The European Union would like to thank the ITU for organising this policy forum on such an important and topical subject. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the role of the telecommunication technologies in our lives but also exposed the vulnerabilities of our societies as well as the digital divide. As set out in the draft report from the ITU Secretary General, we must all redouble our efforts to address the particular challenges faced by developing countries in mobilising new and emerging ICT technologies for sustainable development. In this regard, the EU supports the ITU's central role in accelerating the achievement of the SDGs by providing assistance to reduce the digital divide, including the gender digital divide, by increasing universal and affordable connectivity and by supporting digital literacy. We also reiterate the need to adopt a human rights-based approach throughout all these efforts in order to achieve a meaningful, inclusive and sustainable connectivity which promotes human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and which allows the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and which enables us all to access an innovative, secure, stable, open and free internet. It's particularly important to uphold a multi-stakeholder cooperation model. Similar considerations are central importance, also in the development of ITU standards, which need to promote not only security but also human rights. To achieve this in an environment where technological evolution often outpaces the legislative and policymaking process, we reiterate the need for a consensus-based approach and for the involvement of all relevant stakeholders, including non-governmental and private actors, who are driving much of the innovation. The EU also encourages the ITU to promote standards that allow for climate-friendly and energy-friendly ICT technologies to lower the carbon footprint. At the European Union level, we put citizens at the heart of our digital discussions. The 2030 digital compass and the digital decade seek to ensure full respect for fundamental rights and principles in the digital space, including access to diverse, trustworthy and transparent information, protection of personal data and privacy, as well as the protection of intellectual creation in the online space. As the largest donor to the ITU development activities, the EU also closely cooperates with the ITU and the African Union on various projects in Africa. We launched in December 2020 a digital redevelopment hub, which is a multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism for sharing digital expertise with four regions. The first SOT hub project in Africa is already operational, while the similar hubs in Latin America and the Caribbean was launched this Tuesday. Finally, in the framework of the new global gateway strategy, the European Union is looking forward to working with partner countries to deploy and invest in new digital infrastructures in order to achieve financially and environmentally sustainable connectivity. Thank you, Chair.


call the meeting to order 6-0-4. Can I be calling you? Can you hear me? We have any adjustments to the agenda? Hearing none, we'll skip the sign times and timekeeper. We'll just try and keep things quick. Move on to the consent agenda, approving the minutes of Tuesday, March 15th. I'd make a motion to approve the minutes of Tuesday, March 15th, 2022. All second. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. That's all right. It's approved. Do we have any public comments at this time? It's Bridget. Bridget? Can you hear me? Okay. This is Taylor, South Royalton. I'm having technical difficulties. Sorry. I just wanted to make a public comment commending the high school students on their presentation of Mamma Mia, which was the second musical since the pandemic and the first one, which really was able to be back in the gym. And it was really nice to see. It was nice to see a full house for two nights. I think it's evidence that as in the past, we could easily do three nights. I want to underline, as I have since before the consolidation, that these performing arts opportunities are more than just a chance for our children to show off what they can do, though that is spectacular. They are also recruitment activities for other students. They instill pride in the community and the community connections, which Bethel and Royalton both voted for when they voted for this consolidation. And I was really glad to see us not hiding our lights under a bushel. It was wonderful to see promotion for that and for the Music and Art Festival on Facebook. It was nice to see it up on the bulletin boards for both schools, which had not happened always in the past. And I really hope that that trend continues. There is no reason we shouldn't be just as proud of our performing arts kids, which are often the same as our sports kids anyway, and our academic kids and all the things they do. And it was really nice to see us really encouraging that. And I would love next time to really see more of the school administration driving the bus on recognizing those kids and shouting out those kids and really giving them the attention and praise they deserve. It was just wonderful to see these last two performances really get a lot of light and heat, so to speak, in a really good way. So thank you. Thanks Bridget. Is there any other public comment? Okay, well we'll move into board comments. Any board comments at this time? All right. The celebration of learning. What do we have this month? There's nothing this month because of school break. We attend to be planned on pathways, but I didn't want to bring teachers in over break to do that. And I think that should happen in person. So a plug for the board that we do plan on having a pathways and personalized learning presentation next month. And that will also incorporate our community schools grant so that folks can see the alignment middle through high school around what we're doing in pathways, community based learning and the community schools grant. And so you'll have a presentation on that next month. On that case, we'll move on to the superintendent's report. So good evening. You have my report in hand.  And also my plan is to update on COVID numbers across the SU that we've been able to track. Of course, not everything's always reported to us, but what we do know, I'll report out on Friday and I'll get the habit of incorporating that into my bi-weekly letters. So that is forthcoming. The other thing I just wanted to highlight is some of what's occurring in the legislature in my pill years. So some of the bills that I'm keeping a close eye on is one, universal school meals. We're following that one closely. We expect that that's gonna be passed for a one year extension of universal school meals that will use some of the ed fund surplus to cover that cost. There's been disagreement in regards to how to fund that permanently. And so I am pleased to know that Montpelier is not going to take action on universal meals without trying to solve how we fund that. As you know, in the past, sometimes things get passed and then it gets turned on to local districts to figure out how to fund it. And it seems like they're gonna try to address this one in Montpelier. But I do expect there's a lot of momentum on universal meals that that will be funded for next year. The other thing that we're following closely, of course, is the weight study around equalized pupils. And so either there's two proposals I've been talking about. One is more of a block grant where certain pupils would equate to the district receiving a certain sum of money. They're weighted. The other one is the weighting study weights equalized pupils differently. So it takes your average daily membership and it assigns different values to that average daily membership, whether a student qualifies for ESL, whether the student would be qualified as free and reduced lunch, whether the student attends a high school. High school students would count. And middle school students that actually get a higher value than they have in the past in the weighting study. For us in White River Unified District, either way, it actually results in a decrease in taxes. So it's good news. This is to provide further equity as the concept across the state, which Act 60 had originally set out for. And so I do expect some movement on that bill. I think that it could change at the 11th hour. And so there's gonna be what I believe is a lot of action here in the next three weeks. Around negotiations in my pillar. And that will be what I expect negotiations on. Also special ed funding will take effect, the block grant. This coming July 1st, there was a push to delay that. My understanding is that there's been real good momentum now not to delay. So there won't be any action there. There will be action taken to just change how we qualify students around some specific learning disabilities that will be phased in the following year. But financially the way we budget, we budget at the SU level for this block grant to take effect, and it does look like it's going to. Tara put in our report, there's been an adjustment to the yield based on the house. An adjustment in a positive way for White River Unified District based on the budget that they passed. Tara can talk to you more in her report. About what that did, but it will decrease taxes a little more. And the other legislative action that we're following is just the miscellaneous ed bill. That sometimes things can slip into that at the last minute. So we're following that closely as well. And I'll give the full board an update on all that on a Monday night as well. How things play out over the next upcoming days. The other thing I just want to put in a plug is the full board on Monday night, we will be back and doing our board development series. And the focus this coming Monday is on board protocols and process. And so if you can't attend, we will videotape it and push it out. I highly encourage all board members to attend. It's at the start of the meeting. It'll be about 40 minutes. And the last thing is board chairs will be joining me over the next four upcoming Mondays for the required by statute board and superintendent annual training. Go ahead, Shannon. I'm sure this will come up in the hopefuls report, but on Monday at least I will be attending the We Are Wildcats celebration at the high school. So I'm glad that's being recorded because I'll be down at the high school. Yes, and that was, yes, Shannon, thank you. That was the first thing I was going to highlight, but I'm sure the principals will too. I just was also meeting with incoming principal Thomas. I meet with him on Tuesday afternoons at four. And I know there's a lot of excitement. Principal McCracken and I joined students for lunch in the fax room on Thursday that students put on. And there was a lot of buzz around this work and students have taken a huge leadership role in the planning of this night, which is really exciting in teachers. And I've actually had some folks reach out to me from other districts saying that they do plan to attend. So that's really exciting news. And we opened it up for our students as well, of course, meeting Rudd students. All right, are there any other questions for Jamie? All right, thanks, Jamie. We'll move on to the principals report. Well, good evening. Good to see all of you virtually tonight. One of our big pushes in the coming months will be taking this successful student led conference model being used at the middle school and figuring out what that looks like for our fourth and fifth graders as well as for our high school students. So we began looking at the middle school model and some other models for high school at our last large leadership meeting and we'll be continuing that work in the months to come so that when we come back to school in the fall, we'll have a different look to our conferences. Hi, everybody. I'll just also add that Mr. Bradley's not here tonight. So I know you've gotten the report, you can all read. But I would just add, it's a goal one I should have added earlier that our student support team is gonna be attending not virtually in person, which is super exciting. The PBS coordinators and networking and learning series may not, so that's exciting. We'll continue our work there. I think the other few things I would highlight for myself is just the really wonderful Taiko came to the Bethel campus and the elementary was able to benefit from that. They were really coming from the middle school but they had some open windows of time. So that was wonderful. And the other thing that didn't make it into the report that should be highlighted is the small, really very altruistic group of kiddos on the Royalton campus who have been doing a lot of work to raise money for the Ukraine. So I'm really proud of them. And I just want to share that they're raising so much money it's making their classroom teacher nervous. So that's a good thing. Go ahead. As Bridget noted, many of our pre-pandemic in-person community activities have resumed with the concert and musical last month. We're going on field trips again, which is super exciting. We're having morning meetings together in the gym by class again, which gives school in our community a whole different feel. So really looking forward to the last eight weeks of school coming up after our break. Any questions about anything that's happening? We will talk more about our second goal, proficiencies and flexible pathways and personalized learning more in the presentation next at the next board meeting. All right, thanks guys. I think we're on to Tara. Good evening, everyone. You have my report, which outlines all of our due dates for the month of April. Couple of quick things on that. Our pre-audit is scheduled for the week of May 9th, and then the actual audit will occur the week of September 19th. So we're still on target as we were in FY 21. And then as Jamie mentioned in his report, back at the end of March, the house passed bill H737, which increases the yield to $13,742. Parker, can you put up the tax sheet please? So with this new adjusted yield, if it also passes the rest of the chambers, it will result in a reduction of the tax rate in Bethel of 8.33 cents and in Royalton, 16.6 cents. It also reduced the non-residential rate to 1.4490. What was presented in your budget and in your mailer was a decrease of 2.2 cents in Bethel and 10.35 cents in Royalton with a non-residential tax rate of 1.4820, which again was based on the December 1st letter that we received from the tax department. So those are my updates tonight. If there's any questions. That's great news. Thanks, Tara. Yes, thank you, Tara, for always bringing lovely news to the board at least this year. All right, do we have a policy committee update? Ronnie, you wanna take that one? Or do you want me to go? Why don't you go ahead, Jamie? Okay, so Ronnie's on the policy committee and Ronnie, thanks for attending, he's been a valued new member. We've got two policies we're working on currently right now. One will affect you as someone who receives tuition students to assist us, but it's really to tighten up our residency verification for payment of tuition students. This started out at Granville Hancock where we have completely school tuition, like totally tuition out everyone. And so we looked around to see what other boards have done that are tuition sending towns around having clear policy the steps we take if there's a question around residency. And so what we have is a draft that I do expect to be adopted by the Granville Hancock board that they brought to the full SU board policy committee who has interested in being that five out of our six districts do have a school choice. And for some of those districts, that's a new process like in Chelsea and Rochester. And so it does incorporate an affidavit process around it initially that gives us a lot more details around their residency. And it really is, it makes certain that we don't get in a situation where folks may have second homes. And especially now with COVID, we know a lot of folks did possibly move into state and then looking for tuition, but may not actually be legal residents of that town. And so it spells that process out. And then the other one is we've got a draft of a social media policy that we're looking to adopt that mostly focuses on personnel and the use of social media by personnel. And so that is gonna be on its second reading by the policy committee next month. And the full board should expect to see drafts of these policies next month to give some feedback as well. They'll be at the May full board meeting and then in all the local district boards in June two for a reading. So those are the two policies that we currently have underway. And like I said, they're in, the one is in like draft three, the social media policy, this will be draft two of it. And it's a policy that had been drafted prior to COVID and then put on the sidelines while we were addressing COVID. But I think it's a really important policy that we get back in place prior to the start of next school year is my optimistic view on it just so that we have it as it can be part of a new teacher orientation and things of that nature. All right, thanks. Any questions about the policy committee? We'll move on to the Supervisory Union Board updates. At this one, Andrew.  Forget all this. The, so the SU board has been looking at how can we create a meeting schedule that results in productive meetings but also results in sustainability specifically for the superintendent, but also I would say for our business manager and other SU staff. And so in February, we had 20 meetings. Now that's a heavy month, but in general we're averaging three and a half meetings a week. And so what we're looking to do is create at least a regular meeting schedule that could result in one night out a week and then allow another night a week for committees. And what we've been having is often I've been having to even cancel committees because we've had two or three meetings scheduled on the same night. Last Thursday was an example of that. There was a superintendent evaluation committee, energy committee, and I had a special meeting at Stratford. So we had to cancel the energy committee. And so this new proposal would look at having districts team up and one district would start at 530 and other district would start at 630. We would warn virtually and at a meeting location. So Rochester Stock Bridge, Granville and Hancock would be an example of two districts that would meet on the first Tuesday of the month. One of them would start at 530. We would plan the agenda such that the work that needed the SU office staff support would be at the front end of their agenda. And then that would allow the SU office to then turn over to the other meeting that starts at 630. And meanwhile, that first board that started could continue to do work that they have that's board work passed, meeting the central office administration. And my thought process around this is that it would work well for August, September. Once we start to get in budget season, I think that we may see that we need to break back off until we get out of budget season. And then we could, again, start it after budgets pass. And Granville Hancock's on a different budget schedule than the other districts and the other four. So actually it would still limit some meetings even when we break out. And so there seems to be good feedback in most districts around this. The thought process is that White River Unified District would partner with Sharon, just so you know, is currently what's been proposed. And Sharon tends to start early anyways. They start at 530. So if it does work out, this is on the agenda again at the full board, then I think the thought process would be, and I know Peggy, you had asked for later meeting starts as well, and Andrew had indicated that might work well for him at rework. So it may be that Sharon starts at 530 and this board was starting at like 630. So that's the thought process behind it. And I think one of the goals for me is to make certain that we get our house in order so at some point when I do move on to a different position, which that's not in the foreseeable future, but I want this to be a desirable and sustainable job. And our competition in general up the 89 corridor are one district supervisory unions at most two. And so I do think if we can put some structures in place to make certain whatever incoming superintendent was to come in after me, that they're not out three or four nights a week. I think it would behoove the board to look into that just so they can market themselves even better. So does anybody have any dots or questions about the future board schedule? The schedule? I would just say I agree that we need to make the superintendent's job more manageable and appreciate Jamie everything that he does already, but that this is just the start. We're still looking for other ways to creatively slim that down a little bit so that he's not at three and four meetings a day, three or four nights a week. So, but thank you for all your work. Thanks, Shane. All right. Well, we'll look forward to starting that in August. Okay, so we're gonna move on to our discussion items, interviewing candidates for the vacant board positions. I guess why don't we start with Boylton? John, we received your letter. Would you like to? Yes, thank you. I think most of you folks may know me from my previous work together. I did have a spell on nine years on me, then stopped working school board and actually started some discussions with our friends up in Bethel about joining while I was in my early terms and sadly we didn't finish it then. And it would have saved a lot of headaches that we went to the second round. And I think everybody is aware that I was involved in the remote efforts to create the consolidated school district that we now have. And I look forward to an opportunity to continue to bring service to the both communities and on the board and take on that role again. And I think I have a lot to offer. What I will tell you is I don't come in with some type of agenda.  I think that things have been going along very well, not without some challenges here and there. And I look forward to helping with some of those challenges but we've had some great success. You've had some great successes too. And I look forward to building on that. And I understand we have a change in principalship with the high school with our consolidated high school. And I'm looking forward to being part of those discussions as well. So that's what I would have to offer. Anybody who has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Does anybody have any questions for John? All right, thanks John. So let's go to the Bethel position. Chris, would you like to? Yeah, so for anybody that doesn't know me, I'm Chris Jarvis. I've lived in Bethel for 16 years. I moved to this area here to take a management position at a large company, which I'm still in. So I have a lot of dealings with people and budgets and everything else on a day-to-day basis. I have two daughters that are middle school. Two youngest, oldest one graduated a couple years ago. I'm very active in the community. If it's not school or town, it's something else. And I got on the select board about seven years ago and mainly it was just kind of, the town needed some support. And so I got on the town select board to look into budgets and stabilize our budgets and look at futuristic ideas and things for the town. So I've been serving in that capacity since then. Kind of why to get on the board. I mean, I've always believed that, everybody's civic duty to play a part in the role of either committees or boards throughout our community, especially when they're in need. I do bring pretty extensive budget awareness to it, seeing accurate responsible budget to be put together as well as try to eliminate the peaks and valleys of our budget process and try to keep things steady, tax rates and things like that. And we always can improve no matter what we do in life. And same thing with the school. And when it comes down to the three A's, academics, arts and athletics, I mean, there's always ways to improve our school system. And just like the other gentleman just mentioned, we have had some challenges in and around the community's Alaska beers with some new principles and things like that. So coming on board to help stabilize the community. During the election, I ran on a write-in ballot vote during election time. And when the unified district was put together, they encompassed the voter list for both towns. So even though I'm a Bethel or was going for the Bethel board position, when they figure on the formal minority vote that you need to get, it didn't qualify. So the way things used to be, if I was just in Bethel and Bethel voters were voting, then I had enough votes to be on board. In this case, because they take the two together, then I fell short. Even though it's interesting that a majority of voters when they go to the polls, the Royalton voters don't vote for the Bethel voters and the Bethel voters don't vote for the Royalton ones, they usually leave them blank when we're counting votes at night. But this is the way the charter was driven up. So obviously I wanted to, it wasn't just the write-in campaign, the write-in campaign, it was serious about the position. So that's why I'm here this evening. Thanks. Does anybody have any questions for Chris? Okay. Well, we have one candidate for each position. Do people feel like we need to do an executive session for this or? I'd like to go into executive session. Okay. We have a second. Can you guys just definitely invite for personnel? Yes, I'd like to go into executive session for personnel and invite Jamie as well. Okay. I'll second it. Gone out of the room here. Thank you. Will you do a, yep. So just the current board members of you? Yep. Yep. All right, cool. That's easy enough. My line is beautiful. All right, we're coming out of executive session at 642. So we're ready to appoint members and I guess I'm waiting for a motion. They have a motion for appointing. Go ahead and make the motion to appoint John Olmsted to the position of Royalton school board member and Chris Jarvis to the position of Bethel school board member. I will second that motion. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. I'm going to abstain from the vote. Okay. I'll vote aye. Okay. So we're going to appoint John Olmsted. Just a second. No. Andrew. Well. I apologize Shannon and I shouldn't have mentioned this. You can't abstain because you're a board of six and we need a free. So we need all four. Yes. To take action. All right. Then I'll revise my vote to a guy. Okay. All right. Welcome to the board. Chris and John. I will let John know he's downstairs bowling with the boys at this point. And Shannon just in Chris is here but let John know that I'll email them tomorrow. And as soon as they get sworn in, we'll get them set up with emails, school emails is how we should do business and I'll send them some documents and set up times to connect with them. Okay. Thank you. So the next order of business is to see Chris, do you have interest in joining any of the subcommittees that we have? So we have facilities to look at maintenance issues and there's the finance committee for looking at budget and things like that. Do you have interest in either of those? Is there one or the other that's in more need than the other? Or I mean, I probably could serve in that capacity. So I guess probably the finance committee or not the finance, the facilities committee. It's a, I was kind of taking that one on, but that was one that people vacated that would be, I would appreciate somebody taking on so. Oh yeah, I can handle that. Okay. Do you know if John is he coming back or is he? He's not coming back at the moment and but we can discuss subcommittees at the next meeting. Okay. But I would hope, Andrew, that you don't come off the finance subcommittee. No, no, I'm gonna stay on the finance committee. Yeah, Tara, was there, did you touch base with the other members of the finance committee to see if they wanted to stay on? I have not heard back from our two community members since the email, Andrew, but I know when we did discuss it, I believe it was two meetings ago read, correct me if I'm wrong or Peggy, that Louise did indicate that she was interested on to stay on and Robert wasn't at our last meeting. So I don't know his thoughts on it. All right. Well, I guess we'll keep the current topic. Yeah, I'm still. That's great. Thank you. Okay. Yes, the next discussion or action, potential action item would be the, or discussion item is the, no, this is an action item, whatever. Ground maintenance contract. So I will take the lead on this one. We went out to bid for the spring mowing of the grounds and the fields. We received one bid back and the bid came from the current provider, which is Green Mountain Mowing, LLC. I have submitted a bid waiver request to the agency of education, but I do not have approval on it yet. So if you would like to proceed, you can make a motion to accept this bid, pending approval from the AOE on the bid waiver. And Jacob's proposal was for South Royalton campus, $25,300 for the year. And the Bethel campus, $22,450 for the year. The FY22 contract that he did for us was $23,450 for Royalton and $21,450 for Bethel. So a very small increase on his contract pricing. All right, that seems reasonable, especially given gas prices and everything else. Is there any discussion on the maintenance contract? Grounds and maintenance, whatever it is. I wanna suggest maybe next fall, when we go out for our plow bid, that I think that Jacob would be willing to negotiate on combining those two contracts into something that's more favorable. And has he shown to be really the only one interested in bidding on our contracts? It might make sense to go to a longer term contracts that we're not doing this twice a year. Okay, that sounds good to me. Any other comments on the contract? Do I have a motion? The motion would be to approve pending of the waiver from the agency of education. I was gonna ask, Tara, is there a specific language we need in this motion? I'm gonna type it in the chat. Thank you. All right, so I would make a motion to accept the bid from Green Mountain Mowing, LLC for the spring, summer maintenance pending approval from the agency of education on the bid waiver. Thank you, Tara. I will second the motion. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Chris, were you voting on her? I guess we need to wait for you to be seconded. Okay, next, okay, that passes. Okay, what's next? Now we'll move on to the discussion about extending next steps in extending childcare and programming for summer and school vacations. Yeah, so this was added to the agenda last month, and I put it in my report. My recommendation to address this is much like how we address being able to add pre-K and address our marketing efforts, which I think we've been fairly successful. We were able to add a fourth pre-K for next year through the budget process and based on the recommendation on that task force. And I do think we're doing a better job marketing. I think we still have a room to grow, but I do think we are being gaining traction. And so I think that this is a concern in this district, specifically because we have limited childcare options. I think it's a concern across the SU as well, but I think there could be some things that we can learn from what happens here in this district. And the other thing that's currently happening is that Carrie McDonald, who has been our one-planet coordinator for a long time, has indicated that she is looking to move on at the end of this year. And so we're currently in the process of trying to find a replacement for her. Carrie's been with us 16 years. And so we're also gonna be transitioning in a new 21st century coordinator.  And he was our assistant director. So we've been a little bit influx here with one-planet. So I think there's an opportunity though, with new leadership coming on board, to get them involved in this task force. And so I think it makes sense to have a task force created that includes certainly community members and parents from both towns that we would look to get volunteers to join. In addition to, I would say that we should definitely have board member present. I think that that principal Bowen should be present. And then I'm also gonna encourage that both our building-based coordinators for one-planet at Bethel and Royalton are involved in this task force, along with whoever we bring on as the new one-planet director. And then what I think the task force would do is, they're gonna need to set out to say, what other community stakeholders do we wanna get involved to tackle this concern? And I also gotta remind the board that we do have a significant community schools grant that we received for the two and a 750,000. And I think when we think about this project, to me it's at the heart of community school, right? This is the need of the community that we need to solve in tandem with our school because childcare is affecting our community. And I would say communities, but certainly this White River Unified District community. And so I wonder is there an opportunity there too to look at partnering with some of the folks that we have as stakeholders within that grant, at least in the Bethel community, and look to extend that work across into Royalton to try to solve this problem. I think the collective genius is certainly greater than the few. And I think that forming a comprehensive task force that has multiple stakeholders involved in it could be a way that we solve this problem. Because I don't think just the school's gonna solve the problem, frankly, I think it's gonna have to be a partnership. And I think that that's why leveraging that community schools grant, when you look into the community schools work that Montpelio was looking to have, it was to tackle these type of systemic issues within school, within communities and saying, how do you partner community with school to do that work? Shannon. I'd like to add to that, I think one of the main stakeholders, and I know there was a lot of interest in working with us in the past, would be Magic Mountain Daycare Center. And I'm not sure what the interest is now, certainly I haven't had a kiddo there now for four years, but they still now have a wait list. And I know in the past, their interest was in letting us really take off more with our preschool program, because, and so I'd like us to look not only at our school-aged kids, but what are we doing for those kiddos who are three and four who have no care when they're on breaks, who still don't have care in the summer, who end up flooding that Magic Mountain system, if possible. So I'd like to make sure that that is a group that's not forgotten. And if we can work with Magic Mountains that we're taking more care of our older kids and they can open up more spots for small infants and toddlers, then that's a real win for our communities. So I just wanted to point that out. Yeah, the task force idea sounds like a good one to me. And all the things that you said sounded good. What I'd be a little bit concerned about is just the timeframe, like we should make sure that we're targeting, like is the idea to try and get something in place for this particular summer? Or if we have a large task force that has many meetings, that might make it difficult. So if we're gonna go for the task force, I think we should make sure we have a focused end goal for when they're going to report. You know, my answer to that, Andrew, is like if you directed me to run a program all summer right now, I don't know if I could do it. That would be my answer. If you directed me to run summer programming right now all summer, I don't know if I would have the staff to do it. And so I really think we need some creative thinking with more heads to help solve this problem. I would tell you that if I knew how to just extend summer programming all summer right now, I would do it, but I don't know how to do it because I don't know how to get the staffing in place. And so that's what I'm saying. I think we need to look to our community partners to help us solve that problem. If it was as simple as just me having the workforce, like we have the budget, right? We have funds to do this. That's not the problem for me right now. It's that with child licensing and those requirements, I don't have the able bodies that are willing to do it. And so what I need is help around how do we think differently about it so that it can be really successful and sustainable? And so I think that the task force, the first thing for them to do is say, what's the need? And then what are the priorities? And then how do we start thinking outside the box to address them? Right, or I think you could have like a, what is possible this summer and then what are we going to do long-term as- Which is sort of what the pre-taped group did. But you know, the truth is like one planet may be run by me this summer in Anda if we don't find a director, right? And so I just think the reality is like we don't have a ton of, I'm a horse guy, like horses in the barn right now to staff these things. So I think that's where we get a call on community to help us. And I think we need to like get a grassroots effort around like this is a need. And I think also, if we want to attract young families, like we have to have a answer that's yes short-term but also long-term. And so, you know, I really do feel like that this is an opportune time, especially with that community schools grant to really dig into some of this work. And so that's sort of my reasoning around the task force so that it also, it doesn't result in like watered down childcare that folks aren't happy with as well.  I guess, can I talk right now? I didn't know if I was supposed to do it during the public forum or if I can do it now. I think you can go ahead now. Okay. I'm so glad that we're talking about this. I really appreciate it. I have started a petition and I'm hoping that that started a lot of conversation in the community. I think a lot of people have been talking about it now. I'd be happy to be a part of that committee. I'd be actually excited to be a part of that committee as the parent voice because it's so needed. I have been talking with the family place and they said they would be happy to be part of, you know, come to a committee, talk to us about how the grants work, how other communities are doing it, how they're operating, how they're making it work, how they work with rec departments and other community members. So that's a resource I think that we could tap into. But anyway, I can help. I'm happy to do it. I have started a petition. There's need, people are supporting it. This is wanted and I totally appreciate everything, Jamie, I get it. It's not gonna start tomorrow. But I do feel like we need to get this committee up and running like ASAP. Thanks, Karen. Yeah, I agree. And family place is a great resource. I just wrote that down. So what as a board would we need to do to set up a task force or does anybody else from the board wanna say anything about what we should do here? Is there consensus that we should set up a task force? Yeah, I mean, I would say it's definitely a need for the trial case. It's something that's on a lot of people's minds and we definitely need to do something and whatever it takes to get it done. All right, do you need us to actually set up the task force or? Yeah, I think it's good for you to move that we form a task force. That and then if you had a board member that interested, I'd like to have you appoint them to serve it. And then this would be a standing agenda item until the task force really delivers their report. I think that they should be reporting out monthly. And my thought process around the task force is like, I wanna be all inclusive, like any and all folks that are interested in pursuing this, I wanna invite them to these meetings. They'll be, we'll certainly publicize it, we'll reach out through our school newsletter to gather interest, but we'll also like do what Karen just said, like the family place, invite them to the table. And so, like I said, I've already identified some key components within the administration around our site coordinators at both Bethel and Royalton, our elementary principal and our incoming one-planet coordinator in regards to addressing, making certain that the school is there working diligently with the task force to address concerns as they're coming up. And again, I think it's prioritizing what's the need and what's the short-term fixes that we can put in place. But in general, I really hope that the task force continues to meet till we come recreate like a long-term proposal and plan to address this in general. Okay, I can, Karen, if you want to say one more thing. Could we in the meantime start, I mean, I would love to start hearing what people need. Like, is that something we could start surveying in the meantime while we're getting a committee together? So we kind of know what we're working with once the committee's together. Like, what are people looking for? What do they need for care? What do they need for support? You know, what does that look like? Is that something? Karen, my thought process would be that we'd start having that committee meet in the next two weeks and then probably the first order of business would be that, to generate that survey. Okay. I'd also comment that this is not unfortunately the first time this has come up at the board. We've been talking about this. We've talked about this over snow days. We talk about this over, you know, what is it that is tough for parents? So there's a lot of knowledge at the board if there haven't been a lot of solutions. So Karen, you're not alone. And it's not, you know, the first time we've unfortunately thought about this. So we'll put our heads together. Our resources have even decreased even since the pandemic. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It's always good to have, you know, parents come in and really push for things because, you know, that's how things. I'll keep coming. Squeaky wheels. This has been the most stressful school year ever. Like, yeah, I'll keep coming. We need childcare. Yeah. Well, I'd entertain a motion to start a task force to address child care, extending child care, programming for summer and school vacations. So moved. Awesome. All right, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. OK, is there anybody who is particularly interested in joining the task force from the board as a board representative? I really would like to. I'm going to put my hat out there because I think it's so important. I'm already on one task force, so it's a little bit of a stretch. But this is super important. And I've been probably the one most angrily yelling for something for a long time when I was trying to get down to my job and snow days for preventing that. So I'll take this one. Great. Shannon, you must be happy that I'm a stickler about calling snow days. Jamie, do you have any?  And I'm like, if you do, I am sending my eight-year-old up to your house. Do you have any idea when I got the email 10 minutes later how first your name was in my house that night? All the rest of the people on the board were like, oh, yeah, we're so excited. I'm like, oh, God, I did not have time for him to be here all day while I work. The rest of the time, we adore you, Jamie. But when you call snow days, you're not my favorite person. Only one this year. That's a good thing we didn't have school today, right? That's true. Today was rough. OK, well, go ahead, Peggy. OK, I was just going to make a quick comment before my battery runs out. There are really two extremes here. One extreme is that as parents, you are responsible for your children. The other extreme is, as a society, we are responsible for the children. And I think when we go to town meeting and look at budgets, et cetera, we're going to be hit with both of those extremes. And we need a task force that can help work all of that out. I agree, Peggy. I also think there are very financially sustainable ways to go about some of this. And I'll be looking for those. But there are ways to make this work and not drop it in the laps of the taxpayers, too. Unfortunately, the families that are hurting are pretty used to paying a dang pretty penny for childcare. Yeah, I think this doesn't have to be like a free everybody can send their kids. It's how we can at least have an option for parents. But thank you. I'd be happy to pay, right? Yeah, I think a lot of people would be happy to pay. OK, well, we look forward to hearing from the task force next month that are about what they've been up to. So glad we're getting that started. Thank you, Shannon, for volunteering to be part of that. Thank you, Jamie, for setting it up with the employees. And thanks, Karen, for pushing for it. So move on to the new hires and resignations. So the only official new hire that we have at this point, I know there's a bunch of interviewees in the pipeline for me to interview is that Kendrick Cole who has served us in multiple ways over the last two years as a sub has officially decided that she's willing to commit to the district for next year. And we think maybe a little longer than that, possibly two. But we've been on the search for administrative assistant at Wilton for quite some time. And Kendra's been filling in an admirable way all year as a sub, but not wanting to apply, thinking that she may be leaving the states. And so Kendra is going to be joining us as an administrative assistant for the remainder of this year and next. So we're happy about that.  Andra or Reed, do you want to just talk about that? Yeah, so this is an employee who was connected to the law school and for personal reasons has had a change in plans. So she's moving in a week, week and a half, but we've got a plan to have her work remotely to help us keep up with office jobs through the end of the year while we try to find her replacement. So that's what we got. And then I know, Andra, if you want to just discuss, I haven't interviewed candidates yet, but we will definitely have some candidates coming forward for next month around filling some elementary positions. And do you just want to talk about where you're at and the hiring process for a few of those? Yep, so we've had a hiring committee working on filling preschool position. I believe that candidate's going to be interviewing with Superintendent Canary this upcoming week. We've been interviewing for a couple different elementary positions. I have a candidate coming to visit this week. She's on vacation, so she's coming from New York City to come visit the school and give her a tour. And while she's here, she's going to meet with the superintendent as well. We have another candidate that's coming to do a model lesson on Monday. So lots of meeting and greeting and getting to know people and seeing if they're the right fit for us and where are the right fit for them. So more to come on that. All right, thanks for the update. Do we have any more public comments? All right, then our next meeting date is going to be Tuesday, May 17th at 6 p.m. on the Royalton campus. And I think we've finished our agenda. Have a great rest of break, everybody. Entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All right, thanks, everybody.


Try this this year with painful, difficult emotions. Say to these emotions, you are welcome here. You are welcome here. Say that to the pain. You'll be surprised how much it instantly diffuses the pain. The moment you start to accept it, make peace with it, with something said even out loud, if you're safe to do it out loud, when it comes up in you, when you feel that pain, that emotion to say to it, you're welcome here. I'm not afraid of you. What have you come to teach me? What can I learn here? How will this make me a better human? How can I help other people with what I'm gonna learn from you? If you will meet pain that you are resisting and we all are resisting pain somewhere, if we can learn to lean into it, you will begin to dissolve it rather than add to it. So much of our attempts to fix our problems in our lives are adding to them, like the avoidance. But when you are facing accept pain, it becomes some form of dissolving them and dissolution is the solution that we don't talk enough about.


Hi, she was living. I'm back. Okay, so I have had a lot of people in my comments, especially guys and I've seen a lot of posts and like I've seen a lot of older men Start to apologize for the younger men and how they're treating women and then I see a lot of the older men Who are also taking up for the younger man saying they understand? And the funny thing is none of these men have money Okay, none of these men are successful in life as far as being financially stable enough to have a family and a wife so I'm not really going to like bash them because you know not everyone is meant to be Successful not everyone is meant to have money. Not everyone is meant to be you know what they wish they could be So I'm not going to bash them for not having money and being broke. No, I'm not gonna do that But the only thing that I'm upset about is that they are acting like They deserve the same treatment and the same respect as a man who has busted his ass To get to where he wants to go so he can have a family so he can support a woman so he can Feel comfortable in respecting a woman because he doesn't feel inferior to her because she's making more money than him I am commending those guys who don't sit on facebook and troll women's videos for wanting To have a decent life And many other cultures It's Common for a woman to want to marry a successful man.  Oh, yes.  Okay And even though you might have a good life and you're you know, you're happy for the moment and things are good You're still not her number one Choice that she wished that she could have been with and that's just the honest truth. I'm just telling y'all. I'm just I'm just being honest Okay um And y'all could beat me up for it if y'all want but that's just honest.   Okay, now A man can say oh women are lazy. That's why they want to depend on me But it takes work to land a rich man. Okay, that's work If if that was easy work every woman would have a witch or a man with money to take care of him If that was easy work every woman would have what they wanted or at least You know some of what they wanted That's not easy work. That takes mentalism That takes cleverness that takes Oh my god, that takes time. It takes effort and to put you know into what you Uh say to this person how much time you spend with them what you put in their head How you look how you approach them how you speak to them how you do things in your own life because you know they're paying attention That takes a lot of effort. Okay but Only certain women can do that just like only certain men will be successful There are morals put in place by society To keep men at a certain level and to keep women Settling for certain things if you can break outside of the box for a moment And understand that you can have whatever you like If you set down a couple of these society given morals And go for what you want in life, okay, uh, sometimes morals are just disguised for control mechanisms, okay, so Some people do not Consider certain morals so therefore it's easier for them to become successful in life And therefore it's easier for a woman to get a man with money because they're not looking at What this other lady here is looking at now? I saw this meme on facebook and it said All the good girls are or are somewhere single And all the holes and sluts are happily married and living large, okay And if you look around That's sadly true.  Oh, they're whores or they're this But they're happily married and living large. Why because it takes brains and hustle to land a man like that and rich men want Certain type of women, okay, they're not looking for that homely, you know, do good morally correct boring good, you know Good girl, okay, they're looking for excitement. They can have any woman they want, okay They didn't have any woman they want. They're looking for excitement thrills action They they're looking for women other men Want, okay, they're not looking for This certain type of woman and if they are it's only because they're trying to settle Okay, they're trying to settle down And then usually when they land that nice good woman, they go and cheat With the type of woman they really wanted in the first place, okay Some men are selfish like that. They'll say well, you know what? I need a wifey type material so that I can have kids with her and she can raise my kids right and they'll have a Good mother, but but you know, I really want this type of woman So I'm gonna, you know, have a mistress on the side or I'm going to cheat on her and she'll never know anyway or blah blah blah because You know, that's what I like and I can't help it because I'm I mean, you know women put value on material things and comfort and security men put value on looks sex and availability Okay, that's just true Um So that's why you'll see a lot of like women who are married who you thought, you know Oh, why did he marry her?  She used to strip But she's married to this rich guy now.  She'll look, you know, elegant and stuff like that But underneath it all she's still the type of woman I want, you know, um But Sometimes you just want a normal relationship with a normal guy working nine to five You know have the the simple life and that's fine. But if you're going to settle for That type of life make sure your man has a career at least or at least going in the direction of a career Not a lame job that he can lose at any time and can't get rehired Somewhere else with quickness. You need to find a man with a career. Don't settle For less than you actually deserve. Okay Now this is for all levels of income. You can be poor and happy with the guy as long as he's putting in his work. Okay Um You can be rich and happy with the guy. You can be average and happy with the guy, but don't Don't ever think That just because you're good and moral and stuff like that That's how you've got the guy because the guy can be tempted very easily and You can also understand why they're tempted and try to incorporate What he likes, you know In your life, you know, you're supposed to grow together. You're not supposed to stay the same So if you see him looking at this type of woman and you look opposite, you know, you might need to um Say hey, baby. Do you like that? You know, I can I can look better in that outfit than she could I bet, you know Challenge yourself to improve and to appeal to your man because he's going to be looking no matter what. Okay Um Anyway, I know like I know my husband. He don't like when I wear the blonde wig. He hates that wig Okay, that's why I'm hardly wearing you always see black here.  Okay. That's why I always have black uh, okay, anyway Uh He doesn't like ratchet things. Okay, so Um It's fun He really don't he don't like ratchet things. He gets offended when he sees me and my purple wig and my blonde And he's like, oh, why do you have that on? It's so trashy and That's like, I like it. I like it. But you know That's his taste. He doesn't like it. But the funny thing is The funny thing is you know what he likes, you know, don't don't find out the wrong way by catching him with somebody else um Anyway, back on track. I gotta get back on track. Um So, yeah, don't let certain rules or morals In society hold you back from doing what you need to do.  Like some girls look a certain way and they'll never get treated like this And they'll never get a rich man and they'll never do this But they feel like they can okay. Well when you when you're wanting something and you have Any type of standard is better than having no standards. Okay So if you have a not so beautiful girl who has all these standards She's gonna meet some of them at least. Okay, she might not land a rich man But she might land a financially stable man just from having the standards to get a rich man You know, she might not have get the the most handsome as man in the world But she's not going to get somebody who's beneath her, you know So Even if I'm giving false hope to women who don't have certain looks and certain Attitudes to get these type of men's they still gonna have standards and they're not gonna accept what anybody is just bringing to them Okay, so that's that's my That's my take on that because you right not every woman Is going to attract a rich millionaire or a rich man, but they can Attract someone who's stable and has a career. Okay You know, they how they say, uh Shoot for the stars and land on the moon. It's kind of like that. Okay. Yes.   It doesn't matter You know, they might be a freak in the bed. Who knows all I'm saying Is if they have that confidence and those standards about them They're not going to let somebody use them and trash them out just because they don't they're not a perfect 10 They're still going to have value. Okay, and you're not going to men aren't going to be easily Able to talk them out of sex or treat them like a dog Just because they don't Look a certain way. These women are still going to have standards and you're still going to have to work for A woman who's not Above average looking you're still going to have to work for her Why because women should Feel good about themselves and they shouldn't let men dog them no matter how they look Okay, because you can see a man transform into the most beautiful woman in the world That woman no matter how ugly she is if she got a hold to some makeup in some weeks And some in the right outfit She could be beautiful in in in one hour Two hours tops, okay So don't ever underestimate An ugly woman y'all have seen those pictures on facebook or the transformation takes place from This type of woman To full makeup looking like barbie. Okay, we've seen that And I know men are going to say well when that all comes up y'all When that all comes off it you're ugly underneath when y'all in the club y'all are looking at You know, what's on the outside you're not looking for what's in the inside You will take that girl home with a ton of makeup on her face and you won't care Okay, you will get that type of girl pregnant and you're not You'll say hey You're not even gonna wonder about what she looks like under the makeup until what? Weeks later. Okay, because you're not even thinking about it. You can be thinking with the other head.  Well Just try it out as an experiment and see okay, because you'll understand, you know, it's not They're not looking for what's inside A lot of men are looking for what's outside first and then they were about the inside later. Okay So ladies Gentlemen, I hope this helped you um, like I said You have to keep your standards high Yes, women deserve the best treatment.  Okay, if you're not that type of woman Then, you know You understand, you know, women aren't supposed to chase men. Okay.  All right. I'm gonna see y'all later


Hello and welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar IS Academy. The news articles along with the page numbers are displayed here for your convenience. The PDF link of the handwritten notes and time stamping of the discussed news articles are given in the description box and also in the comments section. Let's begin with the first news article analysis. This discussion is about the order of Andhra Pradesh High Court for reinstating the Andhra Pradesh State Election Commission. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. In this context, we will discuss in detail about the State Election Commissioner and the eligibility criteria to be appointed as the State Election Commissioner and also the important aspects of the High Court judgment. See in the month of April 2020, the governor of Andhra Pradesh promulgated Andhra Pradesh Panchayit Raj Second Amendment ordinance and this ordinance amended section 200 of the AP Panchayit Raj Act of 1994 and it also framed the AP Panchayit Raj salaries and allowances, conditions of service, tenure of State Election Commissioner rules 2020 and these rules replaced the existing 1994 rules. Therefore, after the amendment of section 200, the eligibility criteria to be eligible for the appointment as the State Election Commissioner has been modified. Know that previously an officer who was holding or had held an office not less than in the rank of principal secretary to the government could be appointed as the State Election Commissioner. But after the amendment, only a former judge of the High Court is eligible for the appointment as State Election Commissioner. As per the 2020 rules, the State Election Commissioner will hold the office for a term of three years and will be entitled to be considered for reappointment for another three years. In addition to these aspects, the 2020 rules also state that the incumbent State Election Commissioner shall cease to hold office with immediate effect from the date of promulgation of the ordinance. So based on the changes made by the ordinance, the incumbent State Election Commissioner's term was prematurely terminated and his tenure was to end after five years of appointment in 2021 only. But due to the ordinance, he was forcefully made to vacate the office through a government order. Then immediately a former judge of the Madras High Court was appointed as the new State Election Commissioner for the State of Andhra Pradesh. And this ordinance was challenged before the Andhra Pradesh High Court. So what triggered the promulgation of such an ordinance? It is allegedly said that the postponement of elections to the village panchayats by the then State Election Commissioner triggered this move. The then State Election Commissioner, Dr. N. Ramesh Kumar, postponed the elections to the village panchayats by six weeks citing the prevailing situation because of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. So it was alleged that in this backdrop, the State Election Commissioner was prematurely terminated by the government of Andhra Pradesh State and now the High Court of Andhra Pradesh has ordered for his reinstatement based on the constitutional provisions. Now let us discuss the important constitutional provisions regarding the State Election Commissioner. We know that as per Part 9 and Part 9A, the power for conducting elections to panchayats and municipalities has been given to the State Election Commission under Articles 243K and 243 GA of Indian Constitution and such powers are exercised by the State Election Commissioner who is appointed by the governor. Furthermore, Article 243K Clause 2 mentions that the conditions of service and tenure of the office of the State Election Commissioner may be subject to the pros and cons of any law made by the State Legislature or otherwise it shall be as such the rules determined by the governor. So as per the same provision that is for the removal of the State Election Commissioner, the procedure as prescribed for the removal of the judge of High Court is to be followed. And this procedure is specified in Article 217 Class 1 read with Article 124 Class 4 of the Indian Constitution. We know that the High Court judge can be removed only by an order of president based on emotion passed by both the houses of the parliament with two-thirds of the majority of the members present and voting only on the grounds of proved misbehavior or incapacity. So we can say that it guarantees security of tenure to the appointed State Election Commissioner. Likewise, Article 243K seeks to extend the security of tenure to the State Election Commissioner. This allows the State Election Commissioner to act independently and without the fear of dismissal for taking decisions that may not favor the executive. So based on these pros and cons, State Election Commissioner was reinstated by the High Court stating that the rules 2020 will be applicable in a prospective manner but not in the retrospective manner. Subsection 5 of Section 200 of AP Panchayatraj Act was held arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory and unconstitutional as it mentioned that any person appointed as State Election Commissioner and hold office as such shall cease to hold office. So it provides for statutory friction as the State Election Commissioner was not removed as per the pros and cons of Article 243K. Further the High Court of Andhra Pradesh held that the power exercised by the Governor is not based on the satisfaction of the circumstances existed which is mandated by the Article 213 of the Indian Constitution. It did not seem necessary for the Governor to take immediate action in the public interest or in the constitutional necessity. So the High Court of Andhra Pradesh stuck down the ordinance saying that the promulgation was actuated or motivated by oblique reasons and on extraneous or irrelevant grounds. And the High Court has directed the Government of Andhra Pradesh to reinstate the removed State Election Commissioner Dr. N. Ramesh Kumar with immediate effect. However, the Government of Andhra Pradesh is considering all the possible options to challenge the High Court judgment in the Supreme Court. In this context, in the coming days we may have the relevant editorials or associated news articles in the coming days. But for our exam point of view, try to remember the constitutional pros and cons of the constitutional safeguards available to the State Election Commissioner in order to conduct free and fair elections to the local bodies in their respective states. With this information we will discuss the displayed practice question at the end of the session. Let us proceed to the next news article analysis. This news article is based on the widening fiscal deficit of our country. In this context, we will discuss the terms like fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, effective revenue deficit and then primary deficit and know that these terms are very important for your prelims examination. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. To understand these terms like fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, we must understand union budget in brief. That is as per article 112, the union government is responsible to present the union budget every year. And this article states that the President of India shall in respect of every financial year caused to be lied before both the Houses of Parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for that financial year. The union budget is presented in two accounts that is revenue accounts and the capital accounts. The revenue account includes revenue receipts and revenue expenditure whereas the capital account includes the capital receipts and the capital expenditure. The receipts like taxable as well as non-taxable revenues are included in the revenue receipts whereas in case of capital receipts it includes all those receipts of the government which create liability or reduces its financial assets are included in this capital receipts. So we can say that in case of capital receipts the main items are market borrowings including borrowings from the public then borrowing by the Government of India from the Reserve Bank of India. Now if you look at the revenue expenditure it includes the expenditure incurred for different purposes other than the creation of physical or financial assets of the central government. So we can say that revenue expenditure indicates day to day administration expenses of the central government whereas the capital expenditure includes expenditures of the government which results in the creation of physical or financial assets or expenditure that may reduce the financial liabilities of the government. Therefore when a government spends more than it collects it leads to deficit budgeting and there are various measures that captures different types of deficits and these deficits are known as revenue deficit, effective revenue deficit, primary deficit and then fiscal deficit. So let us understand revenue deficit which refers to the excess of government's revenue expenditure over the revenue receipts. So when the government incurs a revenue deficit it clearly implies that the government is dis-saving that is it is using up the savings of the other sectors of the economy to finance its consumption expenditure. In this context we must also discuss effective revenue deficit know that it is a new term introduced in the Union budget 2011-12 to indicate the difference between revenue deficit and the grants for the creation of capital assets. So we can say that effective revenue deficit indicates revenue deficit after detecting the grants for the creation of capital assets. Now let us understand one more term that is fiscal deficit which is the difference between the government's total expenditure and its total receipts excluding borrowings. So we can say that the gross fiscal deficit indicates the total expenditure over its revenue receipts and then non-debt creating capital receipts. Know that non-debt creating capital receipts are those receipts which are not borrowings and don't give rise to debt and these receipts do not create additional debt. The examples for the non-debt creating capital receipts include the recovery of loans and then the proceeds from the selling of the shares of central public sector enterprises that we call the proceeds from the dis-investments. Now let us understand one more term that is a primary deficit which is simply indicates the fiscal deficit minus the interest payments. See the borrowing requirement of the government includes interest obligations on the accumulated debt. Therefore the goal of measuring primary deficit is to focus on present fiscal imbalances. So gross primary deficit is equal to the gross fiscal deficit minus net interest liabilities. Know that the net interest liabilities consist of interest payments minus interest receipts by the government of India on net domestic lending. With this information let's take up the given news article which reports that the total receipts of the government were at about 17.5 lakh crores and the total expenditure was at 26.86 lakh crores. As a result of total expenditure exceeding the total receipts the fiscal deficit has widened to about 4.6 percent of the GDP in the financial year 2019-20 and it is much higher than the revised estimate of 3.8 percent for that fiscal year. And this is mainly because of the shortfall in the revenue collections. The news article also says that the revenue deficit was at 3.27 percent and the effective revenue deficit was at 2.36 percent. To conclude this news article try to remember that the various definitions given for the fiscal deficit, revenue deficit, effective revenue deficit and then the primary deficit. With this information let us proceed to the next news article analysis. This ground zero article presents the ground realities of the destruction caused by super cyclone Ampan. In the analysis of this news article we will discuss in brief about this cyclone. However our focus will be mainly on the impact of the cyclone caused by the different agents of destruction in a tropical cyclone. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this article is highlighted here for your reference. Cyclone Ampan is a tropical cyclone that was formed over Bay of Bengal and it was described by Indian meteorological department as a super cyclone. This is because the wind speed associated in the circulation of the cyclone was 221 kilometers per hour or more. And then on 18th May IMD reported that Ampan has become a severe intense cyclone with associated wind speed of 220 to 230 kilometers per hour at the sea. And this was the scenario before it made landfall in the west Bengal coast. And then on 20th May 2020 that is in the evening of this date Ampan crossed west Bengal Bangladesh coast as a very severe cyclonic storm with a speed of 155 to 165 kilometers per hour gusting to 185 kilometers per hour across the Sundarbans. It has caused severe and unimaginable damage in the state of west Bengal particularly in the southern part of west Bengal as you can see in this picture. The article reports that in anticipation of the cyclonic storm about 5 lakh people were evacuated to cyclone shelters and this includes about 3 lakh people from south 24 Pergnas district. While evacuating people the government authorities are faced a serious challenge this is because of ongoing COVID-19 crisis. See certain shelters were earmarked for quarantine facility of COVID-19 patients and in one or more instances the cyclone evacuees and those who had been in quarantine had to be kept under one roof. Now let us see the various dimensions of the distinction caused by the cyclone Ampan. Know that around 98% died because of the cyclone and other than the loss of lives the cyclone is known for the vast distinction to the environment and also to the property. It destroyed thousands of homes. It broke the embankments in island areas and nearby the rivers. This has led to the incursion of saline water because of storm surge. This has also led to flooding into the villages that washed away several homes. Acres and acres of agriculture lands were flooded and the time was to harvest ruby crops cultivated with the toil of last few months were also destroyed by this cyclone. It is reported that by one of the estimates, lakhs of sharecropers of south west Bengal had lost their produce. Vegetables and cash crops like sesame, jute and fruits were washed away as a result of flooding. In some regions of the Sundarbans yellow lintis or moong dal is cultivated here and the sowing was delayed because of cyclone bull bull which struck west Bengal on 9th November 2019 and just before the hour west cyclone Ampan washed away thousands of acres of plantation and this has resulted into tremendous loss for the farmers. In lot of islands and other regions tourism sector is heavily affected and for some of the local population tourism is an alternative livelihood option. So many have invested in building seaside homes for tourists and in this picture you can see a seaside homes in Mausuni island and know that the Mausuni island is located close to Sagar island in the mouth of Hoogli river and the news article reports that almost all the seaside homes were destroyed in this island. We know that COVID-19 pandemic has imposed restrictions for tourists not to visit such tourist locations. In addition to this the Ampan cyclone completely washed away these seaside homes therefore it is a severe blow to those who invested in the tourism sector. In addition to these damages the cyclone has uprooted several trees and lamp posts and the news article reports that in Kolkata which is the capital city of west Bengal was completely battered. The article adds that in case of Kolkata trees and electric poles uprooted in every lane in the every neighborhood and this has made the restoration of essential infrastructure services as a gigantic and monumental task for the civic authorities. At one point of time the ground zero article mentions that three factors will cause severe damages with reference to a tropical cyclone and now we'll discuss about these three factors related to a tropical cyclone and know that these are the three important elements associated with a tropical cyclone which cause destruction during its occurrence. Gale winds refer to very strong high speed winds. These high speed strong winds cause severe damage to infrastructure and these very strong winds accompanying a cyclonic storm can cause damages to installations dwellings communication systems including the nature and know that there are two categories in these high speed winds they are gusts and the squalls gusts are short rapid burst in wind speed squalls are longer periods of increased wind speed squalls are generally associated with the bands of thunderstorms that make up the spiral bands around the cyclone now we'll see the second factor associated with the tropical cyclones that is torrential rains and inland flooding torrential rainfall more than 30 centimeters per hour associated with the cyclones is another cause of damages and this rainfall causes unprecedented flooding and can cause large-scale soil erosion and also weakening of embankments then the third factor is storm surge know that a storm surge is an abnormal rise of sea level near the coast caused by tropical cyclone as a result of storm surge seawater floods low lying areas of coastal regions and this causes drowning of human beings and livestock and can also arrow beaches and embankments they also destroy vegetation and leads to distriction of soil fertility so these are the main agents of distriction in a tropical cyclone that we have discussed in the context of this news article now while umpun has devastated southern part of west Bengal we should note that umpun is not the last cyclone this means that we need a specific reason now we'll discuss what is the need of the day to mitigate or to prepare effectively for such large-scale destructive tropical cyclones we know that the super cyclone umpun has devastated southern part of west Bengal and also some parts of Odisha we should also note that umpun is not the last cyclone that has devastated the coastal districts this means that we need a reason specific situation specific comprehensive mitigation plan to respond to such events in the future such a mitigation policy or plan should have inclusive mechanisms for risk minimization resilience building and then for effective preparedness in order to reduce or to minimize the loss of lives and the property the news article concludes with the note that it is a time to evaluate the state's preparedness and the fragility of our urban infrastructure and this evaluation is required to prepare adequately to prevent and minimize such damages the state is to face such challenges from the nature in the future with this we have come to the end of analysis of this news article now let us move on to the next news article analysis this practice model prelims co-shramed on the gst council and the background for this question is that the news article reports that goods and services tax council is likely to meet in the month of June know that there were repeated demands from the states for the gst council meeting because gst compensation dues are pending since december 2019 gst revenue data which is usually released on monthly basis also withheld till the month of july 2020 it is because the deadline to file gst returns has been extended to 30th june 2020 because of ongoing lockdown in this contest let us understand about gst council its composition and some of the important functions of this council know that gst council is a constitutional body and we know that gst was introduced by the 101st constitutional amendment act 2016 and as per this amendment new destination based indirect tax system that is gst was introduced it also made a constitutional provision for the establishment of gst council and this council makes recommendations to the union and also to the state governments on variety of issues related to goods and services tax the gst council is chaired by the union finance minister and the other members of this council include the union state minister of revenue or finance and ministers in charge of finance or taxation of all the states know that the composition of the council is according to the article 279 a class 2 now we will see the functions of this gst council that is the council shall make recommendations to the union and the states on different issues such as issues related to the taxes cesses and surcharges that is levied by the center treats and also by the local governments which may be subsumed under the gst tax regime next it will also recommend modal gst laws principles of levy apportionment or allocation of integrated gst that is i gst and also the principles that govern the place of supply we know that gst is a destination based indirect tax that is the goods or services will be taxed at the place where they are consumed but not at the source of origin so the state where they are consumed will have the right to collect gst so this intern makes the concept of place of supply which is crucial under gst as all the provisions of gst revolves around the place of supply of goods the gst council also recommends the threshold limit of aggregate turnover and this limit determines the type of goods or services may be exempted from the gst tax then it also recommends any special rate which is to rise additional resources during any natural calamity or disaster etc know that these recommendations or recommendations given by gst council are only in advisory nature but not binding on either on union government or on the state governments with this information let's take up the given question here three statements are given with reference to goods and services tax council and you have to choose correct statements statement one is incorrect because it is a constitutional body established as per the constitution provisions of 101st constitutional amendment act of 2016 the second statement is also incorrect because it recommends to the union government and also to the state governments on issues related to goods and service tax the third statement is also incorrect because it is chaired by the union finance minister so the correct answer for this question is option d none of the above this question is based on locust and we have been discussing about locust search in different parts of india today also we have different news articles based on the concerns raised against the locust swamps in various parts of india and know that we have elaborately discussed about the locust attack in our 23rd may 2020 and also on 26th december 2019 and you can refer these videos for complete understanding about locust swamps in today's discussion we'll discuss in brief about desert locust mainly in prillin's perspective know that the desert locust is scientifically known as sisto circa gregaria and it is one of the most harmful insects in the world locust species are members of the grass hopper family acrididae they're highly migratory in nature and they have veracious feeding behavior under favorable ecological conditions such as heavy rainfall adult locust may congregate or form swamps and these locust swamps may contain millions of individuals which may cause great devastation to natural and cultivated vegetation so they have the potential to threaten food security of the affected area with this information now let us understand in brief about the breeding seasons of locust that is in general locust have three breeding seasons they are winter breeding that is from november to december then spring breeding to june months and then summer breeding season that is from july to october month india has only one locust breeding season that is the summer breeding season from july to october month and know that our neighboring country pakistan has two breeding seasons that is spring and summer breeding seasons in our 23rd may 2020 video we have discussed desert locust invasion in rajasthan and madhya pradesh states we have also said that malathian which is an insecticide can be effectively used against desert locust in this context we should also understand about the locust warning organization which was established in response to a desert locust plague during 1926 to 1931 the then british government established the locust warning organization in 1939 with its headquarters at karachi which is located in the present day pakistan know that the present locust warning organization has its headquarters at jodhpur in the state of rajasthan and it is headed by a plant protection advisor and this organization comes under the department of agriculture and cooperation in the ministry of agriculture and formers welfare and this organization gives warnings about the possibility of locust swam and krishan and their movement and also their breeding with this information let's take up the given question here two statements are given and you have to choose correct statements statement one says summer breeding that is from july to october of the locust has great potential to threaten food security in india and this statement is correct because in general locust have three breeding seasons like winter breeding spring breeding and then summer breeding india has only one locust breeding season that is summer breeding season from the month of july to october month if you look at the second statement it says that the locust warning organization which gives warnings about the possibility of locust swam incursion movement and breeding functions under the national disaster management authority this statement is incorrect because though the function of locust warning organization is correct but it comes under the ministry of agriculture and formers welfare so the correct answer for this question is option a one only let's take up this question that is which of the falling dams or projects are located in the state of telangana the background for this question is that the state of telangana has operationalized the kaleshiram lift irrigation project in this context the chief minister of telangana has mentioned that within six years of the formation of the state of telangana the state has expanded its storage capacity of water which has led to the addition of about 165 tmc feet of water to the existing storage capacity of the state even he has cited that the telangana state has provided about 63 percent of the national food grains which was revealed by the food corporation of india in this context know that the kaleshiram lift irrigation project is considered as one of the lifelines to the people of the telangana state with this information let's take up the given question that is which of the falling dams or projects are located in the state of telangana know that the kaleshiram lift irrigation project is constructed across the godavari river in the state of telangana whereas nizam sargarh project is also located in the state of telangana and it is also reservoir constructed across the manjira river which is the right bank tributary of godavari river know that the polyvarum project and the srisailam project are located in the state of andhra pradesh polyvarum project which is a multi-purpose project and also declared as a national project is constructed across the godavari river whereas the srisailam project which is also multi-purpose project is constructed across the krishna river in the carnal district of andhra pradesh so the correct answer for this question is option a one and three only now let's take up this news article which reports that bank of india which is one of the public sector banks in our country has decided to reduce marginal cost of funds based lending rate that is mclr by about 25 basis points across all tenors the bank has also said that with this move the bank has passed on the benefit of rate cut announced by rba on 22 may to its customers in this context we should know about mclr because in 2016 upsc prelims examination there was a question on marginal cost of funds based lending rate know that mclr was introduced by rba with effect from april 2016 and it was part of monetary transmission which is a quality to meso of the impact of central banks policy decisions on the banking system that is whenever the rba reduces the policy rates for example if rba reduces the rapport rate then the banks are expected to pass on the benefit of rate cut to their customers therefore in order to bring transparency and accountability in the banking system the reserve bank of india has operationalized mclr and mclr includes various important components like operating expenses cost of maintaining cash reserve ratio then the marginal cost of funds for example cost of borrowings by the banks then also based on the loan tenure and commitments so these components are included in the mclr estimation by the respective banks before passing on the benefit of policy rate cut by the reserve bank of india so any change in rapport rate will also be reflected in the lending rates with this information let's take up the given question which is based on mclr here two statements are given and you have to choose correct statements statement one says these guidelines help to improve the transparency in the methodology followed by banks for determining the interest rates on advances then the second statement says these guidelines help to ensure availability of bank credit at interest rates which are fair to the borrowers as well as the banks here both the statements are correct with reference to mclr so the correct answer for this question is option c this question is framed with reference to this news article reports that major suman gawani of the union army was awarded a prestigious union award this prestigious award is called as the union military gender advocate of the year award in this context it is important for us to know about this award rarely union public service commission asks questions on prizes and awards if you could notice in the year 2015 upsc asked indira gandhi prize for peace disarmament and development for the year 2014 was given to which one of the following the correct answer for this question is indian space research organization on the similar note try to know that the united nations military gender advocate of the year award recognizes the dedication and the effort of an individual peacekeeper in promoting certain principles these are principles within the un security council resolution 1325 and this resolution was adapted in the year 2000 by the un security council this resolution reaffirms the important role of woman when it comes to various domains of peacekeeping it stresses the importance of equal participation and full involvement of women in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security it also adjusts all sectors to increase the participation of women and to incorporate gender perspectives in all the united nations peace and security missions so in the selection process for this award the united nations department of peacekeeping operations receives the nominations from the force commanders and heads of mission of all un peacekeeping missions they will nominate a military peacekeeper who had best integrated a gender perspective into peacekeeping activities know that major suman gawani of the indian army has served as a military observer in the united nations mission in south sudan that is ian miss from november 2018 to december 2019 she has earned international recognition for her significant role as the principal focal point of contact for gender issues in the mission she has also visited various mission team sites across south sudan to integrate gender perspective into the planning and military activity in the mission so to recognize her significant efforts this award was conferred on 29th may 2020 know that every year 29th may is commemorated by the united nations as international day of un peacekeepers and the theme of this year's commemoration is women in peacekeeping a key to peace this day is commemorated because it was the day in 1948 that the first un peacekeeping mission began its operations in the middle east with this information let's take up the given question here two statements are given and you have to choose correct statements statement one says the international day of united nations peacekeepers is observed in the month of may every year and this statement is correct because 29th may is celebrated as the international day of united nations peacekeepers in 2020 for the first time an indian has received the ian military gender adequate of the year award this statement is also correct because for the first time major suman gawani of the indian army was awarded a prestigious united nations military gender advocate of the year award therefore the correct answer for this question is option c both one and two let's take up practice prelims and main questions consider the following statements with reference to constitution of india the super indians direction and control of conduct of elections to the state legislatures panchayats and muns polities is vested in state election commission the state election commissioner shall not be removed from the office except in like manner and on the like grounds as a judge of a high court of the given statements you need to choose incorrect statements the first statement is incorrect because state election commission conducts elections to the panchayats and muns polities whereas the election commission of india conducts elections to the office of president to the office of vice president and also to the parliament and the state legislatures the second statement is correct because as per the article 243 k clause 2 the state election commissioner is safeguarded with the security and the safety of his tenure and he shall not be removed from his office except in like manner and also on the like grounds as a judge of a high court so the correct answer to this question is option a one only let's take up this question which is based on effective revenue deficit and primary deficit statement one says effective revenue deficit indicates the difference between revenue deficit and the grants for the creation of capital assets the second statement says primary deficit is the difference between the government's total expenditure and its total receipts excluding borrowings in the context of this question know that the terms like a fiscal deficit revenue deficit then effective revenue deficit and also the primary deficit whenever the government's expenditure is more than its revenues then it may leads to deficit budgeting and the revenue deficit is defined as excess revenue expenditure over its revenue receipts so we can say that revenue deficit indicates inability of the government to meet its day to day expenditure know that effective revenue deficit was introduced in the union budget 2011-12 and it indicates the difference between revenue deficit and the grants for the creation of capital assets so the given first statement is correct know that gross fiscal deficit indicates excess total expenditure over its total receipts excluding borrowings so we can say that fiscal deficit indicates total borrowings of the government and if you detect interest payments that is net interest liabilities from the fiscal deficit you'll be left with primary deficit so the goal of measuring primary deficit is to focus on present fiscal imbalances therefore the given second statement is incorrect because the difference between the government's total expenditure and its total receipts excluding borrowings indicates the fiscal deficit but not the primary deficit for this question you have to choose incorrect statements therefore the correct answer for this question is option b 2 only now let's take up one practice main's question which is relevant in general studies paper one discuss the role played by the elements associated with tropical cyclones that cause destruction during their occurrence this is a 10 mux question and you have to write in 150 words and we request you to post your written answers in the comment section and for those posted written answers will give suitable feedback within the reasonable time frame with this we have come to the end of analysis of today's union newspaper if you like the video please do like share comment and subscribe shankar eyes academy youtube channel for more updates on civil services examination thank you