635. 633. 633. Call the order of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified Board special meeting. No, board retreat. This is draft minutes. All right. There we go. Rochester Stockbridge looks exactly the same. Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board of School Directors regular meeting. Tuesday, January 4th, 2022. First one there. 6.30 p.m. at Stockbridge Campus via Google Meet Agenda.  We have a quorum present. We are missing Patrick Hudson. No, Pat's on the phone. Pat's on the phone? Yep, that's him. That's 98 number. Oh, okay. Thank you. And Robert said he would be calling in, but I don't see him yet. He's on the road back from Massachusetts, so I expect to see him later. Do we need an adjustment to the agenda for that? Yes. You have to add under discussion, under 9.5, the tuition rate, setting your tuition rate for gosh, what's that? Give me 22-23 school year, and then under action items. Let me just get that down. Setting tuition rate. Yep. FY28 announced tuition rate. Yep. Setting tuition rate 22-23, and that's discussion, not necessarily action. Right, and then action 5, and then 10.2, you need to take action on it tonight. You do have to take action. Well, we almost always, okay, we almost always take action on our discussion items as opposed to action. I know Dana, um, Dana, whoever's name is, Jamie, to hold over from his old way of doing things, but we will do that. We have to do it tonight. Thank you. Yep. Right, Tara, it's got to get done tonight. I'll let you on a special meeting between now and the 15th. Nope, thank you. Cool. Is that the only adjustment to the agenda? Are there any other adjustments to agenda? Patrick? I don't know if he's there or not. Listening. I think we can... No, sorry. I'm here. Okay, good. The only thing I had to say was I just had a quick chat with Jim Shans, and he reached out about the generator and the town. You know, they're willing to still pay the maintenance cost. Okay. So if we can present down with... You've got it as an item in the principal's report. Can we talk about it in the principal's report? Yeah, we can. Let's bring that up in the principal's report because she has an item about that in her report, so that would be a good time to talk about that then. Thank you, Patrick. So yeah, I don't think we need to add that as an agenda item. I'll just, are we all in favor of amending the agenda as at a 9.5 setting tuition rate for 2223. Show of thumbs will do for me and an i from you, Patrick. Thank you. We're good. Okay. Amy, you ready for your regular timekeeper duty? Would that be all right? You thought I was going to ask you to make a report, didn't you? I know that. Look. Okay, consent agenda. Let's say, I think five minutes. A public comment. I don't even know that we have any public here at this point. What's that? Well, you'll just have to leave it anyway. Board comment. Robert had a comment. I don't know if he'll be here, but I can make it for him. So let's just give it a five. Reports to the board. Oh, if this includes the social emotional data report, then that's going to take a little more. It does. 15. Yeah. 15. Five for superintendent. Five for business manager, because that doesn't include the budget. We're doing that later. Right. And then Negotiations Committee, which would be Jamie. Tara, who's got that for? Oh, you're on the, that's a bill. Who do you think? Five? Two less. Two. One. One. Celebration of learning. Excellent. And we have our guest, Donna Gallant. Thank you. 61 year old brain here. And what's, how long is your presentation? Let's say 10. 10 minutes. Perfect. All right. Draft four. 22, 23, 15, 20. Okay. It's a pretty big one. Before we approve it next time, let's, let's give us 20 just to be safe. Annual mailer. And we just talking about that. I think we can cover that in five, maybe, but it's really just decided. Yeah, yeah. The audit, we have to possibly accept that tonight, right? If we don't have any challenges or major questions. Tara, what do you think to present the audit? What do you need? I sent you my memo that outlines it. So unless you have specific questions, just a matter of you adopting it, and we're going over the management recommendation, which will be less than five minutes. Oh, I didn't, I'm sorry. Oh, yes, I did see that. And I, yeah, I do have a few questions just because the language is confusing to me, but let's give it 10. Give it a two. Mission, vision, work on goal setting. And I'm sorry. Justine, you sent me an email. I saw about two weeks ago saying we should have a meeting about this. So we have not moved forward with that. So I'm sorry. Well, I think, I mean, two minutes, two minutes to talk about other meeting. Yeah, I think so. And then setting tuition rate. Five minutes. Five minutes. Yeah, fine. Do we have any new hires resignations? Yeah, good. Okay.  Please, you know, tell us when we get there. When we get to our limit, not that we'll stop necessarily, but we want to keep going. Okay. Consent agenda 4.1. We have approved the minutes of Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 regular 4.2 approved the minutes of Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 special through the minutes Tuesday, November 22nd, 2021 special and 4.4 approved the minutes of Saturday, September 18th, 2021 special retreat. Does anybody have, if you don't have specific questions, we can take them as a slot. But if you have specific questions about any one of these, we'll break it up. Let me know by indicating your hand if you have a question about any of these notes or Patrick verbally. Okay, then I'll entertain a motion to accept the slate of these minutes from December 7th, December 1st, November 22nd, and September 18th. So as so moved by Bill, seconded please. Second by Justine. Thank you all in favor signify by an aye. Aye. Aye. Good. You guys have a Robert. Oh, Robert, welcome. Good to see you. Where is he? Oh, yeah, there he is. Sorry. Yeah, old man here. You haven't because is there any public comment? There being none, we'll move on. Is there any board comment? And Robert, we talked, this might be a moment for you to say your. I think I previously reported that did a walk through with Lyle and Norm at the high school and we had found some interesting things. I will be meeting with the people doing the study for the repurposed feasibility study for the repurposing like permission from the the superintendent of the board to talk with Lyle and possibly have him talk with us in our meeting about what he found in the in the high school. We found some significant deficiencies and I think they there's actually been some some repairs done. So I'm just looking for some permission to to sort of download from Lyle of what what he found so I can pass it on for the purpose of them estimating what sort of what sort of costs are going to be going forward. So I don't see any reason why we need I think we've approved you conversing with them months ago. So I don't see I appreciate your rigor in this but I don't see any reason unless somebody else has a reason why we need to approve it again. I think Robert you're well Amy wait Amy first. Okay. I just wanted to say that I do continue to support this effort as Robert is speaking. So I do continue to support. Great. I do too. I think the more communication the better. Anybody have a problem? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Great. Robert you're good to go. Keep us informed please. Okay and the reason I asked is it may involve you know using up some of his time which I'm sure he's being reimbursed by by the school or the SU. I think that's that's exactly what the going toward this objective of what we want. This is a very very good way to spend our money is to have these people talking so that report comes back in the best favorable light. That's what we want. We've made that very clear. Good. Is there any further board comment? I just want to make quick thing to staff teachers administration sorry. It was a crazy November or December. There was almost every week it felt like there was a new report coming out of isolations and I just well done. He just did really really well and kept us open and kept us safe and I just was very proud of our schools and our SU but our schools in particular so thank you for that. Thank you. Well well said. Good. Let's move on. Board report let's go to the superintendent. So we said you have your board report in front of you and the only thing you really wanted to draw your attention to was the last page of it where it talks about the waiting study that's being happening in the legislature and he just wanted you guys to really make sure you took a minute to kind of process. I do remember at the SU meeting I'm talking about that it was it wasn't great for all the school the districts of the SU but that it's good for us it brings down our per pupil tax rate by pretty significantly the decrease of 15.9 percent right percent or it depends which proposal but it doesn't there's no percentage here but I assume that's a percentage oh yeah I believe that the percentage so there's no percentage 50.9 is a percentage as the other ones are there. Good. Nothing formal yet but it's good that they're talking about it. Well and I guess anybody who's listening to this wouldn't hurt to write your legislators and tell them how you feel about this because it's obviously good. Bill. I was going to say you know the numbers look good for most of our SU communities relative to the corrected weighing and I think there's a lot of consensus that the current weight system was flawed and they had a consultant team come in and they identified that came up with two possible models of correcting it one is to come up with a corrected formula and the second one which is Jamie's got proposal number two is to kind of establish a fund that would be distributed to those communities that have been under counted as far as equalized students I think there's a growing feeling that proposal number one is the one that if the legislature adopts a model that has correct factors in it and a revenue source that we're better able to count on that on the long run the problem with setting up a kitty as the kitties can be as remember as when we were kids when we went into the kitchen and when our parents were looking we took those graham crackers or whatever they says and we and that's the problem with the second proposal which on the short term will help us but maybe not the long run the other thing to keep in mind is not clear and there's a webinar put on by the Vermont school board association this Monday at 12 to talk to the leaders of the other study and the committee that presented something to the legislature when the legislature will act and as much as we hope that they'll act promptly to help us in our budgeting there are other communities that and I would suggest there are the possibly the more afloat communities that might have some feelings that no let's study this some more and let's kick the can down the road so we can't count on it but I agree with our superintendent that things look good and the legislature does its duty communities like Rochester and Stockbridge will be benefited in our taxpayers very good any other questions at this point for the superintendent's report being done let us move on principles including social emotional data report all right so starting with the principal's report um first of all just kind of some focal points to highlight slash that we're not in that um our new our website will launch this Friday it is I just saw and the only thing that needs to be added or a couple of pictures but um it just got the new length this afternoon so it's pretty exciting and very user friendly and exciting that we're going to be like an our website with options to go to Stockbridge or Rochester so it can be one update with a lot of different uh information pertaining to all of us what is the address it's going to be oh I'm going to get it wrong because I've only seen it once I might have to forward it to you guys at the board just so I don't get it wrong um but I believe it's rsudschools.org but don't hold me I'll get it forwarded to you to make sure you all have the right one um just oh yeah no well it's just a question as I looked at it um when I was thinking about the single website do we want to call ourselves anything else we sort of never really took that on and it wasn't the time to take that on back then but we're a much more unified organization than we were back when the merger happened and I just wonder it's it's I mean I could see lots of reasons not to because you know it's just and I get to these reasons when I get when we talk about the budget what I think our goal is for the budget this year anyway let's raise the question let's go on we can talk about it another time yeah um I don't see anybody going yes yes yes yes so I think that's a good reason to just maybe that will come up in our in our vision committee that you know our goals committee meeting sure I think it's a really really bad names right now suddenly anyway really really awful names um good and then we are at that mid-year assessment point so the window is open where we're getting ready to start some assessments so the next meeting we'll have some academic data to present out to folks um and then I think kind of the other pieces that are getting ready to go um is winter wellness we'll launch next week um as long as health and safety conditions are met is what I'm gonna put in there um and then I just want to say a shout out to both communities and some local farms we were able to put together a hundred food boxes between both uh campuses for all our families to go home with for the holidays and that was through farm to school monies and local trustee money and some just donations and other items that we had so it was great to be able to do and spread to both communities this year so yeah that was amazing and a lot of physical work with you all I saw that it was and there's a lot of people even Jamie and Tara helped us put it together last Tuesday when they were over visiting so that was great that's great that was going thank you so much it was awesome to do so I um I took everybody for sure so um I think those are kind of the big things outside of the report that I just wanted to make sure to highlight um just a clarification um I see that the trust structure is going ahead is there a reason why I mean I know some of the government funding took a while I just was I was sort of hoping they'd be done by this time of year so we'd be able to use them uh by the time we got approval he was already working on some other ones got you got you that's even and I have been everything together pretty closely yep no that's good yep um oh just tiny yeah um I did notice that they plowed to right in front of I yeah and I was just seeing was a little like don't use this um good so well I had to corral some people out of it today oh good oh that's that's a good song the kids think it's fascinating that there's no snow under those two spots so they're very engaged and I think that's that's great that's great um good no that's great that's what I have anybody else have questions for our principles just thank you you're well thank you guys um so have a question yeah but I don't have a question but this was the time I do believe Pat was going to talk about a generator yes thank you very much absolutely go Pat yeah um no so I just had a quick conversation with Jim Shans and uh to try to reiterate that especially we had what I joined up in their meeting a couple months back um and he's putting together his report and uh town budget for the year and wanted to have a line item to um um to uh basically pay for the maintenance cost of the generator that was kind of the deal that that they were willing to um provide uh those costs associated so if we can get I don't know I know that in the um original proposal from Brookfield they kind of had a a section paragraph on you know the different options for service um maintenance after install so I just wasn't sure which route we were going to go um with that if we've decided that or whether we need to decide that and then have that information along to the select board yeah I think Lyle gave me a recommendation and we took that route and I want to say it's like the $750 route Pat but don't quote me okay um but I can get that for you and I'll send it to you and Jim okay that sounds good is that the best way to do that so he can include it as he needs 750 no I think it's an annual service yeah clearly now we don't have that on our budget so we're not double economy no it is not currently in the budget so okay I can do that so that just sticks out in my brain but I want to double check with Lyle because you know I that that number sounds familiar okay so I'll get that and I'll send it to you and Jim and then you guys can move forward as you need does that work and if it goes forward then it will be in the report hopefully approved at their town meeting in March March and then we will not need it to our budget but we'll actually have some time to know right for sure good because if obviously if it gets voted down then we gotta adjust then we have to adjust yep good all right anything else for the principal oh no uh social emotional sorry yeah so social emotional um so this data that is in front of you it's kind of a bunch of different breakdowns of all the data together though it's broken down by day of the week how often that office the office discipline referral is given it's both campuses combined k through six because if you start to break out like gender becomes a little identifiable as well as just different types of behavior we're seeing and um where we're seeing it when we're seeing at what frequency and um by gender and it compared last year the whole year to this year at this point um so kind of what some things and I kind of highlighted these in the terms but I want to stress one thing that's a little different than when we all went to school is like the office discipline referral is not the consequence it's how we document behaviors when they happen after redirections occurred after we've tried several different strategies it's not like a detention slip is sometimes what adults equate it to and it's really just for us to use as a tool and us being staff faculty and staff of when we need to track what behaviors are going on so for instance if you look at the playground there's quite this uptick in playground office discipline referrals well that tells us we need to reteach our expectations around playground and maybe even hone in on say how to use something about stop talk and walk away versus maybe getting heated and putting our you know pushing which happens with younger kids when they can't express their emotions so that's just one example but that's what we use this data for there's a whole separate section on the office discipline referral where we talk about what the consequences would be parent contact loss of a privilege change in a seating assignment meeting with myself um so it's it I just want to set the scene that way because that's something that's different for folks to think about um and I think the big thing uh two bigger things on here that really have stood out to us are one we do have an uptick in these referrals on the playground so that's a focus of what's known as our PBIS team are our positive behavior intervention systems is what PBIS stands for which is a team that needs once a month um we are seeing the number of referrals start to take down which is good because it means expectations have been put in place we are reteaching expectations right now because we've been on vacation for a little bit um and the bigger one that will continue to be something we're gonna have to work at as a whole group um and really set an action goal around in my book is the difference in males versus females receiving um referrals for behavior and could well be ready for yeah so that's kind of all of that well it's a lot of it well I saw good news in the majors yeah seemed down they do majors um mostly seemed down uh defiance I guess it'd be the only one that but uh otherwise that's that's a good I mean if you're in minor and it's disruption minor physical yeah and one thing that's kind of tricky about major versus minor is a minor is like there's been several redirections and tries and then it can kick to a major when it's the same type of behavior that's been documented multiple times okay so it's not that it's necessarily worse it's more that it's repeated and when we see that happening one of the things that tends to happen is it's usually a very specific time of day it's happening so we're able to really hone in and develop a specific plan to help support that kiddo or kiddos to be able to um succeed because that's what it's really all about so that can be a piece that sometimes makes that data look a little deceiving um I'm jumping in with a second question who else has got anything to ask here sort of looking where's your bill I got a comment um one is it this reflects these are difficult times and and here we are some of us are geezers and we're having a difficult time and behaving ourselves you can imagine when you're elementary age students and they're reflecting what they see on tv or facebook or whatever the case is so so that's the first reality the second one is that our system under our leadership and the team that lindy's put together with teachers and and interventionists and and behavioral support team um you've you've got metrics so you can figure out what's happening and then you can analyze with those metrics what can we do how do we better intervene or whatever the case is it's very hard to be effective if you don't have the metrics you can talk about but it's awfully hard so I commend the staff both in developing the matrix uh the metrics and then having a team and a protocol to to tackle it and it gives me confidence that as we go through the school year these numbers are going to decline I must say and bullying even though it's a teeny bit none um major disrespect major physical so these are things I and uh Ethan talked about that but that's the that's the good news and um I just want to commend what you're doing and then reinforce the importance of what you're doing because it seems like you've got the spotlights on this and it's not only the kids that are acting out they don't know better but it's it's the it's their fellow classmates and they can affect the whole atmosphere of the classroom so um this is important uh you're on top of it and I appreciate what you're doing any questions or comments Robert or Patrick I just have one question if do you ever think about what the male female if you're curious about it um and maybe this is a can of worms and I shouldn't go there but uh the gender of the teacher or the person sending um I think that that is a factor is the way I'll put that I think um when you break it down by grade it's very telling as well which like I said I can't do because it's identifiable but when we that's how specific we look at it as a team and it's it's very interesting to see I think it has a lot to do with language and how we you know there's this book called the power of our words and it's something we're gonna um advantage that we probably look at next year I'm not gonna add one more thing to anybody's plate right now but um it's something we've talked about because I do think there's sometimes a communication barrier that plays a huge factor into it and I also think sometimes similar genders tolerate some different things from each other than that is not so necessarily so when it's different genders so that's my own theory I'm gonna put that disclaimer out there no no no I I'm glad you're looking at that because I think I'm just glad you're looking at it the other thing I'm very glad you're thinking of talking about language because I remember when I went back when I went to my very first school board meeting years ago I saw the school board doing school speak at a concerned mother and she had no idea what they were saying and she freaked because she had no idea what they were talking about about our child and she and I I understood and it was fascinating I never forgotten it but it was all about language and how we talk in these you know we think that everybody talks like school board talk or whatever and it doesn't is not true not to mention disciplinary talk from the home to the classroom there's a whole different language there's all kinds of things that might be there just kids and one of the trainings and I talked about this in my principal's report too is we've now done two parts of direct instruction training with Janie Feinberg and she talks about and re-emphasizes and I'm a firm believer in it that everything is a reflection of us in the directions and instruction we give as the adult if a kid isn't following a direction or isn't learning it's because something we did or said and how we communicated that and that was like the key point of emphasis that we've talked about as a group like think about your language and how that impacts whether a student understood the direction could follow the direction or actually learned in the situation and we see it in our social emotional data and we'll see it in our academic data too but I did think of you when I put my key terms just one sorry question for lindy we're going to talk about the budget very soon but I guess my question is if we're talking about this now does the budget reflect the the needs the staffing whatever the backing you need to be able to take this on successfully yep so there's something called a best grant that we access quite a few funds from which sends teachers to training that we do as well as supports the data that data system that we collect with and university of Vermont has put together this pbis network positive behavior intervention supports and systems and they offer free all sorts of free webinars and trainings that we access what you'll see in the budget and I can point it out when we get there is money towards also celebration because we like to celebrate successes and that's what we use a lot of that money for thank you you're welcome thanks for asking speaking of which I still have 200 bucks from the truck from the truck so yeah I gotta get that final question yes yeah just yeah I'm not we're not moving on oh okay I have a question oh is outdoor learning considered a special for this purpose it is now I can only because the number was so low in the number of referrals in across all specials like it's it's not even I don't remember what the tool is I'll look hold on yeah like it's maybe six or seven all together okay oh well yeah I just wondered if that was lumped in there it is there's quite a conversation about where it should go though like we were making it but good any further questions on social emotional data if not let us move ahead to the business manager 7.3 thank you so you have my report that I'll mind the upcoming dates in January for both the business office and the school food authority and then the rest of my discussion items are later on in your agenda so do some questions on due dates or reports on how can we answer them um just I don't know uh how how how is it how's the this is an SU really question but how are you feeling going forward into budget season this year as opposed to years before budget season is stressful but is it is it less what I'm hoping to hear is that it's a little less stressful is because things seem to keep getting more organized at the business office and you know is the agency of education they continue to delay and meeting their requirements to get us calculations and actual finalized calculations that we can take to the bank so that used to be a challenge and I don't foresee there being any substantial change there over the next year or so just based on how fast legislation seems to be changing this feels like there's a letter to the editor on that you know because that's what you got to do you got to write to your legislators and say hey brother governor and say hey your organization is not efficient oh good okay great any questions on the report and at least terror at least we're winnowing down because the list used to be a lot bigger of all the things that were a problem and if it's just them okay that's like the weather very good and being done thank you so much Tara thank you principal for your friend uh negotiations committee bill yes um we've had one meeting with the teachers association and so just tell me which contract or what are you a couple of the teachers um professional and this is the one where we agreed to a one year or no two year with the last time didn't we just I don't remember just tell me what the last one was the power professionals that we had two year contract with two year they got a two year the last time we negotiated and we need to negotiate whether the contract's going to be for one year for two years and that's something that's going to be on the table I would um anyway we had an initial meeting we exchanged ground rules I think we've got a consensus my sense is I've been a negotiation a long time that we've got a good sense and respect on both sides that we want to do business and we want to be fair um to everyone and shortly we'll be meeting again and having the exchange of proposals from both sides and maybe the initial explanation for those and then we'll be proceeding um we hope that we can get this done um in a timely fashion for both sides and that would be our hope yep good any questions for the negotiating team there being none we are ready for the fun is this part of your no that's for my kiddos but you wrote the cards right oh yeah I we're doing a book tasting tomorrow a book tasting happening before fifth and sixth graders tomorrow so that's what that's the beginnings of but that's not what I had planned no but I want a picture of that and like and maybe you put a picture of that on the website that's that's just to me well it's kind of there's other things on the table so wait till tomorrow when I have set up in the morning but I mean I just this I just oh it's pretty cool it's really amazing what a great idea Courtney would just yeah I actually thought of her actually what I'm doing she yeah you should send her an email this idea so anyway sorry take up your time so can I trouble you for that slideshow the guy 456 literacy yeah there you go sure thank that's more exciting sorry so at stockbridge we have a fourth grade literacy class and then a five six literacy class so I put a little slideshow together yesterday just to give just to show you some highlights our kiddos in reading gonna jump to the next slide so a part of literacy is guided reading groups interactive read aloud and responding mini lessons word study teacher reading aloud and the kids responding their independent reading and responding and also book clubs can I ask you about that stuff yet right now what is what it what does response mean meaning that they're not just reading they're reading and then thinking and then responding to what they're doing okay via writing right via writing so a part of the part of the brilliance of this year I'll say is that is that when the need for reading interventionist came up this year and lindy and I talked about it and I took on that role I needed to give something up and Maureen was looking for more our math and science teacher so she was willing to start learning how to start learning but teaching writing so I'm supporting her with teaching writing but our kids are doing just as much writing in reading class as well so they don't even I don't even know how much they realize it but they're getting reading and writing in both places great and a lot more writing is happening so we're seeing just what we said as an objective yeah it's it's been great so I am focusing on just a few different parts of the literacy just to have you see it so one of the things that I think is really awesome is guided reading and here's some sample books that you guys in person get to see so this is some of the books that we may use in guided reading guided reading is flexible groupings based on where kids are currently reading at and I'm constantly assessing them I meet with all groups for days a week there's two groups in fourth grade and three groups in five six how it works is a group gets together with me everybody else is independently working and I'll explain how that happens and the group that's reading with me after introducing the text and talking about the text they're all able to read independently on their own and then I read here each kid I'll read so that I can give them feedback or support as needed so everybody gets individual attention right where they're at with where they are reading which is awesome and because of Janie we mentioned Janie with direct instruction already and because of my learning from her one of my groups my lowest end group are in these books as well but I'm supporting them in more of the DI approach DI meaning direct instruction okay thank you so for like DI you wouldn't ever have a kid just take a book and read it and think that they could you know successfully and get every word and it's important that they don't read words wrong and think that's how the word what the word really is so for those kiddos that I'm reading more DI approach so they read only two or three sentences we read it together so it's I'm able to be flexible we're able to be flexible with these sorts of groupings and then I have a student who's reading above even the highest level so she reads with that group so she's still a part of a group reading but then she also reads a couple of books a week on her own at her level as well so that everybody is really every student is getting supported right where they're at with reading and pushing them keep pushing them up and up and up because that's been successful um they all read about two books a week so this is what those books look like this is where this is our current fourth grade the books you're holding is the current fourth grade on one end of the you hold it because the camera's not on me so if you could hold them up just so they can see a little bit you guys have to come and see these in person you can see them in Rochester also is this Fonteson Pinot this is Fonteson Pinot which is it so this is I don't know where I'm pointing this but this is some of the books but they're super engaging nonfiction as well as fictional different kinds of texts and then this shows this is my kiddo that's at the highest level and so that's a book that she might be reading but the kids are really engaged with that and which is exciting so here's some pictures of them in guided reading right in this room and they and they love the books another part of the literacy program is an interactive read aloud which is also an FMP FMP meaning Fonteson Pinot and in this there are awesome text sets so these are whole packs of books here's a set this is fourth grade text and these is called a text set of figuring out who you are that's the name of the text set for them oh I see so it says group of books it's a group of books text sets yeah and then here's one of the five six and this one is under the category of empathy sorry about that though this is empathy I want to take somebody's home yeah I was gonna say I love the books looking at his books this is great so the beautiful books it's awesome text sets they work really well but what I found especially last year when I was part of the year in person and part of your working with virtual kids is how can I have every kid have access to those books when I can't always be with them to read them to them and I need to work with guided reading groups so I'm needing them to be independent so can I trouble you to show that history historical fiction slideshow so something that I do is take the books and create a slideshow for my kids that they can have access to which has and you can zip would you say access to on their computer on their computers yeah okay so they can all get into google slides and I teach it's something it's called mini lessons so a mini lessons like 10 to 15 minutes teaching one particular concept that you want them to then take that concept and put into practice so we in December we were really focusing on historical fiction so these are the that up there's a picture of the book one of the books that would be in a text set and then I find somebody or I do it myself if I can't find somebody who's reading the book sometimes it's the author or another teacher reading the book and have the link so the kids can click on the book trouble you to do that and have access to any any slideshow click on the book itself and then there's a link to the book and you don't have to oh so they can click on that and then they can hear the book and that also supports kids and then that also supports kiddos where the book might be more than they might be able to read but they can listen to the book so the books are here kids can pick them up and read them or they can listen to them and then they are responding so then there's some prompts that I give them the kids always have choices love choices so respond to the texts in with one of those questions so that's a part of what interactive read aloud looks like beautiful books kids are engaged slideshows there so everybody can be independently working that's one of the pieces they can be working on while on with a guided reading group and everybody's engaged and reading great books okay so here I'm gonna if we can come back to the slideshow the um yes that one great so that's interactive read aloud and students responding and we're gonna go to the next one which is just some pictures of kiddos working some on computers some having a physical book in their hands so they do read on computer some they do read on the computer some yeah this is also something that they can read with a friend so that can be paired things so it doesn't have to be everything is independent so it's one of those places where they have although most of them do do it independently there's only a couple of them that might do it together this is a picture of some students in book club I've been doing book clubs in the humanities class that I teach which is a couple of days a week and that's more student choice choosing what it is that they want to read and giving them lots of choices of what that might look like and then be supporting them all in class with that that's a way that I also target history and social studies and so there's beautiful books that we have related to that and you'll see in one of the pictures one of the books this is a Smithsonian's North America book which opens up to the 18th so that is super fun to read and especially to do it with pairs and then students creating to do research related to different things in history and create slide shows or what kinds of great learning stuff so that's just one of the history texts that we use and I love that one because it's North America so there's no boundaries that humans have made up it's just kind of thinking about people and animals and geology and all that's happened in our continent from the beginning of earth's history humanities is also where we learn about civics and citizenship and all that sort of stuff so the other thing I wanted to highlight are many lessons so many lessons are some things that you would imagine happens in reading grammar and genre studies and looking at writer's craft and things like that theme and plot but this year I've also incorporated because of Janie's training of me and what I've learned from her is um some comprehension skills and strategies through some of the resources that she shared so this is another place where students are getting vocabulary and parts of speech but also deduction and classification and reasoning and inference and the the resource that I'm using is actually focusing on body systems which I love because I love to teach and think it's so important to learn about the brain and your body and how it functions there's so many things we need to know knowing about your own body and how it operates seem pretty vital um so that's actually in that DI piece as well so that's a part of what I'm doing incorporating that this year for the first time is direct instruction comprehension skills and many lessons also happen with word study stuff the first thing up there is morphographs which are parts of words that's one of the things I've learned from Janie too that if you learn parts of words you'll learn to spell more words than just learning how to spell words so if you can spell the parts and you understand those parts mean those morphographs mean then you can spell it more so I remember a lesson in that yeah so I just want to say that things change every year here at Stockwood we do think it's a little a little different a little better I feel each year and that's what it looks like this year another part that I wanted to highlight is just read aloud in response so this is one of the best parts of teaching I think is being able to read to kids and engage kids with reading and there really isn't time for that to happen in literacy class unfortunately even with as much time as we may have first of all I don't have four five six together so I don't have them all together to do that so Lindy and I had talked about this summer I was like you know what I think I'm going to do it during lunch I'm going to do it when they are eating they because they need to not be chatting or mass off and eating once we're inside advantage of the smaller school yeah right as opposed to Rochester that'd be hard there's so many yeah right there's there's 16 of them not in the lunch room I keep thinking they're in the lunch room and we did we ate outside as long as we possibly did yeah it's only one because please can we come inside so we were outside most of the time so that's awesome and the kids they love it which is really great so I read to the men I read to them in humanities some we participate in global read aloud which is literally books that are read around the world all at the same time so there's all these classes all around the world reading the same books so we participated in that last number of years here at Stockbridge and this year I was able to find penthouse took a long time but found penthouse for them in Winnipeg Canada which actually was where the book took place but it was a four five six class who can imagine that I'm actually find a four five six class but we found them so there's a picture there that shows the kids with you google me because we meet with our penthouse sometimes and um I'm just learning how to and you just taught me how did you break out rooms so my parents are smaller groups and break out with an adult with them and each other so we're navigating that but our Canadian friends don't put their screens on so much so Stockbridge kills were a little bit like hey I want to see pay so this is also a place where the kids do lots of art and to have different choices related to responding to the text and stuff and we just read like that's a cover of the book right there the barren grounds and there's a part two in the series so the kids were begging before christmas like can we read part two can we read part two and sure now we got it we started today we're reading part two even though I really wanted to get into a different genre they just wanted to stay there so that's where we'll be so that's what a read aloud looks like and I think that's it just some more pictures with kids working and then that last page too yeah so that's a quick highlights this is amazing it's great and is this is there is there the equivalent of this in Rochester we're getting closer and I have to say like in Rochester for the first time this year I felt like there's more connection than there has been before and I certainly feel like my counterpart there long is definitely into like okay great let's do it that's great great great great yeah because I think that's that's really what we're he's just where I would say it's different is this is his first year with all the material and you're done and done like an awesome job dissecting and all about what's worked what hasn't worked okay I've always had teachers who were like yeah come on oh yeah he's saying yeah come on I'm like okay that's that's great um um uh do you ever do anything with this is my you know performance thing this is what I do is the musicality of language the musicality of language there is a music to every line of literature that gives it meaning only like I end up pentameter type stuff but not even that I mean every line you pick up a book here and there is a line a way of reading that line so that it has meaning as opposed to um flat or well definitely meeting with inflection and that's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's I mean it's profound for me because it's you can you can learn how to understand a line as you're reading it and how to communicate that so I don't know it's my it's my little pet thing that I'm good at and um but I just hope that it comes into the classroom because it can to have a kid standing up tall and proud and holding a book and reading it with expression right to his class well right now we've just started poetry since we've been back from break so that would absolutely lend itself to all of that absolutely and I had some cousins actually reading together today and they were devouring a book and really into it but then they came to a poem and they couldn't quite get the vibe of how it should go so they actually came to me I was with a guided reading group and they were like can you read this to us which was awesome because they knew it needed to sound a certain way and they couldn't quite get it so it was great good any other questions or I just want to say thank you very much for your presentation it is really wonderful to see this stuff happening in our schools and I'm very excited about what you're doing so thank you and keep up the good work welcome thank you well yeah I was going to say that this is the core of what we're all about we're talking about making a difference and reading and writing and getting kids turned on and can't we have book number two and poetry and being open to it that um I don't know what anything's more exciting in my life and I want to thank you personally and Jenny Feinberg and direct instruction and I think and the lindy for making this happen and having the talent and and picking the right talent that can make it happen and that's you and I hope that that moves over to rochester rochester this is the nice thing about being unified that we can share ideas and programs that work or don't work and talent and be a team yeah and I see it happening but I uh this is this this is out of sight so well thank you and jamie's vision is that we're not just sharing this enthusiasm and structure between camp but among the whole s u right that you're getting together with your counterparts in other schools and saying la mera polsa is really great for this particular group because it talks about this or something like that or it doesn't have as many pictures or something like that and the other thing is it's enthusiasm energy combined with knowledge expertise and to create a change getting our kids to be able to read and write and that's the exciting thing we got the energy and the program and the instructors and our leaders to do it and wow we have we've got a ways to go here we know that and uh but this is this is very heartening thank you well and and amy i think you're the only one who's been on this board long enough but remember the harangues about fontis and panel that janey would bring to the board meetings you remember that yeah yeah yeah yeah um and it's just great to see that it actually works but it's really good that it's a great resource we have and that's with her instructions and i just thought i was going to tell you about other piece that donna is probably about to chime in on as well is that donna has implemented both within her general literacy block to hit on the pieces that fontis and panel does not support for every kid out right good so she's truly seeing what jimmy was talking about okay great we are that's good to hear thank you because we're with another drops and jump in donna where there are some drops specifically around word study phonemic awareness decoding ability so being able to actually read a word so something that fmp found us and panel might say is okay let's the kids to take a picture walk look at the pictures and that helps you figure out the words no that's not okay to learn how to read at all so you need to learn how to sound out a word you need to learn those sounds first to be able to sound out a word so that's not unacceptable this is very good to hear yeah so that's not acceptable the specific criticism yeah in fmp that's one of the strategies there's many strategies to teach kids to read that's one of the strategies that you can use you know it's not a strategy that's a crutch that they kind of go to and then they're reading a picture and they're not actually learning to read the words so having that super structure of di in terms of this is what's necessary for kids to learn how to reading how to read and then incorporating that into the general ed is is our money but where fmp is amazing is the diversity in the text both in guided reading interactive relab there's a wide variety there and it's truly updated offerings to kiddos that was non-existent before we put that into play it was books that we've probably all read when we were in school for reading groups and booklets not there's there's not some amazing ones but in a time where we're using literature to explore other parts of our world or country our culture or diversity fmp really brings that for all of our that is well worth the investment for the books alone right and the resources to go with the teachers to be able to teach that but in other areas not as much but identifying that and but this is what you've learned in the last two years three years of having it right you know and having a genie's training justine yeah i wanted to ask if um what the parent involvement is like the parent reception um is there any connection between you know home and school with regard to your program good question yes um parents are always appreciative they're you know they're they're um they can recognize their kiddos reading better oftentimes um sometimes though they have definitely they have definitely have had students who might be reading support and that being kind of surprising to parents because as far as they're concerned their kid reads great and and i can show you even what's not the lowest end group and if you look at that book you might think that's actually reading still pretty good but when they test out it might show them not anywhere near where they should be but if you look at a book that they're able to read it that looks pretty well so that's one of those things so sometimes parents may not see the same thing that we're seeing in terms of how their kiddo might need more support um but for the most part i get lots of great feedback all the time okay thank you is there any um is it worth putting home sending home recommendations these would be good books for this kid no well lindy and i actually had this conversation yesterday about how since the pandemic how different it is in terms of kids independent reading so we can get them to read a lot here but they're taking home diary of a wimpy kid or dogman or some other frivolous type of not not the mean books which is part of my book tasting that's happening over there because that's why i'll break them thinking okay how am i going to get better books into their hands how can i have them read this independently and want to read some of these better texts instead of just going to kind of what's humorous and easy um but i have seen a huge difference since the pandemic in terms of kids choosing i'm just going to grab that quick graphic novel to read you know she's working me making it work really hard for me cordy has the name cordy my wife who's the librarian has the name of the woman she studies this in library school and her theory is they're reading right and that you know and that and that i understand believe me when when they all start those kind of books started coming home and the graphic novel while they love the graphic novel um but yeah and that and that's why with and lindy and i just talked about it the other day i'm like okay so i'm not gonna say you must read this when you go home and you must you know i mean because i'm already pushing them hard in a year and i don't feel like i want to be heavy-handed when they go home especially during the pandemic and what i'm asking of them all the time but if i can inspire them to want to read these books and kind of so this book tasting is that's a part of what this is about okay you're gonna get just a little taste of all these different books i'm hoping i'll let you know if it's successful but i'm hoping that that'll get them interested in reading some other great stuff and make them branch out excellent thank you any further questions or comments she does my favorite teacher i've ever had well good evening so i do feel that we didn't even like introduce so if you're watching this after the fact this is miss donna as the kids know her or miss donna gallant who wears multiple hats at stockbridge which includes literacy teacher for 456 our literacy interventionist for k through six and our school library and she does an amazing job so oh thank you and if you haven't ever been in this stockbridge library it is an inspiring place every time i come here it's an inspiring place just the visuals of it are always make me want to hang out and pull books off the shelf so just come and take a look just you know what a good library looks like good thank you thank you thank you miss i'll see you tomorrow okay all right very good how are we doing for time amy we were over by 15 minutes on that presentation but i did not want to stop us because that is the best part of what we're here for so we did um go a little short on some other reports so i'll try to keep us on track as we're going forward good thank you that's i i agree with i personally agree with your sentiment nine one draft number four the 2223 r-side budget with revenue and tax sheet now i want to try this a little differently then let's go and start pulling out the numbers and what does this mean and stuff like that i want to go to the broader um jamie always makes the point that a budget is a policy statement and i guess i want to say um i think from and this is what i want your feedback on before we actually look at the numbers i get the feeling as from our conversations i missed the last meeting but from our various conversations that if i put our policy with our budget and for the next year it would sound something like creative and rigorous education working with what we have in other words that we don't want to we don't want to add a whole bunch of things we talked about we don't want you know specials we we want to integrate things we know we had a big conversation about that a couple meetings ago um but the creative thing and i know you talked about this last meeting when i wasn't here one of our vision ideas was this idea of creative education that we want to encourage teachers to be creative and so it you know if somebody just agrees with my definition of our version of a vision of the budget you know that's something we should talk about now but if that is our vision how does this budget support that and that we literally start from the vision and see how the budget supports that rather than number you know and obviously we need to understand everything in the budget but that but that it it's defined sort of like mtss you know everything you do has to fit into the mtss and in this sense everything we do in this budget has to be supported by our vision of working with what we have but being creative and rigorous any comment on that what i'm saying or is there agreement is a disagreement you know i think you're you're spot on okay good yeah i think that makes a great connection between what we were kind of going toward um and how we can implement it and and it haven't be um you know go with the the structure that's already there so it's a good connection it's it's all i was thinking on the way down here as i was driving it's kind of boring to just say well we want a level fund you know that that's not very interesting and that doesn't really convey all the excitement that's happening the fact is we want this creative we want rigorous and we want to do it with what we have and i think people can get behind that it's a good way to sell a budget and i trust that that's what you all are are doing good that said um i open the floor to um do you want to present who's presenting this well you know we went through expenditures last time they haven't really changed since the last budget uh or the last presentation last budget last meeting um i think the big piece do you want to speak to revenue and really the the bottom line around the tax sheet i mean this budget supports what we currently have supports out full-time outdoor education and pathways it supports music it supports world language um so it does support what we have and keeps us going in the right direction i really believe that so tara take us okay sorry i just tara i'm sorry having trouble hearing you suddenly i don't know why yeah yes there it is thank you all right here in my volume up overall i made the adjustments to the su and special education assessments once we had the approved budget so right now we're looking at an increase of a hundred and one thousand six hundred and thirty three dollars which results in the two point three five percent increase two point three five how does it compare how does that compare how does that compare to last year tara i just don't do you have them it's a two point three five percent increase over last year a hundred one dollars no i mean what was it as far as the increase last year oh okay keep going i can get that okay i'll do it she's uh lindy's working on it so keep going sorry i interrupted you you'll see based on the f y 21 audited surplus and again utilizing a hundred and fifty thousand is the recommendation to offset your revenue in the additional amount of that surplus you should put toward your reserve funds which is what you're required to do by a statute interest i've made adjustments based on the three-year average so you'll see that that is now at seventy five hundred the tuition i use the 22 students at the f y 22 rate obviously once you set your tuition rate tonight if you change your tuition rate that will change the tuition for the pre-k the f y 23 tuition rate is three thousand six hundred and fifty six dollars so i've adjusted that based on six incoming students haven't made any changes to the rental i can make any changes to the trustee of public funds this gets to your forestry growing up the way the agency recommends us to budget for that is current year less 10 so that's what i've done there miscellaneous revenues remain the same we do not get a bank refund and donations you don't typically budget for because it's not a guarantee so your local revenue is that four hundred twenty thousand two hundred and two dollars calculates out what your education spending is going to be which is your expenditures but not your local revenue tech center tuition on behalf this number is the number that matches the expenditure this is a wash this is what the agency of education pays directly to the tech centers on your behalf 60 related transportation this is a reimbursement that you get in the fiscal year for the prior fiscal years home to school transportation contracts in the butler and we're seeing around a 40 percent reimbursement so that number is calculated based on your f y 22 contract at a 40 percent reimbursement rate small schools grant you're still as far as i'm aware we're getting that hasn't been any change there so the total revenue from state and federal services is three million seven hundred fifteen thousand five hundred ninety eight dollars the next section down is the grants that you get from the supervisory union we made a reduction to your school-wide CFP that's the consolidated federal program previously title one and that is based on what you are receiving in the fiscal year 22 and then also we provide Medicaid reimbursement for the salary and benefits for your school nurse so total grants is a hundred and forty four thousand five hundred eighty five dollars so then if we move what let's let's go do the whole let it go all the way through gotcha because i'm very good at interrupting beforehand go ahead to our place sorry so the tax sheet works top chart your budgeted expenditures we don't have any changes that we're putting in there currently less your offsetting revenue gives you an education spending which is what you collect and property taxes and from the ed fund three million three hundred ninety nine thousand five hundred and fifty dollars your equalized pupil based on the current number given to us by the agency of education caveat it is not the final increase from a hundred and seventy two point one nine to a hundred and seventy five point one four so you take your act sixty eight education spending you divide that by your equalized pupil and that gives you your education spending per pupil cost of nineteen thousand four hundred ten dollars and forty seven cents which is below the threshold for f y twenty three but a lot nineteen thousand nine hundred and seventy seven dollars so then we go down to your equalized residential tax rate which is calculated based on your per pupil spending divided by the yield so we were given two scenarios for the yield this year we chose to go with the more conservative yield of the twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty seven dollars and that's an increase from eleven thousand three hundred and seventy dollars in the current fiscal year so that gives you an equalized tax rate of one point five zero zero four the merger incentive is gone so that's been zeroed out the residential tax rate that's set by the tax department using the more conservative numbers is the one point four eight zero and that's a reduction from the one point six one two zero so then we move to the individual towns so the first box is broadchester your cl a the f y twenty two was that one oh two point nine eight your cl a for twenty three is ninety five point six three so you had a substantial drop in your cl a so that gives you a tax rate of one point five six eight nine which is a reduction of point zero one nine six over your f y twenty two tax rate on the stock bridge tax rate the cl a for twenty two was that one oh one point three six percent the cl a for twenty three is ninety point one zero so it gives you a homestead tax rate of one point six six five two which is an increase of point zero five one two over the f y twenty two tax rate that could be tricky tara can you just explain like the drop in the cl a i know it's not your control but it's based on i yes cl a is based on your property values and the sales that happened in your communities i thought things are going for crazy amounts but it's so things are going for crazy amounts but they're going well above the assessed value right which is what causes the drop in the common level of appraisal so we need to wait for we need to wait for a town wise appraisal and aren't we anybody know i think we're getting close to one of those coming up anybody anyway well the irony is that talking about cl a is the stock we just went through a reappraisal oh yeah in 2021 or effective 2021 um so and last year we were like 105 percent cl a uh dot oh one one oh one and now we're down to 90 percent so you're talking about less than two years when we just did a total town-wide reappraisal and so it's very very frustrating assuming the state numbers are good it shows that property values are skyrocketing around here people want to move to vermont and what better place is there in stock bridge in in rochester so that's the difficulty and even if you come in with a reasonable budget that achieves your educational goals performance goals that you were talking about yeah um the common level of appraisal can make what the taxpayer pays um look um not happy about yeah now what we've talked about before is the good news in vermont and we're one of the only states in the country that has a income sensitivity um tax law that allows taxpayers to pay depending on their income based on their income of it's up to 90 or 95 000 or based on the value of the property tax excuse me the value of the property in vermont and i see there's no reason to believe that rochester and stock bridge are any different about two-thirds of the property owners taxpayers in vermont pay by their income because in our communities our our median income is 60 000 well income sensitivity goes all the way up to 90 000 and when you look at those two-thirds of the taxpayers what they're paying in rochester and stock bridge um they're not being hit by this in fact and tara is going to review my numbers and jay me hasn't had the chance yet but for our two communities uh if you're paying by your income your tax flow for schools has actually gone down for the last six years which is a point we clearly need to make clear to the voters now the downside is those that are more affluent um with this common level of appraisal are going to be hit by this increase even though our school budget is well within um the state limits now then we go back to jay me's letter to us and he's saying that and i've been following it too the special commission on weighing um equalized students in rural areas needs to be fixed and we talked about we started with that saying if the legislature acts on either model one or model two we're going to see in our two communities a reduction in the neighborhood of of of 12 to 14 percent and that if it happens will not only help our two-thirds paying by their income but it will also help those people that are paying by their property tax and so um i looked at this i'm going my gosh this is frustrating when the school administration doing everything possible and we still have a projected three over three percent increase um well and that doesn't necessarily mean that's going to happen for the reasons i just stated i just think our selling points are different than years past we're well under the excess spending threshold for the first time since i've been here normally i mean i can't even tell you how many times tarah probably can't we've scrounged to be under um our you know our student our equalized people count is up which is great i also think the other thing is we've got to compare like that equalized tax rate it was a dollar sixty three five nine last year it's a dollar fifty this year and unfortunately that common level of appraisal changes some things but i just think we're doing a lot to still be this great responsible and yeah you're that's quite the board letter and the principal's letter that we send out with our budget mailer and why our budget presentation has to focus on high points and again explain like we did last year what the yield in the CLA does to the tax rate and this is the same track the same challenge that we had last year yeah um avie go ahead i just wanted to piggyback on um what bill was saying and lindy was just saying and point out that we have reduced the tax rate by 13 cents it's unfortunately because of the continued calculations with the clas and both of our towns start bridge more affected but that we have sold so much properties for such a higher value than what the properties are valued at just because that's the climate of today i don't believe everywhere in vermont probably is dealing with this exact same thing that the properties got bought at a high rate really fast um and unfortunately that affects our budget but to come in at 13 cents less than we did last year is huge 13 cents huge we're not talking about one cent we're not talking a half 13 cents um but you know i think that with uh bill's additional um income sensitivity information and um like terry was just saying about the presentation that goes along with these numbers um and with the high points that we have all these wonderful things we have achieved um and i do really want us to stress these because there is not a lot of public at these meetings that we are really hearing all the wonderful things that our school is doing right now and we really need to get out this out there to the public with this budget of of these wonderful programs that we are doing um and these successes so that that will be our challenge here's my here's my question to the um stock bridge board because i mean this just it's the red flag for me especially when you have a different you know they see it go down in rochester and go up here and then it you know of course rochester votes and we pass it i mean you know this is this is the argument that we've had before do you think this is do the stock bridge representatives feel like this is such a red flag i mean obviously well go ahead i i just want to hear from you what what you have to say about it i think it's a package so i like like amy was saying i feel like um there's a lot more to it than just looking at these numbers however the public you know will just often just see the yep the numbers and and the change and and react in that manner but i i do think it's important to realize what what else is uh at play than just the the math do you think we can do that i mean you know you're our representatives from this community um i i think we might have to make an effort to uh encourage participation i'm not sure what you know why they've been kind of no participation at all since the since the vote but um could we have a special meeting or an informational we will have an informational meeting yeah i also think i mean ahead of time maybe even before to kind of uh start some participation from the community again what were you going to say i was going to say i think we need to utilize uh the herald like we did for the re-vote and really get some information out via the letter to the editors that seemed to get a lot of active participants people were reading and taking information in yeah i i don't know what you think though but that's the way i feel yes a very good question i don't think any of the stock bridge and we're representatives of both communities i live in stock bridge but no but this is combined but we cannot say i do think that the lesson we learned in the re-vote was that once people are alerted and then they can they're interested enough and i think the herald was huge and disseminating facts as well as opinions then they're willing to make the right decision and i think they did it last time because it so i think we have the work cut out for us and you look at the stock bridge numbers here and but i i don't we can't be effective if we are basing our public policy on fear yeah we are doing it based on hope and accomplishment and the performance and belief that we've got uh institutions that are delivering and are going to be doing it even more in the future and they need the tools to get there and it's our job as community leaders to to get that message across and i have some cautious optimism that we can do that patrick i guess my only question would be i mean if the merge hadn't happened would that i mean isn't it potential that that number could even be greater absolutely well that was the whole point yeah the previous so yeah it's gone up but i mean it could be even worse i don't think it's as simple as looking at you know town to town you know what who's going up who's going down like like justine said it's i think it's more of a combination and i'm looking at everything as a whole well i i just looking at this the f f y 23 equalized tax rate it's a great visual that that's right above the cl a and it's identical for both stock towns and that it's boom the cl a that's what's doing it i think i think we we really heightened that graphic and it makes our point pretty clear that you know we're doing our job this isn't about us this is about the towns and this is what we're giving yeah amy well put i think we we really heightened that graphic and it makes our point pretty clear that you know we're doing our job this isn't about us. This is about the town. Yeah, I totally agree with what you just said and when Patrick was kind of just talking about like different scenarios. The thought hasn't completely formed but I'm wondering if you know looking at last year's um equalized tax rate and if you then calculated it by the current CLA what would where would you be? You know just kind of pointing out that we're you know we these numbers unfortunately it's the CLA that has done the harm and and not the budget. I did that in the reports last year. Yeah so something to that effect of like that um just to just to show all kind of other scenarios like last year which is hard numbers we know for sure this is what it was but if if that was in today's climate right it would actually be this. Yeah last year I did a breakdown of what each factor impacted the tax rate so what especially for you guys when you're equalized people went down how much that impacted your tax rate and then the yield impacted the tax rate and then the CLA so I had provided a little chart on that last year and I'll do that again this year for you. Well from everything that Lindy has said um I think this budget supports um our school and what we want uh going forward for our school and um I think at this point there these are wonderful numbers you're gonna to get stock bridge down to a less of an increase we would have to make dramatic cuts and we've already cut 13 cents off the tax rate um. We've reduced 13 cents off the tax rate the CLA is bringing the tax rate up for stock bridge. Well I just think we've controlled what we can control yeah yeah you know what I mean we put together a budget that supports our programming and what it resulted in is a 13 cent decrease in your tax rate the pieces we can't control is the CLA that's way beyond any of our control unless you're purchasing. I always say that the simpler your message the simpler your message that's why I'm trying to get it down to you know this is what we did two sentences basically you know that we can it's pithy. Patrick go ahead what were you going to say? Okay I was just coughing. Oh no but it's just it's just you know we. This is Robert.  This is Robert. You should lose the people think the money is well spent to be in our long-term goal but we are making such a well I I think I mean I think our strategy should start literally in the Herald next week I mean I think the sooner we get ahead of this before the the word gets out and and with you know putting our story out there the better. We've done really really well the schools are running well the CLA is bringing the tax rate up in Stockbridge and I think that's a message that if we can get a letter out next week even hey we just found this out in our budget and we want to inform you as soon as possible that this is what we're looking at Amy. Yes you just have to be because we have not approved this budget yet you just have to be careful with the wording that you are using. Thank you thank you I appreciate that very much I get carried away and but anyway that my point is you know after we approve this budget if we do if we do approve it next next meeting that we want to get ahead of this message. I like what you're talking about being proactive and we need to be proactive rather than trying to respond to misinformation. I think we have an opportunity in this next month because we haven't approved the budget to develop a strategy of how we're going to inform communicate with the public whether it's public sessions or the Herald or or school brochures everything else like that and take homes and we combine those two I'm in a sound budget and we have a strategy so that we're ready to act and communicate immediately after that I think that's really sound I think you're right onto something and we've got some time to develop that there's a number of pieces here the other thing is is I'd love to get a better sense of and we're going to have one of the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate going to be on this webinar on Monday about what they're saying about the waiting system whether that's a pie in the sky or not and that could be part of what we need to communicate to the public if there's some really really good news there coming down the other thing is that sorry to keep talking income sensitivity I spent more time trying to get numbers from the state on that and it's very hard to found them and Tara's helping me too and it's it's tricky and I'd love to be able to get a better sense of what it looks like for the two thirds of the households in our communities that are paying by income sensitivity and I'm not sure where the state numbers are at this point because ultimately established by the legislature so so that month if we do our homework might help us there as well yep go ahead Robert if you want more participation than the public I would start putting out to the newspaper as soon as we can a lot our improvements also point out that the budget will be will be beginning to approve the budget you know next month so we encourage participation so you'll people won't care if you if people already approved the budget and um they haven't had a chance to talk about it but if you that's a good point that they're even if you have some special meetings just to listen I mean between now and the and the next regular movie well obviously the easiest way would be to get a good turnout at the next meeting you know say we're approving this budget there's great things to celebrate there's some things we're concerned about come and join the meeting and put the word out we might get some real talkers you know some real people who influence to show up and and and hear us and that would be very useful that's the easiest way and then obviously the herald is also that good any other comments on the budget at this time do we feel I guess the real question actually is do we feel like we're ready to move it and act on it next month if we're in that place I had a question let me just let me just go through here first yeah um go ahead just Dean is a yes Amy is a yes Robert how do you feel thanks oh yes but we need to be prepared to if we hear some public comment that might influence us to change people's care to do that and sorry what was the last part Robert got you Patrick do you feel good about the budget that's a yes to that question okay yeah yeah so I think we've achieved our work for tonight no bill you had one last comment yeah the question in the comment uh two questions one is Lenny you said that enrollment's up is our budget for FY 23 reflecting an increase in enrollment from this year or was it let our last year's or our current budget is it is tuition is enrollment projected to actually increase from the current enrollment going forward in Rochester Stockbridge so it's it's budgeted to I'm going to break that down into two different ways in terms of expenses like supplies all those things yes that budget supports a continued increase in population I will say on tuition like that we receive on the revenue side and Tara corrects me if I'm wrong but I believe we budgeted a little bit on the conservative side just because there's people that move in and out yeah so we don't want to be counting on heads that are you know that we receive tuition from or when we might be short one or two but you're you're hopeful and you think the indicators are for continued growth okay that I think that's huge secondly I'm I'm with the Stockbridge trustees of public funds and each year since I've been associated with going back the trustees each year have contributed monies for the ongoing support of the school and the children that are educated in the school and I'm asking the question of the Rochester and I've noticed in the revenue budget I've seen here that there's no kind no participation there does anybody can anybody help me on is are the Rochester trustees not being asked or are they being asked and they're have other uses for their funding what's what's the scoop there go ahead Danny right yep I can I can try to answer that I have a a long speech and a short speech so we'll start short and if you want more information I'll expand upon that thank you okay so the Stockbridge school endowments are managed by the Stockbridge trustees of public funds the Rochester school endowments are not managed by the Rochester trustees of public funds the Rochester trustees of public funds manages and distributes town endowments so in the past they have been asked on there were a number of years that the Rochester trustees of public funds did not give any funds out none to the school and none to the town um I do not we we had asked uh I have at least one or two letters unfortunately I was not able to put my hand on them today on that we had asked the trust the Rochester trustees of public funds for some funds but uh we were denied again at the time they didn't feel like they were in a financial position to to fund anybody or only be able to fund uh the town a small amount I know the last they've declined in their their ability to fund um Rochester school does have endowments and those balances are always printed in our annual report but as long as I've been aware of they've never been actually put into the revenue budget um but maybe a discussion with administration on the approximate dollars to be used um that they may want to use this year from these funds might be an appropriate way to put that into the conversation to be aware of we just have to be careful that the funds are used for what they were set up for we would need to right we would need to be reading the trust documents right make sure we're in alignment right and and they are each one of them is a little bit different and that is probably why they were never actually put in as a revenue line and because they were some were a little more specific to their uses and um so just at the discretion of the the administration uh but I do hear Bill's um question and I do know that this is a common question uh from Stockbridge residents which is totally understandable so if there's a way that we could you know present that there is funds from the Rochester Endowments that are going to be used in the appropriate fashion maybe that would satisfy I think we present it two ways right I think we present like while this nine thousand dollars has been used year after year to help with the revenue to offset I've only ever spent it here for Stockbridge school part of the trustees of public funds I think if I explain and I have a record of what I've spent those funds on for here at Stockbridge and then we explain those funds for Rochester and what they can be and come up with a plan of how to use some of them and just explain why it can't be put in the revenue maybe that'll help get ahead of the question of why is it one versus the other and again that whole proactive concept yes yeah like that I I had trouble I couldn't hold this like Robert sorry Robert want to speak Robert do you have something to say yeah yes I understand that this has been a very good year for the uh the trustees of public funds as far as their revenues so I would if you this is a good year ask them for funds yeah it's incredible stock market it's I believe that there there is uh I mean I'm on the budget by activity but I believe that we're going to that's a substantial kind of contribution but that's not that's telling me a contribution to the town town so we should ask you definitely ask and that would be up to I'll connect with Amy on that Amy since you helped Bonnie with it and previous year just to clarify then this gets confusing do we know the school funds how they distribute money and maybe you already talked to this but I didn't get it yet we know how that happens yes I have a handle on the funds how to and how to actually get a check great um the question is the you know with the with the administration one fund is specifically the administration decides what it's theirs to decide how much they want to spend that's just it's that discussion of how much we want to spend but there is definitely a mechanism for getting the money so your choice sort of how to spend it or yeah yeah thank you so these are very much your choice which is the way it works yeah uh the stock which tries to find this one Bill got it finished up I'm pleased and uh you know it's a team effort yeah great night good um I think we're moving on to 93 2021 audit possible action you want to do the mailer or you just want oh sorry no I just jumped right over it um we should talk about the our sudden annual mailer um I do know I remember from last year that Jenny Austin had said pretty clearly that she would be interested in putting that together for us again um and I before the meeting I asked Lindy if she'd be willing to reach out to Jenny to ask about that great um I know one of the things we came up with was we had a we have an outline for the bulletin and uh that's very useful as far as where information goes so we don't have to totally reinvent the wheel yeah um but uh there are a few things um the images if we want images how we do that what kind of images does this administration want to take that on or is that something you need help with I think I'll connect with Jenny and see what go from there so maybe could you come back next meeting with a list of tasks and we can distribute them out yeah does that sound reasonable board Amy go ahead can we get Tara uh can we get the um cost of last year's um actual uh booklet the printing uh because I know we we're trying we tried really hard with color we're putting color pages in in the budget in certain places so that it would be cheaper to run just certain pages in color um so I would be interested to know um what was the price for what what we got last year so we can make decisions on how we want to go forward um printing and binding if you look at your budget was 30 was three thousand two hundred and ninety six dollars three thousand two hundred ninety six that was that's not the mailing of it that's just that FY 21 actuals that we spent for printing and binding Tara have any other uh districts gone to just virtual and printed on request everyone's printing you're required by statute to send out certain pieces of information yes but not all of it right not what you send now yeah do a much shorter because it obviously based on what you're required to send out by a statute I mean that was there was a member in meetings last year and years before we've talked about you know is it time and maybe this isn't the year we're doing we've got such a nice budget we're doing really well maybe this isn't the year to you know skimp on this I like the booklet um how does everyone else feel about that you've had a lot of positive feedback from your community members on your book explanations I do the books for the majority of our districts so you know based on my own personal experience I find your book to be much more informative than in some of the other districts which is what I think helps in your situation great great that's all I need to hear that's all I need to hear anybody else want to save $3,700 or Amy go ahead well I eat on the fence about this I uh am uh conscious of our you know cutting the trees down footprint but on the other hand as you brought up before we are helping to support a local business as well so it would be I think we need to go forward with our wonderful big book this year it would be nice to continue to brainstorm about other ideas of you know being able to maybe send it out to different versions of condensed and more elaborate version or for offering it online I think it's definitely worth more of a conversation Tara can you tell me how many books were printed for that price if you wouldn't mind just for the well we'll make this an agenda item for next time again and we'll come back for the port year and aid to Jenny um because we might no I guess February is okay to start we're earlier than we've ever been yeah yeah no I remember right I think the one I did two years ago I think I did in a month or something it was crazy it was insane I'm never going to do that again it was a lot of work um uh uh uh uh good um okay I the other thing just came to me that image of this is the one time aside from the mailers we're doing a lot of better job with newsletters going home stuff like that things are on people's tables more so it takes a little bit of the pressure off this used to be the one thing that we went home with but I think yeah I get good as long as we go with our continuing information um and anybody think about if you have a chance take a look at the old bulletins and just brainstorm and think you know I wish there was this in here because we put a lot of information but it'd be great to hear or ask other people you know is there any other information we shouldn't have in there that we don't have because it really can be an educational tool um for people to understand this system maybe we need a discussion of cla you know so real definition of what cla is because I don't get it I still don't get it even after we talked about it tonight and I think a little blurb that would say boom this is cla this is yield you know maybe we did talk to yield I don't remember in there but we should look yeah just to make sure because those are obviously two big terms that hit people so it's awesome in my report Ethan yeah in your report we we may want to we may we may also want to pull them out and make them footnotes under the tax page you know so it means that they're not in the in a dense text they're bulleted with high colors and all that kind of stuff or whatever just just because I think that's particularly this year that's going to be the information people are going to want good anything else on this we we thought it was a minute five you said five yeah it was like 20 wasn't it Amy oh we're good okay good uh we're all good to move on um mission vision I didn't actually audit oh audit let's try to get home I guess um 2021 audit possible action I sent to you a quick little snapshot of the high points in the audit and then provided you with your wonderful long pages of the audit gave you the power point that kind of helps explain some of the key terms um but to just go over it again your unassigned fund of balance was 284,554 dollars sorry Tara I need you to just ask some definitions because I just don't remember what things mean what is unassigned what's unassigned balance is what we can use that is your surplus at the end of the fiscal year got you so we can use it to offset revenue and FY 23 or to request the voters to set it aside in a reserve fund when do we have to remember in the revenue I put in 150,000 and recommended the remainder goes into you put it on it's a special article on your warning and the town votes that to put that money in the reserve fund so do we have do we make the decision does the board make the decision which reserve fund to ask them to put it into or is it just a general reserve fund no you can we can we have that as an agenda item next time so that when we just approve the budget we would go over that when we're writing your warning yep okay but let's let's talk about that because I think we want to spend some time looking at those different funds and you can also create new ones if you wanted to yeah good I think let's put that on the ballot as you remember from prior discussions you want to create a reserve fund the town has to vote on it so for an example if you wanted to create a tuition reserve fund which is what I recommend in all of my districts that have sending students you would put that article on the warning oh voters would say yes or no and then if they think yes you would then vote to say we're going to take $20,000 from the prior year surplus and fund the begin to fund the tuition reserve fund this is the first time you may have mentioned this before first time I remember what a great idea Amy what do you go ahead yep so I think that this should definitely be an item of discussion on our next agenda to get familiar with the reserve funds that we already have established but are not necessarily funded at this point which we do have a tuition reserve fund it's just not fun there's no actual money in it so I think if we could have put it on the agenda for for a good discussion next thing lindy's got it very appropriate I think that's great great thank you sorry and I may do this again just because I was a little confused reading this on my own great so please continue Tara fund balances non-spendable means those are things you can't spend so our non-spendable is $3,808 and that represents our prepaid retirement so that's money we've already collected that we have to pay into the retirement system the committed that's really return of a hundred and seventy three thousand six hundred dollars is the portion that we have already set aside and that's why 22 to offset your revenue so that's what that page 60 or 15 in your report represents than at that bottom section whoa okay I'm sorry I'd lost you lost me there what are you looking at east this committed hundred 173 thousand just what we can't towards so that 173 six is what is in your f1 22 budget as offsetting revenue so that becomes a committed fund balance at the end of that why 21 okay already utilize that money yeah no no it's great it's just the jumping years sometimes confuses me yep yep thank you and that 173 is already removed from the 284 correct yes if you look at that total fund balance on page 50 it's 400 yeah she's just I've got two there's other funds from it and that gets us to that 284 or 554 that we can use which is why that's in the third line because it's almost like yeah and the purpose just to make clear Tara the purpose of an audit is to make sure that the the math adds up is that correct now we follow the rules yeah that you follow the rules of how you're supposed to list things okay we spend money the right way we did what we needed to do with the money it's allocated where it needs to be allocated and and we did that yes we did there were no findings that's that's the big one for me okay thank you that was the word I was looking for in this report and I didn't see it so I was confused keep going please yes we did there were no findings that's that's the big one for me okay thank you that was the word I was looking for in this report and I didn't see it so I was confused keep going please so then page 17 if you wanted to look at a snapshot of your how FY 21 ended gives you your statement of revenues your expenditures and the changes in fund balance so that's an overview of how FY 21 went and how we got to that 461 on page 15 good any other questions should we keep going good then page 74 through 75 are your budget to actual comparison so it gives you the breakdown per function the way the auditors write it up for your budget to actual so that's just again another place that you can go to see what you actually did in FY 21 and remember and if you want to go over this in great detail I'm happy to set up a time when we can go page by page line by line does anyone need to go blind by line of the audit no but I I'm no but I would take Tara up on her offer to to look at it a little bit more because this what you've just done makes me understand it way more than I did before so every little bit helps and I want to be able to look at this and at least have not just be wasted paper so you do you need another month before we approve it no absolutely okay does anybody else do you have copies of it on that desk there did were they provided today no no it was just online that's the only place I saw it okay if you want a printed copy Amy I can print one for you and send it when we do the warrants next week okay let me let me review it and see oh you know okay thank you you're welcome I'm good with it I'm happy I uh so then the last piece is to just go over with you the management recommendations so these are not findings these are recommendations that the auditors recommend to us on how we can tighten up our practices so the majority of these are repeat from what we had last year and it's something we continue to work on here so the first one is our bank reconciliations so what we do your district treasurer controls the deposits for your bank accounts as you know we talked about this several times so they get the bank statements they do the deposits so at the close of each month the treasurer send to us here the bank statements plus copies of all the deposits that they made in the prior month now as you know probably from your personal checking account those statements don't come out until between the third and the 15th of the month depending on what bank and how they're processing so once we get all of that information we then physically have to go in and do a reconciliation just like you do in your personal checklist these checks cleared these deposits cleared these didn't so we do that here internally and that becomes your bank reconciliation so one of the findings was they wanted us to do that in a more timely manner so we have already improved that and the majority of our bank recs are done within 30 days of the close of the month so that was one of their recommendations one of the other things that we worked on this year that we haven't done a lot with prior years because of staffing was tracking down unclear checks so we had some unclear checks in our bank reconciliations that were more than 12 months old so we've worked this year with the state of vermont and the unclaimed property group to work to get those cleared up we've reached out to the individuals so that continues to be a work in progress for us so that was one of their other recommendations the other is their general ledger reconciliation and those are our other accounts so it's like our liability accounts when we withdraw money from an employee's paycheck to pay their portion of their benefits we have not historically reconciled them every 30 days we were doing it at the close of the fiscal year then we moved to quarterly so we'll continue to work as our staffing abilities are to get those reconciliation done on a more timely basis and then the other one is a purchasing procedure so we have a very detailed purchasing procedure for federal grants but we don't have one for non-federal grants so they recommended that we put a purchasing procedure in place for non-federal expenses so we'll work to do that as well and then lastly with the universal chart of account change and the way that the new gas fee rules are which is what we have to follow for accounting rules we have to change the way the special revenue funds are set up in our software system and each individual special revenue fund has to have a different fund number and we historically used a different project or revenue number so that is one of the chart of account conversions that we will continue to work with and we'll be bringing in and outside we'll bring in our auditing firm to help us with that so that's something throughout the entire supervisory union that we'll have to do so those are our management letter recommendations that they reference in your audit. Excellent thank you so much Tara. You're welcome. I'll entertain a motion if there being no more questions or even if there are questions we can discuss it to accept and is this the corrupt except the results of the 2021 audit of the FY21 audit? I make a motion to accept the FY21 audit. Second. Second is he got there first you guys. Good. I'm next to the chair. Any further discussion? All in favor let's do a roll call here. Amy. I. Dean. I. Robert. I. Patrick. I. May. Oh my god. Unbelievable. So treat yourself. Pop a cork somewhere please. Off camera if need be. Let's celebrate. Thank you so much. All right. Moving on. Nine four. My fault. You know I was I don't know if I'm the chairman of this committee but we sort of let it drop. I just turned to you had a very good from Bill I heard he sent me a really good report and yeah let's just say let's put this back on for next time and we'll we'll we'll do something about it between now and then. So my apologies if there's anything anybody wants to say now but maybe we should just move on. Okay good. Hey let's set some tuition rate or no let's talk about it first. Okay. So as you know every year by statute we by January 15 we have to set your FY 23 announced tuition rate. So this is the rate that we are going to charge. You're receiving districts for students you're getting her tuition. So the point is that if you're going to get your tuition you're going to get your tuition. So for students you're getting her tuition. So the formula that we use for this is based on not an approved budget but the budget at the time that I do the calculation. So in this case it's the expenditure budget.  We back out the transportation. We back out special education and that brings us down to the two million eight eighty one eight sixty eight. We divide that by your equalized pupil and we come up with an allowable I'm sorry announced tuition rate of sixteen thousand four fifty four sixty five. Your current tuition rate is sixteen nine fifty and then I put your historical rates down below. So you can choose to go with the recommended. You could choose to go with what you already have but historically what you all have done in the past is just increased at a percentage amount. My recollection was it was two percent last year that you were not free. Thank you Amy. Questions about this. Yes. Can you explain again the harm of setting your announced tuition too high. So we don't build back in our supervised reunion. Right. So we don't build back which means we also don't credit back. So that is the allowable tuition that the agency of education sets for your at your super your district once I have submitted the prior year stat books. So historically Rochester Stockbridge since I've been here I know way way back when many many years ago you all did build back and it caused a lot of hate and discontent. Right. But we have not done it since I've come on board and several business managers that I work with as mentors do not do it either. But if you were to build back and your announced tuition rate is three percent higher or lower than the allowable you either charge back or you refund seven percent over that three percent. So there's no I don't know state repercussions by by being three percent off or four percent off either way. It's just within our own. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And to give you an example Amy the FY twenty one allowable tuition rate for our said was twenty thousand six ninety six. So you're well below your allowable tuition rate. And that fluctuates every year based on your expenditures. Okay. Well this is going to be okay. Yeah. You know we this is what we're you know charging a Hancock and or anybody who wants to send any any tuition town that wants to send. And yes we have historically just done an increase of three percent. We were able to have our budget be a little bit lower this this year. I would caution us to to reduce it from that. Well I was just reading those numbers okay I'll go back to nine fifty. The sixty I would caution us from going reducing it that much from sixteen nine fifty down to sixteen four fifty four. I can see it's reducing it a little bit or keeping it the same would be my thoughts but I'm really open to everybody else's thoughts. Other comments on this or questions if you still be curious about it. Are we ready to just vote on it. Well the one thing is I certainly don't want to have a tuition rate that has sixty five cents. We can't round that up to a or down for crazy. But I think Amy is has some sense to it. I think there's a power to be able to hold the line with our tuition. And that would be the sixteen thousand nine fifty not increase that. Below the states allowable and we're holding the line. So I think that has some merit and you know we could do anything we want but I think I'm leaning towards keeping the tuition rate that we currently have for the for the f-line twenty three budget year. This is Robert I would agree other organizations other towns appreciate stability. And even though they're you know they're they're going to have to pay it pay it anyway if the parents select us it still builds better you know better relations in general. Are we ready to move on this. Well then I'll make a motion. Go for it. Yep. I'd like to make a motion that the our side district f announced tuition rate for f by twenty three be sixteen thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars. Robert second. Any discussion. I'll do a roll call. Amy. Hi. Christine. Hi. Robert. Hi. Patrick. Hi. Ethan. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. I do not have anything to say to us. I do not have anything to say. All right. Yeah. What are we doing? I look on it. Thank you. It was nice to have your house through the meeting. Thanks. Janet. I got anything to say to us. And I think we have no I do not have anything to say. But the future agenda. Thank you. It was nice to look at your work. We're definitely ready to move on to the next meeting. The special funds. Right. The reserve. Good. And I think we have no new hires and residences. Actually action between them. But the future agenda is we already got. February first twenty twenty and the special funds. Right. The reserve. Mission and vision. And we'll actually have taken some actions. Good. Next meeting date is Tuesday. February first. Twenty twenty two at six thirty. Good night everyone. Thank you so much for your work. We'll meet.