HES Board Meeting - January 4th, 2022

001so let's uh call the meeting to order at 603. i'm gonna try to jot down minutes uh i can't promise you but okay i'm actually i'm gonna pull up the agenda because i think good to do that in my rush to eat it's in the chat nikki it's in the chat if you want okay i got it um okay so are there any changes or additions to the agenda the only real item for discussion we have is our budget which is the primary thing we need to get done in january is there anything else i think we're good i'm not hearing anything so i will take a motion to approve the minutes of well i'll take a motion to either approve the minutes of december 7th um 2021 or december 7th 2021 and december 20th

0022021 combined so somebody making motion i'll move to um approve the minutes of december 7th so i think we have colleen and then sarah i got that right okay um so is there any discussion on the minutes i'm not hearing anything okay so uh we'll vote on the minutes of december 7th um all those in favor of approving the minutes of december 7th 2021 please uh actually i have to do a roll call let's do a roll call sarah you're first hi hey colleen hi jeff [Music] hi scott hi nikki hi okay so minutes were approved five to zero okay so now i will take a motion to approve the minutes of december 20th 2021. so moved scott first and beth second are you good david oh you're on mute but that's okay no i've

003got what what the first ones were what date the first minutes december 7th okay and then these are december 20th 20th and just to remind anybody listening or um the the 20th was an emergency meeting to approve the um negotiated contract which is why we had two meetings in december um and it was a very short 20-minute meeting okay so the motion was moved and seconded um for 20th um so is there any discussion there um and i guess uh only beth scott and i can approve them so sarah and colleen will have to abstain yeah so i'm just going to say that you guys are abstaining and i'll do the roll call with the other three okay scott hi beth hi thank you hi okay good we approved those three to nothing conditions um

004everybody is still very jingle with ellie okay moving right along um public participation i see we have a bunch of public on the line is there anyone that has any comments not related to the agenda okay so i'll keep going uh do we have any announcements besides happy new year everybody happy new year um uh yeah i i've been meaning to put something on the list serve and i haven't but i would just reiterate what i said at the last regular board meeting that i'm not running for reelection so just get that news out another here again to our heartland school district and so that's one seat for sure that uh well we the board's gonna need another person so come on heartland i do know of one person that took out a petition or

005was planning on taking out a petition awesome yeah heartland's full of uh talented able-bodied good people yeah yep very good thank you [Music] okay uh so i think we're moving on to christine's principles report all right it'll be super short tonight uh since we didn't have much school in between the last meeting and tonight's meeting let me just present [Music] um okay can everybody see it yep yes okay yes all right except i can't it's still loading there we go okay um so we're already in january happy new year we um just obviously came back from a nice break and i think um today was our first day back with staff and we had an in-service angie and david and patty led the strategic plan deep dive this morning and and allowed staff a chance

006to look at it and settle an action a small action towards um working you know in in um alignment with the strategic plan so that was a good day back and staff had some time to do um some things that they needed to do as well which was much appreciated um so um between between our last meeting and this meeting i just wanted to highlight the um our amazing um student council under the direction of jess kiefer she's their leader they collected on their own they they wanted to do a food campaign and they collected 561 pounds of food for the upper valley haven and got to deliver it which was a wonderful experience um in community service for them so i couldn't not share that with you um we're gonna take a break from

007the idl updates this month and but they'll be back next month it's still happening just um i haven't had a lot of time in between our meetings um so just a couple of things that are happening this month to make you aware uh we're going to finish up our tmp winter assessments hopefully this week we had a lot of kids in quarantine or sick during the testing time before the break so we're going to finish up this week same with our panorama which is our new sel assessment we're going to get a baseline that's being done in sel classes under the direction of alyssa mcdermott and that's a third through eighth grade assessment and that should be done this week and we're looking forward to seeing what that data shows um the the leader in

008me lighthouse team has continues to meet and we have decided that for the rest of this year we're gonna we're gonna focus really um heavily on just teaching the seven habits one a month this month we're gonna focus on um the first one which is being proactive and we're uh under lindsay's help the staff is going to be doing a lot of positive promotion of kids that and staff who are demonstrating that habit and they'll be highlighted in the newsletter and the phone calls home and um and in some other ways in the morning messages at school so we're excited to start that work and just so you know the boys basketball team the middle level uh and the drama club both start this month we i don't know if david will report on this

009but we did have an athletic director uh meeting this afternoon to go over our covet guidelines and protocols and so i think we're all all on the same page we will not be allowing spectators at um our seven eight level games at this point but we're going to continue to reevaluate as the month goes on uh we are going to try to live stream the games though so parents will hopefully hopefully it'll work and parents will be able to watch from from home um just click on the hiring updates we were we managed to hire one special ed support staff member before the break which is which is an amazing feat um in this hiring environment that we're in we today interviewed a candidate for for the bcaa position um so we haven't hired that

010person yet but we are in process for um hopefully hiring someone for that position that's been open for quite some time uh i haven't had any bites on the long term sub for 5 8 pe and health so if you know anybody that would like to sub for six weeks that's a certified teacher and i think honestly the state is making some exceptions because we're so short staff so maybe maybe it's even a student in a program that could fill that role so we're still down three special ed support staffs and that bca ba position which hopefully will get filled soon um just just so you know um and i'm sure you've heard that the um covet guidelines for quarantine have changed a bit and i won't read them all here because i'm sure you're

011familiar but these are the guidelines that we are going to follow as a school we didn't change them we thought it best to follow on the vdh website and what the aoe is telling us so that parents don't get confused and and get angry um we are going to um i'll just scroll through because there's three three slides of these um whether you're um exposed and positive or if you are um or just exposed um we are gonna we are gonna up our um masking guidance with guidelines at school we're gonna make sure kids are masks inside and outside before this they didn't have to wear their masks outside but for at least for january we're gonna ask them to wear them shouldn't be too terrible because they actually keep you warm when you're outside

012and um and then we'll reevaluate um oh no can you guys still hear me okay can you see my screen because yes yes uh does it show my report yep okay sorry it just kicked me to another place okay um uh and we're gonna ask uh staff to make sure kids are distanced uh inside when they're eating at least three feet so those are things we kind of been trying to do but we're going to really make a diligent effort um but those are the guidelines for you just for your information and i think uh david i think your report is next that's the end of my my report short are there any questions before i stop sharing i think i got kicked out i could see you you're here god it's so weird okay

013i'm gonna stop sharing bizarre okay now it sounds normal um any questions or comments before david's report um i'm we're having a lot of um covered positive activity at the kid's school i'm assuming you guys are too um well do you have any special strategies around that or how's it going well today um so we're not we're not sure what we're in for we've heard from a few um staff and students and um today annette worked on updating all right we had all that yeah we haven't been back yet but some parents have and and i heard that a lot of parents took advantage of the rapid tests that were given away that's great um yeah which is wonderful um annette was working on the vaccination list today making sure they're updated making sure our

014tests to stay less are up to date because that'll save us time if we have to um you know if we have to use test to stay it's time consuming trying to track parents down in the heat of the moment to get that paperwork signed yeah so she was working on that um yeah um we've done it with the classes that have had cases you know they're up pretty much up to date but um so we were working on that and we're bracing for a rocky um couple of weeks yeah i'm just hearing you know every every time i turn around somebody else's tested positive in my life as with grown-ups i don't it does feel like it's coming well i think there were a million cases in the united states yesterday so i'm pretty

015sure it's coming but you know what we have um we have good systems in place now um so we know what to do and we can and we have you know everybody steps in and lends a hand and um we just get through it so it's unfortunate we're thinking about you i yeah thanks looks like sarah had a question yeah um yeah i just i i've been reading so much about the importance of good masks and quality masks and um you know i i i it's funny we were we traveled over the break and just be you know being in airports and you know we were strapped into our n95s and there was just such a variety of masking protocol on on view and it it just really seems like that's an important thing is

016that something that um that you know the school board could help supporting the purchase of some more you know better masks so that if kids show up with masks that we don't think are gonna help protect them and their and their teachers um that we could maybe you know provide something better yeah i just actually uh was texting with jim today because at the beginning of the pandemic the state provided kn 95s all staff not students but staff and we we had some last year delivered but we're we're out um of those so i did ask him if he could check to see if there are any left in storage i know we had quite a quite a surplus at the beginning so he's going to check and get back to me and if we

017have them we're going to distribute them because they are from what i understand better protection than a regular surgical or cloth mask so um if not sarah yeah i mean maybe we consider purchasing some as a school district i mean they're consumable obviously but you can wear them multiple times um before you have to get get rid of them yeah so let us know okay we'll do all right david yeah go ahead david yeah so i'll i'll try to share my screen i hope the same thing doesn't happen happen to me here but uh and sarah that that's a good comment i'm i'm i'm cert reasonably certain that middle school and high school would probably resist the n9 the n95s because they are a little bit you know more cumbersome a little less decorative and

018becoming of of uh kids who are becoming uh young adults but i think we can we can we can work on it and see because i think that that's that's uh you know it's it's it's a worthy suggestion it's just that uh i i'm still amazed that for the most part they wear their masks all day you know and that's that's that's a pretty good thing when you get to it i think it's why we don't have i think it's why we haven't um had the issues we've had because kids are pretty good about it so yeah mine is pretty quick also so let me just uh share my screen here um uh can everybody see that yep okay good good good so here we are it is 2022. let's see what happens and what

019that brings us uh uh welcome back everybody uh i won't go i won't spend a lot of time on these because certainly christine uh covered some of this too but uh we did really want to thank the staff for their work this morning i i thought it was a good gathering i mean i feel bad that it still has to be remote but we you know we had over 100 people online and i thought angie did a great job of organizing the presentation i had a small part in it but uh i think you know it's it's finding that balance between uh dealing with the pandemic dealing with everybody's stress and still maintaining a little bit of productivity around the strategic plan and and that's that's going to be a real balance uh and i

020think that we're trying to figure that out now uh and right you know i think for the next month or two we'll probably still suspend a little the productivity and i don't mean productivity in like school stops but i mean you know the emphasis on uh on uh some some things will will drift a little bit while we just take care of people social emotional and of course academic needs as we as we go forward i hope everybody had a good break uh it sounds like people uh some people traveled which was which was good uh budgets are coming up we're gonna talk about that a little bit later on uh and we just got to be reminded nikki i know you're on top of this but we've uh the board usually nikki i think

021you work with the board and try to put a little something together for the town for the school report right so just keep that on your radar um covert update christine covered a lot of this uh a lot of families did pre-screen uh we're work we're working on our protocols the good news is that we estimate now that about sixty percent of our student population throughout the su is vaccinated presently uh it probably at the high school level is closer to seventy percent and at the middle school level uh it's probably closer to 50 but it balances out to about 60 overall and of course our elementary kids uh did have their second dose i think most of them probably now could be considered the ones who had the shot could be considered fully vaccinated

022so that's good negotiations uh tomorrow uh well teachers settled right before the holiday that's why we had that special meeting three year deal will feel good the only problem with that is this this year is the first year of that three-year deal but at least it gives us a two-year extension and we don't have to negotiate next year which i think will give everybody a break i think uh both the negotiating team for the boards and the teachers were they were getting uh you know a little bit tired and frustrated toward the end we it seems like we've done it every year for the last three years so it'll be good to have a break uh support staff the educational support paraprofessionals the esp negotiations have started we went over ground rules and presented our

023proposals right before the holiday we meet tomorrow night to continue uh we're optimistic that we can uh try to get a a long-term uh deal with with the with the support staff as well and um you know we're trying to be fair and and generous uh we're very aware that uh in general throughout the state now right the uh the uh minimum wage is going up so we have to stay competitive to draw good people and we want to keep people that we have equity task force is still alive and well right before the holidays we met with melissa crumb to review the action steps we're going to meet again coming up here soon with uh with uh with the with the team with the anti-racism task force team and and right now we're trying

024to fight i think i said this at the su board meeting but those who weren't at the su board meeting we have a possible partnership with springfield for an equity audit to gather some baseline information on policies uh protocols and curriculum and instruction and how it measures up against uh against our emphasis on equity if we don't have a baseline we're not going to know with all this equity work whether or not we're making any progress so that's that's the game plan um budget update that's our bulk of our meeting tonight christine and i have been working hard on those final numbers we're gonna look at those tonight and uh and the only other thing i'll say is the middle school task force i don't have a slide for this but the middle school task

025force is uh is moving along and uh and uh we we have met several times and what's the next step is to meet with the middle schools of each individual school and see how that's how those middle schools in each of the schools given their grade structures staffing patterns are lining up with where we think we're going to end up uh for the general su middle school recommendations both in terms of the grade level span the kinds of curriculum and assessment activities we want at that level the kind of teaming and relationships that need to be built at that level uh and it's a pretty it's a vibrant uh task force it basically has every single middle level teacher uh including a couple of specials but every single middle level teacher in the su is

026on that task force so um uh they've been they've been working hard and i think there's an openness to really just continuing to develop again we're in the middle of a pandemic so it's a little harder but to develop a really engaging and vibrant um middle school program throughout the the su that's it for me unless you have any questions thank you david okay so i think we'll get on to our items for discussion christine you want to bring that budget back up yes yes i hope it goes better this time uh so what i'm gonna i'm gonna share um sorry scott did you want to say something yeah i'm sorry i'm sorry christina remembered i spoke up at the sc meeting but i just wanted to say how how exciting um that joint venture

027if you could call it that with the springfield school district and the racial equity audit process sounds like a great way to step forward and really um uh you know brings bring some information to the surface that that could be you know that administrators can really hold on to and i'm not sure what what the process even looks like but perhaps there's a third party involved and so i mean hopefully there is so that would be you know it really brings some assurance to the community and you know again bring some information to the surface that in a way that um doesn't point fingers but informs and some allows for action and so that's i hadn't heard anything before the last su meeting and it just it's exciting it's good yeah and i'm meeting i'm

028meeting with uh zach presented it to his board and and i'm meeting with zach on friday first thing is to put a request for proposal together because it is a third party vendor that will use scott you're absolutely right i think we need an outside audit and i think the big thing with us and i think the task force felt this way too nikki and colleen you can correct me if i'm wrong but we just want to make sure that we're solving the right problems sometimes you get so involved in the work and you and you're working hard but you know you you're not working you know as somebody said you know you might be doing the uh the job right but you're doing the right job and and that's really what we have to

029uh we have to we have to focus on um yeah so thanks for thanks for that scott i i'm excited about it too and i think it's a good way to start this work after we get the action plan in place it's in our strategic plan so it'll it'll all come together here right i think thanks i'm just glad angie doesn't have to report next that's all i know she would you see her she's like sleeping you know she had a long day your mic is off angie she was just wrestling camera was off i was totally listening with my eyes shut okay that's what my wife tells me all the time too she was listening she you looked cozy angie it's awesome yeah you look very comfortable i i as long as i wasn't

030you know when you were scoring and you were your sound was off so we don't know you might have so i'm gonna actually turn my camera off while i present maybe that will help and then so what i'm going to do ed and i um have been working we met last week he called me i don't know it was like 4 30. he said christine i have updated numbers and i went to this presentation is done but we got it together um so i'm gonna share the same i mean it's an updated version of the presentation i've i've shared with you a couple of times with updated numbers um we know the salary um increase and things like that so it's it's completely updated um and then ed is going to so uh so i'm

031going to go rather quickly because you've seen it before and then ed is going to jump in and talk about the um the tax rate and the yield and the cla and all of that good stuff that he is an expert at so um let me share my screen and okay let me start at the beginning okay all right so just to refresh our budget goal is to have alignment of the budget with our strategic plan which you're very familiar with and have been a part in creating our continuous improvement plan which also aligns with our strategic plan and the education quality standards that we are guided by and the three goals um that we're really working towards student success and engagement that's a big e um and that is embedded in a lot of

032the things that we're doing at school one of those is the middle school model that david was just talking about um leader in me co-teaching our interdisciplinary approach all of those things um goal two culture and student wellness um really trying to make sure our kids are um you know the whole child is is addressed not just the academics but the social emotional pieces that we all um that we all bring um into into schools um also through our uh diversity and equity work our restorative approaches that we're really working hard at um making sure everybody is trained in and has the um has finesse in administering our multi-tiered system of supports which we've worked really hard on lindsey is our coordinator and we're so pleased that we have an su mtss team so that

033we're all on the same page sharing resources and ideas which is which helps the process move along our mental health services our schedule which drives some of our culture and our wellness as well and then information and communication so really connecting with the community in multiple ways and making sure they feel a part of the school so those are the driving goals i don't think this slide has been updated since the su budget passed so i'm going to skip that one i tried to try to check on that today but i wasn't successful so the wage line is is up as you can see and it includes the music position going from a point eight to a to a full-time position which we talked about um it includes the negotiated salary increase and it includes

034the increase of of the um i think it was 0.45 intervention position to that full-time position that the 5-6 team discussed with the board at length at the last meeting in december so those are the things that are included in that salary um in that wage line ed and i took out the two s are funded teaching positions because they're going to be funded through esser funds so that's the wage line um up a bit the benefit line as well um health healthy health care increase this year was 5.2 percent and so ed has done all the work to figure out what that's going to cost the district about 45 000 more than the previous year and those that includes fully fully funded hra um or he's budgeted for the fully the full amount for

035hras to be funded by the by the district uh contracted services is up um this this line um includes our athletic refs um and and you know i i assumed you might wonder why it's increased by a roughly forty thousand dollars and um the reason for that is it includes a portion of our maintenance um supervisor position that is not a heartland position it is an ssu position that we benefit from but we do pay a little bit of that position um and that's why contracted services is up a little bit um maintenance and repair this this is um doubled and a little bit more and that includes the service line in the kitchen which is uh estimate of 25 that new service line um it includes the ski rentals um if we're going to

036go forward with our equity work in the winter activities program it's 26 000 for ski rentals so that all kids can run skis and it it includes um the replacement of four sinks in four classrooms and the plumbing that goes under the floor i think we talked about that last month those are starting to fail so we want to get ahead of that they are um there are eight of them we are um budgeting to replace four next year at 3 700 a piece and then four in the following year which is uh fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars uh this year and the same next year so that's why that line is up um transportation as you know is now funded at the su level but we do have some specific things in heartland that

037we pay for in terms of transportation which include field trips we're hoping to get back to field trips next year it includes that algebra bus that takes our kids our algebra kids um back from windsor each day athletics math team and um we did budget an additional 8 500 for winter activities buses to bring kids home from the mountain so that is a slight increase in that line communication postage insurance is just up a little bit based on rates high school tuition so this is the one ed and i were adjusting today because he did get the um tech fte numbers came in today so our high school tuition um of course that number increased so um high school tuition the total increase including the um tech fte is 112 roughly 112 000 for next

038year and uh back to them yeah do we need tuition yeah do we have um a good count of our um private school and homeschool families that might be tuition we think we do um lori has lori and linda have been taking extra care trying to figure that out um as i as i shared with you a couple months ago it's really a challenging year because some kids that didn't go to school last year in the pandemic are that were supposed to graduate are in those numbers um i haven't heard from lori the final count but it was at 55 graduating seniors for this year which is above what it you know we anticipated that it would be and you know we were hoping to have an offset because we're sending fewer kids to high

039school but um that hasn't panned out just based on the move-ins and um what i just described so yeah we are but we are looking at those um nikki and trying to make sure that we have an accurate count yeah i just i saw a list on something on the list today that made me wonder like how many people are moving to town just for that so yeah people moved to town just for high school choice you know that i mean i've they specifically moved to heartland for that um benefit so um but i heard on the news this morning like the biggest um moves in the country last year were vermont was in the top three places where people moved so um i think in heartland um some of the homes that were sold

040went to second homeowners or um people that did not have children that came to our school because as you know our numbers are shrinking in the in the elementary school um okay supplies is up a little bit we're just trying to get back to uh where we were we we cut the supply budget um over the last two years so this includes some of that library stuff that we put on hold last year and the year before and then our energy is up just a little bit and that's just based on energy costs um and equipment so i did find out the um the laminator is included in this line so that's why that that's why this line is up a little bit and the do's and fees line is up because uh that's where

041the ski lessons get coded in in um e-finance for roughly twenty thousand dollars that's what it would cost to send all our kids skiing and then you know about the assessment many of you are at the su board meeting which has already been um has been passed so that that number is not going to change and that's the breakdown for heartland portion of the assessment and i think we did settle last month on the numbers that are shown for food services nikki can you confirm that i think we voted on that right okay so those numbers are accurate okay and um so that brings us to the total expenditure for the for the budget for fy 23 which is up at 9 000 644 0029 ed has in this line in this final budget already

042applied the fund balance of 338 thousand four hundred and ninety dollars so that's already been applied and we're still up um six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars so i'm going to let ed take over and explain um this the information on the yield and the cla and the um the tax rate so i'll stop sharing ed you're still here what's here and we got you yeah edit edit well i see ed here yep it's you're up bad let me text him might be a sound check ed good connors uh you're up can you hear us ed turn the old i'm gonna call him let me just turn my mic he might need to call in sometimes he has to call in his microphone doesn't work real well oh he just joined yeah i think he

043he's just called in ed can you hear us head you're muted on the phone yeah hit star there you go here we go can you hear me now yeah yeah okay all right so uh why don't i start with uh and ed ed you might want to turn your volume off on your computer okay or your mic rather so you're just talking through the phone okay that's better all right so can you see the screen yes okay good um why is it that i can't do anything with it all right so what you're looking at here is what uh christine just outlined that is that the budget has increased by 6.82 or 615 okay uh your equalize your education spending for equalized pupil has increased by 5.04 or 996.58 now that would be important in

044a year but they've suspended the penalty but you would have been over the penalty then penalty is 19 195. so um your equalized pupil dropped the full fully allowable three and a half percent which had an effect on your tax rate because the lower your equalized pupil the higher your tax rate is your common level of appraisal went down by 10.3 percent which again was um significant when you're looking at the tax rate uh that's due to the fact that prices increased but there hasn't been an appraisal since the prices have increased and i think everyone can agree that heartland has seen significant increase in their um property values so the homestead tax rate is up 4.5 percent 4.05 or 7 cents and to cut one cent would be 26 000. um the non-homestead rate

045is up uh just about just a little less than four uh four cents so those that's where you are now one of the things that i was talking to christine about was that we have been getting guidance from the state around there's a 90 million dollar surplus at the state ed fund right now and what we do when we get to to generate your tax rate is we need a property yield and an income yield and that's generated by the vermont department of taxes and the the department the chair are the director of that sets up the send that old tax life well the tax letter that he sent out um had two scenarios one of the scenarios was where you didn't use the 90 million dollars in a headphone surplus towards tax relief and

046the other one was where you would okay so what i just showed you is where it would be if they didn't use did not lose the 90 million dollars okay if you were to take a look at so if you take a look at this these are the two tax scenarios the one i just outlined is scenario b and you can see these are the two numbers this is your income this is your property yield and this is your income yield so it's just property so when you use when we use scenario b we come up with a sentence increase in the tax rate when we use scenario a we come up with a five cent decrease in the tax rate so are there any questions around that and i had a quick question just

047because we talked about it just to let the board know you're not anticipating the state make a determination on the 90 million in the next couple of weeks or are you no i think that this is going to go on for quite a while and i the reason being is that uh as you guys are well aware that the teachers retirement fund is underfunded by 600 million dollars so they could take that 90 million and apply it there or they could decide at some point that they're not going to use the whole 90 billion they're going to use parts of the 90 million or a part of the 90 million so unfortunately what you guys would be approving tonight is an expenditure budget and depending on how quickly they address these scenario a scenario b

048potentially a scenario c would mean that when we publish when you publish the uh put everything into the town report you could publish a tax rate that isn't accurate in the law it could be significantly different now this isn't something unusual this has happened quite a bit in the last three or four years by the time the legislature gets around to getting the stuff done um it's probably two months after town meeting so i can you guys can select a scenario if you'd like uh i've been given guidance at the state that most of my colleagues are saying they're going to use scenario b for obvious reasons um but there could be a change at some point at least we're admitting it this year christine this um this is more a question for you just

049because i with the three budgets being articulated at once sometimes i forget the positions that this year are being funded by esser right the the esser money positions have you left those in esser have you included those in this budget i think you're muted christine i am yeah we took them out of this budget based on our um last sr conversation yeah because i was going to say it's looking pretty good with yeah you know that most of those positions are going to stay in so they're not in there now they are not we took them out okay yeah i mean when i look at it and i go through it i i it's not that we've added a ton to the budget i mean we've added uh we've made the point eight music position

050up full time and we've increased that um interventionist position to a full-time teaching position when you just kind of go through quickly and look at you know their salary increases uh it adds up a hundred thousand dollars here the assessment 150 000 there um high school tuition 112 000 i mean it adds up quickly to what you get here but it's not it's not that we're really adding a ton to the budget um you know the the ski program is about fifty thousand dollars to to fund that um in this budget is roughly um plus the bussing is a little bit more so um yeah yeah no that that's true you know the only thing you know that i would say is superintendent and again i don't live in heartland you all have to defend

051this budget and nikki and christine have done a good job defending it at town meeting i mean the only thing i would say is if there was a year to not cut and undercut your services next year we thought this was going to be the recovery year i think next year is going to be the recovery and you know or the next couple of years will be our recovery years and i think that's why we have esser and we've used it as as best we can and i also think it's why as you beef up things like your middle school program and some of your intervention work uh you you need those positions i do agree with ed that the state has moved uh slowly in terms of making some of these decisions and determinations

052but i think in the end they do and i think they're very aware of what's going on in the field right now and you know i you know you'd like to stay optimistic if you could you know and maybe by the time we get to town meeting you know we'll be able to give a little bit of a different story than than a seven cent tax increase but that said a lot of what's also driving this and ed mentioned it and we're finding it in all three of our towns that our properties are very undervalued right now so that common level of appraisal matter of fact ed you and i have looked at this before if you change that common level of appraisal by you know by by a tenth of a point you know

053when it goes from 92 to 93 or that you you cannot imagine the impact that has on your tax rate so i i just think it is the way it is and i think again i don't live in the town but i think the town will understand that houses aren't selling for what they're that what they're on the tax rolls for the grand list is not reflective of the value of those houses right now and it's probably you know once this dust settles time for a reappraisal i would just add that we recently did have an appraisal we're not far from one and um it's i think it's too strong to say that property values the properties are undervalued there's a is a global pandemic at foot and you know it has these strange effects

054and the property tax system is is is full of of measures like this that um perhaps don't um perhaps don't the mechanisms don't work when when um [Music] when there's such an acceleration in value so yeah that that kind of acceleration and value so i think i think it will we can trust that the legislature and our community understands that and we're going to get some help but i think it's just too strong to say that um that our properties are undervalued i just wouldn't agree with that david yeah and you and you know what i meant by that scott that basically what's on the tax roll in other words i just sold a single family house in st johnsbury very depressed area it's on the tax rolls for like 80 90 000. i got

055145 000 to that house you see what i'm thinking it's not it's not that what's on the tax bill in the town it's not it's not what the houses are valued at and i bet you if you went to town hall today pick three properties that just sold you'd find that they're they're selling for any more than that then they're estimated right i agree with you um the point i'm making is that not everyone is looking to sell their house i mean oh i see yeah and that and then we have had a recent appraisal and so you know no one saw this situation coming yeah the bigger picture is that statewide property values are all up and so i'm suspecting and maybe ed knows what the other community's property values are but i suspect

056that everybody's yeah yeah that's true below 100. i don't think anybody's at 100 right now because they would have had to have appraised in the middle of the pandemic but you know nikki i think i think what happened in some of the other communities right uh you know you take places like shelburne and kill those properties were always high right and they didn't go that much higher right but i think the attractiveness of you know a town like heartland with you know again with high school choice and the pandemic i think it really and the same thing with the all-team's kingdom a very depressed area you know where i live but people people wanted to get out of you know cosmopolitan you know and i think some people even looking at places like burlington city

057but not heartland you know what i mean i think i think it's i think you're you're an attractive place to live and i think you you your values are showing that thank you it's not a bad thing you know especially if you want to sell your house but but it's it's it's a good thing and i i agree with scott i think the town will understand it and and scott i think you're right it might be temporary uh or it might level itself out i i don't know but uh it certainly has impacted right now so i have a question to either ed or christine can you send us the spreadsheet or ed it's in excel i guess um yeah i can do whatever you want what do you need well i just like i

058don't know i think visually and so not not being in control is killing me not being able to look at things on my own screen is affecting my ability to think um what christine do you have it in a google doc or no uh i have it in a working doc so ed and i will have to it's got our notes and things in it yeah i don't want that i was just wondering if there was something quick that you could send us but um i so i throw that out there um i want to hear from board members on what people are thinking quick question the music um rentals and things like that is that still in there too along with all the ski stuff no we didn't put the rentals in we just

059increased the position based on jamie's presentation of um of uh giving kids opportunities to try different instruments at the lower levels and build their interest in music um instead of waiting and then basically having them experiment at a upper level and having to purchase instruments that way so no they're not in here beth um we did some of that supply budget is increased because we're going to need some more guitars and we're going to need some more ukuleles as you heard we lost a few in the pandemic because we sent some home or they need repair um so we'll we'll that is in the supply line um but not rentals any other thoughts out there what was the name of that tranche of money that the the 90 million at the or the 600 million

060is what is missing in the teacher retirement system oh yes yes yes and the 90 million is what the state has and could put towards the tax rate or towards that hole in the retirement system or both but what's the name of that christine what's all right the ed fund or the 90 million i think that's i think that's federal money that we got you know from the from the pandemic yeah it doesn't it's not not esser like no uh and do you know ed off the top of your head the not the nineteenth i think it's because they had they raised more money and and and the other at the other pieces of the ed fund whereas they they adjusted because they thought they weren't going to get as much in sales tax they

061weren't going to get as much rooms and meals okay and they got what they they got more much more than they thought they were going to get hold up so in our state system okay thank you sarah um yeah so i mean i guess i'm just sort of putting this out there because i think i think it's probably the next thing for us to talk about um is you know is the skiing um is the ski program you know sort of the best use of what sounds like sixty thousand dollars and is that i certainly within the context of having a winter sports program um you know having it paid for for everybody extends equity but i guess we perhaps we should talk about whether you know is that 60 is that the best place

062to use 60 000 to um to increase equity school-wide and you know i'm i'm really torn because i love the idea i think it's great to open up that sport to all kids um but you know i think we probably should talk about the fact that we could for significantly less money have a you know winter hiking program or a um you know even probably a cross-country skiing program um or a snowshoeing program or a you know something something that might get some of the same results so i'm i'm i'm torn i'm just laying it out there so we can talk about it yeah feeling similar but i mean i guess i just want to kind of review of like our options for for cutting are seem very very minimal and just making sure i'm

063clear on this and so we're really talking about the music position and then the full-time interventionist and that was going from halftime to full-time right correct yeah so it's really just like an increase of less than one position combine those increases from last year and then we're talking about skiing and we're talk and the service line in the kitchen and the i mean the things i think we have to fix we don't have to fix four we could fix two we could stretch it longer it's not that big of a savings but we could um yeah yeah go ahead okay so that is that i mean i feel like that's kind of our that's a bucket to play with and that's really it right now just i heard that right yes yeah and it just

064seems like with the service line too and i would say i i i'm the first one to say like good god yes you need a new kitchen um and but i will say there's federal funds right now for a grant that for up to fifteen thousand dollars for for food service equipment through the usda so you know with that whole thing do we like cut it keep our fingers crossed go for that grant you know and say at least or put in 10 instead of the 26 or whatever for that but then is it worth that nickel and diming it or do you just put it in the budget and say well if we get the grant then great we won't spend that money and it's the same thing with the ski program my guess

065it's not going to be 60 000 because not everyone's going to do it and so then all of a sudden it's 30 000 and we're like oh well yeah we should do it like so i'm feeling really torn around that and i also think too if this whole idea of it doing 100 free um you know what are the other cuts we could say because i mean it wasn't just skiing that was offered that you had to pay for i mean there was skating there was cross country i think there was our artistry um you know programming so i mean it was a whole suite of things that we were paying for so are we talking that this money would only be going to skiing and that's all we would be offering for everybody or

066those kids that are like i hate skiing and all i want to do is art that we won't pay for them to go to artistry then um you know so i think what's the equity equitable there i think we budgeted for everyone skiing knowing that some kids would choose other options and there would be enough money there for that the skiing is the most expensive uh winter activity that we have so yeah it it could be less for sure i don't think every kid in our school is gonna ski but i think probably more than the number that ski now would ski if if they didn't have to pay for it at least they would try it um absolutely no and i have a um logistical question for you um as far as uh and

067i know it doesn't matter as much this year so um but as far as things like the service line if we we talked about this the last meeting and you weren't there um if we were to um fund the service line out of the capital reserve account does that get applied to our per pupil costs does that make sense no it doesn't so when we're paying for so it's kind of frustrating so when we're paying for building upgrades um our per pupil costs go up because we're paying for building upgrades when if we paid for them out of the capital reserve then our pre-people cost would look lower yeah that's just the way it works i'm sorry no no that i think it's important that we understand that because i mean people in the community

068do look at our people per pupil costs um and i don't think that the service line or the sinks and plumbing um are so huge that they're going to dramatically decrease our per people costs um but they may have some impact on it oh they would take they would take a penny off the off the rate right the um i'm using the wrong word but every twenty six thousand five i mean ed and i played with it every twenty six thousand five hundred dollars drops the tax um a penny right so taking those two things out would give us a penny and a half yes yep that's correct uh ed can i confirm that yeah that's right yeah it's 26 thousand no it's not 26.50 okay okay so 26 000 gives us a penny um

069and so what i'm just trying to think and then what was our surplus from last year what are we applying 300 something 490 338 490. okay so that was our surplus yep um okay and so we're using i'm just trying to do this smart like we're using our surplus to pay down our increase this year um but would we be smarter to deposit fifty to a hundred thousand dollars into the capital reserve and pull out fifty to a hundred thousand capital reserve or is that a wash well if you lower your expenditure budget you're going to uh can have you're going to have a a parallel lowering of your revenue budget so i would say if you're going to do that i'd pull it out and put it in capital reserve and leave the surplus

070in there then you'll see a decrease in the tax rate but if the other way around if you lower the amount of money that you're gonna use as an offsetting revenue and you lower the exp wash that's what i thought i just wanted to make sure that i was thinking of it correctly um how much do we have in the capital reserve uh three three three something three hundred 60 maybe okay check uh 368 two dollars and sixty two cents um i mean it might make sense to pull that money out you know if what do you think is the what do you think that the taxpayers will will tolerate well so here's my thought process on that is that if we pull like in thinking what beth is talking about um as far as

071the sinks and the service line go um you know if we can get a grant like we get approved to pull out 25 grand for the service line but then if we can get a grant for 15 of it then we're not charging a property tax rate that's i don't want to say it's artificially high because we don't know if we can get the grant or not but do you see where i'm going on that one yeah and if you don't you if you get the grant you just don't use the amount you pulled out of the capital reserve account yeah you you're already approved to pull what you need if you need less than yay yeah that makes sense is it it has to be written as a separate article um which which we

072can do yeah i don't think it's too late no it's not too late yeah i would agree with nikki that seems appropriate okay so pope i think i mean wouldn't you pull both of those things out the sinks and the um and if you're gonna do that does it make sense to pull out enough to do all eight sinks that was that's why i had my hand raised the uh that seems the expenses per per job there didn't sound that significant and i just i i didn't want to um act like i know what kind of work that's going to take i didn't my question was um our building and grounds chief um jim does he have a recommendation on on the timing and how how concerned is he that's what i didn't understand uh

073he thinks that um well i think maintenance is going to be doing part of that work which is the question i asked him do you think you can get to ollie in one summer and he um he was relatively optimistic about that but when i said what if we do less you know and spread it out he seemed more optimistic about that option um i mean it involves moving the lines they're under i don't know who did the design but the lines are under a concrete pad so when they break you have to rip up concrete so they're going to reroute the lines into the wall move those um i don't know if you've been in the school in a while but the old part of the building has those little counters and sinks kind

074of in the mid on one side of the room so those are going to come out and the sink will just be mounted on the wall which will you know add a little space in the room um and the lines will be easily accessible that way so he might be able to get it all done scott in one summer if he knew he had to do it well i don't want to i don't want to tell him what or how how to do his job i just wanted to make sure he had enough funds and i agree with nikki that um that that should in my mind it should come out of the capital fund and we should ask this the community for that so then the next question if we look at the um

075i'm thinking along beth's lines of the ski program um i just i don't want to budget for a full program that we don't think is going to be used um does that make sense yeah so i don't but i don't know like do we budget for 75 utilization i don't know how to adjust that but throw that out there and then sarah you're up next yeah i was sort of thinking along the same lines that you know could we survey could we survey families and get a sense of you know if the program if the ski program were paid for how you know how many people would be doing it we might get a i mean obviously we're not going to get it for tonight but um i you know i don't know how we

076may not we may just not have the time to do that at this point but that could help and then you know the other the other thing just thinking a little bit outside the box that you know if the goal of the winter activity program is to get kids outdoors um you know as as we talked about at the last meeting really you know make them you know make them enthusiastic vermonters and um you know if these are really our goals are there are there other ways to do it um you know would a would a winter nature walk um or winter you know snowshoeing or tracking or something that we could do in the 17-acre wood um or you know in town um get us the same result and i you know i would

077hate to to not do the ski program but i i just i i think it really is worth just um just thinking a little bit about that thank you ed uh sarah i'm thinking i'm gonna call on colleen and see what she has to say i think you could budget for half the amount of money and hopefully and count on people to leverage their own equipment for people that do have it um and people that are not going to want to ski even if they never did ski they still won't ski i mean i just don't think i don't think we're going to be serving the whole school and if we're wrong about that we can adjust on the fly i guess i mean and then deal with it in the next budget um i

078think we'd be safe with half i know that you know hartford is doing kind of the same thing that's my new experience is hartford and um and that a lot of people are using use their own equipment i mean i think they have it kind of set up that way that you're they have stuff if people don't have it but kids are using their own stuff some too i mean i know people don't we never purchased equipment we rented equipment for our kids because they were growing it didn't make sense too so i don't i don't know who actually has equipment but it seems like there's a ton of it out there and it passes around so oh sorry calling i i just that i think uh i think a conversation with the community to

079say please use equipment and then for people that don't have it we can help we can add we'll make it make sure it works for him for him i suspect we're not going to use that whole amount yeah i mean we also have to think though too if we are going to like offer nordic are we going to offer skating are we going to offer our art you know and so you know will we pay for those as well and if we do then i think it probably would be more than half um you know and so we have to kind of figure that in place and i as much as sarah i totally understand like i i would much rather go tracking and snowshoeing and wandering around in the woods on for days um

080versus downhill skiing i mean i like downhill skiing but it's not my my number one thing but um but i do see it um it's not the same you know and and people that are like truly love it you know and it's part of a thing you know like it's it is pretty amazing when you see those kids really clicked in on it and i just know for me growing up it did become a i just remember like we did the ski program and then all of a sudden it was like oh the ski program now we have to pay for it and it was like we can't do it anymore and so then it became it i totally remember this as a kid of like oh well only the rich kids go skiing and

081it was it hit me in the face and i'm just like yeah i guess it's just the rich kid thing and like and so how can we stem that as much as possible as well as like coming you're saying like about equipment and stuff like i just know like you know the kids notice real fast of like who has the coolest equipment but you know if we can just like keep it as like get the rentals everyone i mean we buy equipment for our kids at like listen for 20 bucks and it works you know so it's like so there's so many other alternatives to really kind of push down that the high expensive skiing persona that i think we can also work on as well because borrowed ski pants listen skis and a decent

082helmet gets you down the hill one of my other concerns with the ski program well no with the rental program um is that now if the school pays for the rentals we're kind of on the hook for the rentals um and i talked to a family today whose rental skis were stolen three hours after they rented them um so uh and now they don't have skis for the season so i just is something that comes to mind i don't know how we deal with that do we are we gonna keep all of the skis that we rent because we can't get ukuleles back um we can't like how do we manage that side of things and i we're not there um but it's something that really concerns me because um i don't want to be

083chasing down i don't think it's a teacher's job to chase down people for skiing yeah i totally agree i think that would be like madness and i don't think we want to keep i just imagining like the poor maintenance guy with a hundred pairs of skis and trying to figure out where to put them like that sounds like horace's um but i think i think it can be worked out with like whatever it's going to be a huge score for whatever company gets the contract basically and so i think it would have to be an agreement of like students or families will sign waivers or whatever liability contract around it um and we'll do our best and um but i think it's also like that company is going to have to take some risk because

084they're going to make some money too so maybe they're you know whoever we can work with um has that understanding christine i just shot my microphone off um i agree with you i think we can do it for half and and if we overspend the line we'll have the data for next year i think um maybe we go with the cost of the program and if a family needs rentals i work with john and henderson's i know i know that they help families out as a start so that we don't have to think about that liability piece of the equipment and we're going to keep it that sounds like a nightmare to me as well and um if there are families that need skis you know we can work we can work on that um

085on the school end that makes sense i think one of the other thoughts that i have in mind is that um we can advertise to our community that we are trying to make it so that everybody can skate for free um and maybe we ask you know if if you are a family that can afford um can you subsidize your own children and that will help subsidize other kids um because i i would think that a lot of our families that could would but we don't ask them to they don't have to um maybe they donate yeah exactly instead of asking them to pay because i just go back to what beth said you know you know who's paying and who's not paying it's it's easy to figure that out um your kids are pretty

086bright but if we had a just a ski program donation um ed will love that right ed is that okay i don't if he says nothing sounds good to me sounds fine yeah i would i mean the way i would see that working is saying you know it costs this much for each child to ski consider donating um and see if we can really encourage families to help other families i think sarah's first i think there are people in town who would donate as well who don't have kids at the school so if that's um you know if that's kosher with regard to the budget i think i think we could even put out a a plea you know put it out on the list ask people in town explain what we're trying to do

087and i think there would be support for that i agree that yeah i totally agree um and i think i mean has has anyone talked to john at the wreck like of this grand scheme and i'm assuming he's probably for it but i was thinking you know it also could be something that john and the wreck is the one that's doing all the equipment stuff you know and and there they would be fundraising or something like that instead because they're the ones that usually finagle the it's usually through the wreck um with the skiing so i don't know if it's something i don't want to say be hoisted on john but um is there some way you know to try to you know spread that burden um in some way as well our heartland winter

088trails are amazing you know like when they can wait we have to know um and so just even having the access of kids that don't want to do down snow but we have a sl you know cross-country ski access um even if it's rental somewhere or borrowing equipment to get kids out skiing on the trails just locally is pretty would be pretty awesome i completely agree um okay so i'm gonna summarize where i think this conversation maybe when you guys can tell me if i'm wrong uh my summary of this conversation is to have the ski program and ask for donations and just get head nods as to who's thinking scott i'm not saying anything yeah i i think that's it's a not a big deal um you guys know me by now i'm not

089i don't i don't i don't really like this donation part because it seems to be a stepping away from our job to create sustainability sustainable systems and but there's always when i talk to school board people at the state wide level you know there's always donations in this at the school district in all different forms and um it's kind of hard to get away from so um i just wish that we could there was some other way to get there like but i'll say yes tonight i think that um i think that this is a stepping stone i guess that's why i see it is that um i mean i do i do think that in some ways we should continue to ask people to help because people that can help more should and people

090who need more help should get more help um but i think this way we have a program for all and can now suddenly see what um so to me that's exciting and then if we completely miss it we'll fix it next year make it sustainable so um okay uh and i i'm also curious what the um what our per pupil rate is um in this scenario with the um well can i ask a couple clarifying questions yeah the ski program in total was forty seven thousand five hundred dollars there were three components to that forty seven thousand five hundred there was twenty six thousand dollars for rentals two thousand dollars for staff tickets and nineteen thousand five hundred for lessons and lift tickets and how the rental equipment was that calculated was a hundred people

091or a hundred students times two hundred and sixty which is 26 000 and then the lessons and lift tickets were 75 times 260. so when you say you want to cut the budget in half would you just want me to cut the 47.5 in in behalf or do you want to pick out how much of these three elements that you want to reduce there's also some money in the travel line too for busing okay i would just i don't think the busing would change that's the thing i think the bussing would be the same no matter how many students you have we included a bus back to school ad in that so that um we normally just bust one way that includes busting both ways so it's probably double what it normally is i would

092still keep it there i think if we're going to do this we want to go both ways um so can you run those numbers again we had 100 times 260. five so is that 2565 students or is that 100 students it's it's a hundred dollars for the fee and uh we estimated 260 i think we started the year around that number okay so that and then the second number what was that times 260. and what is the 75 that's the lesson fee the rentals i think were 100 the lesson fee was 75. okay and do we have to get tickets oh thank you okay staff tickets yep and then i i can add this this is insert this is the boss do we try to do mount us gutney i mean have we looked at

093lower cost mount us gutney no because it's owned by the it's owned by the town i don't i don't i don't think that we could have less weather winter does it west windsor does that and they they have rentals there too so it is uh it's owned by a skutny outdoors or run by a scott in the outdoors and it um it's it's uh very affordable and they do modest got the aura west windsor and i think windsor do it there too i don't think they make snow no i know they don't make it's a lot variable do not make snow they don't make snow and i i mean it's it's a volunteer run yeah exactly they open another day for a different school like it's their community so they're opening for their community but

094i mean i like the idea i i just don't know that it's there i also think the older kids um i mean i already some of the older kids you know grumble a little bit about suicide six not having enough runs and um i think to kee i think to keep the enthusiasm of all kids uh suicide sex might be would be better so ed to answer your question i would have the rentals i would have the dues and fees nikki does it make sense to just get rid of the rentals if we're going to really try to have people bring their own equipment and then work with the wreck on getting the rest of the equipment i don't know if i don't know if it matters um i think if we're going to give

095this a shot so there's like liability issues to skis and we don't want to own any of that and so if we're going to give people equipment i want to give people equipment that has no liability attached to us um so do you so out of the budget the rentals out yeah wait no i would keep the rentals in the budget because i don't want to be i don't want the wreck picking up skis and handing them to kids and saying these are great um i i want the family to have to sign a liability contract with the rental company um okay that makes sense yeah um i'm just watching what that's doing that's a good point nick nicki thank you yeah i i know i mean just what like i i forgot boots one

096day at the mountain and they wouldn't put they wouldn't rent boots because it would validate invalidate their liability of them renting knee boots to go into our ancient seas because we do like beth does and just scrounge around for whatever we can find and uh they were like new we're not touching those so um yeah okay so we're at we went from 56 to oh wait no we're not there yet i think you're going to have to do's and fees too you want to go half here yeah we could also just lop off 25 000 to save a penny and call it the problem with that is that i have to put it into the budget and budget lines you know what i mean right but you could like lop 10 off 1 and 15

097off the other that's yeah you could do whatever you want actually i mean you want to cut it by as long as that end result is half or close to half you you're good i like the way i mean i like the way ed's tracking it though that way it is tracked you know you know at least we know for posterior where we where we really landed so where did that put our tax rate then it put i guess that's working on it now i think i think if we come in close to half of the ski budget it um was closed about four penny a little over four penny 4.6 pennies which does feel a little more scalable yeah i just uh i want to see where we are with the um the per

098pupil like i don't i don't want to put us in a position where we suddenly have to cut like a ton of things in order to not get penalized when the state suddenly decides they're going to penalize again um do you guys know what i mean like yeah you know if we're way way way above and i'm already concerned about that because we already have two esser positions to esser we have two teachers that we're not even paying for right now um and then on top of that we probably also have the title one positions um and so it just if we're in a recovery year these kids need more help than we can possibly give them and then i'm afraid that we're still gonna need to be recovering and everybody's going to be like

099oh out of money and we're suddenly going to be like in a position where we have four unfunded teachers um so i throw that out there um not that i'm looking to cut anything right now we should have christine tell us more about those teaching positions because it was my opinion my uh understanding as your board committee person on that recovery that those every all the administrators know that those teaching positions are going away in in the over the course of uh this and two or three more years that is accurate scott we planned for three years um thinking that that would get us through the recovery and prior to the recovery we we were gonna combine classes as you recall and have multi-grades in different um in different in elementary and middle um but

100i i talked without raising my hand angie has her hand up so i think she wants to talk i was just going to say yeah those those positions were filled with the understanding the employees know that those were three-year positions um and they uh you know if our sr2 plan gets passed um i mean we anticipate that the supports that we put in place across the supervisory union with extra tax staff would continue to be honored by the su board um the i just wanted to say too that the title funds are precarious we have carryover this year that helps us to fund those two full-time positions it's so dependent upon the um you know the experience of the staff person that you get in because it's it's not the same bucket of money every

101year from year to year that's a little stressful too in terms of us making sure that we can plan to fully fund those positions uh the tricky thing with title funds is that so for example say you can only fund 1.8 one year and then you so you put in 2.2 locally that means next year even if you have the funds you can't fund that point too with title funds because it's considered supplanting so it that title i think you're right to be aware of those two positions being title funded um heartland has typically had over the over my five years or four and a half years with it we've funded one uh position quite easily and that second position's always been a little bit like we we did it this year and i'm i

102think we'll be able to do it again next year but again uh it's it's not always a given and so i know that i know we've talked about it that the sr positions um expire but that doesn't mean that our kids needs is gonna are gonna expire and that's what's freaking me out um so i um so uh ed is furiously working to change things as quickly as possible how are you doing ed uh this is it right here okay awesome you are good okay and where does that what is that our um what is our equalized pupil cost did we bring that down at all uh you probably have to do a ton of different calculations in order to get there well you know the problem i'm having is i can't uh let's see

103equalize people with those cuts it goes to 20 six twenty eight eighty and this is ninety five eighty one so the cuts went made it hundred go from thousand dollar increase to a five hundred and fifty two thousand dollar increase and this brought this down by about two hundred and thirty that's to me that's not insignificant i mean we're less than a thousand different from what the state thinks we should be doing um i would still argue that i have no idea how the state thinks we can do that but okay um so what else guys girls so can i just can i just make clear here so you guys are talking about cutting you're taking the 39 800 out which is the total of the service lines and the water lines you're taking that

104out of the general fund and then you're taking the budget cuts that we outlined here right so these are the new budget yeah okay all right i just want to make sure i understand yep that's where we are so far yep um i had a thought and it went away anybody else have any thoughts no i i i the only thing i would say nikki uh sorry i don't know who wanted to speak there but just and i know christine said this but we have to remember all those fixed cost increases right we finished a negotiated agreement now that increased salary really over two years because it increased this year then it's a percentage on top of that for next year uh and then benefits were up i think in the five percent range uh

105and uh things that are obvious to people energy costs you know are going up and you know all those things that are just part of this inflation rate that seems to be creeping up so i mean again i i know you're really trying to beat yourself up to find the 20 30 40 50 000 but uh you know keep in mind that i think anything certainly anything under a 5 increase i think it's pretty darn good i i just want to say that for the record i think energy costs without the laminator are gonna go down because right now we're using a laminator to heat a room sorry uh beth you had your hand raised are you down again i i did but i think it fell out oh good okay um so are we

106ready to oh you do you have something wrong it came back back i know it's just a question around process like is this it like are we actually voting on this like what's happening next like what's the process because i don't always remember it from year to year that's a great question go ahead yeah the process would be um that we do approve this as soon as possible um i um given the change we changes we've made lean on ed to make sure that we're ready i don't feel like we have the language entirely down of what we need to approve right now i'm looking at david and christina um i'm i'm wondering if like we need to do this now um the question is is are we ready or should we do a 20-minute

107emergency meeting next week just to vote on the official language um well unless you plan on cutting more i mean i think christine and ed would know now what the bottom line because all you have to do tonight is somebody has to make a motion to approve an expenditure expenditure budget for fy uh 2223 in the amount of bang then you put the amount in there and i think i think ed with those cuts would have that amount right now if i'm not mistaken i mean i'm not trying to avoid an emergency meeting but i think you have everything you need to know unless you want to cut it further do we also need to vote on the capital expenditure yeah um well actually you'd you'd vote yeah i guess you you could do that

108i mean it's going to be a warning certainly the townspeople have to vote but i think you would vote to to uh to uh to have a separate article warning the water lines and the uh but i'd take your expenditure budget first get get that done and then and then we can move to the to the capital budget so do we i can't remember do we after do we ever have to vote on the warnings or just because we sign off on the warnings uh no because once you've got once you've got the budget approved and you've and you know you're going to look right into the capital approval then you just sign the warning ed what did you have to say uh as far as i'm concerned you could vote on it you just

109the language would be something that david works on after the fact really yeah i'll work on the warning language you just have to move to put those two items into uh capital improvement uh and then we'll then we'll work on the warning for the towns folks you're the only district we know we go through this all the time that has to have your town to prove your capital improvement uh um and and we tried to i remember one year we tried to mess with that and i don't think people were ready to mess with it yet yeah um so we've done the changes that i i personally think are the right thing um the only thing that i'm hesitating on this year um and i guess this is can't guess what's going to happen in

110the future um we don't have a penalty this year for excess spending and we have a surplus where we could put additional money into the capital reserve um i don't know i feel i'm throwing that out there i feel like what we just did is right um but i also feel like it could burn us in the future um i i feel like bringing the taxes down as much as we can is the right thing to do um but i'm worried about how we compare on the per pupil spending um and what the state thinks that we can educate and maybe they'll finally decide that rural areas cost more to educate him but um i'm just i'm i'm worried and so that's where i'm leaving that thought i understand that i think knowing that i

111think we feel some uncertainty about this he program we also have that to flex on i mean i think we know that i don't know if it would solve the problem if we get there like if a whole bunch of funding disappeared on us we have probably other problems too you know this may be close our eyes and i mean we're not closing our eyes but having faith that things will work out in the end down the road yeah scott i i didn't have a lot to add other than i was hoping that ed would put the that grid up right there that shows what we were working on is that what that the 2.67 change in the 4.6 cents yeah i i was not recalling that but thank you ed and i think i

112think our conversation is i agree with the everyone i think we've come to a good spot sarah yeah i i i feel what you're saying nikki and i think that um it just feels like this year there's so much that's sort of up in the air and that you know this the the legislature could help us out and um make the situation a lot better i think that possibility is very much out there and so i'm comfortable with where we are but i i remember what you nicki said i think three or four years ago about you know that we at some point we're gonna have to face up to our numbers and i do think that you know in the next three or four years there's gonna come a moment where we just can't

113sustain the you know two two teachers uh per class if the numbers don't start getting better and and i think that needs i think we maybe need to be looking at like long-term planning to address that um you know i absolutely this year and probably next year too i absolutely think we need to do whatever we can do to keep class sizes small um i think the sixth grade solution was a great one and that you know we we need that but but um we're we're looking at some rough numbers and i think we i think nikki's absolutely right we've got to just keep that in mind i'm gonna turn on my mic when i talk um so i think i like given everything that everybody said i think i like the 2.67 increase i

114like um 4.6 penny change um i think these are reasonable i think i can present them um knowing that everything i prepare to present will change before i actually present it um and uh so what is our final number ed [Music] okay so we have 9 5 8 1 3 49 do we have to vote on pennies or are we rounding i guess we're rounding okay there are no there are no pennies okay no pennies great um so given where we are is somebody ready to make a motion i hear silence are we not ready to make a motion yeah so the motion would be to approve an expenditure budget for fy2223 in the amount of 9 million 581 resulting uh in a projected tax increase of uh what is it at .045 cents or

115something like that point fourth fourth uh 0.0464 cents i'll do the motion in the minutes you got somebody just needs to make i made the motion of what david said david it's four point six four seats four cents okay got it four point six four cents got it okay so beth made a motion um colleen's mic stopped working okay um ed can you just go up again on the change the increase in our budget was for six percent okay i was thinking the increase was three percent okay so that's a six percent increase in our budget um okay okay halloween i'll be right back um i'm not gonna change that number i'm i'm just thinking um and uh well uh to help me think are we in year two of sr or are we in

116year one we're in year two so next year this budget that we're looking at right now is the last year that we have the sr money the health box up september 30th 2024 nikki sorry so 24 yeah so it will cover fiscal year 22 fiscal year 23 and 24 in fiscal year 24. and fiscal year we're in fiscal year 22 right because fiscal year 24 ends june 30th 24 but then the funds can be spent up to september 30th 2024. fiscal year 24 ends in june of 2024 you just said that that the money goes through september of 2024 it does okay so that means that the first three months so july august and september are in fiscal year 25 right so we could possibly expense funds in those three months that probably is not

117going to happen okay to reiterate 23 now we get it till 24. next year is year two okay next year is year two this year is year one we did not have esther last year well you had something else but not essa right thank you i just i'm trying to wrap my head around so we have this year and then we have two more years of recovery correct okay and then we have to do a lot of work okay um okay so we have a motion on the table from beth we have a second we do not yet i think sarah's seconding all second okay okay help previously so are we ready for a vote yeah are we ready for a vote we've had a lot of discussion yep okay uh see people colleen's back

118okay okay let's do a vote um so we have to do this by roll call and scott you are the one at the top of the screen right now okay hi that's his eye sarah you're next to him hi sarah says i bet hi beth is there colleen hi and nikki hi okay so we have a budget congratulations christine and ed i know you guys laugh yay um okay and i feel really good about it um there's always so much uncertainty in the future i think we're doing the right thing for our kids okay uh so now we need to um get a number for the capital reserve and do you have a number so if you're going to fund those two projects it would be 39 8. okay 39 right okay okay and that's

119for four sinks or eight six that's for four six four six okay are there eight things there are eights is it twice that for eight things yeah uh it's thirty seven hundred dollars per sink so so ed the number you just gave them does that include the cafeteria updates yeah so there's 25 000 in there for service lines okay um so do you guys want to stick with it right here okay great okay so 14 8 for this is equal to 3700 times four so if you wanted to go to eight christine do you want to text jim and see what he thinks yes i'll call him right now okay um i i think he would prepare i think he would prefer to do both to do them all well that's what i'm wondering i'm

120just wondering if there's efficiencies of scale to just get it done i would rather do them all yeah especially if we're funding it this way ah sarah do you still have your hand raised on purpose i really wish we were all in person doing this this is killing me to do it remotely i don't every time i turn on my cell phone there's another positive case oh would be 54 6. okay yeah so let me um so the motion will read like this right uh somebody will make a motion ask the voters of the town of heartland to approve to approve capital improvements in the amount of fifty four thousand six hundred dollars for updated water lines to the sinks of twenty nine thousand six hundred dollars and cafeteria service line updates in the amount

121of 25 if you're gonna do it all okay well we could do the homework of doing that voting and then we can go back and undo the vote if jim says no although christine's back now yeah he'll answer his phone too yeah it was we were having some connectivity issues surprise he said um all eight would be better okay let's just get it done yep done okay okay uh anybody want to make motion like david red i move colleen um to accept the motion as written last second okay scott yeah david are you still taking notes on that kind of stuff i am i think i'm i'm supposed to do it yeah you did it last time colleen that's good maybe you and i'll switch it on and off okay okay um [Music] so i

122think we've done our work guys yeah we just need a vote now on that roll call great we need to vote roll call okay uh i'm gonna go back through the line so scott you're first yes okay sarah yes aye colleen yes and nikki i okay so that was unanimous again um okay so i think we did the work that needed to happen today um i had a quick question and it was um moving on to a different topic or not really on the internet but kind of um i just want to have an understanding um for us and for anybody listening um what happens next so we have all of the as far as coping goes we have all of the um protocols and testing but at what point so what happens if 50

123of our student population is home like what what are the thresholds and um it's more of the staffing i think it'll be yeah and we'll go before the kids this is yep that's right so i guess i just um i i i think it's a great question nikki and um and it's and it really is beth you're right it is about staffing but it is also around that 50 threshold because right now we have no authority to count that as a school day if we drop below 50 and we have no authority from the state to go remote right now and count that as a school day so both of those things are really screwing us up my understanding is the legislature as soon as as early as this week they're going to be remote

124by the way for the first 18 days of the sea of the session at least that's the plan now but the uh i've been told by elizabeth who is in the know at the legislative level that there's going to be a move to give a lot lots of authority back to local boards around remote instruction counting school days that don't get waived maybe the number of school days in a school year if you remember last year we only had to go 170 and not 175 and also um uh oh yeah relief around having completely remote school board meetings like we're doing tonight because it's just it's just getting you know too crazy out there right now and uh and you know i i don't think it'll be a forever approval but maybe at least through

125town meeting time and just get us through the next couple of months that's what elizabeth tells me in the meantime i think we much like springfield had to do twice and i know other districts have had to do it i think we'll roll the dice if we get under 50 percent you know we're gonna probably have to close schools and and shut down uh if we can't staff a building and our staff and i look at christine and lindsay uh and anne and i don't know if i thought we had another staff member on here for a while but um the staff is doing heroic work to keep the schools open i mean that's the bottom line and they're covering classes they're covering on their prep periods and you know we try to throw small

126stipends at them doing that but uh you know it it means that some of them are working including yeah including all employees are working from the time they get there till the time they leave at at 3 15 or 3 30. um yeah it's taxing and exhausting but i think we'll we'll try to count on the staff to keep doing that if they can but if we get to a point where we just can't do it we'll and i'll keep what i've been doing with with the board cheers nikki i'll just keep you posted um and then if you want to inform the rest of the board you know i think that that's fine but i what i do is i i communicate directly with the four board chairs nikki uh amy in fact we

127did some communicating over the holidays around whether or not we should even open this week and the consensus was let's give it a shot see what happens and uh because we have no authority to do anything differently so i think we'll just take it one one day at a time schools have been open monday and tuesday right we were one of the few that waited till wednesday i haven't heard i know colleen's cell phone is lighting up but i haven't heard what's going on around the state uh i know that that absenteeism has been high from what i understand it's getting really bad in chittenden county um but i guess we'll we'll just take it one day at a time christine i don't know if you wanted to add to that or not no i

128think that's what we've been doing and um when we get to that critical point we're going to have to make a decision but again the staff has been incredibly flexible and helpful and just uh remain with a kind of what can we do to help attitude which is wonderful and on top of being short staffed and having pretty much um i don't know one constant sub that's about all we get no matter how many absences we have we have one sub usually and we make it we've been making it work so i hope we can continue to make it work and we will as long as we can yeah so um yeah i think staffing is probably my bigger concern in terms of um you know absences and we have some that are sick right

129now so we'll see how this week goes i think well we'll we will keep you posted for sure many of you are parents so you'll be the first you'll be the first to know uh sometimes i have to cc scott because scott scott doesn't have kids in school anymore so he doesn't get all that joyous email yeah we'll we'll we'll just keep people updated i think the good news at least i'm going to take this as good news is i think the next six weeks is going to be a hell of a ride and then hopefully yeah we get february break then well then hopefully we start to see the other end of this yeah my fingers we had somebody today tell us and i think this is important for us to realize that we're

130going to eventually have to shift from case count to hospitalizations because case count is not a good picture of of how sick our society is essentially um because you know we don't we don't keep track of flu case counts or pneumonia case counts or you know any any of those other case counts and what we do keep track of is if they get to the point where hospitalizations are on the increase and icu beds are are starting to fill up so i think we've got to we've got to move this focus eventually because as as dave melnick our trauma coordinator told us today nobody is going to come out and declare the pandemic over it's just not like the iraqi war and that was a huge mistake when that was declared uh over right i

131mean so it's not you know it's not going to happen i mean we're going to just ease into a place where we learn how to mitigate this and and moderate it and protect ourselves and get vaccinated and you know and and you know i i'm hearing now people probably know better than me but lots of uh new medications are being developed that that help people in the early stages if you can get diagnosed you know within the first five days then you know they've got all kinds of pills you can take so i mean thank god we've got good science uh what i really worry more about and this will be the last thing i say because it's going to be totally political but but what i worry about is just the continued division in

132this country that's scare to me that's more scary than the the pandemic i mean i think we can deal with a pandemic we cannot deal with a country this divided and that and we're seeing it over and over and over again that scares me one one question i got from somebody um and i suppose i'm sort of wondering about this myself um if parents start to be concerned about spread in a in a class and they say i'm going to keep my kid home for the next three days um or the next week or you know how is that now handled i know earlier in the pandemic there was more sort of leeway with attendance and excused and unexcused absences but how would that be handled now we're pretty flexible sarah honestly we just call

133it excused and um try to get work you know we know we know the kids that we're really worried about with truancy yeah and and those kids are on our radar but um we're pretty flexible um in that in that case so i don't want any parents worrying about that we get it um so um i had a i just had a question um in terms of when we make a decision whether we're in person or remote for our budget meeting and our um you know i don't know if the town of the select board has made a decision about march meeting yet that's a great name um yeah just when we make that decision so i don't know nikki you look like you might have some no okay did you know nikki i don't

134know anything um okay i'm leaning on scott which you can't tell right now yeah i know i know the uh the weather i'm waiting on scott for some inside knowledge but uh i haven't heard anything yet yeah okay now i will say that i was going to say the weathersfield select board last night voted to go virtually uh for town meeting now whether or not they've got the statutory authority to do that uh who knows but at least that's that's their intent is to be virtual again this year so i i would it might be time to get a hold of dave i don't know whether that should be me or nikki or christine and just see what that select board is thinking in in in heartland and uh and uh i'm i'm certainly going

135to talk to them on scotty board too to see what they want to push for um i'm happy i'm happy to reach out to dave if you want and just see where they're at yeah i mean i'm happy to do that too i don't okay they need to keep us in the loop but yeah okay well i'm uh oh scott you got your hand up yes please i was wondering more about that um fifty percent threshold yeah the threshold of fifty percent students in this i don't that's not something i've heard about before and um it just you know our community back two school years two seasons ago you know we had a lot of interest in going back to in-person school throughout the surveys that angie um submitted to our community um so i

136it just seems arbitrary that some if you were at 40 kids out but if you want a few more points that you'd shut down the operations i what what's what is how's that work david yeah yeah so that's actually part of the state standard essentially for uh for attendance it's in it's it's it's in the law that you have to be in session uh at least more than 50 percent of your students so 51 percent of students have to be in session for it to be counted as a legal school day uh and uh we we haven't dropped below that yet in heartland uh weathersfield had one day when they were like 49.5 now what the state board can do like they did during the last pandemic the state board can waive those days right

137we can there's a there's a process by which we can apply to the state commissioner or the state secretary as called now uh and we can ask for a waiver saying that we just did not have the capacity uh for student attendance on this day due to covid and um and and last year they did a standard waiver for everybody uh for uh for up to five days and and it worked pretty well i don't i guess we'll just have to see what happens i think we've had some close calls but not at heartland i mean heartland's i mean you had you had quite a few kids out uh yeah i think we had um during when we were right after thanksgiving i think our largest day was i think we had uh 79 kids

138out i think that was the number yeah so that's getting in that 60 percent you know range scott i'm sure you know this too and not to bring up bad news but we also had a lot of kids out during that tick tock foolishness right i mean we had a lot of parents just kept kids home and uh the attendance rate was we were nervous about that day because we didn't want to drop under 50 and uh and luckily we didn't but i did not know about that but what i was getting at was i mean the service that the school district provides to families is great and in the convenience and um so i i what i'm what i'm asking is um legally does the school have to close its doors if it gets

139down to 55 percent of the children not showing up um yeah because well i mean we could i mean it would take an awful lot of emergency meetings but contractually right our teachers are obligated to work 100 and whatever number of days 175 student days so if one day can't count then we can't make them work and then do another day at the end or i mean we can only have them we can only have them work during legal school days and so that's the problem the problem is um is is the is the service that would be rendered by okay to 48 or four let's say 48 of the population and and then they'd know that that might not count and that uh you know uh wethersfield rolled the dice and the teachers were

140willing to come in and risk it and i'm hoping we can get that day waived but and i think we probably will but but that's why i think the legislature is going to take this up in the first week or so here because right now it's very very uh gray and and and confusing and it and and i know the superintendents around the state have just felt like that's one of the reasons this year is worse than last year because we had options last year that we don't have this year and we're kind of making it up on the on the fly and that's that's really hard our teachers know how to go remote and they they don't they don't think it's the best way to go but they do know how to go remote

141uh the problem this year from a state perspective and a political perspective is you don't have as many parents home anymore everybody's back to work so that becomes a liability and it's this tension between school as child care and school as school and it's a real tension that um i think the legislature is going to try to deal with it and we'll see i mean i'm not putting a lot of faith in what elizabeth told me but we'll see thank you that helps a lot thank you nice christmas tree scott thanks scott scott still has it up because he knows that that that christmas season does not end until this sunday which is which is the feast of the baptism of the lord i'm just saying that i'm not trying to proselytize but that's the

142way it goes don't take that down scott for another week okay does it count if it's just been taken in half and put on the point yeah that's okay if you got it on the porch probably just put a candle next to it or do whatever you got to do out for the birds doesn't count no maybe i don't think it's red i fed ours to our neighbors alpacas depends on how many orders you missed how many orders oh my god hungry i decided it was a good use i i fondly call my wife buddy the elephant if i ever tried to touch that tree before the right day i'd be in big big trouble it's got to stay lit and it's got to stay up so that's the way it goes awesome well i

143think we did a lot of good work today guys um when's the next meeting nikki do we want to wait we need to set the next meeting um yeah and tonight i mean there in the past half a year there have been a number of executive sessions hasn't and some questions it seems like we haven't resolved some questions about tuition and there's at least one other executive session item that i remember from just a month ago um um are we going to do that tonight or i wasn't planning on it but we are done early yeah i don't uh yeah i don't i i don't i mean we can certainly have an executive session but thanks ann for coming um but i don't uh i i don't i don't have any specific updates unless you

144put an update um on on the tuition issue yeah okay yeah so we could have a quick executive session we have to set the next meeting in the agenda first up um so i apologize february 1st um is that what we got uh february 1st yeah okay and the first day of black history month and the lunar new year according to my phone um so we'll go with tuesday february 1st i don't know about you guys but it's hard for me to remember that it's the first tuesday when it is the first so let's hope we all pull this together um and then we need an agenda so christine and i need to prepare a presentation to the town [Music] um and along those same lines i'm going to have to create a write-up um

145for the town report that i have previously just circulated to all of you guys um for a quick look make sure that you agree with my assessment of the year so you'll see that but that'll be i'll need that all done before the next meeting um so we have our town presentation um i'm sure there'll be some coven stuff we'll probably need to discuss yes unfortunately yeah um i don't know like in the past we were doing like um angie was doing those like staffing surveys of stress level and how they were feeling and that kind of stuff so i don't know what she'd be willing to do i'm just really curious i mean they seem to be working so hard and um i know everyone just seems so back as like at maximum stress

146level again and if there's anything we can do so i don't know if it's worth putting it on yeah i think we have we haven't heard from angie or um or uh well we've been doing more probably more at the su level but um i know that kate katie with special ed and angie with some of the esser and recovery updates i mean we could you know they try to be at every meeting katie couldn't be here tonight but we could do something with one of those next next time so i will um something that's been on my mind and christina david are both aware of this um i'm so i read a new book that i'm completely blanking on the name on right now so um but it it talks about kids who misbehave

147in school because they can't figure out how to do the work in school so they um they're essentially just traumatized by the act of being in school and um i know that i myself have one of those children um and um i think there are other board members that have those children um and so some of the things like part of me wants to do kind of a deep dive of and i'm not asking lindsey to do this or christine because i know that things are too stressful but in the bigger picture i want to do a deep dive of our behavioral data and really match our behavioral data to our ieps um thank you lindsey for those of us that blank so i want to do a really deep dive to match our behavioral

148data with our ieps and really try to get an understanding of are these kids shutting down because they can't access their schooling and because they can't do the work that they're being asked to do or are they actually behavioral problems um like are we missing things that we should be catching up on um and this it comes from another conversation with another parent that i had today who um whose son is also shutting down um because of um an iep conflict like it's just that the work he can't do the work um that his iep expects him to do and so it and that causes shutdowns and then behaviors and so i just i i feel like um they i just want to take a deeper look at really what is i think christine probably

149knows off the top but and i think that we we we've done this i mean i remember brittany doing this it's uh pretty staggering data that kids on ieps you know have but they show up yeah they show up in the behavior data right as um incidents it didn't work so look she did a broad look of this kid has an iep and they show up in the behavioral data yes but what i want to look at is this kid has an iep and these are the behaviors that they're showing specific behaviors okay yeah because those are in the book you know they describe behaviors that are indicative of a kid that's not accessing their education yeah that makes sense and i don't want to be treating those kids as behavioral problems yeah and i

150don't i'm not saying that we are i just i think we need to find those kids desperately and i i personally feel like if we can find those kids and if we can get those kids to succeed then our behaviors may plummet and so it may benefit everybody if we can so that's a broader picture i mean i guess we should just maybe put this well we'll put it on the to-do list uh might not get done by february 1st but um certainly um something yeah we can put it on the idea i think it's important and i'm still waiting for my copy of the book to come did yours come in david you ordered copies as well i i was just i i think they have but i was just writing to laurie you

151know i i didn't check today so okay but i'm sure they did i think we ordered you know you ordered five and um yeah if they come in i'd love to snag one and just read it until mine gets here did you order you ordered one okay i ordered one yeah maybe i'll do a book report for the next meeting oh that'd be great okay i'll do a book report and communicate more clearly why this is bugging me okay um i mean i think you're really focusing on the kids that are already on ieps and reflecting on this and i think if we can identify those actions happening before ievs have to be put into place because not all these things may need ieps that's like huge like and that's what we're dealing with right

152now in our family like how like just to have to go through the whole iep process and evaluation process is traumatizing you know it's difficult so it's like how can we make it so we're identifying these this process even before um and then be able to take steps if need be but then also like nip it in the butt if um if we can so we don't have to be referring kids for ieps and things yeah because then it also gets more expensive thank you beth galini uh your mic isn't working again what would be the um treatment i mean or what would we do if we identified kids that and then we don't do anything right so not that i'm saying that that's what we would do but i think we have um in

153the country we have a class of students that have never felt successful in school and until they feel successful in school they can't be successful at school and so i feel like we need to identify those kids and then take a step back and work to find ways that those kids can succeed and i think the first step is identifying them like where are the kids that are really falling down um that look like behavior problems and and how and so i don't know what the answers are so i think that we should just talk about it more so some of the answers are um coming at it from the lens of a trauma transform school right and uh using collaborative problem solving and just recognizing that when a kid shuts down it doesn't mean

154they're being disrespectful or if the kid just walks out of the room i mean that's a stress that could be that could be a stress behavior right and it's educating the staff on what those behaviors look like and then and what they're masking really and if you approach it with that lens every time then you're gonna get to the bottom of it and figure it out um in a more therapeutic way but if or just get better results or get better results or or just um and it's a lot of um i find in teachers don't do anything intentionally to hurt any child right but when a kid is sometimes they escalate a little bit because they don't know how to handle it and and that makes it even worse in many occasions but but

155the system is shifting i mean it's but it's a slow slow process because it's a school is very different than um when the teachers were students in school right it was it was very much you sit and you conform and and you do what you're supposed to or you get in trouble right um school school's not like that anymore and we don't want it to be like that but um but if you grew up in that system and a child then responds in a way that looks disrespectful you you oftentimes revert back to what you know as a response so it's shifting that so we're working on it but um yeah and christine i mean i have to comment i mean our experience you know has been really positive i think the teachers who are

156working with right now is hugely experienced with that um and i think it's so much what we're we're kind of stuck it's like it's time time in the day you know that these teachers are how many peop how many kids are doing this behavior in a classroom that the teachers are trying to be so thoughtful and their reactions to and they are but it's like oh my gosh then they have another 20 kids to deal with and that's right i can't i can't they i think that's why like yeah is there a model that we can switch to that doesn't our labor force you know like the time that you have on the floor and well it often stops your teaching if you're going to deal with it in the right way you have to

157you have to give that child or those children attention which takes takes you away from teaching sometimes um which happens frequently all day long not gonna lie yeah sure and we have and we have systems in place that um where there's help but you know those systems get strained as well um so yeah but engaging um h d adhd that's my adhd i can't remember the letters kid is that seems like a specialized gonna be some kind of specialized method but i'll be interested to hear the conversation around that yeah so let's put it on the identify somebody and help them feel successful and never i still don't feel successful i will put it on the agenda as um i'll do a book report first and then you guys don't have to do anything um

158people can get caught up to where i am um in my thought process on this um and i think that that's plenty so we have a town presentation coved um and then an iep's versus behaviors book report um so nikki do you do you um i mean david mentioned katie and angie but unless there's a specific report you want from them i would say yeah hold on yeah i i i'm pretty sure that uh both of them would want to be there for the book report so yeah you know i think i think you know uh yeah invite them okay have anything ready okay and i i want to be clear like i'm not i'm more excited because this book helped my family a lot and i can see a lot of other kids in

159it and um and i don't have any answers i don't i guess i have an agenda in that i think that we really need to get down and bring attention to these yeah i think that'll be great nikki and and i think as many of us you know trying to read that book um know where to hide i think was the name of the book so we ordered them and then um you know i think though one of the things we're going to find and i think you'll find this coming out of your book report as well because we've had these conversations some of this is a little bit labor intensive so again we just had this discussion right about what we're trying to do but i think you know this is where i think

160the the community and the public are just going to have to understand that what we're trying to do today in this inclusive environment is um it's just going to be it's just going to be costly and labor intensive there's training development work that needs to go on i think smaller class sizes are critical when you're doing this kind of work specialized classes ways you switch kids around i mean it's all that stuff so i think it'll be fun to have the conversation and i hope it leads to something even you know my bias always is at the su level because we have a better capacity at the su level to sometimes to deal because we've got that better base of resources as we look at this and i and i bet you it's not just

161a heartland issue i'm sure it's not yeah yep okay so we have uh we have an agenda um david did you get it i did okay great um okay so um we're gonna move into uh exactly well uh yeah we're good okay we need to vote to move into executive session um to talk about a student tuition issue um and there was one other issue that i'm completely blanking on so if somebody could donate on the language of why it's an executive session so who wants to move scott you want to move okay i will stop recording let me just finish that part of the minutes uh and i'll stop recording do we all vote zero so i hope you did