001All right. Special special meeting. Special meeting. Okay. Call the special meeting to order at 12:04 on Tuesday, April 22nd, Earth Day. Um, and Lindsay is pulling up the agenda for me. Oh, I also I was also pulling up the quotes just Oh, you're pulling up the quotes. Yep. Sorry. Pull up the agenda for me, too. I don't have an easy way to pull up the agenda. I know. That's where I'm struggling, too. I can I can be your reader of the agenda if you'd like. Yeah, that' be great. Yeah, because I'm scrambling right now. Call to order. We need to add an item. We need to add an item to the agenda, which is a resignation. Yep. And then we are on to items for discussion followed by our savior. Thank you. Okay, so uh
002we have yeah items for discussion. Um so the first thing we need to do is rip a position from a 1.0 0 to a one or a 0.9. Um and so Lindsay, do you want to introduce that? Yep. Um so it's it has been a discussion. It just needs the official board um if that is the will of the board to be able to do that. It is a position of 0.9 that is already budgeted in the budget for FY26 as 0.9. So it is budgeted in that way already for next year. Um and it has that has been the case for this current year for this employee as well. Okay. So we just need to formally correct formalize. That's correct. Yep. Position for the position, not the employee. Yes. Thank you. I make a
003motion to accept the riff from a one.9. No. 1.0 to 0.9. So from one to.9, right? Oh, yeah. That Oh, sorry. I thought you said 1.9. No, sorry. One 2.9. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, is there a second? Okay. Beth seconds with her fingers. Um, is there any further discussion? No. Okay. So, we'll do a roll call. Um, Heather I. Beth. I. My mouth full. Sorry. Yeah. That's okay. I do believe it's 12:25. So, just a heads up. Okay. Um and I am also an I. So, uh the motion has passed. Uh 320. Okay. Thank you. Lindsay, let the union know. Yes, I will inform the union. Can I ask the question? Sure. Yeah. No, the union is not able to grieve anything if a board cuts any position. Correct. If the board cuts any Well,
004even if they the board and Christine, correct if I'm wrong. Even if the board um gets rid of one position as a whole, like if you were to get rid of 1.0, an entire position, the board can or the union cannot grieve that if the board cuts it. We have to inform them. We just they just need to be informed. Okay. You want to sneak out? I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't normally cut a position if it wasn't a budgetary constraint. And I think this position was budgeted u Larry Budget's current, you know, there's a term for it's not coming to me, but current salary to next year's salary. And because it was 0.9 this year, you put it in the budget as 0.9 for next year. So, yeah. So, we just had to formally
005do it. Yep. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Uh, next item is a discussion about the van. I can take it from here if that's all right. Yes, please. So, um, a few weeks ago, we needed some work done on the van, and John brought it to It's a 2000. Hold on, let me get the paper. So, I got it. It is a um a 2009 that currently has approximately 126,000 miles on it. Um, we use it on average about three times a week, depending on the time of year. Sometimes that's more like five times a week, but on average I would say about three times a week is the use of that van. It's about 50 50 miles a week put on it. Okay. Yeah. So it is something that for a variety
006of reasons that we have a need for. Um so we got a quote to right now it's not drivable. the current van that we have, the quote for the the work to be done is over $3,000, $3,684, sorry. Okay. Um to be exact. And so we said, well, are we kind of at this point? 2009 is an older vehicle with a lot of miles. Are we at this point where it's worth considering exploring some options to purchase? So, um, I brought that idea to Larry first and said, "What do you all you know, are we, you know, in a place where I could potentially bring to the board an idea to do this? Um, and he the repairs that were needed. Um, hold on. It says upstream right air fuel something downstream right oxygen center,
007cooling fan module, ATF S YN, I'm not sure. It just has those letters. a drain plug washer, brake clean, and a radiator and a coolant. Um, so Larry, I went to Larry and I said, you know, is is there anything that we might be able to do? And there is currently in the line item of salaries for teachers. There was a resignation of a teacher position in the fall that we have not been able to fill. It is a um one of the PE teacher positions that for next year is already reduced anyway. So that's not a position that is remaining after this current year. There are funds in that line item under salaries for teachers that if the board would approve that would could get shifted over. So it wouldn't cost any additional it's
008already budgeted dollars get shifted over to purchase a new vehicle. Okay. You're just going to be over on one line and under on one line. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um Christine, did I did I get all of the pieces? Um I sent the three quotes for I saw that the vehicles. Um which anything over anything over $40,000 you need you need. Um Okay. Y um Okay. And uh Ryan, sorry about the van. You're okay. We're all feeling that way. Um we're talking about uh quotes for the van. Um we would we're talk we have a position that we did not fill that is not um in the budget for next year and we would shift the funds from that teacher position to um a purchase position so that we could use that money for the van.
009Um and that's what we're talking about. So for a 2009 vehicle, yeah, the vehicle is probably worth like what $2,000. If I pull up, I believe the quote from McGee. Let me find it. Might have had Yeah. Trade in value. Um trade in McGee was 2,000. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was my question. Two of the quotes I don't think had a tradein value. Was that one has a 1500 was the um rebate or whatever? I was wondering if that was part of it or do we also get a trade in from those other places? Uh we would most likely also get some I think some level of trade in. I don't they they didn't provide the tradein payoff on these quotes. And sorry what what was what was the van initially used for in the
010first place? We use it for a variety. Yeah. I Well, I don't know. Back I'm not sure if this van was purchased back in 2009 when I'm not sure, but we right now we use it for a variety of different reasons. It's there are kids that needs to get transported um some programming type things from H Heartland to some of the other schools across the SU there. It's certainly used for winter activities. It's used to sometimes bring kiddos home um if an as needed basis. And Ryan, what I was saying is we on average probably use it about three times a week for about 50 miles a week. Um, but it is certainly something that it does not just sit idally for long periods of time. We have kids that have services like sometimes river.
011Um, we've used it to bring kids to prek when we've had alter days for kids that need different different things. So yeah, um I I mean we have the money now. I I feel like part of me that likes to keep things running, let's keep this running, but I also feel like then we just put putting ourselves in a really bad position next year. Um and so I'm curious to hear what other people think. Like I'm so I'm for that reason I'm in favor of moving forward. I'm gonna go with what my father always says is that uh what is his saying when it comes to why keep throwing money in the drain when you can put it towards um a new vehicle. So, I'm I'm I'm with a new vehicle. I'm I I probably
012should have brought this up when I was looking at the quotes. I I I completely forgot it. Would it be I I know maybe not. Um like would leasing a vehicle be a cheaper option yeartoyear and then at least we would have a new like we wouldn't be in this predicament again and I mean that was a while ago 14 16 years ago. Um but if we if we spent the same amount of money year over year and at least every five years we had a new van. Do you want me to get Larry? He's right next door. I had the same thought. Um, it's not in the budget for next year, so we'd have to find the money for next year. Okay. Which would not be a small amount. Um, but I Yeah, I'm
013I had the exact same thought. Well, and I have the thought, too, of like what would it take to go electric? Yeah, I noticed that at least one of these is a hybrid. Mhm. Um, would you need to get a charging station in my life? Yeah, more likely than not, yes, I would think so. Um, I'm just texting Larry to see if there's any particular reason why you wouldn't want to lease buy. Yeah, I feel like we also mentioned that at some point um because these are new vehicles, right? Correct. I did ask Larry about about that and his suggestion was to purchase new just so there's less risk less risk and less struggles potentially with the vehicle. And even with new, I found as we were attempting to locate quotes, it's not easy even
014sometimes to get quotes for things because like Toyota won't in general, what I learned is they don't they won't really quote you on vehicles that they're not ready to get. They won't necessarily send you a quote on a on a hypothetical, you know, Sienna LE. He says, "Lasing is always worse. Always better to purchase and own outright. That's okay. Just from Larry. I That's what my dad always said too. My dad. Although when it comes to electric vehicles, the research we've done around electric vehicles is actually better to lease. Better to lease. But um I mean maybe I I own a 2008 and a 2007 vehicle right now. I'm not the woman to talk to. But I think I mean whatever you guys think I don't think if you think it's better off buying it,
015buy it. Like if it's worth investing, don't do it. I don't know. Like I'm we're not the mechanic. Like I just feel like if you guys are coming to us saying we think we need to buy a vehicle, then as a schoolboard member, I go buy a vehicle. Like that's that's I guess my reaction to it because I don't know the intricacies. Okay. And you've explained how we can do it financially in a in a way that makes sense. And so I'm kind of in agreement. If you say buy a vehicle, we need to buy a vehicle. Hi Hannah. Oh, you're on mute. But we saw that you said hi. We can hi. I have another question. Is there anything else that like this money is not like the the PE money is that it's
016not being used for? If like so like if we don't use this money, where does this money go for the PE teacher? You end up with a surplus. Next year. Okay. Can you It could be used for the budget next year. Well, you would probably want to put it in capital reserve. That would be the best budgetary decision. Um using surplus to buy down your buy down your uh you know the budget catches up with you, right? But I'm I I guess my other my next question is so like we put money in the capital reserve but we would Could you use the capital reserve money for a vehicle? Is that something that can be used the capital reserve be used for? Because like I mean I'd rather just use the money now than put
017it into the capital reserve when you know vehicles are going to be much more expensive. They're just going to keep getting more and more expensive. So, I feel like it's better to purchase now than throw it into capital reserve where we might use it for a vehicle at another time. If you can use capital reserve money from I'm gonna ask I'm asking Larry. Um, but Hartland, you have to bring it to the vote. Any capital reserve monies that are spent, you have to bring to the voters in March. I think the challenge is that we need a van now. Yeah. Because right now, as it stands, the van will not drive safely. So, Um, can I just move that we buy a van? I have five minutes. Yep. Is there a second to that? Do
018you have a preference on which quote you would like to go with? Absolutely not. That's since I I will never see or touch this vehicle. I don't feel it's right to me. There was one that was the cheapest. I would either go cheapest or whichever one I'm I mean like if we're going to be, you know, environmentally friendly, let's go hybrid. Um but I second the motion. Okay. So, we have a move by Beth and a second. Um by Heather and uh yeah, the cheapest quote was the one that's also the closest. Yeah. With the quote. So, uh yes. Um, okay. So, uh, is there any further discussion? Okay, I didn't hear anything. We'll do a roll call. Uh, Heather, I Okay, Beth, I. Ryan, I. Hannah, I. Okay. Nikki, I'm also an I. Uh,
019and so that was a five to nothing and we are giving them approval to buy a vamp. Oh, thank you. Um, and the quotes were the quotes were reasonable. They were actually less than and I and I think with one of them I can get on the much quicker side than Okay. one that I know for is coming in very very soon. Okay, cool. Um, okay. Uh, we had to add an item to the agenda. Oh, wait. Where did my agenda go? Hold on. Um, okay. Uh so uh I wanna in we have an emails to the Senate uh Vermont Senate for bill uh 454. Um but we also have a resignation that we need to approve so we can get it posted. So I'd like to do that one first if people are okay
020with that. Give me a thumbs up if you're good with that. Okay. Or not. We're good. Um okay. Uh so Lindsay, back to you. Yes. So, we have a resignation from James Blondon, who is our PE teacher. Uh, we are going to be very sad to see him go. Him and his family are relocating. And so, we wish them nothing but the best in, you know, their future endeavors and where that brings them. But certainly, he leaves a big hole because he's he's definitely built in his the time he's been here, this is his first year, but he's really built some wonderful relationships with kiddos. So, we are very sad to see him go, but do wish him all the best. Can I ask Lindsay, do you feel like his departure was motivated in any
021way by the fact that he was no longer going to have a partner as a with a co-jim teacher? I don't think so. His he made it um the way he's described it to Christine and I was that he and his family have sold their home. That's already happened and that they're just relocating out of the Okay. That is a bummer. Mhm. Um but uh if there's a motion and a second, I'll move. I can move. Okay. So Hannah moves. Second. Okay. Beth seconds. Um if there's any further discussion. Okay. Uh so uh the motion that Hannah moved was to uh regretfully accept James Blondon's uh resignation. Um Heather, your vote. I but my child is one of my children is going to be crushed now. Beth I Ryan I Hannah I and I myself
022am also an I and I'm sad for our community to lose them but uh okay so now we will move on to a discussion um of sending an email to the Vermont Senate regarding bill 454. Um, and this is in the Senate's draft of the bill that was passed in the House um, what, two weeks ago? Is that correct, Christine? Or uh, it's week and a half. It's the House's version. House's version. Okay. It's come out of the House. It's now in the Senate, and we expect it to change. Yes. Okay. And I just sent you all just like 20 minutes ago a a timeline and a kind of a summary of the bill if you if you're interested. It is long. You're not going to probably have time to read it right now, but
023um just for your information if it's helpful to whatever you So, I think um at Christine's recommendation, I think that it may make sense to create a subcommittee so that we don't have to have um full discussion as a board and we can move things along quicker and um and have less impact to people's Um Hannah, I think that you've done a lot of research. Yeah, I'm happy and I thought, you know, I put this on the budget, so I'm happy to sort of take a little ownership of it. I think um it would be really helpful if we could spend like even just five minutes. Yeah. Together. Yeah. That that was just a setup that I think that we want a subcommittee. Is there anybody else that wants to be on the subcommittee with
024Hannah? I'm happy to help Hannah. I mean, if I'm also happy like if it's within the rules of of our operations, like if we could just spend five or 10 minutes just identifying some key um sort of philosophies and values that we want to communicate, right? Like I think that's the goal of the letter is to sort of say make sure the legislature hears from our town what we care about and make sure that our town knows that that this is what we as the school board as this policy is being um constructed what we feel like um is important to to to consider um on behalf of the students and taxpayers of the town. And so I would be happy to sort of draft a letter and share it with people and if people
025feel comfortable with it, we could just sign it electronically. I think that's a great plan cuz like it's not going to actually be like I I don't know how impactful it necessarily will be, right? I think there's going to be my impression from reading the bill is that what the bill does is it outlines and I think Christine just sent this. It outlines a reasonably measured approach to re-evaluating the system. Right? If we say like as it currently stands, the level of cost efficiency of education in Vermont is not acceptable to Vermont voters and therefore there's been a clear statement from the voters of Vermont that we need to be more costefficient. So how do we do that? And I think the worry is that in the process of trying to become more costefficient, we
026will lose a lot of the really um intangible valuable qualities of local small schools. Um and that this process is intended to kind of figure out sort of slowly how we do that. So I think we're going to have to be involved over the next three to five years making sure at every point along the way we show up and speak. But just as a starting point to sort of outline like what do we see as reading this first draft and thinking about how it might impact H Heartland voters and H Heartland students. What are the things we want to make sure we highlight is like these are the things that we will um remain by Beth we will remain committed to as a board was kind of my idea or that we'll try to
027you know that we'll ask that remains on the kind of priority list as it's all being negotiated. Yeah, makes sense. Um, so if you guys have anything in particular, if you have had a chance to read it and want to say anything, I mean, um, did you get the letter that I sent you the from another board? Um, I know you said you were going to send it, but then I don't know that I actually saw it, which is probably my prop fault, not yours. I'll send it again. Okay. Sorry. I just need to give you some ideas. That's all. That's great. Oh, yep. Um, so I think one of the biggest challenges that was written into the bill as it was is that any school that operates in K or 6 through 8 that
028has less than 450 kids would be closed, right? And so here we sit in like the fourth fifth largest town in Windsor County and we don't meet that criteria, right? And I think I don't think that the people that are writing the bill understand how that they're talking about closing not small schools, they're talking about closing mediumsized schools as well um throughout. So that's I totally agree, Nikki. That's the part that's the most worrisome to me is that minimum school size and it's an intent, right? It's not a mandate yet, but it's going to be used as a craft. So what we want to say is when we read that section um we recognize that if this were to become a mandate our school would by definition close and we want to firmly advocate against
029that um because of the fact that our school serves a you know I don't know if we want to talk about it about sort of a geographical range that it serves if we want to talk about the fact that it's act ultimately an elementary school um and that these minimum school sizes it's one thing to sort of apply them at high school level, but that if we start to apply them to middle schools, we may inadvertently um impact lower education where there doesn't seem to be a push to consolidate as much. Yeah. So maybe kind of talking something about that. Okay. Yeah, I completely agree. And I also think that we need to talk about the fact that schools are the heart of the community. Yeah. Um and that if they're inadvertently closing elementary schools,
030um that's not good. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we can sort of say it like I think the most powerful thing we can do is use the H Heartland experience, right? We can let every other town speak for themselves. We can say like in the town of Hartland there is not a large commercial presence and our school serves as a community center um in many many ways for many residents in terms of bringing resources etc to rural spaces and that the loss of that would be huge. Mentioned that it's actually a medium-sized school. So I'll talk about that like number third whatever third largest whatever. Um, anything else about that that anyone any but even if you don't have like a well-crafted sentence just like buzzwords to include in that when I talk when I
031write it like yeah I think it's also important to highlight the size of the town. I mean we are one of the largest in Windsor County um populationwise and um physical space. Yeah, physical space all the towns are the same size pretty much but um except for ones that have been cut in half. But yeah, population-wise, we're one of the largest. Um, and that would be devastating. So um another thing that I want to make sure to mention is that in terms of any changes to governance um that be ensuring that each town but you know ensuring that sort of acknowledging even if there are changes to the structure of the school governance within the state that we want to ensure that towns like Hartland are represented um equitably because there's going to be some
032point, somebody's going to have to decide, are they going to do a number per town or is it going to be population based? But but we just want to make sure we don't end up not having a voice. Somebody needs to be on some board, right? Yeah. And my other thing I was going to add in, Hannah, is that like so if if they do make these big things about like closing small schools, like where if we were to take our students and move them somewhere, they're the schools are already overcrowded. Nobody can take us. Like like that's the other thing is like we don't there's like Woodstock Elementary can't take any more kids. They've got too many. Like Weathersfield's probably in the same boat. Can Windsor absorb all of this? I mean, one of
033the things that's in the bill is this like construction like technically an appropriation for construction. I I think that the inclusion of six, seven, and eight in that language of school size intent is honestly a little bit of an oversight. Like I think that the the um uh what's the word I'm looking for? The spirit of this push is to consolidate high schools with the idea of building a mega high school. Yeah. And I think that I just want to make sure they realize like by saying six, seven, eight, nine, 10, you know, you're including in it a lot of middle school children who are currently educated in their town elementary schools. And so that language runs the risk of uh threatening the smaller elementary schools. So I that's one thing that I maybe we
034just want to say is like separating out high school from middle school. Yeah. Because I mean a high school minimum size of 450, fine. That's like big, but it's not crazy. And that would be a reasonable size high school. But I think I I don't like that they've included middle school students in that. Well, and I think another thing to highlight is that we already in our single community have bus routes that are 45 minutes to an hour long. Okay. So, bus Yeah. bus times. And so, and that's like we can't put elementary school kids on a bus ride that's over an hour long. No. And we already have that in our town. Um, so that means to be um I also want to hold on one second and here's why I'm going to hold
035on for one second. So let's say we say separate, you know, middle school like six, seven, and eight and then separate them from the high school. Then like I'm going to speak for not a H Heartland person but for like a Woodstock person because our middle school and high school is 7 through 12 and we have over 450 kids. But if you take out seven and eight, we no longer have 450 kids. So now like what that does is put like that high school aka where I work like on a chopping block. So like do you like unfortunately I don't think there's any way we can win here right because for some schools taking six seven and eight it hurts H heartland but then it's going to hurt Woodstock if you take the six seven
036and eight out of there. Does that make any sense? I I think I mean Heather I to I hear you and I think that's like what you know when I I have emailed a little bit with Jill Kronowski the speaker of the house and it's just the messaging is like these are going to be difficult choices and it's like really irritating but it's true that like I think that the you know what is clear is like the current the current system is not working right when 30% of the budgets fails the citizens are saying we're not willing to continue to pay this much for education so I think there is consolidation coming. We And it and it probably did not fail this year. They did not fail this year. True. But do you think that's
037because people knew that there was relief coming or No, I think part of last year was the financial cliff that we were all expecting. It was esser funds going away which a lot of decisions I mean it was predicted for several years in advance. So I think there was some reduction there were reductions made last year and some right sizing. I mean H heartland is an example of that. Um I think the threshold back in place um facilitated some of that um for this year's budget um season and I think that's why budgets tended to pass this year over last year. Um, I would also say that there's I'm sorry I have No, that's okay. Um, but I'm happy I'm happy to help if like to construct an email or I again I don't know
038the rules, but like if Hannah writes this email, can we all read it and then give her feedback? I think as long as it's in our WSCSU email, it's all public record and it's okay. We cannot group edit a document. You have to do it individually. If we if you send it to individuals, um we can individually provide edits to you and you can choose to incorporate our edits or not include. Okay. So then you can send me edits back and then I can send another draft. Well, we can't CC anybody on those edits. Got it. Okay. So that's you can send the final document to us and say, do you agree with this? Okay. Okay. So we'll talk about governance. We'll talk about school. The school side is the worst part, right? Yeah. And
039then the other thing that um I really struggle with is um and this is from personal experience. I came from a school in Baltimore County that was the same size as H Heartland. Um we had two grades per class. Um and then got dumped into a middle school where we had 200 kids per class. Um and that happens at the most awkward time of your life. it um because the school was so large, it was a very military environment where there was um no individual thought um and things were run very militantly. Um and it was toxic and it was really harmful I think for people that went through it. Um and as a result of that experience, I ended up going to a private high school because my parents were done with that environment.
040And I think that while we can't offer the breadth of classes in our smaller middle schools, I do think it gives a lot of safety to kids in their most awkward growing time. Yeah, it's so I was just saying this that I think it's a really um important um balance and such an important perspective on the other side of like being able to offer so many things and [Music] yeah so I think I think for the purpose of this just because it's this is all still in the infancy and really the thing we're going to have to do is again just like stay really engaged when the these specific decisions get But I think at least coming out and just being clear that we really worry about applying minimum school size standards to 6th to
04112 because it will consume it. It really threatens small local elementary schools that include six, seventh and eighth graders. Yep. Yeah. And then just making sure we, you know, really feel it's important that every small town you every town has a some role in governance. Okay. Yeah. And then I'll look at that letter, that other letter. Was there anything else? that they included um in their letter they're talk they had some concerns about forcing more school mergers without community involvement. So um I mean I I haven't heard from a lot of constituents about this. I don't know that people are um really paying attention. I don't think people are paying attention. I don't think people Yeah. I don't think people are paying attention. driving the closure of many middle elementary, middle, and schools, increasing bus
042rides, uh, you know, time on buses, continuing to increase property tax tax rates to struggling rural towns, decreasing student outcomes, and um, and then they they talk about, you know, where's the research behind this that makes it something that we want to do? Like it is it is improve outcomes for our students, right? and opportunities. Um, so yeah, you can read it. It's not long, Hannah. I just resent it to you. So, thank you. Okay. All right. I think um we have a subcommittee of one. And Hannah, I'm here for you whenever you need me. I'm happy to do a first like proofread or I'm happy to have a phone call. That sounds good. Hannah, I could be I could be in this committee or whatever, too. Ryan has a very vested interest. I have
043I I read this 14page uh summary first before Yeah. sent that to you. I I saw your entire vested interest walking through town the other day and it was like so incredible and adorable and the wagon the wagon and then one more baby tied to your wife. I was like man they are champions. So, so of all of the so I don't know if you guys saw Vermont Public I think or VT Digger had an article about Westford and they basically took their six through eight and they're sending them to Essex and I was actually surprised there was like 40 almost half of the parents agreed that they wanted their kids to go to Essex. So interesting. Middle middle level. Well, how small were how small were their their I mean, if you have a
044middle school of 15 kids, that's too small, right? Yeah. There's theirs was I The thing that kind of got me like the hairs on the back of my next stand up was they were I think they were two two 39. So removing those kids was like 36 or 39 kids. And like that would make them potentially almost the same size as H Heartland, right? Because we have 50. So we're like slightly bigger. In middle school, you've got uh 85. Yeah. Just in grade six, seven, eight, 85. Yeah. The numbers the numbers student wise were too close for me to be like comfortable about that happening there. And I don't know, it's it sucks. black. I think one of the other things that the legislature is missing is that um we have a housing crisis in
045this town and or in this state and there are people that would move to Vermont um for climate stability. Um I think that there are jobs here for farms but there's nowhere for people to live and so all of the outstate houses and um just all the houses that people can't afford to buy is making our school smaller. So, if we consolidate into one big building, we could go the route of the middle school that I went to where they then added 15 trailers because people moved into the community and kids were schooled out of trailers. Yeah. I just I feel like they're missing a bigger picture of if we had houses here, people would probably move here. And it's become very political, right? It's all political. Yeah. So, keeping keeping students at the heart
046of what we're doing. Yep. Really important. Yeah. But you got this, Hannah. Um, I mean, it's not gonna again like this is just I don't not super worried about it's, you know, the work is like the next like three years, I think, right? once we find out what the Senate passes and just making sure that I think getting you know what I would hope might come out of this letter too is like engaging H Heartland families right if you can sort of publish this in a way just to make sure H Heartland families are paying attention so that there is presence in these various meetings and listen and learn things whatever and Hannah Nikki if if the two of you want we could do if you're comfortable with sending something out to the larger school
047community we can once that's written we can send it on behalf of of the board just so to the town. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's the idea of it, right? Is to like publish it as like here's our public statement in response to this legislative work. Yeah. I mean I will say like I am very grateful the legislature is taking this up and working on it. And to be honest, I think it's good that they're taking a slower approach than Phil Scott wants them to. Like I think they're actually trying. And it's it is so interesting, right, that it was like there was like really bipartisan support for it. So it's um but I worry that there's not like again that there's I just don't know how much the kids are represented in those sessions,
048right? So I don't know that bipartisan support means that kids are kids needs are being represented. And I still worry that everybody's Chittenden County based and that nobody is thinking about Yeah. So that's a question too. Do you think we need to I don't feel equipped to say anything about this, but like one of the you know a key thing here is like the foundation formula or whatever they call it foundation funding seems low right what they're offering like but do we have any where did that number come from and is that number appropriate for our side of the state those are great questions Hannah the numbers the numbers I think they they're coming from the picus report and they're estimating what staffing a school of this size should have and they take that number
049and divide it and get the get the student rate. Um, you know, they they've talked about weights, right? They're going to there could be additional funds on top of that base formula for students, uh, ELLL students and students with special needs, but I it is low. That is a concern. Um, if we had to use that number in our budgets next year, we'd be cutting a lot. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I know. I'm sorry. Yeah. So, we need to put that in that letter, too. Yeah. So, I'll include something about that, too. Just that like that number may not be appropriate and you know, because I think they took out the waiting for population density less than 100, right? And that's us because our population density is 77. Yeah, I believe so. Okay. So fun.
050This is fun. This is great. I love this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna move us on because um I think we're all at work. So I'm gonna get back to my work. Um so I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Ryan, I'll second it. Um and then we'll just do all those in favor. I I Okay, so Christine, you can stop the recording. We are journ. Thank you everybody.