Hi, Chicho here. It's end of November 2010 and just to do a little quick update, just a couple of things I want to talk about. First thing is a Series 3B. Now we've done a huge chunk in Series 3B. We've talked about all the different types of factory techniques that we're going to talk about. And what's left is just a couple of more minor little topics that I'm just going to talk about. One is the remainder theorem, the other one is the factor theorem. They're basically the same thing. I've already sort of talked about them and we haven't really given them a specific name yet. And we're just going to make a little video on that. And then what we're going to do is do a whole bunch of examples and I'm going to try to pull some examples from real-life examples or make up my own real-life examples in the two-dimensional ideal world of mathematics that we're dealing with right now. So Series 3B, a huge chunk of it is done. There's a little bit of more left to do and what's going to happen is I'm not going to create a table of contents for it yet. I'm going to wait until Series 3B is completely done, create the table of contents then and then put out the torrent, create the torrent and put that out all in one shot. So things may seem a little disorganized right now. If you've been following it from day one for Series 3B anyway, you have a pretty good idea of how the flow goes. If you're coming through it halfway through or just seeing this video for the first time, there's a whole bunch of videos done and it's basically dealing with polynomials, factoring polynomials, which is going to kick us off into graphing polynomials and that's going to be the next, well, could possibly be the next series that we're going to deal with. And that's basically Series 3B. And what's going to happen because we're coming into winter, daylight is decreasing and we're getting, I'm in Vancouver, we're getting hit with cold weather, it's been raining a lot and snowing a lot, so it's pretty cold outside and very cloudy. So my going out time to do these videos is shrinking. So the remainder of Series 3B, it's going to take a little bit of time to put everything together, which is fantastic to a certain degree, since I'm working on some backend stuff, doing a little bit of research and trying to set up some of the other projects related to the language of mathematics and math in real life. It's giving me time to just take a little breather and look at the whole picture and try to organize things and set things up that are going to be coming later on after Series 3B is done. So that's what's going on with Series 3B. Be patient if you've been following it. It will be completed next at least a couple of months, two or three months anyway, three months the longest. I'm going to definitely get it done in the winter of 2010. The second thing I wanted to talk to you about is the Torrents that are already available online. Torrents for Series 1, 2 and 3A. Now, a few months ago I had a problem with the trackers. I started getting a red arrow when I was seating the Torrents and from what I, you know, there's a little looking into it with the red arrow, man. It basically means that the tracker is having problems loading.  That's not true. I've tried reloading the Torrents, reloading the trackers and the problem still exists with the red arrow. So just wanted to let everyone know that I've been seating those Torrents basically 24-7 since I created them and I will continue to do this as long as I have internet connection that is, right? So if you're trying to download the Torrents, if it says there are no seaters, there's definitely at least one seater and that's me. And I got one computer 24-7 seating it. So if you do have problems, you know, send me a little message. You know, I do see people loading it so I'm assuming there are no problems and no one's, you know, contacted me saying that there's any problems downloading the Torrents. And I just want to put this out there. And the Torrent for Series 3B, as I mentioned, is going to come up, you know, I'm going to load that up when I finish Series 3B and when I put the table of context together. And that's going to be, you know, sometime in this winter coming up, winter of 2010. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is, you know, we are in winter and mention, you know, the time is getting shorter for me to go outside.  What's going to happen for the next little while is, you know, for the foreseeable future is I'm going to be possibly creating other content that's going to go on the site and other videos that are going to go on the site, okay, that are not directly related to language or mathematics Series 3B. They are indirectly related because all that content is going to be for the websites that are going to be coming up, right?  So what's going to happen is you might see some other content coming on the site, both on the YouTube channel and on my blog, which is indirectly related to the language of mathematics or math and real life. And it's just basically going to be me building content to populate certain pages for the two, two math websites, math and real life and for 20 math, okay? Some of the stuff coming up may be in draft form, but what I'm going to do is sort of getting back into writing, back into blogging. And, you know, and one reason, one of the benefits of blogging that I did in the past was when I do research, it's my way of, when I write an article, when I write something or when I create a video, but mainly when I write something, is when I'm doing research, I sort of put my train of thought when I do an article, when I do a piece, I sort of, you know, begin with, with, with researching something. And I go through it and I, you know, it's my train of thought going through and connecting up ideas and providing links, right? Linking a lot of things. So if you see any articles coming on my site, you know, if you're inclined to follow it, what you might see is a lot of links going to other pages. And that's basically my way of organizing my research. Okay. And it's, it is for content, for mathematics, for 420 math, but it's, you know, some of it may be in draft form, it's just me sort of putting things together. And I'm going to go back to them and fine tune them, fine tune them, fine tune them before the two math, math websites go up. Okay. So be patient. Some of the stuff may not be as coherent as, as finalized as they will be later on. Okay. But I do really want to start circulating some, some of this information out there and start doing, you know, organizing my research, because it's not enough just to bookmark it, I need to take information and put it into, you know, coherent train of thought with links going through appropriate pages. That way, I actually know where all that information is. And this is what I did for my previous site for Chicho. I know a lot of people were following that site. And, you know, those articles, you know, a lot of people like them, some of the articles, a lot of people like them, some of the articles and some people don't like them, right? But they were basically my way of doing my research and my way of organizing the information that I was coming across. That way it was easily accessible for me. And that's exactly the same way I'm going to approach, you know, building content for math, math and real life and for 20 math. Okay. So there is that information coming across too. Okay. And that's basically that's the update I wanted to do. Series 3b, we're definitely over the hump and we're towards the tail end of it. But because we're in winter, it's going to take a little bit of time. Torrance, they are being seated, at least by me, one person. Okay. And I know there's other people seating them as well. And, you know, Torrance for Series 3b will come up when it's done.  If you're not interested in that content, whatever's coming up, avoid it. Anything that's related to the language of mathematics is going to be tagged with, you know, the appropriate video number, you know, we're up to video 130 something right now. So or it's going to say as long as the space allows for, you know, the description to be on there, it's going to say the language of mathematics or math 3b. Okay.  If you're interested in other content, and, you know, what all this project is about, and some of the information that's going to go on both those math both sites, you know, feel free to take a look at the videos that might maybe coming up or the content that's going to be coming up on the site. Okay. I hope everyone's doing well. It's winter.  And it is definitely cold time in Vancouver, but it's brilliant. It's lots of snow, lots of snow. And it's fun. And it just kicks it up and, you know, it gives it a different tone to it. And this is the first time I'm going to be doing math in the winter.  So this is going to be a winter session coming up just to finish off series 3b. Okay. And I hope everyone was doing well. And I guess I'll see you guys in the next videos and be patient. Some of the stuff may take a little bit of time just to put together and come out depending on, you know, what the weather is doing, what the lighting is like, if it's raining, if it's, you know, minus 15 degrees or minus 10 degrees. Right now in Vancouver, weather forecast, cloudy, snowing, windy, and it's around anywhere between minus five to minus 10 fun times. I'll see you guys in next videos. Bye for now.


We continue on today with Chapter 6, The Alternative to Projection. Any split in mind must involve a rejection of part of it, and this is the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the wholeness of God's creation. By this recognition it knows its creator. Exclusion and separation are synonymous as our separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation, and that once it occurs, projection becomes its main defense, or the device that keeps it going. The reason, however, may not be so obvious as you think. What you project, you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. You are excluding yourself by the very judgment that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you attacked yourself out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe. Yet projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible.  The process begins by excluding something that exists in you, but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. We have learned, however, that there is an alternative to projection. Every ability of the ego has a better use because its abilities are directed by the mind, which has a better voice. The Holy Spirit extends, and the ego projects. As their goals are opposed, so is the result. The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared, he recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger, this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites atonement automatically, because atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgement that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy. How else can you find joy in a joyless place, except by realizing that you are not there? You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief, but a fact. Anything that God created is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfection, perfect inclusion in Him, who alone is perfect. To deny this is to deny yourself and Him, since it is impossible to accept one without the other. The perfect equality of the Holy Spirit's perception is the reflection of the perfect equality of God's knowing. The ego's perception has no counterpart in God, but the Holy Spirit remains the bridge between perception and knowledge. By enabling you to use perception in a way that reflects knowledge, you will ultimately remember it. The ego would prefer to believe that this memory is impossible. Yet it is your perception the Holy Spirit guides. Your perception will end where it began. Everything meets in God because everything was created by Him and in Him. God created His sons by extending His thought and retaining the extensions of His thought in His mind. All His thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. God created you to create. You cannot extend His kingdom until you know of its wholeness. Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker from which they reach outward. This is as true of God's thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unreal, you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea and therefore does not want it now. The Holy Spirit uses time but does not believe in it. Coming from God, He uses everything for good, but He still does not believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is in your mind, your mind can also believe only what is true. The Holy Spirit can speak only for this because He speaks for God. He tells you to return your whole mind to God because it has never left Him. If it has never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. The full awareness of the Atonement then is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred. The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem difficult. If the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary because what never happened cannot be difficult. However, you can make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. Yet it is surely clear that the perfect need nothing and you cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment because that is what you are. This is the way in which you must perceive God's creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one line the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God and lets your mind converge with His. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception because it means that all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit whose mind is fixed on God. Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict because only the Holy Spirit is conflict free. He perceives only what is true in your mind and extends outward only to what is true in other minds. The difference between the ego's projection and the Holy Spirit's extension is very simple. The ego projects to exclude and therefore to deceive. The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing himself in every mind and thus perceives them as one. Nothing conflicts in this perception because what the Holy Spirit perceives is all the same. Wherever he looks he sees himself and because he is united he offers the whole kingdom always. This is the one message God gave to him and for which he must speak because that is what he is. The peace of God lies in that message and so the peace of God lies in you. The great peace of the kingdom shines in your mind forever but it must shine outward to make you aware of it. The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality and only by recognizing him impartially can you recognize him at all. The ego is legion but the Holy Spirit is one. No darkness abides anywhere in the kingdom but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. This alignment with the light is unlimited because it is an alignment with the light of the world. Each of us is the light of the world and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the kingdom of God together and as one. And from the workbook there is nothing my holiness cannot do. Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind.  Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available and there is nothing the power of God cannot do. Your holiness then can remove all pain, can end all sorrow and can solve all problems. It can do so in connection with yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in its power to help anyone because it is equal in its power to save anyone. If you are holy so is everything God created.  In today's exercises we will apply the power of your holiness to all problems, difficulties or suffering in any form that you happen to think of in yourself or in someone else. We will make no distinctions because there are no distinctions. In the four longer practice periods, each preferably to last a full five minutes, repeat the idea for today, close your eyes and then search your mind for any sense of loss or unhappiness of any kind as you see it. Try to make as little distinction as possible between a situation that is difficult for you and one that is difficult for someone else. Identify the situation specifically and also the name of the person concerned. Use this form in applying the idea for today. In this situation involving blank in which I see myself there is nothing that my holiness cannot do. In the situation involving blank in which blank sees himself there is nothing my holiness cannot do. From time to time you may want to vary this procedure and add some relevant thoughts of your own. You might like for example to include thoughts such as, There is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it. Introduce whatever variations appeal to you but keep the exercises focused on the theme. There is nothing my holiness cannot do. The purpose of today's exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you have dominion over all things because of what you are. In the frequent shorter applications apply the idea in its original form unless a specific problem concerning you or someone else arises or comes to mind. In that event use the more specific form in applying the idea to it. There is nothing my holiness cannot do. So today we use holiness as the power in our mind as our mind to accomplish an all inclusive perception as an opening to the vision of Christ to true sight. In today's reading in the text gave us an alternative to projection. The Holy Spirit extends the ego projects. Today our holiness extends to show the impossibility of projection of any kind. It brings an end to the attempt to hurt oneself by projecting. It brings an end to the attempt to get rid of something that is not wanted. We see now the foolishness of projection. We could not appear to project unless we wanted attack and anger. As we accept our holiness the impossibility of attack and anger and projection becomes obvious. Because if we believe that we can get rid of something we do not want we were attempting to exclude ourselves from our brothers to keep a gap between subject and object, between observer and observed. We are grateful for the extension of love, the extension of peace. We are grateful for the perception of equality. It is obvious atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. And this is the only way in which one can find happiness. The one way we can see that who we are is spirit. And spirit is not in this world. Spirit is in the mind of God. Spirit is divine mind. Thank you God for creating me, for creating my very identity as spirit. Forever true, forever a fact, forever perfect and forever love. With this love in my heart I practice the lesson for today. There is nothing my holiness cannot do.


602, let's kick it off. Amy is down in Texas. I thought first she was going to be at the Oscars, but that's not true. That was a rumor. There's a sweeping through. Stockbridge because Justin, you should know that because you've got all this playwright and talent and acting and everything else. But no, she's not in Texas on a business trip. We're here. Adjustments to the agenda. I have a suggestion that we postpone our discussion and action on two mission statements, a revised draft of our our sudden mission statement. And thank you, Justin. It really did a great job on that. And also we've got a proposed mission statement for out endowments. And again, these are not time critical, but it's important to wrap our heads around why we're here. And so those are very important things. But I think if it's OK with the quorum, we could postpone those to our April meeting. Is there any discussion problem with that suggested at all? And please speak up. I have I don't take things personally at my old age. We OK with that? Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Robert, I'm fine. I'm fine. Any other adjustments to the agenda? And I know I'm a rookie here because Amy usually boards this word. It's my intention that will hopefully adjourn on or before eight o'clock so we can get home. Consent agenda, approve of the minutes of Monday, February 5th. And you've got those in front of you with all the actions in bold, which I kind of like. Do I hear anybody want to move these minutes along? Or have any? I move. Thank you. Any second for that? OK, move the second to consent agenda for the minutes of February 5th. We all sat without all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. OK, we have public comment. Is there a member of the public here that wishes to speak? OK, the public is always invited and welcome. And thank you for being here. Gender item six, celebration of learning. Are we ready to do it now? We can. Wow. Are we going to do snow angels in the field? Is that? If you would like to, you're more than welcome. I had recess degrees today, so I got to go outside. I've been out. OK, absolutely. You're more than welcome. I'll let you over to you. All right. So I think we've talked a lot about winter wellness, and it felt like since we just wrapped up our last winter wellness on the 1st of March, it would be worth kind of sharing what's happened when this first started. If you want to go to the next slide, that should be fine. When it first started at Stockbridge and Rochester, we took all the students, K through 6, up to Snow Bowl and Riker for cross-country skiing, and then snowboarding and downhill skiing were choices for older kids. We could also snow, snowshoe at Riker. Post COVID, we kind of evolved to using PICO because it was a little bit closer, and the number of staff and kids they can support is larger than what the Snow Bowl could support. And the feedback from the kids was that they just wanted to go fast. And cross-country skiing sometimes allows for that, but not the speed that our group was looking for. And this becomes, for those of you who don't know, one day of our physical education class during the six weeks that we do this. So PICO supports 1st grade through 6th grade students, anybody who wants to join. We do break up into who needs lessons and who can ski or snowboard with a camera. And then students in kindergarten and just those who decide to try it, I don't want to do it anymore. Stay behind and get to participate in the other outdoor activities. So I wanted to be able to share out both so you could see. And the idea is that hopefully it is usually winter for a majority of our year so that students will learn some sort of lifelong activity and be willing to do it. So that's kind of, and we've been able to support it with all grant funding, which is great. So if we go to the next thing, so things that they got to participate in school, opportunities on campus, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, even though they didn't get to go fast, but they learned. Those also we were able to access cross-country skis that strap right onto your shoes or boots. They built forts, they built their own fire in the woods. They built their own sled because there was less snow than there's been previously. And usually we do do some ice skating but the rink was not up and running this year. So if we go to the next. So the students who stayed behind made their own sled at a cardboard last week two weeks ago and raced it down the hill. They did learn some cross-country skiing. The only reason they liked it is because they got to use the hill out here or out behind Rochester. So some future downhill skiers, I think are in our midst when they're old enough. And then when it was really icy, there was a time that we had to say no sledding because they were going over these jumps. My testing, my concussion protocol knowledge was not fun. So we've got to penguins sledding where they all get to be penguins and slide down on their bellies and their butts which they really enjoyed. Worked just as well, lasting dress. And they, those that stayed behind all made their own fire in our outdoor bathrooms and made their own hot chocolate. And probably one of the more popular ones was making snow volcanoes. So they made a volcano out of snow and then figured out how to make it react with baking soda and vinegar. At Pico, the choices are you can ski or snowboard with an instructor or ski or snow with a chaperone on the mountain. So a lot of kiddos, it's their first time or the only time that they access this. The other great thing about this Pico program is just because we only go for six weeks, kids have access to the pass and the rentals the whole season. So it's still something that they can utilize whether we're without us. So it was very popular over half days because we had a lot of Friday half days. So kids would stay behind but also vacation to be able to go. And so just a couple of learners on some skis. And then this kiddo on the right, there's two kiddos, they're both never-evers. And this was our second to last one and it was the popular, can you please phone me and send this to my mom? So they know what I'm doing, but if there's snowboarder there, you're really working on making a turn in the instructor group because otherwise you ended up in the little lift, hot with reality. Really short and sweet, but just now I feel like we talk about it a lot or I mentioned it a lot in my report. It's actually happening. Oh, they all love it. The ones over there just, yeah. Yes, they do really enjoy it. And then there is some kid feedback from both, I'm pretty sure, yeah.  So it typically becomes the best day ever. Hard to top, why are you making me come back to school?  Doing jumps, cause that's a choice too on some of the slips. The fifth grade student is a kid that would not go skiing or snowboarding if we didn't have this program. So to be able to go I think was a big deal. And then a student who stayed back really enjoys being in the smaller groups that are multi-age and working with them in different activities. So that's kind of it. It's quick. I mean, I think it's pretty cool because I've been with us so he gets... There's so many kids that without that they would never pick it up like Ryan Whitaker. So he joined us about the last couple of Fridays and he even said, he goes, if we didn't do this when we were kids, he's like, I wouldn't be doing it. He's like, my parents didn't do it. It wasn't something we did. And he loves it and he does it all the time now. So it's pretty cool. I think it's a great opportunity. I totally agree and this is a life-long sport. It really is. He just can do it. Although we change the elevation of our slopes sometimes. So I had a question for both of you. Snowboarding or skiers, is there a predominance at this age of like he boarded versus skiing or is it a toss-up? It's pretty tough. It's pretty, I thought originally when we switched to this model that it would be mostly snowboarders because that is one group that they say they can only focus or have X number of kids in lessons because they just don't have as many instructors. There's no wording as they do for skiing. But it's really a balance. I think the younger kids are pretty split and they're also the group most willing to flip-flop the first few years. I tried skiing this time. Now I'm gonna try snowboarding and then I'm gonna decide. Yeah. Well, and that's interesting because I do both but I started, my girls, I started in easier. It's a lot less frustrating for them and for me. But now that like Jana say, she's at the level now where she's, she could, I think she could get on a board and easily pick it up. So maybe next year, that's what she'll do is do lessons through the school or something if she wants to do it. And we do see that happen with some older kids too. Yeah. They've been skiing, skiing, skiing, and now they want to learn and this isn't happening yet. It's fantastic they're open to learning and trying new stuff. The question I had for Patrick or I'd like to have in the minutes that if my memory is correct that he's a ski jump champion. I'm serious. And my question is, did you start going down that path of glory right here at Stockbrook Central? It was eighth grade. So I was over in Bethel. My father took a job running Stores Hill non-profit ski hill in Lebanon and they have a couple of Nordic ski jumps. So I took it up then and fell in love with it. And I had to quit playing basketball, do it, which was a big decision. And Janna is actually in the same boat right now. She just started ski jumping last month and she fell in love with it but it was the same days as basketball. And she took her first jump, came up the stairs, she goes, oh, we're coming back. Yeah, so that was pretty funny. I think that's fantastic, but I do recall my son growing up and basketball coaches would not countenance one of their players interested in skiing because they just thought they were just gonna get it. You have to make a decision on that. So anyway, congratulations. I want to know that on the records that we've got a champ right here on our side. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Kids and... A special shout out to Erica Harrington, our admin assistant. She does all the behind the scenes logistics that go with this. She helps organize the chaperone groups. She did, I'm the one that says, we get up. Come on, let's go. That's my role. But she's the one who makes a lot of this happen. So thanks to her.  Oh yeah, we're magically cured by Friday a lot. Yeah. It's okay. Any other comments, any questions? Observations from the team? Okay. Thank you so much. And may there be some more snow before the tulips come up? Yeah. Reports to the board and superintendents. Jamie, over to you please. So you have my report in hand. I highlighted where we're currently at with the budget process. We'll talk about that some more here in a little bit. But I also provided a progress monitoring update on the tasks that are associated with my professional goals for this coming year, or the current year. And wanted to provide all the district boards with some updates around a lot of good things happening. One of the things I'm pretty excited about is we'll be providing a draft for the full board to comment in regards to a communication plan this month. Which also does get into the efforts we have going on across the SU in regards to marketing. It provides a really good roadmap for that work. In the event that administration was to turn over or board members leave. I think it really speaks to how we want to go about our work in regards to communication. So if you're really good about that, it's a fairly comprehensive plan. Ray, what is it? It's got six overall goals with a lot of tasks. I do worry it might be a little too big in some ways, but we'll look to get some feedback about it. So I'm feeling really good about that. The other thing is we were able to hold two district budget votes in the SU on the Monday night prior to town meeting last week. Last week, sorry, it's been a blur. And we were able to successfully have two district budgets within the SU adopted at sharing that White River Unified District by pretty significant margins. So we're hoping those hold. There is some talk about a reconsideration petition in White River Unified District. So we'll see how that plays out. And Strafford just adopted their budget tonight. So we're headed to an Australian ballot vote in Strafford on the 15th of April hopefully in first branch that same night as well. And I'll entertain any questions folks may have. The legislature are monitoring it fairly closely in regards to seeing what might come out of the session. There's been talk about fundamentally changing education funding in the state happens. I don't see them getting any traction to take action on any type of significant bill this session. One of the things that if you look at testimony and follow it, there's a little talk of the idea of like a block grant type funding, which I think we would just have to monitor closely. And the only reason why I think that could possibly pick up speed is that is what the agency of Ed in Vermont does now in regards to special ed funding. And so just stay tuned with that. If we start to see some drafts of bills that look like they might pick up steam, I'll be emailing the board. I won't wait around to update during board meetings. But thus far, not much coming as far as tangible bills out of house that are sent in right now. Questions, comments for Jamie? Well, as usual, here's truly as comments. First of all, the second paragraph of Jamie's report, he talks about going out and speaking proactively to the media to tell what's going on and answer questions, what and why it's going on and what can we do about it? And it's that proactive leadership where we communicate as effectively we can with the greater community that's gonna, but the many decisions are made based on false information or I just talked to so-and-so or I just feel. And that's not a sound foundation if you're talking about the future of our kids. So Jamie being out there and his team being out there proactively communicating answering questions, not hiding it at all, but telling the story, I think is commendable and it pays off and I think these first two voting results is an example of that. Secondly, one of the key goals for the superintendent in our SU board is to have an enrollment strategy where we can attract, retain and build social capital, attract students into our SU, retain them so they don't go elsewhere and build the social capital so that we have voter support when we go to the page. And we got some successes there in Rochester where we're picking up students that might go elsewhere and certainly the high school big time where you got 18 increases in enrollment. Every student that comes with us versus going somewhere else if they're in our district, we save 20,000, that 20,000 goes to cover overhead and make sure that we can be the best that it can be. So this is critical and we've got going and Jamie talked about a communication strategy that we're not just kicking the can or doing this or that and hoping for the best. No, we're gonna work at this diligently focused so that every kid that we can help get the best education in the world will consider us and come our way and stay that way. So I wanna highlight that. Okay, so let's then we'll hold on to finish on that. 7.1, go to 7.2, principal spring, Vermont cap, data report and all the wonderful things going on in Rochester and Stockbridge, go ahead. So first, just my principal report for that month. Couple things that I'll add to this that have kind of been going on is where, and Jamie mentioned that in his report as well, we're starting to wrap up the portrait of a learner process and we've had students that have been participating in that from both Rochester and Stockbridge, which has been great to see and as well as some school feedback on what kiddos and staff would like to see happen at their schools. We also seem to be super busy with field trips lately, which is great, great opportunities to expand and get outside of our community with trips to the state house, lots of different local maple sugaring houses, just been a little interesting to plan with the seasons. A few groups going on some hikes and other things. And then the only thing I'll point to the board is we did have a pipe freeze over February break in Stockbridge, thankfully, it was caught super early and where the mitigation's almost complete and there were a pair of soapy in this week. Other than that. Questions or comments on that? I'm sorry, there was no light freeze. Up in the attic over the kitchen and the bathrooms. Setbacks were down back a little too much. Oh, is that one of the controls here? Yeah. We've got to sort it out with controls. Were they not controlled? It's, yeah, this building got all new controls too. Okay, so we're learning. Other comments, questions? Robert, you got anything, Justine? Nope. Yeah, I'm sorry, I get excited every time I read your report and think about the miracles that are happening here. One of it is that several of the students that get extra support, social-emotional, I read exiting meaning in the process of being able to rejoin the regular classroom. Have I got that correct? No, so they're in the regular classroom and what it means is they have some sort of support plan. It could be a check-in, check-out. It could be some sort of targeted, it just depends on what's going on. But it means that the plan has been successful and they have the tools they need without the plan to hold them accountable. So they've been in the regular classroom this entire time.  Absolutely. They've got to feel better. The parents got to feel better, their friends feel better and financially it's, it helps us. So that's just, that's just Nido. We have several book clubs starting and I can't think of it. And we've even got the books here and I challenge any of the board members. Have you read any of these? The one and only Ivan, the Rovers and Story and the Clackety. So I strike out. I'm, help us here. They're golden dome book winners. And the one and only Ivan is the one that's been out the longest. It's now a series, it's the first in this series. So they can pick among that and they have their first meeting last Wednesday in Rochester and then next Wednesday, everybody will come here from 456 and they will share. Right now they're designing their own covers for the books as well as they have to read 10 pages per week. So some of those books were chosen because they can be audio and also read. So every kid will own the copy of the book of the book club they're in after. And I want to make a note from the board that they read 10 pages a week. In that particular book. Okay, so that's 40 pages a month and we're only asking the board to read maybe an average chapter, which is 15. So I just want to point out that our kids are really beating us to the set of the example here and I hope we're going to listen and learn from them as we normally do. You did? Well, I've got it right here, kiddo. The final thing is the visit of all sixth graders to Bethel Middle School. So it's sixth graders, yeah. It was open to anyone. Yeah. And again, it's just so many reasons why our kids from Rochester, Stockway, should be seriously considered in Bethel. But one thing is to be there, to be able to place both the kids and their parents, check it out and have that part of their decision-making process. And I think that's exactly what we need to do because I think we've got a lot to offer. We all set? Let's roll.  These are the end of the year state testing results specific to Rochester and Stockbridge. Couple things to kind of note, it looks similar but a little different than your Track My Progress. One color coding similar, right? It's probably flip-flopped in terms of like blue and green, still mean you met or exceeded. Yellow means you're partially there and then level one is emerging and that's how it's reported out on the state report to families for kiddos. So some huge celebrations, I think starting with English Language Arts which is the chart on the bottom of page one or graph on the bottom of page one is none. This is last year, sixth graders, right? Zero of these students were at level one or emerging. They were all, either a majority or satisfactory or thorough or we call it meeting or exceeded. So sixth grade? Yeah, last year, sixth grade, right at the bottom there. And 23% were at partial. So of those kiddos in the partial, they missed level three by less than 25 scale to work. That's a question or two. We've lost an album. Oh, no, you're good. So if we have to wait to go. State your name. Yeah, right. So that's a really big celebration. I also think of that group and everything. That would be a group that COVID started in third grade and then fourth grade, we came back. So huge celebration for them really proud of that. And then kind of the area third graders, which is their first time taking standardized test in this manner. It is slightly different than track my progress. It's longer passages that they're reading. What I would say is 32% met or exceeded the standard or satisfactory or thorough. Of that 50% in the red, 75% of those students missed that level two by less than 40 scale score points. So we're right there. You wanna be close, ideally closer. But for our first go around, it's also our largest number of students that has the most academic targeted plans of support. So kind of makes sense for the group of kiddos that we saw. They're also a group that has made great gains already this year. So excited to see what we'll do this spring. Questions about what you're seeing with ELA might be easier to go that way. One is just flipping around, having the red on the left and the blue. So it just makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, the 50% in red does our attention. And it's, I guess my sense is that I don't, this is a process. What's interesting is it seems like it's trending grade to grade though. Yes, it's tracking, like the red is getting smaller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've seen the opposite with Track My Progress where the K one and two were stronger and the kids for their fifth and sixth graders and COVID and everything else were, so it's very, very interesting. I read this and it says that we're gonna use Track Our Progress. We tested three times a year. It has the information that teachers and administrators can use immediately to, that's my reading to make course corrections, individualize student by student by student to have them move up from the left to the right or from red to blue. And yeah, and we have a test coming up in, is it the end of March, beginning of April? Right, so we'll start this testing, right? Science, which we'll get to in a minute. It's the last week of March and both Rochester and Stockbridge. And then the week after that is, first week of April is not and the second week of April is literacy for EOF. Are there other questions or comments, observations from our team? Okay, you wanna keep continuing? Yeah, so if we go to the math assessment, I would say, again, a huge celebration is that sixth grade group because of all our groups, they did not get the fidelity of our curriculum all the way through. Like what we've put in for some of these younger groups, even our third grade group from last year has had that longer than any of the older grades, but still not the same. And so what we're seeing here are results of using a curriculum with Fidelity, a program with Fidelity and helping to meet that standard. So we're growing tremendously. Grade four is always interesting. I do think that's when you look deeper into the data, it's where you see that expectation of what type of math they're able to do increase from not just multiplication, but multiplying fractions and mixed numbers and things like that. So again, a lot of these students in that 58th percent missed the level two being in that yellow band by less than 25 scale score points. So getting there, I guess, is the takeaway. It gives you some good data. It is fairly comparable to what we saw if I break down these grades last year and I retract my progress. It's not quite the same. I would say big takeaways, right? Are testing strategies in general. Try my progress test is about 30 minutes, depending on the age group a little longer, whereas this is about 90 minutes, they're in a test session and it's two test sessions per content area. So that's very different. So we're practicing that stamina that not getting click happy because kids definitely reached that fatigue level. I know I do as an adult even in developing a strong baseline. What kind of response are you getting from the kids like as far as doing the testing? I think it's always hard for a third grade because it's the first time. It doesn't matter how you practice that length. We're taking breaks. We're talking about it. We're doing strategies. We're practicing right now. Does it make them nervous? Not really. There's maybe one or two, but they're nervous when they take track of my progress. So it's not a shock to us that we're now able to be a little preemptive. Do you find other than being able to track their progress as a whole that it is also allowing for individual educational plans? Yeah. So I think you can look at them as a cohort and then you can look and say, and this is what we do frequently in our data teams, like, okay, so we know these two areas, say operations and algebra, thinking we scored low on. Well, who exceeded in that? I need a different type of challenge in here. Yeah. Who doesn't even have the foundational scope of all that like operations in phase 10 to be able to build on that. Yeah, that's cool. So it is. It's not easy. We last month or the month before we had the winner test scores from track my progress and the average gain from last year, this year was over a year. And we were one of the highest districts in both math and science and in the, I don't even call it percentage gain or the measurement measured in years of learning. So this is one benchmark. We're going to see how it proceeds going forward. But we've got a very strong academic record and we're not going to rest on any laurels at all until that red disappears. It'll never disappear, but we're going to do everything possible to keep moving, as I said, from the left to the right on that. And I really appreciate that. Other comments or questions from the team? I wonder how much of this we can, can we share any of this or like a snippet of it or a snippet and a link of it on our Facebook page regularly kind of this stuff. I think this is kind of like, you know, it's nice to see pictures too, but this is also something that I think a lot of people don't pay attention to because they don't actively go to the website, you know? Just wondering, throwing that out there. Yeah. Then next is science, which is fifth graders only take this one, what you're looking at. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised because we've spent a lot of time in literacy and mathematics and not as much time in our science instructions. Not to say that kids aren't getting in, but we're definitely, what we're doing is working really well. And I do think it's because our kids are building skills to be critical analytical thinkers. And that's happening in a lot of different avenues from outdoor ed to science class itself to different aspects of things that they're reading or talking about. So. Okay, so to summarize, this is a one test a year. Yes. That all the students, elementary students, the state of Vermont takes, it's a state formatted test and administered, unfortunately, we don't get the results for like eight months after the test, hopefully they'll speed that up. So learning from it, the good news is that we test our students with a different testing curriculum in the fall, the winter and the spring. So we have information that other than this, other than this that is real time so that we can keep our kids moving forward. And I think that's the best way to go. And then the last page, those two charts. So the top one is English language arts and the bottom one is mathematics. And this just speaks to our average scale score. So you'll see our fifth and sixth graders, average scale score on English language arts and in mathematics are above the state average. And then also in third grade in math, even though it didn't necessarily meet proficiency or our third graders math average scale score is above the state average of scale score. Thank you, Anne. Not to quote from our superintendent, but I will. You said that you're heartened and you have full confidence that we're going to be meeting our great doctors, the very ambitious academic proficiency goals by 2025. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Tara, are you there? Good evening, everyone. Hi. You have my report which outlines what's happening in the business office during the month of March in addition to preparing for annual meetings and budget revisions and getting that all taken care of. So I happily answer any questions on that. And then I also could provide fiscal year 24, quarter two projections that we can go over as well. Questions, comments. It's always nice to see a projection as I must say and as long as I've been on the board, that the projections are always that we are in the black and not in the red. And that's district by district as well as the whole SU. And for those people to say, oh, that's just simple. No, we've got to have our superintendent and the team has to have a very sharp pencil. And it looks like here that we're moving in that direction here in our district. The comment. On the expenditure side, based on what was budgeted versus the actual contracts that were issued, we have about $156,000 of potential savings there. And then on the health insurance, the budget versus actual enrollment, we have just shy of $30,000 of savings there. So we have a projected potential savings at the close of the year on the expenditure side of 186,000. And then on the revenue side, we were short just one tuition student, budget versus projected, but I actually got an enrollment for a new student today. So that'll be prorated. And then interest income, as you know, because we have had the surplus, we have not had to utilize as much of our tax anticipation note. So that has accumulated interest in that arbitrage account. So that helps also with some offsetting revenue. And then miscellaneous, we've only received about $255 so far and rentals. We've only received about 1,300. And then we had an adjustment on the budget versus the actuals on our grants. So overall right now, the revenue is projected a $16,000 deficit. And then we add in the expenditure surplus. So right now we're looking at about 169,000 at the close of the year. We're under up to 170,000. What's the forest grant all about, Tara? So the Green Mountain Forest Grant is revenue that you get directly from the Green Mountain Forest because you have so much property that is tied into the Green Mountain Forest. That's town property. Yes, and it offsets because there's not property that's owned by your taxpayers that they can pay into the education brand list. So you get you and actually Granville Hancock our recipients of Green Mountain Forest money every year. It's called payment and lieu of tax. I know that very well. Questions, comments for Tara? Thank you. And she says, if you had, if you reported everything you were doing to Tara, you would be on two or three pages. So I'm glad that you pull it all together in one page, but it's fantastic. Thank you, Bill. And we say it all the time. It's not easy to be on the board. It's not easy to be doing everything we can to make education work. But this is one thing that we can kind of sit back on, not to be diligent but to have confidence in our team. And then we can ask questions rather than doubting what the numbers are all about. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Let's keep going. Policy committee update. Patrick, do you have anything at all on those two things? So we're reviewing policy B3, alcohol and drug free workplace. We had Marilyn, our lawyer join us at her last meeting. She had reviewed it and made some changes but in the midst of that, she accidentally made changes to the original and not the one that we had already been updating. So we have to mesh the two together. But she did add some language about misusing prescribed medication, whether using a prescribed drug that was given to you by your doctor or not given to you by a doctor but a friend gave it to you or whatever. Or it was prescribed by a doctor but you're unfit to be working in a safe environment. So she is, well, I don't know, she was gonna make those changes or you, yeah. I'm pretty sure Jamie was gonna make those changes if I'm sure you already did. And then we also reviewed B5, employee unlawful harassment, Marilyn again then addressed title nine, which I'm still trying to grasp my head around. But anyway, changes to title nine are being made on a federal level.  So she said we could basically either hold off weight but she didn't necessarily recommend that because who knows how long it could take. So she figured go through with the changes that we wanna make for that policy and act it and then probably have to circle back and we'll do it again. But we did not have any action on either one of those and decided that we needed more time on it. That's it. Questions? You don't want to add anything? That was perfect. Any questions for Patrick? I appreciate it, Patrick. Yeah. Mike, I have one question and that is we work on these two policies because we had a problem and we had a gap or is it we're thinking proactively to make sure that we're prepared when we have a challenge that we know what to do and how to handle it or is it both? It's both. Yeah, we wanted to do some revisions to those two. They haven't been updated since 18 but I would say the fitness for duty aspect of it. I really see that as us being proactive. Yeah, and that's what we need to do and I credit to the team doing that. Other questions, comments on this for Patrick? 7.5 is our said endowment committee updated possible action on the mission statement and as we said, we're gonna push that agenda item to our April meeting when Amy's back and there was a copy of the draft mission statement in the packet. So that's what the document right now we're gonna be considering for that action in April. Okay, discussion 8.1 budget and corresponding tax sheet and we're gonna need some help on that. So, Jamie, are you gonna get started? Yeah, I'm gonna name the area and jump in. So in regards to your expenditure budget, we have not touched it since last month. It remains the same. So just a reminder, I think I as your superintendent incredibly proud that we're looking to operate two buildings with inflation the way it is, open shirts up 16.4% and we have a four, just barely over 4% increase in expenditure budget. So we haven't touched that component of the budget. As a board, I took away that you're looking for the administration to come back with at a minimum and equalized tax rate that was flat. Meaning that the only thing that would add any increase to your final estimated tax rate would be due to the CLA, the common level of appraisal. Yes. And so when we met, that's what we went after. And so on top of that, what I think it's important for you guys to know is we were able to execute an agreement with VTVLC from our virtual learning cooperative. We do expect that we're gonna receive another, they estimate seven students entering into our tuition pool next year. We did not carry all seven in your revenue budget. Okay, we carried four, just cause we're being cautious. If we get seven, that's great. I never like to overestimate revenue. It's really hard to make up that difference within the expenditure, all right? So your revenue's been adjusted there. We're also still carrying $100,000 from the prior year surplus. You'll see that's down from last year. We are estimating a slight surplus for this year. So that's good to know because I don't wanna get into a circumstance where we've used surplus funds and then we don't have any the next year to help pay that down because then you start in the hole. So for an example, if we have no surplus next year, it's just important for you to remember that a penny on your tax rate is 32, 3.95. So that's three cents, right? That we would need to be making up for next year. We're looking like we're gonna have a surplus. So as we go through the budget process, it'll be the type of thing where we need to decide if we have a surplus, are we going down to just 56 next year? We won't know until this time of year, right? It's really hard by the time we get all the numbers, but just know it's one of the things that we can give that money back to taxpayers. It is a one-time give back. We don't have that next year. We start in the hole by those three cents. And so we did do the $100,000 towards the revenue and then that gets us to our tax rate sheet, which I'm gonna have Tara lead you through. But the big thing that I wanted to emphasize, which I tried to do in the letter, did you all get to see the letter? And I stand up to the community, is that prior to factoring in any changes to the common level of appraisal, which we have absolutely no control over, zero. We would actually be looking at a decrease in the tax rate by 3.27%. If it didn't happen. If it was a real problem. The CLA's in drops so much, yeah. So Tara, do you wanna lead them through the tax sheet? Sure can. So right up at the top, the budget expenditures is $4,840,551. We then back that out with your offsetting revenue and Jamie explained what we've changed there. So that currently is a total of $712,067. That gives us an act 68 education spending of $4,128,484. We divide that by the long-term weighted average of 331.07. And that gives us the education spending per pupil cost of $12,470.12 cents. We divide that by the yield and we're using the most updated yield that we had as of February 27th, which is $9,785. So that gives us an equalized residential tax rate of 1.2744. And as Jamie just explains, that is a reduction of 4.31 cents or 3.27%. So from there, we take your equalized tax rate and we divide that by your common level of appraisal for each of the towns. So for Rochester, that gives us a projected homestead tax rate of 1.7268, which equates to 21.26 cents or $212.65 per $100,000 of value. And in Stockbridge, again, you take that equalized tax rate, you divide it by the common level of appraisal and that gives us an estimated homestead tax rate of 1.8783, which equates to an increase of 14.43 cents or $144.28 per $100,000 of value. Any questions or comments for Tara or Jamie on the tax rate sheet dated March 7th? Is it just me or is our per pupil cost down? No? No, your equalized tax rate is down. Your per pupil is down this year because remember the weight's changed. So it's not. So the pupil, yeah, you don't wanna compare your per pupil this year versus last year. Okay, change the weights. Gotcha. Okay. And remember that was within Act 127. In general, we did gain some additional tax capacity within 127, which is why we can get an equalized tax rate that's actually down, even though our expenditures are up 4%. What point can the public make a comment to these proceedings? Let me just hold on. Let me just make sure we've got the board members full discussion there. And then I'll give you a minute or two after all those questions or comments are made. If you just hold on, please. Thank you. Welcome. This is Robert. Just so I, because this is always very confusing for me, I understand the CLA is come about because of the discrepancies and sales of properties versus what their praise values were. And I understand both towns are up for a town-wide reappraisal. And if it's my understanding is correct once that reappraisal is done, the CLA's will revert to 100%, is that correct? Well, yes. I mean, sometimes even more than 100 Robert, but what we've saw in Stockbridge is they reassessed just right when COVID was happening and they didn't take account for the COVID upswing. And so they instantly started dropping. So it really depends on that real estate market. If we had another spike in sales then they would adjust accordingly. Now, even without reassessment, let's say that if all of a sudden the market tanked, you would start to see those CLA's rise again as well. We have seen that even without reappraisals you can see sometimes those CLA's increase. Thank you. We've been kind of whiplashed two different directions. Act 127 attempted and I think moved in the right direction of looking at how state aid is allocated between cities and towns. And this is an issue that goes back quite a while that kids don't learn all on the same level and need the exact same level of resources to learn and excel. And we're one of these communities. We're not the Woodstocks. We're not the Norwiches. We're a modest community. And Act 127 readjusted, they call it the Wayne, but it's recognizing that our children could use more help and that help can cost more money and the state aid is going to follow that. On the CLA it's frustrating because the CLA is in existence so that small towns like Rochester and Stockbridge can afford to have quality education. And one way they do that is to make sure that towns don't cheat by just under-assessing their property owners. And then how's the state going to make up that difference? And the state say, we'll pay the fair share but we want every town to pay a reasonable amount. And it just so happens, we're in a hot market in these two communities. And so that we've got this shock called a common level of appraisal. The third thing I want to say is that when we look back at the five years that we've been together, Rochester, Stockbridge, and you look at the impact on our taxpayers and if you look at the impact of the education and the performance of our students, both those indicators have been very, very, very positive, good things. We're in a, we've got a challenge here but based on that track record, I think we're in a great position to move forward. Other questions on this shoot before we go further and the gentleman that I got on the phone call, we're gonna, if you wanna make a brief comment. Well, I guess my comment relates to a comment I made at your last meeting with regard to transparency. So I look at a letter that was from March 2024. And it says that there's a 3.11% decrease from last school year. But it also then qualifies it by saying prior to the CLA, and I don't feel that this is transparent because we all have to factor in the CLA, which I understand school districts have no control over. However, that does have a direct impact. So why doesn't this letter say due to the CLA, the Rochester school tax will increase by 14.04% and the Stockbridge school tax will increase by 8.32%. To me, that's transparent. And that's what I don't understand. We're not gonna have a discussion on that because we've got an agenda to complete. I will say that you have opportunities ahead. One is that the superintendent proactively communicated through coffees and meetings with the community and also in the letter. We also have our SUD annual report that will be coming that has detailed information. And then finally on May 7th, we will have our meeting and we'll have a presentation there and be able to take whatever questions or comments we have. One of the things- But where is the transparency? I received a letter from Stockbridge. Sorry, this is not an open discussion. I granted you the comment. This is not a repeat. So thank you very much. Point of order. One, it's customary to have the anyone who's speaking to identify themselves. And two, we do have in the agenda periods for public comment. We had a public comment period that was passed earlier. And I believe we have one future in the, today's agenda. Thank you. Thanks, Reverend. Could we have the speaker identify who we was? Name is Keith Spillacky. Thank you. Thank you Keith. Okay, let's keep going on the budget here. So, I mean, so where we're at is as a board, you know, you really have two different levers you could use and in order to change your tax rate, okay. So you could use some additional revenue from your last year surplus to put it as an offsetting revenue. And in order to gain a penny on the tax rate, you would be looking at needing to increase that 100,000 of revenue by 32,395.20, right, for a penny. Or, you know, you'd have to push the administration back to look at further expenditure decreases. I mean, really where we're at with that would be us needing to eliminate an elementary teacher, which could be problematic next year. And so that would be, you know, the last cut that we would be able to do and would be filling the position we've been trying to look for. But when we look at enrollment for next year, you know, we're expecting that our class sizes are gonna be good size at Rochester. So that's where that teacher would go. Yeah, I think the board's made it very clear that we wanna be a sharp pencil and we wanna be as cost-effective and we have been that way when you've got a 4% increase and you've got health insurance and salaries going up considerably more than that, considerably more than that. So, but we also said that we want a sound education where every kid can get the education they deserve. And we've asked you more than once, is this budget gonna allow us to continue on that mission? And I'll ask you again, is this budget gonna? You know, I'm really proud of the budget, like I started with, like 4%, I'll put that up to any other districts expenditure increase in the state. I mean, the state's averaging over 12 1 1⁄2%. And so, you know, the fact that Rochester Stockbridge is coming in at four, I'd ask anyone to do their research on it, it is a really solid expenditure budget. The surplus help us here on the draft of the warrants, our school warrants, we have Article 8 for the voters to authorize the school board to transfer a certain amount of money that's surplus of $389,000. Now, does that include the $100,000? So is it really $100,000 less than that? Yes, correct, it'd be 100,000 less than that. So you had a surplus of $389,460, that $100,000 comes right off of that. So we're really talking about $289,460. So then you could decide with that $289,460, we never say use every single dollar because there could be build-backs from last year, right? That that $20,000 you covered, especially when we think about build-backs that can occur in regards to the tuitions. So out of that remaining $260, you could choose to use some additional funds of the $260 toward revenue. You could also, you do have, we did our research on this, you do have a tuition reserve fund that was created in 2018 that you could also choose to add to that in the budget. I think the last meeting we all kind of like the idea of putting some tuition reserve funds. It's not in the budget, it's a reserve fund. Okay, but it's- It's not on the warning right now. It's not on the warning right now. We need to add that if you want to put that on the warning. And we increased what you were putting, remember the last draft you had $50,000. So we already increased it to $100,000 on the reserve. Sorry, on the last year surplus is your revenue figure. So we wanted to talk that through tonight. I do think putting some towards tuition makes sense. Yeah. I mean, so what is it per student and how many students should we be considering? You know, a placeholder you could use is 20,000. So if you wanted to do three kids, that's 60. To start. So the reason how that tuition reserve is- It was created, but there's nothing in it. There's nothing in it. Oh, yeah, that would definitely be. It was created in 18, it hasn't been funded since. Tara, I got that right. You did. Seems like we've got three possibilities here. We mentioned one, which is to start building that tuition reserve. And if we have a reserve, by definition, it's not zero. So the question is what we can do responsibly because those tuitions, we can't control either what the charge is per student or the number of students. We can influence the number of students and we're doing that already. So that makes sense prudently to set some money aside for those that uncertainty. The second thing is that we're trying to build a capital reserve fund so that we're not a hair on fire when things happen. And we've started that effort over the last two years for $65,000 a year. But by my math, that's nowhere close to if you take a depreciation of our buildings in their estimated lives and you set aside money. So another option we have is to boost our $65,000 to something more realistic. Well, and that is doing that here. Just to be clear, on article eight, that 260 number is in addition to what you budgeted. Well, yeah, we put 60,000 in our budget. As a transfer, right? Yes, but I don't disagree that. I don't either. Yeah, yeah. We don't have much to consider that. I just want to make certain who knows. So what's in that fund right now? Do we know that? 181,000 minus, I think the 40,000 we spent. Yeah. And it's just a pittance. So that's something that I think we need to nubile about. And the third thing is these increases, these percentage increases as much as we did with the 4% expenditures to consider being able to do more and one way to do more would be to dedicate some of that surplus monies to reduce the tax impact. So I like to hear from the board members on kind of those three choices and it's not either or. It's, to me, it's kind of how you carve the cake. And you're carving 260. We're carving 260 and the question is between the tuition reserve, the capital reserve and being able to cut that 4% increase, which is really a minus because of the way even more. So I wanted to hear from Robert and Justine. What are your thoughts on that? And then I'll swing back to Patrick. Robert? Well, I thought we had gone over this a fair amount. And although it's nice to hear that we may have additional students, I thought the balance we had come to was pretty reasonable, but I'm willing to be convinced for otherwise. Oh, remind me because my memory is continues to be blatantly undernourished. So I had, please remind us of Robert. Remind you of the, well, I thought the balance of what we're putting into reserve. That what we're putting into reserve is appropriate. What we're putting in the reserve would be the $260,000 for capital. Hearing you correctly. Is that right, Robert? The 260 into the capital, I thought that was, our figure was less than that. Could you clarify that, Tara? 260 is what I had based on using the $100,000 as offsetting. So I can go back and look at your other minutes. I don't know otherwise. So just to review, Robert, you had a surplus last year that was auditive of 389,460, all right? We've used 100,000 of that as offsetting revenue in your current proposal. Right. That leaves us 260. And so the question is, do you put that full 260 into capital improvements? Or do you take and take some of that 260 and put it toward a tuition reserve fund? And the third question is, do you take that 260 and put some of that also toward further offsetting revenue or not? Okay, my, as far as I'm concerned, I think the 260 going into reserve funds is appropriate, whether it should all go into capital or if we should divert some of it to, divert some of it to the tuition reserve fund, I'm easily swayed, but I think we should put that, that we don't need to put more into offsetting revenue. That's my opinion. Okay, thank you very much. I can hear that. Justine, what's your take? Yeah, I agree with Robert, but I'm more leaning toward the capital improvements. I think that that's something that I have in my mind a lot when I think about all the other things we're working on and mission and vision, and even tuition, not tuition enrollment. So for me, I would focus more on capital improvements and maintenance. That's my choice. I have a question for Jamie, if I may. Go ahead, Robert. Is, are you worried that we'll be locking this money into capital reserve when we might need, might need it in tuition reserve? Is that a worry for you at this point? It's a little bit of a worry. Yeah, I mean, my thought process was that, we have the tuition reserve set up, we ought to at least put enough money away to cover a student or two. I mean, I think we should put 60,000 of it into that. That covers three students, like you said. I think it's foolish to have a reserve fund without any money in it. We will find that when we need it. So that's 260 minus 60 for the, And on top of that, we already put in 60 into our budget. So we are, we will have 260 going in there. So why not take 60 of it and put it away in there? I don't think that it, I don't think putting any more towards the revenues going, like you said, isn't going to make a massive, significant change to the budget. And I mean, I think that we need, we need to put more money into our reserve fund for a capital, sorry, capital reserve fund. But I heard you say, of the 260, going for the reserve and then the rest of it for our capital. I'd be willing to do that. Yeah, I like that idea. Very much so about the capital improvement, so. So my question is, can we, what's the timetable? How quickly do you need this decision? By next week. We got to get a budget put to bed to start getting the hours out and stuff. Okay, dude, do you need any vote on this, Jamie? Or is just a sense of the word. I mean, you're warning accordingly. So as a board, you could approve your budget tonight. It is worn that way. If you chose and you could approve your warning and vote at Roberts actually by approving your warning. That's what, you know, change these figures. Or we would need to warn a special meeting. I'd suggest by Monday of next week to adopt a budget and a warning. Well, here's my take. Amy isn't here. But he isn't here. And Amy has shared her thoughts without seeing the full report. She's flying. She's probably still in the air trying to land and that sort of thing. So my tendency is this is a big decision. It's an important one. And I'd love to have it where we've got the opportunity for the full board to countenance. So, and you can just agree with me and I'll take them the whatever you say. But I guess my, even though it's another meeting, I, is there another way we can do this? I'd love to be able to have a discussion. Can we come to a conclusion where then you put together an email and have them approve it? No, we'd have to have an email. It has to be a public meeting for a good reason. So that everybody can hear us and follow us and it's recorded. So, and it's just, I think it's, I think it's important because this is an opportunity to really boost something that's been underfunded for years. Both tuition, we're starting to build the kitty and capital and it's the capital thing that from my professional experience always gets kicked down. You kick the tires. You mean you can't use this truck for another year? Of course you can use the truck. So, does the truck ever get replaced? Does it break down? We've got to do the responsible thing. But I'd like to have the opportunity for the full board and ask what would work for staff for a meeting next week, a date and a time.  I want to make certain before you, that we don't want to turn into tonight. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So, we're talking... Tuesday night, we already have two. Yeah, so Tuesday night's out. Monday night would work. I'd want to do it by Wednesday at the latest. I just, I want to start getting materials together. I can do anything. I can't do Wednesday, but I can do Monday. Justine, what are you out for Monday? I'm working right now. This is second. That'd be the 18. And Robert? I'll be fine for Monday. It really shouldn't take too, too long. No, I think this could be almost a one agenda item. Yeah, it would be two. I think I can do Monday, the 18th. You're okay? Yeah, similar. What would it be like at this time, similar time? And then I'll be back with you. Six. Will you put it in the calendar or something? Yeah. Okay. And where will it be? Here. Here, okay. So, let's do that. Six p.m. Monday, the 18th, right here at Stockbridge. It'll be hybrid. And hybrid. Okay. Other budget questions. Yeah, is the budget should be pretty, this is unchanged. I'm not going to change it for next week. You're going to literally see the same thing. What we're talking about is that it was Kerry O's money is how those are utilized. Well, I'm going to put a warning just so you know that Shell is only 100,000 toward revenue. Yes. And we're going to add a tuition reserve fund part of your warning for 60. That's correct. And we're going to make a decision on that after discussing that next Monday. Yeah. It's a little adjusted. We need to that night. And the remainder for the calendar. And if you change your mind that night, we just, we change it on the fly. Yeah. Okay. Let me just ask. I'm sorry. You're doing pretty well. Tara under a debt service. I thought we had finished all the debt service for the high school and that's gone. But we've got. That's your EI lease. The 39,700. That's your EI. That's the EI. Gotcha. Thank you. Maybe there had to be an answer to that. The other questions of the board on the budget. Okay. Let's go on then to annual meeting updates. Speaking there. We've got annual meeting updates. And we got an annual mail or yeah, they kind of go ahead and your warning. Well, the warning we're at, we already sort of talked about, but well, let me just go back there. For those of you who don't, like I am, I kind of get sloppy when I'm reading. I'm not that precise, but the warning, as our Australian ballot elections, the day after the town meeting, if I'm correct, it's on May 8th and our town meeting is on May 7th. And I believe that's in to respond in a positive way to people that were noticeably and understandably confused when they had to go to the town office to vote for the Australian ballot and then go for the budget and everything else. And this is a way that we can pass the budget and do all the other town meeting stuff. And then the next day, as we can remind them that night to go and vote for the candidate of their choice. So just notice that I think that's a very sophisticated way, simple way to make the election of our officers, excuse me, board members transparent and doable. So whoever came up with that idea, kudos. Okay, back to you. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So the annual meeting would be here. We'll start working on slides like we did last year. We have a few slides that are now geared toward 127, HH 50, I hear that folks know, they've been hearing a lot about, you know, all the things that have changed in regard to funding law. So we certainly will highlight some of that. We've received good feedback from both the White River Unified District presentation and that Sharon. And so we'll go to work on those slides. I, it would be great to have the board for the board to pick a spokesperson to speak to a few of these budget slides for that we can work with. Tara and I can't review a couple of the budgets. I just think it's important for the board or it could be, you know, Patrick's feeling really confident about talking about what's gonna take the reserve slide, right? And then we can connect with each individual board members on that slide and just rehearse it. You know, and I'm more than happy to talk about the financial impact of the Articles of Agreement between Rochester and Stockbridge that called for a review after five years. We've had five years and I'd like to be able to share that with the audience there. And I also, as you know, I'd like to look back and see what the actual tax impact is. Our school budget, you know, work with Tara and you and Amy and the board on that. Again, it's, we need to look at our, our vision's gotta be broad, looking ahead and also looking behind in a very simple slide or two can help see that perspective. Thank you. The mailer, where are we guys? Amy would love to delegate that too. Is that? It's going, I think we're gonna take that over so we can use something to learn what it sounds like. Okay, so we've got a good mailer template that we use now with all the other districts. What we do need though is a letter from the board. So we're gonna need to get, when do you need it? Well, Tara, I'm thinking the goal would be that we're trying to get that mailer totally completed by the end of next week. Correct. Oh, yeah, sooner rather than later. You might need to figure, fill in a couple of figures after we actually take formal action, but we're gonna have behind the scenes need to start going to work on this mailer this week. Once we finalize the budget, we'll finish up the mailer. And the target date from the mailer to, you know, they have to have it in hand within 10 days of the vote. We've tried to get it out in hand. But we're a little tight. Understandably. So, so I'm just trying to figure out here. You know, the good news is the printer's probably not quite as busy right now, Tara. Well, then theory, they normally aren't, but now with all of these rebotes that are happening and the meetings that got pushed out, we could potentially be having a first in issue. So I need to have a conversation with Spalding and see what their quantity is. So by Tara, by the 22nd, we've got to have the R said board letter. Definitely. Proofread and everything else in your hands. Is that correct? Correct. R21. Okay. Let me talk to Amy when she gets back on that. Okay. If we go to 8.4 annual warning, we talked about that and we've, I think, you know, that's direction on that. And we're gonna make that decision Monday evening here when we convene at six o'clock. Board development book study. I know that you're excited to talk about this and you're hoping that I'm gonna be brief. And I'm gonna be brief. And one reason I'm gonna be brief is because we're doing the right thing that chapter we were reading on the essential school board book, better governance and the age of accountability was avoiding pitfalls. And I read that chapter and there's like 18 pages in it. And these pitfalls were basically boards that were dysfunctional. Boards that didn't get along. Boards that didn't listen. Boards that didn't respect. Boards that individuals felt that they could speak for the board or a micromanage the staff. Boards that did not have a clear set of governance rules and protocols and I think our protocols and governors should have iterated in that chapter because they kept pointing to the need of what we've had here. And I'd like to say that we didn't do it under distress. We didn't do it because we had a problem. We just wanted to get stronger. We just wanted to get stronger. And I think we're pretty darn strong. So I brought up copies about that, but I'll just read a couple of our protocols, but individual board members don't have authority, only the board, the collective order. You could say this in your sleep. If you couldn't go to sleep, you could recite these things. The board will lead by example. We'll avoid words and actions that negatively impact an individual, our board or the district. Once the board makes a decision, the whole board will support it through actions and words. Surprises the board meeting shall only be brought forth under special circumstances. The board will bring any of its requests or concerns regarding personnel directly to the superintendent. It goes on. We've got 11 protocols. We've got six board governance principles. And so we're doing well on that. Now we're gonna have hurdles ahead. Everybody has a point of view about their schools and what should be done and what we're not doing and what we need to do. So we need to be to work together to listen and to learn and to respect and to do best for our students. So anybody else that wanna wait in on chapter four it falls to avoid. I wanna point out the scorecard section. We're already doing that evaluation process. I think that I thought I was like, yes, that's great. Oh, gosh. Yeah, and at least discussion and inevitably we kind of, yeah, we can do a little better there. You know, I hadn't thought of that or so, but the bedrock is that respect and understanding coherence in, I were here in what our role is, thank you, Pat. So we're gonna, let's see what the schedule is. April, we're gonna do chapter five when things go right. And then in May, we're gonna take a break and then we're gonna celebrate in June looking ahead. So thank you for your diligence and reading and making a difference. It can be fun. Okay, district's mission statement. We've got a great read draft by Justine and if it's okay, Justine, we're gonna push that back to April. I wasn't quite sure whether you had higher priorities. And we can do that as well as the endowment mission statement in April, if that's okay with you, Justine. Yep, that's fine. Thank you. Okay, action. We've done the tax sheet. We've done the warning mission statement. We're pushing, we're gonna defer the endowment mission segment, we're gonna defer new hires and resignations. None of them. None. Okay, public comment. And the Keith was here. Keith, are you still with us? Do you wish to have a public comment? You've talked about transparency. Is there something else that you'd like to talk about? No, I really would like to follow up before I was, you know, I was speaking at a turn and I appreciate the board's, you know, decision that I needed to be silenced at that point. But no, transparency is extremely important to me. And I received an email from Stockbridge earlier today which was the annual meeting warning. And I noticed in article seven that the numbers quoted which came from the FY25 estimated tax rate sheet, at least as I see it, they quoted the total expenditure of 4.8 and they quoted the 12,400 and changed for the equalized pupil rate. But they don't discuss what the impact is on the actual tax rate for the community. And I just don't understand that and everybody, you know, speaks about transparency but how do you address the fact that you're not telling the taxpayers what the actual increase is going to be to the individuals? Yes, and if I can cut in here, Keith, that's why we have an annual report. There's four of that information, charts, graphs and text and numbers. We also have a annual meeting and that's the whole purpose of this meeting together so that we can have a forum to discuss those things. But don't you want to make it simple for the people? Don't you want to spell it out? These articles are- Put the numbers out here, but you'd neglect to put in very important numbers. This is what the state requires. Yeah, I'm going to leave it at that with your opinion on that. That's really avoiding the question and that's my problem. So there is no transparency in this process. May I speak? I'll honor that. I'm going to go to Oregon State. It's board calendar. Yep, I'll mail it to you. Okay, Robert. This is Robert. Yes. I'm not sure which email you got and that maybe something was that generated by the town or can- It says the annual meeting warning and this is the legal voters of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District consisting of the towns of Rochester and Stockbridge are hereby notified and warned to meet at the Stockbridge campus of the Rochester Stockbridge United District in Stockbridge on May 7th at 7 p.m. to consider and act upon the following and you list articles one through 10. And as I said, article seven gives you a, you know a brief overview of total amount of the expenditure, the cost per student, but you don't really tell the constituents of our community of what that means to them. And I'm not sure how people make a decision without knowing, you know, you say all these reports, they're out there and yes, but let's make it simple. If you're repeating yourself and as a chairman, I'm gonna call you on it. May I- I was questioning about what I had. Yes, may I ask a question of Jamie? We haven't approved a warning yet. What- I don't know why the warning got shared other than it was part of the packet, Robert. Oh, I see. Okay. So, yeah, so let, this was a draft warning. I think I'm not sure exactly what you saw. I think there's what you have seen is some correspondence that is being shared with the board, which has not been approved yet. No, no, I see you now. I received this from Stockbridge, the Stockbridge board. This did not come from- I believe the select board sent it out, Robert, and I can't speak to all why that happened or if it was a mistake. Yeah, it didn't come from the school board. It didn't come from the school board. It hasn't been approved. It's still a draft and Keith, you've made your point. Okay, we're listening to you, but I'm not gonna spend the rest of the night having you repeat of Memphis's, it's fine. But let me tell you again, sir, I've gone to over 75 town meetings and school meetings in my career. Maybe it's closer to a hundred. Okay, the reason we have these meetings is so people like yourself can ask the question and those questions can be answered that we can provide not only written material, but presentation here on the spot. And so to say that, I can understand more of everything was a Australian ballot and you didn't have any information to make your vote on, but here you're sitting in a forum where you can ask questions and listen to the answers and then decide in your best ability, what's the best interest of the community? So I'm gonna leave it to that. Any other questions on that? May I make one response? What you received or I'm not sure exactly what you received. We have not approved a warning. I know in the documents that I have that we are considering for the warning. We do specify what the percentage increase is for Rochester voters and for Stockbridge voters. It is in my information. I'm not sure what information you have that may be some draft information which has not been approved for, yeah. The email I received. May I just say something? Yes. Sure. Yeah. So Robert, right. The tax sheet will certainly go out to voters in the annual mail or and article seven, that language is what we are required to provide via statute. So I would let any constituent know if they have concerns about the way that language is worded, that needs to be taken up with the legislature. Thank you. Can I say one more thing? For what it's worth, I don't know what Keith saw either. And I see the warning that we have as a draft and realize that it is a draft. So I think as far as public comment goes, I think it would be helpful for the public to comment and on information whether it be correct or not. It is confusing to them and leave it as a statement for us to work with as we continue with the draft. Is that fair? Is that something that we can just have Keith concisely describe his concern? And then that would be the comment and we can use that later without having to answer right now as a board who hasn't seen what he's seen. We can't answer it because we don't have a full board here. No, and also we don't know what he's working with but I think it's helpful to hear the public confusion. For me, it is anyway because I know there's a lot of it and I hear a lot of it in the public. So I think it's helpful for us to hear it without having to necessarily give an answer. But if we can let him just express his concern and confusion and without kind of trying to answer right off, I think it would be helpful. Yeah, I think article seven is I think the confusion. I think that keeps indicating that the tax rate should be there. The tax rates never finalized until the yields finalized in May or June. It's an estimated finalized tax rate. Article seven language is what the legislature says you need to have on your warning. But Jamie, this is Keith again. I guess my question is, but you quote numbers from that tax rate sheet. So why don't you include all of the numbers? Because you can't put that on the article, Keith. I just answered that. Take that up with the legislature. How long change the law and then we can do it. Thank you, Keith. Is there any other member of the public here that would like to speak? Okay, next meeting is going to be a special meeting on Monday at six PM right here. And it's going to be a hybrid meeting again. And then the next regular meeting will be on Monday, April 1st at the Rochester campus. Future agenda items, I think right now it's getting ready for a meeting and certainly getting the warrant and the budget for the way. Anything else you want to add, team on future agenda items? And of course we've got the two mission statements that we're going to be doing in April. One for the board or one for the endowments. Can we have a discussion around? Not Monday. No, no, no. No, no, that's meeting capital improvement plan. I think we'll have it graphed by that. Great. And we're going to have a draft coming up on the communications. How we attract, retain and do a social capital. So that's going to be as well. So some big things there. We also got some tests coming And then the results we're going to see later in the spring. Okay, we're all set. Anybody want to call for an adjournment? You want to move? I move. Okay. Second, somebody? Second. I second. All right. I'll vote CA. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Monday.


So, the two studies that are going to be published in Nature talk about the whole thousand genomes project and what was found. So the two papers, one is kind of an overall paper focusing on all the variation. The other one is specifically focused on the structural variation. Looking at 2504 people from 26 populations, there were 88 million sites in the genome where people were found to differ. So that's a lot of genetic variation. Most of those variants are rare, but about 12 million of them are found at more than 5% frequency. This includes samples from East Asia, such as Japan and China, samples from South Asia, such as Bengali and Tamil, samples from Africa, including the Yoruba and Isan, samples from Europe, I should say ancestry from Europe, including people from Utah and the Finns, and samples from the Americas, including Mexican Americans, people from Barbados, African Caribbean ancestry. An interesting thing that was found in these studies is that most genetic variation is common to all populations. Things like apiobloid types, Alzheimer's risk variants, the ApoE variants, they're in all populations, so most of the variation from person to person. You could be an Isan population in Nigeria, and have one person to another has these variants, or you could be a Fin, or you could be Han Chinese, and you still have apiobloid types, for instance. So most variation among people really is shared, which is different from what, just based on what people look like, you say, oh, people in different populations must be very genetically distinct. That's really not true. The differences are not very large. Another result from these studies, it turns out when people have done genome-wide association studies, most of the variants that contribute to risk of disease are not in genes. So clearly they're in regions that are regulatory for genes that affect how genes are turned on or off or how they operate, but they're not just genes. So there's a lot of focus on genes, but it's really important to broaden that, to recognize that the way we function is not just the genes themselves, but what regulates how the genes work. So a lot more functional work is needed to really be able to interpret someone's genome. We're talking about personal genomics. If you have your genome sequenced, so here's a CD, here's your genome. What does it mean? At the moment, we actually have very little idea, certainly for certain diseases, mostly rare diseases. We have a very good idea. If you have this variant, you're going to get that disease. But mostly for the common diseases, for the complex diseases, type 2 diabetes, depression, asthma, heart disease, all these diseases, there's a very complex interaction between a whole bunch of genetic variants and the environment. And so it's not just, you have this variant, you get this disease. And yet, these are very common diseases, there is a genetic contribution, we can understand that better. We can hopefully develop ways of preventing the disease, treating the disease. And so in order to have a better understanding of that biology, we really need to have a better understanding of how those variants work to increase the risk. So it'll be very, very important to get functional studies to go from the black box of the variants to people having disease. When the paper comes out, it sounds like, okay, the project's over, what are you going to do next? When I finished HATMAP, which was a precursor project to this, people were asking me, did I still have a job? What happens is that you keep on moving. Part of our job as program officers is to be considering what the next projects are. Already, I've been involved in a functional variation RFA to try to understand what are the causal, to try to support researchers to develop approaches to figure out which are the causal variants. I work with Aaron Ramos for ClinVar, which is a database of phenotypic and clinically significant variants. And so in thinking about function, thinking about all of the variants. So I've already been moving on, trying to anticipate what's needed next. Our job is to create the future.