I'd like to call the meeting to order just to attempt to keep our timeline. We do have a quorum. We have seven out of our eight. Katia did, was that to everyone? Yeah. No, okay. That she couldn't be here tonight. Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming. We do have a quorum. Meeting purpose remains blank. There's a lot to do tonight, so I'm glad everybody's here. It should be really fruitful discussion and planning. So yay. Thank you for being here. I'll open things up with public comment. I'm going to read our preamble here and then open it up. The board welcomes comments but is not able to take action on them other than to direct the public to the appropriate staff member or to the complaint procedure. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Time may not be seated to another speaker. Comments are to be addressed to me, the board chair, or the board as a whole, not to any individual on the board, on the staff, or in the public. Please raise your hand and wait to speak until you are asked to by me, the chair. Please identify yourself with your first and last name and your town of residence. Please refrain from restating comments that have already been shared. You can express agreement with those comments. Order and decorum shall be observed by everyone. Shouting and profanity are prohibited. As the board chair, I will maintain the order and decorum of the meeting. And with that, I open the floor for public comment. Yes, state your name and count. Nathan Wright, I live in Randolph, Vermont. I just want to take a few minutes and encourage the board to review the new RTC policies of the school board just reviewed regarding cell phone expectations and smartwatches, behavior examples, and the amount of violations that can happen, and the new unexcused absence policies by RTC. They're being revised after our meeting, so when they become more finalized, I would encourage all of you to take a look at it. I think it's a very healthy plan. I think it's a great way to set great expectations for our students that are coming in, that they're here to learn, and that they're here to get an education with very little distraction and bullying and violations. And I would encourage that the school board adapt really closely to what RTC is doing on their end of the school system. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Yes. Yes. So I actually have some documents here that you may have longed for or not. Maybe I can read them. Yeah. Will you start with your name and your town of residence? My apologies. My name is Christian McCrory. I live just down the road at 23 Forest Street, right next to the Access Road, which is what I'm doing. So I have the easement here, and it turns out that Access Road was originally for the installation maintenance of just a sewer pipe. Yeah. According to this, it runs down the center of that road, reporting from Cable, Howard Garrow, and it was also an entrust. It doesn't exist anymore. I don't know what the truth of that is, but I do know that the road has become a real problem for us. So despite the intermittent attempts by school staff to enforce responsible driving on the Access Road, students regularly burn out onto the Forest Street from Access Road. This has resulted in mud and rocks being watched in the Forest Road property, striking the vehicle's parking driveway of that property. Students using the Access Road after hours are not supervised by school staff and will drive recklessly late into the night, causing a safety concern and noise disturbance to all properties in the immediate neighborhood. The children who live at the 23 Forest Street property have repeatedly expressed anxiety about crossing the road. I have an older daughter who's from coming home from school setting the aggressive driving of high school students using the Access Road. The parents of the children who live at the 23 Forest Street property myself, Paige Werco, we experience anxiety about our children playing on the road. The property of students using the Access Road at Access Bees presents significant danger. It is exacerbated by reduced visibility near the 23 Forest Street barn. The owner of the 25 Forest Street property suffers from an anxiety disorder and has been experiencing psychological distress from the maintenance of the Access Road and the irresponsible use of the road by students. The Access Road is poorly maintained and accumulates large puddles. I can't even drive my car down the road right now. Traffic using the Access Road at Access Bees splashed these puddles and caused mud to coat the lawns and vehicles of the adjacent 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties thereby damaging the lawns and vegetation against properties. The lawns above the 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties are repeatedly damaged by traffic driving outside the parameters of the Access Road causing erosion of the lawns and the bruts on the 23 Forest Street property. The breadth of the road is also widened as a result of challenges upon the 23 Forest Street property. Neighbors have reported that students will at times use the 23 Forest Street property driveway as an additional exit when no vehicles are parked in the driveway despite this driveway being private property and not part of the Access Road. When large events occur at the Randolph Union High School property, drivers will use the Access Road as overflow parking doing so results in drivers parking their cars on the 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties damaging the lawn by the ornamental vegetation there. The presence of the Access Road between the 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties results in a significant depreciation of property value up to $30,000 each according to one estimate that Howard had done by Benson in 2022. The Access Road is unnecessary as a means of ingress and egress by students as the Randolph Union High School not only has a large accommodating entry point at its main entrance on Forest Street but also has a second entry point that connects Route 66. Moreover, proper maintenance of the Access Road presents an unnecessary financial burden to the taxpayers of Randolph. The original purpose of the Access Road as described in the easement deed from April 29, 1997 was for the installation repair, maintenance and replacement of a sewer pipeline. It's clear that use of the Access Road has significantly expanded to include regular ingress and egress by students and staff at Randolph. So anyway, all of this is to say for these reasons which pretend to be the safety of the residents of the 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties and their children, the value of these properties, the maintenance and proper care of these properties and the peaceful enjoyment of these properties, the owners listed below requested the Access Road between 23 Forest Street and 25 Forest Street properties be returned to its original purpose and that the traffic entering and exiting the school used the main entrance for Access Point on Route 66 instead. We propose that a gate be installed and the usage of the Access Road be restricted to emergency access in matters pertaining to sewer linemen and SIF facts. Thank you. Do you all want to come to us? Yeah. As just as a point of order, so you're getting the conversation with the board, I don't, there is an agenda item to actually have a full discussion. So I don't know if it was your intent just to do public comment or to have a full discussion with. Well, unfortunately I'm with my daughter here. Perhaps I could return. What time is that? It was going to. It's next. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That way just because I didn't know if there was confusion on if the intent was public comment. Yeah. It's not. It's not. It's not. Could you? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else here? Yeah. I'm Martha Hapner. I live in Randolph Center. My son was a graduate from here in 2010. I'm here as a voice representing at the moment Remonters for Vermont. It says networked with other groups around the state and has put together with some outside help a resolution on parents' rights and education. And just there's been issues that have been surfacing in various sectors of the state where parents feel that there's lack of transparency in what the schools are doing and where there's agenda issues that they feel that they should have an opportunity to be able to weigh in on. And this resolution that I'm happy to pass out and make available to you all is something in an effort to attempt to address some of those items.  Okay. A resolution in support of the rights of parents to direct their children's education. Whereas parents have a fundamental right to oversee the upbringing and education of their children and whereas these rights were well established in the Constitution and laws of the United States and the state of Vermont. And whereas parents shall maintain direction and authority over all decisions impacting the health care and well-being of their children to ensure the best interests of their child. And whereas all academic success begins by embracing parents as the foremost guardians of the best interests of their own children, both at home and at school. Whereas academic focus shall be developed in partnership with parents and community members and shall avoid slanted bias, political opinion or indoctrination. And whereas the United States and Supreme Court has held that the state's interest is universal education is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on the fundamental rights such as those specifically protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the traditional interests of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. Now therefore, excuse me, now therefore may it resolve that the school board affirms our commitment to the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children, including the right to play a central role in what their children are learning and be it further resolved that the school board administration and employees will uphold the traditional partnership between teachers, students and parents in light of the parents' primary role in the bringing up in academic success of those children and be it further resolved that the school board shall respect the parents' rights to see and evaluate all educational aspects of data regarding or involving their children collected, administered or held by the school system to ensure the proper direction of the schools of the child's upbringing and education. So this is being presented to you. It's something that's been put together by Remanters for Vermont and this being circulated in other sections of the state as well. Thank you. We don't have anyone online, correct? Any comment? We'll go ahead and move on. Here we go. To the next agenda item, segue right into real estate discussion on the Garo property. So, Lane, if you want to introduce this agenda item and kind of get us going. So, just to add a little kind of detail. There was an easement in terms of what is now the Garo property. Matter of fact, it was hot. So it may be a relative of yours that was given to the Green Mountain Chapel a long time ago, probably late 60s, early 70s. Dealing with the property where our TCC now stands. That easement, that right-of-way when the property was purchased and our TCC was built was granted to the district at that time. And so that easement has been in place for many, many years. The easement agreement, I believe, that was spoken about during the open comment was a temporary agreement to allow the district to actually repair the roads in 2021. So it wasn't the easement itself. The easement came with the property. It is a right that the district has and holds. But there was a portion of it where whenever we try to do work, we make agreement with the folks that own the property in terms of the scope of the work and whatnot. And that's what that agreement was about. So there was a time where we spoke with the board prior to COVID about the possibility of giving the easement back or for a reasonable cost, selling that back to the property owners. We did have discussion with RTCC faculty and staff as well as the RUH faculty and staff and administrations. Their preferences is that that easement stay, that that right-of-way stay. I would even make a potential recommendation just to throw it out there that we possibly consider buying one of the properties that the easement runs across so that the district owns it. For a variety of reasons, I think if we own the whole kit and caboodle, it's going to cut down on the contention that's existed over the course of time. But it's also going to provide a benefit to the technical center in that we would potentially have a space on the road where they could set up their food truck to do those services. They could set up a garden stand, a space that they do not have right now. So I'm not sure what other details or questions that folks have. I'm in agreement. It has been an area of contention for a long time. But like I said, in talking with the staff, their preference is that it stays. So I think what we'll do first is I'll see if there are questions for Lane from school board members. And then we have invited Mr. Garrow here to speak as well. And once he does then we'll also have the opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Garrow. But first, does anyone have questions about what Lane just summarized for us? I guess I have a question about what exists now for monitoring that space. Because it sounds like that could use one model. Yeah, I mean, it's under the cameras. It's at times administration from RTCC in the past, probably prior to COVID, was out there to kind of monitor the students coming and going. There have been incidents out there. That is true. I don't think they're, from my perspective, I don't believe that they're as widespread as what was presented. But yes, there have been definitely incidents out there. So is there anything in place to curb that? So we've spoken, Howard and I in the last couple of months to try to get the area repaired. Because it really does take agreement for the most part on both sides to be able to do what we work there. And we're in a pretty good agreement at this point in time. A part of the discussion is there's no people down, kind of like we did on the corner of the high school over here. Because that's the real concern. I get concerned too, because when I look at the properties that are there, that road runs awful close to one of the buildings. And so if somebody is walking by one of the buildings on the property, there is no line of sight to see who's coming down that road. So I would agree that there are potential safety issues. Would that run away with that easement? We'll stick to the board kind of responding to what was presented here and then we'll open it up to Mr. Garrow and to you as well. Yeah, thank you. On the topic of road maintenance and repair and meeting both sides to agree, what are the financial implications of that? So it probably should be done every three years or when it's in a state of disrepair. The current cost is about $14,000 to get it where it needs to be. One of the issues that the homeowners have had is that over the course of time when they come in and they lay down new materials, the surface is rising. So it changes the direction of the water flow and it can get into their basements. It can affect their houses. So one of the reasons that this excavation, this work is going to be a little bit more costly this time is because we want to dig down and then kind of rebuild in the pit to keep that area a little bit lower and then to try to redirect the water a little bit to make sure that it's going away from the houses. In terms of the materials that are being used, it's potentially going to allow for less water infiltration in between the particles that make up the road. And so it should last for a lot longer without needing to be repaired, but it is what it is. And you get month of rain. And then just on the topic of the road seemingly not being drivable for a smaller, lower clearance car, what would have been the reasons to prevent the repair from happening this far? Disagreement. We have requested multiple times to be able to go in and repair and we're told no. We do have a good agreement now. I give Howard a lot of credit for coming in and talking with me a few months back and being able to work it out. So yeah. So is it only one of the property owners that has the ability to work with you for meeting to the road? Or do both? It seems to be from my understanding it's I think both properties are affected by having the road go through there. But my understanding in terms of reading the easement that it is on Mr. Garrow's property. Other questions from board members? I'm wondering if policing has been involved with as far as making sure that people are not speeding through there or peeling out? We can make the request. Way back again, COVID stopped a lot of conversations. But it's a conversation that I think is going to come up again given the town of Randolph, seeking to kind of expand the police force to cover the whole town. And that's a discussion of having a resource officer. If we have somebody on staff who's trained to be able to do that, they can be assigned out there every day to be able to ensure that it's safe and whatnot. Historically, and I haven't had a good broad section of the community for the open forums when we've talked about having a resource officer. I've had a good turnout, but it's unclear if it's a representative turnout. But the turnouts that I've had have been very negative against having such an officer in the building. But, you know, we can request a detail from Randolph Police if they get bigger, and then we would pay for the detail. But I don't think it's... I can talk with Scott, but I don't think it's something they could easily manage right now. Right. Definitely a large voice out. Definitely a possibility. Okay. So, what is a resource officer and what is the conversation? What has that been? So, every district that I've worked in, there's always been a resource officer, either full-time or mostly full-time within the district. It is a police officer who is in the building. They typically have an office. They typically do teaching and instruction with the students, like, you know, drug and alcohol prevention. You know, they participate in that. They do a lot of the community policing that, before the changes that happened recently in Randolph, is just coming in and being aware.  How can the police and how can the school work together with the resources that we have in the support of beneficial change for these folks? They are here often, you know, the times which are about once a month that we need somebody here. We've got a student who's out of control. You know, we're a hunting town. We have the student that, you know, puts on the jacket for the first time in a year and gets to school and realizes he left his hunting cartridges in the pocket. Even though we're fairly sure that we're probably safe, we still have the police come and we follow our protocols and we do a full-threat assessment. And so if we had that officer here, you know, those things could happen. They typically wander the hallways. They might help out with lunch duties so that they can connect and talk with the kids and keep abreast of what's happening in and around the community. I have always found them to be exceptional and very beneficial. It is a position that we have great control over. So in terms of, you know, who we would accept for that role or that position, that's our call. So we can be assured of not settling for somebody who's not going to be top notch in terms of quality. Employed by the district. Yeah, typically what would happen is they would be hired by the police force and then we contract out for them. Yeah, but you know, since we're the ones entering the contract, we kind of pick and choose. They do are required to get some pretty significant training that's related to being an officer in a school. Sure. And what's been the objection to that? It's been unclear a lot. The comment that I remember was, you know, we don't need somebody with a gun walking around the schools. That's the comment that I remember from the open forums. So there's that general feeling of, you know, you're going to make it a prison. You're going to have an armed guard here. And that has not met my experience. So I'm going to table that topic for a moment. Just so because we have these guests here. And so if there are no other questions on the right of way, easement property deal, I will now turn over to Mr. Garrow. If you have something prepared, if you just want to share some thoughts with us. Well, I'd like to see it closed. Sorry? I'd like to see it closed. Okay. That's where I'm at. I know some of the teachers probably say no because they have to go around the entire road. But they don't need, there's no need for that access. The buses to go out, circle around where the parking lot is.  They've got plenty of room. And lack of maintenance on that road has been terrible for the last three years. Haven't done anything. Might cloud a little bit of snow, but that doesn't come under what I would call gear around maintenance. And now it's getting, the bumps they've taken out, probably a few of these kids' exhaust systems. I know they didn't report to the school board, but they should have. You can't, it's hard to even go through there a lot more. Everybody is here as a school board.  To experience what it is like to go across it. I know they and I were talking about getting it fixed, but it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully soon. With that note, I'm going to turn over to Christian because I concur with whatever Christian says here tonight because it's, you know, he's a better spokesperson than I am. Yeah, my first reference was to have the road closed, but you know, having looked at the easement date and what the purpose of it was, the original purpose, I thought that a nice compromise might be just to return it to its original purpose. There's a lot of traffic that goes through there, and it has a significant impact on properties. Mr. Millington said that he didn't believe the extent of the information I presented here and I'd like to know what exactly he doesn't believe. Making stuff up, right? There's also some language in this deed that I think should be kept in mind here. So the grantee, which is the school, the grantee's use of said right-of-way is subject to its obligation. And there's obligations regarding returning the road to a level surface after the installation of the sewage, but beyond that, to cause the proper restoration of the property to smooth surface contours in a neat condition and to seed the property to take all erosion control measures and to return it as nearly as practical to its original condition, taking into consideration the nature of the road being performed. By its acceptance of this deed, grantee does for itself and for successors and assigns covenant with the grantee and his heirs and assigns that the owner of the beneficiaries which shall at all times ensure that its use of the easement does not cause nor change of, does not cause nor the change of contours, drainage or erosion of the existing bank through easement. For the owner of the easement, she'll probably take all steps to repair and restore the property in the event that the erosion does occur. Well, as Howard said, if you drive down that road, you'll see that it's occurred. And, you know, to watch those women try to control those kids speeding out of there.  I had to walk her to school for months because she was so afraid to cross that road because of the way those kids drive. And I guess what is so significant to me is that the presence of the stat out there was not enough to get them to stop driving that way. And Mr. Mollingen said that it's, there's cameras pointed out, but in my understanding those cameras are only on the school side. They're not at the exit point, obviously, because those are our properties. You can't have cameras down that way. So, with all due respect, you don't know what is happening on that road. We do, because we live right next to it. Do board members have questions for our guests? I have a question. Are we allowed to? Yeah, this item is meant to be a discussion rather than a, we can't talk through it. Right. So, it's my understanding that you would like the road to close. That's your ending point, right? That you would be happy with? Yes. Yes. Have you considered selling that to the OSSD district for us to use it as a right away? What's that point? You haven't considered? I haven't got, we haven't got that point. Okay. Is that something you would consider? I think about, we can discuss it sometimes. Okay. I don't know if today's the day to discuss it or you just put it on your agenda or what you want to do. Okay. You know. Would that address the issue? Well, what's going to happen is, when the OSSD takes it over, the first thing you're going to do is probably pay them. And then the next thing that's going to happen, the water is not going to recede, they had the problem before. They've got to flood up other properties. So it really, if they do buy it, they have to be taking concern of drainage to drain it to the sewer, you know, the DI's to drop inlets. That's the biggest concern there. I mean, like I said, it's been done before and they got sued over and had to remove all the paper. That was back years ago. They had done fence on both sides. If they do move forward and just going to fix the road, any waste, I'd like it left on my property. I have a place to dump it. So I'd rather see any of the waste be hauled away. So I'd like that to be considered. So how realistic is it to block that off and not use it, Lane? Again, it's just, it's disruption. Of the flow of traffic and you're just shifting and concentrating all the traffic in one area, right? So is it doable? Certainly it is. But it's, I got other things that I'm kind of thinking about in relation to this right now. It would be doable. People would not be happy. So that's why I'm not, I'm just stating what the staff have said. I'm not making a recommendation one way or the other. I'm just reflecting what the other people that may be impacted by the decision feel. Is it more convenience? Is it a preference or would there be, are there concerns that, basically three schools are letting out at the same time, right, middle school, high school and RTCC? So are there safety concerns for us in having one exit that needs to merge from two sides? I don't know. Easy as, I mean it would take, like most things, it would take a couple of days with an actual officer out there to redirect traffic into new routes. And then once people get used to those new routes, they tend to just follow them out of habit. You know, the other possibilities are, you know, if we're worried about the RTCC traffic having to merge with the RUHS traffic, then we just change the release times. It's not insurmountable. I mean, the piece that I want to caution a little bit in terms of the right-of-way, there are parts of what was discussed, which I don't necessarily agree with, but I understand why the feeling is the way in terms of what's being expressed, but I'll leave that. The easement itself, you know, if the Board would have decided to, like, say either grant it back to Mr. Garrow or to sell it to Mr. Garrow because there is a value of that, would have to be approved by the entire voting town of Randolph because it is a property that is owned by the taxpayers. I did check with PH on it, so if that is a consideration, I just want to throw that out there that, yeah, it's possible if you decide that you want to give it back or if you want to sell it. You could do that, but there is an extra step.  Sam had a question a while back tonight. So I think this is solvable and I recognize the legal implications to changing the easement selling versus buying and to the future of the OSSD campus in general and whatever may happen 20 years down the road from here. There are, you know, things to think about there. I wonder if there's, we've talked about Chelsea's brought up changing release times in the past to deal with this traffic issue in the lot in the main entrance. And I'm wondering if we can examine that as an option, figure out how to repair the road properly, put the, put the, limit the traffic or, you know, get rid of the day to day traffic but keep it open for our right to use for that truck application or that garden stand application so that way we can make sure the two residents who are being affected by it feel comfortable and safe on their own land and in their, you know, front yard so keep our options open for the future. I guess I just propose that we look at those, those three. So the, my recommendation to the board as, as processes, as kind of a normal process is to ask all the questions of both parties while they're here. And then this is something that you would, you know, retire to executive session to have a discussion about.  I think, you know, making sure that you've got as many of the questions answered as you think are important to both sides. It's good to be able to make an informed decision about things. My question is simple one. The sewer pipe, as far as, is it a sewer pipe coming from our building out to this? So, I, and this is an important piece because I understand the confusion. The document I believe that folks are referring to was, I've actually got it right here from August 26th, 2020. This is not actually the easement. This was a contract that was written between the district and Mr. Garrow because like I said, to allow us to actually do work on the area to get it repaired because what we have been doing is that we do not do work on that road unless Mr. Garrow agrees that we're, allows us to do that work. The reason that it is in a state of disrepair right now is because it has been very difficult to get Mr. Garrow to agree to let us do the work. He has done that recently, you know, within the last month or so, and so we do have the excavators set to come. But what they are referring to in this and as a part of doing that underground work was to get that construction done and having Mr. Garrow agree to allow that to happen. The actual easement that has been granted to the school is actually within the property deed itself and it's pretty clear in terms of the rights that the district has. So does the district have a sewer pipe that runs underneath that road? They probably do at this point in time, yes. But again, there was an agreement that was signed to allow that work to happen because it was above and beyond the normal maintenance of... Right, but again, back to Sam's idea of before we think about what we're going to do with it, is that having that sewer pipe underneath that road, is that the school's responsibility to maintain that sewer pipe until it gets to a certain point in the road? Question I'd have to research or whether it's actually the town because there were issues with the town water at that point in time.  Thank you. There's no sewer pipe that goes under that road. I've been down across it, dug across it seven feet down, five to seven feet, and there's no sewer pipe there. So that'll help you on that part. And then I just wanted to clarify the document that I have here. Yeah, the easement is in the property deed from 1970. I can actually, I'll try to send you a copy. So I'm not saying that you're coming in, all I'm just saying is that I think we're confused over which document and what the implications are, is all I'm saying. And understandable given what the documents are and how they were. Yeah, just one more thing. I really appreciate the comments from this side of the table and appreciate you all taking our concerns and consideration. I guess I just, I'd like there to be some alternative in what that looks like. It can be flexible, you know. The idea of the food truck coming down and parking at the end of that is totally fine. The road being used generally is fine with me, but to have all of the students coming out of there and peeling out of there. You know, I understand the issue of there's a lot of traffic coming and going, but I think on the other side of the argument is by consolidating the traffic to that in and out at the main entrance, you make it way easier to monitor the behavior of those kids. The road also gets used outside of school hours and it's even worse at those times. So, yeah. I'm open to suggestions, but it would be great if something could change from somewhere. Great question for you. Would you be okay with the buses going through there? Maybe not the individual student vehicles going through, but the buses themselves, because they're buses that are coming from our district that tend to come in. They wait there and they head out. It makes it just one less thing. And then require the students to go out. I would be over the moon if that was the solution. I'm not sure if that will satisfy Howard, but the drivers of the buses are responsible. And I certainly don't worry about them. So, yeah, that would be... It still wouldn't be great because if it's just open generally, then it will still be used after hours. So it's not a perfect solution. But that would be a way better. They open it, the buses go out. It would be fantastic. Yeah. To be clear, my recommendation wasn't for the district to purchase the right-of-way. My recommendation would be to purchase the entire Carroll property. So I apologize if I didn't make that clear. And again, that would provide us with access right on the road for them to be able to do, like I said, their farm stand for the ag group and then for the food truck for culinary. Rachel, you had a... Yeah, this is kind of a bigger thought about the traffic flow around the school. It seems like with the way our pavement and the traffic flow is set up is that there are lots of little pockets where people can park and there are a lot of blind corners and no clear place for people to walk safely around the school in a lot of areas. And that back parking lot, I think around by RTCC, gets used a lot for community functions as well. You know, when sports are being played on the field and various teams and community groups are using them. And it can get congested back there and there's only one way out. Is there a reason it doesn't connect around the back to the other parking lot that exits by the district? I mean, this is like... Table this if this is too far off. This is a much bigger discussion. But as he talks about there being two exits, there's actually from that parking lot without that road only one exit from that. And those two parking lots, the one that's behind the school and the one that's over off of 66 by the district office, it does not connect to the others, really, without significant effort. Six vendor vendors. Yeah, I mean, it's something that can be investigated. I don't know what runs underneath the ground. We have the blueprints and stuff that will tell us. That was one of the problems way back when, and I can't remember if it was related to this or not, but it was a giant leak in the water pipe that was bringing the water in from the town. And it was kind of weird because they actually built the school on top of a good section of that water pipe. So if you need to get to it, you actually have to go through the foundation and the high school to get to it. So it's all cascades. Yeah, so there's lots of parts and pieces. There's lots of parts and pieces. A better traffic pattern. So I think some of the work that was done at that time for this agreement was to try to resolve that issue so that they could get that work done without having to rip the school apart as much. Going back, it feels like it was 100 years ago. Whether we are on this campus or how this campus looks down the road, we are. That will come up when we talk about facilities reserve requests later today. Yeah, I mean it sounds like this is almost like a domino effect. Each thing we bring up brings up one more. But having heard from both of you, and thank you very much for coming in for speaking with us for so long, I think that it's time that we do close this as a general discussion. It is something that we need to talk about an executive session in terms of if there's a proposal that we want to make, if there's communication. Yes. I got one more thing that you know. Sure. Like Lane said, as long as him and I are communicating back and forth, it's great because when I was communicating with other people, it just wasn't getting to Lane. So this works better. Going to the top, you know, so to speak. So I appreciate Lane emailing back and forth from time to time. So that's great. That's helpful feedback. That is helpful feedback. And I'm glad to hear that there's open communication between the two of you, which can only help. Yeah.  You have to do away with four parking spots along the fence. So you could traffic could float back out through there and then back around. If you know what I'm talking about. Okay. You just limit, like I think there's four, maybe there's more than that, but anyways, that way, like I said, the cars could go out that way and up with no problem. But when the bus is parked there, with those other four cars parked there, it's not going to get through there. And do the buses actually have to go over there? Or could they be just like a horseshoe out by RUHS and let the kids walk? So that is another option you should think about. To consider. Yeah. Another domino. Much appreciated everybody. So let's agree to bring this back. You know, we'll talk about an executive session if there's something we want to put together in terms of a proposal. And then if we do have something, it would probably be a written communication to you. Although you are welcome, both of you, at all of our meetings to public comment or to make a request for an agenda item as well. To contact us and continue the open communication with Lane, I think it's fantastic. So, thank you. Thank you. And you're welcome to stay for the rest. But, you know. Okay. Real estate discussion. Create next step an ownership linkage plan. Which I think is actually tied to the board letter to the community. So I'd like to propose we actually move Lane to the state mandated training. Sure. Of yours and then we'll talk about that board. This I'm going to abbreviate because there really shouldn't take more than two minutes. There are two pieces. Actually, there's a lot of pieces that we have to go over with the faculty every year just as a reminder. One is the idea that they're all mandated reporters, right? They have got to report child abuse within 24 hours to the Department of Children and Families if they hear about it. You don't technically fall into that category that you need to be any more aware of it than the fact that if we suspect child abuse or we suspect neglect, that the staff and myself should be reporting it to DCF as part of your oversight function. Right, because if I start talking about stuff and we're talking about what I've done or we're talking in the executive session about staff, if it pops up that it looks like we probably should have reported to DCF, you need to correct this on that. But again, so if there's a suspicion of child abuse, including sexual abuse, it's 24 hours to get it reported to the Department of Children and Families or if there's neglect, and neglect is typically right, the child's just not being taken care of, right? They're not being bathed, they're not being washed, they're not being fed, they're not being given a proper place to stay or a proper place to sleep. Those are things that we should be reporting to DCF. I did send out a little kind of packet in one of the sheets that are on the packet for the board just for your knowledge is what the report looks like that's filed with DCF at this point in time so that you have the numbers in case, you know, other people are coming to you as you're working with constituents and things if they come up and talk about it, you can provide them with that information. Typically what I do is I actually fill out the written report before I call because what they ask for when you call is what is going to be in the written report. The piece that's kind of more important to the board and again, in terms of the board itself, it's actually pretty simple and that's the FERPA requirements. And that's in place to protect the privacy of student records. And so typically as a board where you're going to come across it potentially is if a student is making an appeal, right? Or a parent is making a behalf on an appeal on behalf of a student to come before the board for a disciplinary, you know, action or an investigation that occurred. The big thing is those happen in executive session to preserve that privacy. The other place where it may come up just to be cautious of is, you know, if there's an incident that occurs that involves a student in terms of the board and constituents are asking you about it, you can't talk about it. You've got to keep that stuff confidential. There are certain things that the district is allowed to share and certain things that you might be able to share. And that has to do with if sharing the information is going to someone who has a legitimate need to know, right? The student, you're aware that a student might be contemplating suicide. Well, it is okay to share information about that student with 911 when you call so that they can make sure that that student gets their services. That's a legitimate need to know. It happens in the school setting. Legitimate need to know is like, you know, we don't share information about what's on a student's IEP. But if you're the teacher teaching the student, you need to know what's in there to be able to provide the services that it requires. So that's a legitimate need to know. My suggestion is if there's ever any questions, is, you know, pick up the phone call, Heather or I on either of these. But as far as the board is concerned, where you might interact with it again, is typically would be with an appeal and as long as, you know, you're taking things into executive session and having the discussions there then you're good to go. And then if constituents are asking questions outside of an incident or an event that happened, especially if it goes beyond what's publicly known, that you can't, it's just, hey, I got to be confidential about it under the federal requirements. And that's about it unless there's questions on either. I do encourage people to, if you don't, haven't been through mandated reporter training to look up what would constitute a report because it does get tricky sometimes if you hear something, if you see something, it's very specific who and what and when should be reported. Usually with the staff, if in doubt report, DCF will screen it out. But at least, you know, you've done your due diligence and you've got a document that you made the call. I mean, failure to do so I think is a thousand dollar fine and, you know, potential loss of license if you're an educator. So it's important. Great. Thank you. So ownership linkage and leading right into the, finalizing the board letter to the community. Chelsea, you had, and thank you for this, made some updates that made it more, hey, it's the beginning of the year and this is when we meant to send it, rather than oops. And I didn't have any more personally any more changes to make. I appreciate in the letter that it's very positive forward sounding, which is something we talked about, rather than, oh, hasn't this been awful and listing why it's been awful. I think that's so important. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any more edits?  Periods, what about? You could just leave no punctuation. Like nothing. Oops, nothing. And then there's a semi colon and an and. You put semi colons after all of them or you could just take the semi colon and the and off. I just have a bulleted list there. It doesn't have anything. I think we jumped to the graduation requirement section. Semi colons. Oh, yeah. Closures of people? Okay, that's right. And then anything else? No. The suggestion about the Herald and Front Porch Forum. Yeah. I'll just say in terms of Front Porch Forum, is there a way one of us can post it? I mean, I know Lane can and it, you know, and you've done before and said this is on behalf of the board. I wonder if there's a way for it to come directly. I don't think there's any cost for it, especially if you're a public organization. You just, you know, one person sign up, maybe have the secretary here.  I don't know. Well, I guess it should we have our, should we have our own like, I'm wondering maybe we make the board one. Yeah, I would do that rather than have it because it'll just be weird. It will be weird. You might get some comment or feedback on it. No, that's a good point. I, if people, I don't know if we need to vote on this, but I don't mind putting together that Front Porch Forum identity and using my board email for the account. Same with the email to the community. What account can that come from? That can come from your OSSD. From mine. Okay, great. Maybe you can sign up for Front Porch Forum as the email to the board. The board email. There's a general board email? Yeah, they could create one if you want one. We have personal ones. Yeah, but if your community sends an email and they can't just put OSSD board. That's his distribution list that you're seeing in the email too. Which I may always mean to do. You want them to make one? I said they'll make one. It might be nice if there was, it might be nice if there was a general and that could be reassigned as the board, like that would go to the board chair or to all board members. But the board could be reassigned as board members change. We're getting really off track. I worry about who's going to check it and answer it. We need to be switched into somebody's email. That's true. And I don't trust it going into just one person's email if that email is missing. Because you guys know you've had to remind me to respond. So can we make a generic email that we all have access to? No, because nobody's in charge of it. So as our voice, maybe it should just come from your or from the chair. I would do it like that to keep it. That's a good idea. And if I get any responses to it from mine, I will forward it to the board. That's my great plan, I think. That would be great. So make sure I'm clear. So email to the community from my email address, my board email address, and I will create a from Portform account tonight using my board email address. And then we'll coordinate when it's going out. Do we want to talk about timing? I get nervous about this kind of thing. Jump the gun. I would, I think, not next week, but the week after. That's what I was thinking. It's at the week of the 21st. Yeah. After Labor Day. The new teachers will be here not next week, but the week after. Maybe on their boot camp. So maybe last week in September? What are you going to be looking at? The 21st, new teachers, 28th, all staff, and students. I would propose the 28th. Later then. When all the staff is back and we're getting more into school mode last week. I think that's a good idea. Can we go to school for one day though? We changed that. We got the union to agree to allow us to change the professional development days before we had the actual negotiations completed. I guess I missed that communication. I just looked up the calendar. I'm glad you're telling me I'll send out the calendar. My kids will be here that day. Someone better be here. Yeah. I'm going to join the office. Okay. So on Monday the 28th of Front Forge Forum Post will go up and an email will go out. Oh, and the Herald you suggested going into the Herald. So if you're going to do it on the Herald, you should do it that Thursday. So they all go out simultaneously ish. The Herald is too late on Thursday. Like Monday or Tuesday? Monday. Monday after it goes to press. Yeah. Before. I was joking. I see how it's going to go. I see. So the 28th is on Monday. So send it to the Herald that day. So it's posted at the end of the week on Thursday. That morning do Front Forge Forum send out the email. So that way they're all arriving on the same day. I got it listed. Make sure I get the communication. You ready? So who sends it to the Herald? I can do that too. Actually it'll be Sue. Sue. And all of our names will be on it, correct? All of our names are on it. It's Tuesday by noon. Yeah. Thank you, Sue. Thank you. I'll come down. We'll have a good time with that. I think I need to... You what? I need to sign them too. I missed some. We're trying to separate them all. If you want to just ship them that way and everyone can take a little peek. Okay. Great. So it's finalized and we just have the continuation things and then you can Well, the whole group. Do we have to vote on it? Let's vote. So I will make motion to approve the letter with the noted punctuation changes from Rachel and then front porch forum Herald, whatever all the places that we're going to send it to. Great. I second that. Seconded by Sarah. All those in favor. Please say I. Raise your hand. Thank you. Opposed? Abstentions. Great. Unanimously passed. That's fantastic.  That's great. Okay. Moving on to monitoring organization review and approve the annual board agenda. And you had sent me and Chelsea. Yeah, so the one from this past year because you had like the previous years that I was running off of. So it just gives you what I ran off of or what I was on for last year. So more updated than what is in our packet here. So what that means is what was in the packet for this discussion is actually outdated. Yeah. That was the one I was working on. Gotcha. Right, which is the most recent which means we need to send this to Sue so that you can distribute it to everybody and then we will adopt it. Do you want to send it to something? I have it now so I can send it to you. Usually the first meeting on this it's just a discussion of what needs to be changed if anything. Okay. The problem is things have already been changed but everybody doesn't have the changes in front of them. That's all I had. Yeah. It was shared between me and Linda. I don't know why. We're in a state of transition so we'll make sure we get it right. I apologize. Was the most current in the binder or was that more of a that's a great one. Is this the one in the binder? This is the one they just we didn't have that. We didn't have it. Okay. What are we doing? What only you and I have now seen. Okay. We can talk about it at the next meeting. The other possibility is creation of the subcommittee to review it and would recommend changes for the next meeting. They don't have to. I'm just making life more complex. So that we're ready to approve it at the next meeting instead of discussing it. Yeah. It's typically it's like a subcommittee, you know, two or three people will be charged with taking a look at it. You know, if they need to, you know, meet with me, Heather, whoever else and kind of go through it. About the new one. Yeah. And then what they'll do is they'll get it updated.  So. Is that something people process wise? Okay. Before we vote on a committee, are there people who might be interested in being nominated for that committee? This is kind of like a only meet once one time deal. Yes. I'll be on that committee. Out of what's going to be formed tonight, this is probably the lowest maintenance one. Perfect. I'm up for that task. Excellent. One of us probably should. We could even be remote. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean just look over the agenda for the year and make changes. I think every meeting we're assigned to look at a certain policy and just see if it makes sense going forward. Okay. You and me? Sure. Yes. Anyone want to make a motion? Move that we form a subcommittee consisting of Sarah Hoff and Anna Arias to review the agenda and come with recommendations for the next meeting. I'll have a second. Seconded by Megan. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? So that will be at the September 1. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. First reading review of Executive Limitations 2.0, 2.8, and 2.9 which were enclosed. These are Global Executive Constraint Communication and Support to the Board and policies required by the legislative body. Is there discussion to be had now with this first review? Clarifications people need. Elaine, anything you in particular want us to think about before our I think more for the general knowledge of folks that might be watching or might be watching later. So the Global Constraints policy is about ensuring that the district overall is following the law because an organization is made up of individuals. Typically the way that I've interpreted it historically is, you know, we're looking at are the individuals within the organization doing what they're supposed to and do our processes and do our procedures compel us to do what we're supposed to. EL 2.8 is about communication and support to the Board making sure that you're getting what you need to make the decisions that you're called upon to make in a timely manner. 2.9, that's when there's a state mandate that comes out, the legislative session ends and there's requirements that districts, you know, have to follow. It's making sure that the district's informing the Board of what those changes are and putting a recommended policy in front of you to preview and hopefully improve. And making sure that we're keeping up on that. So that's what those three are about. The other piece just as I'm checking some of my handscotch here. So the 2.9 on the policies, the Board's done a really good job of keeping up on all the changes. Those policies and there's been a tremendous number of changes in the last couple of years, those policies often need to be translated into protocols. In other words, this is the general idea of what you're supposed to be doing. Here the protocols are specifically how we carry that out. There is there's two years left to it. There's a two-year plan left to really update all those protocols given the massive amount of changes that have happened to the policies in recent years. And a part of the setting up of the advisory councils was in anticipation of that because they should be vetting the protocols that we're putting into place. Having kind of the rich discussion that happened with the tech center group a little bit earlier tonight. Let's just be aware that that work is ongoing. Should be completed by the middle of next year, hopefully is the goal of the plan. Any other questions? So please go through all three of these. Evidence is always available. District office and next meeting we will have our second read and possible vote. Okay, another committee. The evaluation process. So there are actually a couple of things on this topic we need to talk about as we didn't at the beginning. Oh, we were supposed to add it. We have a vote here. It's about signing the contract, right? Did people already say I could? At any time you can update the agenda. You don't always have to do it. I don't believe at the beginning of the meeting. But prior to this in the notes or the minutes from a previous month, June or July, probably June because I just looked this up to see where we were at with it and the board tasked me with getting the contract and signing it and sending it back. So we were in the process of that, but they sent it to Ann a couple of times with Ann's name on it so we had to fix that. So they just sent it to me yesterday and it's here and Hannah, you can sign it if that's fine. But it was That's the agreement? Yeah, it was from the June meeting. We already agreed to do that. So I think it's fine to do that and then we're going to form a subcommittee and the woman who is going to meet with us was on vacation and she just got back today and I was waiting to hear dates that might be a good option for her and she never sent them to me. Oh, she did? Yeah. Is that a sue? Segly? No, it's not sue, it's somebody else. But she Yeah, I didn't check my emails later today. I'm out of my office usually by the afternoon. Oh, great. August 23rd, August 29th or August 31st. So I guess Hannah will sign this then we form our committee and then we decide if any of those dates could work maybe. Does that sound good? Great. Great. So committee first because those dates will affect only those on the committee. I know that people were wondering about time commitment, sorry. What are the dates again? 23rd, 29th, August. That's a Wednesday, a Tuesday, and a Thursday. I did ask that question at some point about time commitment. I think the email sort of didn't do the outline sort of the process and it was like three hour long meetings. I think that's all it was. Three hour long meetings. Yeah. I was shocked at how little time it was also and I was like, are we really going to be able to do this in this amount of time? But are we really paying this? $3,000? $1,500. I thought it was $1,500 in the beginning and then I think it's just $1,500. I might have I didn't look at it. $1,500. $1,500. And then the other half is due. So it's $1,500. I was reading it quickly and I thought $1,500 and then another $1,500. Obviously I was reading too fast. So does anyone volunteer to be on the committee? Two to three meetings. I'm open all those dates so I will volunteer to be on that committee as well. Wow, two for two. So what are the dates again? The 23rd? 23rd, 29th, and 31st. That's a Wednesday and then the following Tuesday and Thursday. I'm just I found this email that Chelsea had written about the commitment. The two to three meetings of an hour each. The first is established contents of the survey. The second review the results. The three established goals for the superintendent to be evaluated on. The committee then brings the evaluation document to the full board. So it would be three extra meetings and time spent thinking in between those meetings. There's a thinking requirement. Is this to evaluate for this year? Or for last year? No, I think we set up what the parameter is now and then share it with Lane so he knows. And then we do the year. I got to know what I'm working on. And then I mean there might be some feedback from last year but nothing that is actually part of it but just conversation, I think. Is that your understanding? Yeah, it makes sense. You got to have the baseline to kind of track. Right. I do think these are all questions we can ask in the meeting with the 31st. And those are not the three meetings and those are options for the first meeting. Correct? So if you have any. Those are options for the first meeting from what I understood. That's what I understand too. I think having it all three of those days, back to back to back to back, it's like we wouldn't even have a time. Exactly. Those are when they have availability for the initial meeting with the committee. A possibility of a first meeting is one of those dates. Okay. I could fit that in as long as it's the 31st is not going to work. Okay. But you're open to being on the committee. I would be able to. I am also. Okay. That's three. Anyone else? Yearning and burning. Okay. She's thinking. She's thinking. Three. But four is a problem. Okay. Well, I will then entertain a motion regarding the creation of a subcommittee. It is a subcommittee for the evaluation process. Okay. So I will move to create a subcommittee for the evaluation process that will be made up of Sarah and Chelsea and Anne. And they will meet three times with the consul. The consul in an hour. So we'll have to give. You can meet any of those dates. Yes. You can meet one. The first two. 23, 28. Well second that motion. Sam, thank you. For the creation of that specific subcommittee. Please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Good. None of those committee members are opposed. So I'd like to suggest Chelsea that you kind of spearhead the coordination of that first meeting. I'll email her and I'll say we can do the 23rd or the 29th. Right. 23rd, 29. Oh, 29. I had 23, 29, and 31. Okay. 23 or 29. Right. So 23 or 29. Do I need to make another motion? No. Great. Well thank you to the three of you. Thank you. And so I just will say on the annual agenda it's like the superintendent evaluation or whatever is the next three meetings. Right. September, October, November is like when we would vote on the final final. Right. The compliance and ends accomplishment but of last year. Right. Yeah, so we'll keep doing that but it's like this time this time of year. That many times was because we were trying to get some data from the state and so I just kept pushing it forward on the agenda to the next month and then we had to do the next month. And then it was just like we have no idea what we should get that data. So is that still happening like there's no data? Yeah. Hopefully the Cognio supposedly we're going to hear on about three quarters of it. And then the other quarter we're supposed to get in September but I'm not holding my breath. So you actually got some data from this past year at least? By happenstance the secretary of education did a discussion with the press the press was asking where is the data and so he gave them a copy of some preliminary data so I was able to use that. But as far as I know even if we headed it's still great. Previous secretary not the current one. Well I will just say I'm glad that we're getting this started because I think a big part of having a job is having feedback about your job. And so without that and I don't think Lane has had that for the last six years. It's been maybe uncomfortable. It's like you're just kind of floating like I don't know I think I'm doing okay with that guidance. It's really helpful. And for us as well. For everybody. So I'm glad we're doing it. Thank you for coordinating it. We're regaining some time here. Our compliance with board governance policy 4.2 did everyone have a chance to read through our board job description. So evaluate and decide how do people think we're doing. Seeking input regarding owner values. Better than we were. Exactly. Educating owners on issues impacting the organization. Reporting to the owners. I think these are all things that hopefully will come with this big first discussion we're taking with this letter. More invitations for people to ask of us. Totally. I think more that we've done in the last three days is night and day.  So I think we're making great progress on that. And I think going into this school year I think we're positioning ourselves well to engage with both of those communities. How do we report to the owners? The annual report sort of synopsis of what's been happening. That's like one way. We haven't been. Right. Last year we created an ownership linkage committee that was supposed to make a plan. We haven't made a plan. Well, but here we are and even in the letter. Except that we did at least with the we've got the letter. Portrait of the graduate came out of that. Yeah. Portrait of the graduate. So we did do that. And that was a huge ownership linkage. That's not reporting. Right. That's not reporting. And we didn't get an ends report. So we weren't able to report out ends because we don't have came after your annual report. Right. And it didn't have all of the data. But we did have an ends report. We didn't we didn't publish it to the community but we received it. But that's where the board needs to work on taking that information and getting it out to the community. Well, and this year we're adding a step where we're taking in the information we're looking at those ends and saying wait, is this the information we want? Is this the information they want? Let's be more firm and clear on that and then report out. Right. Well, I thought we were looking at what our ends are going to be. Right. Like updating the ends. Which we started to do at the last when we had our retreat was looking at that. Looking at our ends and then hopefully we'll continue to do that and then go out to the community with that graduate or I don't know where that plan is. That was a public meeting. Yes. Yes. So isn't that some form of reporting on the work that we're doing? Our meetings. Yeah. We're about to get into the nitty-gritty on that and I feel like that's some form of reporting. Yeah. Although I think people would say you've got to also plan to really reach out because I mean it's hard for the community which we acknowledge in our letter. Yeah. It's hard to come to the meetings every time. Right. The minutes are always available. Well and we're committed to engaging more and in different ways. Right. We're still figuring out how to figure out those. Forums, listening sessions. They can connect. They don't have to show up. Right. But also meeting them where they are. Even without the internet. Create and maintain written governing policies that realistically address the broadset levels of all organizational decisions. How are we doing with the policing ourselves? Well, we had that form to begin with and then we decided not to use it because it wasn't really relevant at the meetings that would say how are the meetings going? Are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? So that was a way of monitoring and we haven't done that. So how are we monitoring ourselves with discussions like these? Is that enough? Is there another way to do it? I mean, we did try to do that. We've tried to do the evaluation after the meeting. We tried to do the evaluation of the forms of the policies individually. Which, I feel like we had a conversation about how we were going to move forward without using the form or if something came up we were going to look at that policy next or something. We were going to keep using the form. This is on me actually. The chart. The chart. That's what I was thinking. People found them useful. But I thought we were going to do it a different way. I thought we were going to have like we were at the elementary school in Randolph and we were talking about I don't remember which policy it was now but we were talking about a different way we were going to do it. We did explore those options if we talked about something a little bit different so we would have a little more maybe accountability of our policies but I can't remember what. I think the chart is probably a good way. The one that I think it was a discussion about how many policies we do to make sure that everything gets reviewed every year. Oh, maybe that's Oh, we were going to be like signing into the calendar somehow. Yeah, maybe that's what we were going to do. Maybe that could be an agenda. A yearly agenda item. It is. It's on the annual agenda. Yeah. That's how you know which policy. And they're all on there? They're all on there. Yeah. So I think we should maybe reintroduce the chart. Yes. And bring it to the next meeting and every meeting after that. And we have to do it. We need to do a month in advance. So like this so we would get the form tonight with the policy that we need to review for the next meeting. Let's just get the letters. We need time to do that. Yes. So maybe for the next meeting we could put it together and email it out. No, but print it out. I need to get printed. You did. No, Linda was going to send it. Can you print it? No, I don't have a printer. Yes. But I'll create it. I'll recreate it. Okay. You don't have to recreate it. It's a pain. I'll just share it with you through Google Drive. Okay, great. I've got them all on my computer. Great. So I can do that. I'll just make sure I write it down. Thank you. And our policies all at the bottom say that they've been adopted, the date they were adopted, but they should also have the date they were last reviewed. Yeah, that's a good idea. So they don't look so darn old. Yeah. And looking at the annual agenda policy review, the next one is 4.3, which going to my binder, for three agenda planning. Which you'll need to look at when you're doing the annual agenda. Because that's about creating the annual agenda. Yeah. So this is the one that would be on the chart for next time, which should have brought. I do want to propose because we're trying to do this one, but we want to keep doing the chart if I could maybe send board members a chart for both 4.2 and 4.3 since I failed to do that for this meeting for 4.2. Sure. I think that's good. Okay, great. Okay. Then we'll hit both of those next month. Let's be prepared for jumping right into a fruitful discussion. Okay. Here we are at ends policy. This is the nitty gritty that Sam brought up earlier. And what I had suggested, and thank you, Heather, for scheduling those reminders. I did. My pleasure. It took a minute. Every time it popped up I thought, what? Oh, yeah. And I don't know about other people, but I literally put them next to each other and then started putting threads in between. And then I typed up bullet points under each one that I thought could use there's so much good stuff from the portrait of a graduate that, but there's also redundancies that totally fit into 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4, 1.1 foundational knowledge is, you know, given. So I kind of started picking and choosing and sometimes I'd take the first part of a sentence from one idea from the portrait of graduate and the second part of a sentence from another section and it kind of worked under It's just cool with people if I just start talking about my process and my thoughts, is that all right? Okay. And in terms of you know, the our ends and the I'm going to call them categories, the 1.1 1.2, I think they all work. The one that I want to that I felt like I really wanted to massage and mold into something different is 1.3 the ability to adapt. I really want to stretch that out and possibly rename it. Some things I was thinking about were resilient problem solver instead of ability to adapt because I think ability to adapt is a piece in it. It's one of my bullet points under 1.3 that I renamed resilient problem solver but it just feels like so much of what we have been dealing with both put upon us with the plague, I mean COVID and also homegrown in all of the kind of social conflicts that have been coming up it's all about problem solving. Within problem solving you have to be adaptable, right? You have to take an information debate it to something else or help someone else adapt. That's where I got there. That's what I focused on. 1.3 Does anybody else want to share their process for thinking about this what feels so huge and insurmountable but really is the crux of why we are here? So I looked at what other districts do for their end statements and there's a wide variety. Some districts and it was I specifically looked at districts that are using policy governance and some get very detailed in their end statements and some are really really succinct. We have all the and so I found myself wondering we have all this information from portrait of a graduate is it and it belongs in our district and it belongs in our like something that we're collectively working towards, right? Does it belong in our end statement? Should it be a very descriptive policy or should it be a very succinct policy? So I found myself struggling with just portrait of graduate become our end statement is that appropriate when our policies suggest that we should be very broad in our like board description policy says create and maintain written governing policies that realistically address the broadest levels of all organizational decisions and situations ends organizational outcomes and past benefits recipients and their relative worth and how we interpret that. I have a hard time taking the portrait of graduate and making it our end statement but I'm interested in like what other people's thoughts are around this. I read the end statement and I thought as it is written I thought it was pretty relative or relevant to what we are trying to do here. Students have the knowledge, skills and tools to be prepared for the next stage of their lives which justify the resources invested by the community like it goes in a circle, right? But couldn't that be any districts end statement? Yeah, so then I think under need. So don't we want one that is OSSD? We just want the generic ends? No, I think we all generally and this goes to us having a lot more in common with each other than not. But I think generally we want the same thing for our kids that the people in Hartford want for their kids and the people in South Burlington want for their kids and the people in Wenewski and the people in Watesfield and Berry and I think in general we all want the same thing for our kids as they like launch into their future. So and I think probably the information that we've come up with in a portrait of Redwood is pretty broadly applicable to most of the students in Vermont. It's ours, our community created it. What I'm having trouble with I guess is that I feel like that is doing what I fear has been going on which is we want this broad thing but all the operational stuff and how it's going to all the means is someone else. So we're going to sit here and just say this broad statement but we're not going to be this is what OSSD needs to focus on in the mission statement I don't have a problem with that you know statement of the policy I don't have a problem with. I think it is important that we enumerate yes because I do think it's different I do think the work we need to do here in order to get the ends that everybody wants for every town wants for their students to leave able to thrive and adapt and succeed but the things that need to be focused on in this district aren't necessarily the things that are going to create that thriving successful adaptable student in Hartford and I don't think that us not being specific about it but having kind of this broad very similar to a district that is not quite functioning the way that ours is is to me personally feels very to hands off to yeah we all want them to succeed so whatever they're going to do to make that happen we're just going to say make them succeed that is their job but our job is more in my opinion than just saying make them succeed here's what we want you to do make them succeed do it however you're going to do it well I think our job is to say make them succeed but here what that where we think focus needs to be is blip blip and blip figure out a way to do these specifically because that's what this district needs but the more prescriptive we are which is somewhat reactive the more prescriptive we are the less agile our district is to adjust to what the needs on the ground are but you leave it up to happen stance if we get to where people really want us to go because where people really want us to go is explicit and clear that's my feeling as I come to work every day I'm doing what best practices across the country I'm following what the nation is doing but it doesn't feel like it's what the necessarily what the community wants so you're leaving it up to happen stance that I'm getting you someplace you may want to go or not and mostly what we're hearing from you is that we are moving in positive directions with our academic achievement based upon choices that based upon choices that the district made based upon our interpretations using best practice but that may not be what the district or the community wants I don't know I've had conversations with them but it's a pretty deep conversation you know when you read the portrait of a graduate did you feel that it was a very nice mesh with what's here or did you feel that it was possibly leading some things in different directions I feel like what you just said to Lane was that we're getting that it's working and that it's moving in a positive direction has to do with the foundation on knowledge maybe some of the critical thinking part but this ability to adapt this resiliency this problem resolver this being open to diversity of thought I don't see that happening and I don't see a way for Lane to report that that's happening there's nothing to measure I don't know if there's something to measure that's not our job but our job might be to say figure out how to measure figure out how to try to make it happen and figure out if it's happening but we're telling you that we don't see this happening or even if you feel like it's happening we're going to prescribe that that is an important way for us to get I'm saying us I'll say I that I think we get to a thriving healthy engaged successful high school graduate member of the community and so that's a different interpretation than what I've had in the past which is perfectly fine and the way that you do that is just what you're talking about if you stick with policy governance and that's you put the bullet point under there that refines a little bit in more detail what ability to adapt means so that it controls what my interpretation can be now easier just to say this is what we'd like as a board representing the community yeah you gave a reasonable interpretation but it's not really what the community wants so this is what we'd like to see well and that's part of that reaching out to the community we have here ability to adapt students are adaptable resilience resilient and can manage change we've got an ANS report from Lane that says ability to adapt means getting IEP students off of IEPs and reducing the number of students on IEPs making sure kids are showing up to school every day that our graduation rates remain high I picked those things specifically at the time and talking with people was because those were areas of significant problem in our district you know our IEP rate is almost twice the national average so and then we as a board we get his report if we're look at that interpretation we can say whoa that isn't what that means that isn't the interpretation that we want or I guess we weren't clear enough we'll drive down one more step and explain to you what we mean by students are adaptable resilient and can manage change and I thought that was the step we were on I thought there was a general consensus that the ANS as they are now weren't doing it for us well I think what might be helpful would be to look at the ANS report because that's where he's interpreting we've had four we could get all the years that he's reported to us through ANS his ANS report look at and we've accepted them we've said yep that interpretation is fine and we haven't changed it we haven't said no not what we're looking for again because I think I thought that where we got was that we were feeling like the issue was in the ANS not in the ANS report and we have control over that we have the board sets the ANS so we go out to the community so now we've gone out to the community remember we met with Jackie and she said you know you're having difficulty with these ANS go out to your community and and do this portrait of the graduate because it's going to give you some more input into where these ANS might fit into your ANS to see if you need to change add some specificity to it so what I hear Hannah would choose I mean I thought that's what this yeah that's what I hear you trying to do is trying to put this a more specific piece on what adaptability means which is perfectly appropriate and then we can say no that isn't the evidence that we're looking for for adaptability we can say we don't that interpretation is not we don't think that's a reasonable interpretation yes that it has to do with that we can say no this you know we we would because it's sort of it's a team effort it's not just oh my gosh he's not doing it's no when we're talking about adaptability this is what we mean and we can reach out to the community and say community are you guys on board this is what we're saying we want this is what we mean by adaptability right and I feel like this conversation has turned into and I feel like this happens to us a lot discussing kind of the process of what we should be doing but not doing it so I I'm feeling and I am you can probably hear it in my tone I'm I'm feeling frustrated because I thought we were coming to this meeting to massage or or nudge these ends possibly into something different maybe some people think they don't need to be different but suddenly we're having another conversation about what the ends mean or what the interpretation means we've already had this conversation and it got us to the place where we put on the agenda let's update our ends yeah I'm on board right maybe we should go around the room and see what we could for the conversation like that we left with after the last meeting which was take the ends take the portrait of a graduate compare the two and see what you think so Hannah was just speaking about 1.3 so can you finish what you were saying about what you feel like this should say instead of what's here I just want to hear what you were saying I'll just read what I wrote I renamed it resilient problem solver my bullet points were ability to adapt to and manage change use diverse methods of communication using foundational knowledge 1.1 to express and collaboratively exchange ideas thoughts opinions and knowledge respect diversity and differing points of view consider action and impact that's how I rewrote that section I like I like where you started I like where you started so now looking at 1.3 like what do other people feel like that statement like is that a good statement that he has started to put out there or is it too is it too much or is it not enough let's just focus on one section change it at all which will not offend me though I just like to hear like we're looking at 1.3 let's look at it I like what Hannah just offered up and that's kind of how I've been thinking about the process it's been a little bit hard with the portrait of a graduate writing it from an ends perspective rather than from a student proficiency perspective but I think that's kind of what we're trying to get to anyways so that's what I did I took the I circled the words that meant something to me and realigned them in a sentence that said I want us to be able to identify what the problem is analyze the cause of the problem ask questions and draw on our past work experience and then work collaboratively to develop possible solutions now how that that seems like it's more like a portrait of a graduate statement than an end statement but so I like the way you put that and I think they do need to be more descriptive because I think if you were to ask community you'd get 20 different definitions of what you know students have knowledge, skills and tools to prepare them for the next stage in life I don't I don't think that's specific enough to really get everybody working in the same direction I think you could the definition of a successful student and a successful graduate coming out of here could be very diverse in this community so that's why I want to add a little bit of specific specific and when we were looking at all of the Heather gave us the printouts of all of the comments that folks had wrote and a lot of it had to do with ability to adapt in like the just overall climate and everything so I feel like focusing in on that is huge I don't know how I didn't try to rewrite any of this stuff because I'm not good at that I don't really know I don't feel like I'm I don't know educated enough to to make statements like this but I'm I want to agree with with what Hannah and and Sam are both saying but I do feel like that is definitely something that we could update so quick question before we get too far along here how do we go about the process of actually deciding what the content and sentence structure is going to be I think someone proposes it and you just rewrite it you rewrite it there's two reasons for it's a policy so there has to be two reasons but typically again this is a place where you might consider a subcommittee what gets together again when you make the motion for it you're outlining what their powers are and what you're charging them with to actually you know based upon the discussion that happened in you know the board meeting on such and such a date to try to put this down as best as possible into yeah so I'm physically to bring back to the question who's going to type this out and restructure this thing well if there are any semi-colons involved it's Rachel Rachel I mean I think I think if we're going I want I want us to have options because obviously there's there's many different ways that we can look at this but potentially if we were going to have a subcommittee maybe we could say you know get the subcommittee together come up with you know a couple of different statements based on you know whatever we feel like we should change and then bring that back to the next meeting so we can choose you know which ones we like and then then we'd have to do the readings from there do we want to reach out to the community and say hey we're we've done the portrait of a graduate we've been re-looking at our ends this is what we've we've decided what do you all think about this is that I mean that's a report out I think we create them and then present them we're going to be voting on this or we're going to be reading it and then voting? I would agree with that right at first we should look at it and then do that it would seem too vague I think it would be confusing as to what we were asking I agree with you and I think when we presented just acknowledging like we've taken consideration from the portrait of a graduate and maybe we also used some of the feedback that we got from Winston can we still use that? that was a lot of work so if we incorporate that into this then we do have community feedback involved our feedback especially as a subcommittee and then moving forward with rewriting whatever needs to be rewritten right? so now we need to I want to be on the subcommittee and I want Hannah on the subcommittee I make a motion I would like to be on it as well to form a subcommittee to I mean I want you all to rewrite the ends and I make a motion for in that motion I make a motion for Rachel and Hannah and Meg to be on that committee is there any other people that want them to be on that back in it so Sarah moved in Chelsea seconded further discussion do we have to include like do we need like two versions or do we have to include that stuff or you're just giving us the power to create versionings and bring it back okay got it to propose and I think it would be helpful for whatever work that people did in prep of this I know it's a lot to think about but if there was one that was important to you that you wanted to amend maybe make sure that the committee knows right that this is really important because for me on like foundational knowledge all of these 1.2 1 through 6 I want to try to apply some measurability to that to help lane with direction when in the face of limited data and if we also want to add in things like we want the person to be an upstanding citizen and be able to communicate and work with other people that's not really captured I guess life skills sorry but what's the measurability there so then we've got to bring in concepts from I'm going to mess up the accurate but proficient grab these proficiency which Lane and Heather sent some good content on that where I think we need a there should be a language requirement I think that's just I think we're falling short there we talk we talk about being worldly citizens what not in multiple places but what are we doing to measure that we require world history and US history but what does that mean we don't that was an example sorry we don't so just as a partial aside to understand so the proficiency the graduation proficiencies are what students have to demonstrate to be able to graduate graduation proficiencies are embedded in curriculum curriculum is taught in classes therefore the classes a student is required to take determines which proficiencies they can achieve and that's why the course description piece and the graduation requirement in terms of courses is so important one of the ways that you could write some of the ends that wouldn't or some of the ways I could have written the interpretations that wouldn't have been inappropriate having foundational knowledge in mathematics mean that you've taken three math courses in high school and the highest one is at a minimum is algebra 2 right because that's the national standard for what foundational knowledge in math is in the United States so there's other ways that these things could have been interpreted it's just not as objective a data as seeing how the kids are scoring and and so from your from what I'm gathering from you in the employee emails that I read you think that one of the biggest hurdles to achieving more proficiency is under learning time which is a scheduling thing which then I can see some community members getting a little bit wound up about more school versus less school and two different perspectives on that and going to and that was the nature of my upsetness when I was burned out at the end of the year of there are some things we're just going to have to push through if we want things to go further because people this is change that's good but it's change that we're going to get a lot of pushback on and so this is a place where I may need the board to help me stay the course if these are the changes we're going to make especially in terms of that changing that master schedule that's something that the union is going to put some pressure on and has already done so but it's within our rights as the district those changes and so got you off a little topic but yeah it all comes together I just was adding to the fruitful discussion that we were trying to come to like Sam said if you've done if you have passion about a particular number so I just so I like rewrote the whole ends kind of like I took the that was what we discussed homework and I'm not sure if I will give you my piece of paper that has all the things I think I got from a portrait of a graduate and also the things that I talked to our community about the people that bring stuff to me like what's important to them so I kind of changed the entire layout of this and so I just wrote foundational knowledge as number one reading writing communication math, science, social studies and I think that's great to add world history to it life skills the arts, fine arts and performing arts and foreign language as foundational knowledge and then like just my thought how will we know and I just said from testing the state, federal like testing social studies should have something in there that says what you want from that do you want as Sam mentioned civics, like good citizenship do you want as Hannah mentioned ideas that they have looked into diverse groups and populations and demonstrate understanding awareness of how different histories impact different diversity, ethnic studies like social studies is huge and it's not assessed with test data. and social studies and I have a, don't lose your thought, foundational knowledge I have a problem with the word foundational because it sounds basic so it may just be me that's interpreting that way so I'll throw that out there but you know foundational knowledge and social studies means you know how to go out and participate in the civic world to try to get things done and that's the limit of foundational knowledge and civics and social studies means by the state's definition so so when I think of that I think of that you've taken a class in you know US history, ancient civilization revolution to whatever and then you know like I think of it very differently but I would say that as foundational knowledge I don't know, I think it's up to the educators to come up with that you know you could say you know at least four courses and social studies do this that's what it means to have foundational knowledge to successfully pass these three courses with a grade of C or higher you know if we're going to shoot if we're going to shoot for high standards then you know why do we let kids pass with a D I mean there's a whole other discussions here but yeah well I'm just going to keep going here so foundational knowledge was number one critical thinking was number two problem solving project management leadership and there's like room for other things how will we know that this is happening right so I would say what's happening now I think is timeline projects right at sixth grade, eighth grade, tenth grade and senior project like those are ways to sort of monitor that the next thing number three was skills and interpersonal and I thought that you know 1.3 falls under this but also like respect, responsibility being flexible and adaptable being empathetic effective communication written in verbal resilient perseverance like how will we know that like those are really hard to measure right but I don't know figuring it out somehow and also under skills so skills is like the heading and then under it interpersonal and then another is technology so that's really important and then a positive culture I think is important also super hard to measure maybe not so hard to measure but I think things that play into that are sports, clubs and organizations extracurriculars like all of that stuff I mean I don't know we do an exercise at my we just did this in our last advisory meeting where we were challenged to figure out the top 25 areas of our farm and if they're out of balance then it's not functioning the way it should and so you pick the lowest three and you focus on those and then you pick you know the next ones and I know that when I first started being on the board when we talked about ENDS you had said that we are doing that by looking at ELA math and science I think right and reaching proficiency in those areas but if you just focus on those areas and you don't like focus on any of the other things like in this community I know sports are important like those events where you bring everybody together and you have good sports teams and you have good coaches and you have new uniforms and good facilities and a bench for the visiting team to sit on like I've been to sporting events and there's no bench for the visiting team to sit on like how does that even happen you know and people are upset and everyone's angry and it's just that kind of thing makes for a bad experience so it's like attention to those details and creating those sort of places where you can find more balance in the whole long list of things so I'll give this to you and you can take it with you and I don't know that was my process I really liked how you made the foundational knowledge first before critical thinking I thought that was great did you do the same thing? I did and so I think the ability to adapt I think that is important I was like what does that even mean like you know what does it mean it means this and this and this I guess to me but it would be good to come up with a written document to monitor our ends and then I don't know I guess it's up to you guys to come up with a plan right or I don't know what's the next step in this after we come up with it we got to figure out for further interpretation is needed and then we got to figure out how we're going to measure it and so that would be the next two steps but I just I want to commend you all for for listening because this is a good discussion but it's happening and I think the end result is going to be something that's going to be very helpful to the work that we're trying to accomplish for you so I appreciate it an awful lot it means a lot so my given the desire from the administration for us to be more specific I started to try and move over things and then I was like screw it and I pretty much went portrait graduate there you go there are new ends nice and really specific so not a lot of gray area here you go give us the results I took out a couple because they weren't really ends they weren't outcomes they were and I forget which ones they were but I was like why am I trying to move everything over here if the administration needs to know more detail we've got it from the general public and I see it fitting in with everything that's there and I see it merging really well with the proficiency based graduation requirements and if you look at that other stuff provided by the state that the school that the teachers are using to figure out what is it performance indicator for this it matches in really easily so I'm like alright and so that's what I did so mine is very specific because I pretty much took a portrait of a graduate and just put it all together and added the mission statement into top and that was it so I think once we clearly identify and then we kind of give it to the administration to say how do you and your staff want to figure out how to measure these things that article you sent or the website Hartford and Washington or maybe you sent Washington Central I found that to be pretty intriguing as the community was trying to transition to proficiency based and how much community involvement is required there yeah I think the court cards are kind of too late by then to correct the thing how do you go to a smaller more frequent based assessment program I don't know I think overall just our mission statement right now is it lacks excitement I think it doesn't do our students any justice and I don't know it's just not it lacks rigor it feels like you can just come to school here and it's fine as long as you meet the number of days to be here that might be the way it looks on paper I haven't seen I haven't seen very strong students was that a question? no I'm just talking about the one line statement yeah I would say that we could be much more relaxed that was kind of the purpose of putting graduation requirements beside each other they did a really good job on the graduation proficiencies that work was underway when I came on board they were working on the report card standard based report cards too but my fear is based upon what I'm seeing and knowing common core next generation science standards and what grade level expectations are for each of the standards like what they did was they adapted what they were already doing into graduation proficiencies it was unclear if they actually stopped and said are these the right ones so there's a lot of overlay with what they've done in terms of what really good graduation proficiencies are but there's some areas that are kind of out of the line and so that might be a worthy discussion to have but they did a really good job they got a lot of direction from the AARE to pull that together they got a lot of that was before my time so they did good work but now they're good from my perspective they can do much more better in a good way not in a beat the kids up you know kill them way it's in a good way I mean it more as like a commitment from the community to the students and make it just more reciprocal we could say we're committed I just don't I don't know what the definition of knowledge, skills and tools to be prepared for the next stage of life I have no idea what that really means it's because it means something different for each student and that's important to also think about when you write the ends like it looks different and so things like requiring foreign language two years of foreign language are minimum for the University of Vermont it's not required for BSU Randolph as of now I actually haven't looked to see if they're changing that up as they become BSU big BSU but for some students the thought of taking a foreign language is like too much and that's where I think we need to go back out to our community and say is this are we I think it's important to make sure kids understand that if you do not if you are college bound that if you do not take two years or usually more and you're narrowing your options for where you can go but I worry sometimes about mandating because for some students that isn't the path that they're going and then you make them feel like they're incompetent or not okay because they don't have an interest I think the global cultural awareness whether it's you're going to get some exposure to other cultures and we're going to do some cooking and we're going to watch some movies and we're going to talk about cultural differences especially with the amount of influx of people coming in and probably even more so as the climate changes and people are migrating because they can't live where they live I think it's important for kids to have that awareness and even awareness of their own the cultural heritage but forcing foreign language for some students I think is going to be really different but there are outlets for that so typically if you're a student that struggles or it's really not your interest usually it's because you're struggling an IEP team or an MTSS team would make a modification and say yep this is not a good fit for this kid especially with the personalized pathways they have so we make it a requirement that those teams do have the legal authority to modify those graduation requirements if it's in the best needs of the kid the it's a very powerful argument and I agree with you 99% my concern is that this document is a public document these graduation requirements are student handbooks and things and if you are a parent coming in from out of town and you were looking at what our graduation requirements are your feelings about the rigor of the district may be shaded by that we also do you know one of the mental models whether it's true or not that existed before I came here and still exist now is that the top performing kids are fleeing the district what two top performing kids need if they are shooting for an Ivy League school they need community service they need a leadership experience they need travel and they need to show in one way shape or form that they have gone beyond the minimum and typically the way that most students that are applying to those higher level schools show that they have gone beyond the minimum as they take four years of foreign language so there are those aspects too yes they can choose to do that right because we do have that available but if it's not in a document somewhere where people see it that is important because it's a public when I was looking at that stuff for the girls I was like I don't even know what you're supposed to take like how do you like the AP classes and the honors classes like they're not clear and it's not it's like integrated into the regular classroom but there's no sort of incentive to do it like Annabel is like I don't really need to do that for some of that towards the end it was much better but I don't know it's not clear and you're right and I think some of it got muddled I think the graduation proficiencies and the standards based grading muddled it I also think that you are in a small school district so we don't have a lot of sections to be able to provide like an individual course for a lot of schools you'll have an honors version of the course you'll have a college prep version of the course you'll have a version that's just to get you through the graduation requirements and you may have an AP because they didn't have the breadth one of the things that they tried to do when they were making the changes to the standards based grading was okay what we'll do is we'll create the algebra course if you want to be honors these are all the standards you have to meet while you're in the course high honors you have to meet all these standards if you just want to pass the class these are the foundational ones that you need to know and so that's what they've been trying to do I think there's been some success with it but it's not it's attempting to do something because we don't have all the parts and pieces we need to do it so I do see the need to change that I just want to take a minute and thank everybody for this conversation and for taking time for the meetings to do all of the thinking and working and bringing it here this is really exciting it doesn't sound like I'm excited because I'm falling asleep but it is very exciting this is could I ask that if anyone in this process found final edits that need to be done to the portrait of the graduate if you would send those to me because I want to get to the graphic artist and finalize it so we can roll it out and always update it but I'd really like to push it out to all teachers and students at the beginning of the school year so we were in the middle of a vote we were we were in the middle of a vote oh for the subcommittee for the subcommittee we were having discussions though about the process of creating the subcommittee and what we needed from and we got off topic and then I forgot so I had asked Rachel mid all of this conversation inviting Heather to be part of our subcommittee so now that we have been voted and I don't really know what we have to do now because we kind of like went off topic and still didn't vote no we we made the motion we made the motion we had a second and then we said so someone can amend their motion but we didn't vote so we didn't make them so can we just add Heather to the subcommittee if you're willing I think that's a great idea and I'm really good with semi-colons it's a requirement you don't have to tell the committee okay so we need to vote so that would also include Heather okay so do you need me to re-do my motion I don't think we need to I think we're good so yes right we had a motion and a second and then a water discussion so all those in favor of the subcommittee with the three of us and Heather please raise your hand and say aye unanimously pass thank you we're reeling us back in I forgot for a few minutes oh yeah Heather okay okay Rachel may I ask you to start a conversation about scheduling a first meeting for that subcommittee sure thank you alright consent agenda let's see minutes professional contracts facilities reserve funds requests 300,000 dollars shock about this do you want to talk about it in detail and there's certain ones that you want to talk about I have a question about the cleaning of the gym I have a question so let's um this is perfect because it's apropos to like discussions about if we do something do we rebuild or do we renovate this is why you don't renovate so the work that they did on there got the floor up the floor had not been replaced every 10 years or so like it's supposed to be for 50 years there was water that was leaking up through the concrete from below because it wasn't properly sealed it had actually dissolved away most of the concrete and left just the sand behind which leaves nice open wet moist pores for all sorts of really horrible biologics to grow in and so when they did the work to remove the sections of concrete and replace them those were all released into the air we ended up having to do an abatement right just to make sure that people are safe and healthy so that's why the cleaning was so expensive they were coming in and cleaning up biologics that you don't want people exposed to who tells you that that's what is like that's what you have to clean up the people who do the cleaning yeah there's there's a regulator it's like if you've got asbestos and you're dealing with it is a certain way that you have to manage it and clean it up and yeah that one blew my mind too but of course the other thing was that that field house had never been cleaned so it's not to clean the floor it's to clean the walls and the ceiling every surface in there including going up and the guys were crawling through the vets every surface in there has been cleaned spotless why is that not part of the kind of like the estimate though because it seems like most of that money like it was what 109,000 labor was in labor so that's what so because they didn't hit the problem until after they got things open they actually tried to do the best estimate they could the core samples, the core samples and install the biologics that they took so they literally went around and they drilled down through the floor and they pulled up samples of the concrete and they were looking at it as part of the estimate process but this is what happens when you have older buildings and like as we're going forward and going to have them do a study at least doesn't mean we ever have to move forward with it and they tried to analyze whether is it cheaper just to five-year plan into renovate or is it cheaper just to rebuild this is what happens when you renovate and yeah and that was the cheaper one of the companies that was up over 200,000 so Harmony Electric did the is this Harmony Electric clean up dust and gym floor floor work there's like seven or eight different requests that they're making based upon different needs in and around the district so just to clean up work and that actually the dollar amount was reduced because they worked with us to allow some of our custodial staff to help out in places where it was safe to do so it is but or is that one of the I think they put all three of the estimates Harmony Electric so they did the clean up or they were in charge of hiring the group the estimate is very confusing I don't know if I have the estimate I have if I got and that's just a general estimate whereas an invoice would break down so I'm wondering if there's something more that's more itemized that we can see because it's really vague it's 109,000 for labor another question the discussion so all this work is done and paid for we've already done had to happen because they can't put the wood flooring down until the cleanup was done and then once the wood flooring goes down they're going to have to put the polyurethane coating on it and then it's going to have to separate so it'll be done mid-September is that what I heard we're telling everybody October but we don't get the whole set so that one affects sports right, like fall sports we'll just be outside managing it to my patients and luckily it's fall so most of the sports are outside winter time is when the crunch happens the paving at the Brookfield school why did that have to be done it was getting to the point they were getting giant potholes and everything else in there typically paving for most buildings the cycle is about 7 years they were well past that they had a couple of major holes in there that we kept filling in and what not it was getting ugly they increased the size of what was paved to try to help support some of the playground areas and the kids getting up and down to the outer field it was time when things get snowy okay so it's on a schedule every 7 years usually about every 7 years if stuff gets bad enough you gotta go typically like a roof on a building you gotta replace every 20 years I can tell you having a spouse who works for VTrans they get the same things people get pissed because they're like why are they paving this section of the highway but it's called pavement management if you let it get to a certain point then you have to redo the entire like dig it all out again yeah so that's typical people will be like why are they paving that again but it's because of the way that pavement where is it oh my god they just paved this why are they repaving it so I think that they just people back up time yeah we have a repaved it by time here so I've been this is 6 or 7 years it's COVID I don't know is the hemorrhage money for repairs and things where are we with the concept of a new campus so we are working I think they've actually narrowed it down to the folks I think they've talked about it but we're talking with an architect we're talking with an engineer and one other individual to do what's called a study a study is usually fairly expensive for something like this it's probably in the $100,000 to $150,000 range they'll come in they'll take a look at the site say yes you could rebuild on the site if you decide that you want to renovate this is what you would have to do this is what the potential cost would be if you rebuild and this is the efficiency savings that you would reap if you rebuilt as well and so we're in the process of trying to get a group to come in and actually do that study so that we've got actual data to present it would also include architectural drawings and vision of what it could look like and so we had started a little bit of the discussion at the open forums about the fact that we are managing more different sites at this point in time for the buildings that we have spread all over the place do we consolidate if we're going to rebuild it would be cheaper to have one campus one building or maybe two buildings maybe this becomes the campus that houses K to 12 and RTCC takes over Randolph Elementary if we talk about people worried about taxes and being efficient and whatnot if you're looking just at the money side that's the way to do things and you build up instead of a big giant sprawling building like this that takes billions of dollars to heat so that would include consolidating the Brookfield and Braintree Elementary schools into one school there's lots of ways to do it or like one location I potentially would argue if we were going to go this route and again I'm not making an argument one way or the other it's just if we're thinking about a multi-million dollar project in the tens of millions it should be at least considered because you only get a chance like this once every 100 years I would argue that you're probably better off with one facility K to 12 and then maybe take like I said RAS and turn that into the Tech Center there are space issues that we're going to be encountering with the Tech Center because they're 160 kids right now there are programs that we would like to expand that we just physically don't have the space to put another program into like bringing an HBAC we've talked about some temporary solutions for that like moving ag out to the Maple Sugar House and updating the Maple Sugar House to basically be a classroom and be where they're out of so it opens up another space within the building we're starting to hit some space issues the states changing the requirements right we've had to bring out another math and another DLA teacher at the Tech Center to try to get those kids skills up in those areas as a requirement we don't really have the classroom space to put those two people even though the state's mandating that we have them so it's there's a lot of things that are in play right now but this building is old my biggest fear if it's renovated is you'll get a nice surface high glossy pretty looking building but the guts underneath are going to still be the old ones you know those water pipes that blew out because for decades as far as we can tell they weren't maintaining the water chemistry in there we did when we started we recognized it wasn't being done that didn't just affect those pipes here that same untreated water was running through the whole heating system in this building we've got electrical systems that are from 50 years ago that aren't up to can't provide what we need for the equipment that we're bringing in now which is a lot of the assets that are in here is upgrading the electrical you know grid within the building to support the things that we need to do so is it out for bid to get the assessment done we're trying to locate the folks first because they're going to help us write the proposal right because we got to know what we're asking people to do these are the people that can tell us all the things that we need to have in there then that goes out to bid that proposal and then you know we would pick from that so it does have to go out to bid because it's over 40,000 so what's the timeline I'm trying to get done ASAP and so Bob and Wes have been working on it amongst a billion things that they did this summer which there was quite a massive amount of work that's been happening during the course of the summer including their they've already started cutting the trees for the generator for RES and the paving project and trying to finish up here and then just the general cleaning and maintenance that has to happen but they have talked with the folks I'm hoping that we will have at least a plan you know by the end of probably October and the state is going to be taking this up again this legislative session they're realizing that the mandate for PCBs the way it was done was that if you get a PCB hit you have to remediate it immediately and so the question is well if we're going to spend a whole bunch of money remediating PCBs in a building that probably has to be rebuilt anyway isn't that short-sighted and so they're trying to combine the idea of okay so this would be a really good time to start providing some matching funds for districts that need to be built so they're going to reopen up hopefully but they seem to be it seems to be sticking in the crop and that's a good thing because usually if it's on their agenda for two or three years that's been my experience I just wanted to say I didn't know a vape sensor was a thing and we are single-handedly keeping harmony electric in business that's the next thing I want to say and in terms of the vaping I was glad to see in your report that the schools are updating to expand the consequences so the whole focus and the folks that were at the RTCC meeting earlier saw that, its expectations, its standards and then its recognition for the good stuff as well but that goes along with the climate that goes along with advancing academics I mean a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about is this idea of keeping learning sacred if a kid is sitting in a classroom that's why the cell phone policy is coming up if you're sitting in the classroom looking at your cell phone you can't possibly do the winterman dang thing they will be talking about revising the vape policies high school actually started a lot of this last year where there is a component that if you get busted twice you have to go to a cessation program there's no ifs ands or buts about it if you want to participate in any of our extra curriculars after school the vape has made its way down into our elementary schools we've been busting kids with vape pens they're stealing from their parents and so their handbooks are going to have to be updated there's a whole list of things that they're working on cell phone use consequences for vape appropriate dress search and seizure at the high school this actually deals with we found drugs on the kid when we searched them in the building but we also need to have a protocol that we can go out and search their vehicles as well one of the big discussions that we have to have and it's been one of the problems that's caused some of our issues in terms of academics here is what do we do when a student at the end of the year hasn't met the academic standards they've always been passing them on and if you do that too many years in a row you get some of what we see which is you get kids that are hitting the high school and they're missing the foundational knowledge they need to be able to actually do the high school work but the other piece of it is that if we're not passing the students on especially at a young age there is a social stigma and that's a very real thing that goes along with it so we've got to have some discussions about finding that balance so these are the things that we'll be kind of working on in terms of you know handbooks and expectations and what and then to go along with your pieces the conflict resolution protocol when you are in conflict whether you are a parent, whether you are a staff member or you are a student these are the expectations and how you carry that out and we're going to hold you to it so those are the things that as the theme for this year that we're working on that are just structural foundational things that all schools should have should have an impact can't guarantee anything but that's the hope other questions on paying for stuff they'll be more but this is that's what happens when you've got an aging district also in the consent agenda the change of signers and the truancy officers so the change of signers is we have new administrators so it's allowing them to sign the checks for their accounts that's a little form so if they approve that that just means you can sign it so that they can change the names on them the appointment of truancy officers is an ancient law that's on the books that we should follow and basically our truancy officers you are appointing the principals to be the truancy officers for the district we have to do it yearly so let's do it they already are that role anyway whether we can appoint them or not they want to this is a long consent agenda this is massive well we can do it all in one but I wanted to make sure that we hit specifics in there the only piece in terms of consideration for the as I was looking through things yesterday for the facilities request there's like a $23,000 request I can actually look up the actual dollar amount to upgrade the electrical at the tech center to supply electricity and new equipment coming into advanced manufacturing that will not be coming from the facilities reserve fund that will be coming from the RTCC reserve fund so that's the only difference just so folks are aware of that okay cool if you approve this but still going on okay so barring any other questions I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved Chelsea has made the motion to have a second I'll second it and has seconded all those in favor opposed right to passes unanimously okay in closing I touched on one thing in your report Lane was there anything you wanted to not in your report or the handbooks yeah I think that expectation piece is important you know these are change processes and I was laughing as you were talking earlier because the things that you're engaging in are change change is unsettling to people the subcommittee work that you're going to be doing if you're changing those ends you've done your due diligence is aboard you've talked to people you're pulling the pieces together you can achieve that no matter what you come up with there will be people that won't be happy and then you just have to decide to push through because you've done your due diligence a lot of the processes that we're talking about and the procedures and the policies that we're looking at for this year in terms of handbooks are change processes they're reasonable things they've been vetted, they've been talked about but we're at the point where we just need to put them in the place and expect that there's going to be people that are upset about that which is normal it's changing what they're used to it's changing routines it comes with fear of the unknown that is completely normal so there may be comment and things at board about it so just be prepared well the high school when we came in earlier the RTCU was talking about the both is that going to be something implemented in the high school similar high school already did it last year so they were working on it last year the issue that they are dealing with now in terms of their conversations with the staff was half the staff actually implemented in the other half was lackadaisical about it and so the staff was having conflict because the ones that were doing it were upset with the ones that weren't so those policies are already there they just have to come together a little bit better about being consistent and that's what they are working on as a team this year they're moving in the right direction handbooks I know you would talk to the I created a folder and I've shared it with everyone it's a lot, I wouldn't want to print it it's hundreds of things so I've shared it with you and I would love to your emotion to bench that to the next meeting expectations I would argue on the handbooks is as a board this is one of the ways that you are performing your oversight is okay we have policies the handbook handbooks represent the protocols that carry out those policies are they doing their job right now no that's why we've got to adjust these so what should be happening in my recommendation is is that as they're making these changes over the course of this year and next year is that they come in and do presentations at least to the board and say hey these are the changes that we're making we've talked with our advisory councils we've talked with our staff this is what we're doing and this is why not necessarily for you to approve it it would be nice to have you say yeah we think it's a good idea but just so you're in the loop and that's a part of the oversight piece they're doing what they need to and what the policies are so when you guys plan the annual agenda you could write those in once these are caught up that should be an annual thing where in October of every year they come in and say these are the changes and do that presentation in front of the board same thing they should be doing program of studies these are the things that we are changing about the program of studies this year because this is how they're supporting your policies and that's where you're getting the principles to come in and do some communication with the boards you're not always just here for me it was really nice to see that presentation that the new RTC yes I would like to see that with the other principles and other admin so do you want them all to come together at the beginning of the year or do you want to space hand space them out or do you want to just space them out I would like to space that could be a part of their subcommittee group to figure that out so are we going to have all the I can't make choices right now that's your call subcommittee what do you change it and it's also good for the community it's an open forum because the community there's 300 people every time they're starting to get a feel for oh my god they really are doing a lot of work because they are but if we don't talk about it as much they don't know I just have one thing to add the three elementary schools did give me their three individual books but their intent is to have one and they just be ready for a time to make it they changed their mind again oh they did from yesterday they didn't talk with each other because the last cabinet meeting they talked about they traditionally had had one and then they talked about the fact well you know what the needs and the different schools because Kara told me yesterday I'd go into one I'm glad you brought it up I'll talk with them that'll be great we'll be together yes and then have an appendix just ask me I'm always the last to know anything I've got to be brought that up okay yes it was graduation requirements I mean we've kind of been do you realize you have this wrong oh the it's showing chairperson but I'm not which forum is it from the new software system 731.28 I don't know anything about that but we'll fix it if it flag it and I'll take a look we've been through this big effort to digitize there's a lot of new software p