Montpelier-Roxbury School Board - August 19, 2026 [MRSB]

We will call the meeting to order. Um, and the first thing that we're going to do just before public comment now, now that we have norms settled is, um, go around and say the norms out loud. Want to share. These are the new norms. And Kristen, for today, we'll start with you and we'll just go down the line. So, you'll take this one and then Brett, you'll take this one and we're just going to go down the line. You two can just >> listen. We won't make you do participation very first thing. Um I figure tonight is a lot about observing and then I can answer lots of questions that you might have um after tonight's over the next time we do our one-on-one meeting. Um so we'll start as a way of helping keep our norms fresh and in front of us. Um there the purpose of the norms is to help us um with communication and collaboration in our board meetings as well as in other work that we do. But since board meetings are the only time that the full board are together that we'll use this time to remind ourselves of what our norms are by um saying them one by one. And then at the end of the meetings, we'll we'll do our very quick kind of debrief out to see how we did at following them um during the meeting. So Kristen, why don't you kick us off? >> We provide input and ask questions with curiosity and apprec appreciation. >> Uh we seek input and questions with gratitude and openness. When others challenge our thinking, we listen without defensiveness. We stay curious, admitting when we are wrong, knowing we don't have all the answers and keep asking how something can work before deciding it can't. >> We approach our work with optimism and a belief in our students and staff's potential. We make decisions based on evidence and a belief that people can grow. >> Thank you. Um, we set a clear direction and trust the team. Our job is to set expectations and hold the district accountable for results. Yeah, >> we make decisions based on evidence. Good intentions and loud voices aren't enough. We ask to review the data and we affirmatively look for opportunity gaps. >> We make space for celebrations and joy. Celebrate the journey, not just the destination. Progress is worth naming. We make a point to recognize the people doing good work and the ground we've gained, not only when we've c crossed the finish line. >> Great. I'll go ahead and take the last one because I see Ella is online but muted. She's joining us from the Jersey Shore from her vacation. So, we appreciate you taking that time, Ella, but we imagine maybe things are a little hectic uh where you are. Uh we welcome hard questions. When something doesn't sit right, we ask about it before we form conclusions and always assume good intent. All right, so with that, thanks everybody. We're going to open the floor to public comment. Um, this is where it's the chance for the board to hear from the public on matters that are on the agenda or simply things that the board is thinking about and considering even if they're not on tonight's agenda. And the board does not um engage with the public during public comment. It's really just a chance for us to hear and listen. Um, and we will take public comment from the room first and online, which is our normal practice. And I see we have a member of the public >> for public comment. Or maybe you were just here to observe. >> Uh, no. I'll help you guys out here. This is good for everybody. >> So, Jim Iikenberry, resident of Mont Peeler and your head track coach. Um, happy end of summer, beginning of school. Little little sad. Um, but, um, appreciate you all being here and all that's happening. So, I've got a bunch of things I just want to roll through. Um, one, if you're not aware, there is a community track meet this Friday sponsored by the school and Central Vermont runners. And it's in uh celebration in memory of our former coach uh Nathan Sudter. And we're going to be um also uh it's free and folks can make a donation to a scholarship fund that we're working with MHS PI to put together and make happen. So, we'd love for folks to be there. It's going to be a fun time. a lot of little kids stuff, football, goofy, fun stuff at five, lots of silly relays and stuff. Then six will be for the folks who are more serious who want to try out the new uh surface on the track, see how fast they can go. Um, deep appreciation uh for Tom and his crew for getting the renovations done. Um, things have come a long way uh since the end of the school year and we are grateful. Uh, definitely some surprises, but I think they're good surprises. Um and um yeah, we're excited to see how it goes and then to build from that to even more um going to get a squad together of folks that are interested about seeing about scholarships, not scholarships, but um uh grant writing and seeing if we can get the next stage of the track that is not funded to a stage where it could be funded and um get some grant funding, hopefully get some support from the board and figure out if we could get whatever the next steps are. Um, so we'll see how that works out, but um, heads up. Um, I mainly want to talk to you about my thoughts related to school mergers. Uh, because I know that you're going to make a decision either tonight or soon to decide who's going to be on the school merger committee. Um, and then engage in what I think it's a a year or less to like. So that's, you know, pretty preposterous to in that time frame have to like figure it all out. I think the good news is we've done a lot of work with consultants over the past five years. U32 has, other schools have engaged. So it's not like we're going into it with no information. So one of my thoughts is, you know, use the information we already have to, you know, think about like what would it look like if we were to engage with another school district and have some kind of merge, whatever that means. Um, I thoroughly encourage the board before we anybody's like, "Oh, we should do this or do that." to come up with your criteria about what would make you want to accept or reject something long before somebody's offering like, "Let's become the blah blah blah blah blah school district." Like, does this fit our transportation needs or does our transportation become even more expensive? Does it uh fit our class size goals or do class sizes become wildly large and you know not look what we're going for? Uh school culture compatibility which I know is like a fuzzy thing but it's it's tangible enough that I think that you know we could have some markers that if we say things like hey our vibe is we take care of it ourselves and this place and they're like you know then like maybe that's not a good fit. um uh actual money savings based on a sound economic analysis. I think there's this belief that merging districts saves money and whether or not there's any data that supports that is right and so you know I keep thinking about how much it costs to get a school bus just for like our sports and stuff like there's a dollar sign to everything as much as we have enough information that you can even run scenarios it's like all right well maybe if we merged with a district that was in X distance and it made this then that would, you know, net whatever savings. Or maybe it would just be like, oh, we just absorbed their school building which needs renovation. And so, let's just think about all the things way ahead of time, really solid criteria, so if somebody starts to present different options to you instead of somebody saying like, "Oh, you guys are so subjective or it was a knee-jerk reaction or you just said no," you have evaluating criteria and it either does or doesn't meet it. And I think that would help. I would love for there to be more public input to support that. I It's been a while now since I feel like anybody from the public has physically been here. The last few meetings I've been to, I'd say over the past eight months, it's I see people, I get all excited, and then it's your staff because they're presenting on something to me. And so I know our community feels passionately about this in, you know, Roxberry and in Montpielar. So, let's really find out if there's other formats other than a school board meeting that we need to use to get people's input because I know they feel passionately about it and they're not here tonight. So, let's let's try to figure that out and crack that nut early in this school year so that when all of a sudden next September we're forced to have hard conversations per the legislation, we're like all primed and ready to go. Um, so appreciate you all. appreciate student members being here. Uh you're going to learn a lot and it's a good experience to have both from like a public speaking and an understanding of democracy in the world around you. So, cheers to you all for being here. >> Cool. All right. Thanks, y'all. >> Thank you, Jim. >> I can stay for a little while, but I'm fresh from work, so at least I'm on my work outfit, which is all ripped and stained and out in the wetlands. >> Uh do we have anyone online? >> Okay. All right. So that concludes public comment and we'll move on to the consent agenda um which is a um time during the board meeting where we pass a number of things all at once that are fairly proforma for us, fairly standard things like payroll and um paying the bills. Um some of it is so that the these documents can get out in front of the public because pretty much everything we do as a public body is um public can be is um meant to be public knowledge unless it is protect protected by um uh statute. So part of the reason having some of the these things on the consent agenda is so that they the public can see them and some of them are just kind of just standard business of the board. So, um, the way that we handle consent agenda is we really just vote on it unless there is something that a board member wants to pull off of there for, um, uh, for discussion or questions. So, let me pause there to see if there's anything that any board member would like to ask a question about or have a discussion about. >> Just a quick comment. >> Yep. >> Uh, just to highlight Libbyy's, uh, facilities and capital improvements update. I think it can, you know, when you see it all, it was really a huge summer from a the perspective of what um the team did both here with track with at UES and MSMS with the Windows classrooms uh some security stuff. I think it was really uh busy and productive summer that was probably probably more than the norm >> unless there's a flood. >> Unless there's a flood >> then we're busy. But so in in the vein of making space for celebrations and joy, I think that that is a a definite space for celebration. >> I will second that. Lots of gratitude to our custodial team for the work that they did over the summer to not only freshen up the buildings, not only do these big projects like Tim just that just mentioned and Libby highlighted in her superintendent report, but just in general just the everything looks like >> fresh. Not new obviously. They've made the old stuff look fresh. It's great. Ready for ready for next week. >> And I I have it on good authority that the changes to the middle school playground are a two thumbs up. >> Two thumbs up >> from lots of people. >> We'll take that. So multiple >> multiple thumbs. >> So dozens of thumbs up probably >> by kids. So >> that that play structure was >> they're they're pleased with themselves. >> That's what we like to hear. Um okay. So any other items for of question or discussions from the superintendent or from the consent agenda? All right, seeing none, all those in favor of uh passing the consent agenda, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? And any abstensions? Okay. So then we'll move right into the first order of business for the board uh discussion. >> Mia, is there somebody in chat that we need to pay attention to? >> Oh yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, Ella's just going to raise her hand if she has wants to join the conversation or if I if I'm missing it then anybody please just let me know that Ella's got her hand raised up there or she's going to send me a text and it'll pop up on my screen. >> Um okay. So the first item on our board discussion uh list is the merger committee and this is um the task for the board is to appoint a member of the merger committee. Um that said we don't have to do this tonight. We have until um midepptember to do this. So we have tonight's meeting and our September 2nd meeting. Um I was thinking for tonight what we could do is see who is interested in it from current board members. it must be a current elected board member. Um, and also hear from members of the board and and get a sense as a board of what we would of the expectations we have of the person or people who will be representing us. Um, and we there's a little bit of a um glitch in the matrix on this in that um as people may recall there was a law passed in the 2025 legislative session and a law passed in the 2026 legislative sessions that um both had to do with education transformation and and school and district consolidation. And those when it comes to the merger committee, those two laws have um different language. And so we are waiting on um guidance from the AOE particular and the language that is different pertains to um representation on this committee. So the current the most recent law says that it will be at least one board member from every board that that is part of each district that is part of the merger committee. And the old language says it will be proportional representation based on the long-term weighted um ADMs which are not the same thing. If MRPS repres sends one person that might not necessarily be the representation that we have proportionality based on the number of students that we have. So, we need the guidance before we know how many people we will actually be appointing, which is why I don't think we really ought to vote tonight on who we will be appointing, but maybe just use tonight's discussion as a get a sense of who's interested in it and also um what our expectations are of that person uh or people if we are able to appoint more than one. Did I get it? Did I get all that? I think that's pretty much covers it. Any questions before we get started? Feel free to ask any questions. There's >> can student representatives be involved in the merger like committee? >> I don't believe you're allowed to represent the board on the merger committee but being here but we are going to use board meetings for board our board to discuss and give our committee members our appointees to that committee direction and guidance for when they are in those meetings. Those meetings are going to happen once a month starting October through next September. And so we'll have the chance as a board to say what's happening in those conversations. They'll come back to us. Our representatives will come back to us and say here's what we talked about and here's the decision. Here's what I need information I need from our board to take back to that meeting. So you will most definitely all of us whether or not we're appointed to the committee be involved in the conversation. But I but I think it has to be an elected from the um from the two communities board member who gets appointed. >> I would also like to work with you too to so we can get student voice involved here so that we can represent the students in that meeting. >> Yeah, >> sounds good. >> Okay, >> great question. Any other questions about the process and what we're doing tonight or the process overall? I guess my question if it's if it's not proportional are we limited to one? >> You don't know. >> We don't know yet. >> We don't know. The the language of the most recent bill says at least one. Okay. >> But we also don't know how they're going to make those two sets of language jive with each other. We're waiting on the AOE to give guidance. Fingers crossed. I'm hopeful that we're they'll have that answer. the the VSBA is doing a webinar tomorrow on the merger committees. Maybe they'll have the answer by then and they can share it with us. The VSBA is the Vermont School Board Association. So, it's like it's this it's a a handful of staff who help school boards a lot um either by advocating in the state house or by providing trainings and webinars like the one they're holding tomorrow um to just help us stay informed and up to date on what what we should be thinking about. Um but who knows, we might or might not have that answer by tomorrow. >> Any other questions before we get started? Okay. So, are there members of the board who are interested in serving on the committee? >> I'm interested in serving on the committee if that's something that folks feel comfortable with. But, um, >> thank you. >> Yeah. For the interest in whatever capacity. I think a lot of what uh Jim said actually resonated. You know, try I think a big part of this is trying to figure out what our collective board framework for what is good and what's not good is really important and trying to figure that out is a big part of the work. I'm interested in doing that. So yeah, happy to do it, but also happy others are as well. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. time we talked a lot about in the equity engagement committee meeting that we had >> two >> ages ago because it was the summer. It's a longer summer apparently. >> But just the fact that it is really important to have a clear set of like preconceived guidance about >> how and why we're going to make these decisions so that when we're in those set situations where you're trying to make tough decisions, it's like kind of pre >> predefined for us >> as best we can. as best we can and so that we can >> kind of like tell folks what we're going to do, think about how we're going to do it, maybe do some proforma like what if scenario stuff based on that and then do it. So, I appreciate you raising your hand >> and I think that that set of guidelines will be something that we'll be looking the whole board will be the ones establishing that and then we'll be having our representative be the one who's like holding that in those committee meetings. >> Keeping in mind, I just think it needs to be said over and over again, the board isn't making the decision around merger. The community will be, right? That will be done through a community vote. So, I just don't want anybody to have that. Yep. Wrong. >> Right. Good reminder. Are there other folks who would be interested in >> I'm not not interested. There's opportunity to have more than one person being uh able to participate in some capacity on this committee. Having uh a Roxberry community perspective would be a good value added. and I'd be willing to uh step into that role. >> Thank you. >> I very much appreciate that point of view. Well, like I said, we don't have to decide tonight. So, if you're still stewing on it, we'll have another board meeting where hopefully we will have the guidance by then and we will um make the decision on the appointment. But I think it's also worth a conversation from the board of what if there's any things any you know wishes or expectations we would have of these uh of the the one or two people who are representing us you know like h how will you hold the balance of I one thing I think about is how will you hold the balance of hey these are the things that we have said as a board are most important to us and as you're in these committee meetings how are you thinking about that but also keeping an open mind because I think that's also um something that we would ask of our community is to keep an open mind and I think we can lead the way on that. Um so anyway, that's like the first thing that came to mind when I thought about well of the this is the pretty high stakes um committee appointment. So are there other things that people think about they'd be looking for from these representatives? You know, excellent note-taking maybe would be another one. So you can bring back um uh full information. No, I'm sure there's minutes and transcripts that everybody can be caught up on. So maybe excellent note-taking would be a nice to have. >> Um from what Jim was saying about like engaging with the communities and Libby, you know, pointing out that this is a this is a vote by our community. >> Like when you're at these meetings, I would love to know how these other districts are engaging with their communities. like we can come up with our own ideas, but they may have others that we don't think of that could be really valuable. >> So like let's just sort of >> try and gather as many as possible and figure out like what might work best work best here >> so that we can make sure we're representing our community's views um and are actually suggesting something that they would approve. >> Yeah. I don't know if it's like an expectation of the person, but just generally like trying to figure out how we time like community engagement is I think really important because I don't want I don't think we should try and drive the community to like high alert for a year, you know, like I feel like getting getting it out there and getting, you know, at like targeted times. I don't know. It was a good point about like maybe there are other other venues where you could have a have an opportunity to bring people in where people might show up but to kind of like build build the timing of the engagement in such a way that it like matches it doesn't make everyone think that everything's going on and then disconnect because nothing's going to happen for a year or you know what I mean? I don't know how to do that but that's something that I've been thinking about. >> Yeah. I think my assumption is that there's going to be lots of forces and activities and threads of thought and conversation in lots of different forums. And so I I don't know how I don't know what it's going to look like. I don't it's going to be like the biggest like wave that we need to surf, right? Like >> who knows what's going to happen. And I just think that like trying to like for me I think what's really important is that and and Libby put this in the district letter that you sent out this week. It's like we should be viewed as a source of fact. And if we don't have answers that are uh supported by a set of facts and or data, then we should be seen as the vehicle to go secure that information to respond back to whatever concern or question or proposal or whatever it looks like. And I think um you know there's not a lot of people here today. at some point we would expect there to be more than one person here. Um, and I just like it's hard to prepare for the unknown, but I think we have to be prepared for the unknown in a way. Oh yeah, Astra, >> I think one thing that I would really appreciate and I'm sure Hazel too was just if we're talking about merging and community engagement and student engagement, just letting Hazel and I know what kind of data you need or what kind of conversations you want us to be having with kids because I feel like I know a lot of kids are really interested that are curious about the merging. Like I've definitely heard people talking about that. And so I think just having some sort of intention and direction with the things that we're doing in school, like maybe we could do surveys or like hold um like listening sessions or something. I don't know. Just whatever we want to be doing, making sure that lines up with what you guys need >> to know about what our students want. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. to add on to what Astra was saying, uh we're both involved in school clubs and specifically the newspaper and I feel like uh through that we can communicate more easily to a lot of people in the school and so just to let us know if you guys need us to um put out a message about um people giving voice to whatever going on. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, Hazel, we should definitely try to get the newspaper. >> Yeah. >> For sure. Yeah. >> That's okay. >> Fantastic. >> Any other wishes, intentions, expectations we'd have for the folks serving on this committee? Um, I would just say, uh, whoever ends up serving on the committee, like please lean on the rest of the board in whatever help you need in preparing for these meetings or digesting or debriefing like whatever you learn, like don't feel like you need to like carry it all, but like ask us to to help with that. And a little bit related to that, I was also thinking that if you wanted to, this could take the place of a different committee that you're on because we are just as an acknowledgement that this this will be another time added on. Maybe if you need to find the space of time in something else, we can figure out how to relieve you of a different committee duty. So, >> oh, oh, Ela. Okay, great. Thank you. >> Hi guys. Um, yes to everything that was said. Uh, both of you seem like you'd be really well positioned to to do well on this committee. And something that I was thinking is that it's going to be really challenging to read up on everything and follow all the conversations and really become experts on all the moving pieces while also trying to explain to the rest of the board and to the community what this all is from like a very high level because we won't all be uh you know as deeply entrenched in the details. So just trying to use the rest of the board and and our community at large to as a sounding board to make sure that we get enough information to really make good recommendations and to vote with a lot of the information and all the information that we need while at the same time knowing that we won't know all of everything that you know while you're sitting there. So just keeping in mind that balance between um you know what do students have information what information do they have employees you know parents everybody it's going to be varying levels of familiarity with this stuff that's really changing to me it feels like on a day-to-day basis and is already kind of overwhelming. So thank you for translating that stuff to us. >> Yeah. All right, thanks Ella. Um I think we're going to leave it there for tonight and we'll have this on the agenda for um the meeting on the second and hopefully be able to vote. Okay, so we're going to move on to board goals and the hope for today is that we tonight we finalized the annual goals for the year. Um, can I jump? Um, could you bring the draft up on the screen? Um, so that we can all have be looking at the same thing. Thank you. Um, just as a way of like kind of bringing us into tonight. Um, it has been a long and hopefully wonderful summer for everybody. Um the way that we started this process is that uh back in the late just before just at the end of the the school year, so late June, Justin led us through a SWAT analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. That's what SWAT stands for. Um at our annual retreat, and that led us to um landing on six main areas that within those areas we would consider goals. And those areas were academic um regional collaboration, fiscal sustainability, mitigating risks to our infrastructure, clarity of vision, and strategic community engagement. Those were the six that we landed on back in um at the board retreat in July. And then over the summer, the operations committee took on two of those areas, the um fiscal sustainability and mitigating risks to our infrastructure and drafted goals within those two. Um and the equity and engagement committee drafted goals uh a goal that had to do with strategic community engagement. And then Tim Libby and I worked with Libbyy's team to draft goals having to do with student outcomes, the academic um piece of it and the regional collaboration. And that's how we got to the six draft goals that um our the board has in front of you tonight. The categories shifted a little bit um as we started working on them. The clarity of vision one also seemed to make a lot of sense with the le uh regional collaboration because we need um as we've been saying already tonight that clarity of what it is that are that are the values and the priorities that are most important to us to when um evaluating whether or not to merge um seems to be the kind of clarity of vision that we were looking for and has to do with regional collaboration. So those two kind of got um merged into that category uh or those two categories got merged into that one goal. And then we did end up separating out academic and social emotional learning. So those goals one and two are um that's what those pertain to academic achievement and then the safe and inclusive climate is how we're referring to social emotional learning. Then there's a goal for regional collaboration. There's a goal for fiscal sustainability, a goal for infrastructure, climate risks, and then a goal for community engagement. Um, and so that's the draft of the goals that we have so far. And um, the let's see, I think that's all I wanted to all the like kind of background context to kind of get us caught up and remind ourselves how we got here. Um, like I said, for tonight, the the the purpose of the conversation is to finalize, to land these goals and be able to start using them, put them into our work plan, and um start doing the work to accomplish them. Um, the way that I'd like to do the conversation is if there's any clarifying questions from board members, let's start with that, and then we can go down. We'll start at the first goal and um go through the list with any thoughts or re big revisions that board members uh want to make. So clarifying questions about any of the goals that this can just be kind of a freef fall as you look at them. Anything you want clarified? >> I have a question. Um, for goal number six, um, I'm curious how, uh, the the group came up with a pilot group of 500. Like why like why that number? >> You want to take that one? >> Uh, that was a good conversation. >> Do you remember it? >> I I I vaguely remember it. um you know like we were trying to balance the current understanding of like what our response rate is to things which is relatively low. Um and but also identify a number that we felt was within reach and is relatively meaningful. Um, and it and it's a pilot group so that we can kind of test like the kinds of communications, the the ways that we're engaging to see that if they're working so that we could then sort of like throw some gas on the fire and really make that that stuff work for the whole community. Um there it was a lot of conver it it was a qualitative conversation to get to a quantitative outcome like there's not a lot of science behind it other than you know um yeah I mean I guess I don't know what what else we it's really hard for us to figure out how to to Jim's point like get people engaged. Clearly, this is going to be one of those things that um well, we don't I I guess to for me personally, success is not having people leave the polls frustrated that they weren't informed. Um and I think that's a real risk based on just voter outreach and out and engagement in general. Um and so we were trying to be really proactive in figuring out a way where we could basically beta test some things. We imagine that so the um the gas on the fire part would happen from basically summer of 2027 through March of 2028 because in March of 2028 both communities all of the communities are going to be voting on whether or not to merge. That is assuming that the the merger committee recommends a merger. Um, so there's a lot of there's a lot of whatifs here, but assuming the merger committee recommends some kind of merger that that MRPS would be involved in, we would have then um that our communities will vote on that in March of 2028. So, our hope is that by testing out these various different um ways of engaging the community both in person and digitally like online, we'll know what's kind of working by June of 2027. So that starting in summer of 2027 until town meeting day 2028, we'll be able to do those things that are working even more so that we have more um we have an uh informed voting population when it comes to town meeting day in 2028. I do think we did a little math. I'm recalling we did a little math that about 2500 people give or take vote on the school budget every year. So we used that as our general population and said okay well if we can get a fifth of them to have some kind of engagement with us such that so they can say yeah I get what's going on by June of 2027 we're in really good shape to know what to do for the rest of the time until March of 2028. So >> and and as like maybe context things we thought about were you know how many students do we have? How many caregivers? how many how many families, how many potential voters? That's a very specific segment of the MRPS district population. Those are people who have kids in school. That's not the entire audience that we need to be able to connect with. And so this number is taking into account, all right, if we if we if we take MRPS caregivers and assume that they're going to probably be the stickiest, just maybe by default, it's an assumption that Justin's making. Uh we know we're not going to get 100% of that. And so that number went from whatever that number is to something smaller. And then we said, and so then we need to be able to um in order to sort of look ourselves in the face and say like, okay, we think this is going to work, have a relatively significant number of pilot candidates outside of that group. And the number kind of like landed at around 500. That was the math we did, right? >> It's more like calculus. >> The new Yeah, new. >> Thank you. Uh, did that number seem small or large or I'm >> just curious if I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. >> It did seem large to me like >> it because when I saw a group I was like we're going to get 500 people in a room and but then I think I talked to me a little bit and it's not it's not like >> 500 people in one time trying to react. It's trying to >> over time engage that made me feel good about it. >> Yeah. Um, I was wondering, are we good to move on from that? >> Ready to move on. >> Okay. I was wondering about goal two, which is the safe and inclusive climate. Um, how are you thinking of measuring that and how are you thinking of going about that? Because I know that one's kind of more vague as opposed to academic achievement and other things. >> Yes. And also like as students, how can we try to enforce not enforce that but like how can we help that as people who are in the school and people who would be in the safe and inclusive climate. >> Yes. You know the survey you take every year? Yeah. Twice a year. >> That's where we get that data from. >> Please make sure to fill out the survey. >> Yeah. >> We do. We do. But we get data from that survey and some of those questions are specifically targeted at things like belonging. Like we can pull the questions out and see how kids are feeling. >> When you get that data, how do you think about going about trying to fix the things that seem like they need fixing? >> That's a good question. That's more student conversations, right? So, one of the things that we've noticed in our data over year over the years is students who have IEPs or 504s tend to rate their sense of belongings lower than other students, particularly 504s. Um, >> do you know what those are, by the way, >> vaguely? >> Student support plans. >> Okay. >> Um, kids who have special needs or, you know, something like that. Um, and so that's one target audience that we need to know more like why why is the sense of belonging there less than we could make some guesses but we need to talk to kids to find out more >> and you're right the language here on this document is fairly broad and the um there's a um partner document to that which I'll share with the two of you that has a lot more detail in it and it is tied to Um the each school has a what's called a continuous improvement plan that they write for every school year and back at the end of June the board got to see what each school's continuous improvement plan is for this school year. And so G goals one and two for the board are directly tied to those continuous improvement plans which have a lot more detail in them and are the places where Libby and her team principles and the administrators who work in the central office spend a lot of time looking at that and going okay where are we at today? Where are we at this week? Where are we at this month? And moving the those schools along a progressive path toward continuous improvement. >> Thanks. Any other clarifying questions before we move on to thoughts and edits? >> The community engagement goal, it appears to me to be about informing people about what matters to the district district, which seems a little backwards to me. Um because when I think about um merging mergers, it's it I think it's it reminds me a little bit of like elections, right? People are going to vote for the a party and people have strong feelings one way or the other for or against mergers. If if they do, I think a lot of people have they're they feel a certain way. Whether it's based on facts or it's based on something not very factual, I'm not I'm not sure. Probably >> probably, you know, a mix. Um but there's nothing in the engagement goal about figuring out what what is what is for those who have strong feelings for or against why. >> You know what I mean? >> Well, it does we do have listen for and and communicate the district's values and priorities. I think that's what we were trying to get at with that language is >> as the um as the board is developing the and cod I guess I would say codifying the values and priorities that we would use to evaluate a merger part of that process is going to be doing some community listening so and that and goal number six and goal number three kind of work together in that way in that we're giving ourselves until mid November to establish lish that set of values and priorities. So between now and mid November is when we need to do the do work that will be doing the listening and like and also like testing out. I think we could start with some ideas of things like here's here's our here's our rough draft of what whether it's like here's what makes MRPS great or here's what we want to like hold as priorities as we move into this process. we we could share that rough draft with the community and say what are your thoughts on this? Did we miss anything? Is there something you really want to highlight? What's important to you? Um and that's why we have that midn time until mid November is to to to do that development process and that codifying process. And then from November through June is when we're out there sharing that with the community in more of a way that's like this is what we say is really important to us and we want you to make sure you understand that as we move toward this potential of merging. Does that does that help Rhett? >> Yeah, guess so. Hazel. >> Um, I was just wondering, is it relatively hard to get community engagement with the board and why is that? Because I feel like there's like a lot of importance that goes on and just like looking at the like schedules and stuff that we have out, there's like a lot of important topics that we cover. And so I was just wondering why that's not like why people don't engage with it more. I wish I had a good answer for you. >> We have We have guesses. Yeah. >> Like one of my theories is if things when things are going bad, you get engagement. >> People these seats get more filled up and people let us know that they think something's wrong that needs to be corrected. So >> something they really want to advocate for even Yes. like like um in the past we've heard from students around um have setting a net zero intentions and we've also heard from a lot we heard from a lot of folks in the community about the track. So it's those that kind of stuff or bad >> definitely there but as a general matter it's sometimes it's like if you if things if people feel things are going well everyone lives busy lives you know has a lot to do um I think that's something that I I often think they're not as compelled to show up and you know kind of voice the opinion there's many other reasons and I'm not saying like everything's perfect and we're all wonderful you know I don't mean to say that but I do think seeing this in times when it's been choppy ier. Um there's been a lot more engagement and when it's not as choppy, it's quieter. >> Do you guys think like because things when things are not as like good going, I guess, and like there's problems and stuff in the community. Um, like when everything's going smooth, would it help to show the community goals that we can like have or like a kind of a future plan for something to be better? And then like once people see that, they're like, "Oh, well, this is going pretty good, but it could be going this much better." And then maybe they'll have more ideas on how to get there. >> I think that the merger conversations give us an opportunity to do that. Not to say that okay merging means better but it is the it is a very large thing that's on our nots so distant horizon that our whole community will need to be a part of. Um so I think that's a version of what you were just describing Hazel. Um, if we didn't have that, then it would be really cool to be like, hey, you know, in five years, maybe we'd build a new high school or in five, you know, like a a thing that is more of a um I don't know, this is what our I don't I can't even think of anything else right now, but I think that is and and one thing we're hoping to learn from doing um the work that we're going to do to accomplish goal number six is what is it where people where is it that people do engage with us more if it's online if it's through Instagram or front porch forum posts or I don't know what then maybe we do more of that and fewer of the like please come to a board meeting or if it's we get a ton of engagement when we're standing at the farmers market okay let's do more of that so that's one of the things we're hoping to learn we did a little bit of that last year we're going to do a lot more of it I think this year um because we even more to talk about I would say this year. Ella, you're still muted. There we go. Showing my age here. Um the other thing you know that we've been talking about uh great questions by the way from the student reps. We're so happy to have you on board. And one of the other things we've been talking about in the equity engagement committee along those lines are other kind of measures that we have for engagement. Um I think it's important to remember that we have had budgets that pass in this community um throughout the years and there are other communities in Vermont that do not get their budgets passed and that's really challenging um for those those communities as well. So that's, you know, another way that people engage with board priorities is by supporting the budgets that we, you know, put forward. Um, we've also been talking a lot about other measures of engagement and how people engage with the district. Um, not necessarily maybe face to face with the board, but other ways of supporting the district, wanting to have their kids go here, things like that. Um, but definitely we're talking more about, you know, how to how to have more participation. any ideas you guys have certainly in terms of surveys and things like that. Um, moving on from that, um, Mia, I was a little bit confused, um, as far as how we landed with the goals and the dates. Um, my understanding was that we were seeing it as sort of an ongoing conversation around listening for what matters to the community. Um, the November date makes me feel a little bit nervous that it's so soon. Um, and so can you talk a little bit more about how you guys set up those two goals to interact with each other? Um, and what we think we actually can get done before November in terms of of the goal three. >> Yeah, I that's a great question. I'm very happy to have a conversation about that date. I think what we were trying to do was strike a balance between giving us some time to be able to land on those priorities and then have them but then have plenty of time the rest of the school year to use them for engagement. But if we wanted to do more of a mix as a board of and like push that date back and say actually we need more time to hear from the community I I think that's that's fine too. That was a that was our first first best guess at a the mid November was our first best guess at a date. >> We also have some limitations with budget cycle that starts in beginning of December, >> right? That's true. Takes takes over board meetings. Yeah. In December and January. >> I would say like the first couple of drafts due and then after a while it's a little bit of a >> December is definitely budget. >> Yeah. Heavy. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I think too it'll be a little more clear maybe as we talk through what we mean by priorities. Um, to Rhett's point about continuing to listen, you know, it my understanding of of goal three was that it's a little bit more um like kind of broad strokes, you know, um that priorities might mean like categories of things that matter to us much less than like real nitty-gritty on things. Um, but you know, I I'll be interested to see kind of how we how we go about, you know, listening for those things from our communities and kind of trying to distill them down into things that our representatives should be listening out for. >> Yeah. To to me that third that third bullet when it's talking about the values and priorities, it's sort of what Jim mentioned, right? It's like the framework. So I think, you know, in my mind, Ella, it needs to be to a level where it's informative to help someone make a decision in a direction. I don't know if everything's going to be like yes, no binary, but like something about thresholds or tolerances within, you know, I I don't know what the aspects are, but it to me it should be clear by November that we have at least a draft of like the types of things that we will ask ourselves to make decisions. And I think, you know, because it's really hard to engage and sort of like iterate on this and because our audience is so large, it this is going to be iterative for probably a lot longer than we want it to be. But it kind of has to be because I think that's just the way that it's going to be. And in in some cases, we're not going to get I don't I don't believe that we're going to get to like this utopian place where everyone says, "Yes, those are that's how we're going to do this. We're going to get to a place where time is going to decide and majority is going to decide that these are generally the things that I think we need to consider and there's going to be happy folks and there's going to be unhappy folks. But that's why we accepted this position, right? Because we like that stuff. >> Yes. But I but Ella to your point I I guess for me I don't when you said broadbrush I sort of I sort of thought started thinking and I said I don't I don't think that we're at broad brush like we need to be beyond broadbrush by >> November or at least know how we're going to get past broadbrush because by June we're going to be you know trying to get people coalster on those things I think. Well, and not only that, but starting in October, we have our representative or more than one to the merger committee who will need to use those values and priorities in those conversations. Right. So, >> right, >> that will also yeah, November I do agree seems early and like I said, I'm totally open to having that be something that is a different deadline than that, but I also want to make sure that the people who are doing that representing have the information they need from us to be able to participate in the conversations at the committee level. Yeah, my thinking I like that time frame because I think it's important for us to put ourselves out there because it'll help us tell the community, hey, this is what we're thinking and you know, I've kind of done my unscientific poll this summer where I ask everyone from the community that I see like friends or whoever like what do you think about merging? and there's always like a very fast response like very and with very strong in either direction but then >> we talk about it a little bit more and it's a much more interesting conversation than the knee-jerk um this or that. And so I I see this as an opportunity for us to kind of show a little bit of what we're thinking, show what's important to us, to allow people to kind of take one step past where wherever knee-jerk reaction they may be at the start and say, "Okay, these are the people we've said are entrusted to look after the school district and they're saying that these are the things that are important to them. Well, I'll take a look at that and kind of digest it for them a little bit." So I I think getting out there and putting our thoughts out at least on a tentative basis early is really important. And it's not to say that like that's our priorities forever. Like things can shift as we're hearing from people throughout the time, but I think it'll help like that helping kind of coalesing on our part will help educate the community and hopefully help them formulate opinions that are are a little bit, you know, more well thought out and based on fact. >> Yeah, I think that all makes sense. I think as a member of the equity engagement committee, I I feel like maybe our goal needs to be revised or needs to have something that relates more to that November date because I'm worried, it sounds like we need to do that kind of listening and thinking and prioritizing by November. And so I'm worried that a lot of the work that the engagement committee imagined the board doing doesn't happen until after November. Uh and so we just need to make sure that we frontload a lot of that so that we don't end up in a place where we're telling the community what matters to us. We need to be reflecting back what we're hearing and make sure that we have a lot of engagement opportunities to do that listening before November. Um, and I'm a little bit worried about that, those two goals lining up timewise. >> When you say, Ella, when you say the work that the equity and engagement committee was imagining the board doing, are you you're talking about community engagement work that the board will do. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, in some ways, even though goal number six has the deadline, quote unquote, deadline of June 2027, there's like a benchmark deadline that is, you know, and whatever date uh that's like mid November where there's that front-loaded engagement activity is what I hear you say. Yeah. Yep. That makes sense to me. Anyway, I can picture it. Any other I I feel like we're already moving into edits and thoughts, so why don't we just move in that direction? So, any other um but but why don't we scroll back up and look at um goals one and two? they're, you know, they definitely work together because they are the ones that are rooted in the continuous improvement plans of the um for the schools. Any thoughts or edits on those that folks would like to propose or share? And I think I mentioned this in yeah my opening. This is one that Tim, Libby, and I worked well like through Libby with Libbyy's team on to help us get set, which I really appreciate. >> And Hazel, >> I have maybe just one comment. I don't necessarily have an editor suggestion, but for someone reading this, the district-wide collaborative teacher data cycles is a little bit jargony and I think we all know what that means, but um others might not. And maybe our student reps are good test subjects for that, but I don't think you need that last part. Thanks for pointing that out. >> You know, number one, uh academic achievement goals. I was just wondering what the pre-existing I guess thoughts on like trying to get to that point where the Renar like scores are going up and like I don't know how we think we can like help to improve that like if anyone like already had ideas or like had talked about this in the past. >> Yep. That's all we've been uh the principles all have that in their continuous improvement plans for >> I just emailed you to that document I was referring to the one that has more detail that goes with these two the rest of the board >> had that be helpful >> I was going to ask a very similar question >> yeah so the the continuous improvement plans I think what you're getting at Hazel is like where are we now and how do you like how do you know how much how do you know where we are now and and like what direction, how how much further we want to go or whatever. And that kind of detail is in the continuous improvement plans as well as um broken down in that doc I just sent you too. >> I was basically going to ask of the same thing, but also was there something that people were noticing was something we really need to improve or is it more just kind of like we always want to be improving? >> Well, yes and yes. >> Okay. So like in math proficiency, we um when we can take the BCAP scores, the state tests that our third through 9th graders take and they break it out by kind of um themes in math and one of the area one of the themes is problem solving and reasoning and people's answers and their ability to reason their answers. We score very low on that across the district. So something's wrong. When we see something low like that across the district, like we're not doing well in any grade level in that area. It's one tiny piece of math, but it shows us that there's something missing in our curriculum or there's something missing in how teachers teach that or there's something missing in how we understand what VCAP means when they say problem solving. Something's missing there. So we're so that's an area that we're digging into to see where we need to do better there. Um, so we go to like that kind of grain size. >> Did that make sense? >> Yes. Thanks. >> So, as a new as a new board member, as a new board member, I felt exactly like you felt probably in >> June. >> June. June was when we got those >> and then we had a presentation where they walk through all of this and was like so we can get you that material so that you can see because there's there's years worth of trend analysis that kind of loads into that. So um what you're feeling is perfect. >> Yeah, I think reading that stuff will be helpful. >> Yeah, I'm looking at this now. I was like what are we talking about? And it was like and here are the answers. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, >> I noticed that you guys said we're going to get VT CAP scores in the fall. Is that no longer December? >> We have the VT CAP scores. They're just not allowed to be public yet. >> Oh, any thought on when? >> Probably November. >> That's when they usually >> That's still fall, right? H >> um Casey, I was sending that document to Hazel and Astred while you were talking, while you were offering your edit, which is that last sentence of number one. Is that right? >> Just that that last act sentence, >> right? >> Yeah. Can we put a period after continuous today? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yes, we can. >> Cool. >> I'm doing that right now. >> Shorter. It's for for me, my reaction to this is like this is one of those things where like naturally like the the CIP process like was pre-established and it's great that we as a board have a goal that like the general operations of the administration is going to address because that's what they do. And so it's like >> Yep. And so I think it's good. I I wouldn't I would be hesitant to try to do anything different or anything more because it would be then potentially just more burdensome >> in my mind. Yeah. Plus one to that. We think we're ready to move on to number three. All right. So Ella raised the question about the deadline here. Should is there thoughts? Would you want to edit this goal, Ella, with a different >> with the different deadline? >> No, I think maybe we need to edit number six. >> I think number three has it, you know, I'm convinced that it it does have to be my November. Um, but I uh I think maybe number six needs to be updated a little bit. >> Got it. Okay. Any other thoughts on number three from other folks? Maybe to address Rhett your point like is it helpful to be like on the nose with three that it's going to involve or be informed by community input that like if we if we address because we have like listen for down in six >> um >> but we don't we we say that we're going to establish a set values, but we don't say how in three. And so would it be useful to say through a robust engagement or something like that? >> I'm not sure honestly because we've done that a lot and um I mean we've we've we've got we've gone we went through a long process facilitated by Nathan to um really we we we got together a whole community that included students, it included parents, it included people that were not necessarily directly connected and we were like canvasing our communities and and pockets of Mielar and Roxberry trying to establish values and priorities and um you know it's hard it's just hard to Yeah, it's it's it's a it's I don't know it's something that's easily done by the end of November. >> Well, we we actually talked about leveraging so I don't know that >> and maybe we like somehow give credence to the fact that we'll give nod to that we're going to >> start from there or leverage it or >> Yeah, that's definitely our starting point is what we already have. Um, I think that's what I meant when I was saying like I think part of what we would be doing in this early part of the year is not necessarily just asking an open-ended question, but like right >> here's what we here's what we we think we've heard. >> What did we miss? Yeah. >> Or what do you want to highlight? Or >> what's most important to you? >> Instead of established, is it confirmed? Because that may be I I don't >> I don't know. >> Codified. >> Yeah, >> confirmed is that works. I don't think we're re >> I will say I think that the only the difference between what Rhett just described which is still incredibly valuable and what we have here is that is that merger piece that we're kind of looking at it through a slightly different lens. It's not simply anymore what do we value as a community and therefore what are our priorities. It's also like how are we holding that as we think about merging with other with other districts. Um maybe it's a dis difference that's not a distinction that doesn't make any difference. I don't know. But um I think you uh the board should also not let the perfect get in the way of the good enough because because there is statute that that could change. I wouldn't be surprised if it changed. >> Yeah. But there's statute that puts deadlines on us and so there's there's a time frame within which we're working within here. >> Yeah. >> And I think building a framework so people can make an educated decision when they go to the polls is an excellent thing to do and we need to do that. And I also think we have a lot of work that we've done and um through that work with Nathan that I don't know if they've changed so much since that time. I can't imag like I can't see them changing that much. Um, and you were elected to do some work here. So, plus that with the voting public, too. >> Yeah. I'm holding these two things where like part of me wants to to have a conversation with as many people that have strong feelings about merging one way or another like you were saying Tim >> but that being somehow a little bit separate from um kind of identifying the values that we have and the strengths and potentially you know areas for growth that we identify all the time that are going come into play when when an actual if an actual merger were to be proposed. Um, >> and adding a third leg of the still that we're not talking about is our taxpayers >> as well, you know, from take away student opportunity because this this law is really about tax rates. >> It's not about opportunities for students like ours. So, it we need that's a third leg of the stool that we're not even talking about yet. >> It is >> and we don't have the information to talk about it. That's likely, as I understand it, that's the goal of the merger committee, right? If you sort of flush out some >> should they get the information they need to be able to do that. Yeah. >> And all of that is completely true. And I think it is does behoove us to even though the legislation is more about tax rates and affordability. I think it behooves us to hold the piece of student outcomes and opportunities um through through all of this so that that doesn't get lost in the conversation about what's the most affordable way to deliver education, >> right? Because I would want the conversation to be we we need this, we want this, we would love to have this so that when someone says at what cost, like our our sort of commitments have been pre-stated. And then like how we wrestle with the at what cost aspect of that decision is hard, but it it doesn't if we've already pre-stated a lot of that stuff, it it sort of sets a precedent, right? And so people un, you know, we understand what we value so that when we're negotiating, we know what things we can get, what things we we really want to fight for. Um, that's how I think and that's what number three refers to. >> Yeah. >> Goal number three refers to >> All right. I think we're going to move on with the intent of not letting the perfect be getting in the way of good enough to get the work done. Um, number four and number five, Tim, do you was there any background you want to give from the operations committee conversations for these two? >> Yeah, just sustainability and infrastructure climate risks. >> Right. So by way of reminder when we came out of our uh summer session uh the financial and demographics sustainability was sort of one of the themes that was identified from the SWAT analysis and what we were um given at the operations committee was concerns over whether the district remains affordable given declining population of children rising costs for healthcare and benefits. So we took that and we tried to figure out how do we take that concern that was the you know came out of the SWAT analysis and we um thought that the best way to kind of really drill down on that was to um look at the excess spending threshold that the legislature sets for um penalizing taxpayers. So the excess spending threshold is a number and if we spend more per pupil to educate students then you get a tax penalty and you have to pay more um to do that. It's >> any sense? Yeah, >> the state it's this tool that the state um has to try and keep schools from just like saying we're gonna go put a an orchestra in or like I shouldn't say or a swimming pool or like just all these bells and whistles if the town has a lot of resources. It's sort of like the state's way of saying like, okay, if you're going to go and do all that, we're going to make you pay even more so that we can take so because you clearly got too much money and we're take it to spend um pay for other districts. >> Yeah, >> maybe they're not saying that intentionally, but that's how I interpret the excess spending threshold. So, it's it's sort of something that exists whether we like it or not at the state level. and given the concern was you know it was kind of we were wrestling with it in the operations committee like how do we I don't know what's affordable to one person is not to another person it's something that we can't really measure and we wanted to have something that we could look to so um we're going to try and get some kind of analysis um by November of this year and fortunately we have Jake who works at the tax department and does this stuff for a living and is an expert on it he's not here tonight but he'll um he'll help he'll he'll do this and >> yeah for a meeting he's he was at the ops meeting this is not yeah >> I'm likely excited about >> right >> so it's it's basically looking at that it's using that tool as a way to figure out if we are um sustainable and the second one um the state is right now the districts vote on budgets um but what the state is looking to move to is basically like a block grant model where the state just says we're going to give you X dollars per student and you've got to live with that. Doesn't care. It doesn't matter what your residents want to pay. You just have to live with this amount. The state's going to put out some new numbers I believe this fall on an updated like what that foundation formula is. And so we thought we could do when is it going to be? >> December. >> December. Okay. So we thought the operations committee we kind of take that work it into what our budgets are looking like and kind of do some comparison so we can see what a if we were to not merge and be subject to this foundation formula in our steady state we could at least have a picture of whether or not that is workable without substantial cuts if we have headroom. Um just kind of provide that analysis so that the board can understand where we are. This is the fun stuff. I you mentioned the word affordability and I like the fact that that that's not in this goal because I think that's not something that's factually based whereas spending is >> but I wonder like how are we going to wrestle with the concept of affordability because that is defined differently by every household in the district >> and I think we need to figure out you know it in in section three we talked about sets of values and things like that that's here. I feel like there's this affordability piece that we also need to maybe try to tackle. Um because while we have a precedent of past budgets that's not really informative for threat a threshold, right? >> For the spending threshold >> for the spending for for for like >> That is true. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I don't I >> well in essence the I hear what you're saying but in the two bullets one is the excess spending threshold which is what is it what now we have to work with with the foundation with the foundation the education formula the way it is right >> yep >> which while many households may not agree with it it's the state's way of saying you are not you are spending too much therefore it's not affordable right >> right if it's excess >> yes >> that's And then the second part is the foundation formula where the state is saying this is what is affordable >> for education by making that number. >> So in essence the the two bullets could be perceived as defining affordability that way. We need something that's less subjective than what people feel based on their budgets. >> Sure. Yeah. based on what we have available to us right now. >> What's the problem you're trying to solve with this affordability thing? Is it a is it a PR thing or is it is it about passing our budget when the time comes in March of 2027? >> I think yes to both. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Like we're going to be in a position where correct me if I'm wrong, but like is the board going to be in a position where we need to decide whether we want to dip our toes into the excess spending space? No, >> this stay beneath. >> Yeah, >> that and we want to do some thinking ahead of time to stay away from it and kind of So, that's looking at peers because really it's just like >> you're looking it's um >> are you spending 115 is and it's ratcheting down the state. So, it's all comparison to pier. >> Yeah. So, we don't want to be the Dodgers. >> Yes. >> Correct. >> And that's our standing. >> Perfect. >> Good sports ball reference. Everybody got the sports ball reference? machine. >> No, but I think like I didn't know that that was already sort of like pre defined like >> Okay. Yeah. >> But if that's helpful to know >> that is >> and it's helpful. I think we should be >> very clear on that because in a conversation I had with a friend. >> Yeah. >> It was like I heard that we could do these things and it's like so I think we need to >> Yeah. >> It's allowed but we're not >> right. Right. And like I my answer was I'm I don't know enough to really reply to that but now I have disproportional information >> and that's what part of this is is to I think it's education for the board and that's it's we're very fortunate to have Jake who you know lives and breathes this stuff and I think will get us all up to speed so that we can have these conversations with people. That's I think that's really where some of these goals come from. Is that a fair >> I was you can Yeah. But another sports ball reference, we are also not the Oakland Athletics where we're going to sell all of our assets and not care. >> Correct. We're definitely not doing that. >> Yeah. >> So if there's any if folks call on four. So five is um just going back to where we came from. There are significant concerns regarding aging buildings um liability of the high school being in a flood zone. um you know there's flood danger, extreme heat threatens to disrupt learning and complicates long range facility decisions. Those were the that's what we took away from the SWAT analysis those thinking. So the way we put that together was and we gave ourselves the year to do it. Um the I think we would stage these along the way, but I didn't want to say that before we got back with the ops committee to kind of figure out how we might stage these. Um, I think putting a continuity of operations plan in place so that if you know the flood didn't happen on July 10th or whenever it happened, say it happens tomorrow when we're about to go back to school, um, what do we do? Like, and it doesn't need to be like everything from the ground up, but just a general plan of like how how would we address what is one of the more likely threats that we're we may face. So doing some work, excuse me, on that. And then the next two kind of go hand in hand. Um, uh, we've had a we've been carrying forward basically some money in the piggy bank. That's what we call our fund balance. And this year we utilize some of that money to uh, upgrade the windows and fix the windows and um, the playground over at MSMS. Um, we are, I think, putting more attention on that money both in in the money that we currently have saved and in how we fund that. And so this year, I think we were thinking of putting together just some more policy around it. Like what what do we think is a good plan to fund our capital fund for improvements every year? Um, do we think we should use fund balance to to lower taxes or we think we should invest it and use it for to defay borrowing? Um, so those two things and and the three-year time horizon seem to be reasonable because like with well with all the merger discussions, you can't really plan out more than three years at this point. It would be kind of silly until we see how this all shakes out. So that's the thinking on those two. And I'm not sure how much people are following this in the recent school law. there's um this kind of the carrot for merging is that the state is going to assume a lot of your new debt on new construction if you have to build a new building and some of your existing as I understand it >> they're talking about how to do that to not be stated as an active >> yeah's there's an intent to do that and um and there's also a heck of a lot of issues with it um so I think the goal there was to just monitor and that and bring that back to the board because that's really, you know, when you think about it, when we have a, you know, high school that's in a flood plan and something could happen and there is a potential need, we should be aware of whether or not, you know, if we need to build something new. If one path leads to state subsidizing a lot of it and another path doesn't, well, that's something we all need to be aware of and talk about as we're making any decision. So, but to Libbyy's very good point, this is by no means like gonna actually happen. >> So, um >> it's not a guarantee. >> It's not a guarantee. So, this requires a lot of following and just making sure that there's communication back to the board so that like if this doesn't materialize, then we shouldn't take them into consideration. So, we want to keep keep an eye on that. So, that's how we took the ideas that were articulated in the SWAT analysis and translated them into goals. I have a question. Yeah, Tim. So, back to the state potential state aid aid and construction. Yeah. >> Um and they're just having conversations right now, but >> is it anticipated that there's going to be um more of a concrete idea of like how they're going to go that can help inform the merger discussions that we are having with the community. >> They won't they won't have decided by the time Well, they might I think by the time we vote. So like >> by the time they vote maybe >> oh in March of 2028, >> but not by like this I I think you know the legislature is not in session. So I wouldn't I think there there are conversations that I know are happening right now on you know how and whether but I don't think anything will get decided until the next session which would be January through and more likely June you know. Yeah, that's >> so by that point I think we'd have but but that's an important conversation that we should kind of monitor and that's the idea here is that as that's developing we want to make sure that the board kind of understands it >> and they've had a goal for school construction for the past you know three beniums it >> they used to do it I think before like08 >> I thought it was into the early as >> I I think it was too that was my last the last thing I saw is that they it was the recession it the recession in 2008 or 2009 where they said, "Oh, we don't have the funds for con school construction statewide a fund a statewide fund anymore." So, so it's been since then, so almost 20 years, >> right? So, but and it's always been something they've wanted to bring back and schools like I don't know if you're reading those stories down in Woodstock with with their school like that just sounds terrible like the stuff they're they're having to face. Um, and so I think it's a really important thing and it would be great if the state could do it, but you know, state's not flush um, with cash to support that. I think our office did a a report on it. I think it was something like deferred capital needs in schools statewide for somewhere around $6 billion. This was like last year. >> So, and that's on a a budget that this last year was $9 billion. >> So, it's >> which is lowballed. When they went through our facilities, they said new windows at US would cost 3,000 a window. >> Yeah. Right. So there you go. >> They actually were like 10 >> 15 to 20 >> each window. >> Per window. >> Each window. Yes. >> So it's, you know, it's something but that's the big carrot of merger really. I mean the big financial carrot that they're hanging out there. And so it's it's a really important thing for us to be mindful of. And I just want that to be I think the ops committee can like sort of own well because Jake and um and >> you're watching that >> this would be the kind of thing that Mike would pay attention pay attention. >> Mike Conessi is our um chief financial officer in the district and this is the kind of thing he would pay he would pay attention to too. >> Yeah. >> So one question I have for the rest of the board. very big appreciation to the operations committee for thinking this all through and it's important that the board agree that they got it. You know, like as Tim said, they took what we said were some of the the main themes coming out of the SWAT analysis. Do these if we if we accomplish these goals this year, are we making progress in addressing those themes? I think is the big question for the board to answer. I see Ella's got her hand up. Yeah, I really appreciate guys uh these goals because I think it really reflects a lot of what we talked about in our annual meeting this earlier this summer, which is the dual tracks that we all have to do this year and for the next couple of years, which is running the district and meeting the needs and exceeding the needs of our kids and, you know, explaining things as they're happening to taxpayers and the rest. and doing some of this newer thinking around mergers and all this that's evolving. And I think these really um bring up points that we would need to be talking about and thinking about from an ops perspective regardless of the stuff that's going on with the state right now. And it seems to me like good fiscal management to be doing all this regardless of the new constraints or maybe opportunities that the state is bringing to us. So I think you guys nailed it on on both those things and these are things I would want to see even not in this context. So thanks. >> Awesome. >> My reaction was I think you did a really good job consolidating all of that stuff to to this and I think it focused on what we wanted to talk through and I don't think you left anything out. It was it was a really good meeting actually with Livian team and it was and Scott and Jake and everybody was the spirit of Casey was informing all >> I think we'll want to talk about that second bullet a little more as because I think you wrote this before you took a tour with Tom in this building because the flood mitigation that's been done here is >> there's not much more we can do. >> That was pretty cool actually. I' I I'd commend that to if if Tom or you were willing to give another one of the board members like walking underneath like this building and like crawling around in all different places. >> There's no actual physical crawling. >> There's no physical like >> I don't know. There's like you can drop down and let's like walk around all the stuff and see how they've mitigated where the water came in during the flood. >> That would be a cool newspaper article for the student paper. >> Get some pictures. >> Yeah. The boiler room. I love that stuff. you guys might enjoy it. >> The UE is the best one. >> Yeah. >> So, I think we have more conversation like on what we actually need >> with that bullet because there's there's been a considerable amount done and unless we're talking about putting up >> large large flood barriers, >> right? >> There's not much more we can do. >> Yeah. So, I think maybe the question is, are there other resilience things that we could do for our buildings? >> Yeah. I mean, again, to shorten things, you could just put on a three-year time horizon, put a period there, and >> call the day. >> Yeah. >> Like, >> yeah, >> you know what I mean? With that, I think that'll be >> so reasonable. >> Well, and maybe it's to the point of communicating what that is. For me, a, you know, a lot of the conversations that I have with people about mergers, they bring up, well, we have a high school in the flood plane, so don't we have to think about a different solution for the high school? And so, you know, if there's more information that can be shared on a broader level that's doesn't include crawling under buildings, um, then maybe that could be more of like a communication of what has been done or, you know, kind of an update. Um, because I think that comes up a lot for people in the merger conversations is what more can be done and how safe are things and what should be we be doing anyway. >> Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point because when I came away from that tour thinking if the same thing happened, if the same exact flooding event happened, I mean, obviously the fields would be the same, but I don't think the school would be the same. What happened? >> We're better. It's better. >> Yeah. Well, the bulkhead where all the water came in in there anymore. >> Yeah. >> So, you know. >> Yep. That would be a good vlog. You could bring back your vlog. be down there with the ca with the camera under the building. >> Yeah, that feels like important information to have. >> In his head, he's like, I'm gonna do that on Tuesday. >> That feels like important information for people to have as we move toward, you know, a vote. Um, so it's good that it, you know, it already >> has is in the works and near, you know, sort of near its end point. Really, that's great. I think that's a great example of like where we have facts that maybe we just learned about that we have and we need to use them >> and like disseminate that information so that >> more facts, less rumor, less hypothesis. >> Yeah, I like that idea. >> All right, are we ready to move on from four and five? Excellent. So the >> well I'm sorry but >> wouldn't the fields be better too like underwater >> I don't want to go too far but like I don't I don't know I mean I'm sure when with the work was done on the track >> well the city done a considerable amount it's more the work the city's done >> and as I recall there was like low point over here >> that maybe is not low anymore or >> no that's still softball field. >> It's still okay. Still okay. I wasn't sure if there Okay. >> But the city has done considerable work as well. So different Yeah. >> track. >> It wasn't anything part of our track. They they've like fixed the river banks over there um along the river. They're putting piping in underneath now. They're doing something big with piping to make that. Not quite sure what they're doing, but the city's doing a lot of work to try to they they have other pipes that are flowing into the river downstream. You just walk on the walking path, you can see lots of different things that the city has done. >> Okay. Thank you. >> That would probably help protect some things. >> Sorry. >> No apology. All good. Uh, all right. Goal number six. Ella, do you want to propose the update you're thinking about? >> Yeah, I was looking at it. Um, I'm not sure if it needs to be edited as much as we just need to understand amongst ourselves that a lot of the work needs to be frontloaded and that needs to have more of a sense of urgency maybe than June gave me in looking at that. Um, and then I was wondering I I wasn't part of the conversations around the pilot. So is the the idea the pilot is asking that group of 500 people in June or prior to the March 2028? >> By June. >> Yeah. It's a It's like an It's a It's a cumulative like we could talk to somebody in December and have a conversation and be able to say like >> they Yeah. the message delivered. >> We communicated >> confirmed back it worked great one >> um >> 499 >> and then you know hopefully I mean hopefully we can get to 500 before June. Um, >> so then I think maybe it's the order. My my proposal would be the board will listen for and communicate the district's values and priorities for evaluating a merger so that by June 2027 a pilot group of blah blah blah and the rest. >> Yeah. Yep. That's what we meant. >> That makes a lot of sense. >> Thanks, Ella. >> Okay, >> that makes a lot more sense to me too. Right. I was because otherwise it's the listening and prioritizing happens by June whereas you guys are saying the the talking to hopefully that number of people happens by then. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think what happened is we did all the work and then we said we need a date and we said by June stuck it on the front. >> Stick it on the front. >> As long as it's in there, right? Then it's timely. >> Great. Any other questions or thoughts about goal number six? The equity and engagement committee has a meeting scheduled for the 31st, I think. So, that's when we're going to get started on making this plan that will achieve this goal. >> And will that include the um of something similar to the engagement grid? That That's kind of what that is, right? Yeah. So that we can all sign up. >> Exactly. or >> promote opportunities to listen or whatever. >> Exactly. because I'm hopeful that we can learn get a good sense of like where what are what are the what are the you know where are people accurately determining whether or not a merger is good and where is there misinformation or um or just misperception. >> Yeah, I'm sure that will come through. Yeah. >> All right. Well, then let's vote on these goals. Is there a motion? >> I move to accept the goals. >> As written. >> Great. Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. Thanks, Rhett. Uh, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. Yeah, you can if you'd like, but I'm sorry to say we wouldn't if if it came down to a like we have to actually count the votes. >> We wouldn't count your votes, but we would love to hear we would love to hear if you also accept and are in on these on these goals. I >> any opposed? Any abstensions? Great. Really, really good work everybody. And thank you for all the efforts put into to drafting these, thinking about them, processing them, and uh and also the efforts to come to accomplish them. >> All right. Right. And I'll also say for our new members, oftentimes there's a mo a first motion, a second motion, and then there's an opportunity for discussion. Not in this particular example because we were talking about it beforehand, but that will be where that discussion is where you guys can ask questions and offer your that that's that's where you're we'll be taking your feedback. Not the only place, but a really good place. >> Yeah. Thanks, Red. Okay. So, the last item on our board discussion part of the agenda is um principles, norms, and protocols. So, the board did some work um in the spring with uh I shared a I wrote a rough draft uh for the board to use as a jumping off point. And then at our July 2nd, our annual retreat, we highlighted the communication and um actions that we thought would best support working together. So if folks who were there remember, we paired up into um pairs and then kind of like worked that into th those pairs worked those larger themes into norms, which is what we have written here and we tried out today. Um, and we got the the draft a little further, but it wasn't quite finished. So, over the summer, Ella and I did a little bit more revising of the norms, and that's how that's what you're seeing in front of you for the norms, and we did some work on the principles and protocols as well. Um, and those are the principles and protocols are all in that document that is linked um in the board agenda. Um, we happen to think this is in a really good place, a place that is definitely at that good enough. let's start using these things and then we'll learn more um about how useful they are to us, if there's anything that's missing, anything that's really important to us. Um so, um we're thinking then we'll do that for a while and about halfway through the year we can revisit and the board can say, "Oh, actually, I think we could really use this norm and it's not written here, so I'd like to propose a new norm." or um I have a question. I don't really understand why we established this principle because we don't seem to be following it or that kind of thing. We'll do that about halfway through the year. Um so tonight, um unless we've really missed something, I'd like to not like do a ton of revisions. Um because again, I think we're in a place that's like good enough to get started using them to to learn more. That said, if there if you do see anything that's like majorly missing or um whatever, we're we definitely definitely speak up. >> I'll move adoption of the principles, norms, and protocols as written. >> Oh, okay. Um is there a second? >> Second. >> Justin seconds. Any discussion? We'll put discussion here. Ella, anything you want to add to that? The process and context. >> Uh, no, I would just say for the new student reps that the idea with this is we're trying to really make clear the ways that we operate and work so that uh the work that we do is accessible and transparent. Um, and so that people can quickly kind of become comfortable engaging with the board or being on the board and that we can also hold each other accountable to these things that we've agreed to um in in easier times and to quote Tim choppier times uh as we anticipate might might be coming up as well. >> Yeah, that was my thought Ella is this is like really well timed. Like I have always wondered how to email which is kind of funny but now it's like I know how to email. >> Yes. >> Um and that's really helpful so that you're not trying to figure out how to do this on the fly and you just know. >> Yeah. >> So thanks for putting this together. >> Yes. That linked that the one that that Justin's referring to is the linked document at the bottom of the protocols where the what to do with an with an email you receive or what to do if you want to email the superintendent or the board chair is all spelled out. Um because as a public body our emails are um you can foyer them. Somebody can submit a freedom of information act for emails pertaining to any topic. And so we want to make sure um that we are uh communicating over email in the same way that we would with any in person in in a board meeting in any public setting. Um, and the other thing that we want to avoid is getting into any kinds of ongoing board conversations over email because those are board discussions then that we should be having in a public setting and not over email which is not accessible easily accessible to the public. So that's why there's some very specific protocols for what to do when you have received an email or you need to ask a question. Um, any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Any >> Sorry, I was muted. I >> I It's getting dark where you are, Ella. >> It is. I'm hiding from my children who are being put to bed. >> I think that's wise. Um, all right. >> I have a question about this. Um, we've just been talking about trying to get it have conversations with people about merger and values and um, this feels to me more about um, you specific experiences that that people are having with the school system as opposed to general feelings about mergers and taxes and >> Mhm. Mhm. >> Um, so like if someone wants to share with me their feelings about merger, >> you mean a member of the community? >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. or just get in a conversation. I mean, how do we >> how do I mean, I can ask them if it's okay if I share a summary with the school board, but I don't know that they'll necessarily say yes. >> Yeah. Do you mean that not that they've emailed you, but you were in a conversation like you bumped into them at the library or something? >> Yeah. Or even if they emailed me, I mean, you know, I'm not I I don't know. I would ask if I could forward something to the school board, but they might say no. >> Right. >> Okay. >> I think that's okay. I mean, I think >> just forget it's not as long I mean, if it's specifically about students, that's a definitely no. No. But if it's general like sort of merger and and and not not not specific to the school buildings and what's happening in them. Um it's different sort of different. >> Yes. And I think the board very much benefits from hearing the perspectives of our community whether or not they're shared with the full board or with an individual board member. >> And so I actually think the default is to share it with the board. And if you can certainly if you felt it was necessary, you could certainly just take their yeah >> identifying information out of it. Yeah. So that's the that's the practice I would I would follow >> because hopefully we're going to be picking up this information all over the place and having a plan to accumulate it. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Plan is Sam. >> Sam >> Sam's the plan. Sam is our communication specialist and Libbyy's executive assistant and he's he's helping the um equity and engagement committee with the coordination of our community engagement and he's yeah >> he's definitely on top of it. We're very grateful to have Sam. Um okay, last item for this discussion was yes. Thank you. We've now codified our principles, norms, and protocols. any with just like a you know a couple minute brainstorm. I'd appreciate any ideas any other ideas from board members for how we can make sure these remain present and active with us and not just oh it's nice we wrote these on a page and now we're done because the um the getting them written is actually more of kind of like the easy part. So one thing that we're doing is reading the norms out loud at board meetings. I don't think we need to read the this entire document out loud, all of our principles and all of our protocols. That seems a little overboard, but if there's thoughts that board members have tonight about other ways that we can have the stuff stay present and active, all yours. that if somebody has an idea or is sharing um an idea on anything really um related to the board, maybe as like I guess a backup to whatever claim they might be making um they could take something from the protocols or and like voice that or like reaffirm um that specific rule of something >> um just like in the discussion. doing this because >> Yes. >> Um and then I feel like that can help remind everyone of the different board rules and or protocols or whatever. So >> yeah, I like that idea. Any others? All right. Were you going to say something? >> Okay. Um, great. Well, keep thinking on it and uh bring bring bring them forward. any thoughts on how we can best keep these active and alive? Uh, all right. So then we are moving on to policy monitoring. Um, this is where so the board has passed probably three dozen to four dozen policies um that govern the operations of the district. And this is everything from like how the board works to like hazing, harassment, and bullying to student safety, like how do we keep our buildings safe? Um, student privacy, things like that. And so, um, we take a couple of those policies or two or three every meeting and monitor to make sure that we're actually still following the policies. Um, and so Libby prepares a monitoring document where she shows the evidence of whether or not we're in compliance with the the policy. And so the the job of the board during the meeting is to make sure we're familiarize ourselves with the policy because we don't have them all memorized and then review the monitoring document to see if we are in compliance or not. And that's majority of the time we are. That's the good news. And then if we're not, then there's a a conversation about what what we should be doing better in order to be in compliance. So that's this portion of the meeting um where we accept or don't but generally we do the monitoring reports. Um so and we do this similarly to how we do the consent agenda which is to take them as a package. So, um, I can entertain a notion a motion to accept the monitoring documents for A1, board member conflict of interest, and A20, board meetings, agenda preparation, distribution. There a motion. >> Thanks, Tim. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thanks, Casey. Any discussion on either of those monitoring documents? Okay. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? And any abstensions? Okay, great. Thanks everybody. And now we'll do our very quick debrief. Um, and this is one other way that we're um helping make sure we hold ourselves accountable to the collaboration and the work that we want to get done in board meetings as well as how we're doing at um using these norms that we said are important to us for how we work together. Um, and so we use this very simple like u, you know, zero to five. So zero is like we did not did not nail that. There's big massive improvement we need to do. And five is great. No notes. Totally crushed it. Um and so just go around as um uh board members and say um everybody gets to raise their hand and do their fist or up to five. Um how did the board do at accomplishing our goals this meeting? Let's see. Ella, I see a four for Ella and then Justin is still decided. Four. four fives and fours. Okay. All right. And then how did the board do at using our norms this meeting four five All right. Thanks everybody. Seeing mostly fives and fours there as well. Um so good meeting. I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Before we adjurnn, >> oh, >> could I just thank the two of you? You guys were highly engaged for your first meeting, so I appreciate it and we're excited to have you. >> Very. >> Yes. >> Would you like to make a motion to adjurnn? >> I have a motion to adjurnn. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. This one doesn't have any discussion. All those in favor? >> Yes. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. We're out of here.