adjustments to the agenda. Jamie I believe you had one. Yes you can strike the 19-20 audit. We have the audit drafts back for several districts in the SU. We don't have it back for yours yet but I expect that you'll have it and be able to approve it next month which is much better than the time we've had in the past but we still need to do better. But just know that we're getting close. Very good. I would also like to add a public comment, an extra public comment between 6-3 and 7-1 so that I think with the topics we're talking about tonight it'd be good to hear from people before. Some of the people are up on some of the things we're talking about so if there's no objection I don't see my it's hard I don't I'm not seeing my people I'm seeing everybody else but I'm not seeing people. My board members are I guess they're not on video that's why. Okay well good good other than that I think we're good. Timekeeper Amy you've done it for us before would you be willing to step up for that Amy Wilt Amy are you there not see me yeah now I can see you great okay yeah I was giving you a thumbs up verbal a verbal thumbs up great I think consent agenda five board comment I don't know we'll see five nobody's mentioning anything to me reports of the board let's give that let's give that 15 to 20 I think the 7-1 public comment we'll give that what have we got 22 people in there I think we'd better give that 30 just to be safe 7-1 I give it 20 minutes COVID-19 impact on our side I give that 20 minutes now it's tuition rate I think what do you think Jamie like five yeah five would be fine okay seven four is gone articles of agreement committee recommendations 20 minutes at least maybe 30 we'll see how fast that goes outdoor learning structures I think that's about 10 and sale of Rochester property high school property is actually pretty quick I think we can do it in 10 let's see how we do that and then as we did last time a lot of times these action items end up being covered in the discussion so let's not give them times yet and then we'll give the final public comment let's give it 20 minutes that sounds reasonable to everybody if I can't see you we can use this see this little hand if he puts up a hand I can do you see that Amy yes yeah okay if you want to stay yeah Chicago just raised his hand I can see that I think that's a legitimate manner for voting if you do not want to be on video personally I would prefer if we're in a discussion about an issue that we all be on video so that we can see each other if you don't mind but that's your your choice that's just my preference being clear okay good let's move on to number four consent agenda for one approve the minutes of Tuesday December 1st 2020 I actually have a correction here I miss spoke when I was giving the estimates for the extra amount of money going to be spent to finish up the high school transfer and I said it was somewhere in the range of three to six thousand dollars and that is just the extra legal fees that is not the engineering fees so I don't know how we put that in do we have to go to the specific place in the minutes to do that yeah darn I meant to do that before and I didn't get that done I'm sorry when we are you saying that that in the meeting you misspoke and then after afterwards you realize the number was wrong I knew I knew it was just the legal extra legal amount that was going to be spent but I just in the ramble of presenting at all after our executive session I got can I did not speak clearly and speak exactly what that I ended up sounding like that was the total amount to be spent still right right I understand that I'm just I'm just thinking back years and years ago to a VSBA training about what should be in minutes and what you amended minutes and what you've subsequently correct in new minutes okay do you do you and as I understood it and this might be something that just he might know more about amending we're correcting the minutes is like someone was here or you know this thing was was was said and it didn't you know it didn't get properly captured is different from then we're correcting what we said because we were wrong but I don't mean I I'm just holding my train I think thank you Carl I think your correction is taken right to heart and I think what I'll do is when we get to the high school the sale of Rochester high school property I'll just restate the information there I think that's the best way to take care of that great then I will entertain a motion that we approve the minutes of Tuesday December 1st 2020 and approve the minutes of Monday November 23rd 2020 as as submitted so moved thank you Carl do I have a second from my who is that Justine thank you Justine all in favor signify by saying I hi hi hi Megan is that your eye yes I and then Jenny you had an eye in there yeah I should just call it down this easier okay good great moving on do we have any board comment just let me go through our list here Justine comment no Amy board comment I do I just wanted to I'd sent an email around there's a community group that is interested in possibly using the high school shop space starting potentially as early as this spring in right in Rochester community groups have always been welcome to use areas of the high school building in the past it was mostly the auditorium for performances but these groups have also used the shop in the past there is there will be a need for further discussion around what would be required particularly contacting our insurance to understand if community group use is or is not covered but by getting the ball rolling with a community use could help forward the effort of a successful community supported transfer of the building as I said there's logistics to work out and obviously an eventual board approval but I guess I just wanted to make sure that wanted to know at this time if anybody had any major objections to just looking into this I sent your email back basically saying yeah we really have we need to know insurance I do know that actually the players had to get insurance most they have to have their own insurance any any renter that comes in we'd also have to figure out cost benefit whether turning on the heat is going to be worth the rent we're going to get we're going to be paying in general and as you say I think it's a very good point to make smoothing this transition that we hope is going to go through to the town that's a great idea so in that sense I totally support that okay like I said there's definitely more to be discussed in an eventual approval so this is not giving approval this is just you know it does anybody right now have like a big objection or can we go forward looking into this always good to get it justine do you have anything to say on this no Jenny um I think I totally agree with everything that Ethan had pointed out in terms of the logistics great sorry Carl um assuming that it's it's cost it's it's it's at least cost neutral to the board and assuming that you know again it's it's a different group's insurance versus ours and you know our liability exposure is nil yeah I think I think getting the the you know the community you know into the space whether it's the auditorium or the shop as long as you know as long as the the costs are covered in the and the liability is protected Megan I agree with you Ethan and Carl you guys spoke really well to it as long as it doesn't cost us anything I think it's a good idea good you got what you needed Amy good good other board comment Carl do you have anything I do not thank you sir oh happy new year everybody I have that I know I'm so business like it's like boom boom boom let's go let's go a lot of people are here that's good that's what we want sorry I asked justine as Carl Megan do you have a board comment just happy new year and a quick my internet has been spotty this afternoon if I if I lose you I might have to switch my location so if I drop out that's I should be back within 10 minutes okay good thank you Jenny do you have a board comment I do not at this time thank you thank you all right moving on let's get to our reports to the board number six six one start with our superintendent so you have my report in hand I'll just I want to highlight that you know we're in the thick of budget season tonight during the business managers report like the projection of revenue and expenditures that many of you saw at the SU that we're rolling out monthly we're going to rock the RSAT board through that you'll continue to get that in your packet moving forward month to month and so we expected that will address some you'll notice we do account for the representation of reduced revenue based on we talked about that at least one month ago maybe it was two because we have some students who we expected to be here choose to homeschool and so we lost out on some tuition revenue there but you'll see that projected and terror will walk you through that the other thing I'll add is that I did extend the chief academic officer position add for another month to see if we can secure any additional candidates for that position that's a pertinent a really important position as we move forward to increase our system of supports and coordinate curriculum instruction across the SU they'll also be taken on other responsibilities of course in the SU office for those just a reminder we did condense down the curriculum department free and the grant position into this one position for next school year and that's the chief academic officer of MTSS and of course you know I just want to put a shout out to my team I think they've worked really diligently in the face of our first experience with COVID-19 in our schools and it's not in a discussion later in the board meeting I will say I didn't think I'd be with the Department of Health every day other than Christmas or the break but that's really what the reality was even Christmas Eve out in the parking lot at tractor supplies in Berlin as we were trying to navigate this situation prior to me finishing up my Christmas shopping so Ethan will chuckle he knows I didn't start until noon on Christmas Eve I did get it done by 3 30 believe it or not so it's shout out to Berlin tractor supplies and I'll entertain any questions folks have you'll get what I'm hoping to be your final draft for your budget for 21 22 next month we may need a special meeting to put that one to bed but you know we're certainly working to try to get that thing really tight based on the parameters you gave us last time when we met in December it just seemed like this agenda was right act to do that as well good do we have questions for a superintendent Amy justine Carl I do not Megan no thank you Jenny no thank you thank you Jamie let's move on to our principles and so we had a really I would say effective two days of in-service on December 21st and 22nd Bonnie led the ARSA staff through more math instructional training and we had some great conversation that I even learned a lot we she gave a lot of examples of you know here's the problem from a standardized test 20% of kids pick this 40% of kids pick this and you know another 40 pick this why these two answers were wrong why did kids pick that and where would their thinking have gone wrong and like that's how deep we're starting to dive into this to ask teachers to them think about where they need to back up their instructional practice to when they see that result in their data so it was very powerful they also participated in a lot of different in-services that were all virtual ranging from outdoor ed a lot of them participated in one with Jolene Van Lint who spoke you know specifically to self-care and just navigating through what it takes to be teaching during a pandemic and what that means for your interactions and how that takes a toll on you I would say that was probably something they all a majority of them attended on the second day and then they spent the afternoon rolling out and preparing further for being virtual this week and I don't know about in Rochester but in Stockbridge we did have a staff meeting today and people felt a lot more confident in their virtual teaching skills and how it had gone with connecting with families and making sure kids were engaged and knew what was going on as well as families so it's early but they're definitely we seem to be moving in a positive trend compared to last spring which is good we are still working on some winter winter wellness opportunities we did I think the exciting pieces Cynthia Powers secured some grant funding that purchased cross-country skis and some more like warm outdoor gear for our preschool and kindergarten students in both campuses so we'll really be able to spend some time outside when we're back out there and Rochester teachers we had a different type of meeting today we had a MTSS multi-tier system of support meeting but we will be having a faculty meeting on Friday but at the MTSS meeting today there were three or four of the classroom TV body could you just remind our listeners what the MTSS stands for please more multi-tier system of support it's just it's the support system that sort of underpins our our school and the teachers that were at the meeting were talking about how how well today went how much more prepared they felt then then in the spring which makes sense we've had time to prepare for this virtual week I dropped into a kindergarten and first-grade meeting this morning and I was just amazed at the conversation that was going on between our youngest students and how adept they were at turning their mics off turning their cameras on those kinds of things and I my intent was to sneak in quietly so that no one really knew I was and as soon as I as soon as I hit the button they're like hi Mrs. born so you I found out there's no easy way to sneak into a meeting with with K1 kiddos a couple of other things just to let the board know as you recall we applied for and received grant funding to install a ventilation system in the gym and the manufacturer the equipment delivery of equipment was delayed we submitted with Kara's help and the engineers help submitted the paperwork to the Department of Ed to extend the deadline for the project to be completed so that the funding would be maintained we received word just before Christmas that that was approved so the project will still be funded with grant money's approximately twenty three thousand dollars at this point I cannot give you a date for when the work will start because the equipment has not yet been delivered so that I'll keep you keep the board informed of that I guess the last thing there in terms of grant funding is that both Rochester and Stockbridge received approximately five thousand dollars to purchase refrigeration and freezer units for our lunch programs good I'm gonna jump in if you're are you all done buddy so I want to questions first is obviously we don't we don't know yet for sure if if in in person is coming back next week I assume we are but we don't know for sure I I have a question about our the beginning of the year three hours minimum outside obviously in the cold days but what is the policy at this point how will children be getting outside to increase their ventilation and increase their time there and I saw Carl I saw your hand raised I'll get you after that yeah let Lindy and I have chatted about that a couple of times obviously it's going to become increasingly difficult to have youngsters out for long periods of time as it gets colder there are also some things related to the curriculum that youngsters need to be those for a period of time inside the building for one of the things we've talked about is taking a 15 minute outside break every hour so that youngsters would go outside each hour did you once again please sorry one of the things we've talked about Ethan is that we would we're talking about taking a 15 minute outside break each hour great so every hour youngsters would be would be going outside the obvious thing we're doing too is we're trying to maintain open windows where we can we want we're working to make sure that the ventilation systems are up to up to capacity I think one of the well we'll we'll talk about that under COVID-19 okay good Amy let me get to Carl first yeah Carl first of all I good luck with that I really do not envy getting pre-k and K and 1 kiddos in and out of mittens and boots on the hour we might stay in them Carl we might stay in boots and ski pants and keep the cows colder yeah the question I was wondering is as I understand it the state is going ahead with s backs and time's test for the fifth graders and it has to do just call could you just acronym sometimes people don't know okay s backs are the smarter balanced assessment back to him to all the kids in three four five and six grades for English language arts and for math it's fairly it's a fairly decent it's computer-based training that's responsive if you're you're if you're answering questions it'll increase the difficulty if you're answering questions well it'll increase the difficulty if you're if you're not it'll try to hone in on deficits and and and explore your knowledge but so three four three four five and six take the English language arts and the math and then fifth fifth graders take the science so it's a decent amount of testing that has to be done in person and I'm wondering if we're if we're already starting the planning and thinking about how we can I know the window opens March what something like that and we'll end March and we don't have and I also as I understand we do not have any ELL learners so we don't have to administer the access test correct just the s backs and where you're not sure or we can't probably we have ELL okay yeah and we are administering that okay our understanding to that the states going forward with the state assessment which is the other we haven't talked a great deal about that my understanding is that the window goes goes a little longer than the end of March I think it goes into April no yeah I think the window actually goes from the middle all the way through June yeah but you know organizing all that and fitting it in I'm just hoping that you guys were on top of it and it sounds like you are excellent the conversation we did have with staff in our in service in December because aspects came up in the window I think one of the things we've always kind of had our hands tied it's like this idea of trying to rotate devices among kids it's all computerized and how to make that work and we don't have a gridlock anymore because all those have a one-to-one device in the building so we will truly be able to like if there's some benefit to any of this right now that's one of those things we will be able to like not try and rush and figure out when the best time is to take that before April break which really doesn't make sense when there's still a good chunk of prep and teaching that could happen so we have talked about it in that capacity that we have some time to really plan and be thoughtful and purposeful about when our window is and how to prepare kids to take tests not teaching to the test but there is some strategy around how to take a test yeah no and that's great I hadn't thought about the fact that our device bottleneck was was conveniently cured by going to a one-to-one program I'm sure that makes it a lot easier to manage and yeah I think you know given that it's testing on the knowledge of the year trying to do it you know towards the end of the window versus the beginning allows the kids really to have have been exposed to the majority of the field so it's just I'm just really glad to know you guys are on top of it and thinking of it thank you Amy I just had a quick question on about winter wellness that information sounds awesome that we were able to secure gear for preschoolers I just noticed that there was a group of Rochester residents that raised funds to buy cross-country skis but then there was also in your next paragraph you talked about Cynthia Powers getting cross-country skis so I just was wondering what the difference between the two were I don't think there's any significant difference Amy the the ones that were fundraised for I think can go up a little bit older Cynthia is particularly focused on our youngest young's our goal is to have enough equipment and I think we're pretty close to that so that we're so that our model for participating in winter wellness isn't driven by a lack of equipment but instead we have enough equipment so that we can organize it and scheduled in a way that makes sense okay wonderful thank you you're welcome justine do you have a comment a question for our principals no thank you good Megan Megan you still with us I um no I'm good thank you okay good Jenny no not right now okay thank you all right move on to business manager thank you principals good evening everyone good evening happy new year you too so I sent my business manager report out with the packet so there isn't really any substantial updates other than um we are still waiting for the auditors to complete your FY20 audit so as soon as we have that we will get that out to you I haven't received any additional guidance from the agency of education with regard to the CRF funds and all the extensions that were made so I don't have any update yet on that section but as soon as I know I will let you all know Tara can you just again the acronym CRF coronavirus relief funds thank you so if there's not any specific questions to my report I'll have Ray put up your revenue and expenditure summary um oh yeah let's do that then I'll just go around just to make sure everybody's could be that so some of you may have seen this when if you came to the SU full board meeting last month where we presented this for the supervisory union so this is updated as of your December 31st expenditures this first page that we're looking for looking at right now is your revenue side so this comes straight from your FY21 budget that first column is the description the second column is the actual FY21 budget and then we move over to the right and it gives us our FY21 projected and then the difference so that first line that 142987 that was the surplus that you carried forward the tuition was budgeted at 493 320 as jayman indicated earlier and as we had discussed previously we did not receive as many tuition students as we projected so the anticipated tuition for k through six is 361 768 it appears that we are getting more pre-k students than we budgeted for so we got a little bit of an increase there interest income we had budgeted for 500 and based on your December your December expenditure report we've been receiving additional interest income so I projected additional revenue there I don't foresee us getting any miscellaneous income at this point unless something comes in second half of the year we're not doing the rentals that we did previously so right now I have no projection as far as rental income your forestry grant I anticipate that you'll get the full amount that they indicated we would be receiving and then your trustees of public funds I anticipate that you'll get the full 9000 I'm not sure how that process works when you request that money down from the trustees but so I put the 9000 dollars in there as well the next section down is based on your tax revenue and what we receive from the agency of education so I anticipate the property taxes that we budgeted for is what we're going to receive the state tech education funding that's what the state pays to tech centers on your behalf I anticipate that to be what they told us it was going to be transportation aid we had projected 81,823 we are only going to receive 7706 I received those numbers from the AOE already and now I'm just waiting for the actual deposit to happen and then we can get that money transferred off to you so we'll have a short small shortfall there the next section is on special ed and that's part of the SU so it doesn't apply to your local revenue budget so the last section there is your other revenue and that's your small schools grant I anticipate that will get what the state told us we were going to get and then the last line there is what you receive from the supervisory union in your sub grants title one Medicaid funds and I anticipate that you'll receive what we budgeted for there as well so Ray if you can go to the expenditure report before I talk about this next section on the second page did it not come through I'm only seeing one page let me reprint that then sorry you should have it in your email Ray and I definitely do not want to rush Tara on this part but we are at 20 minutes I'll talk fast I don't want to rush you because this is important well we're waiting for that I just had a quick question I was wondering so the tuition difference and you may have talked about this last time I wasn't there I apologize but are those mostly do we know if those are mostly homeschool students or are there many that switch to other schools I believe a majority of them were homeschool students Bonnie and Lindy is that what your recollection was too when we looked at the list and sorry I remember months ago for me yeah so we do believe those differences Jenny are from those who chose to homeschool between both campuses and this is homeschool versus virtual correct yes because it's very virtual you still need to know whatever you see for revenue Carl and that's if I do my math right that's that's eight kids yes Carl eight kids so this next page here this is the expenditure side but you need to understand before I can talk about the surplus deficit projection so on the top line that's your expenditure budget all the way there on the right side of the screen so the next section down is items that were not budgeted for in your case it was the COVID cost for materials supplies PPE that type of stuff which I anticipate we should be able to receive grant funding so but I wanted to put that there in the event that we don't receive it in full so it's not a surprise so today you've spent 38,286 on that items in your budget that are currently looking to be over budget over spent based on what was budgeted for health insurance it looks to be we got about a $50,000 difference in what was budgeted for and what was actual enrollment at the beginning of the year just be reminded that January is our open enrollment month so I will see any additional changes that were made as far as enrollment is concerned probably won't see it in the billing until February or March but when I return to the office during the day next week I will be meeting with Lisa to get the summary report of who changed their insurance plans so in your February report I'll have an additional projection for the health insurance based on on that as well so just to be clear that $50,000 is over what we budgeted correct yes yeah and Tara this is not HRA or is this HRA this is purely health insurance this is what health plan your employees picked to be on as of July 1st or if they were if they were new hires if they were already employed January is our open enrollment month rates changed July 1 enrollment changes January and sorry go ahead whatever changes both are in this $50,000 as well as whatever changes that are made by employees in the enrollment period that will all be affected in the budget that we're that we're going to be seeing and voting on so we'll hopefully have a health insurance figure that's that's a closer to to actual and we're gonna update the current drafts that we've worked through are based on July enrollments so once I have that updated list from Lisa for January then I can go in and update the enrollments plan enrollments for each of the employees that are in the budget moving forward okay yeah I just don't want us to as we've talked about in other in other issues in other circumstances sometimes by making assumptions based on last year's budget and carrying them forward we tend to compound some more errors so as long as we're taking a fresh look at that and trying to use the most recent population and their most recent choices I'm good with that absolutely so the next line down this is what needs to be paid into the Vermont State Teachers Retirement Program for any new teacher that has entered into the retirement system this is an annual expense it's not a one-time fee so based on your teachers that are currently employed with you and have been employed with you we were about $3,000 under-budgeted versus what your actual bill came in for so moving forward in the FY22 budget we will also make those adjustments to make sure we're covering all of the new teachers that are within that assessment and that is like I said an every year assessment and you're responsible to pay it as long as they're employed by your district and it's about 1350 per teacher so then the next section down is potential areas of savings and this is very raw data right now on projections you know what happens when you come back into in-person could change this could increase it based on what happens with COVID and all of those exciting things in our world right now so we anticipate as of today a projected savings in your field trip line of about $4,000 in books about $10,000 tech hardware about $10,000 and then your special programs which is the winter wellness program because it hasn't been able to be used to fruition is about $10,000 so again those numbers can change we may find other areas of savings as we continue to move forward throughout the year but this is where we project there are some savings potentially right now go ahead Amy oh sorry Ethan I just had a question about the if we were going to have any projected savings from not having to do maybe as large of a food service transfer because of additional funding that we're getting for food service I did not put anything in as a savings for food service transfer but I can look at that as we move forward in the year because that's so a significant amount is 50 I think 56,000 that we're planning on that with the board I mean my hope is you'll get to as at least in my tenure just this number should get better not worse right like this is all very conservative with the savings and we try to project the increases as much as possible with the city you know so I hope that these numbers get better every month they shouldn't get worse well isn't the aren't there a not it's still a CARES fund isn't there a federal free service program that is providing us um monies for food service right now well it's paying for meals for each student and it's reimbursed at a higher rate but as if you looked at the SU report that we did back in December with Bill we're still projecting deficits okay interesting yeah and that would be with your full transfer of the 56,000 because those were all taken into account and the financials that Bill had provided to the board in December but again we'll continue to watch that and monitor that throughout the course of the year Carl you had your hand raised Carl um yeah uh and did this is the same assumption that that you made at the SU meetings uh Tara correct that the potential areas of savings are the field trips that we're expecting we're not going to be able to use because of COVID versus things that we're just going to cancel um correct Carl books that were books books that we're just going to rip out a little kids hands and send back to Scholastic it's just where we're canceling things that resources we don't expect that we're going to use versus versus uh uh trimming things that we otherwise would yeah so I don't think we're ripping books out of kids hands Carl but yes it's you know being cautious on the expenditures and if it's not a necessity not doing it right no I and I appreciate I'm glad we're being proactive about this and and not just waiting till the end of the year and going you know oh well but um I also wanted to make sure that we weren't you know jumping the gun and necessarily um you know shutting things down to try to uh you know fill it fill avoid the that hopefully doesn't materialize um other questions oh sorry go ahead I just was going to share with the board that when the budget did not pass the first time but we were getting closer to the start of school which meant teachers we needed supplies we knew these things Bonnie and I both made the decision also based under Jamie and Tara's guidance that we're going to allow teachers X number of dollars which was significantly less than what some of them had requested to make sure that they had things like pencils and you know those daily supplies so we could open school what that proved to us is that some of these budget requests that have gone in in the past not that we want to cut corners with what we're offering kids but we definitely can be a little smarter with our spending in terms of what we're purchasing so that's some of the reason you're seeing some of these surplus areas and potential areas of savings as well because we've improvised in a good way no and that's that's excellent thank you I'm glad I just want to make sure it's purposeful and and like I said I applaud you guys for all for being proactive about trying to give us a much clearer and more transparent idea of where we are even if it is uh Megan do you have a question for the business manager no I'm okay thank you Jenny it's not really related to this um I don't know if we're going over it later but in terms of the the number of equalized pupils I believe next year it's going down by seven and I was wondering what that equates to in terms of this number of kids next year versus this year projected so as far as equalized pupil we do not have a number a specific number or verified number from the AOE at this point in time they gave us a working number because there are still several schools who have not filed all of their data files and there are still many adjustments that are being made and they're still working through how they're going to protect the average daily membership the ADM that the I don't can't think of the name of the act right now but through this the CRF where they're going to not allow your FY21 average daily membership to fall below your FY20 average daily membership and how that will impact your equalized pupil calculation so we're still working through that but yes I mean a drop of seven in your equalized pupil also takes into the weighting that impacts and calculate your equalized pupil so that that's where we're looking right now so that number is not finalized yet okay in terms of the like the adjustments that they're looking at does that have any do virtual students do they essentially count the same or is that so those are being counted in your average daily membership as they would be if they're in your building yeah because their their attendance is taken by the virtual learning academy and reported to the individual schools that that student is a student of have there been any issues with I know just because my daughter is in the virtual and I know that there's one teacher that seems to have had some issues with kids not showing up to classes are there are there are there any concerns about you know these students not coming to class or are they pretty much you know I guess what I'm saying is are the numbers dropping you know our kids not showing up or not working out well Jenny they wouldn't that wouldn't affect your your equalized pupil okay yeah I wasn't sure if they weren't you know they weren't counted or something like that what would affect us but they held us harmless was folks who home school yeah okay good also Jenny yeah good thank you um uh I have one more question and we don't need to answer tonight I would just love to see a breakdown at some point for what the 36,000 in COVID expenses went toward just because that is obviously and we're hoping it all gets paid back but it just would be nice to know a breakdown is that available do we have that information I can give you the detail from that expenditure line yeah I mean as I said it doesn't have to be tonight could be February but I just just so I know you know where where that where that chunk of money is going would that be good yep great that's a simple report I'll just generate it'll be an Excel file that I'll send to you from the system great thank you sir going forward I know that this this was the first time that this board had seen this new format but going forward will you be sending this report to us in the packet prior to the meeting yes Amy I will be thank you great yeah I appreciate this very much this new format thank you welcome any further questions for business manager Dean no okay very good thank you for the reports let us go to our first public comment and I will go to our list so just so you know we may not have an answer for your question but we will entertain any comment please to recognize identify yourself and the town you're from and give you give your comment or question we will definitely take notes on them and I will work down the list and just to those people calling in it's star six to unmute and I'll give you a little extra time and you know sometimes we have some hearing issues so we will work through that and just board members if we can all be muted while this is happening if everybody can be muted just so we have as little distraction as possible that'd be great okay starting down here I have an unverified call raise that working unverified caller I don't know what an unverified caller is or how to identify them so I'm going to move on Barb to heart do you have a comment at this point in the meeting yes no I know it's I don't at this point thank you thank you good we'll move on down to charity Colton charity do you have a comment at this point in the meeting uh just two quick things um one a question about the winter wellness cross country ski equipment thing is that you guys mentioned Rochester but is that something for all of Rochester Stockbridge is that just intended for the Rochester kiddos um Bonnie shaken her head yes everybody um it just sounds like it was gathered together by a group of Rochester people and then the other question I had or guess concern I'd like to hope that they would add in is when it comes to the shop rental piece uh I would just like to make sure that everyone takes into consideration that there's a whole lot of activity going on with the high school building and that if something were to happen before it sold then how do you make sure that any rental agreement is clearly delineated that here's what activity would happen how that all would pan out because you'd end up with two possible different rental contracts and that also people are thinking and considering whatever the group is that's going to be using it how the impact of extra people extra cars what their daily practices are going to be going in and out of the building um how could impact the kiddos that are in the Rochester facility for school purposes um I didn't hear anyone mention any of that so just things to think about in my opinion that's it for me thank you charity dune Hendricks do you have a comment for the board nope I'm I'm just here to listen and learn thank you thank you dune uh moving on Janet Whitaker do you have a comment for the board um nope I'm all set thank you you Joanne Mills you have a comment for the board you there Joanne oh I just saw your mic go off and on again I'm sorry we had this problem last meeting Joanne uh if you drop off and come back that may help okay I think that's what we did last time I'll certainly get back to you Joanne just let us know when you're here Karen Karen Rubin please do you have a comment for the board no Ethan I'm all set thank you very much for everything you guys do thank you much appreciated cricket I know you're here for the building meeting cricket McCusker do you have a comment for the board no I'm all set thanks Ethan thank you uh Pat Harvey do you have a comment for the board no comment thank you Rob Gardner comment for the board nope thanks very much thank you Rob uh Tim Pratt you have a comment for the board nope thanks good thank you uh and now I'm into the numbers so I'll I'll give the best I have five one eight star star three one please identify yourself star six to unmute again five one eight star star three one okay we'll move on uh seven seven four five nine oh I think I just saw Joanne come back I don't know can you hear me yes okay hold on hold on uh well five nine let's finish you and Joanne just stay there we'll get to you in just a second okay yes a five nine please identify yourself this is Eileen Sintas I'm good thanks good okay thank you very much Eileen yes Joanne go ahead I think I think I need a new iPad or something um I don't have um any because we haven't really talked about the meat and potatoes of this meeting yet so I think that there's going to be a lot more comments um be after we talk about the articles and other information so I don't read this moment but I will later thank you okay thank you 802 star star one nine your star six to unmute please identify yourself if you have a comment hi Greg piccarello stock bridge no comment right now thank you Ethan thank you Greg 802 star star three eight star six to unmute please identify yourself if you have a comment hi Ethan it's Keith over in Stockbridge just listening for now okay thank you uh 802 star star four five please star six to unmute if you have a comment nope okay we'll move on 802 star star five three star six to unmute if you have a comment hi this is Vic Robato in Rochester hi Vic hi so I I do have a uh a couple of questions I thought this would be a good time to pose them as opposed to after the media the discussion comes up and that is that I'm very concerned about the prospect of dissolving the merger and would like to just pose a couple of questions very briefly leading into a discussion and first of all um as I understand it some of our neighbors in Stockbridge have already pulled the trigger to initiate dissolution and they're working to see that happen so why is the board working on amending the articles of agreement uh when um there's already movement to go down that road to dissolution so if someone could explain that in the discussion that would be helpful secondly um will the uh discussion tonight about the impact on the school tax uh to both towns uh if the merger is dissolved and then thirdly I'd also be interested in uh whether there is an opportunity cost both economic and academic uh if the merger is dissolved in other words what missed opportunities might there be uh both the taxpayers and to the children of both towns so those are my questions and hope those will be addressed sometime during the discussion tonight thank you thank you very good star star eight five um star six to unmute if you have a comment uh no comment at this time okay thank you and finally 802 star star 91 no comment okay thank you all right let's move on to discussion items uh seven one Stockbridge decoupling information and related materials budget tax sheets etc and I believe Jamie is this yours yeah so uh Ray will you project the document I'm gonna go over the a memo that I sent out to the Rochester select board chair um and um town clerk and then also to the r-side board and I added a line on this as well tonight that I want to walk folks through so there's tax sheets that will correspond with this and we'll get them posted um that so folks can see that you know where these numbers came from and how they break down the tax sheet that you're used to seeing in your town books this will also be printed in the town book for um Stockbridge because that's where the vote will be held in March and there will also be informational meetings to speak to all these numbers um prior to the vote in March um and so right now currently in Rochester Stockbridge you have a total expense line of four million three seven one nine five that's nine hundred fifty your per pupil spending is eighteen thousand seven five five point five four I want to make certain folks realize this takes into account all protected revenues if we run over tuition uh federal grants and other local grants that you receive um after expenses and then run through by your equalized pupil and that's how you come out with your per pupil spending the tax rate currently right now in Rochester is one point five one five five and in Stockbridge it's one point six five three eight I'm going to jump down um to the third uh row now and talk about what would it cost for Stockbridge to be under the excess spending threshold that would be a budget of one million six hundred seven thousand five hundred thirteen this is a new line that I put in there I thought it was important for folks in Stockbridge to know um what you know what would the expense line be after you figure in all local revenues uh received federal grants that we would project and this is all based on the current twenty twenty one projected revenues and expenses for each building in campus we broke it down both by FTE salary and benefits and uh based on function codes of what it cost to run each building so if you came in with a one point six oh seven five thirteen that's a decrease of current budget expenditures of Stockbridge by two seventy sixteen and that would get you under the per pupil spending which would be eighteen thousand seven five six and a tax rate of one point six nine three five um which is about four cents that's so folks know so if Stockbridge was to stand alone that's what that would be what is the equivalent of about two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in cuts it's about three point five FTE's and that's based on average salary with benefits is right around eighty thousand we budget that's about what we look at when you think about salary and benefits for a one point oh FTE of a licensed professional if you look at Stockbridge with complete choice pre-k 12 and what we figured there was six pre-k students and an additional 40 elementary students that would be tuitioned out we kept your current tuitioned middle and high school students in that budget currently for this year so that would be one million five hundred eleven thousand four hundred fifteen total expenses that would be a per pupil spending of nineteen thousand eight oh two seventy seven that is over the excess penalty threshold but there's no penalty when you tuition out and that would be a tax rate of one point seven eight eight one and then the top one is Stockbridge as of current staffing this year that is one point eight seven seven five two nine that it includes a penalty then and when you go over the penalty threshold it's a buck for a buck so you quickly race up and that's where you come up with a per pupil spending of twenty five thousand six sixty forty seven and a tax rate of two point three one seven zero for Rochester if Stockbridge was to decouple you have a projected expenditure line of current budget this year of two million five hundred thirty six thousand forty eight dollars that also puts you into the penalty threshold that puts you in at twenty one two five that's twenty one thousand two hundred fifty dollars and thirty six cents that includes though all the projected tuition's received as revenue for Granville Hancock students that you receive i want you to also know though we did figure in for Stockbridge that tuition received from some thank you what was that could you repeat that students received uh yeah uh from uh Pittsfield i apologize Pittsfield um and so what happens with Rochester at is a tax rate of one point seven five eight three Ray will you scroll up or maybe you didn't are you able to scroll up Ray or did you just cut that part out and if you did you said you just fine that's fine you just don't know i have it ready do you want okay yeah so i'm gonna start on page two Jamie yeah could you also um um let us know why you did these figures you asked for them yeah and i'm gonna have Tara jump in and let you know what would need to be decreased from the Rochester budget to also get you under the pressure but i wanted to show you these are based on figures of the current 2021 budget because that's a real budget that we know and so we based it on your current budget your current projected expenditures your current projected revenues and these figures um also include the SU assessment broke out so the SU assessment for both the supervisory union offices and special ed uh were broken out into these figures and Stockbridge was assessed at four point six percent in Rochester at six point five it's based on your ADM and in uh one of the scenarios it's also based on enrollment um is figured in with ADM if you keep going down Ray um you know i'll just i'll add that uh again with complete school choice we budgeted at six pre-k and 40 elementary tuitions for Stockbridge and you may say well why did you do it that way well i uh Ethan has met with the Stockbridge Select Board um and these figures were requested um and also i met with the Stockbridge Select Board and these figures were requested and so these figures and tax sheets with this memo will go into the town book um and so there will also be an informational meeting that will go on in Stockbridge prior to the vote in March and then there'll be a vote in March in regards to whether or not there'd be an affirmative vote to decouple from the merger i want to remind everyone if that vote is an affirmative then it would go and there'd be a request of the Rochester Select Board to warn a meeting there is not a timeline on that that's a misunderstanding in statute so there will be i got that clarified by Donna Russo Savage earlier this week because we're currently going through this same process in the first branch unified district with Combridge and Chelsea and so then it would go to Rochester there'd be a vote in Rochester and then at that point if there's an affirmative vote in Rochester to decouple it would then go to the State Board for approval the State Board really at that point's decision is what are the assets that need to change hands and make certain that we're whole financially across the two districts and then they would decide when the operation would take place for operation meanwhile more likely than not based on the timing um they would look at potentially fiscal year July 122 um potentially um it would depend on the timing of the decoupling and that you know as uh if this rolled out and the State Board approved it much like when you merged there would be an R sub district board continuing to maintain operations for that current year and then a separate stock bridge in Rochester district board preparing budgets for the year ahead uh Tara can you let uh the board know what Rochester would need to cut to get under the threshold you would need to cut one hundred fifty one thousand two hundred and forty one dollars from your expenditures which equates to about one point eight nine FTEs and by doing that it would get you right to the threshold and the tax rate would after CLA would be one point five five one nine okay Jamie are you complete I'm good I think Carl had his hands up yep I'm just gonna work my way through Carl go ahead um when you split up transportation uh Tara did you just do it did you just cut it in half or did you look at the actual uh a stock bridge in Rochester um numbers because as I recall when the contract was was uh last revised and bid out when you look to the town's costs stock bridges were disproportionately high compared to I used what was in the contract for each individual town okay so then then then you are using the the butler numbers thank you what are the butler numbers Carl I'm sorry butler is the bus company and so thank you the actual she's using the actuals from the contract and not just taking a percentage or just chopping it in half and just so folks know I mean part of the issue uh with both of our towns is is that our equalized pupils are dropping if you look at your expenditures um an example in in stock bridge if you look at uh back in 17 you know the expenditures was 1.7 and change um it was 1.736707 the issue is as our equalized pupils have dropped we haven't reduced staffing and or budgets to keep up with that I mean that is the issue across the state right and so I said to the select board I'm in stock bridge I'm very concerned about the trajectory in general if we continue to do business the same way we've done it and so you know what I said this to first branch last night and I say it to our sub we have merged in governance but we haven't merged strategically in other ways to find efficiencies and or deliver the promise on additional programs and so both I I find it's clear to me I've got two districts in very similar positions at the same time and the problem looks to be the same there's a merger but we haven't promised on efficiencies nor have we changed the amount of programming we provide kids and or differentiated it we kept doing business the same way and so I just I'll end with that and I you know I what I say is to me the fact that we're at the position as a mandate that we have to look strategically at how we do business is it sustainable and how do we move forward to benefit kids for the questions around here again Amy Megan hi um I have a question about if we were to uncouple was there any clarity on what would be the status of our small schools grants being the same reduced I know that was part of uh the reason to merge was that it would maintain our small schools grant the level that we were prior to the merge and if we did not that it would be then reduced and I just wondered if there was any clarity on that subject so the information received from the AUE on that is is that we could apply for you year to year the criteria is a little more stringent and there's no guarantee but it is still available so if you were to decouple there's an opportunity to apply like I said there's different criteria around it and it's a year to year application could you please let us know just so we all know what those small schools grant numbers are please for each town that each one brings in well I can tell you what you brought in for ARSA we haven't broken that apart but for ARSA Tara was just on that revenue protection yep let me just open it back up I just fairly close the screen and Megan and there's no guarantee what we would bring in because it will change based on the application oh absolutely I'm very well aware it's it's only grandfathered while we're merged correct same with the same with the project with with the protections on on average daily membership student count dropping correct that's is student counting dropping well phantom students are totally gone from the equation in general um so they're off the books the current small schools grant is 237,671 total but you don't have the data on ARSA I can't tell you what that is broken it's not broken down by town it is only purely issued to the district and on the cash flow that we get from the agency of education it doesn't even reflect on the individual town's cash flows it only reflects on the ARSA district cash flow we could potentially go back to the the prior budget when we were um individual districts and see what our small schools grant was at that time and it should be about the same yes no I don't I don't have a comment on it yet because we reached out to the AOE to ask that question and we didn't get a response yet so when I get okay I'm happy to provide it I just I don't want to misspeak okay thank you Jenny I have three comments the first one you mentioned um I forget what my train of thought was but I think another difference between the the two towns is the amount of revenue that we bring in I don't think you had mentioned that I don't know what the numbers are on top of my head but I know that Rochester receives a significantly higher revenue from tuition students in Stockbridge um the second thing is I was wondering if the small school grant was assumed that that those would be received in those numbers and then the no we didn't we did not we took the small school grant out because we didn't feel like there was any guarantee with them okay and then kind of furthering up I agree on the the efficiencies that Jamie mentioned I know that's one thing that I um make sure to mention every year you know we're starting to find staffing with um I believe the art teacher and the music teacher and some efficiencies with I know Janet Whitaker is doing I believe I'll correct me if I'm wrong Wendy but you know doing some bulk ordering and stuff like that but I think that's one big thing that um I think every year that's something that we need to look on or what what efficiencies can we have between the two the other one Jenny is guidance we share guidance between the two yep I knew I was forgetting one so Jenny we budgeted your tuition revenues at the students you currently have so we took the number of students you currently have in Stockbridge that's tuition and in Rochester and that's the revenue and this protection could be budgeted isn't it true that's the the the end outcome of the um so your your chart showed that um if we were to unmerge that Stockbridge would have a higher tax rate than Rochester and I don't have the numbers in front of me but I think a portion of that piece is that Rochester receives a lot higher revenue than than Stockbridge does well it's that but it's also based on you know don't forget when you look at tax rates your towns are never going to be equal because it's based on when the latest appraisal was right yeah there's that piece too yeah so that's that tax rates figured out through the CLA after it's divided by proof with that so those tax sheets will demonstrate you'll see yeah I just want to get my word in here a numbers you're using Jamie are those covid numbers or those populations pre-covid those are your equalized pupils that were based on this budget year pre-covid your equalized this year were pre-covid thank you I just want you have another comment no and then I'll get to Amy yeah I was just going to point out you can see the impact of the CLA in that first line the combined our said Rochester stock Stockbridge district line where you see that with the the the the the unified per pupil spending of 18755.54 that Rochester pays a buck 51 and Stockbridge pays a buck 65 and that's a direct effect of the fact that Stockbridge's CLA is right around 100% and Rochester's is around 110 or so good Amy I just wanted to confirm what I heard that this column of tax rate is after the CLA is applied that is that your bottom line tax rate okay thank you yeah because I felt like that's the most important right I guess justine do you have any comment no thank you I'm good okay any further comment for this on this item all right they're being done let's move on seven two COVID-19 and impact on our side so I mean I'll kick it off by saying that you know you prepare to have in-person learning you pair for virtual learning you prepare for the event that you have positive cases of COVID-19 and then you have them and then you learn now I will say I feel um lucky that we weren't one of the first folks dealing with this because we're going to learn from other folks mistakes in the past I'll say that I'm proud of how hard we worked on it I'll say do whether things that we've learned absolutely we tried really hard to communicate in a timely manner I will tell you the holidays were not perfect around this because you know we had to navigate this with some delayed testing which I know is frustrating for folks and working with the Department of Health and they were really responsive and we met with them daily but their ability and capacity to update numbers in real time is not at a capacity level that it needs and I will also say that all contact tracing falls on schools that is the reality they sit down and they meet with us but your team here in our SUD we're forced to do contact tracing and I know in the past Secretary French and the governor has said that they do it they do not do it and I'm not trying to be you know difficult or demeaning with that but I will say that it's clear to us that we have to train ourselves up to be really good at this now I will tell you I think we got really good with it by day three but making line list and making certain that we help folks identify what are close contacts and when on the first onset of symptoms and helping folks define that that all fell on your school personnel the Department of Health contact tracers called much later than we did and so I will tell you that the Department of Health by all indications has said we did a great job we got everyone in the community was unbelievably cooperative they went and got tested they quarantined after being contacted and I will tell you that that's not the experience in every community there's other communities in the state where folks did not cooperate with you know the request to get tested but you should be proud that your community did and so I just wanted to kick off with that and then turn it over to Lindy and let her talk to you about some additional points of emphasis as we move forward I know there was a question about whether or not we're going to reopen for in-person I'm not making any decisions around that for the district so we have surveillance testing on staff on Wednesday the assumption is we're opening but we've been out of school since the 18th and I am dealing with positive cases across the SU right now that are not school cases but community contracted cases we the cases now popping up are not school related these are community related cases they are spread in our communities right now and so we're navigating that and the decision about whether or not we reopen will be based on data around community spread I'm meeting with the Department of Health again on Friday I'm going to talk about this with them and what the data is showing them and based on our surveillance testing over the weekend and so on Friday I'll give everyone an update across the SU about which buildings will be opening for in-person based on that data and based on you know staffing levels and things of that nature and then in a meeting with the Department of Health but know that this could adjust over the weekend after surveillance testing comes in I don't expect and I'm going to address this in my letter I don't expect certain surveillance testing for staff to come in until Saturday or Sunday and so then at that point I may be forced if I don't have staffing levels to open for in-person to go virtual in certain schools so this is not ideal it's the first time we're facing it we've been unbelievably lucky I will tell you that I was in Stockbridge School on the 18th of December for over an hour reading with students and I was very pleased with what I saw for procedures I think that there's never enough due diligence we are doing deep cleaning of the school I'll let Lindy talk to you about the procedures we're increasing across the two campuses and SU-wide again from beginning I said all these practices mitigate risk they never were going to take this from being able to be passed and the Department of Health's been clear about that and you know I try to use that word mitigating risk from day one but I think that you know this is just a wake-up call that that's the reality it's an unbelievably contagious virus and we try to mitigate risk and when we use mitigating factors I was in that building like I said over an hour and I was fine I wasn't you know there was no issues for me but you know I understand that folks are worried and have concerns and so I want Lindy to address all the other additional things that we're doing based on just you know an ability to stop and reflect I'm happy that we had the plan we had to pause this week because I'd be I would have multiple schools probably based on community spread potentially going down virtually anyway so I'm glad we had this plan proactively to hit the pause button to see what the data did because there is some community spread going on right now across our towns Lindy do you want to jump in yeah so I also just want to share Shane Oaks who is our WRVSU COVID coordinator is my new best friend I think and all this I don't mean to laugh but we're very fortunate because between himself and our school nurse they hopped right on contact tracing and I know for a fact people put some plans on hold to do the responsible and safe thing to ensure that they weren't part of the spread within our community so I just want to I can't say thank you to those people enough because that's not an easy phone call to make especially early on when we're still learning all the ins and outs of what goes with it in terms of quarantining and things like that as you know we have had five associated cases that are connected to school and we are aware of other cases that are going on within our community we have not they have not been deemed yet as cases that were transmitted at school and I just want to share I know there was some pushback that it felt like there needed to be more information out there it is not an instantaneous information process when you're going through this everything is very much an educated guess based on people testing positive and their onset of symptoms like Jamie said and counting backwards and figuring out contact list and it's I know people felt like maybe we weren't as transparent as possible it's not that we were trying to hide things we just didn't have factual information to put out and some of that had to do with the holiday that being said like Jamie said I've been with the Department of Health now pretty much every day since Tuesday 22nd other than Christmas and maybe New Year's but that being said it's also created a great time for reflection and how to tighten things up some things that popped right away of things we can get better at because we can always be better in our practice and everything we do and it's important we're keeping people as safe as possible is one thing that I've noticed and Bonnie spoke to this earlier is that we're not outside as much because of the cold weather we're not outside as a community we're not outside at home we're not outside in a lot of places as much because it's a colder weather so today during a staff meeting we spoke about the need that within every hour you need to be outside for 10 to 15 minutes that does mean kids are going to leave boots and snow pants on for a while because that process depending on the age group and I've seen six graders take a while to get ready could be time consuming but it's important that we're getting out we're breaking up that stale air situation and we're spending more time outside there's nothing wrong with some fresh air it seems to be very beneficial that was one glaring thing when you look at our schedule before vacation versus when we started school so that's one area we talked about we also talked about as a staff tightening up like check your six is what I call it because are you truly six feet away I think we assume oh yeah this is about six feet but when you're together all day with the same group of people except for about an hour in change you're going to be considered an exposure even if you have masks on the right way which we all did I just want to reassure that piece of information everybody was wearing masks the it truly just it's a very contagious virus and so really we talked about how to do that so when you're doing a reading group is everybody really six feet and having to measure that out there's something to be said about that it's okay to let kids talk a little louder because the mask might muffle things and we're a little further away so that's one area we're really emphasizing and six feet from each other as adults we're all craving this social interaction and it happens and you get a little bit closer and you get a little bit closer and then all of a sudden you're not really six feet and so talking about areas that we saw that happen it happens at the copier the world famous copy machine you see someone at the copier and you're chatting away so nope you got to turn around go wait your turn in your room come back if it's something immediate we'll try and help you as quickly as possible um also our main office is not big enough to be for anybody to be six feet from miss janet um myself included so she will not very excitedly but we will be keeping her door closed and knocking and using like you know put something in her mailbox just things of those interactions and basis we had already moved our staff meetings to virtually even though we were all in the same building we weren't meeting in one spot um trying to think other things like jamie spoke to we our custodian is coming in and doing extra cautious deep cleaning in each classroom and then we're going to work with roge hester and use the fogger to have it each room fogged um and then the other big area is from 130 to three we've been doing these enrichment intervention blocks and i'm working with kerry mcdonald and blithe baits about um that just seems like a big area where people are kind of converging all together so instead we're going to have adults kind of move to the kids um and i think that was easy enough to do in the fall to have people to converge to one spot and combine pods because we were we're small and we're under 20 kids when we do that but we are also going right outside and we were going class by class and it was taking you know there was a lot of spread so there's ways to do that better and just managing um we do have two groups that have to use the hallway bathrooms if you're familiar with stockbridge just managing that a little bit better because like i said people are kids and you know kids and adults are craving some social interaction and we just really need to try and do that and then our hand washing and mask wearing can always be better and what i mean by mask wearing is just really working with families to make sure every kid has an appropriately fitted mask sometimes kids are coming in with masks too big um things like that also um after people eat it's recommended that because masks come off that kids and adults clear the space for 20 minutes like go outside and allow surfaces to be wiped down again so that is something so we have some scheduling adjustments that we're working on to help tighten some of this up um and also just the the other piece we really reviewed is i think people i know people got complacent and not that we are violating anything but doing a really good job of um oh i always get headaches that's my baseline so i don't need to check it off on the health screening form and we if you are honest with yourself we all do it i'm guilty of it i'll be the first one to tell you think of how to headache since march 13th so i'm not really sure how i'm supposed to differentiate but we need to be honest about that because we owe it to each other we're asking families to do it and adults need to do it too so we reviewed all of those today in a staff meeting and we will meet again on friday and we're just trying to answer questions and let people know that it's safe as safe as it can be first off lindy thank you you're welcome you you didn't have much of a vacation i'm pushing for a no vacation mode because i'm now convinced that they just don't exist right now so maybe we should just push on through but that's a different conversation um by the way what's the standard i mean why not while it's cold stay in a virtual now obviously this pushed back from the parents on that um but it does it is a big difference i mean obviously it's a big difference when you have the cold and it's harder to be outside we haven't even seen the real cold yet you know we've actually had a pretty mild october november december um so i i guess i i guess what is the standard we're going by for the balance between good academics in person versus safety and it seems like safety these days has to be first and i guess i'm not still clear on you know even with janey saying what is the you know what's what's the what's the tipping point well i mean the tipping point is do we have community spread right and so if i feel like we've got community spread going on i very well may decide we just have to hit the pause button even if we don't have data showing we have community spread within towns within the su that's you know we have i mean that's the nice thing that apartment health can tell us where is their community spread occurring and so if we don't have community spread occurring then i feel comfortable that we can open if we have community spread that's where i think we have to consider are we pausing in certain towns and or you know certain areas of the su and so that's what i'm going to be navigating on top of do we have staffing or do we have current cases so those are the data points in general you know the why during the cold months if we can safely come back it's you know as everyone has said as far as the american pediatrics association and you know the governor and the secretary of ed we know specifically elementary students need that social emotional learning and academics in person to continue to grow and what i can tell you is that the virtual learning and the data collected in that and we're going to have another data point here soon this next month we've been able to stop regression but the rate of growth is significantly lower than in person and so what i'm concerned about is is losing you know more learning and potentially have students falling back a year year and a half academically because you know the su board will get data comparing the growth for virtual learners versus in person it's the virtual teaching those teachers are working unbelievably hard unbelievably hard but the growth that we're realizing is just not there what is the administration doing to help the virtual students to keep moving forward as much as they can Danny we have outfitted full staff we didn't go with a third party vendor we try to make certain that interventionists are in place i mean it's it's why we do in-person teaching you know i think that this and it's not just us here across the country across the state the data for virtual learning just is demonstrating the growth is not there it's not the same well i i do i do think that some teachers just knowing personally from listening to my daughter's classes that there's definitely some teachers that are better than this at others and are we making sure that not only the in-person staff are getting what they need but the virtual teachers are are getting that as well then do you want to address that yep absolutely so jenny the just like the in-person staff the virtual teachers are invited to all the same trainings participating in all the same trainings and we meet weekly as a staff and um i want to say like decipher it i'm not sure that's the right word but that's the eight o'clock word um all that training how does that training of what how you would do that in person how do you do that virtually i've spent a little just as much time observing virtual classes as i have um observing in-person classes and doing evaluations and providing feedback and i would have to say the feedback and the observation is more in-depth with the virtual teachers because they've learned a lot and how to improve but something you know you're trying to respect screen time as well with kids and that means some independent work time and when you do independent work time in school there is an adult pushing and making sure that we're on track and in the right direction and while a lot of kids take advantage of those independent work times and office hours to check in and get that additional support there's also kids that don't and then it becomes like how much can you handle at home situation to make sure kids are on top of it but we are working really really hard with our virtual staff to continue and try and make sure there is as much growth as possible for students that i guess might need more of a push than um than other students are the the teachers reaching out you know reaching out to the parents because i feel like sometimes it's not necessarily the students fall but you know they might need help the parents not there to help them right yep there's been lots of communication um with families and like you kind of mentioned earlier in one of your comments like what about those that you know you're overhearing haven't shown up in a while um with report cards we've reached out to families that were concerned about that this is not a good learning environment for and we need to come back to the drawing table because we're concerned and i do acknowledge that there's been improvements you know just listening into my daughter's um classrooms about you know organization of you know some are naturally better than others but over the course of the year you know there's definitely um i can attest that you know there's been improvements with you know organization of teachers and and stuff like that so i think that that's good great i mean one of the other things we do and jamie made it very clear right from the beginning though lindy is the administrator of the virtual academy all the administrators in the district jamie made it very clear that our youngsters who went to virtual academy are still our youngsters so we do things like make parent calls in fact i have to make one tomorrow we follow up with there have been some there are some situations though i'm glad to say not too many but there have been situations where families and our youngsters haven't taken virtual learning as seriously as they should so in a couple cases we've got some pretty high absentee rates and the the school principals um have taken on the responsibility of following up having those conversations with parents stressing how important it is so where i guess the best way to describe what we're doing is we're trying to support from afar and lindy knows that all she has to do is call any one of us and whatever the job is we'll we'll pick it up and do it great i just want to give you a time check 22 minutes thank you um further further questions jenny do you have more no i think that's good i think that's good to hear it just you know i think it's getting better as the years go as the years gone on but i've definitely you know overheard students not you know not knowing how to open something or not knowing how to find something and you know it's not you know it shouldn't be on the staff to do all of that but i just wanted to make sure that that was happening good thank you justine you had your hand up yes i wanted to ask lindy first off it's an amazing feat what you've been going through and having to think on your feet and all of the staff and everybody it's just you know i i think it's amazing and i can i feel for it having worked in schools and i feel for you and i wanted to ask um because the contact tracing was kind of like something you really had to think on your feet about what was the most challenging thing that what that you feel you might need help with in the contact tracing piece of that experience we may see it again it might get worse is there anything you'd like to report to the board as being a challenge and something we might be able to help with or work on good question um i really have to think on that i i just can't praise stockbridge community and families enough people picked up the phone on unknown numbers really acted there's a script i mean jane and chain did a lot of the tough part and it's learning as we go um i think the piece to share is if you think someone is a contact assume they're a contact that's i can't think of any support we need it definitely i don't recommend it happening over a holiday like if i could pick all over again it makes it tough you know you're you're waiting on things to come back it seems like it's a really long period of time um because you're waiting and you know i feel there's some there's some community members who receive phone calls on christmas day like that's that's tough um but i'm really i just can't reiterate how proud i am of how quickly we jumped on stuff i know for a fact that people like jamie said people received phone calls from our contact tracing on what steps they need to take and it is pretty guided jamie correct me if i'm wrong but the script is pretty guided from the department of health of what you need to share with families and okay you got to check your email and this is what um your next steps are for day seven and day 14 however you choose to handle that as a household um almost 48 hours before phone calls were made by the department of health in some situations so and we we made contact within two hours of the first known member testing positive well with everybody on people's line lists so um i'm just really proud of that because i feel like it stopped hopefully it seemed like it uh some spread so um i can't think of anything in the board i just would always encourage i know we're very small towns and it's really hard to try and keep the who out of this and who wants to finger point and do stuff it's it's an emotional roller coaster that people experience just always encourage them to get back to us or to reach out if you're getting hot questions from the community about it specifically because there is a lot of like fur fun health rules going on with this at the same time good carol you had your hand up uh yeah actually lindy uh just stole some of my thunder i was uh i was going to to say that we all should maybe and i don't know that we we need to wordsmith this now but but you know getting uh some talking points from from uh jamie or whatever that's consistent across the su of how to say that i can't you know yep there's some coven in our schools i can't say much more because our school is small and people have have privacy rights and protections um so you know perhaps perhaps giving a all all the board members uh you know some basic talking points about how to to handle that and how to to redirect people to either the prince of the building principles or to uh to to jamie um about that because i worry sometimes that you know as we've seen you know sometimes fragment and responses or different people saying different things can can be an issue and what concerns me then just as the the you know the continuity of education piece which is my second point um i think it's i think one of the things that we really need to take away from this and it sounds like you guys are are are already doing this to some degree is you know as jamie one of the things that really struck me was jamie's comment about how you know it's going to be the availability of staff that's going to that that that's really going to drive whether we can have in-person education um and that's going to involve contact tracing and involve you know as as someone who just saw his cleveland browns get to the playoffs for the first time in 20 years and then walk their coast coach and a bunch of their offensive line gets disqualified because of just the the tracing protocols not even necessarily at least as i understand at this point because of positive tests but just because of the the isolation and quarantine piece that we have to do is responsible you know as responsible educators um i think it's it's you know having those plans and really focusing on how we can maintain a continuity of learning experience um around virtual learning that's not just because of the cold or because of of whatever but just how we can do that and more importantly how can we switch from that to i mean probably we don't want to chunk it into units of less than a week but you know understanding that we may need to be able to pivot you know on a couple days notice you know and murphy's law says it's going to happen at christmas or happen at new year's so understanding how to it sounds like we're getting the tools together to give virtual education to give in-person education but figuring out the protocols to really pivot that and make it not stressful on our families to know suddenly on a saturday that by the way you know jimmy and june aren't coming to school next week make sure the parents feel comfortable to to handle that and not be freaking out i think you know working on on our approach to to that matter i think is is is key but i also think again you guys are doing a great job i really i really feel like yeah it was crappy but i can't think of a way you could have handled it any better good job yard thanks one thing i would share um also is i think there was this false hustle idea that if like somebody tests positive within a pod you'll be back to school within two days i'm just not i'll be a hundred percent honest based on timelines of things now that i know and you get to spend quality time with my new best friends at the department of health i'm not sure how you make that happen safely so i think when this pops up again that's been a big takeaway that shane and i have reflected on because we know it's in our communities right now and across the state the numbers are just growing just be aware that while this was an ideal over the holidays the time that we are not in the building has been to our benefit to make sure that people are following the proper protocols and not coming back before we're sure they've quarantined or isolated depending on their situation so i think that's kind of the other share to now that you don't know until you're in this Ethan this one thing i'd like to add to i know jamie said that we were incredibly lucky and i do think there is a piece to that though i also know you know as you heard we've worked incredibly hard to keep our school safe but we've had tremendous community support right from the get-go right from day one when there wasn't necessarily this immediate urgency i mean the situation over the there was some immediate urgency to it but from the beginning we've had parents when we asked them not to get out of their cars drop kids off at the curb okay we'll do that fill out the health questionnaire okay we'll do that make sure your youngster has not one but two clean masks every day okay we'll do that um i just think one of the pieces of our luck was the tremendous community support we had in our communities right from day one so i i just wanted to add that into the conversation good thank you jim money and then lastly the next step is just we will reiterate to our community um that those that are returning to in person have followed all the proper steps to be back safely and they're considered healthy non-spreading people that's not the right word but i do think that's the next step you know to really follow through with is we know that everybody this is why working with the department of health is advantageous we know everybody's timeline of who's been recommended for what so good i want to make make sure megan megan do you have a comment no i just want to say thank you it's been incredibly difficult and you guys have uh just really always step up to the plate so just thank you and please let us know if there's anything that we can do Amy thanks for everything you guys are doing it's that's wonderful okay thank you lindy thank you jamie all right moving on to a 2021 2022 announced tuition rate so we are as you recall required to set rochester stock bridge unified's district fy 22 announced tuition rate by january 15th and based on what you did last year which was increasing your tuition announced tuition rate by the projected increase in your budget which currently based on the draft budget that we're working on is three percent i would recommend that that be what you increase your fy 22 tuition rates to as well which would equate to 16950 dollars i'd like to make a motion hold on a second shouldn't um shouldn't that be two percent isn't that what we asked for i just purely use it based on what we did last year ethan in the draft that we have right now not based on any adjustments that we may be making moving forward just uh the recommendation from the agency of education is to use the same formula each year so ethan yeah i mean i'll jump in we're going to get a budget under that but we want to budget your tuitions higher than that okay i don't know if that's fair yes we're going to come on a budget under under two percent under but it makes sense to us to budget at three percent increase for tuition okay sorry i interrupted you nope that's okay which is what we've traditionally done history um we've done three percent increase i would like to make a motion that we set the announced tuition rate at a three percent increase to be um 16950 dollars second so moved a second who's second it jenny i think yeah jenny okay thank you jenny um second and i need a discussion for being none all in favor signified by saying i thought i thought the the recommended the recommended tuition was 19453 not 16453 or did i mishear it the long formula that was in the documentation i sent to you is not what the agency of education recommends that we do when we have historically used a percentage to increase your tuition amount each year so that's why in the email carl i gave the the documentation about how you have historically increased your tuition rate three percent ah okay um i'm hesitant to uh uh uh support that based on the formula and based on our projected 200 000 deficit that uh we were just presented with um so i mean that's you know certainly i'm one of six well no oh make your point make your case uh i think we should go with 19 we were to present it with numbers that we've lost you know that we we've lost eight tuition students we um are 50 grand under on health insurance um where we're getting a little bit less uh in a couple other categories i don't remember off the top of my head because no one i haven't seen that the follow-up email that actually has that that expenditure revenue document that was presented today but i mean three thousand i mean three thousand some some dollars or twenty five hundred dollars a kid i mean if that's if that's based on on on a recommended formula from our business manager that we believe for a lot of other things i think i think the fact that historically we haven't increased things two percent uh or i have only increased things by two percent um you know i looking at our deficit i i think you know now is not necessarily the time to uh to uh uh you know not take advantage of of state-based revenue let's us understand that parents do not parents i mean i suppose some parents say you know i don't want to send my kid there because the the the the tax rate that the town has to pay is higher than the tax rate at this other place you know um we we have traditionally had tons of kids um go i mean tsa keeps their tuition at or sharing academy keeps their tuition at the uh union school state average that is lower than than uh all the other surrounding tuitions and we as a board have been neutral and not said let's push families to go to sharing academy because it's cheaper we said you know it's your choice that's what choice education is you can send your kids wherever you want um and i don't know that we are we're you know i'm sure the taxpayers are happy that we only be charging 17 carl carl let's let's let's get some facts on this uh jamie or terrick can you talk about it the only thing i would add is the one issue that the the one concern we got and tear ran those figures and then we did check in and review them i'm a little bit worried that it's at a high enough level tear and you can explain this better that that may require us to pay back and that's the only thing i'm a bit cautious about i think you could go higher than the three percent i'm a little high worried about how high that figure is based on what your per pupil spending is and the fact that we may overcharge districts and have to pay them back yes so once the state sets the allowable tuition rate if you have overcharged a district after a long complicated formula about your net tuition cost net cost per pupil and all of that if that exceeds three percent you are responsible to pay any districts that paid you the elevated tuition amount back and with the agency of education being continuously delayed in releasing the allowable tuition rate as you all may recall it's supposed to be issued by december per statute in fy 20 we didn't get fy 18's tuition rate until the following july so that that's continuously delaying and you know you get into that bill back and refunding back tuition and that opens up a whole separate issue so going to the 19 000 i don't feel as jamie said i think that's too high what about something in between what about an extra thousand we have how many students do we have come in but a tuition rate 30 is it you're receiving 22 tuition students currently even um what you know that's two thousand last year what was that jenny i'm sorry what we see allowable tuition rate last year we don't have that yet from the agency what was the year before it was 16 303 is there any penalty for going over the allowable only that payback yes that's if you if what you charged in your announced tuition exceeds that three percent net for pupil cost in the formula that's where you have to pay back tuition well we have to go we have to go back first because we're in the middle of a vote actually we're in the middle of the discussion of of a motion which was made to accept the amount at it was at 16 303 is that the number no 16 950 thank you 16 950 so um 16 we can we can discuss we can discuss that we don't want to do this but we have to finish the vote and then go back and make a motion to a higher number so um are we ready do we feel ready to vote and i knew we amend the motion to move the allowable tuition for the fiscal year twenty one to nineteen thousand dollars even no that sounds like too much to me uh i would say seventeen nine five oh what fiscal year was it that was 16 303 19 and and our announced tuition was 16 000 so we were just under by 300 dollars if we had gone higher we'd have to pay that back and that's a big we run by more than three percent if we're like higher by a dollar we don't have to give everyone back a dollar there's a three percent cushion above and below if we were three percent too low we'd have to bill back historically our business office has not been able to calculate that number in the in the window to appropriately bill back so we've left money on the table um if we bill if we bill um one percent too high we get to collect that money um it's it's we have to pay back when we're three percent too high is that correct Tara yes and there is still my understanding is there's still some fy 19 allowable tuition rates that are being recalculated so that number hasn't even truly been finalized yet so that's why i say the number seven seventeen nine fifty gives us an extra thousand bucks it's somewhere in between seems a little more uh though we could say what is three percent over three percent over the sixteen three there you go see it sixteen nine fifty and then go under that it's quick enough well sixteen nine fifty three is where we started from Tara Tara's number that's that's slightly over three percent over sixteen three oh three if that makes sense okay last year's announced tuition was 16 four four and so three percent higher than that is uh sixteen nine thirty seven but we were increasing it to sixteen nine five zero so just three three percent higher than what we had last year all right what's our pleasure uh we have an amendment on the floor but it has not been seconded do we want to go ahead with a vote or do um do we have more discussion here hearing no second i withdraw my amendment okay uh just dean what's your take to increase the amount of we keep it at the advised number i i feel we should keep it at the advised number especially where we have no um we can't even tell what last year's was we're kind of just speculating a lot based on three percent of something and um i think having to pay back in a year kind of like this might be more of a thorn in our side than um the little bit of revenue we might gain by kind of playing the field with it okay good Megan uh geez i'm gonna have to agree with chase justine um i definitely feel like we if we go too far above and we have to pay it back it's definitely gonna be a bad situation for our board and in the budget so i'm in favor of going with the three percent okay jenny so the the recommendation of 16950 is four percent higher than the fiscal year 19 16303 so i agree that i i you know we don't know what that number is but i feel like it it seems like it's in the ballpark range of what that allowable would be so i um would agree to keep it with the recommended okay and i think we're i really think we're ready for a vote um the amendment uh are the motion has been moved to accept 16950 as our announced tuition rate it has been seconded all in favor signify by saying aye justine hi amy i megan i carl nay jenny i ethan i good moving on all right seven five it's like when i used to do a show you never wanted to have the entrance in the third first entrance in the third act you're like been sitting back there playing cards the whole time okay the articles of uh and this will go a little bit to uh answering vicks question uh the articles of the agreement review committee was formed last last meeting uh with the mission to look at the articles and improve look for ways to improve and strengthen the merger um we met three times between these months and worked very hard from very long meetings looking at lots of what we called hot spots and these were issues of contention um with the merger agreements and also areas of confusion of misunderstanding um that we talked about and there was a lot of public comment uh about what we were looking at some of it was definitely educational to me as a board member things we had not i had not looked at um since i've been a board member we came up with a uh a list of sort of action items um which we thought were prioritized um and and things we needed more information on uh and i'll i'll say that basically vick to answer your question and a couple other people who are at this point of why are we doing this when there's a a vote looming well because the vote hasn't happened yet and i am under the assumption as this board as our general board made i think two meetings ago maybe it was three we all came out and said i support this merger and i think it's the way to go forward i think looking at the numbers presented by jamie i still believe the merger is the way to go forward um uh i think there's things to work out for sure some we can work out and some we may not be able to work out but um but we can certainly meet halfway so i it is my goal uh both with the work we're doing with a high school transfer and with this oracle agreements committee to hopefully affect that vote and bring people in stockridge to feeling like they can they can work with us um and so they vote down the unmerge uh so i feel like it's a very active process between now and that vote and that is why one of the action items we have is a um is an amendment and i hope we will um we will pass tonight uh put into action because i think it's a a very good step in the direction of working things out between our two communities so uh ray did you get that email of the action items yep yeah you could put that up please uh forgive me for the formatting it's i usually like to format things a little better but i think this will give us some idea is the right one uh yes correct thank you um so i'll go through all of these first and then we'll get back to and also i i sent you the draft correct the draft amendment so article seven yeah i have that ready when you want good thank you um all right so action items change how school board representatives are nominated and elected uh we have an amendment proposal intention that each each town will nominate and elect their own representative um and then uh we put this one a and one b because one b was one that actually didn't come up to later in our three meetings but it's a real confusing um it's this article 11 basically what's on our web page as some people may have looked at is um all the proposals that happened during the merger and then a articles of agreement and then the warned articles agreement below that and they don't match and i've talked to two lawyers about that and worked through this unmatching to exactly what is the articles what are the articles that hold our merger together and um article 11 is confusing and conflicting um it it basically and the wording is let me get to it one of the confusions between these two is that the article that was not warned has actually more articles um that's 13 as opposed to 11 um and i talked to i talked to two different lawyers about this and it seemed to get and i've gotten some good uh um definition uh the word shall govern and it says the provisions of the report and formation plan shall govern the unified district well there was some confusion of that report and formation plan was everything before this warned article um that's in the document if you go to the web page and i could show you that tonight but i i don't want to go down that rabbit hole because i feel confident from hearing from two lawyers now that the bot the baseline of what we work the merger on is is um the warned articles and the article 11 is that the shall govern is basically shall is a shell guide that the articles of agreement are included in this in this whole report and then the articles but that um the whole report does not need to is not the ruling document for us it is the warned articles so i feel some sense of definition about that uh there may be more discussion about that as we go on Ethan let me interrupt where can you show me i see on the website articles and agreements w-r-u-d final 8.9.17 from Owen Bradley where is the this other document you're talking about it's it's at the end of that it's at the end it starts at page there's two warning there's two articles in the script one starts at page 14 articles of agreement and they say articles of agreement article one and the one that is the language it's attachment e language for warnings starts on page 23 of what's on our webpage Ethan are you looking at the ones dated 10 5 17 are you looking at the ones with the attachment e uh october 10 5 17 so the article on the website that says articles of agreements w-r-d final 8.9.17 what's that you're under the you're under the wrong um school district here let me put it in the chat okay by that one as i say it's it's this is a very confusing process because back and forth we go and we've mentioned one article but it's actually different in the in the other set of articles that are included in this report and that it's very important that we stick to the warned articles um as that's that's the governance that's the governance document um so so it's the document that's called is it the document that is called Rochester Stockbridge final report with corrected attachment e 10 5 17 dot docs that's on our website okay okay and where are you where is this article 11 that you're um page 25 i'm sorry say it again page 25 it's the very last few pages of the doc yep right before the that's the actual warning that had to be warned when we made exactly but it's it's not in this actual article is not in the articles that are listed in the report and the way the lawyer explained this was that there were some things learned in that process and this but this is the this is the actual document that we go from both lawyers have told me that okay i can figure slow what is the page number i have page 25 bottom of page 25 on my on my printout okay it's frozen okay go ahead Carl mine's i'm frozen that link that link tells me that there's 15 pages to that document that ed with an article three about electing officers dated jenny i would just say that i would just say that lindy posted another link that that's longer than the the first one is 15 justine help me here on the from the link that lindy posted in the chat it's page 12 and it says the language for the warning attachment e language for warning that's what the public was voting on that language okay and where in that are we discussing this article 11 go to 11 i just say once the article 11 i'll just say number 11 there he goes number 11 okay so what confused us listen listen for a sec what confused us is that it says here we've we've we've been told we were told by the first lord dina atwood that the warned articles and voted on articles that's the bedrock that's what that's what everything gets decided on as far as as far as the district but then we looked at article 11 it says the provisions of the report and formation plan approved by the state board of education so that is all this other information that is on our website which is has the committee proposal background history of the schools all the way through a draft articles of agreement with also some some appendices of numbers things like that no mergers scenarios and stuff like that so there was some confusion and also there was the presentation at the at the boe which is videotaped and it was like well is okay is that part of this report this all these informations is that part of this report and both lawyers have said no the dot the governing document is and that began because this report and formation plan includes the warned article that is still the document so this is what i'm getting from the lawyer this is the this is what we have to go so i feel comfortable moving forward with an amendment to these articles based on um that this is the bedrock these articles of agreement by the bedrock of our association together with stockbridge carl i would most definitely before we decide to amend something tonight i most definitely want to have any an executive session with an attorney to discuss the implications of this because as someone that was present at at that state board meeting and as someone who was involved with with the putting of all this together this does not at all jive with with my recollections so i am firmly again wait what do you mean your recollection of what doing any sort of amendment to articles of agreement without having an attorney to to advise me i'm hearing from you what the attorney has said to you i'm not hurting hearing from an attorney what what you know directly much like we heard from attorneys directly about buildings and such okay so you need to hear you need to hear directly from an attorney about this before before you can go forward absolutely i i am certainly i will make myself available for a special meeting that's at the board and and and dina's convenience or whoever the second lawyer is i'm not sure who else you might have talked to as far as i know dina is is our official counsel but you've talked to someone else i'm not sure but in any case i i would i would need to have an explanation from from an attorney of what we're looking at and what its implications are before i could support anything okay i i i hear you on that um good let's go around let's go around on that and this may be you know this is where we we we go tonight i i was hoping to move the article because as i said because what i've heard is maybe feel confident but you all need to feel confident to move forward and this may involve a special meeting that we get together and yeah we were i was told specifically by an attorney that we could not have separate when in the course of the building um committee issues that we could not have separate bonding um so there could not be the the specific suggestion the building committee had put forward and i took to the attorney was that and the attorney was dina atwood was that could rochester vote a bond that rochester taxpayers would only pay to support rochester building improvements or whatever based on that building committee report and could stock bridge support their own bond that would only be voted on by stock bridge uh by by by by by stock bridge voters that would support bonding whatever work needed to be in done to the stock bridge building the thinking at the time was that you know their rochester's buildings they've been neglected under rochester's care those things should be approved by rochester tax dollars stock buildings they've been neglected under stock under stock bridge uh voters care those should be improved by the dollars of of stock bridge um uh voters and i was told very very clearly at least as i understood it that once the district is a district it is the district there can't be separate that's fine for for for who could be what or what could be bonded to who that it's all one collection of people at its majority rule between the citizens of stock bridge or the registered voters of stock bridge and the registered voters of rochester so you're saying that we could amend things so that this you know could could could work in a town by town way while i like that idea because i really like the idea of for example rochester responsible for rochester stuff and stock bridge being responsible for stock bridge is stuff um as i understood it this is not at all legal um okay well let me just tell you one it's it's it is legal because it's already in three other districts in our su they already have town voting um town nominating and voting for the representatives and jaymie confirmed that today for me so that's yes just doesn't mean it's legal just means it hasn't been challenged in court well well it's just for elected officials carl yeah i'm not talking about bonding this is overall budget officials yeah this is not we're not talking about anything else it's very has to be very specific one of the um things that was made clear to us very early on our committee work was that any article that was needed changing that article had to be worn separately you know that you had to go piece by piece through any article so it's no small matter to get any article changed in this thing it's not a willy-nilly kind of thing there's balances and checks all the way through the first one is we present this to you and um i understand that there might be a reason we need to get together you hear it from the lawyer's mouth and uh so you feel you can go forward and then maybe that's where we you know move this amendment what's you feel all feel um um and also i i think we should get checking with everybody else about this jenny how are you feeling um i guess another question would be not only the the legality of it but if this is a a document that was approved by the state agency of education and we alter that um do we need to run that by the state again if we're changing it i don't believe so i believe it's controlled what i the information i received was that it was controlled by the voters as long as it goes to a vote of both community communities that we are these are living documents and that they can be altered to suit what our needs changing needs are in the state can i mean can we just change it to whatever it seems like if they approve something i don't know i guess i would need formal documentation of that that's on that okay we provide updated articles of agreement once they're amended there's no folks no so have you have you made other amendments within other su mergers jamie we haven't yet no no but they are our legal our legal advice was the potential yes you can and donna donner so savage also said yes you can and in fact some of this is not even um well i won't go down that rabbit hole we'll just say that she said that yes so there's three actual legal advises that i've had dina um the other lawyer we had and this was a burning lamb back who's been doing work for other districts within the su yep so we asked our committee members asked for a second opinion and so i i sought that out on these matters um he has not looked at the full extent of all that we've looked at but he has looked at the articles of agreement and the report um so that we've um we've gone we've gone forward with that all right justine where are you um i i obviously was a part of the committee so i am in support of this i think that i would like to welcome all the questions and i understand that maybe legal counsel the advice from legal counsel may be helpful for the rest of the board we did get to have a session with legal counsel and we got we got to ask our questions uh of the council so i can agree that that would be important good amy sorry mike i keep getting dropped here so um kind of missed a few minutes there um um i am i guess the question here's the question what do you need to move forward i mean what i'm hoping to propose and the committee wants to propose is this amendment um to the voting rights okay so that what you're asking for is an amendment the number one to change how the school representatives are nominated a elective yes okay oh just dropped me again no no you're here i can hear you it's getting very frustrating um uh to clarify um the you mentioned that there's other districts where the town on votes individually votes they're representative nominates and votes yes now uh it did sound like jamie said no articles of agreement have been changed so that was original to their articles of agreement then correct correct okay um yeah i i definitely have um some concerns about the specific article um and i don't know but i do want to make sure we have correct legal counsel before we do or dive into changing anything that makes sense okay um i don't know if you want me to say my comment about um about the the specifics of what you're asking right now or um but really i think we need to have um uh counsel to that we are doing things correctly okay um megan um i just want to say i really appreciate this committee i think what you guys have been putting forward is definitely really solid work i think that would help move our district in a in a better position but i am going to agree that we're going to need some legal counsel i i this is a lot to digest i just want to take it in tonight i'd like to get the counsel and then you know we make i would make myself available for a special meeting absolutely i would love to do that because i'll be honest um i'll be honest that you know some of the concern of of stockbridge members of the committee was that the board would sort of push push things down the road as opposed to doing this and there is a there is a time constraint not that that should pressure us because we need to we need to be confident in our vote on this um uh the idea of when it can be put to uh this this warning if you read the top of the warning we haven't put that up yet um sorry ray why don't you put the article up just so we can see it right now and the idea is that this this would be warned for town meeting that we would it would be a special meeting that would then be an Australian by Australian ballot that this amendment would be voted on um uh on on town meeting day which of course is the same day that stockbridge will be voting um for to merger unmerge with rochester um and this was this was prepared for us this draft was prepared for us by dina atwood and edited by um bernie limbeck so this test this text talks about amending article seven we've been talking about article 11 11 is is the one about where the where the power really rests that's it's a different issue than this yeah article seven what we'd be amending but we had to find out if that was the right area to amend so just doing the time constraint and we had amy um jenny justine megan megan agreed to um then i would love i would love for this to happen i would love to do this this week because i think it would be a sign that we're moving forward with this that we would move a special meeting to meet with council about this issue and to regard and vote on this amendment because i think it's a pretty important amendment to put forward showing our support of how we um you know we're working to make things work better in this merger and i think for me this feels like a a note if it's legal and it's acceptable as i've heard that it is this seems like a very reasonable request to even out some of the voting um stockbridge is always will always suffer in this merger by being a minority vote um on most issues and that was one of the sources of greatest concern in the merger and there really is you know as i talked to both lawyers about there's no real way to change majority votes on on certain issues but there are in these cases this is one of the issues where you can affect how the vote is and it doesn't have to just be by majority or as the term is in the current um articles at large voting which means everybody voting altogether majority wins i'm not opposed to the text the amendment itself it's more so the the legalities and um you know making sure that it's kosher and i would also i know that there's concerns in stockbridge but i would also like to point out that i believe the last vote did have more stockbridge voters than rochester if i remember correctly or one of the two did i'm just gonna throw out there just as you had it you had sorry i just want to throw out the that the committee did have dina in a meeting yes and that you had two board members they're present it was public meeting and in addition to that your two different attorneys wrote this for you so you can have a special meeting and bring an attorney in totally you know if that's what the board's wish is just a reminder that that does come at an additional cost just wanted to put that up jamie it does and it would be nice to i mean we've had an attorney for additional cost sitting in meetings telling us again and again and again about how we need to you know really think about dividing up the sewer plat around the the high school building i really feel kind of kind of i mean i approve of the i i'm going with we're gonna make this happen we're gonna put you in a room with a lawyer and we're gonna do it i'm just gonna make it happen soon how about thursday um thursday may be bad for me i could do it next tuesday but that's not something we should be be be debating now what i'm object to most being blindsided by an amendment to the articles of agreement that you know we're not even you know bring this to us with the attorney next time please i thought that my experience with the attorney was enough and i i made a mistake for that okay um well tuesday a meeting tuesday would still get us in um would still get us in in time for i think it's the 31st is when we would have to january 31st is the deadline for getting it for warning the special me meeting i just i want to let the board know that rey will be navigating board meetings at the same time on tuesday night if you go with yeah that's okay yep good um all right well i'd say it's it's a consensus about this this time um yeah was there i see that there was uh kind of three action items um was there additional items that we we need to be considering um at this time or you just wanted to bring this one issue no i was gonna i was gonna go through them all um but okay i'm not i'm not i'm not sure that's a good idea right now no i think we i think we need to uh earn the the the faith and trust of the board right that our work has been sincere and is supported by legal counsel and once we have that then we can start working on other things but as i said i you know i can i can hear and i see charity's hand going up going up going up um uh you know i can hear the people who've been really supporting our work getting really upset because um this is just what they predicted is that we would sort of pass it on but that said i we have to work as a board and the board consensus is clear that we need to put ourselves in the room with it with the lawyer so all questions can be answered and be clarified um if uh i do think this is the time to be talking about this um uh by the way it wasn't i did send you uh that we had an amendment um that we were proposing um so it wasn't it wasn't a total surprise when i sent this out on on sunday i believe um so the worst two days warning that we were going to be proposing an amendment uh to the articles uh tuesday justine tuesday night i'm not quite sure if i'll be available i can be available to listen uh might not be able to participate i don't have child care that night okay amy yeah let me look i think it'd be fine i yeah that's fine uh jenny that should work thank you um uh megan i'll be there okay uh uh i'm gonna say we'll go we'll go with dina well i'll talk to you about um jenny we'll figure this out okay so we're gonna warn a special meeting to and the agenda will have two items of the executive session to talk over um amendments well i'll talk to with our uh legal counsel about the articles agreement and then when we come back to public session i would like to um talk on on the appeal i i think actually a special meeting just to talk about all the recommendations is actually a very good idea because i think doing it at 906 at night i think we're gonna be fresher i think you'll all come into it if you feel that there is legality behind it that i'll come you'll come with a lower open mind and i think um to try and keep going with this is um you know is is is fruitless tonight so i will warn the meeting for tuesday next tuesday and we will we will do our best good thank you um we're gonna move on seven six i'm sorry to interrupt i just think it's important to this you stated the 31st but dina's recommendation was no later than the 29th that's all i have to say thank you thank you for that clarification charity much appreciated much appreciated you came in for that i'm sorry i'm sorry i didn't have a sort of dealing with the board stuff i'm sorry i didn't call on your hand i apologize for that um all right so seven six outdoor learning structures um some of you may have seen on um greg ryan's web facebook page those of you are facebook uh these rather extraordinarily beautiful structures um and cricket you can actually talk to this a little bit you're on here for the building committee um we basically one of these structures has been donated already to uh the school and we're looking into grants um possibilities to get more of them uh they are wood structures engineered wood structures with fiberglass roofs um they're quite wonderful um i'm sorry i can't share a picture of you right now but um cricket what can you what can you say about them i think that'd be great to have you check in on this yeah greg greg has a great concept we're working through a few little improvements to it to make it a little more robust but i mean compared to a tent these things are they're awesome and he's uh he's a very instinctive kind of engineer type person who's come up with a really practical i think fairly easy to erect with volunteers um yeah out what could be used as an outdoor learning structure so i'm i'm helping him with a few technical things to make sure they're really robust but i was really impressed with what he came up with i do have a photo if if you want i can share it a photo yeah sure did you say there was a website that greg had that's facebook is not facebook yeah uh let me let me see if i can get the photo up here and then maybe share my screen um shouldn't take too too long let's see he's he's working on that the one of the things body asked i bring it before the board the idea that we accept accept this donation as a and and obviously work you know work to get um we have to have at least you know we get one we have to have two as we say all considerations for one campus need to be considered for both and so um we're working on the funding and i don't think we would take i mean a donation is a donation um uh i don't think it was specified where it went so that could be a decision of ours but bonnie wanted to make sure that we felt okay about um accepting um accepting these uh this donation um so i would take any feedback you have i can share to picture up right now if you want each or go for it for good um so let me can you guys see that nope not yet okay um uh when we get some comments uh justine how do you feel about this or what are your questions i think these are great i'm pretty familiar with them um the thing that i think is really interesting is they're really um movable they're not they're made of wood but you can you can move them around and stuff and they're very sturdy so i think this is a great a great uh opportunity to explore outdoor indoor learning um potentially with heaters or something like that i'm really in support of of these structures and i would love to accept the donation obviously and maybe look at more into getting um grant money or something to uh get some more of them did that come up even uh nope i'm not seeing anything yet yep i see it now you see it oh i don't have yeah so this is i think a slightly larger one than um the one that would come uh we're working through some strength details with the larger one but it's it's the same same kind of design so would you have sides that could be put on it or that's great says there are a lot of different options with it there can be there could be some sides put on it there could also be um uh benches put in between the the trusses um uh potentially how they put the ends on i think it's the idea of sort of flexible outdoor structure um and bonnie and i've talked about placement of them uh where they could be in a more permanent way so that we would have permanent outdoor structures as opposed to these tents which really as we've learned from what happened to any of these are um uh really you know fall fall spring uh they're not winter tents um megan you got a comment i think they're fantastic and i would love to work um to make more outdoor education happen on our campuses and this is a great donation and and we can definitely look um towards pto funding some of it or just look to other resources to to get a second one okay jenny i think i think a donation of one of these is pretty awesome and i was curious how much one of these costs uh they're in the four to five thousand dollar range to give you a sense that's it also depends whether we have a crew from volunteers putting it up or the company itself puts it up that can save us a thousand or two bucks um uh what was the other point i was going to make about that uh uh no it's gone okay uh if it comes back it would be would include installation it would be cheaper if we put it up yes and this is you know this is bolts and bars and things like that lindy i guess my only question in cricket something to just kind of keep in mind i want to i think this is fabulous i want to reiterate that i think this is a great opportunity i want us to think about our biggest class size and how we have to space kids out at that six feet foot space because that's like an added bonus so just um structurally like there's some math that's i'm happy to sit in on i'm not sure i should be leading the charge but i just think i'm thinking of ou