656 public comment, no public comment. So consent agenda, I do a motion to approve the consent agenda, and I think someone may want to make a motion with an amendment to remove some plain for discussion. Could remove the superintendent's expectations from that? But I need a motion to do that. We just need to move to approve the consent agenda without it in there, right? Yes, including the addition. We'd like to move to approve the consent agenda without the superintendent's expectations. And adding the, oh, and adding the. Hiring the resolution. Hiring the resolution, it's a big thing to do. I'll second that motion. I'll have a second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great, and Tina, you wanted to talk about the superintendent's report. I did, in this monitoring report, on the beginning of it, it says interpretation treatment of the communication with parents, guardians, and citizens. Under that, it says communication is equitable and respectful from both the superintendent and the district staff. And I noticed when I read this, there's a wonderful list of things that as a district, we do all together. And so I'm wondering what evidence Libby might have of things she does as a superintendent.  So Tina asked me this earlier, so I hope you made a vote of this. So I have, I respond to emails from parents within 24 hours, in phone calls as well, if I'm in the office. Unfortunately, a lot of times I get phone calls and I leave messages and I'm not in the office. However, I look at the edition. Anna, that has helped considerably because most of my phone calls now go to her if I've been coming to my office, which was a change this year. We made so she can tell people if I'm out of the office or not. My emails are public record, so I'm going to use more than welcome to pull them up to make sure that they are respectful in my tone. And then all with parent phone calls. Whenever I talk to a parent, I have a parent log that I keep in a confidential location. So they're my notes from every phone call I get from a parent. And while that's covered by FERPA, certainly I can make a log of that if you're interested in that. But I take notes, so I know if it's, a parent is repeating a phone call that I have along. I know that, right? It's all drafted out together and to make sure that I can keep track of things and synthesize that if I need to. And then if you look on my Twitter feed, it's open to the public and it's pretty positive. You don't follow me yet, do so. No Bridgette and Jim do. Yeah, maybe we'll have pumpkins to that. I follow you too, and I'm still waiting for that follow back. Just saying. I do follow you. I do follow you on Twitter. She's too busy working to follow you. So all of that is open to the public and I am consistent in my positivity of what sharing with the great things that the district is doing. I've gotten some parents writing to me through Twitter now, which is a new thing this year, we didn't have it last year. And through our MRPS websites, or Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, thanks to Anna, she's taking charge of that. So, is that good? Are you looking for other things here? No. Okay. Because it was sort of missing. This is true. But I have one more question. Sure. Under your evidence for interpretation of employment compensation and treatment of the staff you have, the superintendent has put in place an evaluation system for administrators that will drive compensation office. Could you explain that? So using when like we're up for those, the administrators will be negotiating, I'm sure their salaries this year. With myself and Jim, I would assume that it's the first year that's happened. Because last year they had a contract, they were under two year contract, so there was no negotiation, it was listed in the contract. So I'll be using the evaluation system that I have in place for them to drive that conversation. That's what that means. Drive a conversation around. If they're coming in. Yes, individually. If they're coming in asking for a big raise, then we can look to see what the evaluation results and what kind of things we've been talking about for their own continuous improvement and what evidence they've gathered around that. Welcome. I can't recall my question. And by the way, I'd like to correct the record if you do the whole thing, so. I'll do you check. Not that we've moved on or anything. If there are no other questions, I'll make a motion to approve the superintendent expectation monitoring report. Second. Holds it there? All right. Any opposed? Great. Is this civil? Board business. The, and I think this is the Andrews show. MSMS building board committee. And Andrew, you can, yeah. And I don't know if you want to just hang out back there. I'll let it move it. It's a very fancy chair right here. Yeah. So just so you don't have to. Sorry. That's good. Be part of the home bill. So first of all, a quick anecdote. About a month ago, I finished a mountain bike ride at my wife's school in Stowe and ran into the middle school principal. Did you turn it about? And he was talking about the state of their building. And I mentioned that we have this middle school building committee that we're just getting up the ground. And he said, oh, we did something very similar to that. And I said, oh, yeah, can you tell me about the process? He was involved. And he's like, we have this great guy from Black River Design named Andrew LaRosa. He really helped leave the process. And I want to go back to the compensation. No, I'm serious. He seriously said this. And I was like, well, we're fortunate because Andrew's with our district now. So I just want to put that out there. So we met Libby, Andrew, and I. And we had preliminary meetings to talk about the general trajectory of this building committee. And we toured the school. A brief update on that, I think just so that you all are aware, we have Tina's the other board member who this board appointed. And Andrew's going to be the vice chair of this. We have Jack McCullough from City Council who's on it. Pam Arnold's the principal member. Then we have Dan Richardson and J. Erickson, parent members. Thank you for stepping up on that. We have Eli Rosenberg, who is the MSMS teacher representative. And then we have Sylvie, is it Dewey's, or how do I pronounce Sylvie's last name? Does anybody know? OK, but we will find out at our first meeting. But she's very excited to join the committee. So that's the committee. In terms of the trajectory, we had talked in our charge, we had talked about wrapping this up by the end of this fiscal year. And after talking with Andrew, since he's been involved in these processes before, and after three of us looked at what the schedule would look like, we think we're going to need until probably November 2020, so a full year. Our first meeting's going to be at the end of October. October 28 is the first meeting of this committee. And so one thing that we're going to be asking for is the revision of the charge, because the board approved the charge that we would have this work done by the end of the fiscal year. So that's one thing that we wanted to bring to you. Do you want to talk about the process at all, Andrew? In terms of you, you're not right now. When we sat down and looked at the schedule, and just when you start taking into consideration, the summer is pretty well lost. And the holidays, November is pretty dicey to get people to get work done. So by the time we take time to get ourselves organized, to understand the program of where we want to head, how to overlay that on existing conditions, how to explore other options, and then you throw into there a couple of public forums, the time just brought us to November. And that's actually a pretty aggressive schedule, because we're not, I don't think that we're really looking to come to you to say, this is the solution and this is how much it's going to cost. It's sort of these are the options, and these are the magnitudes, and these are the relative pieces such that the conversation can have a good solid footings for further conversations. And we've got a tentative schedule that I think probably after our first meeting, one of the things we'll do is probably review that with the group, and then we can get that back to you so you can actually see the sort of progression of your work ahead. Yeah, we're going to include two to three public engagement and input sessions throughout the course of this. We'll probably present on the work that's been done, but we really do want to get a lot of community input on this. And we have heard from a number of community members in the immediate proximity. Most of those community members are particularly concerned about the new busing situation. And I just think it's noteworthy that the two parent members that we do have on this committee, they might not be on the same street as all of the community members that we've heard from. Not that I'm certain of the exacts that all of those community members are on the same street, but these two community members, these two parent members, do live in the immediate proximity of the middle school. So in terms of representation for that immediate proximity, I think that community is represented. So other than extending the deadline, which we're going to ask, we can extend it to November 2020. I think we'll be done by November 2020. We might want to just say by the end of 2020, in case something happens. We'll go over it. So I was going to propose that as one change. The other thing that we really feel like we needed to talk with the board about, and I've already talked with Jim about this to an extent, is the charge, the first charge of the committee is to evaluate options and opportunities for an MS-MS building and property arrangement that meets the educational goals of Montpelier-Roxbury public schools. And it says this evaluation will include consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the current MS-MS building, structure and property, changes and improvements at that location, and relocation opportunities. The key, the thing that we were getting hung up on is if we're going to evaluate options and opportunities that meet the educational goals of Montpelier-Roxbury public schools, we wanted to come to the board for guidance on those educational goals. Because we don't have those educational goals. You know, there are goals throughout our policies, and we have a vision statement. But we don't have educational goals clearly laid out. And so we were thinking that we had a little bit of a discussion. I know Andrew and I are at least thinking that defining those educational goals is quite outside of the scope of this Main Street Middle School Building Committee. And so we wanted to come to the board to talk with you about. I'm not certain that those exact goals will be ironed out if we were to do some larger visioning with the community. I'm not certain that those will be ironed out in the next couple of months for us to rely on them. So we want to have a discussion with you about what to rely on, the criteria. Jim? Well, this brings up the question that we really haven't reestablished and worked their goals. How do we have a three or a five year plan? No, we do not have a three or a five year plan. It's like the Chinese Communist Party. Yes. You'd never hear of that in a popular box read play. We have a few of those this year. So is it possible that the language there would maybe just not be visibly chosen that it's suggesting that this building committee needs to take on more than it really needs to take on? I mean, could the charge really just, the point of the charge really just be the administration, we may not have, the district may not have something called goals, but I mean, the administration has a good movement plan and has lots of things in place for how it's conducting. And the point is, does the building meet the needs that the district might have? I wonder if you could change goals to education on these. I mean, I do think there is a conversation we need to have about whether we want to set some goals or ends. But I'm not sure that you're right. This committee is not the place to do it. Nor do I think the committee needs to get tripped up on that. So there's probably two questions at hand and here. One is, and we might want to table this for another meeting, is about the larger establishing ends, establishing goals, establishing three to five year plans, which I personally think makes a lot of sense for our district. But then there's this other issue, which three times you can talk about here, which is what do we do as a building committee? And if you are saying, leave it to the administration, leave it to the committee, that will. And not necessarily the administration, because the source of what the educational needs objectives are currently, right? So long as you're comfortable as a board saying, administration, you define what our educational goals are for this, and then the committee debates our work out of that. Particularly for middle school children. And we're fortunate in that we're not trying to put too fine a point on this. We want to do good work that's very useful. And it sounds like what we're talking about is we take our best between Libby and the administration and that we say, this is what we envision the program to be. We clearly explain what that is. And then if that needs to be tweaked, that no, we want a more vibrant arts program. We want a more vibrant STEM program. We want to do whatever. That can be laid on top of it, because we're going to be doing relative comparisons. And so if the parameters we're using call for an addition of x amount of square feet, if we change those parameters, that just means we change the square footage in any option that we look at. So I don't think it's a stumbling block so much as just, what do we use? And if we use Pam and Libby's input, and we can't say, this is what we're going to use, and that's good enough. But at least we can use that as a starting point and tweak it from there. An example from the past is, are you going to have classrooms working together in preference to separate? Do you want walls that move, or do you want classes together? We went through the phase of, we wanted walls in between, and that would be helpful. And then again. Do we want to make our space as opposed to a family super science? Right. Is the administration looking out by theirs and things like that? I think where we got caught up in injury injury, and we're talking about it, is that, yes, we have the current needs plans for the next three years out, that are very academically focused in what we need to do. However, those aren't the same as ends, if you're in policy governance. So this probably isn't the right time. So it's all dependent on, if you get another person sitting in my seat, then who has a different vision for their Roxbury schools, that person's going to take them there, without ends. So your ends are going to drive what the community believes should be the larger outcomes. And anybody who's sitting in my seat needs to provide evidence to you all that we're working to reach those. Are you saying we do have a three-year plan? We have our continuous improvement plans that are on that trajectory. I use the example of Superintendents across the state for all different folk. So I can look at one of my colleagues who's really into personalization and global learning through technology. And so you get a lot of emphasis on technology in their schools and that piece connecting to the global world through very little on an MTSS system, whereas I put a lot of elements on an MTSS system and very little on devices. It's not my priority to get the highest-best technology devices into my kids' hands. But we're counting on you. You are ours now. I know. But if I win the Powerball tomorrow. Since I wasn't here during the charge, I want to be careful. But the two things are, is 20 years is referenced in this? No. I thought I saw something about, you know, where are we going for the next 20 anyway? But the thing that obviously parents are going to first raise is, what about the merger? That's the one I hear on the street all the time, is what happens to this building when we merge with Washington Central? And I mean, that's not a idle conversation. No, I'm laughing because I hear it too. And so that kind of throws the old monkey wrench in everything. And I think it's built into this. But you're looking at almost like a binary situation there. And I don't know, do you plan for two eventualities? Do you plan? What's the? I do that. I think that has to be part of this charge, a part of this overall conversation. I was thinking I have to step back and say that's been on the table since the 70s. And it hasn't happened. Yes, but now we have movement. Do we? I think there are some people who would say the movement has been backwards. OK. So ignore it. I don't think ignore it. But I don't think consider it in this conversation, but I also think that using that as a stopgap to not invest in. No, right. Yeah, I think it has to be part of the conversation. If there are indications that a merger may be possible, like real indications, not poison is a great idea. There's a couple of people in middle sex who like it. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think there's broader considerations, too, in the play of some community members. I mean, for instance, as a community, we're depending on the law circles, but we're investing $10 million in bringing people downtown with a garage and a hotel center. Right now, we have an open high school. There are high school students who go to lunch daily there. There's 100 employees who use the town. We have events that bring people to the town in a high school. Yeah, if we want to spend $10 million to bring people in with a parking garage, do we want to take all that activity and shove it out to U32 and bring in a middle school crowd if we have a very different use of the downtown? I'm just sensitive. So the first public hearing. Yeah, it's got to come up with a real whole process. Well, no, I think we have to think about it so it doesn't derail the whole process. And this is something that we talked about this when this first came up. And when this was first mentioned, the comments on Facebook that I heard from parents were, many of them were focused on this issue. The issue of whether to merge or not, obviously, is outside of just non-pilure because there's a lot of other communities involved. And the scope of that merger study would be much more involved than the future of Main Street Middle School. So I think in the process of this, we have to look at, would we even have the space to take all of our middle school students and all of U32 students and put them into an existing building? Or would we need to build roughly a new building? And what would the cost of that be kind of thing? But we're not going to be able to answer all of the questions with regard to a merger as part of the Main Street Middle School Building Committee. You know what I mean? I do, but not $1 on the school until we've resolved that problem. There's one of the things that will be thrown out. I think we have to say, you know, this problem has not been resolved since the 70s. And I mean, do you resolve it by saying, it's resolved in one of three ways. Either it becomes this hypothetical that stops progress from happening. You say yes, which there's not a lot of indications given what happened with the merger at U32 that yes isn't a near-term thing. There's a lot of scarring in those communities. And they need some time to heal and figure things out. Or you say no, never, which who can really ever say no, never. So, or you say, yeah, it's a theoretical possibility, not now, but in the meantime, we have to make investments. And given how so this process has been, we'll probably get most of that investment paid back before things are resolved for them. So two points. One is the question of merging districts is a totally different question of buildings and new buildings and merging schools. So they're not actually the same issue. And even you could merge the districts without shutting down any school or closing any buildings. So we have to keep that in mind. And I really believe, Andrew, that this process is an opportunity not to answer a merger question, which is way beyond the scope, but to provide data and information, concrete facts on the ground that would inform the conversation. What are issues going to be with that building? What's the long term? If you look at enrollment and needs, does the building work? Does it not work? Is it an important data point? What is the overall population? If we did merge them into closed buildings, what would that cost, what would that look like? So hopefully, it can advance the conversation in a data-driven way. And we'll just see where it goes. So gather the data of various scenarios. Let that help the community understand whether or not a merger is actually, or a merger of buildings is actually something we don't. There's a very simple scenario that people always say. We close this middle school, put all the middle school kids in the high school, and put all the high school kids in the community, but that's actually a very complicated building question. And it's not something you could do for free. You'd have to be open to construction. And it would come subsequent to a merger anyway. And I think we can push that all aside and ask the question of, well, how is this building serving our needs now? And what is it costing us? And what are the improvements that could be made to serve our needs if it's falling short in certain ways? And then if the politics of the merger comes on top of it, which they will in some way, we'll have to deal it up the whole time. But I think getting that information down so we can make some total new choices based on data is pretty important. But a real challenge for you guys to do that. Yeah, thank you both. That's right. I think we have to acknowledge it. I don't think we can ignore it. I don't think it's fair to the community to ignore it. And yet, I don't think that this is not the committee to answer all of the questions as to whether or not we should merge, because there are a lot of questions and there are a lot of considerations outside of just this building as to whether or not a merger is viable or whether it's preferable. But people are going to want to hear what Bridget said. You have to be able to navigate that and say, this is not precluding. This is not biasing that process. We're not taking a position on that. We're gathering data. And realistically, we have a few years before anything like that would occur. And we're not going to sit still and do nothing for a few years. And that's what the charge is. The charge of this committee is not to make a recommendation. It's to inform the process. Yeah, and the shape of that building at a sort of merger time, say we make some investments about building and some improvements, that could change how a merger looks in five years in terms of how we use buildings. I would say, in the merger discussion, we had with Rothsburg, Rothsburg was ready to tell us how the building worked and what condition the building was in. And all of those things, we could say what condition the building is in, but we haven't answered the questions educationally. And if you were in a merger process, somebody would want you to do that. So I'd say that's what we're working with that. So this question that you wrote originally about goals, is that kind of an iterative process where the administration provides the initial, and then it comes back at some point, say, OK, here, we've put all this data, we could really use clarification. That's exactly why the process is going to take a year, because just if we meet once a month, which is probably pretty reasonable, the first meeting will sit down. So our first meeting in late October is going to be, let's tour the building, let's all get on the same page, understand where we're going. December, we sit down and say, OK, what do we want this school to look like? How do we want it to function? What do we want to teach in a year, and how? We wait a month to regurgitate that information back out to say, is this what we all understand? Yep, nope, yep, let's tweak it again. So it takes a while, but that's exactly what we're going to be doing, and then we'll have sprinkled in there those public forums where we get an opportunity to share them. And we could coordinate. So with regard to the question of the goals, and Libby's point is very well taken for me. So all of us are representatives for the community. And Libby's making a very selfless point here, where she has a lot of her and her team have a lot of discretion over this process.  And we have an opportunity outside of this, but we do have an opportunity to begin setting the goals, the ends for our community. And I do think that's an important process that we shouldn't totally forget about. But I do think it's outside of the scope of the mainstream middle school building committee. And so for this, it sounds like people are leaning in the direction of having Libby and Pam and Drew, our administration, kind of set the tone in terms of our educational goals for this process. Yeah, I would change that. So we're going to be amending this anyways. Yeah, I would change it to educational needs. But I do think we need, not to like, a discussion about setting some ends or goals for the board. Oh, I know what you're going to do with our hour. Thank you. Libby, how do you feel about that? Because obviously, this does put more of the onus on you with regard to the educational needs. I think it's great, yeah. And you're going to hear the first public opinion again is sort of what the community thinks the needs are. It's just going to get wild. We're going to keep on feeding all these opinions in. And you're going to pick and choose what you think is consistent with the other issues. Well, we're going to organize the information. And that's why it would be nice if it was a starting point. The school had either a list or some ideas about educational needs. So when you're starting in the community, you aren't starting with just, what are your ideas? We'll talk about how to facilitate the process. We also talked about getting an actual professional facility and put it in process. And from those needs, we're going to do some visioning as a committee before we meet with the public. It's an exciting conversation with the community. I know it's going to let people tangibly think about how they see education being done in a physical space. So I'm going to make a motion. I'm going to move to replace educational rules with educational needs. And I'm going to move to produce a public-facing report by the end of 2020. I think one of the things that we really want to do with this, I think it would be valuable, is we make this a living document. But it's not just something that we can easily go in and say, oh, OK, well, we want to bring these programs in. How do we easily incorporate that and see how it goes through? Yeah, I think we just, yeah, Andrew gives regular summary of updates for how the process is going. Do we need to amend the charge and, you know, ran it in or broaden it out or refocus it? Another general question. Andrew, do you know of any other districts who have gone through this process and maybe any of the committee members? Do you guys get to fall back on or rely on for the first-hand? I would say every school. Everybody does this. And the first thing you do is you build your program. And you sit down program by program, and you talk about, OK, science classrooms. What are we going to teach? Are we going to high school? Just look at the High School Science Lab from 20 years ago to today, to what it's going to be 20 years from now. Because the way people teach is different. How many kids do we want in the classroom? What are we lacking for in storage? That's stuff you need to help support those classrooms. You just write it down, and you talk about where they want to be. And you run the numbers. And once you get that, and we're all agreed, or at least fundamentally, of what it might look like on paper. And then you just start overlaying it on the building and see where those chunks start going outside your footprint. And then you start playing with, well, how can we get them to fit on our site? And the easy part is, we need x amount of square feet here. Build a new building. Where could we possibly do that, and how much space do we need? And then you start looking at the relative costs. And that's going to be the toughest thing, because that's the last thing we want to talk about. And ideally, you don't even talk about costs. That's inevitably what you're going to. But to be able to say, to renovate is going to be x. To build new is going to be x plus. To do something in between is going to be there. And then you can start talking about what is the value? How much is it worth to us to achieve these goals? And can we afford it then? Yeah, and I think costs, that's obviously part of the charge. And obviously, affordability is a really important element of this for the community. At the same time, when we're in the process of visioning and we're in the process of exploring all of these options, I don't think that's the time to be constrained by costs. I think we put everything out there, and then we look at the costs. So the costs are going to come later in the process. But what Andrew said about value is really important. And I think you're going to face that initially from the community is, yeah, it's not building. It's good enough, right? And so that issue of, is it worth all the costs to get that completely up-to-date building that we all would love to have? Or as Lily said, and I don't mean to skew what you're saying, but the decision about, do we just buy a bunch of things? A building is a thing that we use to get our work done, and to go sit under an apple tree instead. I mean, this is a value laid, and the costs are coming up fast. I mean, it's going to be, maybe that's where it comes back to the board, right? Yeah, and we'll have to put some, we'll put a qualifier on it, but our assumption is that this is a quality building that's going to last 100 years that's going to be made of quality materials. Because it is, you can build a building for $150 a square foot, or you can build it for $400 a square foot. And one, there's frozen cons of each of those. So we'll definitely put those out there, and have to make those decisions. And what it costs, who knows. And it'll be a snapshot in time, because I'm obsessed with Andrew saying, because 10 years from now, some of the tariffs that are in existence on materials that are being imported into this country might not exist. Labor costs might be different elsewhere in the world. Might be different. You've got to seem like a totally god. I'm serious, like all of you, so it was great. Yeah, it's going to be fun. And it'll be interesting and informative. And nothing else, we're going to be able to come up with some, hopefully, some, every time you have these conversations, and you guys deal with this every day, you answer the same 10 questions every week. And to be able to have a document says, yes, we looked into that. And this is why we think this couldn't work, couldn't work. Or here are the hurdles, and it's just down. It's done. It's not going to be a matter of, well, we looked into that a couple of years ago. We'll look at it again, and we'll get back to you. This is the work we did. And this is what we believe is the scenario. Good. Ready to move on to. Any questions about this building? I know we kind of buzzed around. I've done a great job. Feel free to email me if there are any questions. Liddy sent out a poll to do a tour of the other buildings. I've also been working, and we'll have ready a draft of a building summary. And basically, it's a narrative of all that we've done, or a narrative of the buildings, and what we just did. And again, I have not gotten into costs, or recommending projects, or any of that. I think you guys need to get your head around what the whole district is, and what everything's there, because there's a lot of stuff to be done, and picking and choosing what's the right project. And at some point, hopefully, I'll know you guys in your direction well enough to be able to say, yeah, I know that's where they want to head. But I think you guys need to see it all firsthand first. See you later. To help with that. Thanks. You have the key to lock up? I do. OK. Couple. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to. Let's see. Let's go. Perfect. So for discussion, community engagement in the budget process, are you going to show us a video? That'd be sorry. That's OK. No, I'm not. I was going to. There's a link right there for everybody to see. Check it out. I'm sorry. We were going to do that. And I told you. That's from the VSBA. It's on their website. And it was done actually by students in Vermont a couple of years ago. Some of you may have seen it before. But I think it's always good to watch right before budgeting season starts, because it tries to put a very complex system into simplified language. Which I've watched it about 25 times, and maybe 3% clear about what the whole process is. But anyway, that link is there for everybody. Has it changed much in the last couple of years? No. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm sorry about that. OK. Yeah. And this is the annual part where we decide who we want to reach out to. And who wants to go meet with who. Ryan had some ideas for Roxbury, right? Yeah. Nobody talking about that? Maybe a couple of years. He's like, can you read that? Or you just look like you have a couple of ideas. I'm sure I did. You have a really good idea. You sent me an email about it. I didn't mean to put any words in your mouth. It's a valid idea. We went out to the parents' groups of your junior schools in the senior center. And we held a color cover. We did that too. Savannah just asked me the other day. It was in her notes. She asked me in October. And she wondered, did we want to schedule something in November? I actually have a suggestion from the senior center. If you're talking about communicating before you start the budget, I just found it difficult last year just going to a lot of people and saying, so what did you think about the budget? It's easier if you're proposing something. They can respond to it. So I did think, well, OK, so that you did have a chance beforehand, I could schedule one or two times at the senior center that I'm sitting there and anybody could come and sit with me and just say, I'm here for half an hour if you wanted to come in and say anything that you had to say about it. That way you're not asking, setting up a room and expecting five million people to come and they don't come. Whereas what we should do, which we've done before, is schedule the senior center for a presentation when the budget's done and often the city has done for this. I don't know. I mean, this presented their budget. And so the senior center's asking you if you'd like to use their facility, when would you like to do that? Yeah. I agree. I think there's some value, because it's a point with the budget. Well, I guess that timing also gets pretty tight, though. Yeah, and we do do the public forums. And then you don't, and the budget's kind of already cooked, or at least partially cooked. Well, in that scenario, you're not asking for opinions. You're explaining what the budget is. I mean, if you've done it already, you're just, it's a presentation of the budget so people understand what they're voting on. You're no longer going to ask for opinions because you're not going to change it. So that's why I would suggest some sort of, okay, I could be there Tuesday at 1 o'clock or half an hour or another day if you have anything you want to say. Prior to the budget, do stop by and see. If we did that presentation in the past couple of years, we've done at the high schools kind of a column. We did that at the senior center. Might we draw on that? You know, diverse crime? Well, some seniors might come that wouldn't come to the high school, but then again with people that went to the high school come to the seniors at night. Still only get a couple of people who received the information with the presentation that you're seeing. Yeah, we only get... You can get a hand, Supervisor, are you talking about right before town meeting day that informational session? Or the earlier one? The one before result the budget out? The one? I gave it to people last year. Well, we also had the after school thing right before where there were like a hundred people. Yeah, left. Yeah. So that's what I was suggesting. Don't do it until your budget is done. The bigger the budget is done and you're just explaining to people and we may get only two, but... It kind of begs the question of how do people... how do people gather and talk about things today? And I think that there are some groups that are consistent but they're not necessarily... And even altogether they don't form a large percentage of the population. And do we need to be thinking about this or more of like a media strategy or a communication strategy that is not in a physical location? It is. And there you leave other people out, right? So it's not exclusive but if we don't include that as a piece of it and then the method you use for that is often different too. It's not let's all sit down and have a presentation. It's asking a provocative question or making a provocative statement that then solicits a reaction and then you gather those reactions and so there's a whole different way we communicate today that we have to incorporate as well as go to the senior center. Right. So for example, Bridget was saying go to PTA meetings and we've heard from the middle school PTA meeting that the only person there is she and two other people. Now maybe they show up if there was an agenda item that they were interested in showing up to. Put busing on the agenda. Put budget in really small letters. If you have three slots, we'll go back. Well, so we have much more of a media presence now. We could use those media platforms to encourage people to provide input about the budget process. We could. We could ask people to adjust priorities or to create resources that people can then gather a lot of priorities. I'm concerned that people won't understand that the budget doesn't drive the priorities. Say that again. I'm concerned that people don't understand that the budget comes from our three and five year plan. Oh. It doesn't drive the three and five year plan. I think people may not understand that the public doesn't drive the budget. We are meeting the needs of our students and the community and creating a budget to meet those needs. That's why if we had a three year plan that wasn't the one submitted to the state but was clear and shorter that people could understand, then they could refer to that. And we could. But at least it's something very important that the public doesn't drive the budget. And I think that that's a scary thing, right? The public doesn't know that.  But in the immediate, it's not like that. So what are the provocative slides we throw out there and say, react to this. What are the things we're actually going to do? The public, I just want to say the public certainly drives components of the budget. For example, the reason why we incorporated busing into the budget last year was because of public engagement and because we knew that there were needs and that we were able to help certain elements of our community better. With regard to food service and providing for those folks, that was the result of a lot of community. That was a lie. It takes time. It takes time. But I don't know what to say. I think the influence is on the policy that we're going to provide better food for our students. Then we create a budget to provide better food to our students. It's a separate process. I'll take Vicki's point there. The witness's structure that we go out to get input on the budget makes it seem as if the budget is a policy or something. When in fact what we should be asking for input is the policy. It's a good idea. Totally good. We're going to go back to that. It's bad directly. So we're engaging the community for a long time here. Which is something we've concluded before. We concluded before that we should engage the community in the spring. Or on a different topic. In a way that drives the conversation around ends. Does it really work that way though? We've had kind of a pretty broad that takes our budget. We've had like a transportation policy that's already been supported but it really took the same thing. So it wasn't a budget issue. It wasn't something that came up like right during the budget. It presented the budget. We'll store that in. It was as if it was a longer transportation that we were responding to and then it was implemented at the budget. And I never remember any of those meetings for the budget last year that somebody actually talked about wasn't. They came to the board meeting. Ahead of the budget. To the extent that it reacts it reacts with a leg because it needs to react with a leg. So it reacts but it takes a whole year before it makes it. So we have to change the policy. And then the budget reacts to the policy. I think there are places that are making me think of the provocative question I get. There are very limited places in the budget first of all that we have a lot of play with. The vast majority of salary benefits to our employees. And so thinking about the small areas where we do have a lot of play and you all do need to make a decision around like an example that's on my mind for this year's budget is the enrichment piece with the after school do we pay for it all? Do we not pay for it? Do we have people pay for some? Do we not have people pay? You know, like the policy discussion around the fund raise it's the same piece. So I just wonder those would be provocative questions should the district pay for all after school enrichment activities offered through the district, right? So then like you could get some feedback on that. Can we react fast enough today? It depends if we can get some social media reach. If it's a good enough question that people have opinions on No, but can you react in the budget to it? Oh, at this point in time like right now we could. Right. But in a month or two? Is it doable? I don't know. Yeah, those are the things that are that are massageable in the budget. Yeah, they're not huge pieces. They're not huge components in our budget. They're the ones that people say to me, well it's just a drop in the bottom when you're talking about an $18 million really, you know, like if I got that you know, if I started adding up all those drops in the budget it adds up, but there are certain areas in the budget that really do influence community and opportunities for kids and we've had discussions about them here about what to do that aren't salary benefits. Maybe we should list those questions. Yeah, no, that's right. Maybe we should list those questions and try the same venues we've tried before, but like go to the PTA meeting saying we're talking about budget and we're interested in your answers to these questions. These are the things that might be affected this year in this budget. Right, yeah. Or on social media, or you know. But I like the, yeah. District and the district budget. We use the same kind of questions over and over. There you go. If you bring those two or three questions out repeatedly everyone starts to learn the question. And then you can start to narrow in the question. So let's stick with the enrichment opportunity, right? Like if we get an overwhelming response of like, yes, the district should put that money in the budget. And then you can come back with okay, so that's where the pros and cons to this also, you know, like so the pro would be that it's free and equitable and everybody could you know, and we can provide that and we can provide awesome opportunities. A con would be that it limits the amount of opportunities that we can provide because we only have so much money. Right, so knowing those two pros and cons, now what is your, you know, now give us some feedback on that. It just, it could gear a conversation better. It is a very practical thing. There is a political reaction which is, you're asking me to weigh in on the things and what I really want to talk about is the fact that the school is important.  And we cannot react to that on a moment's notice. We may be able to react to that over two or three years but it is, you know, the question of like, we have too many teachers or whatever that they are, they're overpaying, you know. They get their health care student. Whatever those things are, you know, things that we really can't do a lot about that are coming up. We do want to hear those. We don't want to disrespect that opinion in the community while we recognize that we can't react to it very quickly. And it's also sorry, it's also a chance to educate in terms of that's a negotiated piece that's a different item or that's a different conversation. So we need a forum, all I'm saying is we need a forum for people to be able to voice that macro budget thing while we understand that we're actually working on a micro budget. And I was going to say the real big question is how do you get some input? And I think what we've just discussed is the only time we get a huge amount of input is when somebody is up there. And then we all come on big numbers. And that's fine but unless we're going to elicit a question that's going to make everybody upset and they're going to turn out to be probably large numbers of people. This is not to elicit a question that makes people upset. I was going to say you could probably come up with three questions that upset people and that would get everyone to pay attention. I mean we do want people to react to a question about the budget right now. We want them to do that. We're doing a budget. Pay attention. What about getting an input on a Facebook survey using social media doing some kind of virtual event survey monkey. I mean any of those channels just to get gather data and say okay 87% of you said this is what you want and then go from there. I think I'd want to target it with specific buckets. And that would rely on you all to help craft what those buckets might be. I was going to say I want to be careful because I think a lot of us are living and this is supposed to be well but this is supposed to be the board. I know we're not a policy governance board saying that in the governance model this is the piece that's really supposed to be the board as the representative is. We've been talking about raising this reactionary question like really I think a lot of our job in this conversation is paying attention to the grumblings paying attention to the praises throughout the year, last month, next month and being able to synthesize that roughly into what the budget would be next year. It's also important for people to understand that last year our budget went up less than the rate of inflation and that with regard to the grumblings that you brought up which are some of the more popular ones that I hear in terms of grumbling and so when people understand like how are we comparing to prices at large in society in recent years this district has been pretty good well that's a slide with three facts right how we're doing budget wise how we're doing on demographics and how we're doing relative to other schools whatever we want to say about those things but that slide about how is it going lately and actually maybe that's a better question how is it going how how do you feel about the schools and what are they doing how is it working for your if it's working well generally I it's not providing I'd actually really love to get into on this after school it's a really hard question it's a really hard question really hard question and then that oh you know you know in terms of like big priorities and then a couple specific questions the other piece of this is when you solicit information and you expect to use it what's your gathering what's your record and I think that's if this is simply an extension of our day to day role as a board member which it sort of is which is we are listeners and we are representatives then we have to be done informally we does not have to be written down somewhere but you know it ultimately comes back to us as representatives to cast votes are you representatives or are you trustees I don't know what I meant well in that case we have no reason to listen we're not representatives well we're elected by the community it's a representative so even though this is our responsibility right even though this is our responsibility let me just mention to maybe the next board meeting is that too late to for her to come back with her to how she proceed and we could add anything to it so we all have the same set of questions however we decide whether it's online or somewhere else to ask or did you expect us to come up with this right now I don't think we have to come up with it right now I do know that it's October 2nd or so my phone tells me and it's my mom's birthday she's watching I'm sure she watches all of the board meetings on fall we could probably figure out some specific ways the next section but after that we're into November if we actually want to get some answers to questions like this then November gets pretty late well we might decide now how we get it and where we get it we could work on that so at the next board meeting I could say okay talk to Libby and we're going to go to the senior center this day and this day and the next PTA meeting or this is the way to do it online and you set that up so that would be all set up ready to go we just haven't decided what the question is the only two places that I've ever been on a meeting like this has been significant numbers especially since the parents group seemed to be not charbly people this year unfortunately there's been a couple bomb meetings that were well attended and the senior center I skipped it last year but the rotary can actually have a good number of people like yeah I can have like 20 people and they're all the people who are watching the taxes it's always smiling to have less so I'm happy to be that guy this year you need backup I'm happy to do that the union parent is usually a large group the union parent I've done that a couple of times in their world only four cause I've been there a couple of times in their life the union I think the thing part of the PTA video issue is is there an agenda in other words even when I was a parent I looked at it and said what are we doing this time that's the provocative question it's like give me something I'm going to talk about I could have a house meeting 30 people if I had a provocative question or bring pizza or food we always offer pizza no downfall so maybe we should go back to Ryan and say so what about Roxbury I think maybe before we go on Roxbury specifically I think about this conversation we're going to get information from specific groups in the end what are we going to do with that information are we all going to tabulate our numbers Rotary said 5 yes 10 no senior said 20 this 15 no and then we're going to sit down and say these are the numbers are this is the direction we should go because if we are going to go that route we need to do a much better job of getting a representative survey of the community but I don't think that's are we taking the temperature of the people we don't normally take the temperature of take the temperature of people we don't normally hear and also by having conversations it informs our thinking we hear from people we don't necessarily normally talk to we hear things we don't necessarily normally hear I don't think we're trying to get survey data that's a different thing entirely we're just trying to expand just us actively trying to have and it's part of our messaging out about where we're headed as a district that's kind of a secondary piece but it builds a long term kind of understanding about what the schools are doing so it's as much about the process as it is the process is important sometimes it's important that you have the meeting and you have to say even if only five people you have the meeting and people could come if they wanted to and provide it to them yeah and some of the other questions I see it as a strictly political process I mean we will we will get information we didn't get but we really have to keep the school support healthy which we have a very supportive community we reach out to people who who want to be asked who need to be part of that and I think Rotary is a great example of that right that's not a big enough group to make it bullet but they are people who really care about their community and they talk to other people and so go out and show respect to a group of people who have for a very very long time been paying their taxes in the community and just show respect and it's a political state it's a good political it's not a conniving and the same with seniors exactly the same so I'm happy to do some current outreach I was like Tina senior center old Rotary and then we should think about some no questions yeah maybe like four or five like two general specific things that really resonate we can talk about that I think next board meeting quickly and then I'm working with my future team tomorrow morning on big picture high in the sky ideas so then we might be able to pull some themes from that as well from our end that's in the context of maybe budget implications oh great it is in the context of like I mean rather than longer yeah that's great and then we might be something electronically and see how it goes once we get those once we get that definition it shouldn't be too hard to repeat it through multiple channels I do think though that so I think that there's value to the process there's value to community engagement which is really the political idea that was amazing I wasn't going to watch it that way but in regards to these questions with regard to the community's priorities it really shouldn't be a reactive thing and it really should be incorporated into our roles I know I've said that tonight yeah I think we have to have a community process then we can say we went through this process we engaged the community in this way these are the goals of the community and this is reflected in our budget right now we can't really do that and even doing this this is good but it is very reactionary it's not really giving the community a chance then yeah I know this is a process we go through every year and it can't be a substitute for other more inclusive ways to set long-term goals it's a temperature taking for budget but to respond to enter a minute I think that this administration has some clearly articulated goals so I mean in terms of those questions we can when we're asked about the budget we have a direction and when we're talking about the budget we can we're going somewhere this is how we're working on equity and this is how it's being implemented and there are very specific things that we're doing and there are budget proposals that tie to that although it's true that we haven't undertaken this kind of large community process it's not that there were direction that's a really big it's a really big process and I think we felt with the merger and the new administration that we just could take it off put them through it before they even do you think we're coming to that time now yeah I was going to say when was that time I don't know I mean I think it's a big question for me and her team too they feel like fair they can make the time for it what do we feel like it would add to what's going on could it be that these questions these pointed questions sort of are they all almost travel-ins where you incorporate some of those things you're working on into practical real world questions and I think like the enrichment is sort of a way to do that honestly the practical things we work on they're going through this lens these lenses that you've created for how you analyze or how you do decision making and honestly that's what gets put before the board your priorities in practical concrete in the questions so I feel like with some of the after school stuff for example I'm not certain that this would have all been fleshed out for purposes of panacea but some of those priorities that we gathered from the community throughout that process you know Libby might have not been quite as blindsided as a new administrator had we done a visioning process in advance now I understand a new district all of this wasn't going to be feasible there was a lot of change I'm not pointing fingers I'm not saying anything was you know circumstances were such that that's the way things played out and things are going really well now but to Libby's point before about Libby's not always going to be here I think we can engage the community and we can show some leadership in a way that can set our administration up for success for a longer range across administrators so that's my thought I'm very for it that's my perspective and you've heard me say this before but I think you need a five year plan well maybe I had a three year plan that you would have what you want next so maybe it's not in this budget but it's coming to the next one look it's written here so we discussed it we decided this is what was coming next so somebody dies and leaves us five million dollars we had to know exactly what we wanted to do next and if Libby wins the lottery and isn't here the new superintendent who comes in we say by the way this is our plan so this is what we were intending to do next because it's you're hoping it's based on what the community and the board wanted to do well we have four hundred thousand dollars at the end of the year in a fund balance rather than oh well maybe we can put it towards this parking lot for things there's a community vision for how to the ends aren't big enough no that's a question the end you need a three year plan and even like the three year plan might not answer this is such a because the superintendent might want say I don't want to be necessarily shackled by what the three year superintendent wanted to do it might not but it's a start so it's to contemplate this is a bigger conversation but we're really trying to figure out what's the next step on community engagement and it sounds like you're going to do a draft of a question or five so we'll bring questions back to the next board meeting so you all can think about it and then I'll craft some of the admin team as well for you to react to or wordsmith and then I heard Tina and I go into the senior center to do some stuff for the seniors with the rotary but I'm more than happy to go with you as well you're like 19, you enjoyed it my grandfather was a lifelong Rotarian smiles down at me every time I go and I heard Jim talking about parent group yeah yeah and then we use these questions so on media I wonder if Ryan wants to hold something in the Rocksbury Library PTO's will be meeting regularly community public this coming Friday seniors have lunch every Monday so there's some evidence can you ever go back with the question to Rocksbury about the merger go do we ever do that to the community? you know we didn't, Lisa and I had talked about could have been at the end of the first year like kind of reaching out to some of the families some of the more involved folks and they just got busy more valuable because to say it's been a couple years how are we feeling you know I mean that's the most provocative question maybe in Rocksbury I don't know I mean I engaged the whole community but you don't want to look back too much we went through some big things as a district how did we do and the administrative turnover is another one of those things that was huge and engaged the community but I would interpret the fact that I agree people that we have here tonight complaining about things or how many people that we have jumping up and down everything is fantastic we seem to be doing alright also I think sometimes it's like I'm thinking of an online survey or just asking the question it's a good opportunity to collect success stories small individual success stories that you don't hear about like I would hear about one through a completely different channel just in conversation with somebody before I joined the school board oh you know I this happened to my child in the school and it was a really positive thing for me and I think it would be great to hear about some of those new share votes so then you might be able to get themes too that could influence like protect this piece right so um good discussion let's move on to the last item on our agenda sort of already passed adjournment time it has to have said hi to her my mom her mom she wants I could talk about this piece a little bit so the policy committee two weeks ago had expected to have before the board tonight a draft policy for gender non-compliant students that's not the case about a day and a half two days before our second to last policy committee meeting I found out that the BSBA essentially withdrew the model policy that they had for this topic that policy was the foundation for the draft that we were going to bring before you tonight so a little bit of a rinse in the plan there again if you guys remember the background for where we had started early summer some of the principals said we have some good procedures in place but a lot of fuzziness with all of these topics and we'd like to have a little bit more backing from the board essentially we'd like to have something a policy to really affirm what we're doing so we took the lead on it I had some meetings with Mara Iverson from outright Vermont Libby had set me some of the procedures that the superintendents get from we again the BSBA model policy it was the foundation that we had a pretty good path going forward and then surprise when I spoke with BSBA about their decision the federal judges across this country have been making rulings that are inconsistent the primary legal reference for their policy was a the dear colleagues letter from the end of the Obama administration which had been rescinded with our new administration so that big foundation was kind of pulled out and there's just a lot of unknowns right now on this topic so we don't have anything before you tonight but I think we had a question for maybe what you guys would like us to do we could one continue on with the draft we have knowing that the legal references aren't maybe the best that they are they're going to be changing so that we have to pay attention to or we could just hold off and wait and see how things play out not have anything on the books at all or the third option might be we could come up with not necessarily a vision type policy but just something very basic that this is the direction we would like our administration to go on this topic not prescribe anything very general support our students don't break the law I can divide by those three things obviously more elegant than that but so that is the only other update that I have on the topic it sounds like a best world scenario business attorneys are working on the recommendation for VSBA and they think maybe the end of November they might have an updated policy for us to work on again but again that's totally up in the air I have to say because she helped VA write the first she did if I were to summarize our conversation a lot of her critiques would be this is the best we have right now the old one that they went through yes there wasn't anything glaringly wrong or there wasn't any single thing that she used to take this out you have to put this in there wasn't any really significant concrete change she and I spent time talking through it helped me get informed on some of the topics and the challenges but it was she probably said that several times in our conversation this is the best we have we did what we found out about the VSBA's withdrawal I did reach out to Libby to ask the principals again for their feedback on this just like we're asking you right now what would you guys like? you'd like us to go ahead with what we've been doing are you happy with what you have for procedures we didn't hear anything back from I didn't hear much back from them I think my question would be opinion change I know my principals opinion would not change based on where we are but with this board's opinion change about how we work with with this topic if federal law changed which I don't think you would the other thing is that values have a change values have a change if the federal law imposes something else that we have a responsibility to respond to the policy can be but we shall remain consistent with federal law I think in some ways to be honest we want to be accountable we don't have to know what's going on one of the things is that apparently one of the things that there's some working on the Trump administration may probably have a role that defines gender as biological which could then reverberate through all kinds of stuff I don't know what you brought to us the policy that you've written and we look at that and make a decision on how to see that does that make any sense I'm sorry suppose you brought the policy that you had written to us to see as a board do we think no matter what the rest of the world's doing and then again decide should we put this in place and we would change it if something happened that it was suddenly illegal not all policies have law in it well this one is very I kind of understand why the BSBA felt like they had to pull it because they heavily cited it and it's heavily cited to authority that legal authority isn't really there at the moment it does not have to be so heavily cited it's not right or wrong what do you what do you guys suggest I don't think the BSBA draft and the draft that we had coming before you guys was very prescriptive necessarily but it was it was more details than some of our other policies I think I would lean a little more towards the more values based directive approach which would be kind of pulling out the definitions pulling out a lot of legal references and going forward with that direction that yes we're going to support our students to do our best to reduce potential for conflict and we have to have a little more I mean obviously it would have to have more meaning in that but that's where it kind of is what supports decision making in the schools you enough when you're making a decision to look at the policy and go well in this case this is the filter we use to make that decision without the legal that is going to still bind us but you know you need to there needs to be more in there in terms of kind of it needs to be a little bit of a piece to tell us where our direction we're currently taking is the direction that this board supports and maybe there's where we need to find the questions that are that need clarity because we could go forever on values about equity and you know and privacy and anything else we want to talk about but it doesn't maybe guide you but it's this you know if it's said enough around respecting students' gender identity is really respecting privacy and doing so to the greatest extent possible while complying with other legal requirements is that level of detail is too enough but the BSK policy had some more specifics about record keeping for example does that have to be in the policy there's more procedure now we're going to set up a guideline for administrative procedure to deal with because I think some of the problems the principals are having are very specific ones you have a situation where records records where records go where things get mailed that name is mailed is causing problems because whatever position we take is challengeable and we don't know how to be settled out so if you're looking for the board to take that responsibility fair enough to say the board is willing to take the risk do it this way that's great then the administration says you know I don't know what the law says but the board says to do it so I gotta do it and I don't think they can do that right now or the administration can tweak the procedure within the broader values of the policy and if there's law that comes down to fines or instructs in terms of that we have a pretty policy review schedule that's about to start because policies aren't going to be started to be reviewed very soon right and there's nothing that stops the board from saying we need to put this policy on the agenda next and review it because law has changed right there's nothing that tells us we can't defend we certainly have a lot of lawyers on this board I would think well I would think that it would be better to have something for the administration to refer to then nothing it really leaves you out in no man's land if there's nothing there to refer to it allows the schools to make a statement rather than the district to make a statement of support which is not a that's not a good place to be to make a district to make a statement or not yeah let's do it around values and we get crazy rules from the feds do we cross reference policies from time to time in our policies why not to I'm just wondering with the equity policy I wonder if that there's definitely some pieces that there was things this gendered policy we set this much better in in law yeah I wasn't certain I think that keep it clean they can stand alone exactly but is the policy going to specifically reference values related to record keeping I think what we might be able to do is the interpersonal conflict is a big one that's where the records become such a hot topic is because we're trying to support our students the students themselves in the building it's easy that's when you start talking to the parents outside to the public outside that's when it gets a little more hairy and it's a chance for conflict it's maybe having a value statement for reducing doing the best to minimize the conflict and doing the best I guess we haven't flushed that out yet we're brightening up that there was a procedure so that each school knew how they notified and who they notified what name they used to notify that still needs to be built internally after you see a policy statement effectively so Bridget, Ryan, Steve, do you feel they have enough guidance to figure it out and go more values based but can we see we actually haven't seen the procedures that the principals have Procedures to the policies? I don't think there's anything formalized if they're reactive to when the situation rises at the moment but I can't say there was a question to ask if we had a policy around this from you this year already going down the grades it might be good for us on the side to not understand what that question was just so we can put a point on the policy a little bit I think you all talked to the principals about this in a more private executive session kind of way might be important You want to go directly to them for the conversation I think we can set it up just because I don't want to speak for them because I'm not in the direct immediate decision especially since they're the ones who catalyze their requests so we have to update today thank you thanks for your work on this thank you post to the chair second I think all is in favor many a post


Welcome back to part two of the Vermont House Human Services Committee on Wednesday, May 12th. And this part of our meeting, we will be hearing and talking with legislative counsel, Michelle Child, as she reports to us and goes over the amendment that has been suggested, well, the amendment that has been passed by Senate Judiciary and presented on the Senate floor today positively. So it's going now for third reading. Committee, do you wanna see the language? Julie, is the language on the committee webpage? Yes, it is. Okay, so why not? For those who were listening on YouTube, the language is on the Human Services Committee webpage. Michelle, I think it's probably fine to go over the three concepts. And folks, if you wanna look at the language, why don't you go on the webpage in case we have questions? Thank you, Michelle. Sure. So the committee made, Senate Judiciary made three changes to the House version. The first change was in section one in the intent section and in the intent section in the House passed version, it said it's the intention of the General Assembly to decriminalize possession of 224 milligrams or less of the Puprenorphine. And they changed it to say that it is the intent to remove criminal penalties for possession of 224 milligrams or less. So just not a substantive change, but something that they were more comfortable with in terms of language. The second change is that- Sorry, Michelle, I was just gonna say, I think that that intent was potentially a holdover from the first iteration of the bill when it left House Judiciary and there was a larger amount. I don't know. That may, I have to say, it's all a blur at this point. And a lot of versions of this one. So that may be true. The second change is that they have added a sunset. And so the proposal, so this will take effect, actually, I'll couple it, is they made it effective on passage. So I guess that's the second change. And they made it effective on passage. The House version was the default of July 1st, but they said, if it's gonna save lives, let's get it working as soon as possible. And then the third change is that they put in a sunset. So it'll take effect upon passage and then it will sunset July 1st, 2023. So essentially in two years. And so you'll have an opportunity that legislative year to take a look and see whether or not you think it still makes sense and you can eliminate that sunset or extend it if you choose. And that's it. I have to admit, I'm pleasantly surprised and given the fact that this was not on the pre-agreed upon list of bills that the Senate would necessarily take up this year since it passed after crossover date. And there seemed to be a time when it was going to stay there. And now it passed. So we've got some questions. Jessica, represent Bromstead and Representative Wood. Thought Representative Wood, I think you raised your hand first if you wanna go first. I just a quickie, it's more of a process question. I've always wondered about this. You see sunsets every once in a while in bills. How do we remember that in 2023, we wanna look at this and not just like, is there any sort of tickler for sunsets so that people know? Oh, you better take a look at this so it doesn't just go away. So I will have to check, I'll double-check but I think we keep an internal list of sunsets. And so we keep in contact with our chairs around certain provisions that we know are gonna sunset. And those are kept, we also include that in our act summaries so that they're specific so you can kind of always be able to find in the act summary whether or not something has a sunset date. And then also usually, there's advocates and people who are tracking these things that make us well aware beforehand, that something's coming up and we need to put it on the list to take a look at it. So I think in the past, we haven't had all those kind of safeguards but I think in more recent years, we've been doing that because the use of the sunsets has really, I think probably increased over the last several years and there's so many and you're right, it would be easy to lose track of that. That's good to know. Cause I think that it makes sense to have sunsets. It does make us look back and make sure that everything we intended is actually happening and that it's working well. It's just that it is important for us to know about it so we don't just let something slip. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious, Michelle, in that first instance of amendment, decriminalized versus removed criminal penalties, is there a nuance that I'm not understanding? So what is the nuance that is changing that language? Does it say the same thing in different words or is it saying something slightly different? I think it's open to interpretation. I think we use the word decriminalized oftentimes when it means removing criminal penalties. So the substitute language is exactly what that means but sometimes when we've used the word decriminalized like when you, in 2013, you decriminalized cannabis but you didn't remove all the penalties. You substituted civil penalties for criminal penalties in that particular case. You're not doing this here. And so Senator Sears is like, well it's more akin to legalization than decriminalization but legalization is sometimes can be kind of a it sounds as though it's more like an affirmative statement rather than you're just taking punishments away. And so usually the terminology that we use is either decriminalized or removal of criminal or in the case of legalization, removal of criminal and civil penalties. So. Okay, so when I work. Okay, okay. They all work. Just wanted to, it was obviously important to somebody so I wanted to understand. Senator Sears I think was, I think particularly at the beginning where he started out, I think he's talked about he started out not supporting the idea. And he was like, well this isn't decriminalized because it's actually legalized because you're removing all penalties and there's no penalties. And I get, I think it's in some ways it's a little bit semantics but I certainly see his point and he was more comfortable with the saying just removal of criminal penalties. So they're all correct. Okay, thank you. Right. Other questions, thoughts about what the Senate has done. Have, has done. Representative Whitman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Representative Bromstead and Representative Wood both asked my other questions I was going to ask. I'll just say I'm supportive of the effective on passage. Good change. Basically, because I think next week where I understand it is right now is that Senator Sears reported it on the Senate floor today. It will be up for third reading and passage tomorrow which is Friday. There will be a token session or does it have, or does it wait a day? It will. So it'll be third reading tomorrow then it waits a day. So then it will be up for action. We unnotice on Monday, which we don't meet but we're moving the calendar ahead. So doing calendar math, it would be up for action on Tuesday. And given that if people are comfortable and assuming that I don't come back to you with Michelle, with something has happened on third reading which we don't imagine it will, I would entertain, I'd like to take a straw poll and have people raise their hand if they support us concurring with the Senate proposal of amendment. If you could raise your hand, your little yellow hand. Okay, and mine too. I didn't print. Okay, thank you. And I have Representative Gregoire, I will check in with him in terms of that. We have a few days for that. So unless there is any change, I will let the speaker know that we are ready to do it on Tuesday. And similar to what we did with the PFAS bill, this is a strike all. So it looks like there are more changes than in fact, there really are. And so I'll just try to make sure that that's clear. One thing that I will just mention and is that just in case folks on the floor get confused all is just a reminder about the way that we do sunsets now is you actually repeat the language showing the way that it would look at the time it's repealed and then you have that take effect. So sometimes people get a little confused about why is that language the same in two sections and different effective dates and that's just the way that we do sunsets now. In the old days, we used to say those changes are repealed but we have a different process now but sometimes it can be tricky on the floor. Okay, okay, thank you. Michelle, thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you again. Appreciate your work. Nice to see you. Okay, bye-bye. Bye.