001All in favor of adopting the agenda. I >> any opposed extensions? Okay, Mr. Golden tell us about our middle school. If I just lose it and I did something I don't know. There we go. Awesome. Take it away. >> All right. Hey everyone. Thanks for having me. Very exciting. So anyway, here we are. This this is a the best picture to start with. Um this is us on top of Snake Mountain probably three weeks ago or so. That's everyone this year, which is really cool. Um [clears throat] and courtesy of an iPhone 17, we're able to get actually a really nice picture of it. So that was cool. So this was a something we did two years ago. We didn't do this last year, but we we brought it back. Um, in Lit Circles, every
002student read the story Peak, which is about a teenage boy and part of it is he finds reconnects with his father who's a climber. They end up climbing Everest. We obviously are not going to climb Everest, but we can climb our own Everest here in our school district. So, this is everyone and it's almost every student. We do have like a higher than normal uh quantity of kids on crutches this year, which has nothing to do with school. who happens to be I don't know football seems to be challenging this year but so not everyone's up here but this is almost everybody on a spectacular October day so it's great representation to start with so what's happening um so many things that's really I love these opportunities because it makes me go back through all
003the pictures and reminds me of things that even like happened in September that I feel like I've forgotten about you know if you just ask me what do we do in September, I wouldn't be able to come up with all of this stuff. But there's so many things. So, I guess to to start off, if you look in the top right, we start our year off with a little orientation week. And those are some of our sixth graders at Button Bay. Button Bay was not spectacular weather this year. I will say we got there and we're like, it's sunny, like it's amazing. And then it thundered. It like really thundered. Um, so these are some of our students who went out for a hike up to the point getting rained on, but really psyched about
004it. So that was a really fun time. Uh the picture below that is the first day of school and getting started in morning meeting. Morning meeting continues to be like the staple of middle school. We start every day with morning meeting. Every kid can tell you about their morning meeting. Uh they develop their own individual cultures in morning meeting which is really fun and interesting. They prank each other by morning meeting. They all have mascots and logos and all kinds of stuff and it's really fun. So that's the very beginning of forming that morning meaning identity. Um other things happening on the upper left. The sixth grade did a production like a reader theater production of Gilgamesh uh just a few weeks ago which was just like adorably cute and fun and they were just
005so excited about it. So that's um a group of parents and some students packed into Chris Melnik's room for the theater. You'll see a zoomed up picture later on. Uh other things that are happening, we in our exploratories this year, we have a woodworking club and that's the bottom left there. Those are there they are working out on what we've formerly known as the compost shed that has now been renamed the spark pavilion. Um it's a really nice spot and they've been our woodworking club has been building seating for it. So those are just some things that are happening. And then in the middle that's twin day. Last week um last week was our spirit week. So just some highlights so far. Here's some more pictures. Um, some of them I've already talked about. You
006can see Gilgamesh again in the lower left corner. That gives you a better picture. Um, some students up above in science class working on balancing the top middle. You may wonder why there's a a motor a dirt bike at school. Uh, last Thursday was anything but a backpack day. And I gave them really clear guidelines. It cannot have a motor. It can't be a lie. Um, and it can't make a mess and it has to fit through the door. Like we can't like we're not rejigging the doors to get to it. Uh, so this is a boy who spent hours um remaking his moped, for lack of better, minibike. Basically, he took the entire engine out to clean the entire thing so that he could bring it to school. Um, and then showed up and
007looked at me like, are you going to let me in? Like, you met my criteria. Uh, that was really exciting. Um, to the right there are some students at the STEM fair at Castleton. Below is our band, which has grown quite a bit this year. um with sixth grade coming in something like I don't know around 80 or 85% of our sixth graders participate in band and chorus which is really awesome um and has created a like big band and that sounds really cool and then on the right our prayer flag from Snake Mountain >> message keeps peering um Tim in the center of what we're looking at if you know I mean, >> oh well, just go ahead, I guess. >> So, some things that we that are new for 2526 and I will
008say up front that like one of our collective goals in the middle school was to try to do less new in 2526. we've been doing like major new for the past two years, even three years probably. Um, and so our goal was to try to like build continuity, grow the things we've been doing, like feel more confident about those those things. But there is some new our schedule changes. Um, one thing that happened is we did increase our unified art time. So that's PE and health, uh, STEM, art or language. Um, so now students are taking fewer UAS at a time. Last year they were taking like four at a time. It was it got very confusing for like 35 minutes each. Now they take two at a time for 65 minutes. I think that
009feels much better for students and much better for teachers which has been great. One thing that's really growing in the unified arts space is that our students have access to language one. So German and Spanish one. Um over half of our eighth graders are taking language one this year which is really cool and they're really excited about it. U and they're taking it with high school kids this year. So the the sections are 8th and 9th 10th 11th and 12th sometimes. Um and they're all working together which I think is a really cool thing. I've always felt like you know we set like this huge line between eth and nth grade and I think sometimes our eighth graders really do benefit from getting a little taste of high school. So, they're getting to take a
010high school course, um, which has been really fun. Our Wednesday schedule, you may remember that for the last two years, we had a totally different schedule on Wednesdays. We tried something new this year and we took the elements of Wednesdays and broke them out into periods throughout the week. So, every day ends with exploratory uh, for 40 minutes or for 35 minutes. And so, we took those Wednesday things. The goal with that is really twofold. one to try to break out these things that were happening on Wednesdays that kids really loved or really engaged in into like throughout the week, right? We didn't want to just be like we're going to be engaging on Wednesdays, right? Try to break it out throughout the week. The other piece is, you know, we felt like it might
011be a more effective use of time. We were giving up a lot of instructional time when every Wednesday is that schedule and could we build it in a more effective way, spread the engagement and make sure our instructional time is what we need to be. So, that's that's the second change. And the third one is we moved compass to the middle of the day which has been largely very effective. It was at the end of the day but for the previous two years that's a hard thing for middle school kids. They're tired. They're a little oh they're a little over it but in the middle of the day. >> Does everyone know what compass is? >> In case you don't compasses our flex period. So that is a banning course happen during compass. Um some
012students have study hall during compass. Other kids get intervention support during compass. it's a real flex of students across the school. So, that's been a lot more effective in the middle of the day. Some other changes, staffing. So, the the two intervention positions have really been enormously impactful already. Um, we're seeing them really focus in and hone in on students skills and focusing on skill-based intervention. I think that's been a much longer standing practice, particularly in elementary school. In middle school, that has not necessarily been a practice. It's been a lot more intervention look to more like homework help and words like that. But now our interventionists have really done a great job of targeting skills creatively grouping. You'll see them, you know, they work obviously within our class schedule, but they'll be in they'll
013split their time. So they might spend 30 minutes in an eighth grade math course working on a specific skill and then they might work in sixth grade for the second half of that block. They're really trying to be as efficient as possible and as creative as possible. And sometimes that looks like pulling kids from multiple grade levels at a time to work on a similar skill. So that's been just hugely impactful. Been really exciting to see that. And it's evolving a culture of intervention and data practice. That's really strong. Uh we have dedicated PE and art this year, which is allowed our schedule to be a lot more flexible. Um a lot more student focused and increase our time in PE. Uh which we need to do to to meet EQS and most of our
014kids really love PE. Um and that's been fun. The same is true with art as well. And then the third change is Yandere Pouches. I know you all have heard some about Yandere Pouches. I think that Yandere has gone largely quite well. I will admit to being quite nervous about it coming into the school year. What is this going to look like? How are people going to respond? And sure, we've had a few broken ones, right? There were some kids that got on the first day and they had to prove to me that they could find a way into it. But for the most part, after they showed me that they could find a way into it, they just continued to use it and it's been okay. Um it's not perfect, you know, it really
015requires like someone to check every single morning um for us to have like full participation. Um which we're not always able to do that every single morning, but we do it a lot of mornings and it's been pretty fun. It also gives the like individual face to face with every kid. You're on your couch. How's your day going? What's your face look like today? Okay. Um let's go on with our day. What it has done consistently is move the phone out of the pocket. You know, we had we've always been a phone preschool, but the phones were in the pockets. And now the phones have moved out of the pockets even on days when we're not checking. Maybe it's some of sometimes in a backpack. Um not necessarily in the yonder pouch, but it's not
016in their pocket. They're not feeling it vibrate. They're not having that constant distraction. So, that's been really cool. Um and the kids have really done a nice job with it. I was not sure how they would uh handle it, but for the most part, they've done a great job. And many kids, which I think it's interesting, have been like, I don't really want to deal with the under pouch. Can I just turn my phone in? Sure. Go ahead. Um, so we have this thing I call the Yonder Hotel. I'm really many people like to call the Yonder Jail. I really don't try to steer away from that terminology. Uh, so we call it Yonder Hotel. So the kids will bring in and I probably have 30 to 40 phones every day in Yonder Hotel. Um,
017and the kids are great at that. So that's been interesting work but fun. On the right real quick, you can see Oh, sorry. Um, this is house meeting. So every other week we have community meeting, full school and then on the oppo o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o opposite weeks we have house meeting. Uh this is house meeting and these students are trying to get their chocolate chip cookie into their mouth from their forehead without their hands. It is amazing how much they get into these games. I mean you might look at that and be like that's kind of lame, whatever, but
018they I mean >> the whole crowd is standing up and like yelling and cheering. They're so competitive about everything and it makes for a really fun community building around things like sliding a cookie around your face. Maybe we should try it. >> You should try it. It's really fun. >> Um, so Sheila said that part of this could could include a tour and I thought about that and I sort of thought about like I mean I could take you on a tour of an empty building. It definitely there's cool stuff on the walls but I really felt we could find a way to give you a taste of what it looks like to be a student here. So we have two seventh graders uh who are part of our checker studios which is Matt Samuels
019runs this. It's a combination of Fusion and our exploratory clubs that's focused on video production. So I talked to Matt and Matt talked to two Apex seventh graders and their charge is to carry a camera around and show you what it means to be a student here. So this is a pretty much that's what we're looking at for this year. I'm sure there's tons of things that have happened that I forgot to tell you. Sorry. Um but that's what I have to share with you. So if I have any more time I'll take some questions. If I don't, I would say just please watch the video. >> Questions, thoughts. >> Yeah, I'm gonna ask a question. I don't know what MTSS is, do I? >> Everyone's looking at me. I guess I don't know what
020this >> No problem. >> Sorry. >> Well, that's a good it's a good thing to bring up, right? Because I think that one of the hard parts of MTSS is we use the acronym like it is a like singular thing, but it's not, right? All right. So MTSS is multi-tered systems of support. >> Oh, okay. >> Right. So like the number of things, >> right? Gabe, jump in. You want them here. Right. The number of things under MTSS is expansive. It is huge. Right. It's it's, you know, universal design for learning and teacher level intervention, interventionists, and all the way up through 504, special education, our school-based clinicians. So that all of these things that come together to support student need fall under MTSS. I'm glad you asked that question. >> You know, I Yeah,
021I I get it. I just didn't know exactly what it entailed. >> Yeah, >> thank you. >> That's why I say it was a long time coming and I'm glad it's going so well. >> Me, too. >> Please thank the students for the video, too. >> Is it the kind of video you would want embedded on your homepage on the website? Because I could do that. Yeah, >> that I can do without. [laughter] Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay, I'll do that later. What percentage of eighth graders did you say was participating in language learning? >> At least 50%. >> And I want to I want to say it's higher than that. I get that specifically. >> Sounds good to see. >> And you have an evening coming up, right? This week or next week? Is it
022time? >> Yeah. So our yeah we have our getting to why group which is um a group of students that Jane and Elizabeth our school counselors uh lead and what they do is they look at the youth risk behavior survey data um which comes out every other year and that's about that's a really expansive uh set of data that our students participate in that survey and they look at it and they participate with upper learning and a series of retreats and one of the things that they do is they lead a community dialogue night next Thursday 5:30 um where they're going to share some of the school specific data, some of the state data and talk about some of the work that they're doing with it. I went to open house this year uh and
023walked through and talked to a lot of teachers. Um some parents uh their energy level was through the roof. They I'd asked asked so many of of your staff how the year was going and it was early, but uh they were just all excited about it. They talked about uh you know how well the sixth grade has um folded into the mix and the energy level in a positive way, the energy level that sixth graders are bringing to the middle school. I I When I start talking to people, I kind of expect people to kind of like under their breath say, you know, this is not good. This is not good. But >> have self done. Hey Martha, can we do this? We have these meetings called morning meetings, which I, you know, obviously know
024about, but they don't know. And can we do that once a week here? So, so what they're getting at school is overflowing into their after school. Today was our first Monday meeting that was studentled. >> And then they're like, you got to think of themes. I'm like, oh, great. Okay, >> I can send >> but um yeah, they're what they're getting here is overflowing to >> after school, which is probably overflowing the home, too, you know. So, >> yeah, >> that's cool to hear. Thanks. >> That's really cool. >> Awesome. >> Yeah, kudos to all of you. Really, thanks for being here. Sorry about the video. We'll get it sent out and we'll get it posted on your homepage. >> Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. >> Budgets. Budgets. Another presentation. Let's see if I can
025do that. >> No video. I didn't do a YouTube, you know. >> Yeah. Stephanie is with us. She's online. Um Okay. Um Steph, feel free to jump in. >> Thank you. Hi. And let me know um if you guys can hear me. It's really echoey on my side. I'm sorry. No worries. Um, all right. So, we'll we'll um start here with the summary. Instead of putting that at the end, I decided to put it at the beginning. Um, with our latest iteration of the budget draft, we are below the state what we have what we believe will be the state level spending threshold. Um, we don't yet actually know what that is. We're using a guesstimate that came out um earlier, but um we're below it by far. We're doing okay. Um it maintains our
026co-curricular athletics and enrichment activities for students um and continues our intervention and other um MTSS services that you just heard about in our behavior support programming. and it continues um the high levels of professional learning um and support for teachers to help continue to meet our goals that are outlined in our continuous improvement plan. So those things you'll find to be true in this um I'll let you jump in here. I know this is really hard to see but hopefully um I don't think I can make it any bigger but you can certainly follow along. So you'll see the major changes. Sorry, I've also >> under the weather. >> Yeah, let me just jump in and do this slide because this sets the context for why the changes on the next. >> No, it's okay.
027>> So since we last met, we got the beehive rates and they came in at 7.3 7.4% instead of the 13% placeholder that we had there. So that was really good news. this is one of the biggest drivers of our budget. Um, so for that to be reduced in essentially an app made a huge difference for us. Um, so Stephanie was able to go in and adjust each and every one of those rates based on the folks that we employ and and set those accordingly. Um, we modified and adjusted the salary charts. Um I'm I don't understand the inner workings of how that works, but I understand there was some flaw in the way those were structured that led to a greater than needed um salary amount in our last budget round. And so Stephanie
028could maybe give more detail on that, but just know that those have been adjusted a little bit. Um we identified 6.5 positions that were being carried forward in our budget that are unfilled that we eliminated. There are 3.5 district-wide jobs, one district office job and two building based positions that we aren't going to fill. So that is part of the biggest reduction is those 6.5 positions. We also based on class size, incoming kindergarten classes that we expect to be small and some other things um eliminated for other positions and then in turn those canceled out because we transitioned the four intervention positions that are currently being paid for out of grants into the budget because we are really at risk for losing that federal funding. No one said it for sure, but I would expect
029before long we're going to lose it and we really can't have those critical positions based on the whim of um Washington right now. Um we also reduced our technology and athletic budgets by approximately 2.5%. So um essentially level funding those two budget areas which helped make an increase. That is then what you're going to see on this chart here that Stephanie can speak to. So if you um compare it to our budget draft 1, we were at 29 million67928. This draft we are now down to 27,747,256. Um in most categories you will see a decrease and that is just because um we have a more accurate um status for our um [snorts] salary schedules and then the healthcare is in half like Sheila was explaining um which is a huge um advantage to us uh
030which is awesome for VHI. uh also with the decreases of the FTEES that she just mentioned um has helped in a lot of categories. Uh I can go category by category to explain um the difference uh or I know it's kind of hard to see and I'm sorry I just wanted to compare each year and then with our first draft and our now draft. I think we can just wait and see if there are specific questions, but I I would say that is we're going to get to a level funded, you know, budget. This is pretty darn close to level funding. Um, so this was really good news overall. Um, that isn't where the trouble lies. Right now, when we start to how does the math play out, that's where that's where it starts to
031get tricky. So, can I can I interject right now? >> Yeah. Um, not questioning judgment on anything, but what does in decreasing the technology and athletic budget look like in 3D? Um, so it's basically level funding those positions and I asked Pete, for example, was anything impacted. He had the latitude to make the decision of how to make those cuts. We we basically said, this is the amount of money. um and he had the latitude to decide how he would play that out and he gave us a list and I confirmed with him I said does this remove any existing opportunities for students and he said no. So um you know he had a laundry list of things and then for Tim it was essentially just level funding his current budget. So um rather than
032increasing by the expected um you know um cost of living increase 2.5 is basically what we put in as a placeholder across the board for supplies, materials and other things. It was basically not adding that to the tech budget. So it means we'll be able to hire a little bit less than we thought. Um but at the same time we were also able to make some purchases at the end of the year last year when we knew when we could see that we were going to end with a surplus. some we did some pre- purchasing of things, so I think we're going to be fine. >> Um, >> yes, there was a lot of money left on the table um for technology last year um that we thought to try to eliminate that or lessen
033it to level fund it. >> So, this I know it's hard to see. Hopefully, you're able to see on your screen. This is that top half of the um tax calculation sheet. Um, you know, really we're in no position to be rejecting what the tax rate will be at this stage because we don't have the December one info or anything else. But the top half is just where you get that per pupil cost. So this is the top half. It's showing that 27747 256 as the expenditure budget. And this particular version, this page here is showing that you're applying the entirety of the surplus to the bottom line. Our revenues are expected to increase a little bit. Stephanie did some work on that and they're coming in a little bit higher. So that means our
034ED spending is $22,733,49 which is a decrease um of 1.66%. Which is amazing. Um the weighted pupils is not based in anything. Um we have no way of really calculating that with any level of precision, but I know that it's going to drop. I just don't know how much it's going to drop. So, as a placeholder, I put in 1510 there. I don't know if that's right or wrong. Um, but if that were to be close to being true, then our um ad spending per long-term weighted ADM is 15055, which is less than what we project to be the um excess spending threshold. So that would then be our ED spending um per pupil, which is really darn close to the amount of money in act 73 that they projected would be our pupil cost.
035So but again, we're applying a million dollars in this scenario. We won't always have a million dollars to apply, but um but that's what we have there. This shows the difference if you decided instead to apply say 800,000. So this next page is taking a little bit different approach. um and it changes the ad spendings then at $15,26261 instead. Um and it's a slight increase um in ad spending of less than 1% but still a little bit higher. Um so those are just to show you sort of a range from um I didn't do one where you're not applying any of the surplus. I would really advise against that for two reasons. I think I think we owe it to our taxpayers to try to bring in a a tax bill. If we didn't apply
036any, I'm pretty sure we're over the ed spending, so we'd be paying more um in penalty. Um but also um I don't know how those surplus funds are going to be managed um by the legislature into the future and could we could face a clawback of those funds. I don't I don't know that that's true. I just would speculate that could be considered at some point and I wouldn't want that to happen. Um, so here what I did on the next few pages is the bottom half of the spreadsheet and this is where we're really just using last year's yield numbers and CLA numbers to see how it all plays out. So I have four scenarios. I have if the yield comes in high like it did last year and you've applied the maximum amount
037of surplus the um post CLA tax rate would actually decrease by 049% if every if the CLA's were exactly the same which we know they won't be but that could we could see a slight um decrease in taxes under that scenario. Um, this shows if the yield were to come in where where it came in in 2025, which was when it was very low and that was the year that we had a hard time passing the budget. And you can see what that does. So, still applying the maximum amount of surplus, our tax, our post CLA tax rate would increase by 19.11% um to $2.7 um roughly. So that column I I assume that it mean it should be the school year 2027. >> Yes, it should be. Okay. Sorry about that. Yep. >> Um
038but so that is that's where we're living right now is somewhere between those estimates. We don't know what the yield's going to come in. We really don't know what our CLA's are going to be. So that gives you that perspective on the possible range of how that bottom end of the text calculations really swings. And then these are two more um scenarios. If you apply the 800,000 and we have a high yield, we're we're seeing only um a slight increase over last year of less than 1% possibly. Um or if the yield is low and you've applied 800,000, we're up over a 20% increase in post CLA um district tax rate. So, we'll know more when we get the December one letter as to where we'll be. But hopefully this is giving you some ideas
039in thinking about both what we presented to you from a expenditure budget standpoint, but also >> student support line actually decreased. Um, and that was because of um the positions that uh we no longer need and the health care cost decreasing. It went from >> I'm sorry. >> I think didn't that line increase? Sorry. >> Oh, the student support services. I'm so sorry. Yes, that is from um the grant positions going into the general fund. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, I was looking at direct instruction. >> Yeah, no problem. Thank you. But based on the charts we there so there are six and a half positions that were sort of phantom positions. They're not around and we're able to reduce for as class sizes but we're moving for in >> so the brand. So we're
040still six and a half. >> Yeah. >> Down. >> It's just where they fall on the chart. Right. >> Exactly. >> Coded, right? >> Yeah. Where they're coded is how it fell. >> Yeah. And when this this says FTE eliminated for or eliminating or for FTE, those are full-time teachers. >> Those are full-time um professional positions. Yeah. >> And in uh intervention positions. Can you give me an example of some are those behavioral interventionists? >> No. Um they are math and literacy interventionists. So there are I believe two of uh two math interventionists and two literacy interventionists. >> Yeah. >> Total across the district. >> The ones that are moving into the general fund. It's two and two, isn't it? >> Um well essentially it's like fractional. >> Yeah. >> I was going to say
041it's partial of um three and then one full-time. How is the grant stuff being managed without the grant directly? >> By the skin of our team. >> Yes. Uh we are doing it collectively. >> Kayla, do we have any unfilled positions that need to be filled? We do have some support staff positions that need to be filled that are that are still in the budget for next year and we can hope that we'll fill them, but we do not have any professional positions that need to be filled right now. >> So, so the four FTE based on anticipated class size, does that mean teachers who are teaching here will not be teaching for next week? It does. >> So the student support services line is more than four um salaries. What what other types of
042things are included in that increase line? >> There's benefits associated with that as well. >> Benefits positions Uh, I thought we paid benefits for people that are on um, uh, grants. >> Uh, grant funded employees are paid with grants for their benefits. And so when we transferred those uh, positions, they went from grant-f funed positions and um, benefits to then general fund. So it follows where they get paid from >> and the beehive percentage is now set. >> It is set. >> It is >> it it came in at 7.3, but it's technically 7.4 for the CDC, whatever it is, gold plan, and the majority of our staff is on that plan. So we just factored in 7.4 just to be safe. So, um, >> yeah, the gold CDHP, um, came in as 7.4 and
043because of the majority of us have that, um, that's what we used as a placeholder instead of the 7.3. >> Yeah, I was very excited to be able to give us that number. >> Yes. And [clears throat] they should be >> worked out. Anybody else? >> Any elements? >> Anything else? >> We will be talking about this more as the months go on, but I think it's a good start. >> You seem to satisfy this. >> That number doesn't add up. >> So, more specificity on what the increases in the >> There's something else there. And I'm just trying like I get it. I just you know even if all four of them had a family plan uh I mean that doesn't >> doesn't add up there. We've got decreases in >> every other line
044but student support services is going up. I I mean I I get that we're moving those four positions in but there's still there's there's some more there and I'm just curious what it is. So we can look at that next time. Next week when we come back you could maybe have a little more clarification on >> definely line. So next week so we can bring that information back. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, >> of course. >> I mean we've got finance next week so I mean that could even be >> sure >> committee questions. >> Yep. >> All right. Well, um, no, um, no other thoughts or questions. >> Honestly, I think we're in a holding pattern with the December one letter. >> I think so, too. >> A lot of ground work now. We just
045wait and see what does, >> right? I guess I think that if if we're really talking about putting the majority or all of the surplus towards the budget, that's where we end up going. Uh, I just like this board to think about how we might want to try to fund um facilities projects moving forward and whether we want to do a uh a second vote for money to go into uh the facilities fund. I figured that was be part of the topic we'll have next week. >> Yes. Yeah. But just >> Yeah. Think about it. Yeah. Plan. Thanks. >> Especially not knowing what's happening with state construction aid too, right? Like there's going to be more information coming along um about that too. >> Yeah. Uh I I definitely understand that there's big conversation about
046construction aid. Um, and I also have some and we we want to maintain our buildings and not defer maintenance just because there's construction coming down the road. >> But that that's our whole conversation. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I have a motion to approve consent agenda. >> So move second. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> any opposed staying? Okay. Action items. So we have a central office lease extension that's coming up. Uh we have talked about different various options. So we come back this time to see if we want to continue with Kennedy Brothers or move in here or some other things. So continuation of that discussion. But can I get a some sort of motion to get it rolling? >> Move to authorize superintendent to execute a lease extension of central
047office space for two years commencing June 1st, 2026 and extending through May 31st, 2028 with an annual rent increase of 2% per year. >> I'll second discussion. Uh how how did we how did we end up with um a twoyear lease versus year to year, three years like what is there like a negotiating process? Um, so that's that's the um that is what's in our existing lease that we have the option to extend up to two years at 2%. So that's where that came from. Wonderful. Thank you. >> Yeah. I mean, I like that it's only 2% a year. I like that essentially it's maintaining the stat status quo for now. Um because we just don't know. >> Hey, Amy, you don't have to say anything. I just want to give you the option. I
048>> I think with everything so up in the air at this particular point in time, it's the smart thing to do. Anything else? >> Yeah, I mean I've been the one that or one of the people who really wanted to um end that lease and um move the offices into uh one of our buildings. Um been a big proponent of that for a long time. I think with everything that's up in the air right now um and the small cost of that space I think it makes sense at least until we figure out how we are using the buildings in the in the near future which we won't know for another two years >> at least like So, I've been playing that game in my head, too. It's like, what can we do? What can
049we move? What can we Yeah, it just doesn't make sense to me either. But, yeah, I I you know, I've wrestled with this, but this is the right move. Thank you for um presenting your >> Great. Yeah, doesn't make sense to change anything right now. >> All right. All in favor? >> Oh, hold on. Sorry. We did the public action. Anything? >> Nothing. All right. Thank you. >> All in favor? I >> Any opposed? >> Stay. All right. Any problems? So, results of the annual board assessment or at least the DQS's which I finally got around to. Sorry for the delay. So, we got an email. We got the link. Um, I just kind of looked at like if it was there were 10 responses. Um, so I just kind of put the numbers like,
050oh, there's a one and two twos and three threes or where was the middle and it hit proficient in 12 of the 14 and it was tied for proficient or advanced on the other two. canon. So I went to the lower just because seemed like the better option for or no proficient and approaching. We went to approaching on two of them and proficient on 12. I highlighted kind of either where there was a full range in all four categories or where at least four of us thought we were in the approaching area. So, those seem like the areas we might want to have a little discussion on or if there's other areas we want to talk about. Sheila needs to at least pass on our averages to the AOE. They're not doing anything with them
051technically this year. It's more of a how do they collect the data? What does it mean? What are they going to do in the future? But this is the the beta year. >> Oh, Mark to share. All right. Sorry. Amongst yourself. anything surprising. What's the difference between the long ass pilot and >> I was just making a random either there was at least one number in all four categories. So we were like from beginning to advanced or there were at least four of us who thought we were just going to be approaching. So I'm saying like well that's something at least a significant number of us thought we had to work on. But I was They were just me pulling numbers. If there's other questions like actually this isn't something I want to talk about
052that's fine. I just was finding trying to find some way to quantify what we could discuss and what we might want to work on. The one that always catches my eyes is 1323 which is re-engagement. We haven't figured out I can tell you no board in the state figured it out >> but We are sort of all over and we're not in some ways we're very communicative and other ways I couldn't tell you what 9,000 people are thinking about right now for what we should do. So I I wonder about like if we do this in the future maybe providing like a couple of examples and I don't I don't really know. I mean just as a new board member there were a couple things that I was like oh like I I would like
053to see some examples of like what that item looks like. Would it be helpful to maybe walk through this during a retreat so that we're prepared before we have to take the survey kind of talk through what what it means to you, what it means to me and oh meeting of the minds kind of thing. >> Yeah. And maybe maybe it's not all of them. Maybe it's just a selected number of them. I don't really know. >> I think it might be helpful especially where there's such wide variety in this first round >> to provide some examples of what Yeah, we do do and I mean this should we are treating this as a beta. So this is it's a trial. It was a handful of people sitting around tables trying to figure out what
054this means and what the rubric is and does it make sense. And I did put all the rubric stuff in there, but it could be some of the language of the rubric is not especially good. >> And we knew that writing it, but this might not resonate with people or we might not be saying it in the right way. So, hate to have you go back and look at this stuff, but if you had comments or questions, let me know because we were not wedded to any of this. It was just a best guess for trying this out, but state law required it to happen. So, this is a first try. Some some of them it seems like um maybe the whole board isn't aware of like the conditions set forth to negotiate agreements and
055contracts, but the contract negotiating committee is very aware of that. So like it's hard to say is the goal to have everybody on the board inly >> well so when we were writing that one >> but it's not just that one other ones too. So, but I think they science. So, no, I don't think that the a full board needs to have the detailed knowledge of the negotiating team. But the idea was you're going to be working through a budget. You probably want to know what your teacher's salary scale is. You're going to want to know what the benefits are in general so you understand what components you're kind of stuck with as you're going through. And so if not necessarily us but boards in general, if you don't know the basic structures of what
056is going on, what you have made promises to financially, then you're going to have a problem doing your job. And so it becomes like how how much do you need to know? And that is is the discussion we're hoping boards will have like well what should we know? You don't need to know the intricate details of how you got to that number, but you should generally know our teachers are paid, our staff is paid in these ranges. These are the benefit packages we provide and that constitutes 70% of our budget, 80% of our budget, whatever it is. So maybe um and if looking for like wording suggestions to maybe modify that particular one 13 113.3 to say the board ensures its members are aware you know to the extent that you know they understand the
057budget or to the extent that it you know it affects budget decisions or I mean I almost think like to put something in there where it's like the board understands at this level and there's a committee that really does understand at this level um because I think both of those things are important not just in that area but in other areas too like so yeah I I don't know how to help you with the question. >> Well, it gets tricky because a lot of boards in the state are five people, >> right? Then >> probably all of them are committee. So, yeah. Silly. >> So, trying to think that one size fits all gets it's >> Yeah, I think like the bottom question the results are kind of interesting for the board maintains an ongoing
058relationship with locally elected officials. Three people said we were at a two and five people said we were at a four, which seems like significant to me that those are pretty split. So, I don't know if that's just some people have a very different perception of that relationship than others, but it's also the question is kind of vague. I mean, I guess we do have an ongoing relationship with them, but it seems like some people may view that as much stronger than others. >> I think that's probably in context of comparison around the state. So, if you know more other districts, you may know like, oh, we're we're doing really well compared to other districts. Um, I know I said advanced on that one just because I would feel comfortable calling up my legislators. Um,
059and if you're in Chen County, you may not ever communicate with them. Um, >> and again, that it's designed to have boards talk amongst themselves like what do have we ever talked to our nice we invited them here? whereas we've had all of them come and speak to us and not all of you probably have a one-on-one relationship with all of them. I've talked to all of them because I do. Um I think in general the term relationship is vague. So, and not to sound flip it, but I think this is a very unremarkable standard bell curve that reflects optimism, pessimism, and intimate details versus vague details. This is exactly what I think I was expecting. >> But the going back just to the standard question, not the rubric, we designed it specifically for that.
060It is vague because we were saying a board should determine what it thinks a reasonable relationship with their elected officials is. It's we get a newsletter from them and we're happy with that. That's all we need. Okay, that's your board. You do you. If you want them here on a monthly basis during the session to tell you exactly what's happening, you think that's what you need to do and they're willing to do it. That's great. We should do that. But we didn't want to say you must have three meetings a year with we just don't know what they're they're going to. So the the the ambiguity is slightly intentional so that boards would sit around and say so but what did it mean to you? What's a good relationship? What should we be doing? How
061should we be talking to them? >> Well and I think that that may change from one year to the next based on how much of a fog we're walking in. What I mean I'm as the newest member like for the first question there what is um in terms of like community input into goal vision and goals like what has happened what is as northwest or what's Good question. >> Well, yeah. I mean, I I'm brand new, so I don't really know. I wasn't here when the vision was developed or whatnot. And so, I'm like there's very specific in the rubric. It's like, you know, the advanced is like multiple methods, multiple opportunities for diverse groups. Uh, annually evaluates and adjusts community engagement plan as needed to gather input. Um, I'm just wondering like what do
062we do around the goals? like I we've talked in the community engagement committee around like maybe doing more around educating people about not just the budget but like the actual goals of the community members are and so I'm curious to know like what have we done there since most majority has there well for the vision I think we haven't done a whole lot specifically with it since consolidation we spent a lot of time >> and you shouldn't you shouldn't revive >> right I just made so we we spent time it went through many revisions I think we had community members reached out to try to get it and we felt comfortable with that and what we've done after you know town meeting now is like are we all still doing the vision we say yes
063and maybe we need to break it down and talk a little more the goals I think we could CDC determine a way to better discuss with the general public what our goals for the year are. They're out there and we talk about them within our meetings, but there's only nobody online that watches we're doing. So even though it's there, that doesn't mean the public actually sees it and hears it. Um, so I say I did not give us an advance on that one. First, but I don't think we're doing a bad job. Just better. [clears throat] There's also a policy that dictates how we're supposed to talk about a vision each year and review it. So, we've also got quite a bit. So, is there a way we want to handle this going on? We'll
064just see you next year and we'll do it again. I mean, we can pick a few of these and discuss them a little more in depth as the year goes on or we can pick one to talk about during a retreat or we're all kind of happy with what we're doing and there's nothing in particular that's really grinding. um just in general our process for these um I know we usually use Google forms and I for me at least it would be helpful if there's that option to say that the person answering the survey gets a copy of their answers. >> I thought I said that didn't work out. >> I I got a copy of mine. >> Oh, did you? Okay. It was my first ch time actually trying to use Google forms. So
065it was a pain and another thing because we could not share it with the state. I so I created it >> and you can't leave your own network. If I had sent it out to other because I had shares I borrow and I'd send it to them and they were testing it and I was getting the results. Not how we went to we could not attach. So yeah, I sent them the raw d like the raw things and they had to create their own form. So I think vermont.gov doesn't allow Google. >> No, it's Google. You just if you create it within your hive, you cannot release it. >> Well, yeah, it's a setting. >> I couldn't even break it >> because I I mean it just >> Anyways, it was so there's flaws with
066forms. It was because I was on a steep learning Uh yeah, for retreat, I think we could revisit um brainstorming different ideas on on how to do um community engagement, public engagement. Been a while since we've like really sat down and said, you know, here's here's the options. Um we have uhformational meetings and stuff. Um but I have both of the thought that we needed to do a little bit more um meeting people where they are. Um whether that's um the school does a really good job of social media engagement. Um, and I don't know if that's the only way that we can approach that or whether um the board can do more outreach or we did do some surveys for a while or those well actually the administration did those um circle thing um
067but I like surveys people are willing to do those because they're quick and easy. Um, and just generate some ideas. So, if we could make that a topic uh in one of our retreats, I think it'd be good. >> Okay. >> Can I add >> Can you hear? >> I wasn't sure how to raise my hand. Um, I wonder if we could do a better job of connecting these questions, these issues of concern with our agendas and with our goals so that people who answer this survey and say, "Gee, I have no idea how we're doing on this thing." We could be more clear about these things in our agenda. So like if there's something in this questionnaire that is relevant to an agenda then highlight it and say this you know this is um
068whatever we are here evaluating the effectiveness of our community engagement in this agenda and so let's all be clear on how we're doing it so that we can try to be more mindful when this survey comes around that we remember oh yeah we this was in that agenda. or you know we are working on this each time. So you know make those connections between the survey our agendas and our and our goals so that we we can um sense how we're making progress on these things. kind of like a Sheila and I put the agenda together, but if you get an agenda and we're talking through, raise your hand. If you know this relates to community, maybe make sure that we highlight that so that next time around we remember to do it. So, it'll
069be a learning process and figure it out. I like it. >> Other thoughts? >> Okay. Uh, >> so the conference PSA the SBA conference we had me and John came. I was there for both days wearing my chair hat and my working hat. >> Um Sheila was there. >> Our students were even there. >> Yes. Our went to the band concert that on Tuesday and they watched the rock group title waves played. They went and played again for a group of people [clears throat] who did not mosh pit but they had fun. So they played, rock band played, and then uh Burlington, six Burlington High School seniors, they're doing lay for their musical this November. So six of which went up and sang some songs with Lay. Um but that was fun. It was it
070was an enjoyable group. It was the largest turnout we've had. So 150 some people showed, which was nice. It was right. here [clears throat] locally, so it wasn't a drive across the mountains. Um I don't specific >> No, I mean I just thought we had some new attendees. I didn't I didn't know if anybody else might also want to add. >> Do you have any thoughts on attending? >> Yeah, I I went um I thought that the workshop on student voice was thing. There was um some proposals there around having students, student reps vote before our official vote because they're non- voting members. So that would obviously have huge influence, I think. Um I did have some concerns about the anxiety that that a student on the spot to have the very first vote in
071front of everybody. >> Uh but I think that that was it was really cool. There was a student from CBSD and another one from Maine. Um they talked about onboarding new students and other thing that was one of my points that I wanted to bring up, but I that's good. Oh, uh educating the student body. So CBSD did that and is willing to share slides if that's of interest. Yeah, it was >> um the the student from Maine is actually the chair the president of the National Student School Board Association. So, got to take a day off school and drive over here. Told us what they did and it was it was interesting. It was fun. And there was the provisional vote where There are some school boards where like we are now allowed because
072of our agreement in the consolidation. We have it set who's allowed to vote. So if we said students can vote, we would then have to go to the four five towns and say we need an amendment. But provisional was an interesting idea where and after hearing that because I went to the the afternoon version of that one a couple days later I had the group with the voting awards and school board creation days after whatever happens with redistricting. I said to that group, we need to work in student voice when we're creating school boards. So, we don't forget that it's baked into the foundation, however it's going to work. But that was all because we just heard these people talk like, "Oh, right. Don't forget the students." >> Speaking of, anybody know what group of
073students is celebrating this evening on a Monday tournament? >> Music. They were too loud for mathletes. [laughter] >> Okay. Um, quarterly update on board goals. Is there something specific you need to cover? Um, well, no, but I thought since I was doing my quarterly goals report, this would be a good opportunity to remind the board that we have goals. Um, >> sorry, I'm not going to even try to share them, but um, you all have a link there. So, I don't know how you know this is your strateg strategic work plan. So, um, >> so I we're just talking our DQS's, so that's kind of like part of our our goal one. Um, >> Thank you for resending that. Look forward to policy was talking tonight on areas of goal too. We'll clear that later
074with student achievement. And it's just a reminder. So if you didn't read through it, go ahead and read through it right after you watch the student video tonight. Um if there's anything that you think we should be doing differently or covering in a different way, the metrics and indicators of all those we get into our agendas as part of the process. So they come up. Sometimes it's just a a link in Sheila's report. Sometimes it's full discussion depending on the level of detail we need on some of these policies. But just a reminder, we do pick public comment before speaking. Please state your name, town of residence, address marks to the chair, and limit to three minutes. >> Anything? Okay. All happy. >> Also, some folks online too. >> Anybody online can raise their hands
075as well? >> No hands. >> All right. Can I have a motion to go into executive session regarding one a 313 A3 regarding a personnel matter? >> So moved. >> Second. >> So inviting the superintendent. >> Second. All in favor? >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any opposed? Okay. And there's not action. >> No. No action. So we will >> district auditions this year and who's hosted? Do you know? >> Um something I think they're in like >> Yeah. and Brocker.