they're all included in the enrollment so that's what this attempt is it's not a question of money tomorrow can you just check how many kids are in the school that's not the question that's not an appropriate question because first of all it's the one they count and secondly the attendance and the membership of two different concepts so David what is the 251 the difference between the number of the Rochester and the 85 so what is that so this area is called student transportation anytime students being transported at cost for any purpose there should be a space here so if they're going on a field trip there should be a student transportation on a field trip if they're going on an athletic trip they should connect the student transportation if they're going to turn from home from home to school to back or going between schools or two different locations or going to receive a psychological service at another campus or the group going to be part of the chorus or the band in another place that'll show up here one shop and an instruction will show up here at the student transportation so I can answer part of that question there's interest and this would be something we should check with our stock bridge colleagues on but there's interest on aligning the Boston Boston Science Museum there's an interest in having youngsters from a particular grade level from both schools go to that trip we wouldn't fill up a bus we'd be using one bus the cost for our Boston for the Rochester Boston trip is already in there so I just decided there's no need to double it for the state that was in there that's all that knows a lot of other stuff in there but the Boston trip is in there one I'm asking is why is stock bridge not well we didn't divide it I guess would be the only answer the other answer is that the principle of stock bridge when I know who that is that's my question that's my question what has been done on the stock bridge side for a quality review of making sure that these are equal I've asked that question twice and I'm ready to answer it I've sat down with each one of the teachers well that's one of the items is the field trip well I know for a fact that the fifth and sixth grade teacher asked for $4,000 for the field trips that was one of the things let me just interrupt for field trips that money is in here but not for transportation for field trips so for some people they think that field trips includes everything goes with and what I'm saying and I'll say it again any time there's an expense for student transportation it needs to be separate from the function that is supported so that's not the way the acting stock bridge principle needs to review this and my guess is that some of that 2007 is actually passing David I'm just asking why excluded why online 251 is there just nothing for the stock stock because nobody indicated student transportation for field trips it may be assumed that it was in the field trip total but it wasn't communicated to me we can communicate that we'll get that squared away could it be could it be I sat down with each one of the teachers and I asked them what they wanted in field trips and there is a number on that sheet that David's looking at that has it what I'm saying I'm going to raise my voice so everybody can listen to me please this is not the fourth time I think I'm saying it student transportation some people in the education world is not separated from the cost of a field trip the state of a mind requires it to be separated so that's why it's not in so the dollar number is in in the categories anything that was on the sheet is in there it's just not in student transportation so what needs to happen is we need to separate that out we need to figure out when the teachers were making an estimation and giving Bruce those numbers for field trips we're going to look up in the transportation in there in which case that light item for field trips wherever it was back under instruction would go down because that number incorrectly $15,000 in stock which is $1,700 more than in righteous sure and there's in row 35 it's 3060 and it's 5500 in Stockard's field trip so this is what we need to what I want to make sure we understand is that it's not that the Stockard's field trip line the transportation is zero it's just mish-entered into the spreadsheet versus it's number that's not been put in there because we I think where a lot of the concern comes from besides the equity piece is that budget draft 3 totaled certainly it's been refined we've gotten much better data on tuition but budget draft 3 totaled $3,969,941 basically $3,970 but this budget draft 5 goes to $4,283 so it's a big jump and certainly a lot of that is getting to tuition right and so I'm not too scared of that number went up but I'm scared if it goes up too much more when I do some just back of the napkin calculating the average tuition for that $4,000,000 assuming that the revenue doesn't change substitute that $4,000,000 figure for the budget expenditure line on the Act 68 sheet it moves the per pupil cost from 156 to 173 so now we're getting pretty close to the cap and I like I said let's not get too worked up by those numbers I just banged them on an iPhone really fast and I could have made a mistake and certainly this is using older revenue figures and not over but my concern is if that 173 is close we're now $500 under the cap so we're getting up there because for example tonight I discovered that there is revenue for rental income in Stockbridge that I was not aware of and if you look in the revenue thing you'll see that there is zero revenue that's why I tried to caveat and I'll do it again it's a back of the napkin calculation but what I was concerned with the field trip again is that it's a bigger difference if line 15 and line 35 are going to go down the two field trip lines from K6 and from a pre-K if those lines are going to go down to fill the obviously missing the kids aren't walking to field trips in Stockbridge so if those lines are going down and that line is going up that's okay hopefully that's the way it is I just want us to make sure that that's where that goes because I don't want us to have an inter-campus transportation last time that would be my next question because everybody talks about you said the transportation assessment line is now 252 can only be home to school to home correct I was never trying to say that it can only be so the assessment is only based on the costs of getting to a product so one of the things that we had asked field trips and athletics are all built directly to the time correct and so the piece that we were getting at and I thought when you explained this to me last time was that it's not a field trip it's not an athletic trip it's a schlepping the kids up here to do whatever it is they're doing up here schlepping the kids down there to do whatever it is they're doing down there but those trips for those trips they would have to be in a non-assessment line so I think we need you guys for the next budget revision we need some thought to be given to how much how much money are we putting in this budget to move the kids between the campuses because I can't see that being there's going to be some kind of regular activities even if they're not weekly if they're monthly or whatever I can't see that being an insignificant figure just getting an idea of how much we're going to do that you make a new one I think well I think there's two questions this seems like a simple question there's actually two questions what line would it be on and could be put on a separate line so that board members could see this is for a different kind of expense from a point of view of accounting it would be the same line would be the same code as field trips because the function so in the accounting world part of the code is the function the function is instruction it doesn't matter whether the instruction is going for field trip or instruction for band or instruction for math class combined math class so there would be a difference in terms of there's an element of the account code for the program so if it was athletics it would have a different so there are nine different elements to the account construction and one of them is to do with the program so if it was a field trip for instruction would it be a kind of a program is it for medial work is it for athletics is it for clubs so there's different codes for different things from a state point of view they need to know what is the purpose of this transportation so it could be on a different line but with the same code or it could have a separate project so it would distinguish between two so whatever the board needs to see in terms of what we spoke of yesterday at the education committee meeting the teachers have been talking about maybe a monthly or five months so we could maybe estimate a five monthly I'm not sure if we could use it in an average there was one at stock it's 90 cents a mile 11 dollars and 50 cents an hour for the program and there you have it how many times do you want to do it so 50 dollars per trip maybe probably not much more than that and the teachers were asking for twice a month so that's a thousand dollars if you put 100 in for 10 months I was going to say 2,000 but we don't need 2,000 as your business manager I do not do back on the cigarette packet cocking issues we'll put them in the spreadsheet they may get used we spoke of it yesterday was there anything that you guys spoke about that would impact the budget like if I don't know we had a separate line item for like special programming for like stem initiatives we talked about stem initiatives we talked about drama be ashamed if we're all excited but then we don't have the money and that's why I don't want to get excited at my education committee meeting and not at the money zone and then we talked we spoke yesterday about moving winter wellness into the budgets for both campuses I'm not sure if that reflects that thank you that was one of my questions this is where Chester's winter wellness mileage traveling bus drivers is in the bussing or field trip we talked yesterday we were talking about actually putting all the field trips in the budget because we're getting an increasing number of kids who can't afford it and this way it won't have to be a stigma the field trips are just paid for so those kids don't have to feel that they can't go everybody is so putting it in the budget now rather than asking PTO parents can't do it that's a good idea so from an accounting point of view it doesn't have to be either or I know it's a common thinking for one school district for the PTO to really want to do something and do some fundraising and to pay for something but there's nothing which says that PTO cannot contribute that money into the school district so I think one of the most dangerous things from a budget point of view is to have an off-line budget which is what a lot of PTO spending is and so for five years they pay for the six grade trip going off to to Boston and then they don't pay and suddenly well don't we have it in the budget we always have it in an off-line budget just like military budget please don't compare us to go even at our worst even at our worst we're not that bad Jamie there was also talk of QA I don't know QA didn't try to get to your processor that's easily to come by and what the teacher Ali wanted to do I put another $500 in he wanted to take his kids to a zoo somewhere there's no reason why Rochester couldn't join up with that Rochester goes to Park Safari and Stockbridge could join or if there's another place that Stockbridge is going to we could go with their trip I don't know where the zoo is I think that's really important when I saw the picture in the newspaper of the pre-K's coming together and it was a nice size number there was a mixture there that they could socialize with it was really great I do that my daughter from home is ecstatic she's 5 she helped me all the time she's very happy she doesn't have a lot of girls in her class I was very happy to have the opportunity so I'm sorry the winter wellness is the rest of it in regular field trips you've got the transportation part now the cost part what type is that that program is very yes it is I'm a big supporter of that it's something that I think should really support in our community is considering we're in an out core recreational area that's always been a big thing it's been 35 35 in 35 that's something you're going to there's something you have that's whatever we think they're going to charge next year it was due to the fact that you guys needed volunteer and there wasn't volunteer at all oh because it has your transportation so it wasn't like a yeah we said that it wasn't so just didn't want that's who we're at we discussed we discussed that on the transportation now I'm going to use any point we're losing our whole school we're going from K-12 to a K-6 we do have some hardships going on the biggest disparities is the numbers we got a problem there could be an explana