Public recovery board of directors meeting. Um, so first order is, uh, public comment. Do we have anyone. Live or virtually would like to get public comment. Yes. Yes, if you do, please come up to the front. And, uh, All right, I'm Carmen standard. And that's gave growth man and we're some representatives from earth group at the high school. Um, so we came here as you may remember last year to discuss the like implementation of a net zero plan for the school district. Um, Currently the city of Montpelier has one by excludes the school district and we're some of the biggest emitters of carbon in the city. And we're just thinking that especially since we have some extra funds this year, it's like an especially good time to think seriously about. So in the past, we have discussed, uh, forming like a committee to come up with a plan to do so because it's been a long time. Um, and we'd be really excited and happy to work with the school board on a way to make that come to person. I don't know if Gabe has anything to add. I mean, yeah, just that it's like a pretty big opportunity right now to, um, To use some of this money to, um, take a better look at how we heat the school and where energy comes from. Um, and to the point about, uh, how this affects students like being in health, I think, uh, climate change and the climate crisis in our environment is a pretty big part of, uh, students health and well being and everything like that. Um, and I think that's pretty important and a pretty big part of, uh, what Montpelier stands for. So, um, hopefully we can use this as an opportunity to move that forward. Excellent. Thank you very much. Um, we are definitely thinking about climate and investor funds. And so they're going to talk about more years. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Super partnership. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Excellent. Um, anyone else, uh, for both of them. So onto the consent agenda. Um, So I have a motion to approve the consent agenda every day except for the commission. I would approve that. Is it possible? Um, I don't have a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. No, a second. Uh, Joe Bezer is a tie. I think Joe got it. Um, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Good question. I'm assuming you voted aye. I just say aye. Yeah. Uh, so speaking of the grads. Our second budget presentation. Thank you for coming again. And I'll hand over to you. Great. Okay. Great. I'm sorry. You're a few for one second. Did Anna send you today? New hire. A new one. A new high. She did. Do we need to say it? I don't. I just want to make sure that that gets passed as well. Let's make sure. I did not. Yeah. Hold on. If it was. 246. I'm sorry. I'm not listening to the agenda. So I move to approve the new hire. Hi, sir. Any discussion? Well, is it ever? Hi. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. No, that's fine. So, um, You know, the first presentation is like 40 pages and it's a lot of detail. The second list just changes. So it's not very much. That's the good news. The bad news is the next one is a public forum. So we're back to a big one again. So enjoy tonight while you can. I will tell you that the PDF that you were sent with your board materials, there's been a few real small changes. So what you're going to see on the screen is, has a few different bullets than you might have, but nothing significant. And I'll try to call those out. Okay. Thank you for sharing that briefing. If you could go to the next page. So this is just a reminder. The last presentation included all of the bullets that you see. It is posted on the board's webpage. If you get to the school boards webpage under MRPS. VT.org.  There's a button that says budget. Click on that. And you'll see last time's presentation. It includes all of those details. So the outline for today is much more simple. It's just changes to go over what are still unknowns. Give you a quick glance at what the budget looks like and then go into the tax rates and then remind you of the outlook and give you a summary. Next. Next, Anna. Thank you. So the changes, there's quite a few actually. We talked about it last time that we just got the dollar yield right before we came in here. That dollar yield is fantastic news from a tax rate perspective. So what I'm doing right now is on this presentation, I use the scenario B recommendation, which is the one that's not quite as high. And it's the one that doesn't, does not assume that we're going to use the, that the state will use the full $90 million surplus. So hopefully it's a conservative number and it won't get any worse. So I'm just going to go back to the slide. I'm going to go back to the slide. It does dramatically drop the tax rates. On the flip side, the common level of appraisal. We talked about that a little bit. And the fact that home prices are going through the roof, which means the CLA will drop. And tax rates will go up. We were a little concerned that maybe I hadn't dropped that CLA assumption enough. So I dropped it some more. But I think that's a good point. I just want to make sure that that's the additional 4% that I reduced it will be safe. Roxbury is a little bit of a wild card because last year. Their CLA went up for some unknown reason. And so if there's a correction, they could really drop down. I just don't know. And hopefully we'll know soon. I would say hopefully by the end of the month, maybe. 23rd. Merry Christmas. So we'll see that soon. And for the January 5th presentation, that will be plugged in. So that will be one less thing that's unknown. Also, since the tax rate was coming down a little bit, we talked about the fact that we have five ESER funded positions and the desire we have to try to make sure that those are sustainable to try to pull those into the local funding. One position already had been done at UES. We looked at the other positions and we're looking at this community liaison position thinking this is certainly something we wanna hold on to. It looks like it's a permanent thing that we're gonna need. So we shifted that ESER funded position into local funds. And with those three statements there, you're gonna see later on, and I don't mean to spoil the surprise, but later on you're gonna see that the tax rates from this year to next year right now are pretty much level, which would be fantastic. But there are still those unknown, so I'm a little nervous still, but we'll see. Expenses, so we got a statewide pre-K tuition rate, which was a little bit higher than I assumed. So it increased the cost by $2,000. There's a higher tech tuition rate, but that's an on behalf payment that we see actually an expense and a revenue. So even though the total expense goes up, the revenues went up too, so it really didn't change the ed spending amount. And then there's higher retirement rates. And what that is is the Vermont State teacher retirement, they have an assessment, two different assessments. One is for any federally funded teacher. And so you have to pay a percentage of the salary toward this retirement. That rate was higher than I thought it would be, but that's also another one where that expense goes up, but the revenue does too, because these are federal funds. So there's no change in that spending. Unfortunately, the other assessment relates to new teachers and health benefits. So teachers that are new to the retirement program, we have to pay an assessment to make sure that the health benefits are covered. That was a little higher than I assumed as well. So that did increase the budget and it spending by about 3,000. So not big numbers, thankfully, but a little bit. So Anna, next please. So what is still unknown are the, to me right now, the biggest unknown is equalized pupils. We know our data is gonna be good. So we were hoping that that might mean that we'll see an increase, but it's always a little bit of a mystery for equalized pupils, right? Because equalized pupils, one of the calculations is an equalizing ratio that gets thrown in at the end. So even though we're looking good and maybe increasing, if somebody else is increasing even more, then they might have to bring everybody down a little bit so that the number of equalized pupils equals the actual number of pupils. So because of that little strange kind of witchcraft that happens, I never really know what's gonna happen with equalized pupils until I see it. And then when we do see it, we typically see three or four versions of it. So we have a long way to go for equalized pupils, but hopefully by the fifth, we'll get at least one or maybe two versions so that we can start getting closer to a real number there. So I consultancy to clean up our data around this. So our numbers around equalized pupils that we put towards the state are probably the cleanest we've ever had because there was a lot of weird snappes in our system based on turnover of staff and things like that. So we're pretty confident in the numbers that we gave to the state. Right. And they look good from our end. Yeah, but you look at things like free and reduced population, there's a factor that gets thrown in that really increases your numbers and our free and reduced population isn't really that high and others are. So you could see that maybe others might really be expanding their accounts, which then at the end, if everybody's brought down, even though we're increasing, we may not be increasing. So that's why I'm a little unsure about that. The dollar yield is still on here because even though we have the tax commissioner recommendation, it has to be set by law and that doesn't happen until aftertown meeting day. So that's gonna be an unknown all the way through this process, but we're using a number that I think is as good as we're probably gonna get and it's a good number. So you'll still see this for probably all the way through, but I don't expect that we're gonna actually have a final, final until after everything's done. Common level of appraisal, we talked a little bit about this. Now you can see, I'm assuming a drop of 6.4% in Montpelier and 8.2 in Roxbury. As I said, I'm pretty confident that that Montpelier assumption is gonna be safe. But Roxbury, just because there's a weird factor in Roxbury that was causing some problems, so much so that even though they were around 100%, which means you shouldn't have to worry about a reappraisal, they are reappraising because there was a problem with their calculation. So I really don't know about that. I'll be relieved when I see that number on the 23rd. And the other unknown is Tech Center, six semester average. That one I do think has a good chance of being higher than what we assumed. And for every kid that it goes up, it's about $18,000 or so. So if we're off by a few kids, that could be $35,000 to $40,000. So there could be a little bit of an unpleasant surprise or expenses in that area, but we'll have to see. All right, Anna, please. So out of grants, there's like $2,000 or $3,000 may be difference from what you had in your original packet. Compared to December 1st, the total budget is going up 4.5% now. If you remember, it was 4.4 before. The ed spending was showing, I think, 3.5 last time and it's up to 4% now. And a big part of that is that position that we shifted from federal funds to local. So even though that didn't increase our expense budget because it was already in there, it reduced our non-tax revenues, which meant our ed spending went up. But once again, we did that because the dollar yield looked good and we thought it would be a good time to put that in and get that position sustained. Equalized pupils is highlighted, obviously, because we still don't know. And spending for pupil increases about 4%. Just so you have a point of reference though, the excess spending threshold this year is $19,977. So we are over $2,000 under the threshold. So we're in great shape for the foreseeable future. Next, please, Anna. And actually, you can go one more. So the tax rates, the next one, please. There we go. I'm not gonna go through the terminology because we did this last time, but anytime I show the tax rate calculation, I try to keep this chart in there so that people have this for reference. So this just spells out the terms and what they mean. And so if you get asked any questions, you can have some answers. The actual calculation, you saw the top part in that at a glance. What you didn't see was the property dollar yield being thrown in here, and then the tax rate. And let's see, the common level of appraisal is still highlighted, but it's 4% lower than the last time you saw it. And the important thing that people will look at is the very bottom line, the residential tax rate with CLA. You can see for Montpelier 1.772 compared to this current year at 1.774. And then Roxbury 1.47 compared to 1.466. So both of those are within a penny. If you round it off, it's not even a penny. So that would be great if this is where we end up. I did call out in those text boxes kind of the impact of some of this so that you kind of get a feel for it. For instance, if the property dollar yield hadn't increased, if it was the same, then the tax rate would be 21 to 25 cents higher than it is. That's a huge amount. The merger incentive having to absorb that loss of two cents of an incentive is about two and a half cents when you factor in the CLA. And then the drop in CLA is huge. If the CLA was level, Montpelier's tax rate would be almost 14 cents lower and Roxbury's would be almost 12 cents lower. So you'll see big swings go in the opposite direction. The dollar yield is a favorable impact, CLA and the loss of that merger incentive is a negative. But when everything is all factored in together and settles out, it's less than a penny. And we're able to pull that community liaison position into the local budget. Now, realize, as I mentioned, some of those things are still unknown. So some things could still change. So I don't want to get too excited yet, but right now we're looking good. Next, Anna, the next slide shows the tax rate impact. I'm afraid Anna has a hard time hearing me through the system here. There we go. Since the estimated tax rates were pretty much level as you saw in that last slide, the impacts are really minimal. So you can see for every $100,000, Montpelier would have a $3 decrease in a tax bill. For Roxbury, it's a $4 increase because it's 0.3 cents and 0.4 cents. So very minimal changes and we'll keep refreshing this as we have changes in the tax rates. So next, please. And the next slide that you're gonna see is that tax rate history that shows you the line charts and basically is a reminder that we're in pretty good shape compared to where we were before we merged. So in fact, if you look at this, the only negative trend is Montpelier's tax rate with CLA factored in, which we can't control the CLA. Everything else looks good compared to when we merged. Montpelier's tax rate without CLA is 15 cents lower than back in 18. And in Roxbury, even if you factor in CLA, which we can't control, it's 25 cents lower than before we merged. So each year, you may kind of have a different perspective, but if you go all the way back to before the merger, we're doing pretty good. Next, please. Oh, okay, so I should just start talking. Yeah, just start talking and it'll come up. So the next slide is the outlook slide, which was provided in the last briefing. I just leave it in here because it's good to keep these things in mind because you don't only wanna think about the budget you're building, you wanna think about the budget you're building and what the next budget and the budget after that might look like as far as tax rates and managing things. So I just wanted to remind people, reappraisals are happening right now. That'll be a big impact next year. Montpelier should see a big drop in their tax rate.  So a higher value with a lower rate will probably keep you at about the same place, but the tax rate itself will go down significantly. Libby's talked about the new equalized pupil count and the waiting that they're, the waiting study. When that hits, it could decrease our numbers dramatically because as I mentioned, some of our percentages aren't as high as other places. So like free and reduced percentage is lower than maybe some others, ELL may not be as high as others. So we could actually see a drop in equalized pupil count. My hope is that if that is significant, it will be transitioned across time. If it's a drop of say 50 kids, that it would be maybe 10 kids per year for five years or something along those lines. Some kind of a hold harmless in the legislation perhaps. Enrollment and staffing, we've talked about this. Enrollment is pretty stable. In the higher grades, we're still seeing that increase. In the lower grades is where we're seeing the decrease, but overall we're pretty stable. The merger incentive, this is the last year we have to worry about absorbing that impact of the two cents being gone, because we're already at zero. So that's not gonna be an issue in the future. So the next slide is just the budget summary that talks about the total budget increase is four and a half and spending is four. Spending per pupil is four, which makes sense because I haven't changed our equalized pupil count yet because I don't know what that's gonna be. Residential tax rates, that's the good news for tonight. It's a decrease of 0.3 cents in Montpelier. And if you remember last time we talked, it was looking like it could be as much as 9.3 cents increase. So fantastic. In Roxbury, it's a 0.4 cent increase instead of a 9.7 increase. And then the next slide is just a reminder that our ARP ESSER plan is public and can be found at the URL that shows up on the slide for anybody to start digging into. Some of that would come into play is not part of our budget. The only thing in our budget is the ESSER funded positions, the proposed ESSER funded positions that we've talked about, which is a small amount of the ESSER funds. But if we start talking about projects, including the projects that our students, which is talking about, that might come into play in the ESSER funds that aren't necessarily part of the budget or in infrastructure funds, which aren't part of the budget. And then the last slide is actually kicking it back to you. If you have any questions or concerns that I should be looking at between now and the fifth, which is, I guess technically we call it a public forum. So if there's anything you need from me or any questions, I'll be happy to try those. So I'm gonna open up a question.  My son is playing in a concert. Have fun. I'm about to start. They're gonna turn over to you, Andrew, and I will, I'm gonna actually gonna take my stuff in case it stops as long as this board meeting is shorter than anticipated, but I'll turn over to you, Andrew. And thank you very much, Grant. It was an excellent presentation and the tax news is always good to hear. Yeah. Thank you. Have fun, Jill. I just had a quick question and this may not be something you can answer. I feel like I just read this week that there was some court decision about teacher health care benefits and the required payment. Maybe Montpelier-Roxbury already provides health care. It's something about the co-pays increasing for some school districts because of this court case, I don't know. Is it arbitration? Yeah. The statewide arbitration, that is happening and we should be in pretty good shape there. One thing is it doesn't take effect until it's based on a calendar year. So it would only be half of this year that we're talking about because it would be January 1st of 2023. And most of what I've seen in the statewide agreement is in alignment with what we offer. The only difference was an out-of-pocket maximum amount that I'm trying to think of was it teachers and administrators and it was like $200 less out-of-pocket. Yeah, so for the teachers and administrators, it's like $200 for a single plan and $400 for a two-person or family plan that is lower for them, which we would have to bump up. So worst case scenario for some of our employees for half the year, we may have a little bit more money that we would have to kick in for like the HRA HSA. But the other thing is, as you know, we've talked about this before, we don't see 100% utilization of our HRAs and HSAs anyway. So I'm not overly concerned, but it is a factor that, between now and the fifth, we might look at it again. And if we think it's enough of a risk, we might plug something else in, but I think we'll be okay. I think there's a lot of other districts that maybe are in worse shape than us maybe. And Grant, I just want to provide clarification for the public and any members of the board who aren't familiar. This is the second statewide teachers health care agreement that is being put in place. The first was two years, right? Yeah. We're in the middle of it right now. It's like two and a half, but really two calendar years, I think. Yeah, that's right, two and a half. And that was a change before that health care agreements were negotiated at the individual district level. It didn't impact our district very much, that change. And it isn't actually, I think a large driver is the teachers, the NEA, but it impacts all employees. And everything I've seen for all support service, support employees, it's identical to what we have now. It's only teachers and administrators that is a little different for out-of-pocket max. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Mia. I have another clarifying one on the, this is actually on the answer public plan, which I know we're not talking about right now, but just because they do kind of intersect with the budget, there's a great list of all the different sources of federal funding, section three of it. The very last one is called other funding sources to achieve recovery goals and is also like $2.5 million, whereas our best are three is 2.23. I was just curious, what are some of those funding sources? Is that the line that has the potential for infrastructure and infrastructure package? Where are you?  I say, you should be able to do that. That's my cursor. I'm actually, I have my arm. I'm in section three. It's the grid that starts with the, has like funding source allocation. That's actually, I believe that's a 2.553, but then the context for S or three. Is in the notes. Yeah. And then S or three is listed above. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. Okay, so remember. Thanks Mia. Yeah. I clicked on the context. I was like, oh, I know this. Good. That was, that's like local funds. Remember, we talked about how when we first started the S or S or conversation, it was like, it was really important to put the goals of the recovery through the lens of what we are currently doing and how much local funds we're currently spending and things like social work, people like social workers, guidance counselors. So that context there, that document was from this budget year, next budget year, but this budget year for the buckets that the recovery plan was in. Remember we had that conversation. Got it. So the 2.5 million, our local funds we are spending this year, that meet some of the requirements or whatever. Okay. So it's not money we can expect coming in. No, it's not new money. It's money we are already spending. Okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you. That should probably be clear in the public plan. I'll make a note to myself. All right. Brad, you mentioned the one position that moving out of ESSER. Does that mean we lose out on the ESSER funds or? No, that position was actually funded for, we planned to fund it for two years using ESSER 2 money. So it actually opens up ESSER 2 money for something else. And we'll see what we're gonna talk about that maybe next week to see what else we might wanna do with that availability. ESSER 2 is a little more flexible even than ESSER 3. So it doesn't stop us from using it, we'll use it, we'll just use it for something else. But the exciting thing for me is I've seen how important that position is. And now to know that it's not relying on federal funds anymore, I can breathe a sigh of relief that it is, it's gonna be in the budget now and it'll be secure. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I was just curious. Yeah, we'll be looking at what we wanna, so if we freeze up ESSER 2 funds, so we've actually been talking the last couple of weeks or the last couple of days, if we move the communities on that ESSER 2, what then will we use ESSER 2 fund because the deadline for applying for all of those funds for ESSER 2 is coming up. Yeah, it's coming up. So not to use that, but to apply for that. So we've been talking about that for instance, one idea we have the next question, right? The internet outages that we were experiencing the last two weeks was due to our security cameras. And archaic security cameras across the district having to upload new software to try to support them that totally messed up our internet and opened us up to some outside discrepancy trying to get into our system, which is why our internet was so deep for over a whole week and a half. So we've talked about upgrading our security systems or our security camera system across the district maybe because of that.  So there's no way, there's nobody providing service to help with any kind of problems we have. So that's kind of a top duck. And so we're, it's an expense, it's a big expense of what we're using to pay mixed salaries. And ironically enough, so we were like, would that be something that, so we wouldn't have to, you know, pop up fund balance for that, couldn't put that, that's just an idea that we're throwing around. Is that something that would be invisible for us? I think so, we're not positive. That's a question that we're still working on. We think so. I really, we've come up with an argument or two. I like that approach too, because we're taking that ongoing structural cost building it into the budget, especially in such a good budget year, like we're experiencing and then using that money for. And that would be a one-time, that would be a relatively longer duration, one-time expense, which would be perfect for a certain price. So that does make sense. Just out of curiosity, maybe you mentioned equalized pupils and we had outside consulting form to come in. Just out of curiosity, was that a net, what was the net effect that you guys figured out? Well, the equalized pupils, okay, went up or because of that, it went down? Well, no, it went up. It went up. Our count went up. Okay. So we are now counting more pupils than we have to count. That's a very, yep. So we'll see if it nets out with what the ALE comes back with in terms of equalized pupils, but, but yeah. So how does this work that we submit this and then the ALE has to approve it? Are they correct? No, we submit it. My grandfather knows better than I do. We submit it and then they have some mathematical formula that nobody quite understands, except for Brad James. Yeah, exactly. So I've got the ALE and they spread out the equalized number to us. So what we submit is basically the average daily membership. And so we submit that for last year. Yeah, last year and we just submitted it for this year. So our data that we feed in is the average daily membership. And that's the data that we know now is good solid data, whereas we were having problems before. The challenge and why I say it's kind of a mystery is because once that kicks in, I have no idea, you know, Brad James is a person at the agency of education. He puts that in and then he collects the data on all the free and reduced percentages, the ELL percentages, the pre-K numbers for every district, runs that across and puts in all those weighted factors, applies all those. And then it comes out to a number and that number would end up being like 113,000 kids. And then of course, there's only like 90,000 kids in Vermont. So then he applies some factor to everybody to bring it down to 90,000. So that's why even though we might have our ADM each year going up and I get all excited thinking, oh, I can't wait to see the equalized people, if other people have even bigger increases or bigger percentages for some of those weighted factors, even though our ADM goes up, our equalized people could end up in there. So it's a really almost impossible thing. I mean, if you get frustrated by the tax rate calculation, you'd really get frustrated by trying to make sense of the equalized people count. But our piece is that ADM, and because of this company that we've begun working with, we feel really good about the quality of our data. So if it goes down, it's not gonna be because of us. It'll be because of just statewide factors. Okay. Thanks. Andra, I have a lot of questions. Well, first I want to thank you for everything that you do all the time. Thank you for the terminology. That was really helpful to just have that. And for the tax rate history, that was very helpful for me. And then I have a new big question around the conservative numbers and what your experience has been when you play with those numbers being conservative, like what happens once you put in the numbers, the budget passes and then, so what is the... Yeah, last year we actually looked at some of this because last year we had a dollar yield. Was it just last year? Because I actually looked really good one year because I didn't use the dollar yield that the tax commissioner provided. And it wasn't because the tax commissioner made an error. It's just because we knew some economic factors had changed. So I used a more favorable dollar yield and it ended up being within like $3 at the very end. So that was a good thing. The problem this year is I have never seen since we started with the new way to calculate, I've never seen a dollar yield do what this is looking like it's gonna do. It's never gone up by that much. So when I say conservative, I'm taking the lower number out of the recommendation. If I took the higher number than the tax rate would even be lower, but it's just so unheard of that the dollar yield has gone that high in one year. That's why I'm a little nervous about doing that. Whereas in the past I have not been afraid of using a higher yield, but this year I just don't have any kind of, any insight that would lead me to believe that I should vary from what's in there. So a conservative number there is not helping the tax rate. A more aggressive number would make the tax rate lower. For CLA, I'm taking a conservative, fairly conservative number because I think the CLA has a real chance this year of dropping dramatically because now we have two really high sales data numbers out of the three years because it's three year average. Two out of three years now are gonna be really high sales numbers. So I'm trying to be a little conservative there to make sure that we don't get a bad surprise. The good news is through the CLA we're gonna know that pretty quick. And so on January 5th when we do the public forum that's one big unknown that will be known. So then it's really just whether we have any insight and Andrew is better at this than me but at some point if there's more insight into the statewide economic health that leads us to believe that we should do something different for that dollar yield then we'll bring that to you. I will tell you that almost every colleague I have they use the tax commissioners number. And the AOE unofficially recommended that we use the lower number. And I think it would make sense if I was king for a day, this is a great number and tax rates are in a good place. This is a great opportunity to capture that $90,000 surplus and put it in the bank while we have a chance. So I'm hoping that that's what they do. Was there any other conservative number that was? Yeah, no, I'm just trying to translate it into what happens. So once it passes, our numbers are, like those unknowns are gone. The only, whenever we go in for the informational hearing the day before town meeting, everything is going to be solid with the exception of the dollar yield which gets set by law. And it's always like that. The legislature sets it after voters vote on budgets. And a lot of times it does end up getting set higher than what it's frustrating because you fight to try to get a budget passed with a tax rate that ends up being higher than what it really is. But this year, I just don't know how it's going to play out. In recent years, there have been budget surpluses and especially before the pandemic because the economy was performing at a reliably healthy rate and the governor and legislature were coming to agreement on a number of policies which included essentially keeping tax rates pretty level for a number of years. And they did that by boosting the dollar yield from what was initially anticipated. That's like high level kind of explanation. Now the one number that isn't, well, I guess it might be considered conservative. The equalized pupil count is still an unknown. And by keeping it level, I thought initially maybe I was being conservative but it really is a pure unknown for me. So right now I think the best guess is just to leave it where it was this year and then wait for it. And hopefully we will have a pretty solid number by January 5th on that one too. I expect by next week probably to get at least the first draft from the area. Emma. I mean, I don't have very many questions and I think that's sort of attributed to how clear you have been presenting these budget presentations. So I really appreciate the clarity and sort of the educational tone that you take when you're presenting it to us. It's really helpful. Can you tell me, has there, I mean, as long as I've been following, I don't think I remember seeing a drop in taxpayer, you know, in the amount that people will be paying on their house. Have you seen a drop in the past like 10 years or so? Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just talking to Christina about a chart that we threw in there last year that showed tax rates. I mean, and it's hard because there's two different tax rates, right? Because of the CLA. Roxbury versus Montpelier, but just to take a snapshot, I have a slide that shows the change in education spending from year to year and what that looks like. And then I have in a little text box what the tax rate did that year. In the first year, the, the ed spending went up like a million dollars and the tax rate went down like 0.2. And the next year it was only like a $400,000 increase and the tax rate went up like eight cents or something. There's like no correlation between our spending and the final tax rate. But I will say, I think it was an FY19 the year after the merger, the tax rates were lower. And I don't, there shouldn't have been any kind of reappraisal. So theoretically people should have seen lower tax rates in Montpelier in 19. And I think for several years, Roxbury should have seen it because the year before the merger, they were hit with that excess penalties, excess spending penalty, which meant they got double taxed. So in FY18, their tax rate was really high. And so they have seen decreases. I would say probably in multiple years. But for Montpelier, I think since I've been here, the actual tax rate, I think it's only gone down once. So with any luck, this could be the second. Yeah. I mean, I think people are gonna be really happy and just with the federal funding that's coming our way and the healthy fund balance, it's, we've been able to present a budget that I think is really generous and good for the district and still see a savings. So I'm really impressed with that. My other question, and I don't know if we need to spend time on it tonight, but just based on the public input that we received from the students, I mean, in that moment when they were giving their feedback or their testimony, I was thinking like, is there something that we can give them to sort of like a little bullet point of progress and where we're at and some of the things that are in the excess funding, excess spending proposals that might be speaking to the net zero, you know, mission. And I think the other part of their testimony was to be asking us for an actual policy or a plan. So that could be dealt with separately and maybe the policy committee could reach out to the, it was called the earth group. Yeah. But so I don't know if there's like a very quick like 30 second kind of overview of some of the stuff that we've done, because I know you, I mean, obviously there's windows are happening in the capital plan and I'm sure there's other. Yeah, they also, we buy into a solar field. So we have, I'm not gonna say it exactly right. Yeah. We need Andrew LaRosa here, but we do work with solar field through a student. It was a student presentation who's brought it to us a couple of years ago. And Andrew worked with that student. I think the students have go into it or something like that. But I can get Andrew LaRosa to talk more about that. We also, we couldn't get a contractor to do it, but we have purchased and have ready-to-go heat pumps over at Roxbury. We just couldn't find somebody to do it in the fall. So that's our target to get accomplished. And the heat pumps at Roxbury was something that they presented to us as one of a big thing that could really help. Yep. Yeah. So that will happen. We have them. Yeah. We ordered them. We just can't get anybody to put them in. Yeah. So hopefully that will happen in the spring. Before we did that, we did a lot. We did it. I had Andrew do a mold and just an assessment of air quality at Roxbury too, to make sure that there weren't, you know, we weren't gonna put heat pumps in the high-dose problems because of the moisture that that building can suck in being at the bottom of a hill. So we did that. Big testing and it came out great actually. Came out much better than we actually thought it would. We've also injured Andrew so much better than this. He's looked into different heating sources here and Andrew's professional opinion, we should wait for the infrastructure piece. There's a challenge to it. So when you're talking about different types of heating sources that have been brought to the attention to the board, you're also talking about like putting silos up. And so that would take away from fields. You know, we have a limited amount of space to do some of the work. So Andrew really would like to wait for infrastructure dollars to really think about those kind of big ticket items because they are very expensive to do when you're talking about usage of space that are currently pretty used. If you come out here on a fall day, there's not a green space but there's no a team on it. So we've been talking about that too. And we've spent a considerable money from the CRF bucket which was focused on heating ventilation and air conditioning. And a lot of that was not only just to improve air quality but a little thing like changing to variable speed motors so that like when you didn't need it it would slow down and not use as much electricity. There was a lot of that kind of stuff that was going on that's ventilation related that people wouldn't know about. And I'm sure that, and I'd have to go back but Andrew does, what's the, calls it a facilities plan? Facilities overview, yeah. So there's a lot of stuff in there. There's a lot. And it might be a good thing for him to do a presentation that just focuses on efficiency issues. Because we have done a lot that people wouldn't know because we probably don't do a grade as good of a job as we can trying to toot our own horn like, you know. Every vehicle we have is electric or hybrid. Yeah, well almost, yeah. But like the driver's head vehicle is a complete electric vehicle which we did try to do some press on that but, you know, not a whole lot but we've got hybrid vans. So we've done a lot that, you know we could be better at trying to make sure people knew about it. Yeah, I get that sense. And so I guess that's what I'm hoping to, you know maybe I'll reach out to you, let me just to see if we can maybe circle back to that reference and provide them with some of that information. Yeah, and if the board would like once we get through the budgeting process to how Andrew come do, this is what we've done in terms of work towards climate with our buildings and structures and things we have control over. This is where we could grow should the board want to move in that direction. This is Andrew's opinion of those things because he certainly has them. But we've been more than happy to have him come in to do that. And maybe we can invite the students to that presentation. And Andrew meets with them regularly. So they already know what we're doing. Okay. One of the big things that we do that people might not know is we have, we're part of the district heat with the city. So Union Elementary School gets their heat through the city's district heat, which is I think wood pellet. Yeah. And we're, it actually costs a lot. It costs more than heating other buildings, but that's because it was related to a bond. And so at some point that should come back down. But that is one building that is definitely participating with the city hand in hand. Yeah. But just as a reminder, it's, and you can call it out, it's not really something to do with the budget because what we did was we just put in positions that we really feel strongly about that relate to ESSER, the big chunk of like projects that we could do. We intentionally didn't put in here because, you know, we don't have solid estimates for some of them. We couldn't say that we've really finished all the engagement that we want to do to be able to say these are about projects. And also we haven't gotten approval from the AOE through the grant process to even say if they're valid and they would approve them. But that is a bucket of money that is available. If we can look into it and it makes sense, we certainly could spend it in ways that support that. But yeah, not part of this. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. The big part of this, and this came up in our couple of facilities meetings that we've had. And then the city, I think it's BEIC who just issued this energy audit for the city that looked at public buildings and greenhouse gas emissions. And MSMS and MHS are the largest emitters and it's on the thermal side. It's on the heat side. And the big recommendation coming out of that report, which was kind of higher level. It wasn't super in the weeds, the way some other energy audits are. Like if you were to have an energy audit of your house, it can be given to like that detail. But the recommendation was if we wanted to really reduce greenhouse gas emissions for this building in MSMS, where again, very limited space over there is to put in like biomass boilers. One of the things that came up and I was just talking with Mia about this and I'll keep this really brief, that's come up when I've been talking with people around the community, because I'm not expert at all in pellet boilers, biomass boilers, absolutely not. So I'm not pretending to be an issue that's been brought up to me by some people who work in the public health space as well as in the conservation space is the end of pipe emissions of biomass. If we were to add that to what we already have in the city, they're one public health professional brought up concerns about asthma rates related to these types of systems. So that's something that I think would want to evaluate with the greenhouse gas emission part. It's a difficult situation to be in. How do you keep these large buildings in a way that's healthy for the planet and healthy for the community? I think that's the big question for us, Amanda. It's a different topic. No problem, please, new paragraph. Moving away just like thinking and dreaming and thinking long-term that as we evolve at the board to this community engagement, people coming in to bring in these things that we really should be thinking about how to respond and how to keep tabs somehow of like here's some of the issues that have been brought and give reports like whether it is like really to, like one thing yourself, hey, the community asked about climate. Here are the things we're doing. Hey, the community asked and just to be that engaged with the community. So like we're doing all these things but we should know that we're doing all these things. And so I think like being able to have that as something that we do when we're thinking communication that's part of like a communication strategy. So like just that it is needed to listen and give feedback back, right? Like and have this evolving mechanism long-term that this is how we as a district listens and responds to concerns, ideas and you know what I'm going to do. So I don't know like how to implement that or like what is as a board that we'll put, you know or is that something? Yeah, so that's to draw there because it's so important when budget time comes around just like have that be like we're already doing that and here are the things that we are doing. I wholeheartedly support that statement and just feel like it's been kind of a struggle because we've been doing these listening sessions and with the student listening session for example I emailed everyone the list of things that they have brought up and sort of wanted to fill in the blanks and provide some feedback to the student group of like where we're at as a district or a board on some of their concerns. And it's going to end up taking months to get back to them. It's just the slow, the wheels of democracy turn slowly and we're all very busy. So yeah, I think it would be really great to sort of build in a mechanism to be a little more responsive. I think what the students are planned if I'm not mistaken, Emma after our correspondence lately is we are doing a lot of things already that they're asking for and it's important to highlight that and this budget also incorporates some ideas that students have brought forward. So my plan grant I'll be reaching out about a couple of items, just to back check some things. But our plan is I think late January get back to that big group of students with an overview of what we have been doing and what this budget includes that addresses some of the issues and concerns and priorities that brought to us. Yeah. That's just an example. So community engagement discussion it seems like a good opportunity to pivot there. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Sort of. Yeah, yeah, please. When it comes to identifying the need for individual assistance, which we have many positions. How do you determine where you need one or and how do you, how does that compete with the many opening? You know, how does that? How do you factor in the fact that there are so many positions that can't be filled? Yeah, good question. Because that was part of our discussion as we were planning a budget this year actually. So how would they determine our multiple facets, right? The major one is that the IEP team around a student would decide whether or not a student needed additional instructional assistance support, right? But that's IEP team decision based on a student with special needs. Another might be just a school needs. So for instance, it's really hard to run an elementary school without somebody out there monitoring recess and lunch. And in our teacher contract for union elementary school, teachers don't do that. So you need somebody to do that, right? So it would be an instructional assistant who typically takes on that role. Another thing we thought about that's besides the, let's kind of connect it to the IEP process, but it's not. So we have students, flexible pathways, students who go to all kinds of different things during the day, you have a high school to be right. And so we've talked about, are we paying a faculty member, a teacher or even an administrator pretty high salary to drive students around, right? Could that be done by somebody else? So that's a different piece that we thought about. But this year in particular in the budget conversation, we talked, administrators said, I need an IA for, like driving was a good example for flex pathways. And Grant's able to say, well, we have eight openings right now. We have IEP services covered for the most part right now. Maybe not with the person ideally that we want to cover, but we have them covered. And I use right now abstract, absolutely. I'm looking at Carlin's name on the public. He's one of our absolutely fabulous IAs at Union Elementary School. And they may be fairly strapped. However, we've got the needs covered, but Grant's saying we got eight openings still because we never have ripped any of those positions because it's a union position. So if you lose an IA position, you're riffing it, but we've just continued the budget for it. They just done as I'm filled positions. So when I'm just, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm sorry, production enforced. So instead of adding an IA position to for the van for flexible pathways, Grant's said, could we use one of these open positions as part of the job description would be to drive students around. So we have lots of conversations around that piece. And the drive to for a drive program. Yeah, for the alternative programming for social emotional behavior and social skills. We talked about if we have all these openings for instructional assistance, then when we're able to hire, we're hiring with the idea of looking at the drive or the rise program at EES. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Is it common for IAs to move in as substitutes when the need comes up? And is that, are they frequently being pushed in a lot of different directions and unable to do? This one they are. And sort of unable to provide that support. This here they are. We do have it in their contract. We negotiated in the last contract a structure for IAs who, if we can't find a substitute, if they take that substitute role, then they get an additional payment for that piece. Because I'm not sure how much the wider board is aware, but historically at Rocksbury, I mean, in any classroom, you have two ends sort of at the side that needs a lot of support and the side that needs a lot of effort just to challenge them. And when you're talking about first and second grade in one room, that spectrum is so much wider. The third and fourth grade in one room, so much wider, especially with, I mean, maybe with less kids, it's even wider because you don't have as common a middle ground as you would in a larger classroom potentially. I'm not sure. I just, that's sort of the spirit of the question of the IAs and how that gets used. And I know that the per pupil spending is high, but it's a historical problem that a lot of kids are feeling like. I'm actually bored. Yeah, I don't know if I am instructional assistants would solve that. Wouldn't help. And I don't know. I'm not saying it would or wouldn't, but when we're talking about educating our children, our instructional assistants are an essential part of that piece, particularly for kids who have needs that are executive function type needs or if there's a learning impairment where addressing might be an issue or some sort of movement challenge or speech or toileting or something like that. However, if you're talking about addressing the needs of a classroom solely, and I would argue that any classroom has that range, as a former first and second grade teacher. I think there are different, there are different things we wanna look at than adding an instructional assistant into that space. I'm not sure if that would be the answer to solve that. So I'm sensitive to the time at 7.36. Is everybody all right moving on to community engagement? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Community engagement discussion. Is this the 15 minutes that we added on previously? I believe it is. Mia, do you wanna take this? Yeah, I'm not sure we need the time because I think we covered it in the last meeting, but why don't I just recap where I think we landed and that way people would say, oh, that's not what I thought it was and then we do need the time. Sounds good. Well, what we were focused on in the last meeting was community engagement, particularly of communities, our BIPOC families, families with LGBTQIA kiddos, families with kiddos on special ed, potentially literacy as well. And I'm looking at Amanda and then also Kristin because we talked about this at the equity committee on Tuesday. We also talked about a listening session with Roxbury families. All of it focused on the work, the gathering input that we can share them with the administration as they think about and land an SR3 plan. And where we, where I think we landed last board meeting was that the board thought that was an important thing to do such that we are going to offer that support to the administration ourselves and facilitate those listening sessions and then hand over what we gather in a nutshell. And so that's... Yeah, that's as I recall too. Does anybody have any questions? Want any further discussion on this? I actually have a question. Someone else does. Does the equity committee, are you going to come back to the board with a proposal about this is how we'd like to handle this? How do you suggest we move forward with this? We can share that right now. Great. We had the date of January 15th in mind that that was a deadline to get information to Libby and the other administrators. So Amanda and Kristen are organizing the listening sessions for the first week of January or the beginning of that following week so that we have the information and we get it to the administration. I think that's as simple as that. Is it the type of thing where it would be helpful for a bunch of board members to attend or do we think it would be better to have fewer board members? What is the suggestion? Good question. We're thinking specifically about we really like these to be affinity spaces so that folks have that common ground and that comfort level with sharing what their concerns and dreams are. And so would you like to share who you have? Sure. So I will be, so I have someone that will help me facilitate from a commuter email who let me facilitate all of the sessions from that identity. So I have someone already from the disability of a special ed who's the executive director of the new organization named All Brings the Loan in Vermont and she's going to help me facilitate a special ed conversation I'm meeting with her on Friday. Actually with coffee. I have the BIPOC affinity space. I have my friend, Zarene Catanglou who's a racial justice activist, former member of the district wide equity committee. She's going to help me facilitate the BIPOC group. I can be part of both the special ed and BIPOC because both my kids have an IAP. So I will be taking notes and just being there present for both the BIPOC and the, and I'm also going to get someone from the LGBTQ community. I will not be in that one because that is a helping space and asking someone from there to take notes and make sure that we have, you know, like the format that they need, if any of us identifies us. Mara might be a good person. Mara, I've ever sent Mara. Yes, yes. But I'm saying like from the board, if anybody identifies as a member of the LGBTQ plus community, that could be a space for you. If not, then we'll have a community member that can come in. Mara is a consultant now. I'm meeting with outright tomorrow. But if we have money to pay Mara to help facilitate, I will not ask her to do it for free. But, you know, we could pay her a side bank, but I'm meeting with that B from outright tomorrow to see how the lunch, see she will help me facilitate that one. But as I have Julie, I'd love for her to ask if I agree before that. That was it for me. I can't be staff members too that might be interested in that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then we did get that email from Angela and two other ones that want to have that literacy conversation. I was gonna reach out to Mia. I was gonna meet with Mia to do the triage to have that conversation to see since we haven't really landed whether or not they're gonna come present to us or what we should do. And then Kristen, do you wanna talk about Rocksbury?  Sure. Yeah, can you all hear me okay? Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, so we discussed having a listening session in Rocksbury. I think what came to mind for me after seeing the report from the infrastructure thought exchange is that we had two respondents that identified as Rocksbury community members which gave me some concern that, you know, are we getting the Rocksbury voice here? I have been doing a little bit more groundwork to get the thought exchange circulated in Rocksbury. I know Beth Kellogg, the principal at RBS, put it out in the weekly buzz and RBS PTO put it out and just been doing some outreach to folks kind of directly. But I just wanna make sure that we're definitely capturing the Rocksbury community voice around these topics and that we have kind of a limited window also and we only have two more days left in the thought exchange and I don't know what our community's participation has been and I don't know what our, the timing for the report would be, Libby, but I just wanna really make sure that we're capturing Rocksbury folks around the other three topics. So we are able to use the Rocksbury Free Library as a space and just, I know Amanda has a number of facilitators that she's coordinating with for her meeting. So once she has hers lined up, we're kind of gonna figure out where Rocksbury can fall on the lineup in terms of scheduling. Kristen, one thing on the thought exchange that I just realized, it's kind of in the way that we set it up, it's kind of impossible to know how many Rocksbury parents have done it because it's the choices, our parents are guardian of a NRPS student, but it's not... By school. It's not by town. But can you check multiple? Yeah, you can check multiple and there's another one for a Rocksbury community member. So that might be a person who lives in Rocksbury who doesn't have a child in the school. Right. I guess I was also thinking any, maybe there's Rocksbury parents who are kind of just checking, the parent caregiver box and not also checking the Rocksbury box. That could totally be happening, but you can't tell how many Rocksbury people have participated. Right. I think I'm not keelier and it could be just community members but that registered at something like 42. So when I saw that, I was like, oh, you know, we should definitely do some kind of targeted outreach to Rocksbury in case, I mean, that's capturing a reality in terms of feedback. Yeah, I just don't know if we can, I can't tell how many Rocksbury people have. Right. Yeah. It seems like it can't hurt to be a little bit more happy. I just want to make sure I'm not... Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Kristen. Anything else on that? I personally really appreciate this. Thank you all for working with us. There's a question. There is a attempt at discussing Rocksbury Village Schools comprehensive needs assessment on Monday. Is, can any of that information overlap and inform any of this? Or is it separate from this? Or... I didn't know that was happening. That's something that's being facilitated by Beth. And I don't... Can any of that information... Yeah, absolutely, bring it to us. Okay. Just make sure that there's so many different, there's so many different outreach initiatives and I don't know where exactly. They all seem very much overlapping in many ways. Beth, well, so that's a part of every leadership conversation we have around this kind of stuff. So she definitely breaks that to the table. We're promoting that as much as we can. Yep. I wanted to clarify a little bit. Do you feel like it would be appropriate in the LGBTQI group listening session if anybody on the board has a child or a student in the district who also identifies that way? Would they be then potentially invited to that? Okay, I just wanted to... Because I wasn't sure that you having the student that has an ID is very different. Yes. Experience than having a child. So I wasn't sure if that would translate. Yeah, I don't know. I think if you have a child that is identified I feel like the students are also invited, but it is like if you have a child, especially if you have a child that is an interest student. Do we want to do an additional equity committee update on top of that? We should have a couple more things. That's the big one. Yeah, that's our biggest priority. The second priority is the school climate survey. So Andrew has agreed he's going to be reaching out to the teachers union so we can start, hopefully like beginning of the new year, start working with them on finalizing that in the minutes from our meeting on Tuesday, which is in the board packet. You can see we drafted a timeline so that for not just the finalization of writing the survey, but also all the way through to teacher taking survey, giving us their feedback and us having a report. So just that's, I won't read those dates off because they're in our minutes. That's... Thank you for doing that. Sure. Those are two really big ones. The other just things on our sort of grand to-do list are we think we can, might be the place to incubate the new board member packet. So we're gonna, we'll take that on. And then as the policy committee assigns us policies for review. So that's our general, we just wanted to give an update on just kind of what we're seeing as our scope of work for the next several months. Did I miss anything, Amanda, Kristin? Anyone have any questions for the equity committee? And also the equity tool that came out of the equity committee and the policy committee a couple of meetings ago. That's a lot. Thank you. Well, a quick follow-up because we're transitioning to a policy. Has the policy committee been using that tool as you found it helpful so far? I realize that's a good bunch of time. Yeah, I mean, we're definitely moving at a very slow pace. Right now we've been focusing on this new required policy and we have these tools with that, I guess. Cool. Yeah, it was really nice to get the news that our policies weren't all expiring this year. We can take a breather and wrap the case. All right. So with that, I think we should move on to the special education policy. There's Ananda and Emma. We want to provide just a general overview of. I don't know. I could start. Sure, I don't know. We should start with that. Well, I could. Okay, so the special education policy, it's a required policy that is going to be into effect January 15, 2021. 2022. 2022. And I've had several meetings or like back and forth with the school board association as to why the policy came into effect and why it was needed. And it was basically, what was it? It essentially boiled down to like Vermont has not been as a state statewide, Vermont has not been in compliance with special ed law, you know, sort of just in general. And so this, having the schools have this policy on the books with the school board ensures that it will be folded into the policy monitoring schedule. And so we will have to take a look at how we are, you know, meeting the legal requirements for special ed kids in our district on the same pace as all of our other policies. And it's basically directing the districts to follow a manual that the agency of education is currently drafting. So this policy right now points to the special education manual that does not exist yet. So the last we've heard was that the AOE requested an extension and they have been granted, but that hasn't come down to us. So like effectively we're supposed to follow the policy by general team, but the manual is still not in place though. The VSBA is waiting and they will update us as soon as I will have it. In this policy at the bottom, I put cross reference that should be taken off because that's not the manual. So we need to remove that. So yeah, we're just waiting for the guidelines so that we can link it to the policy and that's essentially what it is. It's directing us to follow the manual that the special ed department at AOE is crafting which basically tells us how to follow the rules and then we are supposed to then monitor that policy to ensure that we are following the special ed. And the only, this language is exactly how the agency, or sorry, the Vermont schools boards association drafted their, what are they called? Model policies. Model policies. So we didn't change anything except for plugging in our name and then Amanda made the change at the bottom. So the equity tool didn't apply to a lot of this but the main thing that sort of bubbled up using the equity tool was like wanting to make sure that the language of this policy was as accessible as it possibly could be to parents and caregivers with students in the special ed system in our district and that when they go to read this they're not just confused which I think it is a little confusing when you first read it. So why do we have this? So the only thing that we talked about as a committee was adding a link to the manual so that that was like very easy to access and go straight from the policy to the manual and then potentially adding a sentence or two at the top to give context around the reason why we're adopting it as a district is to ensure that it is monitored annually with the rest of our policies. So we've talked to Pietro about doing that. He's hesitant to add language to require policies. So, but he said we could send him the draft of our proposed language and all what I said with the itself, if he reads that. So you may see those two additions at the next meeting. I think that's- I think it's weird to put something- We don't know what the manual is gonna be but we're gonna follow it. I don't know, it just feels weird. It's what the manual supposed to say. The manual said by statute. No, I understand that, but it's just- Oh yeah, we didn't- Right, yeah. I think what they're hoping is that by the time we get to our third reading, it'll be ready. So we may end up having to hold up. We talked about that at the committee of does it make sense to actually pass a policy referring to something that doesn't exist? So I think we're gonna cross that bridge when we come to it. If it doesn't exist yet by January 15th, we have put, we've been trying to, did we put this on tomorrow night's meeting agenda? It is not worth it. There, I don't- No, it's just the bill contract. Yeah. The second reading of this is on the January 5th. Okay. And then the last one is- No, the 19th. So it's going, so okay. I think Jim must have, I think Jim must have decided, gone solo and made a decision not to put it on tomorrow, which, you know, we were trying to sort of- No, no, no, because we said we could add it. We could add it to the back to the beginning. Okay. Tomorrow? I'll ask Jim why he didn't, the plan at the policy committee was to put it on tomorrow night's agenda for a second reading so that we could potentially be in compliance by January 15th. So I'll ask Jim why he didn't do that. We also all, we also all felt that it was probably okay for us to not be in compliance by four days. Yeah. So I can guarantee you that's all I was gonna say. Yeah, let's, yeah. I think it's good to keep it the fifth. Yeah, and tomorrow we're pretty busy and I don't think we have time to add that language in for a second reading. So that's what we'll do. Sounds good. Thank you. Yeah. Mia? You mostly answered my questions of the, especially the PHO's hesitant to add language to a required policy, but I would just agree with you that I think it could use a little bit more context. Yeah. The things that sit out to me and I understand, you know, we need to be in compliance with the law, but I also wondered if, especially for that accessibility to parents who have, or anyone, anyone in our district, just some kind of like, this actually is why we have the manual and the policy in the first place is that we expect our, of ourselves that we provide the kind of support that every single student needs regardless of what their needs are. So something that is more, even more than just we have a policy so that we're in compliance with the law, but like something that shows that the district is really behind their kids. Yeah. We talked about exactly that, sort of like the vision and the content and context and intent. And not just on this policy, for every policy we're talking about, some of our policies have that. Yeah. At the top of the policy. Yeah. And then some of our policies don't. Right. And so then the question is, how sort of involved with our vision for as a district and related, as it relates to this policy, I can get in accordance with Pietro's advice. Right. So, but. And this might be one where he goes, heesh, heck no. But the other thing that felt like a gap to me was that it doesn't really name accountability in here. I mean, it says we have to follow the law, but just between like the superintendent is responsible for X and the board is responsible for Y, it feels like that could actually be very helpful. Again, for people in the district who are sort of like, we've had a number of families come and people talk to Libby about this, but they have people have also come to the board and say, you must do something about literacy or special education. And it would be helpful for all of us, I think to be on the same page about what is it that the board can actually do about special education? And what is it that is the administration's responsibility to, you know. So we had quite a conversation. Yeah. I think what is hardest that we haven't seen is manual. Right. The manual is supposed to have that. Yeah. Not necessarily like that, whether the board or the administration, but the data and accountability. Like what you have to do. So it's like, okay. Yeah. So we have to wait for that. Yeah. We have to wait for that to be able to. But that was on our radar and it was a big part of our conversation. Like exactly what you just said was a big part of our conversation with the equity tool was like, where are these measures and how do we address it? And then we're sort of making the leap of faith that it most likely will be in this Vermont special education procedures and practices manual. And we're hopeful that it will be, but we'll find out. And if it's not, we can always go back and revise our own policy. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. After the 15. Yeah. Or not. That's what I was just about to add. All right. For more. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other questions on that? No. I move to adjourn. I second. All those in favor? Aye. Any naysayers? Not any, kid. 159. The quickie.


Who is the Tenth Man? The Tenth Man is the one man in ten in your community who will need emotional guidance. Yes, one out of every ten persons in this country needs or will need some form of psychiatric care or treatment. What kind of treatment are they getting in your community? Ladies and gentlemen, this is Ralph Bellamy. Our story is called punishment without crime. And it begins way back in the year 1841. It's a cold Sunday morning in a little town near Boston, Massachusetts. A woman who looks as if she might be a school teacher is being admitted to the women's jail. She's come to conduct a Sunday school class. A Sunday school class, Mom? That's right. Are you the jailer? I am, but I still don't... I'm taking the place of Mr. Samuel Burt. Mr. Burt, he's one of them theological school fellows. Yes. I remember now. He told me you'd be coming. Right this way, Mom. Thank you. What's the matter, Mom? I... I didn't think it was like this. So filthy. It's good enough for the likes of them. What was that? Oh, that's from the Looney bin. Looney bin? You mean you keep the insane here in jail? No place else for a mom. But there's no heat. Nah. Loonies don't need no heat. Perhaps not. But that's something a doctor ought to decide. May I see those women? We used to charge admission to see the Loonies. Well, then we've made some progress. Oh, I never realized it was so bad. Had enough, Mom? Not yet. Do they sleep here? Why are there no beds?  Perhaps you think so. I guess too many people think so, but I don't. And I'm going to do something about it. And that was how Dorothea Lynde Dix got started on her amazing crusade for better treatment of the mentally ill. Before she died, four years after this episode in the jail, her efforts resulted in the founding or improving of 32 mental hospitals throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad. Strange that we should have almost forgotten this remarkable woman. Yet after all, that was 100 years ago. But what about the present? What do we do for our mentally ill? We've improved some in our care for them, certainly. But have we improved as much as we should? Are we still punishing people for being mentally ill? Are we still putting them in jail? Here's the story of Harry Andrews, a composite case history made up of several cases from the files of the National Mental Health Foundation. Listen to it and judge for yourself. Martha, I've told you time and time again that I can't do anything more for Harry. But you're our family doctor. There isn't anyone else we can count on. Dr. Bryan, you've just got to help us. Martha, I'm a family practitioner and I know my limits. There are a lot of things a family doctor can do, has to do, in these parts. But fooling around with the human mind is not my line. I can't treat Harry. He needs to go to a mental hospital. Oh, no, no. I can't do that to him. It's the only thing you can do. Now brace up, Martha, and listen to me. Yes? If we can get Harry to sign the papers to have himself committed, it will save us from the nasty business of having him declared legally insane. But he won't sign the papers. I think we can coax him to sign. Oh, I can't do it.  Suppose I try to keep him at home for a while. He might get over it. Martha, you know how I feel about that. Mental illness should be treated early like any other disease. Well? Oh, I can't make up my mind now. I've got to have time to think. This is Martha Andrews. I'm calling about Harry. Yes, what's up? He's gone. Gone where? I don't know. He's been gone since last night. We've been looking all over for him. Where do you suppose he'd be likely to go? I don't know. Yes. They say the best thing for me to do is to stay home and wait until we hear. Oh, Dr. Bryant, he'd been talking wildly about running away to sea. Do you suppose that... Don't fret about him until we're sure. Just set by that phone. I'll be over as soon as possible. All right. Goodbye. Oh, where can that man be? Hello? Speaking. Who is it, please? This is Steve Culver, the sheriff over in Macon County. The sheriff? Lock him up. I will. I'll be right over. I'll bring the doctor along. You don't need to. Oh, no. You don't understand. He's sick. He's sick. How do you add a few too many and booked him on a disorderly conduct charge? But gosh, I didn't know he was cracked up. I mean a little old man. Oh, this is awful. Well, the important thing is to get him out of here and into the state hospital. Dr. Bryant, I'll never forgive myself for not doing that a long time ago. No time for regrets now, Martha. We have something more important to think about. Sheriff, can you release him to us so that we can take him to the state hospital? No. I'm afraid I can't. But why not? It's against the law for one thing. You know that, Doc. If you folks want to put him in the hospital, he'll have to be declared insane. Well, how do we do that? Oh, there's something you fill out and send in. Let's see. Maybe I've got a form around here someplace. Well, Doctor, how long will that take? Whenever you start filling out forms, you can get set for a long tangle with red tape. Heck, all this red tape is just to protect you citizens from getting clapped into a silence when somebody feels like getting out of the way. A few folks oughtn't to complain when the laws are made for your own good. Well, it certainly can't be done.  I didn't write the laws, lady. And here's the form. You see? You have to file the application with a court of record. I guess a circuit judge can take care of that. And you, Doc, will have to send along a certificate of insanity. Then they'll let you know when the hearing is to be. Hearing? Yeah, the lunacy commission. Will Harry have to be there? I'm afraid so. Otherwise, it wouldn't be legal. No, but it would be human to spare him that. Well, then the lunacy commission will declare him insane and issue a commitment order. But all this rigmarole will take months. Oh, not that long, ma'am. Well, what about Harry? Where will he be all this while? Right here, ma'am. In jail? Isn't there any other way of doing this? I'm afraid not, Doc, but it is barbarous, medieval.  It's no concern of mine. I just don't want to go to jail. The boys at the State House, Doc. It's no concern of mine. I just enforce the law. A commission of lunacy consisting of Julius Knapp, county clerk Roger Buchanan pharmacist and William Hinckley physician, all residents of Madeleine County, has been granted judicial powers to ascertain whether or not Harry Andrews, the alleged lunatic, be sufficiently deprived of his reason as to warrant commitment to the state hospital. The recommendation of this commission, after having examined the said Harry Andrews, that he be declared insane, and that he be committed without delay to the state hospital. They brought him to the hospital in a patrol wagon. He was handcuffed, Doc, and there were two policemen holding onto him. He struggled a little bit, and one of them said, they'll take care of you in there. Oh, it was just all wrong. They didn't know how to handle him. He wouldn't have tried to run away, but they shouldn't have handcuffed him. Anybody would resent that. Yes, it was all wrong, Martha. But that's all past now. Did you see the doctor at the hospital? Yes, he was very nice. He assured me that they'd do the best they could for Harry. They will too, Martha. Now, don't worry anymore. Cheer up. Before you know it, Harry will be well again and you'll be taking him home. Oh, Dr. Bryan, how can we ever hold up our heads again? Martha, it's not a disgrace to have mental illness in the family. Then why did they keep him in jail? Then why did he have to go through those court proceedings? Oh, there were good reasons for all that red tape once. Before the days of clinics and receiving hospitals and so forth, we ought to be able to work out a more sensible and scientific commitment procedure. Something handled by doctors and social workers. Something that also provides full legal protection. It takes people quite a while to rid themselves of old-fashioned laws. Yes, we have to get rid of our old-fashioned ideas first. No, when will that be? When we're all a bit more human than understanding them. And when will that be? You've got me there, Martha. You've got me there. Yeah. Harry Andrews did get well. And he did return home to Martha. But he spent five years of his life in the state hospital. One of the doctors there said that he probably would have gotten better a lot sooner if he'd been treated earlier. If they'd had a psychopathic ward in the general hospital, for example, where he could have gone for treatment, or if he hadn't had to go through all that legal red tape. But a recent survey in 26 states revealed that two out of three mental patients were still being taken to state hospitals by the police. One out of three of these patients were still being lodged in jail before going to the hospital. If Dorothy Addix had returned 100 years after the day she started her liberation at the mentally ill, she still would have found many of them in jail. Yes, perhaps in your own state, she would have found some sick people herded in with criminals, behind bars, and guarded by the police. And who can blame Martha for feeling so badly when our laws use such old fashioned terms as lunacy and insanity? Words that are no longer used in medical circles? Until we reach the day when mental illness is regarded as a disease and not a disgrace, we will continue to have punishment without crime. You have just heard Ralph Bellamy as narrator in Punishment Without Crime produced by the National Mental Health Foundation in association with other organizations dedicated to the preservation of mental health.


And it's very easy to say oh it's leash reactivity and it's commonly called that but at the same time if you go one step further and dive a little bit deeper it's actually just because you're on the other end of it. Hey what's going on guys? Tom Davis here. I'm here at the Upstate Canine Academy. We are about to start a session with a golden retriever with reactivity issues. This dog is great with other dogs off leash, likes other dogs off leash, but on leash this dog does not like other dogs.  So on this episode we're going to break down leash reactivity, why it's created and some exercises on how to figure out if your dog is leash reactive or actually aggressive. So we're going to go in, we're going to get started, hope you guys enjoy it. Man that's a wicked growl. Watch his back up just a little bit. Good. So he protects? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever he gets into a situation like that, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. I want you to correct him for that, because just from now on we'll just correct him for that. Here, let me see the leash for a second. So we're just, obviously there's a variable of like, you have to try to figure out the stem of why he feels that way.  You have a great relationship with him. He wants to protect you. A couple of things about his behavior that we're watching is when he is doing that, it's low and then his bark is very like a fear-based, good heal buddy. Now he's like, now I protect you human. With him being reactive to other dogs, it's on the leash. With him being reactive to people, it's on the leash. And it's very easy to say, oh, it's leash reactivity and it's commonly called that. But at the same time, if you go one step further and dive a little bit deeper, it's actually just because you're on the other end of it. It's good because you know, like, oh, he's capable easily of disengaging, disarming and not being reactive. It's just trying to figure out what do you guys do to stop him from being reactive and what do you guys do to stop him from being possessive of you. And that's what we're going to talk about right now. It's very pretty, very pretty. The why. You know, we got to figure out the why. Because ultimately, if we correct them and we tell them to stop, yeah, it's going to be a suppression. It's going to be a band-aid. He's still going to feel the need to want to bark, but he won't. Which is better than him barking, to be honest, but in this case, we want to eliminate the external like, hey, I'm looking really mean because I want you to get away. When you're handling him, I want you to be a little bit more, have a little bit more momentum of like what you're doing. What I want you to do is when you're handling a lot of people, including what you were doing with legend is, as we go, let's go. And then we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this, and we're just, he's doing actually really good, but we're looking a lot. But it's not really so much about what he's doing in the leashes, about what you're, the information you're presenting and how you're presenting it.  And what happens is when you're here and he's looking up at me and I'm looking at him, then who's driving the ship? Which then he'll go, okay, I don't really feel that confident here, which will then make him feel like he has to protect you or he should protect you.  Things to better your handling and to get more confident with him and to raise his confidence levels, use your momentum. So when you're doing this, legend heal, I want you to just really pay attention to where you're going and what you're doing. Heal, good, we're going this way. But you see how like my body language is, it's clear of where I'm going, what we're doing. So my shoulders are straight, I'm not looking at him. The only time I'm saying anything to him is if I ask him to heal or I want him to sit or something. But this is where I want you guys to be.  So what you wanna do is proof out your healing and proof out your engagement to make sure he's paying attention to you. So the slower you go, the more he'll understand that. So, see how you're, yeah. I'm holding it in two places. Yeah, darn it. You already know. So take the leash and what I would do is hold it just like this. Like that one? Yeah, and the reason why is because that if you have two separate locations of information, because the leash is your information, it's gonna get diluted. So if I wanted you to say something to Eddie, I'd give you information and you'd relay it to him. And then at some point it's gonna get diluted pretty much immediately. So you wanna make sure that, and I understand, like more control, we feel more confident, but then your brain, and I micro it down as much as I can. Your brain is like focusing on two different things and it doesn't give you an opportunity to fully relax. And then that feeds to the leash and it just perpetuates into this thing. Anyway, good, I'll come back this way. Good, and just release your pressure, nice and relaxed. That's a habit too. It's gonna be really hard for you guys. I know, because you're gonna go with it. Your job is to present him with confidence and with leadership and give him a reason to not be protective and resource-guarding. Just show him that you're confident. There, that's much, much better from what I see. Yeah, he feels a lot calmer. Yeah, and how do you feel? Better, he's not pregnant. Right, the more like tense you get, like when you're just like you're kind of like holding and popping and looking and just moving really, like this is what you were doing basically is your leash up and you're just moving like this really fast with two hands. And of course he's gonna be like constantly because that's what we're putting on him.  And that's what we wanna do is work on what your guys are having problems with, so let's get right to it. So make sure that you just pop when he does that. Yeah, go down a little bit. There you go. Now catch him like, so. Going forward. Yeah, cause he's forging forward. And then if he's forging forward, what'll happen is is that will make him react even more. So when he's doing that little growl, leave it to the side. Pop him side. Back into a sit. Sit. Sit. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Leave it. Plats. Stay. Good. Heal. Good girl. Good touch. Good. Heal. Good. So you wanna create that engagement. Heal. So when you get into a situation like this, see that quick pop I did with the prong? Did you see it? Okay, so I just, hey, pay attention. So I call this proofing or calibrating or tune up. There's the distraction. You come out. Heal. Good heal. Heal. Sit. Good sit. Majority of the reason for the reactivity is probably lack of engagement. So the goal right now is to make sure that your dog is paying attention to you and not the other dog. Nothing else matters except for you. And you need to like tell him like, what are you doing? You're supposed to be paying attention to me. So you walk forward like this and you turn 180 back this way. Heal. I did it earlier. If he doesn't pay attention, hey, what are you doing?  And then he's like this. So come back this way. Cause there's a dog coming through. Good. Turn. Pop. There you go. That's what I'm talking about. That was perfect. New dog entered the mix randomly. You turned and you said heal and he said, who's that? And you go, hey. And he goes, and he came back to you. So you're using your obedience to counter. Hey, it doesn't. What are we doing? It's just like with kids. You go to Disney world. All the rules go out the window. No, they look like they do, but you have to say, what's going on? Hold my hand. Yes, please. Thank you. Pay attention to me. Just because the environment changes doesn't mean everything goes out the window. That's the only way we can coexist with really stimulated, fun, exciting things and be able to enjoy them and actually do them. If we all just lost our mind all the times, it would be chaos. All right guys, so we're just finishing up with legend sessions doing really good, but there's just one last thing. We're gonna have him meet Tegan because he shows interest. And so we're just gonna go over and just walk through like a meet and greet on actually how to meet a dog because we realized over the last couple sessions that you guys saw the first session was he's really just vocal because he doesn't know what else to do. So we're gonna walk through like the introduction stages and read some body language and do some dog behavior stuff. Tegan's one of our board and trains, by the way. Quick. Good. And just make sure you don't put pressure on the leash again. Yep, good. Good job. Lots of golden tails wagging. Good job. Good job. So what you guys saw there at the end was actually us figuring out that the external reaction, the barking, the growling was actually coming from frustration. It was when we brought another board and train out, we actually realized that, hey, this dog actually just doesn't know how to play. This dog is frustrated. He just didn't know what to do. So he was growling, he was barking, and that's what we ended up seeing here at the end of the video, which you guys just saw. So it was a great video, great behavioral stuff for me to learn from, great for the owners to learn from. They went home back to New Jersey, happy knowing that their dog really isn't aggressive and their dog isn't mean. He just wears that frustration and wears that, I guess, hey, I wanna see you through growling and barking, which is just vocalization. So anyway, I hope you guys liked this video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I put videos out like this every single week. Like this video and as well, leave a comment in the comments below to support the channel. But anyway, I'll see you guys next time. Peace.