Okay, the meeting has been called to order. Adjustments to the agenda. I would like to add a discussion item. 9.3. Building committee for report. And I do not see. I thought that Tara. The woman from the solar place. Yes, I'd like to add that. I, I'm sorry. I did not add that originally when this. Agenda was created, but encore renewable. And I don't know if we had talked about possibly letting her. Command about 645 and try to. Commend and do the presentation rather than having to sit through our entire meeting. So I'm not sure. That's fine. I think we can. We can proceed with. Getting started. Pause when she arrives to. Deal with her. And then. A return to wherever we happen to be. And as I recall her presentation was around. Like a five minute presentation. And then we just decide if we're going to. We have, we ask questions, then decide to adopt or not. So I would think that would be a 10 minute item. I would think it'll take us probably five minutes to get through the consent agenda. Let's give 10 minutes to public comment. Oh, and I'm sorry, Ethan, I'm being rude. As usual, you're, you're, you're, you're intending to keep time. Is that the case? I wasn't doing working on that in this moment. I was still doing some things treats on the bulletin. So. Okay. Maybe Amy, could you keep time? Do you think that way? That way you think can be a furiously multitasking in the background. No, no problem at all. Okay. So Amy, do we need to. Yeah. Like a 10 minutes on public comment and five minutes on the consent agenda. 10 minutes on board comment.  In terms of report. And veggie Van Gogh. I'd say maybe 15 minutes on veggie Van Gogh. I know there's some people on that we're going to call in, they're going to help explain that. And then the principles report just probably five minutes unless there are a number of questions. Okay. Are we going to move veggie Van Gogh to after on core renewable or. Or we're just going to get to it down in six, 10, excuse me, 10, 1. I think probably the same thing. I think did. I think we're ready here. Lindy and Bonnie. I didn't hear your question. The representatives from veggie Van Gogh or the people that wanted to. Speak to that. Are you on this call. This Catherine. I know Rob and I are also here from that group. Lolly and Vic were the ones intending to speak. And I think because they're at the bottom of agenda. They might be finishing their dinner. I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't move veggie Van Gogh. Maybe we should leave it right where it is. Sure. And we can certainly, we can certainly early table, whatever we're doing, jump to them, resolve them, and then go back to where we, we were to accommodate. To accommodate their schedules. Try to shorten that process for them. Okay. Tara, how long do you expect that you would take Bruce? How long do you expect you would take? Five minutes for me. But it's just a recap of a couple of things.  So. My report is actually just what you need from me as far as the budget mailer. I don't have a specific report to provide tonight. Carl. Okay. So we have no, there, there, there is not an audited. No, I finished up the review of the audit. We send it to the auditors today for the last few clarifications. So there is an, I'll email that to you in advance. Okay. Meeting to approve that once we get the final draft from the auditors. Okay. So we don't have to worry about discussing an audit tonight, apparently. Didn't, and policies, warned policies. There are. Four, six. 15. There's 15. Okay. I think what we should probably do. Is let's put the policies behind. The. Booklet. And. Three. Three. Three. Three. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Okay. So. Do we, do we need an executive session? I did not see one on here. Bruce is or. No, no, nothing I know. Okay. Lindy Bonnie, no need for the, for an executive session. I'm nodding my head like you can see me, but no, I don't need one. Excellent. Okay. So yeah, let's, let's shift. Policy adoption. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So. You know, to, to the back of the menu or the back of the menu, the back of the agenda and do it after we've dealt with. All the things around the next step for the vote, the annual report. The solar or the, the renewables people. And the veggie people. And then we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do as much policy as, as, as we, we can. So, um, Bruce, while, while we're going through that, you might want to think about the order in which you want us to address those. If there's policies, we absolutely need to be getting on the books. Let's, let's talk about those before policies that, that we may not make a, because 15 is a lot of policies. Well, you, you've seen these before. It's not like that's the first time you've seen them. There's only two. And I want to pull back and that is because Dean has advised me to do that. Carl, also, these have been warned in the paper, so we've already paid for the ad. Yeah. If we can try to put in there at the last. Just hang with these. Okay. So we'll just give that a. Undetermined time or. Um, well, I mean, we would probably want to give it. You know, 20 minutes to half an hour. If we can. Okay. The big piece I just don't want us to, what I don't want us to do is to spend a lot of time haggling over policy and then turn around and find its 845. And now we're trying to talk with Ethan about the booklet. Um, I think, you know, getting, getting some, some clarity and some guidance around the booklet around what the building committee is going to be or what the, the, the statement in the book that we're on the buildings is going to be, uh, is, is. Really pretty, pretty much the thing we should be doing. Uh, Well, we're fresher than necessarily going through, uh, uh, policies about, about, uh, Um, tuition and such. Um, does that sound good to everyone? I got a thumbs for me. I'm, I'm, I must have printed out a, um, old, I'm not sure where I got it from, but it was 9.2. 9.2 is next steps for vote. 9.1 is annual report booklet. Okay. I just got moved up. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'm a veggie Van Gogh people. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Hi. I just got a note from a colleague that I should just let you know, I'm a veggie Van Gogh person to speak to that whenever you're able to get to that on the agenda. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Um, So we already have, um, I'm sorry, was that, was that Vic? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I really said, uh, so veggie realizing that's probably the first name. Um, uh, if, if you wanted to, we could, we could probably, uh, address you at seven. 644. We've already given to a person about, uh, uh, getting renewable energy credits. Yep.  If you wanted to check back in and look back in at seven, we could probably address you then. Sure. Thank you. And how do I go back on new just star six again. Absolutely. Okay. Thanks very much. No worries. Thank you, Vic. Um, okay. So, um, in the couple minutes before the, uh, uh, energy person shows up, we have listed on the menu a consent agenda of, uh, five sets of minutes. Jenny, I thought we had approved April 7th already is that. Um, thought we did, but I'd have to check on last. I thought we did, but I could be wrong. Okay. Um, the stuff you shared looks fine to me. Does anyone else, uh, have had comments one way or other, Amy? I'm sorry. I read the policies. I would entertain a motion to, uh, accept the minutes. We want to do them as we do. We want to do them as a batch or do you want to go through them individually? That's fine. I move to, uh, except all. The minutes on your good word. I second that. Okay. Yeah. It's more, it's more Jenny's good word. I look at them. They say, okay, yep, that seems to match what I remember.  Um, all right. A motion has been made and seconded to, uh, approve the slate of minutes has presented. Um, all in favor signify. Actually need to do a roll call vote. Um, let me get my little. Hi. What is this? Jenny's background is what it is. Okay. I'm not sure if she's on, on a job site or. Are you at the dentist? Yeah. Even what say you. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. And Megan would say. Uh, I also approve them. Uh, the minutes are. Proved unanimously. Uh, that brings us to 644 is our, uh, person from the energy company here. Okay. Um, hearing not yet. Let's go ahead and Bruce. Why don't you give us your, um, uh, reports of the board. I know we still need the first public comment session. I'm just trying to, uh, I'm just trying to make sure that we don't get involved in, uh, in, in, in, in heavy public comment when we've got someone theoretically showing up in a minute or two. So Bruce, if you can go ahead and give us your, uh, your, uh, report. Yeah. I have three quick things. First of all, we did make a last. Offer to the union. Uh, we got a. Uh, Inquiry back from them today. It was due today. Um, asking us some questions. I believe I sent that those. That communication to all the negotiations members. Yes. What they were asking for. And, uh, I'm sure that. We'll probably get together later this week with our attorney to. Talk about, uh, the questions they had for us. The support staff agreement, uh, final agreements not due back until next Tuesday. Um, So that'll be a week from today. And, um, We'll see where that goes, but I just wanted to let you know that we did get a reply from them today. The other thing is that I had a conversation with Jamie yesterday. I said, look, uh, summer meals. And also, uh, the summer program are your decisions along with the boards. Um, I've taken it as far as I can take it and it would, it should be up to you. Uh, and the boards about what we're going to schedule. I believe he's been holding meetings with Carrie and others. Uh, but at this point I'm feeling like I'm out of it. And, uh, I don't know what, um, maybe the two principals know more about that than, than I do. Um, I think he might have made a decision. To move forward with a summer program as long as we only had 25 people in it. It'll add all the sites, but I don't know any of that for sure, because he's not talking to me about that. And he doesn't need to talk to me about it. So, but that is in his hands. So Bonnie, Wendy, do you know anything? He sent something out yesterday that said, um, he was going to move forward with having summer camp. Um, it would be July 6th to August 6th. I think there's still, he threw something out to maybe the executive board. I, I don't see who is on the original email. Um, about just making sure any questions or concerns were answered. Um, but they've started to put that out there in the community. And then for meals, um, they'll be run through a central site in Bethel and then meals will be delivered for curbside pickup for any family with kids, zero to 18, just like we've been doing now. Um, and that money will fall be covered under reimbursement by reimbursements and by the 21 C grant. So there won't be any local funds needed to support that. And that'll run. Hold on. I'm just trying to flip through to the right page here. My notes to August 7th for the. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. So if any of you have any questions regarding any of the board members have any questions regarding the summer program or summer meals, uh, you can address them to Jamie because I'm not getting involved in that now. It's all going to happen on his side. So. Okay. Um, searching my email, I see, I just got one from him saying that we're doing programming and, um, uh, uh, disbursement will happen at each summer program site. So if the summer program is running at Stockbridge or Rochester, disbursement of meals to those communities will happen there. I guess when it's running those four days a week, it's actually going to happen at both places, Carl. So summer program is running at Stockbridge. Meals will be provided there. The summer program will not be at Rochester, but meals are also going to be provided there curbside. Ah, beautiful. Um, excellent. And no one has told me that we need to take any action to, to, to approve that because it's coming through one planet and it's coming through. So it's coming through programs. We already are, we already are accessing. So we don't have to do that. So that is wonderful news. Um, and I see that, uh, uh, Jessica is here. So we can go ahead and, uh, talk about innovations energy. I'm sorry. I forget the exact name of your company. Invasion renewables. Maybe. Okay. On core renewable energy. On core renewable energy. Hi, Carl. Hi. Thank you. You're welcome. And I realized just before, um, you notice I was here that I was logged in as my son. So, um, thank you so much for having me, uh, Carl and the rock bridge, a Rochester stock bridge, uh, group. I am a consultant for on core renewable energy. And Carl, do you want me to go ahead and get started with it? Awesome. All right. I noticed that some folks, um, seemed to be already logged in, which is awesome. I had sent it to Tara earlier today. So I'm going to go ahead and get started with it. All right. Hopefully. All right. Can you all see it? Yes. Awesome. Yay. Okay. All right. Um, I'll just hit the ground running and we'll, um, open up for questions afterward. Um, so my name is Jessica Redmond and I am a consultant for on core renewable energy, a commercial scale, solar developer based out of Burlington, Vermont. Um, um, and a Vermont business for social responsibility. We've been round. Um, um, we have a great, um, um, um, um, history of, um, making unusable property usable. Um, so I'll, uh, go ahead and get started. All right. My goal for, uh, this meeting with you tonight is to show how we plan goals by, um, solar net metering. And to specifically show you, um, what working with us could do for you financially as, uh, the RSUD district and then how it folds into the larger umbrella of a White River Valley supervisory union. And then I'll also outline a couple of things that we could do following that could move you in the direction of net metering. Right. So I'm just going to start with the numbers. So to determine how much, um, anyone, any institutional organization could access solar energy. It starts with actually how much money you spend on your energy, not how much you use. And that is because net metering is what's called quote unquote monetized. Um, so we take how much you spend and what I, um, got from Tara and the folks at central office, um, were the bills for the, um, Rochester grade school and the high school and for the Stockbridge central. Uh, we take 12 months worth and I, these are the durations or the time duration that I got that data. And you folks spend almost $33,000 on your electricity, um, in that timeframe. Um, in order to determine how much you should net meter off of a commercial or community scale solar array, um, we take 85% of that. We want to make sure that what you net meter, you will actually receive full credit for. And so taking this 85% takes into account any fluctuations that may have from year to year. Um, and that almost $28,000 amounts to about a 100 kilowatts of, of, of an array. And if we were to go back to the front page, um, this is a 735 kilowatt array. So just imagine about this portion here would be, if you were allocated a portion of array, it would be about this right here. All right. So what does net metering mean? All right. There are two ways that you can net meter. Um, what I'm proposing to you is this. I'm not proposing to you that you build a system on your site. There's a lot of hassle involved with that. You would have to maintain it. You would, your, your, your crew would, your facilities crew would need to mow around it and all that kind of stuff. What I'm proposing to you is that you, and this is very loosely, it's not really purchasing, but that you sign on to an offsite solar project. And that particular 101 kilowatts would be, would be allocated to you. And by doing that, that portion, you committing to that, you actually, I'm going to skip down to the third bullet.   However, what you pay will be 90% of that. And so that's how net metering works is that you sign on to this grid, this, or not the grid, this array and you receive a, um, a discount on it. Um, and how, oops, sorry. And how we're able to do that is like basically through some fancy financing. And, um, being able to use the tax incentive credits that come from the federal and the state, um, government. Um, and with, um, really innovative financing with our investors, we're able to pass that tax incentive savings down to you, the, the school. Um, if you also happen to have students at your school and families who have been really advocating for, um, going to renew, oops, ah, going to renewable energy sources, um, off net metering off of a community solar array, absolutely meets, um, that criteria. What we do is we basically do all of the upfront work. We make sure that the site that we're is chosen is one, um, that is within the GMP service region. And we have a specialty of working on unusable land such as retired gravel pits, land fields and brown fields. We don't, we can, and we often, we, not oftentimes, but we do build on nice property, but we absolutely have a preference for building on property that cannot be used commercially in any other way. We do all of the impact studies. We do the certificates of public good. We work with GMP to make sure that the grid that the array lines up with the grid. And we also deal with all of the financing and the construction. You, the school have none of that responsibility. You have no upfront costs associated. Oops. You have no upfront costs associated with all the things on the right hand side of that, um, of this slide. All right. So getting back to the nitty gritty. All right. So that discount amounts to this for the Rochester schools. You're looking at $179 a month or about 2100 a year being saved. And again, I'm going to remind you this is for doing nothing more than signing a piece of paper. You are not building a system and you're not maintaining it for stock bridge.  And again, this is an estimate based upon those numbers, um, that I got from your electricity bills for a total for this particular school district, three bucks a month, 600 bucks a year. I'm sorry. You said 50 bucks a year. And I wanted to make sure the people that have dialed in on phones can't see the slides. Oh, thank you for reminding me of that. $53 a month. Okay. So let me just, since there are people listening on the phone. Oh, I'm sorry. Rochester grade and high schools. You're looking at a monthly savings, potential monthly savings of $179 and a yearly savings of 2,145. And for stock bridge central, you're looking at $53 a month with a yearly savings of 638 for a total for the RSUD $232 a year and to $232 per month and $2,783 a year. Now I've put on this slide. If RSUD and the other schools within the supervisory union who are not net metering. If all of you combined. But on board. You're looking at a savings of almost $15,000 a year. If you're a solar net metering. For those who are listening. I would also like to add that the Newton school. And the White River Valley middle school and high school have entered into net meter and contracts some years ago. They are saving almost $7,000 a year. By doing this. So if we combine. What I'm proposing to you as to this district and then all of the other supervisory union districts together. You're looking at almost $22,000 a year just by signing on to a community scales. Community scale solar array. A solar project. Okay. So how does this work out. So over the duration of 25 years. For the Rochester schools. You're saving cumulatively almost 65 brand. And for Stockbridge, a little over 19,000 for a total of about $84,000 a year. And if, like I said, if the other schools. Who are not net metering. Within the supervisory union go on. Sign on. They could potentially save over $450,000 over 25 years. Just by signing on to a community scale solar array. With encore. The structure of the net metering agreement is one in which it is a long term agreement. It's kind of like by signing on to a mortgage. It's because of the fancy financing. It is a 25 year agreement. This is the type of agreement that the Newton school and White River Valley middle and high school. They are also in these types of agreements. So this is not unheard of within your community. Green Mountain power, you will see on your bill. It will, it will basically, when you sign on and we have the grid. You will see the solar array attached to the grid and everything is online. That first month, you will see. That those net meter and credits being applied to your accounts. And so you will begin your savings will essentially begin right from the get go. And so that's getting better with these. I'm getting through it a little faster. So I'd like to open it up for some questions. I'm going to go ahead and go ahead. I'm going to ask a quick question myself and then see you. What, what other board members might want to say. Yep. So the first question I have. So. Is there, when you say, there's an array. Yes. Are we buying a share in an already existing array? Or will this be part of a purpose built array that's going to come down the road? In other words, if we signed, if we pass the motion and signed up tonight, our next bill or the bill after our next bill, immediately start reflecting these savings or would these savings be, you know, nine months or the year out by the time you designed the array, got the permitting, got the certificate of public good and so on. And then when that array came online, our savings would begin. That's a great question. Right at this moment, we, all of our arrays that have been permitted and are ready to be built, they do have clients. So we would be looking at an array that might not be coming online until fall this time or fall late later this year, where we are in the process of, we have a furlough, we're in the process of acquiring a permitted project where the owners cannot fulfill it. I wish I could tell you more than that, but yeah, we're looking, we're looking, we might be looking a little bit later on this year. So it wouldn't be, but it is, so you're talking when you say, when you say September, you mean September 2020, you mean four to five months from now, so it would impact the budget year we're about to go into. It may not impact it for all 12 months of that year, but we would, we would probably start seeing, seeing those savings in this next budget cycle. That would be, I can't promise anything Carl, because obviously with everything that's been going on with Corona, our, our, our construction has been a little bit delayed. But I would say, I would say it would be the intent that it would somehow be able to be applied for this school year. For this upcoming school year. The 20, sorry, the 2021. Excellent. Thank you. Does anyone else on the board have a question? Jessica, can you, can you, as time goes on, can you modify the number of kilowatt hours that you signed up for? Or are you locked into that number? That's a great, and thank you so much. You are locked into that. And that is why we do, we don't do that full amount. That's why we take that 85% of your annual spend, because we want to make sure that you are getting as much as you possibly can. That you get the net meter and credits as much as you can. So, that's a great, that's a great, that's a great, that's a great, that's a great, that's a great net meter and credits as much as you can. And allow for some fluctuation after a year. Often times when I get this question. I'm, I'm wondering, well, actually I'm going to ask you, Are you wondering what might happen if you, your building situation changes. Maybe you consolidate schools or that you close a school. Is that where this question is coming from? Yeah. That's basically where I'm getting at here. Yeah. And I'm sorry, is this Amy who's talking to me? This is Jenny. Hi Jenny, thank you. So Jenny, I've been asked this question before and obviously other school districts have this question and the reality is, is that we understand that things happen. If for any reason you had to close a building there are, what's the word I'm looking for? I'm not a legalese person, but there are parts of the contract that say you can leave the contract if you don't have the building anymore. So there are exceptions, I don't know what's the word I'm looking for, but it's in the Nebutering Agreement that if you had to close a building we'd have to release you. So ideally we'd love to be able to fill you, to fill in that spot with someone else, but we'd basically have to find another, we'd have to find another customer. Does that answer your question Jenny? Yes it does, thank you. Any other board questions? Well I guess I'm just, I don't know really anything about net metering. So I guess I'm just a little confused as to the amount that we are getting this solar versus the amount that we're paying for grid power. So the solar array gets the sun, it converts that energy into electricity. All of that does go to GMP, it doesn't go to you necessarily, it doesn't go to your building, but it's kind of, if you think of it this way, it's kind of like an accounting thing, is that your portion of the array, the energy it produces you are, it's like, it's almost like you're getting, that the value of that energy, you are going to see credited onto your GMP bill. Okay, so if your portion of the array produces the monetary value of about $4,000 worth of energy during July, you'll see on the net GMP bill that you have a $4,000 credit, that your GMP count can then have throughout the school year. So that credit will be applied to GMP. Now, the part that you pay, and actually you may have GMP bills in which nothing is paid from one month to the next. What you do pay is an equal amount of that, so that 85% that monetary amount, I believe it was $28,000, that gets broken down into 12 payments, okay? And you, that 20,000 minus 10%, so let me take the back, that 20,000, that that's what you're going to get credited to your GMP bill. 90% of that is what you're going to pay to what we call the project owner. Okay, and that will be equally, an equal amounts over the 12 months, okay? And so, Tower was so good to send me the net metering agreement of the other two projects, other two schools, and it states right on the contract what their likely credit will be, and then it shows very clearly, but you're only going to pay this much per month, and with both of those, it was a percentage lower than that. So that's where the money say, that's where the, you're not going to see it necessarily month to month that you're saving money, it's going to be over the whole year. Right, so conceivably there could be a month like in January, or a dark month, where we have almost a full power bill, plus we would have the bill to the project owner. Correct, correct. And so that, I'm not a business manager, but I would imagine that once this is in place, it's going to be something that Tara and your other accounting people will just need to, they'll just have to structure, they'll have to realize, okay, in January, we might have this much, but in June, July, August, September, maybe even October, we're paying nothing to GMP. I see, thank you, Tara, that, Tara. Yep, and I'm more than happy if people want to contact me, call me. Tara is my person.  If you have any questions, please send them to her. She'll know how to get me. Okay. Okay, so the last bit is I have been sending, like I said, I've been sending Tara information as we go. The next step I think would be is, I can get to you a, what we call a terms sheet. And that basically summarizes on our letterhead, basically everything that I just said to you, at least from the monetary value, the savings, and what some preliminary terms might be. If you folks want me to, like I said, attend another meeting or want me to answer some questions, that would be great. I could send you this terms sheet. You could begin to send that to the school attorney. I could also get from a possible net metering agreement, just our boilerplate net metering agreement for you to begin to look at. I know that you are in the process of transitioning to Jamie and from Bruce to Jamie and the new school year. It would be awesome to coordinate all of the districts to eventually sign on so that this could, we know that you're signing on, that you'll have your own grid, your own solar array, excuse me, and ensuring that that happens. So, I'm gonna be meeting a couple more boards in the next couple of weeks and it would be awesome to know who would really like to be a part of this in the next month or so. So. I think, I absolutely think if you can produce a net metering agreement or a boilerplate agreement as well as a term sheet that the board can take a look at and formulate questions to follow up with either you or with Tara or the dean of the attorney. And then, it sounds like we don't need to be taking action tonight because this wouldn't be something that'd be rolling out till the fall, but it certainly is something that as we're looking at going forward, it'd be nice to make a decision on and decide, you know. I mean, it seems fairly straightforward as to what you're presenting to us, but I think we would wanna have some discussion and come back and either entertain a motion at our next regular meeting or get some answer for questions from you. Yeah, awesome. And I'm seeing Amy's message. I've exceeded my time. No, just the timekeeper. So I just like to keep everybody aware of where we are. Yes, thank you. All right, thank you so much, folks. Thank you, Jesse. Hey, Carl, this is Tim. Yeah. Can I just ask a question? A very quick question. Yes, Tim. When you're talking about this kind of a deal, don't you have to have it go out to three bids? It's like having a bus or, you know, I don't understand how just one proposal without checking through, because Green Mountain has a raise, Green Mountain Power has a raise too. So I just have a question in about the three bids and then, you know. Yeah, no, we would, that would be one of the things we'd be checking with the attorney about, Tim. You know, this is certainly not, but this is a proposal that is not something we receive regularly, but yes, absolutely making sure that it's fully within our ability to consider or if we have to put out an RFP because, you know. Yeah. Certainly, again, we have a window to do it, but we need to understand how that all works, but your point is well taken, sir, thank you. Tim, that is a great question. And I will say that this is not a, this isn't something that you are acquiring. This is not a project that you're acquiring. So this is not to become the property of the district. So it's not an actual good or service that you're purchasing. And so, yeah. All right. All right. Thank you, Jessica. And we will reach out to you and loop back with any questions or comments we might have. Right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great evening. Yeah, you too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay. Is Vic and the VeggieGo team ready to go, Veggie? Yes. Hi, this is Vic out here. Hi there. We can hear you well. We can hear you well. You're good. Thank you. Vic, why don't you just go ahead and explain what you're hoping to get the board. This is Bonnie, by the way. Why don't you go ahead and explain just what you're hoping to get the board's support to do in both Rochester and Stockbridge? Yeah. So I serve as the emergency management director for the town of Rochester and calling for Rochester. And I've been working with a pandemic task force committee and also representatives from some of the other towns in the area from Hancock and Granville, for example. What we're looking to do is get the board's approval to bring on to the two campuses both in Rochester and in Stockbridge, the Veggie Van Gogh mobile pantry program that would bring free fresh food to families in the area. It's a total turnkey program and it doesn't cost the school or the participants anything. It's been in place for a while. It's a program of the Vermont Food Bank and it has been in place for over a year, for example, at the Gifford Medical Center campus. This is a program that's available to communities only when it's cited on either a school campus or on a hospital campus. And so we're coming to tonight to ask for permission to bring that program to both of the Rochester Stockbridge campuses and to do it in a way in which Gifford Medical Center would actually act as the local sponsor of the program is the complete turnkey operation and Bethany Silloway from Gifford Medical Center is also on the call and can comment or answer questions if there would be a need to do that as well. So that's in a nutshell and it stems from our concerns about the pandemic's effects on the local economy and we're seeing 20% unemployment in Rochester now. It's, we believe that we're in for a long-term downturn in the economy and this would be a terrific help for families in the area to be able to help make ends meet particularly with so many people having lost employment and we think it's a good thing for the community to ask your support for it. Hi, Beth, I have a number of questions. This is Amy. Yeah. So who has access to this program, to this resource? You mean who can come and get food? Yep, anybody. So senior citizens, okay. So this is not a program that is just for families of school-age kids to help supplement. Okay. There's definitely no questions asked when folks pick up the food. Okay. The only question is how many families are you picking up for? Right, okay. And in the winter, I noticed that they would need to be using a room inside of our schools. I read that correctly in that memo. Yeah, we believe that would be desirable. And we're thinking perhaps the auditorium lobby space might be suitable in terms of square footage and access to the parking lot. So we ask you to take that into consideration. So besides the winter months, because obviously in the winter months they would need power. During the summer months, do they need, does there need power? Okay. It's all outdoors. Okay. Do they have volunteers to run this program for a full year? Because I do notice that it is a one-year commitment. Yes. Yeah, Gifford would assure that and we would have local volunteers to work right alongside with them as well. Okay. And how do you see this program working with our local food shelf to compliment that effort? Yeah, I think it'd be a really nice compliment to it. This program is focused primarily on fresh food, fresh fruit and vegetables. Sometimes dairy depends on what's available from all suppliers to the Vermont Food Bank. And would be open, ideally, twice a month. That's what the Food Bank can promise. And so that would be a compliment in addition to the once-month distribution of the food shelf on Saturday. Okay. Amy, if I could just add to that, that's one of the things that struck me about this program is that it would bring food that typically aren't available through the typical food bank structure. In other words, it would hit those fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, fresh and dairy that typically we don't find in our food bank programs. Okay. Great. And in Stockbridge, where do they have a local, they, Stockbridge doesn't have a local food bank now. They would access one in Bethel, is that correct? Yes. Yeah, and I don't know the population of how many access, how many people access the Bethel Food Bank. I know in May, there was 12 people that came to the Rochester one. I think it's important also that with our Farm to School Grant, this is a great action step that we can put to show that we're trying to get fresh fruits and vegetables into kids and families' hands. And by partnering with Gifford, they have the system down because they've already established it. Yeah. And if they go more local. Would the fruits and vegetables be local or would they just be part of, they would be gone from anywhere probably? To the best of their ability, and Vic and Bonnie and Bethany, correct me if I'm wrong. They try to be from local farmers throughout the state, but sometimes it doesn't always work that way, depending on. Yeah. I mean, they're dealing with large quantities of commodities and to the best they can to get local and get volume pricing and I'm just not sure how that plays out exactly, but I think that's the intention. This is Bethany Soloway from Gifford. I can say that in the summer months and the growing seasons here in Vermont, it is a locally sourced fruits and vegetables as best they can. Obviously in the winter months, many things come from Florida and you have more root vegetables and things like that, but in the summer months, it all is locally produced. Great. And would they continue no matter how many people access this? Would they continue to run it all year long at both campuses? Yes, that would be a one year commitment from them, no matter what the showing is.  So for example, in Randolph at Gifford, the first time we did it, we had about 180 participants come and then that number grew and we averaged anywhere from 250 to about 350 participants up until the shutdown in the last few months where we've been seeing about 600 families. I think it probably would end up being a good compliment to our effort that we're trying to feed our kids. This is Carl. Is there any, so is this a standalone program where there's not requirements or opportunities for PTO involvement or student involvement or community service for some of our older kids? I'm just, and that's fine if it's a standalone program, but I'm not concerned that you're trying to make us give you a certain amount of man hours to make us or kid hours or whatever to make this happen, but I'm just curious about ways that we might be able to leverage that into curriculum or after-school activity or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. We would more than welcome that. In Randolph, we've been working with the public-based learning groups with Lisa Floyd. So she brings a group of students each time they get a said amount of bags, they take them back and kind of separate them out and actually deliver to 36 senior apartments locally. So seniors that are not able to get out on their own, the kids are going and interacting with them and handing off those veggies, obviously, that had to stop again with the COVID response, but that was happening prior to that. And we would more than welcome the kids' participation. I just think it's so great for them on so many levels. So we would definitely welcome that. Well, in the past, for example, in Stockbridge, at least we've had a program where in the summer the summer program would take a set of ingredients that they knew they were about to get out of the school garden or a local garden and do some menu, because they knew this is the food they would have to work with, they did some menu development and menu tastings as part of the program. And so again, having the same sort of, just something as simple as being able to tell what's gonna be showing up on that Saturday so you could have an activity around menu developer, things like that. Yep, I think there would be- The administration will have a curriculum either, but I'm just curious about it. Yeah, the trick is we don't always know what's coming and sometimes the food bank doesn't always know what's coming, but I'm sure that they would give us a heads up if they did have an idea and that could be something that kids could work around. Typically the food bank does bring a representative who does a cooking demonstration, so that way the participants actually try something that's being offered that day prior to getting their produce. Obviously, again, that's not happening in the last few months, but I know they'd be striving to get back to that model as well as Giffords done that too, for like our chefs will do that to make sure the participants are getting a chance to try a new recipe. They can then take that recipe card home with them. One other thing I'd like to mention is we have partnered with other area service organizations like Clara Martin Center, Good Beginnings, B-SAC, Stagecoach, I think even Efficiency Vermont, and they'll set up booths outside when we're outside and just have their service offerings there so people can go out and visit with them and learn more about other programs that they could get signed up on as well as like our community health team from Gifford. Again, I haven't been offering that in the last two months, but again, we'd want to get back to that as we start to see some more normals again. Excellent. Does anyone else on the board have questions? So then really what it requires from the board, and I don't know whether this is more a question for Bonnie and Lindy or for you guys, but we would need to just move to allow you to make the arrangements you would need to let them use the facilities as you guys saw fit. And we still... Yep, that would be it. We'd follow sort of the building lose policies that the boards already have, but given that this was significantly different, we wanted the support of the board before we move forward. So moved. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. Okay, motion has been made and seconded that the board accept the administration recommendation to allow the Veggie Van Gogh program access to both campuses for the period of the year per the information circulated. Does anyone have any other further comments? Hi, Janie, how are you? I'm well, thank you. Okay, hearing none, we'll need to go through and do a roll call vote because it's the new internet normal. Amy Wilt, what say you? Yes. Ethan Bowen, what say you? Yes. Win Fiber, what say you? Oh. You, Janie Fender, what say you? Yes. Jenny Austin, what say you? Yes. Megan Payne, what say you? Yes. I also say yes, the board unanimously accepts the recommendation of the administration to begin our partnership with the Veggie Van Gogh people. Thank you so much for coming. Great, thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so now we can get back to, you're in the middle of the superintendents presentation when we dealt with Veggie Van Gogh and the energy people. So Bruce. Oh, I missed the policy? Shoot, I missed the policy. Yeah, no, you didn't miss anything. No, I'm good, Carl, that was it. I was finished. Oh boy. Tara? She didn't have anything. It was just any questions we had about the, which was needed from her for our report. So I'm sure she'll chime in then. Okay, then the principal's report. You distributed a document that had half dozen or so bullet points. I think that only addition is just how we're both doing sixth grade graduation. Okay. That we didn't put in there. In Stockbridge, it's going to be drive-in movie theater style. Where each graduate will have an assigned parking spot with the six feet around. And then we've recorded as much of it ahead of time as we can to be able to just kind of hit play. And then we'll call them up individually so they are able to receive their certificate. And how many are we graduating in Stockbridge this year? Oh, we're graduating five. Can we come and see Lindy? I mean... So what we're trying to work out is unfortunately because of like the gathering maximums, I'm not sure we can, we're going to do a live link. But what we talked about as a staff today is instead doing like a, getting them spaced out around the little loop and getting to do a little drive-by celebration. Congratulations. And we'll post the link. I'm just not sure logistically how that's gonna work so people can see, but we're trying because there's a lot of younger kids that wanted to come too. We're just trying to keep from getting our gathering too big and not being able to social distance. Okay. And then I turn it to Bonnie. Okay, so in Rochester, we have eight kiddos who are moving on to seventh grade. And our promotion celebration is going to be held on the park. We're going to have the youngsters spread out across the two sides in the back of the park.  Even though the grouping size has gone up, we're gonna ask folks to keep it to 10. And then all the other well wishers, faculty, anyone else, board members who would like to come, we're gonna do a car parade around the park. And the two fifth, sixth grade teachers and myself from the bandstand will give the youngsters their promotion certificate. So we're doing a bit of a parade style versus a drive-in movie style. And we're just working out the final details now, but those are the broad brushstrokes. It was interesting, we got the kids together, I'm sure Lindy will say the same thing, we got the kids together and sort of asked them what is it that you'd really like to do because we know we couldn't do what we typically do. And the one theme that kept coming up over and over again is they really didn't care what they did, but they wanted to be together and they wanted to see each other. So I just thought that was what we needed to make happen. Before I ask the board members if they have any questions about your report, I wanted to specifically ask about, you mentioned under curriculum and instruction that there's going to be a summer online tutoring support through OnePlanet, is that going to be sufficient for what you think our kiddos need or do you need additional resources from the board? I think we could always do more. The question is about getting families to want to come and do more. It's tough when I know phone calls are gonna go out this week, at least in Stockbridge, making the sales pitch, so to speak, that your child should participate in this. And I think families are burnt out right now and you're asking them to participate in something a month down the road. But I might have a different answer in July. Okay. Just based on feedback and response. I can definitely think that we could do more but I just, with everything always evolving and changing, I know a need to get off of devices there. So I... What do you think, Bonnie? Yeah, we've been able to, we've started a few of those contacts today and it's exactly what Lindy is saying. Some parents are very grateful to have the opportunity to have their child tutored this summer but they are respectfully declining. They just think that it's been enough time on screens, it's been enough time trying to make distance learning work in their household. We do have some that are still want to continue, they still want the youngsters tutored. But your question, Carl, I think at this point, we have the resources that we need. Certainly if we have a significant number of youngsters who suddenly want tutoring and we can't provide it, we'll have a conversation but I don't think that's gonna be the case.  Right. But, you know, just if there's, I guess, I don't expect you to necessarily have an answer right now but if there's things that you would want, please, you know, keep us informed and apprised. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I will add this, Ethan, to our report because we just made that commitment a couple of days ago but both Lindy and I have jumped on Dr. Bill Ketterer's course. He's the psychologist that consults with our restorative classroom programs. He's offering a course over the next several days on childhood trauma and he's talking a lot about this extended closure from school and being away from your friends, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm anticipating that we'll both learn a whole lot about what we need to make sure is embedded into our school's opening plan. Any other board questions for our administrators? Yes, I do. Is the play structure in Rochester open or is it closed? I've been getting a lot of phone calls. At this point, it's still closed, Amy, because we don't have the capacity to clean the whole structure every day. We're trying to grapple with that but right now it's closed. The grounds are open but the structure is closed. The grounds are open but the structure in the preschool playground is closed. Wonderful. I have received at least two phone calls about this so I'm not sure if we need to review our signage to make it clear. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else, Ethan, Jenny, Janie, Megan? This is Megan here. I just wanted to say thank you to Lindy and Bonnie. I was concerned about the graduation and I just wanna appreciate all your work you're doing. Thanks, Megan. I should have mentioned while we're on the phone, while we're on this meeting that the public is welcome on the Rochester side. We have plenty of room. I know Lindy's still trying to work out logistics but we have plenty of room for folks to join the car parade. We are asking that they not gather on the park but joining the car parade would be fun. All right. Thank you. So the next star we're going to do the discussion lighting is beginning with the annual report booklet. So Ethan. We never actually assigned a time to this. Do you want like a half hour? Yeah, I think a half hour is probably a good place to start. Okay, all's starting. All right, so I just sent you the most recent draft. Where we're at is that right now, finally, we have all the information. And it's taking obviously just for various reasons, a long time to get it all. But we also have a bulletin, there's a lot in it. We're at 38 pages right now, which is huge but we were asked for a lot of information. The one thing that I'm at right now that I would look for your input on is that I have succeeded in getting all of the budgets into word format so that we can actually write on them. Right at the line item, we can put things. And I would welcome very much from all of you any explanations or questions or things, clarifications, but the only thing is I would ask that it do go through me just because there have been some formatting issues, trying to work in with Jenny's outline, which is great, but I didn't really understand sort of how it works. I had to redo some things. We've got a couple of new things that I don't think the board ever asked for, but I thought were good ideas. We have a report from Jamie, as well as from Bruce. We also have a literacy report from Janie, which I thought was important. One thing we didn't anticipate was the minutes from last year's meeting. They're quite long. I've just got a chance today, just now, as I was listening to the rest of it to edit them down. They're a little confusing, but they have to obviously be in there. And Jenny, at some point I wanna talk to you about helping me help work on the header. I've done some work as far as introducing some of it. It's probably you'll go, what is this? But a lot of it was information I thought was good. I still need to work on an introduction to our budget. I mean, there's a lot of information there, and there's a few more graphics that I wanna come up with. But it's close, and it's certainly a big improvement from last year in terms of information. There's a lot more we can put in there now because of what it is, but we only have, I mean, technically the last day we were to get this in is Monday, but I really wanna get rid of this by Friday because I've been spending a lot of time on it. And I haven't put any artwork or anything like that and it's just been really about getting all the material in there. So, and in some ways, I know you have a half hour now. You know, it's sort of like the budget itself in the sense there's a lot to look at. So I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to send you all home with it tonight and take a look at it tomorrow or something. If you wanna go through it tonight, I'm happy to go through section by section and sort of talk about what's there and what else you need. No, Ethan, I think you've done an incredible, you and Jenny have done an incredible job with it. I reviewed what you sent earlier this evening. I do see a couple of things that I, you know, have would like to talk to you about nothing that we would need to go through at this time. I think it looks incredible though. You really, really good job. I do wanna point out that the Rochester town report is 76 pages. So fear not that it's only, that it's at 40 something. Oh, good, yeah, 38. Okay. 38, if I get that from, yeah, if I get that from the board that we're not a problem. I mean, you know, I did a section which is kind of fanciful, but it is about how decisions are made in education. And I include the website of the president of the United States and the Congress. I feel it's really important for people to understand that there's decisions that happen in the classroom that are made at the highest levels of government and that they have access to understanding all that. And so I put a lot of links and I wanna put more links in. There's a really good link Amy sent me about education funding and how it happens, how it works. I wanna put that link in there. I want there to really be a document that people can take and say, oh, I want more information about this. Great, there's a link I can go there because we can't put it all in there, obviously. But as I say, if you have comments, yes. And as I say, if there's, particularly if you have things like line items that you think, I've done a few and I think Amy, your tax, how the estimated tax rate, your explanation of that and the numbering worked really well and that's in there and I'm really psyched for that. I think that's the kind of thing I wanna try and do with the budgets in the sense that we're really almost guiding people through these budgets because right now it looks sort of like, oh, fun graphic, fun graphic, lots of numbers, fun graphic in it. And we want people to pay attention to the numbers but we want to help them through it because sometimes, and this is the whole point of getting it into word is so that we can annotate and change things. So good, yeah, I've got my notebook out. If anybody's got any questions now. As I said, the section I just, the new one I just sent you, I just got the numbers correct and did a little bit of editing but it's as far as sections and stuff like that. So shoot. Wasn't there something handed out last year at our meeting that was like, if this is what you're, like how much impact it's gonna have on your actual taxes? Yes, I had that loose in my bulletin and I was curious about that. I had no idea where that came from. And Jamie, maybe you can help me. I think Bill Edgerton normally puts that together. I think Bill Edgerton chart, yes. Yeah, I don't know if people found that that would be helpful to include. I think so. Because I know sometimes like. Yep. If somebody were taking on to find out and get it to me, I'd be happy to put it in. If somebody from Stockbrook did that, I don't know. Ethan, one other thing, I don't know whether you want to include this or not. Well, can we, Bruce, can we just finish this up? Find out who's gonna take it. Between Jamie and I will talk to Bill. I'll talk to Bill and just tell me again, what is my mic on? What are you? His lookart that he does, where it talks about how much it really impacts your property tax bill. Well, right here, it's called the annual school tax for residents paying based on their income, Stockbridge. And then the other side was annual school tax for residents paying based on their grand list property values, Stockbridge. So is it just for Stockbridge? This one that he handed out is, I don't know if he would be able to do it for Rochester and we should probably... We could maybe ask him. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be great. I mean, as I say, I need it right away. That's the only thing. We're getting to a crunch period where it's really about notes. And that's about all I can add, because I just, time-wise, to actually reformat. And of course, everything gets shifted down because you're working with Word. Right. But if you can get it to me quickly, that'd be great. I think anything like that is useful. Do you want me to get it off and call her? If you, if we could note tonight, that'd be great for me. All right, I'll be back. Ethan, what day you're trying to get it to the printer by Friday? No later than Monday, but I'd like to get it. I'd like to get it to her on Friday. And I'm actually kind of hoping I could get it to her Thursday so that we could see a mock-up. Because a lot of times when you print things, it pushes things around. And we'll see. Yeah, my notes from last year, that was one of the big notes in it, was to see the proof. Because there was indeed a couple of charts that they just didn't print. They weren't colorful enough. And do you know? Even if she did it without binding it or anything like that, just a straight run. I'd love to do that. So, you know, if we, and I'd have to talk to Penny about that, about how long that would take if she could do that, like if I gave it to her Thursday morning, even if we didn't have all the final information. I'll ask her about that. Can you hear me? It's Tara. Oh, Tara, hi. I've worked with Penny on a couple of other books and she does provide me a proof to go through. And she's made some suggestions on some changes prior to them printing the actual document. Okay, great. Well, let me, I'll contact her tonight. I'll send her an email tonight just to say, hey, what, if we need a proof, how soon, how soon do you need it? So do you want to give us the deadline of getting comments back to you by tomorrow night? Yes, that'd be as soon as possible. Even in the day, my work time is actually morning. So, you know, eight to 12 is really my main work time. I can steal away, just as this is crunch time, I'll steal away some afternoon, but yes, the sooner you get them to me, the better. Okay. Ethan, I'm gonna ask you this question. I don't know whether it's too late for this, but if you remember last year's meeting, Rob Gardner asked a question about why the SU isn't voted on by the public. And I have all that research that I gave to him. I followed up last time. I've got it on my desktop and he hasn't descended to me. I can do that tonight. So, yeah, it's all the notations for where all that can be found. It's all state data to it. That's great, that's great. Yeah, that's the kind of thing I don't really remember from last year. Like I'm at the point now where I can answer all the questions for everybody where last year, but I don't really remember what all of them were. So, I really would appreciate that. And maybe I'll send the bulletin to Rob and see what he thinks. Well, he and I conversed after the meeting and I did the research and gave it to him and he's been happy to see all of it. So, that's good. Cool. Okay guys, can I interrupt for a minute? I just spoke to Bill and Carl, he said you would know more about it but that he has an update of it since the merger but if you could get him, if someone could get him the numbers, he would be able to crank it out to you tomorrow, Ethan. What numbers does he need, do you know? Carl, do you know, he said he took it from the back page of the report or something? Yeah, I think so. Let me take a look at it. I can get him and Ethan an answer tomorrow in the morning before noon. Okay. That'd be great. Anything else that anybody noticed? No, but I was wondering if you could get that to her, Monday at the latest, when do you anticipate receiving them back? I think you said they had to be in the hands by the 20th so I figured it's ascending by the 16th. I believe I said it was coming out, she'd be done with it the 13th, going in the ninth. And that's all, you know, unless it goes in earlier. I mean, obviously getting it in Friday doesn't really make that much difference because they don't work Saturday, Sunday, so. But mostly for me, they get it. The ones for weekends, you can actually relax.  Yes, you guys have done an incredible job. It really, that's a lot of work you've done. I think it's great. Good. Hi. I haven't looked at the latest you said about Ethan, but I'll try to in the morning between other stuff. Yeah, Jenny, the main thing is that we didn't have a section for the annual meeting notes from last year. And so it just needs a section, that needs to be section one. And then so that section two is the warning. Also, I don't know, Amy, how you got such a nice resolution on the warning last year, but it just looks awful. It's everything else looks so clean and that just looks like a photo. And I'm just wondering if there's, anybody has any ideas? I don't know where the warning is, the signed warning is, but I just don't know how you got such a good, clean copy of it. And it was also in one, yours is in one page or right now I've got it in two images. So it keeps pushing things down. So that's just a technical issue I'd love for help, some help on. So because it's a sign, I don't think we can shrink it down at this point to make it smaller print and have all of our signatures on it as warned. So. Well, I just, who has it? I mean, I'd love to try scanning it myself. I have it, Ethan. Oh, you do, Lindy? I'm headed over to work tomorrow so we could connect. Are you going to go into work tomorrow morning? I am. What time do you be there? I usually leave here around eight and venture over. So you'll be there like 830? Probably 845. 845, okay. 8, you're at the bottom of 73, I drive right by. Oh, that'd be great. What time there? You want to meet at 830 at the pull-off there right at the bottom of 73? By our beautiful sculpture? Yes. Yes, excellent. Ethan, I do see something that is kind of bothering me right away. Sorry. And I don't know if there's any way to anything we can do about it, but in our budget, when you get the next page, there's no heading on each of those columns. So that makes it tough to continue to read down. There is also no lines separating sections or boxes like you get to help get from the left side all the way over to the right side without skipping lines. That is, I think, a little less important than the headings. I do think that... Wait, I'm seeing headings on my budget. When you... I had just opened the one that you just sent. And section five, the first page... I'm seeing headers on each page. I am not. Oh, interesting. Are you previewing it, Amy, or are you opening the document? I... I know what preview things get messed up. Okay, so we'll open in Google Docs? No, this is Word. It immediately goes to Google Docs is the problem. Well, that may be it. Yeah, this is why we wanted... Jenny and I wanted to do it in Word just because we felt it was more... We get annotated better. We just don't feel comfortable with it. So I don't know, they're there now. I don't know if other people open it and what they'll see. I think, let me... Yeah, I'm sorry. It shows up on mine, the headings. Okay. Okay. Like on page 17, for example, what's the area you're talking about? Yeah, I'm getting... Any of them, yeah, 16, 17. Interesting, the headings are not showing up on mine. I only see headings on the first page. Yeah, page 14. I think it's a little bit different. What is the heading supposed to be on page 17? Well, no, the header is section five, proposed RSUD FY21 budget. Underneath that, there'll be a function and object description, FY19 budget, FY19 adjusted, approved, proposed difference. And that goes right across the top of the page. I have the header. Okay. I think it's a matter of room for drive showing it differently. Yeah. Okay, just be aware of that when you're transferring this to Penny. Yeah, then make sure it comes out there. And the other part, I got your point. I'm gonna see if I can find a way to put lines at least over the main headers, Office of the Principal Executive Administration. If we can do a line across that so that each section is broken out. Well, because... So, Annie? Penny, you'll be sending as a PDF, right? Not the word. Correct. Oh, yeah, I imagine. Right. Okay.  Yeah, if you were able to get the lines, that would, I think that would be helpful. I think I can add in the lines. We also need an explanation. Your chart, the pie chart, the blue is not very different between all those blues. Which one are you looking at? I'm at the beginning, right before the beginning of our budget, it's a page 20, the introduction to RSUD budget, section five. Yeah, I'm getting there. Oh, yeah, yes. So one, you have a... I can change that. Yeah, I can change that. See, so the total is in blue and what does the total represent? And then you have these other teacher salaries and SU assessments, which I assume the blue stands for non-negotiable. You know, this is what's right there, teacher salaries, salaries, other salaries, paraprofessional salaries, benefits, tuition, but those blues are, they should be actually distinct things. One is to teacher salaries, one is SU assessment, and one is tuition. And then there's one that is total. One of your five sections is this total. Also, budget is spelt wrong. Oh yeah, I got that. I found a couple other little... Oh, I mean, if you can make lists and send them to me. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'll talk to you maybe, you know, late tomorrow morning about some... It's so much easier actually if you send me a list because I'm just going through each time, changing everything. If I can get a list, then I work through it better. Sure, but in a word, so it's editable. You can edit all this whole document, right? Yes, yeah, except for the warning. And I think the thing from the state, which I have no explanation for by the way, if anybody would love to come up that three year comparable, I don't know why we have it and I don't know anything about it. If somebody could give me a little blurb that could introduce it, that would be useful. I can do that. It's a state-required form. It looks like that because that's the way the state says it has to look. And you would be getting, you know, that historically has come from the business manager. And it's, I believe it's a template that they get access to from the state that generates that lovely number reader. That's correct, Carl. I get it directly from the state. Yeah, and if you can just send me a two line, three lines, just saying what it is. And we, Carl, we did talk about the union and I've described in one section, I sort of talk about that the union is there and then negotiations happen and that I do make some statements. I would please, I would ask everyone to make in, you know, go through them, some of the introductions, just make sure I'm actually right.  But yeah, no, I will, sometimes it's like that. Certainly go through that. I mean, it looks really good, but I have not, I have not read through it at the roof reading level. But I need some, it needs some time just for everybody to, you know, to look at. And I know Lindy and Bonnie also said they wanted to make sure the numbers were correct. And anything, as you go through, Lindy and Bonnie, again, anything you say, anything going out, a little extra explanation here.  There's all these things that just don't necessarily explain themselves. And I tried to in the introduction, but that's not always the same as having it right there at the, at the line item. Great. One thing even on the, on the table of contents, we'll make sure that you update that. It doesn't automatically update. Yeah, no, I know that's totally all wrong because all the sections got messed up. Yes, Amy. I do not see the treasurer's report. Yeah, it's cause I don't have it yet. I do believe it's required though. So I think- I don't know, I don't- Just want to- I think, I think- Terrace- That's the one thing I'm working on, Amy, already aware. Perfect, just wanted to make sure. We just need to make sure we got all the minimum requirements too. Yeah, yeah, no, I understand. Yep, I always have my checklist for what's required by statute. Thank you. Just as soon as I can get that go. Where does that go? Anybody know? It can go anywhere really in the book, Ethan. You can put it towards the end of your- What is it? It's our, it's our running cash flow, correct? It's the actual treasurer's report is your fund balances. So it would be the fund for your operating account, your general fund. It'll be the fund for all your special revenues. It's the balances out of, as of the 630, 2019 audit. Jenny, where do you think that should go? Okay. I don't know, I have to think about that. Okay, I'll put it probably in the, our budget section. Yeah, maybe- It should go probably in our budget section. Okay. Great. Anything else? Well, I think we should all review and get back to you before, as soon as we can in the morning. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. And not too much isn't it? I mean, I'm willing to put some more time into this. I just, yeah, I want to make sure it's right. So please do look at it thoroughly. Good. Thank you. Is there any other board comment on, on where we stand on the annual report? Amy, do you want to just give us a update on mailing and stuff like that? Okay. So I have been doing a lot of digging about mailing. I tried to go down and buy a bulk mail permit because they do some investigating that is the most cost efficient way to mail these out. Otherwise they would be at least a dollar or piece mailing out. So, but I went down to try and pay for that, but they don't take a credit card. So I have to go back with a checker cash. So I'll be doing that. I've already talked to the Starbridge town clerk to be able to get labels and talk to her about how to make sure we're getting them out to all of the Starbridge voters and residents that have mailboxes in other towns on the people who live in Gainesville. And so we'll be bringing them to the Rochester post office. There's a whole bulk mail form that you have to fill out. We have to weigh them. We have to separate them by town. So I'm getting all that together. So we might need, I might need another hand when it's actual mail day to just, I'll try to enlist my 11 year old, but. Well, so just you know. Hey, hey. Yes. Spalding has a mail distribution center that they work with that I've used for the other two, three districts that I've done this for. Just to let you know so that if you didn't have the time to do it all yourself. I mean, like a mail merge, they're doing the mail. Yeah, they have a center that does the bulk mailing for you. And all I've had to do is provide an Excel spreadsheet from the town clerks of all the registered voters in the two towns. And then the mail center does all of that and sends them all out. I don't know how many registered voters you have, but one of the districts that I just did, it was about $400 for the mailing itself. So that was the postage only. That wasn't the actual printing from Spalding. That was just the postage. That was the postage, but what was the extra cost to move their mail that service? I think it was a hundred and something dollars. Okay. That was what I had asked you about, Ethan, and you said that Penny wasn't too keen on that. I should ask her again about it, because I might have caught her early in the morning. She was just sort of sounding like she didn't want to do it, but if it's something she does commonly, maybe that was just in terms of getting it done. But I'll add that to my email to her. Okay, what's it called, the mail? I was mail merge. It's where you- It's just Spalding's mail distribution center that they contract with. Okay. I'll add that in my email as standard tonight. The other thing to find out about those, Ethan, is does that add any time to the mailing? Well, I think it does to her to say when it gets done. I think that's what she, I just need to know that from her, but yeah, I will check on that. All right, I just want to make sure that besides finding out what the cost of using the mail distribution center is beyond the postage, what's the cost? You know, it does, if it adds four days, we need to- It does add some time, Carl, because once Penny gets everything done on her end, she then has to ship it out to the mail distribution center. So based on the one invoice that I have so far, it was 930 mailings. The mailing service cost was 128.35 and the postage cost was 326.34. Just to give you an idea, and their book was, I want to say 20 something pages. Now we can double check that. Do you know if they have a bulk mail permit or if they were just doing flat rate, like a regular rate? It is bulk mail. Okay, just want to double check on that. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, well, are you sending an email to Penny about that and you could get back to me then on- Yeah, I'm going to ask you about the proof and mail distribution and what would be the timing on that. Yes, thank you very much. And they need to be in the hands by the 20th, correct? That's the last- Can somebody confirm that? Yeah, because I- You need to have it in their hands 10 days before. Okay, so we need to be sending it out. I figure we need to be sending it out by the 16th to make sure. And if you are in informational meeting- We haven't sent a date of our informational meeting yet. I mean, my recommendation would be to try and have them have it before your informational meeting. Oh, yeah. And maybe have it for a couple of days. So maybe like the 24th or something, I don't know. Right, we have to, in the next item we're going to go through and do the next step for voting, which includes deciding whether it's commingled or not, deciding when we're having this online informational meeting. And there's certain timeframes that we have to have these things occur within it. But we'll get to that in the next item. Okay, there's our timer. Good, perfect. All right, so next steps for voting. We are currently in the candidate consent form window that we got confirmed from Dina for a 630 vote. We have to be taking candidate consent forms until 6.5 until Friday. If Megan would need to get together with Julie and get that done, at least for Stockbridge, it was a form where I had to write my name and my town and put my email address on it and sign it and scan it and send it to Lori. So it's not a hard problem. This also is the process for who the district clerk is, which is the current role Jenny has. And the district treasurer, which, I forget who our district treasurer currently is. It's Becky Klein, and she would be interested in continuing on. She's just learning about it and really wants to do it more and learn more. And you would need to go and fill out if she wants to be on the ballot. And for that matter, if Lori Scott or Julie want to be on the ballot as the district clerk, getting that stipend to do the annual meeting minutes and to sign and witness the things like the warning and such, those people would need to also fill out that kind of consent form otherwise. And there'll be spaces for write-ins, as I understand. The lawyer is going to take the consent forms that both towns have received on Friday, and they will prepare a ballot for us. And that ballot, Julie said she can print for us. I'm assuming probably it can be, I mean, it sounds like it's going to be something that can just be run off on a copier, a person having to be on official paper or with state skills or whatever. So I would imagine that probably Lori can print them at the stock price level once we see it. We'll confirm that. The last piece that we really have to make a decision on today is we need to decide when we're having our informational meeting. And that I'm looking to figure out where the time frame is. The information, I'm losing the place where the time frame is. And I'll look that up in a second. But the first thing we have to decide is around the counting of the ballots. We have to officially make a decision about whether the ballots will be counted individually by town. And those town votes reported, and they would be reported publicly to the clerk, which would be Jenny. Jenny would not have to stop being the district clerk because she would not have to physically go to a location and be around everyone counting the ballots and all the ballots. The ballots would be counted individually by town. So the town clerks would not have to come in to leader. The town CBAs would count the ballots, and they would say, this many voted yes and this many voted no on each of the questions. And that would be reported to Jenny. And so it would be part of the record of what each town did, which there was at our informational meeting. There was some public feeling that that information, for the board to be completely transparent, the board should perhaps report it that way, that Stockbridge said this on these issues, and Rochester said that on these issues. If we decide that, and then other people have also said, made the statement that, well, we're one district. We should count as one district. We should try to not be separating things by community. We should be trying to do things as a unified district. And that we should then count as a commingled ballot, which means that the Civil Boards of Authority, and probably that would be the representative of the town clerk, would deliver the ballots to a central location where they would meet the district clerk, which would be whoever would replace Jenny, because Jenny has indicated that for personal health reasons, that can't be something that she can be a part of, would then count the ballots or would supervise representatives of the CVA, the town clerks, and supervise them counting the ballots in front of the district clerk. The points that have been made about that are that, again, we're a unified district, and that the counting is being done under the supervision of the school board directly. It's not the school board taking a certified result from a town Civil Board of Authority when it's the school board's vote. In our discussion, when we were first talking about this before we had our initial questions of Dina, it was pointed out, I think, by both Ethan and Jenny, that the most efficient way to get this done is just to let the towns count them. The towns open the mail-in ballots. Let the towns count the drive-by ballots or the in-person ballots. And just report that information to Jenny. Jenny takes that and adds the numbers together and certifies the result. But we have to make a decision on that and we should do that tonight. So, board discussion. I don't know what's more efficient, and I certainly don't wanna put anyone in harm's way, but with the times being what they are, I really think it's symbolic if we... Again, I don't know all the practical ramifications, but I think politically it doesn't help if we separate out these two towns and make them as two different things. Can't we commingle and still find out what the individual times are? I just don't think we should separate it out. I think that goes into the conspiracy theory, if you will, that some of the people in Stockbridge are trying to perhaps intervene with. And I just think it looks, we are one district. That's what we are. And we should behave that way in everything we do. And again, if this is health and practical and it takes too long, that stuff I'm not talking about. I'm just talking about politically and what I think is just right to the way it should look. That's it. Thank you, Janie. Carl, did you see in the notes from the Stockbridge BCA meaning that they were feeling strongly about not commingling just because of social distancing and that we are still in a pandemic? Did you see that? In your notes, they got sent to you. I have not, I've been busy trying to figure out what I'm saying for the annual report and not spending as much time going through BCA minutes. So, was there similar, did the Rochester Civil Board of Authority weigh in on whether they wanted to count separately or count together? Bonnie, do you know? Bonnie, you had some ideas on this, what would you... I'm not sure they've held their meeting yet, Carl. I have a note to call the town clerk tomorrow to see if she's been able to call them together. So, I can't answer that question. I do think like... You muted yourself. Sorry. I do think like Janie said, that we are a unified district and we ought to conduct our business in a unified manner. I think, and I don't want to extend it out into the times, but certainly there's a lot of divisiveness going on and I don't know that we want to necessarily perpetuate that. Okay, that there certainly was opinion from some Stockbridge people that they were interested in knowing what the vote total was by town. I'm not sure... Again, I can't picture the ballot in my head, so I don't know if we could commingle it if we could take a town-by-town vote so that we're counting them together, but we're reporting by polling place. Anyone else? Jenny, Ethan, Megan? Yeah, I'm really torn. I don't... I can see benefits to both ways and I can understand concerns on both sides, so I'm still kind of rattling in my head. I don't know what my personal preference would be. Jenny, I was going to ask you to, you know... I will say that I don't think that if we want to commingle them, that you should feel like you should compromise your position. I think it would be very, very clear. I think that if we are doing it that one way, that I would have to be stepping aside, but in terms of what would be best in general, I'm still not sure what I think is best. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that you understood that we were not at all trying to put pressure on you. Right, no, I understand that. I just... Oh, go ahead, Ethan. I'm sitting here waving at the camera saying, go ahead, no video. Go ahead, Amy. Well, I just wanted to say as I had stated at a previous meeting that I feel that we are a district and we need to take a vote as a district on one joint vote rather than separated out to point fingers at anything. We are one district. We are here for our kids. But I do understand that we are in crazy times right now, but I do think there is a okay solution to it, we can still do it in a location where we can social distance. And if there is a rep, I believe it's a representative from each board of civil authority counts. We do have enough space in both of our facilities that they could be in a room 10 feet away. Is there no combo platter option? So to speak, is that not legally okay? And I'm asking, because I'm still trying to process as we talk, because I agree, I think they should be all together, but I also understand people and want to respect people's concerns about not being put at risk during this process. So is there not a way we can not commingle them but report out as a unified result? Is that not legal? I don't know, I've not gotten long detailed answers. Out of Dina, I kind of get the direct, like three word kind of commingled works like this. Counting separately works like that. And not a nuance sort of, if you're trying to achieve this, here's your best practice to do it, kind of answer. Yeah, the answer is yes, it's either one or the other, but you can't. Fair enough, that's all I needed to know. That was my solution. Now it's out the door, I got nothing. I certainly can, if people are willing to have another special meeting in the next few days, I can specifically ask Dina, there's ways that we can have a unified count where we can report out the votes by a voter. You know, but not by voter, that's illegal. That's like, wait a second. The votes by voter residents is what I meant. Again, I think that's what, I think that our unity is that we are in this together. We are voting as a unified group. It's not one size vote, you know, it's a unified group. So we're asking, I do hear what some of the people have said at previous meetings, and you know, they did request some type of surveys and I do think we should look forward to other ways that we can try to take the climate of the residents of the towns. I completely agree with you, Amy. What I'm trying to say is, I think we also have to be respectful that we are asking people to put themselves at risk to count a commingled ballot. And I just, it can't be me. If it were me that could count it, I would say, go for it, let's commingle. But I think when I'm reading notes that were sent to me that said that the, for whatever reason, the Board of Civil Authority in Stockbridge doesn't wanna commingle because of our pandemic situation. I think that has to be kept in effect, but I also don't, I want it to be presented as one result. Does that make sense? But I don't know that we can do that legally. So it's a conundrum. Well, is it that we need to provide the proper gear and for people? Is it the touching of the ballots? I mean, I understand this is scary, scary times. My mail goes into quarantine for three days, you know, and then I open it with gloves, but you know, how can we alleviate or help to alleviate some of the, what is the... I don't know the answer to that. I'm just reporting out what was written in the minutes is not on the meeting. Well, if we are looking at doing them separately, do we have someone that would be a replacement clerk? Because we would need to find somebody. How do we do that and who couldn't be it? It can be anyone, the Board, the Board of Points. Like, given that I filled out my form for election, it should not be me. That would be kind of a definite conflict of interest, except in certain banana republics. I could do it. Okay, so Ethan volunteers that he would do it if we were to count commingled. Should we wait and see, check in with Julie and see what her opinion is and what their civil board of authority is? Because I kind of feel like it'd be sort of, I mean, if they're all saying we wanna count these things separately because we're not comfortable counting them together, like Lindy said, you know, as the non-political body saying, you know, I mean, we're saying politically we should count them together because we're one district or politically we should count them apart because we want to be transparent. I think that, you know, from what Lindy's saying, they're approaching it from the public health. We don't want to have to commingle our germs with other people's germs if we don't have to. So maybe we should wait and see what the Rochester civil board of authority says themselves and then see how they feel about doing this. I don't think it's, I would not feel comfortable for us to force two body, two, you know, the two groups of people that have to be involved with this to be together if they don't want to be together, you know what I mean? I certainly understand what Lindy's saying. Right, I do, I agree or I understand. But the board of civil authority is Justice of the Peace, a select board and the town clerk. Are those three people already in contact with each other or is that part of what they are concerned about as well is being together within their own group? Well, I think either way they'd have to be together in their own group because they'd have to be, they're either participating in the commingled count with the stock bridge where stock bridge in Rochester are, you know, maybe a different size of room, but are together or they're together, you know, they're there individually counting their, you know, in each town group in each civil board of authority counting their ballots officially. Okay, so what do we want to do? The Rochester, Lindy, who is our civil? Is it the same thing? Is it a select person, the justice? The people at the meeting were, hold on. Select board members, two, it looks like two or three, Justice of the Peace and then the town clerk. Right, that was, I just think that also needs to be asked of people, you know, is there actually someone willing from each town? I mean, I'm just reading the summary of their notes. I don't know their discussion around it, so. Is the board of civil authority, do they have to be at the polling place all day? A representative, yeah. So the town clerk has to be there all day though to verify residency? Well, yeah, it's always the first step to that process. Okay, and the logistics of the mail-in ballot, that is something that the town clerk is, somebody has to receive them and then those all get opened by however we decide to do this vote. Right, they would either be opened by the individual towns. So, if I, as a Stockbridge do- I understand that, yeah. Otherwise, all those envelopes would be brought to the one place and opened together. Okay, well, we've got 10 minutes left on the next steps. I think we need to do a fairer. I think let's. I know. I would like us to hear with the Rochester. Bonnie, can you confirm what the date of the Rochester Civil Board of Authority meeting is? Is it really tomorrow morning? No, I don't know that it's tomorrow morning. I said I was gonna call the town clerk tomorrow morning to see when she had scheduled it. Okay. She told me she would do it soon. So, I'm guessing it's not too far out, Carl, because I met her last week. Okay, because I would like to, I would like to, if the Stockbridge team is saying we don't wanna count them in a group, I would, I think we need to postpone making a decision on this till we hear what the Rochester team says. Because I'm not personally comfortable saying you guys don't wanna do this, but we're gonna make you anyways. I agree with that, especially as someone that isn't willing to do that in person. I think that that is a good idea. Okay, so let's figure out, if you, Bonnie, if you can let us know tomorrow morning what Julie says that meeting is, we'll send out a survey monkey or whatever to figure out when we're gonna do a special meeting right after that to make this particular decision. Got it. Okay, does that work for everybody? I mean, I think that it's an important decision, but it is, at the end of the day, it's a decision that we don't have to struggle through tonight, because we need to make it in advance of the election, but we need to really, I think, have input from the stakeholders more so than us just doing it. I think that's a good decision. Well, then that's all that counts, Ethan. Excuse me. Let's see. He did ask for input. I believe your informational meeting has to be, like, a week before your vote. Right, and that's what I'm looking for the... Between five and 10 days. Okay. So when do we want to do that? So that would be between, say, the 24th or the 25th of June. So... Calendar. Well, how are we going to do it? I believe the advice we've been given is that we would be doing it via Zoom or via Google, probably via Zoom, so people don't have to do that. Or via Google, probably via Zoom, so people don't have to be approved to join in, but via Zoom or via Google Meet. I mean, that would be a question that Ray would be, is the person that would be organizing that, would be giving us guidance on. Ray's on the call. Yeah, I think we would really need to set up what type of format we're going to use because for everybody's questions to be able to be heard, are we going to take them at the meeting at the time, are we going to ask for them to be pre-submitted, which I would almost request. I think that might be better, but that we present with pre-submitted questions. Ray? I'm actually looking at Zoom and Teams at the moment. Unfortunately, none of them are perfect. So I don't have an answer for you right at the moment. I mean, I can imagine something where there is one person that is fielding all the questions, maybe, and submitting them in real time too. I'd be concerned with a large number of public trying to get their voices heard and trying to get through. We've also given at one of the previous meetings, and I don't remember if this is as part of an SU meeting as one of ours because, frankly, all your faces in this little grid start blending together. But it would be sending out some sort of, when we decide on a date, we'd be sending out some sort of, you know, whether it's part of it, whether it's part of the stuff in the booklet or whether it's a separate card or whether we send info in the booklet and a separate card, but something that points out a dedicated email address where people could submit questions to and we get that information out to the public in advance so that we can then go through and sort of marry up the similar questions and be able to have a list of talking points that are what people want to hear about beyond just what we feel we need to say as an explanation. And then we'd be, I'd assume we'd be having some sort of chat feature or something that some way that people could be taking in questions. I don't think we have time to get ahead of many questions ahead of time so that we can steer the meeting to answer those questions and address those, then maybe there would just be a few videos. It would be great to be able to take questions in advance, but I think that we have to be able to take questions during the meeting through some sort of chat feature. Right. And whether that's through the built-in chat in the meeting or whether we've set up a different chat portal or different, you know, like I said, I envision us having a, you know, I don't want people to email in questions to Jenny or to Carl or to Lindy. I want them to email questions to our said annual meeting. Or some sort of, you know, some sort of dedicated address so we make sure that we're looking at them all in one place and that we've thought about maybe using the chat feature. Someone's on chat with that particular, you know, Google chat with that particular email address so that that person can then be coming in and giving answers. I know that when I've listened to, so my wife works virtually and has for decades with a huge company that does Fortune 100 401K plan management. And she is regularly in, you know, 50 or 100 person calls and they often have, there's a person that's, you know, that's fielding those messages and introducing them. And I would think it'd be a similar format. There would be, you know, a board member would be tasked or someone would be tasked with, you know, watching that chat or and, and, you know, looking at that email or whatever and trying to get, you know, that information brought into the meeting at the time, but we need to have a method for regular phone as well, not just email for people who are only able to access by phone. And that does make sense to have one person that is the contact and then from there it gets brought to the floor, shall we say. Right. Right. And I think we can, I think we can, we can drill into some of those details as we're planning. Right now we need to figure out. So if our meeting is the 30th, we could have, I mean, that means that we've got to the, the, the, the, the Bruce had five, it's five or 10 days. The 24th is an F-bud meeting. Right. So if you want Tara. What about the, so the 23rd is, I mean, we usually meet on Tuesdays. It's the, I think it's the calendar, the little one that I have anyway for the 23rd, all the meetings should be on it. Okay. So does that work for, for the rest of us? Okay. 23rd works for me. I actually have a work meeting, a virtual meeting on the 24th as well. Okay. So the 23rd is good for three of us, Jamie. Okay. Ethan. Bring it home, big guy. And Megan too. And Megan. Yes. Good. Okay. Lindy. Yes. Connie. Okay. No time. Okay. Thank you. How about Megan? Is she there still? She there. I think, I think with, with everyone, but Megan. I think we can go ahead and put it down for the 23rd.  And if she, if there's some huge problem with the COVID-19 pandemic, I think we can go ahead and put it up. We'll deal with it like we would. When the COVID came up. So I would entertain a motion that we, uh, set the, uh, our side inform, uh, informational meeting, uh, for the, uh, a 630 ballot, uh, Australian ballot vote to, uh, the evening of the, uh, Uh, Okay. June 23rd. I saw. You didn't just set it for 630 though. Did you? No, no, no. The vote is for the vote is first. June 30th. Yes. Yes. No, we do not, we are not required to, when we, when we set a meeting date, we are only required to set a date. Okay. Sorry. The exact time, uh, to decide whether we want six or six 30 or seven, um, you know, after we've, we've, we've contemplated for a bit, but the big thing we formally need to do tonight. Um, and it's, you know, it's already 830 is, uh, um, deal with, um, setting the date. So we have a motion that's made in seconded to set the informational meeting for the June 30th. Australian ballots, annual school board vote to, uh, uh, Tuesday, June 23rd. Any further discussion? All right. I'm going to take a roll call vote. Okay. Uh, Amy, we'll, let's say the. Ethan Bowen would say. Yes. Yes. What say you. Yes. Megan Payne, what say you. She must have left. Megan, Megan may have abstained. Uh, I will also vote. Yes. The vote, the motion carries unanimously. Our informational meeting is set for Tuesday, June 23rd. We still have to follow up and have a special meeting to determine the co-mingling versus separate counting, but we're going to do that after, uh, we have, uh, heard from the Rochester, uh, civil board of authority. So that point, that point to bed, the last thing we need to discuss about for the annual meeting book booklet and the annual meeting discussion is the building committee report. What we want to say about our buildings and what we want to say about our, about our intentions to, to operate, uh, in buildings going forward. Um, just so you know, I put Tara's breakdown of building costs is in the budget over the report already. Okay. So that seems like a good place to put any building report you want to do. I have not actually read it. I've read both reports, but it was a long time ago, so I don't actually remember them. So I don't feel that we should put a building committee report in the annual part because there was not an approved building committee report. I think that if the board wants to, I don't know what to say, but I don't feel that it's appropriate for us to put a building committee report in since there was no approved report. I, I, I definitely see that. And I, and I kind of agree with that. But I think in one of the things as I was writing the note, I started saying, okay, well, I'm going to crib some stuff from, from some of the building, building report meetings and minutes and the, the, the proposed reports. And, you know, I said, I think really that we need to have a discussion about what the board is going to say or what the board wants to tell the communities about our position on the buildings at this time. I certainly agree though, that the building committee is not voting for the report forward. So saying here's the results of the building committee. We'll have both Rob Gardner and J.M. Mills want to rip off my head. Because we had talked about throwing out a survey. We're going to be surveying. We, you know, we met at the building committee. We have this report. I'm happy to see that. That's the end of the meeting. Is there any. Definite decisions. What we've heard from. The community is that it's time to throw out some sort of. Back opportunity. And here's how we're going to do it. I don't input the report in, but I agree. I think we definitely need to talk about the work that's been done and what we were going to be doing before we stopped need to include something. I agree with Jenny that we because we had decided that we were going to go forth with two community involvement with a moderator type of meetings to be able to further this discussion to but we weren't able to because of COVID and maybe laying out what happened since we've got that report that we did create a building committee that's building committee met through the winter on there was no the building committee did not come out with any how did you say it definitive answers because it's a complex issue the next step that was planned was to go to do community involvement and due to COVID we are unable to but we are want to look to other ways that we can get community feedback through surveys and and stuff that can be compliant and I would encourage you to be as specific as possible because I just don't see us being able to bring large groups of people together anytime soon. I totally agree so if you can say in the month of July I don't know I'm making this up in the month of July we are going to put out a survey that's going to ask questions about x y and z and this is how we're going to do it that's our next step and then we're going to tabulate the information go from there I think they're just looking I hear you when they say they're looking for information and I think the answer is the times have changed so this is how we're adapting and this is how we're holding ourselves to that standard and I do think that we as a board need to have a bigger in another meeting about our buildings I'm not I don't think this is the right time to begin more discussion about it but I think that there is no I do not open a big topic at at quarter of quarter of nine um you know when we haven't especially told the communities that we're having this big major discussion I just wanted to make sure that I'm going to go in that direction in another meeting okay what so some of the things that that that that you know I've been asked about um are you know the board I was asked directly could the board just say that we're closing the high school and everyone's going to be in the elementary school and that's just how it's going to be and the answer is yes as I understand it there is not you know I said I believe we could you know the board could just tell the administrators you're going to be in in you know in the elementary school or all the kids are going to be in the high school but that's you know that's a power that the board has and it's not a power that I believe the board is interested in in in in exercising um but I want I think it's important that you know it's it's it's said that that's you know that's a question that's been asked and I've answered it you know in in in that particular way I think it's also you know the thing I the thing I fired back in the mea culpa that I've you know that I started can you know that I confessed to in one of our meetings before and I'll you know I'll say again and I think this is where maybe the board needs to be asking our administration to you know we did not we originally thought we would not be hanging on to two buildings for this long so we did not originally say you know we don't we don't want to buy for one for one year or whatever all the materials and supplies it would take to kit out the elementary school to break up to put in temporary barriers to break up the gym into different spaces for our music on Tuesdays and Thursdays um or to do you know some sort of some sort of looking at that because we figured at the time that was wasted money because we want you know we were going to make a decision and we'd be in one building or another and spending a lot of money versus keeping uh keeping some spaces open um in the other building for a year or two was the decision we've made I think that if we're going to if we if we're really going to be going forward I think we do I think it's important that we ask our administrators to develop a plan you know to put us into one building just because one another meeting well we need to be I think we need to be able to be saying that if we're asking the a minute that it I think it would be beneficial to to the booklet that if we can say if we can say that we've asked the administrators to to revisit that issue and to look at what that might cost you know in in some ways that's a responsible statement to say we're you know we're looking at this issue because we cannot produce at this point and this is another thing I've been asked for where's the study that shows why we're in the elementary school versus the versus the high school and why we're running rooms in the high school versus keeping everyone in one building and all I can say is because we never really did a formal study of that we didn't think we'd be at this at this for this long which if I may cut this short a little bit because of time and I think that one of the things we have to address because someone else it was Keith actually who said that this has been going on for years no it hasn't guys last year was our first full year before that we still had the the old boards so last year was our full first full year and the first thing we did was get an engineer's report so that we could make a decision based on knowledge not just well the roof is leaking and this doesn't look good we did something we formed a building committee even with Joanne and Rob on it they couldn't come to an to an answer so and and we got caught off in our second year so this has not been going on for so long and I just think especially in times being what they are I'm not ready to say that we should get rid of that high school so quickly who knows who knows what social distancing is going to mean oh who knows who could possibly want that building and I'm not saying that we I'm just saying that we need to take all things into consideration we are not near making a decision we're just not especially not in these times but to say that we've been at it for so long and no we haven't so you're a year and a half that's it so this will be our third school year of operating two buildings um it won't it won't know the because the first year year before last we still had the old board they didn't get out the only reason that Jenny was on was that she was kind enough to say she wasn't going to be on it and we couldn't make formal decisions until July of that year right so that's one so July of that year to July of last year was our first year it may seem like 10 years but it was really just our first year and now we got cut off in our second so no we haven't been it's a year and a half that we've been operating these three buildings we could not make a decision before that is Jenny said okay and I'm not I'm not trying to um drive a decision in in a direction or not in a direction um what I'm trying to to make sure that we have a good discussion of is we're going to be writing a book I mean I'm going to be finishing sure comments about the building here um I will I will insert comments based on this feedback that I'm getting from you guys now and certainly it'll be something that we all can look at and and approve I don't want to be seen as a forcing an agenda or be hijacking um a process I just feel like we have you know we need to be very clear about what we're saying in the booklet that we're trying to put together in the next 48 hours what we're saying about where we are with our buildings and what's going on you know what's going on with that and where we are in the decision process and you know it's you know I don't want to say that we have an administration that's looking at how to consolidate operations in one building if we're not interested in having our administration spend that spend their time looking at that Carl I gotta be honest Carl that's that just can't even be on our radar right now right the three different models alone that we're gonna have to look at as a way to operate school for next year is the focus and what's best for kids and I'm sorry I just I do agree there's got to be something in there but I got to be honest with you that that will go to the very bottom of my list because I got to find a way to get back into school and that is fine and I will certainly you know but you know I want to have this conversation so I can make reference to you know what's going on and and and and write something that's accurate and isn't a committing you guys to doing something you don't want to do or don't have the the bandwidth to do but beanie isn't you know just marketing BS you know what I mean well but that's what they would consider it Carl if you say the administration is looking into what it could be and what they're going to say you've been looking into it for all these years and we still have three buildings it's going to piss them off more than it's going to help right and I don't want the administration to be looking into that right now as Janie just said we've got bigger fish to fry with with COVID and what next year's going to look like and on our buildings could be an asset to us in going forward I do again for another another conversation for another meeting though is where what we where we want to go going forward I think we should present what Janie said it practical timeframe because people are getting confused with how long it has been yes the time frame that and what have we done in that time frame show them because we have we have been proactive yes there's not any of us wanted we wanted a magic bullet we didn't get it we are but we are marching forward and this is what we've done and was our first priority the first priority we put when we could finally make a decision and we were an independent board we hired the engineering company we don't have to apologize for this is what I'm saying guys we have really done in a really short timeline did anyone ever have an engineers report before so that they could really base their decision on data no even historically say where the utility bills went between building a and building b in Rochester so yeah we certainly we we we certainly don't have that information the important thing that I wanted to do was you know have this conversation and it's important I think to be clear and direct about what we're talking about and what we're saying so that it's you know it's of course it's not just you know it's not just Carl writing a letter that people agree on it's it's Carl writing a letter that sums up what people say and especially with the time frame being short I write the letter that says blah blah blah the administration is going to be looking into and then everyone says no we don't want the administration looking into that right so you know it's it's a big question of just you know we say we need to say something about the buildings and whatever it is we need to be saying with the united voice and so I think I've heard from everybody and I I mean I can picture Ethan's response in my head I haven't heard it directly from him but I know I'm pretty sure where he's parked so Ethan um go ahead and chime in and you'll also see what I'm writing because you're the person I'm sending it to and you can tell me how that doesn't work I I think we should state where we are not where we hope to be or not where we where we are if we have not chosen building yet and we have and we face an enormous crisis of how we're even getting back to school next year so that's where we are all the rest is hypothetical and wish and hope sure one of the things I will add um Lindy and I are both um hoping against hope that this isn't the final guidance for opening schools but if we have to limit classrooms to groups of 10 uh we simply don't have enough classrooms to do that in in the Rochester elementary school and the Stockbridge elementary school so um again that has not been confirmed we're not certain that it's going to limit to 10 we're certainly hoping they nudge that number up a bit but if they don't nudge it up a bit we're going to have some challenges in terms of um how we go back to school and and there's other ways other than if we had to put everyone in groups of 10 we would need to be hiring another half dozen teachers to supervise the classrooms that are all under 10 people correct let alone heating the entire Rochester building and busing Stockbridge kids up there or whatever that's right but just let me finish I just I just want to finish this there are other options I just want to be clear about that there are staggered days when youngsters could go to school there are rolling schedules there are a number of things but I just wanted to be I just want to make the point that having some space at this point is not necessarily a horrible thing okay um I think I have an idea of what I'm going to say and I will circulate uh uh the well you you've all been shared with a document I'll write the what I think I heard of this building conversation uh and append it to that and y'all can tell me if I've got it right let's see sounds good policies um hang on that should be easy comment it is it is public comment oh public comment right is there any uh is there any public who is who is left that has something they would like to say I'd like to remind you that public comment is limited to registered voters in Stockbridge in Rochester and uh a five minute a five minute speaking window Carol this is Tim again uh okay Tim we'll go to you first and then whoever the other person's second um I just want to go back to the proposal that was given to the board of education that proposal is not being followed today and I understand Janie's point about you know merge uh everybody's equal and everything but that is not the proposal that was given to the board of ed now if you go to the board of ed and you listen to that whole retn uh media video after the public call after they had shut that down you can hear the board of education talking to themselves about how screwed up that mess is so they were not happy about two buildings so we just need to make sure that if one building can be used that should be what is being done because we sat through all that uh merge information with Steve Dale who was filling a full of crap for months and only had one thing on his agenda and that was to merge schools that wasn't a good deal for everybody so going forward I think Rochester and Stockbridge can offer some really good opportunities to students and that is what was in the proposal that is not what's being used today and part of that's because of transportation if we could use the $80,000 keeping that high school building operating to transport opportunity from Stockbridge to Rochester in a daily or by daily basis that would make so much more sense than trying to keep a white elephant open and that you know that's my opinion and that's where I thought was going to be the good opportunity so you know it's my own personal opinion but thank you to go back and look at you go back and look at the proposal that was given to the board of education and you listen to the 45 seconds after they thought that the video was done and they're talking amongst themselves and you'll see what they really feel I will certainly take a look at that sir thank you for your comment okay anyone else yeah this is Rob Gardner hi Rob uh you've been taking my name in vain tonight I don't know that I personally have but certainly certainly you've been brought so I just wanted to say this and and supporting uh Janie in a way the building situation is extraordinarily complicated even if Joanne and I weren't at each other's growth it's very very hard it's I won't go into all the levels but it's a very complicated hard problem it's a functional problem a money problem a political problem and there's no shame in saying that I'm sorry we weren't able to resolve it but that's just the truth of it there's just no magic bullet there's no simple way out of this and that's just the truth and that's the end of my presentation for tonight thank you Rob um that I I'll spoiler you a little bit on where I'm writing which is basically what I've gotten from uh Janie and Ethan and uh Bonnie and Lindy and everyone else which is that it's an incredibly complicated problem there's not an easy answer and we we need to to to continue to be patient so um you know I I thank you for your work on uh the the the thing that was the building committee and that I hope that as we we go forward in community engagement we keep hearing your voice thanks Carl it's Keith hi Keith are you doing today okay how are you I'm doing well uh first I'm very disappointed that somebody on the school board would use the word conspiracy I find that a very divisive term and I find it okay um next I just like clarification from you uh so Stockbridge um uh board town people or whatever I'm not sure what the correct term is so forgive me uh has voted that they would like to see a um a separate vote correct Stockbridge hasn't voted anything uh no the Stockbridge what okay the the Stockbridge civil board of authority which is the select board justice of the police and the town clerk commented in their minutes about the meeting um so they had to officially move the vote from the school where votes normally happen to the town offices because they want to be consistent about where we'll be voting so in their minutes to that they said that they would prefer to count the vote separately okay now if Rochester comes back to you and says they want to commingle the votes what does the school board then decide I don't know we haven't uh we we we haven't uh been faced with that yet we decided to postpone making the decision on commingling versus separate counting I heard what you said but it'd be interesting to see you've got two different towns you got two towns that would come up with a difference of opinion but let me finish my question I'm sorry I'm sorry go ahead Keith I'm sorry that's okay so if if the Rochester civil board comes back with no we want to commingle does one town carry more weight than the other uh no sir no they do not um you know the Stockbridge board the the the Stockbridge board's advice is they would rather not um we'll see what the Rochester's Rochester's board advice is and then you know make a decision going forward um I think the the the the most important point to me personally was the comment about about you know the board is saying they don't want to do it for a public health reason um and the reasons that we were giving us as a school board were were political are we unified and we count everything together are we transparent and we we we let the voters have all the all the granularity we can give them are both political decisions the the the issue brought up by the Stockbridge Civil Board of Authority is a public health one and I think we'll see what the Rochester Board of Authority Civil Board of Authority says and then look at it that way but I think you know it's not a simple question of one town has more more weight than another I think it's a question of you know what's a decision that sends a message versus what's a decision that keeps people safe I think is a different is is the way at least that I want to want to see how that question sugars out before before we we we reach a decision as a board right and that's how you're couching that question but I think it's obvious that um at least the people in Stockbridge and you can count me as part of the conspiracy conspiracy uh would like to know how how each town looks at this merger or unified district um so it'd be interesting to say and as far as the building is concerned maybe the board could lay out a timeline since um you know it hasn't been years although I you know the way I read the the consolidation was that that building would be closed uh but that's okay I could misinterpret that but maybe the board could lay out a timeline taking out the pandemic uh excuse right now and say you know what by 2022 20 you know whatever we'll have made it we'll we'll have a decision in place as to what we're doing with that building whether we're going to close it whether we're going to need it it gives the board sufficient time to analyze the pandemic and any other situation that may arise and do what's best for the community at least give so a date a date certain on a decision saying that this will be figured out before the next budget cycle or this will be figured out by uh the end of 2020 or this will be figured out uh by the end of the the the country not not looking to put pressure don't not even say 2020 2021 but give the community some insight as to where the end is that's that's that that's a point that's that that's very well taken um it is uh it is fairly late and my brain is kind of putting so i'm not sure i want to have uh that debate right now but i think very much if board members if board members would like to send me uh comments around when they think we might want to have a date certain we can consider putting that into the into the article because i think he you know i think there's there is value into into trying to define to define a timeline and i don't want to put everyone on the spot to try to figure it out now but if we can uh get some comments together so that when we send out a report it has some information that might answer that question that might be helpful okay thank you you're welcome keith anyone else have public comment uh hearing none our next regular meeting is and my screen has of course gone blank again because i'm saving it don't we have policies excuse me don't we have policies we have to go through oh yes we do um yes we is 906 let's look at the policy list oh in my sweet happy place i was putting off the policies because but again they've been warned and paid for in the paper that is that is absolutely true bruce which policies are the two were withdrawing bruce your turn you probably left bruce is here but i just i want to make sure that we go through them in a kind of an orderly fashion okay we have the floor all right so the first one is staffing and job descriptions that's code um right you don't have to put them all up i don't think but 30 yeah b 30 there's no changes to that pardon it's not in that email right b 30 is going to be on the drive yeah and that would be because there were no changes to it it's not on there so if you go to our warning there's a link to them on our warning yeah so b 30 is fine b 32 is fine which is the next one personnel files and b 33 is also fine which is resignations so maybe you could do those three as a block to begin with and then i'll we'll go from there make a motion to accept b 30 b 32 and b 33 policy second second okay the next oh go ahead you need a discussion okay i would uh hearing none i'm going to take a a roll call vote to approve policies b 30 staffing and job descriptions policy b 32 personnel fires and policy b 33 resignations um amy wilt how what say you yes uh ethan bowen what say you yes jenny feinberg what say you yes jenny what say you yes but can you repeat the names of those again uh b 30 staffing and job descriptions b 32 personnel files b 33 resignations thanks okay uh those policies are approved unanimously okay the next three um dina is recommending that we pull back social media and don't do that yet okay yeah uh that we would have it would be done at a different date it needs more editing it does seem like an important one in our um our new normal here so um i would hope that we could expedite that well this this is going to be jamie's task not mine well the next one will be admission admission uh c 3rd 25 admission of non-resident students she wants me to also recommend we pull that one back um the next one is c 29 tuitioning of students from districts um and that's she doesn't think that that's necessary and by the way guys she's had this for a month i finally got it today with the changes and updates and i'm not throwing her under the bus i'm just pretty frustrated that it had to have happened today after we've you know gone through and and done all this so so as a choice district as a choice district that just that that doesn't even apply to us well i know that i know that but those are those were in the in the book so those three are pulled back the next one is um c 32 which is students 18 year old or older there are some minor changes ray could you put that one up to see the minor changes please see 32 i read through that one looked good well there's a little bit of red she had in there so i just wanted you to see it uh that's just it's just grammatical and it doesn't really in some capitals doesn't really change the meaning at all so if you're good with that one yep also um the next one i'd like you to put up is therapy dogs this got some major edits and i don't know what you want to do with that i i'm a little concerned that we put it in the paper as being um a certain way and then uh dean is recommending we change it some more and maybe you want to pull that one back too for now absolutely as you can see the edits that she put on i like your edits i mean you're saying that because each one of these is actually written in the paper is that what you're saying well i don't i think as long as it doesn't change the meaning of what it is if it's a you know if it's a grammatical thing or a capitalization that doesn't change much here um basically what if you're willing to accept these these edits as dina put them in then i think we can go but because this we we've bounced this thing around all winter quite frankly we have it applied to our district pardon it's relevant to our district currently it's yeah one of the incidents happened in rochester yes right but i mean there's no i mean it's not really we're going to need to deal with it's nothing that we're going to need to deal with because we're not in school in rochester until probably the fall or maybe in the summer if you're going to pull it back i don't mind at all let's pull it back yeah just to be clear this is not a situation at rochester currently okay so the next one is field trips which is d 30 there are just some minor edits with that okay yep i read through that one and if you're comfortable with that i don't know ray is it there somewhere no it's in i don't see that okay well that there wasn't much there at all so if you're comfortable with what it looked like when it was sent around there's nothing that's going to change there very much so field trips and 18 year old students we're still going to be taking forward yeah the next one selection of instructional materials no changes i don't think there are any changes on that one d 32 you want to bundle those yeah we can bundle those three i make a motion to accept policies p 32 d 30 and d 32 do i hear a second i suck it emotions been made in second into approve the policy c 32 18 year old students uh d 30 field trips and d 32 selection instructional materials is there any further discussion hearing none amy wilts what say you yes ethan bowen would say you yes jadie feinberg would say you yes i also say i the three uh the three policies c 32 18 year old students d 30 field trips and d 30 p selection instructional materials are unanimously approved all right the last four uh that would be 32 visits by parents community members and or the media um i don't think there are any edits to that one ray is it is it one of the ones she sent back it they're minor if there are it is one of the ones she sent back yes uh there's just some male there's a there's a purple part at the bottom that she put in she doesn't like i'll hold that one back please actually she took a lot of it out and uh substituted if you can see the strike through in the last four lines but there really isn't a whole lot of big deal things so i don't know what your pleasure is as a board i thought it sounded fine um okay i just see a lot i i i get leery when there's lots of red well there's a lot of red strike-throughs not not add to so okay so uh then let's just move to the next one okay the next one's capitalization of assets and the only problem she had with that one was uh the number um i don't know whether terra's still here are you terra is that f 32 that she said she wanted to i'm here uh terra the capitalization of assets dina was disputing the $5,000 where that came from and why that was the number you know what our auditors use and it's what's in i believe that's right out of the grant language because that is a grant that is a policy that was required as a