The first item is adjustments to the agenda. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? I don't have any. A big focus for tonight is to talk about the budget. Okay.  Yeah. Do we need a timekeeper or should we? We haven't really been using that the last few times. Does anybody want to have a timekeeper? Should we just, yeah, I think we've done okay without a timekeeper the last few times. We've been ending on time. Great. I see that Andrew has joined us. So I'm going to pass the baton to Andrew. We just, we're on item four, public comment. Okay. Is there any public comment? Looks like we have folks on Andrew that are, I don't see any colors other than in private. I don't know if any of the other members want to turn on their mic if they have anything to comment. Okay. Well, it sounds like there isn't any public comment at this time. So let's move on to approving the minutes, the consent agenda. So this, we have the minutes of Tuesday, October 20th. We have a motion to approve them or does anybody have any adjustments? They'd like to make. I make a motion that we approve the minutes from October 20th. I'll second that. Okay. All those in favor of approving the minutes of October 20th, say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. We have approved the minutes. Okay. Moving on to board comments. Do we have any board comment at this time? I have a comment. Just want to let everybody know that my term is up this year and I will not be seeking re-election.  Well, sorry to hear that, Rodney. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that, Rodney. Yeah, it's been an experience, that's for sure and whatnot. For the most part, I've enjoyed it, but at this time I just need to focus on my business and family. I totally understand. You're supposed to run that by me though. Well, thanks Rodney for letting us all know so early on so we can reach out to somebody in the Bethel community.  It's been quite a ride. For another board comment, I don't know if I missed it. Did we get a report from the VLA principal or did we not have one on those right after? I did not do that for this report, Chris. And mostly just because last week was just a whirlwind. I forgot to ask her so I apologize. And do we have any other board comment before we move on? So I don't know if it, I guess maybe, I guess under super tennis report, I guess will we talk some more about VLA there? I guess I have just one question or one thought on something related to the VLA. That sounds great, Chris. Okay, we'll save it for there. Okay, well I think that's up next on our agenda anyway. So why don't we move on and Jamie can take the floor. So it's pretty busy in the COVID land right now. And so I want to celebrate the fact that we are one of the few supervisory unions in our part of the state that have not had any type of confirmed case within the school population. So I think we should pause to celebrate that. I'm knocking on wood, but folks have been working very hard. We've asked folks to sacrifice a lot and I recognize that. And so I'll say that when I signed on to be your superintendent of schools, I certainly didn't know that I was also taken on the responsibility of deciding how we would navigate a pandemic because there certainly is a lot of responsibility placed on the superintendents around navigating this. I believe that the procedures and processes we have in place are appropriate for us to continue to move forward with in-person instruction while we are ensuring that we continue to mitigate risk and communicate in a proactive way to our community. And so I'm looking to change some of our approaches to communication with the community in general to ensure that they understand what updated guidance is occurring. I mean, we certainly have an effort to use social media and written communication via email. And I certainly try to use our Blackboard Connect system, but I'm going to look into talking with Ray of how do I utilize maybe more video type communication in social media and email presence to communicate that way. I know Ms. Bowen, you do that quite well. And so I think maybe I'll wear the fedora my first time out. But I think that sometimes the things we put out are a bit dense. I've tried to adjust our writing style to make certain that folks are able to glean the most important information from it. This continues to change daily now. I mean, I would say that I get updates from Secretary French one to two days, two times a day that I'm having to dig into with Shane Oaks, who's done a marvelous job of our COVID-19 coordinator to just ensure that we have updated information or communicating that appropriately and timely. One of the things that got put on school districts last week with not much notice was a surveillance testing, which we're going to be doing for the first time in RSU tomorrow. All the specifics around that were finally released on Friday. And so Mr. Oaks and I will be the test administrators for that to pilot the first time for volunteer testing as staff for COVID-19. We're hoping to get those results back by Friday or Monday at the latest for staff and staff will be contacted directly in the event that there was a positive case and then via email when they're negative. This was an effort from the Agency of Education separate from the Department of Health. I think that everyone's in support of it. I would say that from my office, the frustrating thing is that it hasn't come with any support to implement it. And so that that also has fallen on the Supervisory Union school districts to implement. You know, folks continue to ask, are we going to stay open? And yes, the answer is yes. I think the governor has been clear even again today in his address that his focus is to keep schools open for in-person instruction and that, you know, spread within schools when you look at contact tracing has been very minimal, less than three incidences across the state that they believe occurred via school transmission. And so what we're noticing is a great deal of transmission that's occurring outside of schools. And so that's really where my focus is on. I met with the SU nurses this morning to talk about how can we through kind of marketing and celebration that we've been able to stay open also make certain that we're communicating to folks that the recommendations that have been occurring about how we socialize, how we travel and how we can really conduct our day-to-day lives after eight to three are so critical for us to continue to stay in-person. And I want to thank our communities because I think the fact that we are in-person right now and haven't had to go virtual speaks to the fact that folks have been following that guidance. And so I'm unbelievably appreciative of that. I also want to just, you know, in addition to my report say that the Thanksgiving break couldn't come quick enough. I think folks are pretty tired. I think that faculty and staff, this is taking its toll right now. And I'm looking forward for us to be able to refuel our tanks and get ready for the push into the holiday break and gearing up for what I hope is the first time that we have to implement virtual learning across the SU will be that week of January 4th. With that, it's taken a lot of strategic planning because in addition to going completely virtual again, we've also had to ensure that we made certain we were ready to roll out with our lunches and our meals because any point that we were to go virtual, that's required to count it as a student day. So I want to acknowledge that the food service staff has worked hard with that planning and preparation. Our blizzard bags are out across the supervisory union so that we can go to remote learning as we gear up for virtual. So a lot of planning has been done by folks to ensure that we're able to transition at any time we need to. One of the areas, and I don't know, Chris, that this is what you were getting to, that we've struggled with a bit is around substitutes for the virtual learning academy. And so that's one of those things that Lindy and I are trying to navigate. I had to assign both Amy Toth and Lindy to teach last week in the virtual academy to cover because we have staff out. And it's just like schools for in-person learning. There's days that we are scrambling for in-person learning subs right now when we have staff out. And we've had floating subs in some buildings. And in other buildings, we've struggled with staffing levels. An example is one of your sister districts up the road in F Budd have struggled mightily with staffing levels right now. The other thing that we continue to see is that we have had increased turnover in staff this year. I think some folks have continued to consider whether or not the demands that are placed in the field of education on top of dealing with a pandemic, whether it's worth it. And so our resignations have been higher than they have been previously. And that's required us to continue to try to add additional staff throughout the school year while trying to make certain we're maintaining what we need in place to best support students. And so, you know, that's sort of my verbal update in addition to all the great things that I talked about within my report. But those are all several additions just from when I completed the report last week to now that I wanted to bring you update to update young. And I'll take any other questions folks have. Yeah, so that was going to be my comment or question. It was about subs for the virtual Academy.  But yeah, I know Lindy did a good job stepping in to help out when she could. But, you know, she's also juggling several other roles and hats right now too. So, you know, if there's any way to find and I know it's, you know, not a lot of people out there, but you know, if there's some people that we can identify as, you know, people that are able to help out with subs on the virtual side, it would be good just to give a presence and not have it fall to the, to the paraeducator and then principals to step in. I think the plan Chris is that we're going to try to post to see if we can get a regular floating sub for VLA like we have in their schools. It's sort of the game plan that I tend to come up with with Lindy. I have a question just wondering what the protocol is when when students in the school that are going and showing up physically for attendance, but then they get a cold, you know, we've had it happen in our household twice now where our kids gotten a cold, got asthma, so it's easy to get congested.  Sometimes it takes a couple of days to get in to get a test and then it takes three to five days to get a result. So he's ultimately out for a week if there's a sniffle. And so how can he, how can my kid or any other kid, how, what's the plan for making sure that they get enough support for the classes that they're missing and or, you know, obviously there's virtual learning that's happening, but it's not at the same caliber and there's the, you know, the possibility of falling behind. So I'm just wondering what kind of game plan there is for that because there doesn't really seem to be much from our experience. It seems like he's, you know, falling behind on some voices because the teacher wants to give him in person and he can't show up because he doesn't have written clearance yet. So just, you know, question, just wondering how that's being handled, especially on the middle school, high school level where there's more, more stuff to hand in more academic work. Well, I can let the pencil speak to the middle high school. I mean, my initial, my thoughts around the elementary is, is that Lisa, that's, that's something that's been concerning to me right along. I'm struggling with how do we have enough staffing levels to do a mixed model when that happens. Right. The algorithm, of course, is now that we're into cold season is requiring more students to leave. I think that we've had even folks on my team experience this with their children that have been sent home as resulting in them needing to get a COVID test. And certainly the testing turnaround is different based on where you go. Excuse my experience last week where it took me over five days to get a test back. Right. And I think part of it is because of the something that happened at UVM, some sort of a cyber attack that's been turned around a lot more time consuming. So going to Gifford is now, we got to get, it takes a week to get an appointment. So we did, we drove all the way to Barrie as they've got an outbreak in Williamstown. So they're taking care of people, but it was crazy confusing and haven't gotten a virtual report yet. I had to call today to find out that it is negative, but I haven't gotten anything in writing yet. So that I can't submit anything. He can't go until the doctor gets a written report that he can fax to the school. So it's just, it's just a lot of, and I understand everybody's just stressed out and over. That is one of those data points that I'm going to have to use to make determinations, right? Separate of us having confirmed cases. If I'm at a place for my staffing levels and the fact that we just have a multitude of students out, that we feel like we can do a better job educating virtually, then that's a decision I would have to make. And at that point in time. Yeah. And so that is one of those data points that we would use to then determine that it made better sense to go virtual at that point in time than to stay in person. But I am looking for my staff to really utilize Google classrooms. And a lot of the assignments and things should be on there for students when they do go out. So I'd like to hear what the principals have to say about that and how we're leveraging that technology. I can talk at the middle school level. We've had some families that have fallen into that position of having some cold symptoms or some symptoms. We've also had faculty in those situations. And we have pretty clear guidelines on all of that. And what we're doing is following the safety and health guidelines first and making sure that we have remote academic support for all of those kids that are out. And as Jamie, I think, made it with lizard bags, actually explicitly said, and that the high school, middle school, we have a remote plan for when we go remote. It's all set. We've shared it with families, not the details of the plan, but that we have it and the structure. And I feel like we're ready to promote and we're ready to support it. It by no means is perfect, but we have a system and it's working. I feel confident in it. Some of the key pieces at the high school level have been alluded to, but all the high school teachers are supposed to be putting their assignments on Google Classroom. So a student who misses a class just because of a doctor's appointment or dentist's appointment should be able to log in in real time and see at least what's going on in class and what the homework assignment was, which is not a replacement for direct instruction. That's definitely a weak spot of ours when somebody has to quarantine for seven to 14 days. But at the very least, there's no longer that communication problem of having to get the assignment that you would have had in the old world where the teacher wrote it on the chalkboard. The other big piece for kids who are making work up is our Wednesdays, where instead of having two and a half or three classes a week, we only have two classes a week. So being out for a week doesn't mean as much of a loss of direct instruction. And then Wednesday, students can access teachers to make things up. So we've had about two dozen students coming into the building on Wednesdays to work one-on-one with teachers to make up projects or homework assignments and that sort of thing. That system is still a little rough around the edges. We're trying to get that into routine, but with the half day last week, with the holiday next week, it's not an ideal system yet. And then the third component is we gave a lot of incompletes for the first quarter. And we just had a lot of kids who had excused. I consider being in quarantine an excused absence. So we got a lot of kids with excused absences and the teachers are being really flexible with leaving their grade books open for students to take the time they need to get unfinished work in and work with the teachers or their classmates to find out what they missed and get that up to date. It's not perfect. We have tried out a couple instances for teachers to actually teach the class with students who are remote. And what we found were there just a lot of technical issues that the equipment we have and they're embedded in the computers, don't pick up questions in the classroom or questions. You can't participate on an equal footing remotely as you can when you're in person because you just can't hear what's going on in class without some fancy studio mics and a camera that can follow around all the action. So that's imperfect, but to the extent we can keep trying things, I'd like to see us do that. And I'm happy to share a little bit about elementary. I think we're in some varying places and I think we're trying to work with parents where they're at. There's some that really just prefer handwritten assignments be sent home. And then today I will say as I was leaving the Bethla campus I had a teacher say to me that one of the kiddos that was out was able to log in and on his computer join the reading group that she was doing in live time that he couldn't be present for because he's out waiting for a COVID test, but he didn't miss his reading group and it was just like he was there. So we're doing it all a lot of different places. We are utilizing Google classrooms in some aspects and just trying to work with parents with what works best for their families at this time. Well, thanks. That was all really helpful for me. I'll just keep trying to support my son as much as I can through this. No, and Lisa, I think if you can, you know, feel free and I say this to parents all the time, the more you can give us feedback on what works well and what doesn't, then allows us to use that to get better. All right. Yeah, we'll do that. Do we have any other questions for Jamie? And let's move on to the principal's report. The principals like to speak to the principal's report? Well, we've got a lot going on. A lot of our focus has been on MTSS, especially with the new coordinator of student services and our MTSSB coordinators who are with us for their second year. So I've spent a lot of time gelling as a team, trying to get our systems up and running. And as you'll see from our report, there are a lot of components to that from crisis prevention institute training, which focus on de-escalation and things that trigger student escalated behaviors to functional behavior assessment training, to restorative justice training, to a lot of work with the Vermont MTSS guide. And we've been getting trained by Michaela Martin. And we have our next training Thursday. We're going to have a training by Ken Cranberg with Life Space Crisis Intervention, which is another program that a lot of us have had positive experiences with. So there's a lot going on in the MTSS domain at the moment. Andrew Owen, you guys want to take one of these? You want me to keep going? You're doing great. It's pretty good to say that. Another one of our focuses is proficiency-based learning with attention to literacy, math, and flexible pathways. Having Amy Toth working at the elementary level has been a blessing. She was at South Royal to today working with teachers. This is a lot of coaching going on, a lot of specific focus on reading instruction and how to improve student reading. We've got the same type of focus at the high school. One of our literacy teams is meeting tomorrow to talk about writing and how we work on student writing and reading for authors intent, how we divide some templates. We're working on that across the curriculum at the high school level. We all are using data teams to kind of dig into the reading and math, which is part of our focus all of our continuous improvement plans. Maybe Owen, you want to talk about the mixed model? To the second bullet there? Sure. The mixed model, we continue to use the mixed model of in the building, out of the building. Our goal was Thanksgiving and I feel really good that we're going to make it outdoors to Thanksgiving. Go Wildcats! If you follow Facebook at all, we've seen that we are like the kids are having an incredible time and one of the things we're focusing on was that they love school and we know if they love school they got great like skill sets in elementary and we build on it middle school and they love going to school every day that it builds their connection to being loving learning at the high school level. We're also working on those academic skills two days a week in the building, one day remotely and those two days out in the world and I know that a few folks have kids that are connected to that. I'm looking actually it's just Tammy that has a kid that's directly in there and we had one kid I don't know if I shared this with you the quote the kid was like I don't know which two days I like better school or the weekend. That's pretty good. And so I'm also by the way going to go into the different meeting in a little bit. I just wanted to know when I disappear I'll be at the SUI equity meeting that I'm the responsible party now that Mary Ellen's locked but I'm happy to answer questions too. They know I'm running late. And then in the third goal working on community engagement in outreach hopefully you're you're getting to see our bi-weekly news which is on a regular published publication schedule. I think we were what seven or eight pages as probably our average every time we put that out. So there are kind of meaty pieces from the elementary middle and high school level including something that's come together really nicely is a lot of our work-based learning students at the high school have been contributing articles two or three every two weeks to the news. And a lot of those articles also go on to the Herald. So we've got a nice involvement of students as part of that. Then the other big piece this month is parent-teacher conferences. Those look a little bit different this year. We'll see after Thursday how those all go at the middle school and high school level. But I think they went well at the elementary level. Andrew if you want to add anything there maybe not. Well yeah it's definitely new and different doing conferences like this but some of the feedback was that maybe it was easier because they didn't have to drive to school they could log in they could access string maybe breaks from work if they work not normal nine to five hours. So we had pretty good attendance. And then just a final piece is that the athletics for the high school and the district as a whole feel that our communication around those have been good both with the Herald with the Wildcat news but Heidi right our co-curricular director is using a software platform called TeamSnap which she's able to use to like instantaneously get information out to families and parents. And this week we held meetings for students who are interested in basketball at lunchtime. So the varsity boys and girls basketball coaches were on campus to meet with students for the first time to get ready for their upcoming season. And that's the bulk of our report. I might add that we're excited that a vacancy in our food service hopefully hopefully has been filled and we're hoping she'll start in the next week or two. That hasn't been settled yet. The week after Thanksgiving the vacancy in the custodian position at South Royalton is it'll be filled. So we'll be back at full staff there. I think that'll make a big difference in getting us caught up with projects. Although we've been doing a phenomenal amount of work getting caught up with the help of two substitutes that we've been bringing in regularly who are both experienced retired custodians. So they they know what's needed and they're helping us get get a good amount done. Any questions or more information on that? I have a question. This is really for all the principals. Where do you see our kids as far as their academic level of where they are compared to where they would be if they were in class all the time on a regular school day? How are they doing? Well the elementary is doing regular day now and I think they are doing well and I think it's been a good transition to the regular day and I think where I'm really looking forward to is see the January assessment data to see how much growth they've had since they've been back in school. So I feel like they're doing well honestly. I think that there's a lot of learning going on and I think like Owen said earlier it seems like that long break from not being in school people really seem to have an appreciation for it now that maybe they didn't have previously even the kids. So that'd be my two cents read. Andrew where are they compared to where they would be say last year? We can actually pull that report and show you that because we have that data in compared to where they would have been last year. How do the teachers feel? You know I wouldn't be saying I haven't actually asked them recently but I'm not having a lot of people run to me worried. I think we have meetings on the kids we're really worried about and you know go through the whole EST process but I don't feel like I'm hearing a lot of people saying oh my goodness they're so behind. I feel like anything they're saying they're catching up they're soaking up but I don't hear anything really concerning when I have meetings. I just had a staff meeting today and I don't feel like that's that's not what I'm hearing is like oh no we're so worried. I think they feel like there's a lot of pressure and that is what I'm hearing and well that's about where the kids are at and more about you know worrying about going remote and making sure they're ready for that and making sure the blizzard bags are ready and just just making sure that they are prepared to meet the kids where they're at wherever we're at is more what I'm hearing from teachers right now. Thank you. Bob I think by and large at the middle and high school level the the general feeling among students and teachers is that they're really happy to be able to be in school four days a week and I mean there's definitely a positive academic lift that's coming from that not being there just two days a week but I think the really important part is the social emotional piece to get to see friends and having some sense of normalcy amidst all the chaos. You know in my Monday meeting with other Vermont high school principals you know I'm astounded that you know a good number of schools they're still all remote at the high school level they just decided that it would be safer for them not to be back in person and of those that are back in person they're some are meeting every other week and most of them are divided into two cohorts like we were for the first six weeks so the kids are really missing out on direct instruction that you know we're we're able to deliver at a higher level than other folks so I am almost embarrassed to raise my hand and and talk about some of the successes we're having because it it really is not the typical experience for high school students in Vermont right now to be in school four days a week and even on the Wednesday we have kids coming in to get one on one help most schools are using that Wednesday and it's all virtual help you know via email and so the kids who are really disengaged and unmotivated there you know there's three days of asynchronous learning are really not that meaningful to them and you know I feel that way about my son's experience where he's in school two days a week it has to check into a meeting on on Wednesdays for five minutes uh I you know he's learning something but it's it's not anything like what it would normally be Reed if you went here if you went to your elder one teacher tomorrow and said where are you compared to where you would have been last year what would he say or what would she say yeah we would be behind where we were last year and you know the two contributing factors are having lost 12 weeks of you know in person instruction at the end of last year so there's a real big gap but the other pieces we started the year slow so while we're getting all these new routines in place we were only seeing the kids one one class a week and the teachers really by the end of that six week stretch I think by and large we're really looking forward to having the kids two days a week and felt like we weren't meeting their needs as much as we should have been during that time so and I think I I shared this with the other administrators today the kids who started out in the very our virtual academy they've been meeting having two classes a week since the get-go so in many of those classes they're actually you know farther along in the curriculum than their in person you know counterparts are because they you know they've had one more class a week for six weeks how do the teachers um how do they feel about where they are with the curriculum how do they feel well you know we we started when we use those six professional development days at the beginning of the year and one of our big projects has been to to focus on the core proficiencies of each class and say you know what are the essential essential components and skills which are what proficiencies are all about what is it that we really insist that students need to know when they come out of this class and in some ways it's been helpful for our our work and proficiencies to really focus on the most important things and some teachers it would say feel a little bit liberated by that to say you know we're not going to cover as much this year that's just the reality you know when we're only in person 80 of the time we're not going to get as much ground gained but it's given them license to really focus on what's most important and some teachers feel really good about that okay thank you yep on the principal's report the one comment I would have is you know I really do like how you guys are focusing on those three areas each time so it's great to see the progress on each of the priorities that we have but um you know I don't think it should be the principal's report should exclude everything else you know like if there are other things that should be included they can be included too I guess whatever thing um so I don't you know if there's stuff that's not under those three categories you know just have a section on general so Andrew would something like a fourth category which was just general operations that you will update it you have staff and facilities and that sort of thing be helpful right or you know some sort of intro paragraph that goes over kind of the major things and then you go into the detail on the major priority or something whatever whatever works best but you know like it would be good to kind of yeah get a general overview of things and then kind of the power to kind of yeah but we get that stuff each month but then whatever else is pertinent yeah like uh I mean and it's all happening so fast it's hard to keep up with it even when I'm in the building and have uh check-ins with with my uh control technologies uh mechanic uh we've got seven new ventilation units installed in the high school we we pivoted with how our installations were going to go because having them in the building and assessing our needs revealed that we had six classrooms that were overlooked because they didn't have unit vents uh so they go well we can't replace the unit vents so we're not going to is it well why aren't we replacing them well they they don't have it and they've got this antiquated 60-year-old ventilation system that that's pretty ineffective and so we good news is just yesterday we got word from Efficiency Vermont that they're approving us for an additional $19,000 to upgrade those six classrooms by taking some of the units that were going to be installed in the elementary side and replace units that were there with putting them in where they didn't exist at all before so a really really big improvement for us with the grant and that's all proceeding on pace so we're excited about that although the the next step requires cutting six holes in the concrete walls in six of the classrooms so scheduling the mason for that and where we're going to move the kids when the saw is running uh remain problems to be solved but uh it's great to have better ventilation in the building so let's say but you know one one other thing that uh didn't make it to the board packet was the school choice and tuition enrollment report um would it be helpful if i presented that and we go through that real quick all right okay let's see so while you're bringing that up is the elementary still getting some units replaced or were the ones that were intended for the elementary now being shifted over to the high school uh what's the breakdown uh three of the seven classrooms that were slated to get them will get them but there'll be four that don't have them uh you know they all have unit events that have the same merv eight filter in them so the you know the difference is the quality of the efficiency of those units uh you know one of the things we've seen having opened up the units here in november is that uh you have the filters are doing a great job collected dust so we'll we'll increase the the period in which we replace those filters um you know the other thing that the elementary classrooms have for ventilation is they have the exterior doors and so as they go in and out of the building uh more with covid directly out of their classroom doors they're getting a lot more ventilation than they normally would in normal conditions uh so that was also a factor in and feeling good about diverting those units but we're we're also hopeful that if if new ventilation funding becomes available the next round of of aid that we'll be able to apply for for getting those replaced before the end of the school year uh let's see my presentation is probably not up yet here we go so the the good news is if if you don't have a chance to look at this yet that once you add up all this raw data with each grade level which which fluctuates dramatically as you can see right now we've got 28 sixth graders but we've got 61 seventh graders so the the class size of any given classes for some reason is all over the place uh which which you know likely could create some some additional challenges to student scheduling down the road but that's down the road but the the nice piece is you can see um when we look at the total is that we continue to see some enrollment growth across the district uh so we've got eight more students enrolled right now that we did uh this time last year or you know september of last year and if we kind of go down this this list we spelled out where all of our choice students are coming from that we've got 11 choice students uh coming into the elementary school then at the middle school level I want to just want to clarify so that's there's uh 11 that's choice between schools but only one that's actually tuition into our so it's 10 that's flop between campuses and then one that's choice from Pittsfield all right it looks like one tuition student in the elementary one tuition student at the middle school uh and is ac the the acronym we're using for the alternative classroom andra that question andra brought me that question today yeah i think olyn wrote that so i'm gonna assume that's main's alternative classroom so those are students that help our our adm numbers wildcat institute wildcat institute all right so those are su students um then what do we get sorry going down the list here we've got uh one kid from rochester in the virtual learning academy but that's an su program uh two kids from rochester at the middle school one from handcock one from sharon so there are a couple two issue four tuition students is that five tuition students at the middle school and then at the high school uh our number is there that we we've got 31 tuition students how does the tuition work for the uh virtual academy student in the middle school since you know for them they're enrolled in your school you get tuition okay that would be great good yeah that's good news awesome sorry i'm going all over the place on me i forgot i was driving yeah so we got 31 tuition students at the high school uh mostly chelsea tunbridge and sharon and the breakdown of our students that we tuition out to the tech centers as we have nine students uh from ram going to randolph and seven students going to hartford those seven students are only there half time so that's the equivalent of three and a half tuition payments that that go out to hartford for that and then the last number here is you know the number of students who choice eight and out and so it's not a not a significant factor there three students who go out to vast so that those are a couple students that we still provide a little bit of support to but are not you know aren't in our classes so we're not getting any tuition money there and the students in the raven harp and eva program are largely students whose tuition is being paid by the special ed program although one of the students at eva is a locally funded student what is what is the harp program i've heard about the harp program is based on life skills um programming and it's something andrew as we look to build more alternative pathways at the high school don and i were just meeting today about it um with terra as we started to continue to work on the su budget um that i'm hoping that we can address because in addition to the students you have that are enrolled at your high school we have several students across the su that that's where they're placed um and so what that means is that that's built to the su budget in regards to special education and so if we had a program here within the our own su it would make sense that their placement could then be at our program here um because their their placement was based on the iep team and what the students needs were so if we can meet that then it would make sense to keep them here right here without an rsu the student numbers that that are going to the tuition or tech center and vast and stuff are those just from the tuition students are total of all the students that's all the students yeah yeah most of the tuition students i i think i pulled out the students who are going to randolph from that total number of tuition students i think we did the total that we're billing basically right if they're going to randolph we didn't count them as a tuition student because they're not really helping us right and so and that would include like half students for students that are going to herford yeah uh i think we might have that list when we originally counted them yeah i think we yeah we did and what did we have in the budget for numbers what did we budget for okay so and that so this is like 31 high school it was four middle school and one elementary so 36 total that's pretty close yeah yes we budgeted for 38 tuition students see that memory andrew they can't get anything by me they want to try over and over again but little do they know i'm on it see and i remember those little those little bullets tara's laughing they try they over and over again try to pull stuff by me and it doesn't happen does any anyone have any other questions about this report before i stop sharing the screen tara had identified 31 or 38 tuition students um are those 38 tuition students just reflective of high school or was that for elementary middle and high that was the total budget amount put in yeah other than preschool preschool was budgeted for separately okay and then um there was a term that was used um from a public comment component what is the wildcat institute so uh we've been working on what uh we would call our formerly named restorative classrooms and i believe that we're landing on right now seeing how it sinks in students have had voice in this the wildcat institute and the wildcat institute is present on the bethel and roilton campuses correct and was that summarized in here then yeah it was summarized as ac okay thanks you read both of my questions so jamie yes what's the so what's the difference in the revenue figures well i'd like us to go with 35 students for tuition and we budgeted for eight so we're off about three and we the tuition was announced at what tara 17 137 dollars per student so we're short three so tara do you have your calculator out 32000 something more around all right so i'm looking at town report one thousand it looks to me like tuition budgeted in the town report for revenues it is four hundred and ninety nine thousand seven hundred and fifty is that right that was the f y 20 f y 21 is six hundred fifty one thousand two hundred and six dollars yeah okay so how how much less revenue 53 000 for 51 bub his current projection and that's can you know i'm i'm putting us down one just to be safe in case someone transitioned out or something should we move on to the business manager report unless anybody has anything else for the principles okay tara thank you so you all have my report the only update i had to give was what read had already shared that based on a resubmission and reconfiguration of the efficiency vermont program royalty campus was able to get an additional 19 000 of funding and i signed the revised sub grant agreement for that yesterday so great job for them and for the team there to get that additional funding and then my auditors are here in the office all day tomorrow and thursday so we'll be wrapping up the onsite portions of the f y 20 audit tara it says here that the fall census report was due on the 6th could that be something that you share with us just because the adm numbers are different than the emerald and so easier to track what were our effective enrollment is so once those are certified in december andrew then we'll definitely roll those out you it's about december typically um once they certify those i know ray has been working diligently on those with tara um and so it's submitted but now we don't have any errors but then we'll wait to find out what other revisions they have for us i would like to see a revenue report i'd like to see um any incumbrances on our budget so that the board can make make good decisions on how much money there is and how much money is being spent i like that every month revenue report bob to the reports that i send directly to the school board each month yeah i think you know we have the revenue report which is the revenue that we've actually received now but what's actually useful is the projected revenue so you know we have our projected revenue which is now different money had in our budget so that's kind of what we care about it doesn't really matter how much we get so if we could kind of happen somewhat updated projected revenue report on tuition signatures and i don't think it's useful to know how much of that money is actually meant but knowing what we expect to get and have that be up to date our system doesn't generate a projected revenue column so what i would just need to do to let you know so you know what to expect to come is i would just have to export that to excel and i would just need to add a column to that as to what i'm projecting right i mean i would imagine that i'll happily submit that to you every month as well okay yeah i mean i imagine it would just be like taking the budget amount and then when you get your tuition student number and then you change that column whatever other grant and change that just you know put a note saying what the difference is and then that's what we do we usually do the budget projections after the first half of the year where we actually give you what we're projecting based on the first half of spending so i mean i can do that part of it quite simply as far as adding additional revenue that i think that's going to come in between now and the end of the year right i would i guess if it was just kind of a document that was continually updated like it sounds like bob would like updates more often than just like end of the year comes yeah i'd like to see him i'd like to see him every month and i'd like to see that revenue report show the budget amount show what we received and what we're projected to receive and how it fits into what was estimated in the budget if if the board if you haven't already i would suggest that the board look at the 19 audit that we got and look at the revenue projections and look at what we actually received in revenue you mean what was budgeted first yeah what was budgeted and what we actually received there's a lot of differences and i think one of the things that we came across bob was that the the estimates for tuition students with the merger were overly optimistic and that was was pretty apparent early on that fiscal year well i have it right here from the auditors yeah i mean i i think we know that there was a lot of revenue shortfalls for that year and 279 000 right so there was a lot of that was tuition students but then there was also some Medicaid money that was initially budgeted for our district but then was used for the supervisory union instead you know there was a grant shortfalls and stuff as well so um you know i think that's the thing that when they happen we need to know about them and that's right guess at the beginning of the year and then we just need to be updated as these things come in my sense is like if i look at that i'm really surprised and i'm pretty upset because it's not a good projection or a good example of of the dollars that were spent and i'd like i guess i'd just like to know how there was so wide a gap well bob i can't i can't speak to that because it wasn't my budget i know that i know and you know i think based on what we just said and based what's been reported in the papers prior to my tenure and certainly what i tried to communicate in august is we overstated federal grants and revenues in multiple areas because they were the same dollar was budgeted twice we over projected tuitions and what that resulted in is us not having the revenue that we you know budgeted and that's the worst thing you can do in school districts you heard me say this before because we can't make things so if we over project revenue we're in a lot of trouble because we we don't have things to sell and so it's hard to make up for that and when you're talking about like you say bob close to a half a million dollars back then that you know that is certainly what has helped contribute to the deficits um yeah when you get your budget in december revenue will be part of it and you're gonna we're gonna say over and over again that we are budgeting very conservatively when it comes to revenue i would like each one the board members if you have it to get a hard copy of the of the audit and i'd like you to read pages 71 to 73 now i've studied the audit so i know pretty much what's in there and i want the board to read it because i think you'll be surprised and the other thing i don't have is an audit um of the supervisor union and i'd like to have that because i'd like to see how the money was spent in the supervisor union now i asked for that the last board meeting and i didn't get it and i'd like to have it as soon as i have the physical bound copies i'll happily give you one i can print you one from the website the electronic version is already up and available to anybody in the public that wants it or i can download it and print it for you and if you're coming tomorrow i can leave it here for you as well you don't have you don't have a hard copy of that right now no i haven't received it yet from the auditors i sent them a follow-up email saying where the bound copies of the su audit but i don't have that yet all right all right i only have that electronic version that's available but like i said i'm happy to print it for you so you have a hard copy because it's exactly what they send in the bound copy short of having the spiral binding on it i think if board members if you take the time to read it read those pages of the audit uh you're talking about schedule a and schedule b or which like rather than referring to them as page numbers just andrew i did also send you the pages that bob is referring to in that last email i sent out on wednesday i exerted those specific pages from the audit so you do have them in that email that i sent out as well all right they're separately and jamie um in this year's budget i hope that the revenue figures will be more accurate i guess yes and then and like i said if anything you're going to see us come in and say to you guys these are conservative projections around revenue um because i just think that that's that's what we need to do and i think you'll see the same thing when we budget tonight we're budgeting at a hundred percent um hra funding where the district hadn't done that practice in the past but i think that's critical to ensure that we we budget appropriately for any and all incurred expenses that we may have um um i think well i just hope the bore i hope you take the time to read the audit and um i'm better with hard copies than i am when reading it on the computer unlike andrew so but i like it like it shows a good picture of what happened last year and i i'm it's beyond me to understand why we're expended over the budget and expenditures um and why the revenues were over expended it's beyond me to understand how that could happen and i think this year i would really like um here to sit down with the principles and encumber as much money as you possibly can so that we have an idea about where we are with the budget and there are schools that have their budgets totally encumbered and revenues encumbered and i have an example of a school that has done that and um and it's done very well and they have good budget control and i feel like we lost control of budget last year bob if you would share those examples with me i would truly appreciate it i'd love to see what other schools are doing yeah i will i'm gonna send a packet to the whole board yeah i do think that's the sort of thing where we need to do it as we're developing the budget then next year when we're in the next budget then that's when it can be done you know i i don't expect that we'd be able to do it this year because you know it'd be a lot of work to go back through every single thing in the budget and encumber it and i don't know maybe that's me making assumptions on what cherries the business office capabilities i think if we do it going into the budget have a process in place where you can more easily see when my experience has been andrew that it that it happens at the end of november that monies that are going to be spent are put in there as encumbrances now that doesn't mean that that's the only money you're going to spend on a line like if you have ten thousand dollars in there for fuel and you spend 12 and you encumbered eight you're still going to spend you know if if you're bored agrees and you can you'll spend the 10 but at least the encumbered to give you an idea about where you are and right now the way we do things you don't have an idea i don't get a monthly we don't get a monthly report on the finances so we don't have an idea we can't and we do get a monthly report it just says what we've spent but not how that different from what we expect it's 30 it's 30 pages long i spent an hour and a half to two hours going through that it can be cherries sent out a you know a report that was one page long on expenses you know it's possible to do that kind of thing so that the board understands if you give them 30 pages i'd like to know how many more members spend an hour and a half to two hours looking at that i'm guessing nobody except maybe andrew now i i've got to say that i've asked for a nice summary page in the past something that really gives us the nuts and you know a one page or a two page summary that we could look for any anything that stands out but yeah 30 pages i i don't get to it absolutely i know and the excel file that gets sent and maybe it's just you know it would be easier if i also pdf the excel file so that you can print it out but the excel file provides several summary pages based on how you want to look at the information i mean andrew created that so that it was very user friendly and that's all that i had done was just went in and printed the pdf version of the function breakdown of that excel file so i'm happy to provide you with summaries but then historically you've all asked me for the details so that's why i give you both of the reports i mean it takes in all honesty it takes me two hours to generate those reports to email to you every month and i do that for seven entities that's the job that's the way i think right but that's what i'm saying so i'm if that's not what you want i'm happy to give you whatever that you need because quite honestly if you don't want all that detail it does save me time if you look at the can i just interrupt for a second i think that this would be a good thing to go into in the finance committee meeting like working on what i recommend is is that we're going to try to get you what you want prior to the finance committee and then you can give give us feedback of the finance committee and then from that we'll roll it out to the board and then you know board members that are not on the finance committee can give feedback on that second draft yeah i think that sounds like a good plan you know i think that's going into the details exactly all the things that we wanted to report exactly what we have so i think the whole board needs to see that and i think the finance committee understands it and they understand what they're getting and what they're not getting and i think the board needs to get that information again bob i'm going to interrupt you i just i just said we were going to do a draft have the finance committee give us feedback on the draft and then sell it send the second draft to the board so that the rest of your board members could then say does that still meet their needs and so that everyone can weigh in but absolutely everyone will get it i understand um the other thing i would say is is you know i was on the board that developed the budget whatever the 2019 budget so why don't you give me a call and i could talk to you i know a lot of people weren't wrong and things like that so why don't you call me if you can talk to me i think it needs to be i think it needs to be discussed before the whole board and uh okay especially if you look at the policy that's being put forth between superintendent and board relations right i think it i think this stuff i think it's got to be discussed before the whole board so the whole board understands exactly what's happening well i mean if you want to discuss what happened in 2019 this was we were merging the districts we were doing our best guess as to what the um you know budget would look like and what the revenues were for the revenues what we did was we basically just added the two individual districts revenues and then there was going to be a bunch of new tuition available from the closing a bunch of percentage of those we estimated that we would get a percentage of those tuition students basically took our current tuition students and added what we expected yet as it was we wound up with fewer than what we had or more i think partially because we didn't get things finalized as far as curriculum and the other things until after people were making their decisions on where to go and so we didn't get as many tuition students through that process i think we would have expected and since that time our tuition numbers have been coming up and up into this and after that first year we you know didn't we drastically cut down over the next year because of the tuition shortage all that caused that but that was you know we did our best at the time yes we're good for more conservative but this was also first year we had that district was our district was combined but there was a lot of guessing that went into it and then that was combined with you know some of the mistakes that were made as far as you know the split over between health insurance happened in that year so there was the what's called one of the health insurance things wasn't budgeted so there were expenses like that and then there was some building expenses that happened that part of that was transition related so there was kind of a perfect amount of things that get on in the year in the year that we were just for some areas that were not budgeted for properly in some areas the budgeted for for most part being a problem and then the next year we did it you know we adjusted things on the following terms so going into this budget year we're not going to have problems because we've had our budget down for we've had our different existence for years now and so we're able to see a lot better what things actually look like in reality you know we didn't have that when we were doing this but so now we have history we can see what we budgeted for you know we want to make change so that that's what I would say as far as like summarizing what led to that and why I don't see an issue now the things that led to those and it's also combined like when you look at the the budget report there this was also in the middle of all that changeover software packages and books of accounts but things aren't that they're they coded in the pack in the same places they were budgeted for so it's very hard to figure out what exactly went over budget we spent a lot of time going through them over the last couple years to understand what happened but you know it makes the the audit kind of difficult to just look at the figure out exactly what happened well if I look at the audit and tell what happened and I think if you look if all of you look at the audit you can tell what happened too so well what I mean is like specifically I don't think you can tell me exactly where things were over spent because there's things that are categorized in different ways so like money is shifted around from where it was budgeted and so it looks like certain categories are over spent by a lot but those are actually in a different budget category so it's yeah anyway well we ended up looking at it and it's definitely worth going through but I think I don't know how much utility it has through our current situation going to the next question since again there was so many unique things that happened in that year that I don't think apply anymore particularly since you know we now have new leadership at these supervisory and level and so you know I think we shouldn't see the same things happening because you know that new business office new superintendent new we also have historical data that we can look at from the budget and what we actually spend and a combined aspect so you know it is worth going over and figuring out what happened but I would not think that it's that helpful to the next button.  Oh the look. Ter I don't think it's adjusted since August really right when we did a projection that they ran in the black and the SU ran in the red. Yeah I don't have any updated numbers at this point in time the auditors are doing their stuff and once they get through that process I'll have updates. You don't under you don't know where your budget is. No she does she gave it those numbers you know as our local district was in the black we ran a surplus in our local district but that was wiped out by the special education that we were down. How much was it? I think it was 50 something. Well I can just say there's been no ones providing me any updates that the numbers I showed you in August have changed. The supervisor union numbers or our budget numbers. Correct so that the supervisor union had that overrun you know close to 500,000 and then therefore that is going to put you guys into the red a bit. You were in the black but of course you pick up over 40 percent 40 percent change of the SU. Yeah but our budget wasn't in the black. I mean we were $350,000 deficit and we were after not for 1920. That was the cumulative deficit Bob. In August when we had done our initial projections pending any changes that needed to be found during reconciliation we had projected a general fund surplus for RUD of $122,000. Food service had a deficit of $121,000 for a total cumulative deficit including what you had in the 18-19 audit of that 317-929 was what was presented in the August 4th meeting. Was 317 or 470? 317-929 for your general fund and 153,458 for the food service fund. Which adds up to 470,000. Just over 471. Yeah all right. Asked all my questions. Anything else for Tara? Then I guess we'll move on to the budget draft. So this is the second draft. This incurs all salary and benefits and function object codes with each one of these departments and as you know we went about budgeting this year not line to line and that's why you haven't seen the line-to-line budget that will roll out in December with revenues as well attached to it so in December you're going to get used to seeing what you've normally seen. We've approached it this way across the SU because we're taking the approach of zero budgeting and so we wanted to really look at what staffing do we need and as you know staffing and personnel are about 80 to 85% of a budget and so we wanted to hyper focus on that the first two months and so this includes all your staffing and the budget line items within these these object codes for both student support and general education. Now in December the draft that you'll see then will look very similar to what you've seen in the past but we're going to have cleaned up areas and we've been doing that as we've gone along and you're going to see some of the areas where it's dropped down like in general and regular education elementary that's because we've coded that position appropriately up into the interventionist line and so we've been trying to adjust where folks are coded I know in times past when you guys have looked at your expenditure reports you wonder why are salary lines overrunning well we're trying to clean that up right now as we budget to ensure that folks are placed appropriately under the correct codes so that's why you'll see some of these areas down when other areas are up and you'll see that when you get the detailed budget draft in December and so student support not much has changed there since the last time we rolled that out we're down you know 16 000 in change this is budgeted for what we anticipate increases in both health insurance and salaries to be just so you know for next year it's also taken into account how we're utilizing our consolidated federal grant revenues and you'll see that in December those revenues and how we're projecting them and budgeting them one of the things we're looking to do as you know as we in the SU we use it a great deal of federal grants to fund positions here and we're looking to roll those out as much as possible back out into the district so we're looking to utilize those both for math intervention to increase that at the high school level and we're also looking to use it as you can see we're trying to add a pathways coordinator which will support students with alternative pathways both through dropout prevention and for students who just want to access personalized learning that would be more project-based experiential and so we have a point person for students who want to access you know Vermont higher ed collaborative classes sorry Vermont you can tell I'm getting it's getting late VTV LC classes I apologize BYU classes and so did that person want to help oversee that work they're really a facilitator of learning but they'll work with both licensed teachers and the student for the student to demonstrate credit and or proficiency through a project and Reed and I have been working diligently this year to get some of those types of projects underway and then I read I think you'd agree that we've had some success thus far we're getting students back reengaged and now back even in our building we're in the past I think you know we may be would have lost that student and so the 40% grant funded that you see there I can fund 40% of that position because it is for dropout prevention and so therefore I can use title funds for that and so you've added an entire FT there but we've been able to do so based on some other savings and I don't want to go into exactly what each position is right now other than I can tell you that there's some support staff positions that have been eliminated within this budget across the two campuses and that is part of what gets us down to just being under this current year's budget while also adding additional intervention in the pathways and it covers that student support coordinator position in addition down at general ed you'll see that pre-k's down we're not changing our offerings of pre-k currently we chose through management this year to adjust what our staffing levels were and we've been able to do pre-k with two FTE in the pre-k department and that's what we plan to move forward with. Andrea correct me if I'm wrong or get something wrong there I know that you'll provide details afterwards but that's why that area is down just so folks know like I just told you the regular education elementary that's been coded more appropriately to cover who actually is doing intervention versus who's doing universal instruction this this line you see now at 1.502 that's who's actually providing universal instruction as elementary teachers it's not including any budgeted money for interventions so we've been trying to clean that up same with regular education middle school and high school some of that got coded differently based on you can see that there's certain departments that have increased like social studies well we just coded those folks under the areas that they should be coded so that's where some of those adjustments are coming in. Music this proposed budget doesn't replace the music teacher that we've chosen not to replace this current year that's something that you know we're going to look for board feedback on but I want to highlight that the administration in this budget is you know proposing that we can continue to meet the needs in regards to music education without replacing that position that we had chosen not to replace this year and so I wanted to highlight that area foreign language is down a little bit this still covers we didn't replace an entire foreign language position as you know from last year to this year that was a management decision this this budget ensures that you have foreign language at the high school at the levels you currently do as well providing at middle school what it doesn't provide is for direct instruction in foreign language at the elementary level and the concept around that would be is that we would look to build in more cultural experiences in foreign language at the elementary level instead of providing direct instruction there and so that's something that the administration would like the board to think about and either discuss tonight and or provide feedback definitely come December we are looking to increase English language arch some at the high school and that is to provide appropriate staffing levels to make certain that we can provide that alternative sorry my phone just blanked the alternative pathways program at the high school and so because we will use some of our regular ed staff to to provide universal instruction there and so that would be an area that we would look to add some additional staffing to meet those needs as we look to expand our pathways can you give me a thumb up if that's correct that's what I remember that being and then math that was just that we didn't add anyone there that was part of that recoding in middle and high school just so you know staffing wise we didn't change any FTS and science just so you know one of the things we are looking to do is juggle how we do personnel around serving drivers ed and so we're looking at based on this proposal within the budget we can continue to provide drivers that at the level we currently do but do that based on management decisions around personnel and how we use them at a pretty significant reduction plus this budget supports us having money set aside to provide drivers ed still at the summer levels for students we weren't able to get it it might be worth highlighting that two years ago we we paid for a summer drivers ed program and the cost per student of running that was just exorbitant so the plan would be that if there are students that we absolutely can't serve during the school year just because the enrollment is too high that we have budgeted some money so that we could pay private tuition to a driving school to make sure that all of our students needs would be met we felt that was a more cost effective way of taking care of our our future drivers than funding a whole core section with a teacher in the summertime uh principals you want to drop in and talk about what else you're excited about with this current proposal um since i gave kind of the overview i'm excited because in the in past years i've brought to you uh some staff cuts to help get a more sustainable staffing ratio student to teacher ratio at the high school and i think if we're able to effectively enroll students in an alternative high school program that extra capacity in the regular program can now be diverted to help sustain that program so for example you know we'll have a section of social studies being provided from what was our general program will be those students needs and we'll be able to preserve a teaching position at the high school by having them work with students who are now being sent off off-site it also helps to get a more sustainable number for science which are two of our you know where we have two of the lower student teacher ratios i can also speak to the process in general which has been very organized and very focused and really very professional and i'm so grateful and i see andra head nodding too the other thing is is that we looked at everything everything was on the table and one of the things we did we we had your thoughts in our minds so we have i'm really proud of this we will we're proposing that we have outdoor education at all three grade clustered levels elementary middle and high school i think outdoor education is going to be a niche area that we're going to be able to draw families in especially in the upper grades because a lot of people do offer it in the lower grades and i also really am excited these areas are not even they're not in the middle school but we're excited for each other the pathways program and the alternative access to high school that uh reed is helping build is really going to be a place where some kids that don't always fit in will fit in and that we will make our school work for them and they don't have to work for our school it's really exciting i think i would just weigh in that i'm excited about how the process has gone so far and i look forward to potentially uh the same process next year where we're really able to finally again compare apples to apples and not two different things um and i think what i'm excited about is the flexibility right now because i know you know when jamie was talking with us he was talking about some of the different things we could do in the elementary but so much of it is contingent on are we still in a pandemic mode or not so i appreciate that this would allow for some flexibility that if we do want to expand to having potentially three preschools for elementary we could still do that um given on what what life looks like as we move forward so um could you elaborate on the preschool thing like what is this so i would say that this year we were set to go with three preschools two on the broilton campus one on the bevel campus and unfortunately we made final calls so many people pulled out at the end that we couldn't justify running three preschool classrooms and also then we did need some vla teachers at the same time so um at this moment this doesn't um eliminate any elementary position positions so i feel like there's flexibility and fluidity to move people around you know if the pandemic goes away people come back from virtual teaching there's ability to still have two preschool classrooms really so there'll be one on each class right now we're right now we're planning for at least one on each campus but i think there's possibility to expand if needed and if everything is different right and would that be like so the current plan would basically be half days for students yeah i don't i don't think our plan is going to change i think we're going to offer full day four-year-old programming on both campuses but with uh half days for three-year-olds or for four-year-olds that choose to go half day and then we can potentially add some if we have enough interest you got it good you got it and the foreign language it looked like it's basically the same fdes but like what happened with the position that where you're not replacing like is how are things being shifted in the foreign language department i guess it's my question so the foreign language department will be down i had those notes in front of me earlier i want you want to see if i got it right we had budgeted for 2.5 foreign language teachers right now your actual is 2.2 foreign language okay and what we actually have in the building now yeah was 2.6 what do we have budgeted 2.5 so we budgeted for 2.5 we have 2.2 yeah and this budget uh is 2.0 and so what's the difference like we're gonna have a full time in the high school and then we'll have uh i we'll have 2.0 across middle and high school i think that's what i want to say right now um andrew um just because we're getting into some details around personnel i think i just believe that we should talk have conversations with folks prior to that if it would impact them okay well i'd be maybe we can have a discussion on how think you have vision things changing for next time yeah in december when you get the line by line uh budget based on you know just tonight's still conceptual then we'll have had those conversations with folks prior right but i guess you know if you want us to provide feedback on it then we kind of need to know somewhat what we'll be changing that foreign language position change but when correct me if i'm wrong is not going to change how we offer foreign language at all other than the elementary which is what i had said when we presented it is that we won't have foreign language at the elementary level that will be more based on cultural studies by how we offer it at middle high school won't change at all that's a absolute fair assessment right so i don't know if that's helpful or not andrew yeah no that is helpful um yeah um on the music side i'd be curious what the vision is for elementary music going forward and how that compares not to this year but the previous years um you know it seems like going without a music teacher this year is possible since music is kind of you know not it's very different in the pandemic than it is normally um but i'm you know i'd be i'd like to hear what the vision is for that going forward and how that compares to what we've offered in the past andrew do you want to talk a little bit about how we've been handling music and what you see for the future i i think it is very different certainly right now i mean carry's here she could even weigh in she only just started um going to the railton campus was it a week ago carry or two weeks ago it's she's just barely starting and and we've gone really slow we're not offering um maybe like twice a week uh choral and we haven't really started in on in instruments at all so um you know i'm not sure again there's so many things that we don't have answers to yet about going forward for next year for me it's really hard to plan um about what it could be versus what it has been um but i do feel confident that like carry's doing a great job and uh it's being really well received uh having her on both campuses and i think it's definitely um playing to everybody's strengths as far as the music teachers that we have on staff so it's hard for me to vision given the uncertainty that we're looking at right now honestly well would it be possible to kind of project not necessarily a set schedule but you know like assuming things are back to normal like it seems like we should budget for not pandemic and then if it is pandemic we adjust you know the staffing as necessary um so like you know if if carry's doing both elementaries like what does that look like as far as you know how many times a week kids wind up getting music in elementary school and like when did they start doing band and when do they start doing whatever else right if you don't have that now it just i don't think we have it right now we can certainly work towards that for like the next meeting if you'd like that that would be helpful yeah andrew i think one of the things that we are doing is is i've asked all the principals across the su to analyze our elementary schedules um and you know ensure the starting points i have was is ensuring that students um are having plenty of of essentials right based making certain they're having them at least once a week um and that also we're making certain that we're prioritizing math a minimum of 60 minutes a day and literacy a minimum of 90 um and so that's sort of the framework that we've given around instructional blocks um and i think one of the things that we've been realizing as principals that have been meeting more often is that in the essential department um it's been all over the place of how we've done that and um just even how we've gone about building the schedule sometimes it hasn't made a great deal of sense to me i've had some buildings that had essentials three times in one day um and then maybe just once the other day and i i just worry about how that's impacting instruction in general um and so certainly i think in december we could roll out to you you know what a what we're projecting an elementary schedule would look like and why you know we recommend that we go with these staffing levels for that okay sounds good is anyone else having uh connectivity issues you go go black and then everyone can see right i'm having some problems my sound is fading in and out a lot jamie jamie when you when you blink it goes black wise guy all right you two carry okay at the beginning of the call there was lots of audio issues yeah it's been generally okay for me i don't anyway i guess we can keep going and see how it goes um one other question i had on the budgeted stuff um how was the sharing when you have a staff shared between um the high school and the whatever we're calling new alternate program at the high school how does that work for the budgeting purpose like are we just budgets like are we paying their full salary and then they spend time in the other part or yeah you asked that before and so those students would be your students yeah so if students were placed there at the high school level they'll be registered rudd students okay so yeah great so that we don't have to worry about it right yeah that keeps it way way clean sorry if i asked that before no no that's all right i just they're confusing they'll be registered rudd students um and because that this will be a program within rudd it's like if students go to harp they're they're hard for students and then there's additional monies charged based on them accessing that program okay it does keep it a lot cleaner i agree and then my final question on the budget i think um was uh the support staff that was moved out of the regular education portion of the budget were those like if you look at the budget thing were those in the top part as well so they got added to the student's part budget part are those in the f y 21 side of the student support budget or were they not in that side at all they are not in the lower half so they're all when you look at like a current expenditure report andrew including the support staff in the general universal instruction is all under that function code 1100 so they were they're included there just under a separate object code so support staff um paraprofessionals and whatnot are 102s versus 101s so when i had to break them out to present them as the support staff versus the general instruction that's why i only broke out their salary and benefits because all other functions of their positions are going to be included in the regular ad and when you actually get the full workbook that you're used to seeing they're going to be up and part of that 1100 code as well when you look at the pivot table so they were not in f 121 budget for intervention andrew but they are included in as intervention in f y 22 right so that line goes up because you're adding those positions in well yeah and they would have went up even more but you can see we're increasing grant funding to offset some of that okay all right i just wanted to make sure we weren't yep great question and we're going to continue to ask those questions and then like i said you'll see it in december 2 okay does anybody else have budget questions other board members any general comments on the budget and instructions yeah maybe if you could just ask each board member andrew to just give us a sense of how they're feeling that would be helpful for for me sure i'll just go in the order they appear on my grid so bob go ahead you there bob everybody's i am there we go um i didn't have time to pull a budget down that was sent by tarot today so i haven't had a chance to really look at it well bob feel free to email us please with what your thoughts are because we'll use it to inform i i guess i'd like to know if read is to i think you should be planning a budget non-covid i mean i agree with whoever said that um and my only question would be from read is um is everything in this high school staffed efficiently and the alternative school staffed efficient did you say sufficiently or efficiently efficiently efficiently uh i i think uh having some staff help out in the alternative program in the high school will make us a lot more efficient um have you decided where this where this school is going to take place have you decided that is it in the high school building or yeah read you want to talk about the places that we're looking at i don't think it'll be any surprise to folks okay i didn't know if that was was no no they're they're aware that we're looking at at that space okay we're bob we're looking at using the garner rick's facility downstairs so we have a group of you know a dozen students there there are uh what four breakout rooms or small rooms off of that space and that would be the core uh area that students would spend together in the morning especially working on their english and math proficiencies uh the the benefit of that is it's really close to the wood shop um so there would be opportunity for students working on pathways to be engaged there um so yeah i think i think we have the space that was a big missing piece a year ago uh when we were talking about this is where would we put it so we've got that um i i think we're pretty efficient yeah i mean you know you you can always put more kids in a classroom you know and and we you know we could drop a teacher here or there down to point eight and maybe we'd lose a quality teacher and and have bigger class sizes if we were just looking at efficiency but uh i i think i think we'll be a lot more efficient next year than this year but you know that that also depends on numbers um you know i think we're anticipating we're not counting on this but we're anticipating that we'll do a better job bringing more students into the SU because we're not you know we're not publicly talking about cutting positions and cutting into programs like we had the last two years uh we're talking of you know this budget would sustain all of our current programs um and if anything you know it adds a little bit because it adds pathway options for students that don't exist now um and we'll be bringing the outdoor program onto the royalty campus which we don't want to do this year uh but we'll you know we're committing to do that next year are you improving your alternative program i mean your um hands-on programs uh the the hands-on programs uh have have suffered for lack of enrollment uh post merger um you know before the merger they they primarily service middle school students and so with the loss of of the middle school students uh it's a reason why that's something that we've talked about cutting the last two years uh so you know i'm i'm glad not to be asking to cut those this year and hoping that with the addition of the alternative program we'll be using those resources more efficiently than we have in the past and we found the middle school students they're in Bethel doing hands-on work right i think it is the bob too how we better leverage personalized learning plans yes and pathways and around around having a coordinator help a student see how those experiences could tie to core content credits um and so that's the work that i get excited about um like i said earlier that we're really trying to launch into and leverage more and again as Owen says i do think there's some areas there for for us being in each school if we can get that really solid um because you know the schools that we're competing with for you know tuition students um you know we offer as many uh high level classes as most of those schools do and re-correct me if i'm wrong but that's my understanding is that we do what i think we could do better than them is experiential learning and outdoors and things of that nature and if we can offer that without taking away from the upper level courses around ap that i don't know how you don't want to come here um and so that's what we're looking to do is strengthen that other pathway as well for students that want to pursue um more experiential learning because we we do have a ton of upper level courses um and this budget doesn't enter doesn't take away from those while also building the other well my experience my personal experience was um to expand the hands-on classes and go to an eight-period day and ask all kids to take seven classes so those so the hands-on classes became electives for all the students and in fair haven when i was there um i had 80 kids in in um when i went there 80 kids in um hands-on classes 200 kids in the study hall and the next year um i put hand i put more classes in increase the increase the number of periods that the kids had to be in class and i ended up with 400 and 450 kids in the hands-on classes and 25 kids in the study hall and i'm a big i'm a big proponent proponent of hands-on classes now james talking about i'm guessing the same kind of experiences but in a different way yeah no i think we're talking the same language bob just different we have all kids coming all kinds of kids coming to school we need to address all of their all of their educational needs and different kids have different educational needs not all of them sit in front of a desk look at a blackboard and um answer questions and do a good job there they they do a good job and other parts of the school and other parts of the curriculum so i believe that hands-on courses are really very important um to the students you have fewer discipline problems and more kids engaged in school um lisa do you have any comments on the budget um from what i could see from what was presented i was um really glad to see that that there seems to be a savings on most things overall and nothing seems to have increased uh as far as the bottom line and without having to cut anything it just seems like you guys are really looking at what's working and um so it looks like you're putting a lot of thought into it like i'd have to put a little more time into looking at what was presented if i had any more feedback but overall i i like what i'm seeing chris yeah i like uh you know i like that we're starting uh the way that the process is is being presented uh i think like andrew you know i think what you all described for you know coming to us maybe next time with like an example of what the elementary school day will look like uh and stuff uh i think that will be helpful for us to to understand some of the the staffing decisions uh you know like in regards to to music and some of the other things so yeah what is the what's the kids day look like versus and and how the staff is being utilized to to meet the needs yeah uh i like the way the direction everything is going uh the last couple years i really haven't been pleased with the budget obviously it you know it hasn't worked out very well and uh here's the on the right track uh so from what i can see it's uh yeah i'm happy with the direction we're going in i guess one question i would have um like what are what are these projected for like health insurance and one thing that's really killed us in the past terry you want to talk about that projections that i have built in andrew we're based on the initial rates projections released earlier this year once the final rates are released we can make updates if necessary but i'm comfortable with what's in there okay and again we did budget a hundred percent hra we did make that adjustment for the first draft of the budgets because that's really something that we need to make sure we have appropriate allocations for okay considering with the new contract the the board is responsible from first dollar forward right okay and what do we budget for that now it was like 60 percent or something um let me just go back and double check andrew i know i fluctuated in between districts i'll get right back to you do you know what the health insurance increase was projected to be terry between 12 and 18 health insurance projections between 12 to 18 yes sorry i was looking up the hra thing yeah 12 to 18 andrew depending on the plan well i'm impressed you guys are still showing projected savings then because that's pretty crazy well again i mean there's some big areas here right that we're using some title funds for right and there's a few positions not replaced in this budget so on the title funds thing are these like right now we're kind of taking those positions not putting them in the budget if they're funded by revenues is that changed from what we did previous years like is this money that we're using for something else that we're now using for this so we've increased federal revenues to you guys to offset some of your interventionists specifically in the area of mathematics but also another area if you look at mtssa that position i'm providing you guys with additional 50 000 in title two funds to offset that position so what was that money being used for before i guess it's my question like was it spent at the su level yeah okay spent at the su level so when we restructured remember those positions from the su they title two money was covering those positions okay andrew that we were in the current f y 21 budget we funded 50 of the hra exposure okay do you know if you haven't had feeling for how that's going i asked data path again yesterday for an updated utilization report they've been having some technical difficulties on their end so they haven't been able to give it to me for first quarter um when i looked at it last we were trending between 45 and 47 percent oh and that's everybody in the su and that would be the end of last fiscal year okay i just don't know how it works like is it and that's about three months behind in claim processing okay so this is the way it works for fiscal year not yeah the last report i got was for um the end of f y 19 okay so that would be like the full utilization for last year was around 45 to 47 less about three months worth because it takes about three months for claims to get processed and then you put covid in that mix and i'm sure it's going to be higher than that okay because of processing in the way you know the hospitals and facilities in the spring i do anticipate that that utilization will be higher than the last report that i received but i can get back to you as soon as i have that information from datapath okay thanks just as a general consumer and as someone who is well engaged in health care i can let you know that forecasts for health care utilization when the state was shut down whether that be new hampshire and vermont was significantly lower and it didn't start opening back up until june though tera's statement might be correct in some aspects i need to clarify the utilization numbers that she spoke to all right i guess if we're doing a hundred percent of that we don't really need to worry too much about what it was in the previous years but it's good to know that the utilization might be lower than it would have been otherwise last year anyway um so does anybody have any more comments on the budget or anything else okay thank you guys for conducting that i echo what everybody else said that it was you know i like the way the process is going so far and nice feeling like we're on top of it all right so we'll move on to the policies that are warned for adoption so there's one two three four five six seven policies that the policy committee has all reviewed and approved these policies have been on the books now uh for at least six weeks um they were warned in the paper um and they're going to be going in front of the full su board for adoption on Monday you're the first based on timing of how we warned in the paper you're the first board they can take action on it um and so i'd be looking for you guys to move and approve uh a 24 b 22 b 34 d1 f 28 f 29 and f 30 okay do we have any comments or discussion on any of these um do we want to talk about them individually or just as a person andrew yep um i'm going to vote no with a 24 um because nothing to do with jamie but um pastic past past experiences with this board and relationship that it's had with the superintendent um i think makes it very dangerous so what specifically is i do you have a problem with um if i don't want to discuss anything in open session about that but i'm going to vote no against i'm going to vote no for this policy okay um i mean i i'm not sure why we couldn't discuss in an open session i mean basically it's saying that we set policies and the superintendent implements the policies which is kind of the way it is now um i guess i i believe everything that's in this policy except i i'm just not i'm not convinced that we're ready for a ceo yet okay um do like how would you prefer it to be worded i guess is however i would like a superintendent to build relationships with each board work in relationship with each board and the boards work have a have a work relationship with him and that's it well is that different than what this policy suggests yeah how so i'm sorry you really you really want to well i mean we we need to move on it and so like we're being asked to approve it or not approve it and yeah i'm gonna i'm just gonna vote no i don't care what everybody else does okay you can vote yes if you want um well i mean i was certainly planning on voting yes but if there is some problem with it i'd like to to know what the problem is that i can well i i mean i gotta i just i must say too the comment from a board member to say that they don't think they're ready for a ceo as your ceo i find offensive yeah yeah i would say if there is any reservation about it that this is the time to discuss it but you know but after it gets adopted i mean i think you know in here you know this is the time to dissent but then after if it gets approved you know from what i you know remember of uh of you know board governance and stuff it's you know the board individually we might dissent but then after it's adopted then you know we all work to support it so um you know after this you know whether we vote yes or no individually if it passes you know that's our our duty to support it right right if you pass it i'll support it well so is there anything that you can say publicly about what you think that this could cause well problems adopting this could cause or no no there's nothing i mean do you want to discuss it should we discuss it in private session is like i i'm not sure how to proceed here well andrew just advise you as your superintendent you can't discuss policy in executive session you could discuss personnel in executive session if you choose okay well i guess um i think you should just we should just vote on it andrew and i'll just vote no okay i mean i i think it would be more effective if you could elaborate on what your concerns are because right now you know there's no way for us to as as christ says like it's either going to get adopted or not you know there's no way for us to improve it or change anything or anything if we don't know what the issue is so you know it's we we should try and get on the same page if we can and it's hard to get on the same page if we don't know what you know the issues are yeah it's nothing you there's nothing i can that i want to talk about in an open session and jamie's right you can't discuss policy in in executive session so i'll just vote no okay um does anybody else have comments on do we want to do these individually um okay so why don't we start with a 20 a 24 board superintendent relationship does anybody else have any comments on this one or discussion does anybody want to make a motion i'll make a motion motion to approve a 24 to vote on it well i think that motion needs to be to adopt i'll make i'll make a motion to approve or adopt a 24 i will second that emotion okay any discussion um hearing none why don't um um how in favor say i i hi hi i'll opposed no okay so the motion passes or are adopting that policy okay moving to the next one um b 22 complaint about personal personal and instructional materials or any discussion on this one or motion first sure we'll make a motion to approve b 22 so any discussion okay uh move on to the vote um all in favor hi hi hi i i have closed okay uh b 22 adopted move on to be 34 records or attention have a motion so moved second any discussion okay all in favor hi hi okay any opposed we'll move to policy d1 proficiency based graduation requirements retain a motion can i ask a question about this sure um i have a question for jamie um are we going to change our reporting system or report cards we're looking to change our report cards bob at the elementary level to be more standard space i know the proficiency at the high school level we have not discussed changing the report card other than in addition to reporting out on two transferable skills but the same way we report out on credits um an overall course grade would remain the same read did i get that right yeah you you did uh one thing that we probably will do bob is i saw an example today from a high school in new hampshire where they have a legend that translates the the numerical grades that we have into proficiencies so for example a uh you know their scale used an 81 do an 89 represented proficient on their their legend that went with their report card so i i think that we're probably do that and i've got a discussion with with some teachers tomorrow that may get to that point it won't happen this semester but maybe uh for second semester but the the number grades aren't going to change okay um you have u.s history 85 as your grade that may be you know and the legend may say you know 85 is highly proficient and then we might see that a 70 to 79 is proficient and 65 to a 69 is uh developing proficiency because i don't want to handicap our kids that are headed off to college because they don't have class rank or grade yep you know i think that's our concern as well so i don't know if this is a place to make sure that doesn't happen but i don't know how the rest of the board feels about it but i feel um very strongly about this so until the colleges change their way of uh admitting students um i think that we need to maintain a number grade in class rank i don't think i i don't see this policy as uh talking about how we report out bob but more so what type of opportunities we give kids to demonstrate credits or proficiency yeah i i understand that um but i but we have a way of coming back and haunting you later on as long as everybody understands that we're not going to change our grading um and that we're going to continue with class rank until such time as colleges figure out a way of admitting students um without grades um i just want to make sure that our kids are graded and have class rank i know a lot of high schools are going to proficiency based report cards and uh i don't want to go there all my kids have gone through college some of you have some kids that are going into college so at least that you know i've expressed my concerns i hope it doesn't happen and you know this policy is okay with me i agree with jamie i just want the reporting to be done in grades and class rank yeah now clearly we gotta have GPAs and ways to to demonstrate how students have achieved bob yeah that that's definitely schools that had missed that boat had had to learn the hard way around that but i want everybody to know what has happened out there yep okay um so uh entertain a moment motion to approve this policy i'll make a motion to approve policy a second okay all in favor say aye aye all right okay any opposed seem to have lost uh rodney we need rodney for a quorum no we still have four yeah he's back okay so rodney we're voting on policy policy d1 yeah i got you exited out but mistake yeah so yeah so uh did you vote on it or we did vote if you want to add an aye or an aye there we go okay any opposed okay that policy is adopted um okay now we're on to f28 disposition of assets entertain a motion to approve this policy i make a motion to approve this policy any second i'll second it okay any discussion all right hearing none um all in favor all right all right okay any opposed okay policy f28 been approved now around f29 investment the motion to approve policy f29 or adopted or whatever as long as everybody understands that if we invest money or put money in a bank that we have we almost have to guarantee the principle which is exactly what it should be so whoever does that investing or whatever we invest in needs to understand that okay um i make a motion to approve f29 a second and a discussion okay all in favor the aye aye any opposed okay we've adopted policy f29 that is good okay um on to f30 budgeting and may entertain entertain a motion to adopt policy f30 i'll move to adopt the policy all second 30 um any discussion okay um all in favor say aye all right all right okay any opposed okay we have adopted policy f30 so that's all the policies thank you all we've been busy so the next next one coming forward would be a policy in regards to the work that's been we've been doing around equity um and race okay we look forward to seeing that when when you have that ready to bring forward i have a question when this goes to the full board um this board votes as uh we're gonna all three of us vote according to the way the board voted tonight that's unnecessary bob now i mean you can still vote how you'd like as a board member of the su board well i don't think i don't think that's okay i'm just our whole board voted to support the policy so i think we should i think well as a board we should support but i mean we are separate boards so like you know we have adopted that policy for our board and now it's a question of whether it's going to be adopted for the supervisory union board so i don't um i guess okay um we'll move on to number 10 new hires agenda item 10 is there anything on this no i want to mention okay we've got another public comment is there any other public comment okay that sounds good we don't have any public comment so we're on to an executive go ahead a public comment um the bi-weekly news is great it allows that disconnected parent who is driving his or her students to school every day and not ever setting foot in the camp in the building to be a little connected in this remote realm the in and out of classroom models are interestingly fun in a way that i would have never imagined i thought student conferences at the elementary level as um principal bowen had represented where it went really well um the team snap application used by athletics has some advertising that is frustrating but really really coordinates communication and i think the teachers are doing an awesome job getting through covid stuff and um it's amazing thanks for that thank you tammy thank you tammy okay is there any other public comment i think tammy might be our only public so probably not wear a mask wash your hands and keep your distance okay so uh we're going to move on to executive session personnel um so what's this one who do we need to ask into executive session here this would this would just be me andrew okay um and then we had a second executive session for negotiations and that'll just be you as well okay yep so i guess if we can enter executive session or can we have a motion to enter executive session good night everyone thanks terah i'll make a motion to enter executive session for a personnel matter and you're done with us jamie yes all right be well everybody stay safe thanks oh and thanks for you thanks andrew she's already left okay um do we have a second to enter executive session i think we need one so yeah this should be second eight twenty nine we'll take that as lisa seconding and entering executive session so we'll enter executive session at eight twenty nine coming out of executive session at eight fifty one so i'll make a motion that we accept the superintendent's recommendation on the personnel matter okay any discussion all in favor say hi hi all right okay motion passes um so now we'll entertain a motion to enter executive session on make a motion yeah make a motion we enter a second executive session for negotiations update okay i'm going to log out at this point there's no more decisions to be made and this is not really things i need to hear okay okay i have a good evening see you ready thanks you have a second to enter executive session a second okay entering executive session at eight fifty two same okay exiting executive session at nine oh five um our next meeting date is do we have any future agenda items or other i think you're the semaphore meeting is going to be hyper focused on the budget yeah we'll have reports to the board we'll have a dm too which will be part of the budget and of course we'll be looking at the revenues as well so you're going to have that whole budget um to digest and for us to look at that night so i think we need to make certain we provide plenty of time for that okay well one of the budget items that we talk about eventually i don't know if it'll be in december but would it be like the food uh budget uh and so you know that and then you know maybe you know if my kids be in remote i don't get any feedback on what the lunch is in the cafeteria or like right now so but you know just maybe an update too i'm just maybe we can add food service as a whole discussion item chris but that will be part of the budget but i think food service is a discussion item makes a lot of sense okay jimmy jimmy have you heard of uh provision too i have okay it's never been talked about at the board level yeah provision too at provision to yeah um just uh for the sake of the notes for future agenda items i'm going to add food service as um as a topic is that correct yeah i'm going to get vla back on okay yeah yeah i'm sorry uh chris that that i just i had the regular reports to the board placeholder and we were gonna um do a quick uh mention of what happened with the buildings and grounds committee that we just we had a brief meeting today and sorry you missed it chris um but it was really just strategic and the next time we meet isn't going to be till january seventh so there won't be any new information but it might be worth just making a mention of that that the fact we did meet once already so under reports to the board i'll have um facilities committee yeah okay yeah that's it yeah there's that there are those minutes that reed sent out today so we can probably update off of those um so yeah i saw one of the items for the next meeting was to talk about the lighting study that was done a while ago which would be good to talk about um would it make sense to have subcommittee meetings meeting minutes sent to the full board so everybody kind of gets sense of what's going on in the subcommittee that's a great idea and of course bob when we talk food service we can talk about provision too okay um um i just have one other question jimmy the line of credit that we have doesn't get spent unless you approve spending of it correct okay just tear understand that yep okay at the finance committee meeting i didn't think that she did and i just want to make sure that's the understanding that we have yep no she would she would definitely come to me for approval to draw down on that just i mean just like any any expenditure over a thousand dollars doesn't get processed until she comes to me for signature after it's coded okay we all set with future agenda items our next meeting date is tuesday december 15th um i think we are at the end of our agenda thanks thanks to you good job uh so uh i make a motion to adjourn second that motion all right thanks everybody thank you