001All right, we're good. >> Okay. Well, welcome everyone. We're still going to have Caitlyn and JD join us. I don't know about Rob and I um know that Jillen is not able to be >> so and she is sorry. She I will share some comments a little later that she that she wanted me to share. >> Okay. But um uh we usually do a little get to know you um thing right now. >> And for public comment, there's no one on for public comment. >> We don't have public comment. >> Yeah. >> Oh, we're starting 25 minutes later. >> We are. They might have given up already. Um, so what we normally do in this little stretch is a get to know you thing where um, you sit with a couple other board members and
002you all learn a little bit about each other that we don't know about each other. Not, you know, not like your Bob Stambers, what's your job, blah blah blah, but like what are you why did you join the Boulder? Why what's your passion in your life? for you know you could go a little deeper with people and get to know each other and then we're just going to we're just going to talk for like 10 minutes then we're going to come back together and introduce each other. Okay, this is Carl and he's a scientist. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like and this is these are his passions and we'll just try to pick up a little bit from each other something new. The idea is that you learn a little something about
003someone you didn't know. So the best idea is to do this with somebody you don't know as well as if everyone was here this would be a lot more effective but um more people most people I knew but if you want to break up into groups and we can just do it kind of like we're sitting alone we know each other pretty good so you should come >> yes you can learn about you two aren't sitting together you two have sort of gotten to know each other a little bit already >> and Carl and I are like best >> already >> tell you all about Carl's running. >> All right. Why don't Pam, why don't you join Carl and and um and Theo, why don't you join these two, right? And I'm gonna join those
004two. And Mike and you three each join a group. Why don't you just join take a group and join it? Um Shannon and Steve, everybody join you both of them. cuts. Okay. My kids have never really figured you right now. I probably 15. So then she'll call >> and I was like They didn't know something about And I can tell you it's been very You need to give me something. >> I just I just being airline pilot two small children. So someone in the community like Emerging over single Italy. >> We were influenced by all the sort of Russian. part of that behind the second one is already There's something called the Windm. And we spent the house around his for sale for sale. We have more land. So we got tired. Now it's being
005reserved when we had one that was like we have years later was most likeation. Yeah, I did. So I'm serving my community pretty much my whole life. I think I' sure like doing I was so private school. >> How's your background? And I said school. I wouldn't want it done with prices are different. >> So they don't really have like a walk. They just they just have >> they have it all. They have all the games. I have extrad running. years. Okay. >> I I was planning all this crap. That was amazing. Anyway, what else we have that we could talk about? >> No, not something you don't know about. No, I I support that. >> Victoria, no. I guess I know John we've had a leadership >> I'm sorry% of my time you They
006found because they had in fact harnessed so that we actually wood sucks and then the other they'll stand out there and you still have a >> anyway. otherwise >> grand. Yes, she's very good. What is your passion? Each one of us. >> Yeah, but that's what they were. >> There were guns in uh in my elementary they weren't they were no longer speech, but there was every once in a while Facebook. >> I think that's a really important part of it too. >> What is happening? What does this mean? What are the location >> for my mom? My kids all have it. still everyone sports team because Swear that interest beer. something about file. English. >> All right. Good. So, do you have Come back to our spot. Don't worry. One of the most structures
007I love coming with my >> actually being here every single night >> in New Jersey and New York that I saw ruin. drive Mustang. He tied he gave her laundry bag to my mother was doing her laundry girl and that's proposing. So he gave it the ring and then hit that twice and spun around and and hit something and her side window cracked out and then they drove the rest soy home in the winter with the wind blowing it. >> Great genesis. >> Oh yeah. >> Did the rain survive? >> Yeah. in the like early 70s. My sister was born in 76. I was born in 78. >> Yeah. So, my parents bought a condo now. They were original owners and they came to 3007 and 79. >> Oh, yeah. >> Wow. Very well. >>
008What is your speaking? >> It's been a day. >> It's a nice >> Okay. >> So, maybe we all learn something new about somebody. Let's hear some of that. Emily, what did you learn? >> What have you learned? >> Uh, you and I are both Scottish. Yes, we did learn though. I think you're way more Scottish than I am. >> We were determined. >> God, I want to be. We were so cool. We had such a good time. >> Um, Bobby and I, uh, well, Bobby once had horses. I still have horses. Lisa has horses. Uh, horses was the thing. >> Until Caitlyn arrived and then we got a little half of her life born in Saudi Arabia, >> which is kind of cool. their parents taught in American schools overseas. >> So beable. How
009many places did you live? >> Um it'll be quite >> Many places. But >> four or five before college? >> Any horses? >> No. Well, actually my best friend in middle so they we they were teachers. We came back to Vermont every summer. So, my best friend in Middletown Springs, where I grew up, had >> Middletown Springs. Megan, what did you learn about someone? >> Um, I just too much pressure. >> I I learned that training to run 60 miles is less tedious than it may seem, you know, which seems fair. You know, >> it's hard food. Wow. Pretty great. Uh long distance runner and uh Shannon uh uh lake grew up in this place I've always felt was a incredible I lived in Irvine, California, so I know the lake era which is a
010mountain near LA and like what it was like to grow up in the mile high days and confused academy. >> Awesome. Really great stories. >> Arl, what did you learn? Um, I learned that Megan went to a private school in Alabama that less connected to his community than he might have liked or at least in retrospect. >> Definitely in retrospect. >> So, and I learned that Cam was also this cross country runner by myself. am >> um I learned a lot about everybody but I think the hardest hitting news is that Nathan and I both had read the New York Times article about whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kels are getting married in Madison Square >> and I think we all collectively bear some doubt as to what happening >> my husband heard she's actually
011getting they're actually getting married at Snow Farm. I heard they already got married. >> At math it didn't make sense, but it all added to like 13 and 89 and >> Okay. >> I heard they had a big party. >> I'm sure they did. >> But I also learned that in your high school prank you don't put portaotties on top of the building. >> Yes. >> Don't do that. >> And that nuns can actually be quite nice in education. They're not all strict and regimented. >> Yeah. >> That's all we need. Nonzo strategy. Steve, what did you >> mean? I think our group was uh how can I say it? We actually focused on our work. >> That is so boring. >> Well, you had Dr. Mike. There's no way. >> And they started before
012I got there. >> I I don't take the bank for that. did learn that Lang's parents met at Man, which is very interesting. That's a long story about the proposal which involved a car accident. >> I'll leave it at that. >> Okay, Shannon. >> Um I'll just kind of speak collectively. Um we tried to find things that um we had in common and then um which started off with a conversation about running and each of us have experience running um with and without various devices you know tracking run times or not tracking run times depending on that interesting and then Megan asked a really great question. And we said, "Well, we're here about school. So, what was your school experience like?" And we learned that um each of us were went to school not in
013Vermont, um Alabama, >> Missouri, Washington. Well, Seattle, might as well say Seattle because >> Seattle, >> um talked about uh Theo. Uh well, I learned a lot about uh motivations and paths towards coming to the board and then uh a little bit about sort of the budget history in recent years. But one of the things I learned was that two reasons Cindy joined the board. one to get strong leadership which she has gotten and two to consolidate to one middle school which has sort of been a journey >> for and against and for against >> why >> pretty much that it was a lot of origin stories but what really surprised me is everyone like Dr. Mike joined the district and everyone joined the board with one idea and that was quickly turned into another
014idea. You know, Steve was brought on the board and then immediately the budget failed and he was like he's on >> what same day. So >> I I think it was interesting to hear like how people find the time to contribute and the passion that they bring to to hear and then to get a little bit more origin story. But it was it was educational. I learned a great deal about Cindy in my chat too that she's been in the valley for a while now and >> worn a lot of hats and how being on uh being nursing and education and being on boards and running that administration and how everything you know that's very there's a similar situation in both resources. That's very interesting. >> Cindy, well, I also enjoyed the um the story
015of B's parents. It was fun story. So, so that was sort of good. And theo and I I really established I sort of knew it, but that we have kids in the same grade. that my grandkids and her kids are um going second grade together and the younger ones going into kindergarten. >> Yeah. And a little bit and Theo is now not working in a paid kind of a job. She works all like a lot of works a lot on a lot of things. But that that gave her some time to be able to join the school board and her interest in education and water and what was going on with education that she really wanted to have a say and what was happening or have an opportunity to know what was going on and
016understand hopeful. >> I always find it funny when you talk to someone who you're trying in my experience on this board. tried to coax people on this board of lots of people and um when somebody's life meets up with the board at the exact right time when they have freedom it's a really weird person who's like I'm going to join the school board I'm getting in with this people do it numerous people window of time opens up in their life do that >> Dr. Mike, what did you learn? >> Well, I think Lang was the thought topic of conversation. >> I I will say too, I appreciate it that people asked Steve like, "Why why did you decide to be the kind of the outreach guru and write?" You weren't you a math professor? And
017and Steve's comment was, "Well, typical Steve, he said, well, you know, um you know, Megan and Caitlyn have far more skills in these areas than than any of us, but I'm retired." So that's why Steve jumped in and and said I I'm I can help out in this way and let people take it and work with it, >> which has been working out very well. I think >> and Lisa >> um I found out um Bobby's former house was up on Fuller Hill Road and I used to pass by that house all the time and I was like that is a gorgeous house. I love it. It is spectacular and her husband and her built it and designed it. Um, Emily Herd is not taking care of her horses, >> right? >> According to her
018daughter, >> and that she's neglecting them based on what she came, but she's not. She's taking very good care of her beautiful horses. >> It's a very specific care feed in the barn. >> She didn't rain when she had to take care of the horses, >> right? >> And Ashley is going to someday buy a house very soon. buy a house um in Europe most likely. >> England in Yorkshire England where >> um hopefully in this tiny little town called Skeleton which is close to the coast. It's close to Whitby and Webcar and it's uh it's like real estate there is incredibly affordable and we have this vision of this plan where we enable our adult children to experience living in in England. They all have their European their English passports or British passports now.
019So, it's um possible and it would mean that they could take care of that house now while we were still working and having life and um as soon as possible. That's a goal. It's a goal. >> They do where they just move. >> Yeah. The other place we're looking at is Durham, which is just north of Yorkshire. And it is also it's just the prettiest. It's like it's like here. It's a lot like here. Just gonna say that's for sure. At least that's cool. >> Okay, that was good. >> But wait, I think did I go? >> No, I'm sorry. Go. >> I was sitting here. I was really enjoying all this other stuff. I mean, so we're really basically horses. I have nothing. But one of we had had some conversation before. We both
020have interesting daughters. So that was kind of an interesting new conversation. >> Oh, daughters. And um yeah, I think that was pretty much it. I mean, the horses, we talked about the different kinds of horses. Oh, we learned about crib cribbers. >> Cribbing. And so there are horses that um eat wood. And so they're really hard to keep because they chew on their wood and then they're subject to other kinds of problems. And they both had horses that were >> stuff that was kind of Just have one question I'd like to ask these kids. I want to how many kids you have and their ages and where they go to school. >> Where do you have three kids? >> Three kids >> and I and I'm saying that my daughter's nine. She's only eight. >>
021Okay. >> Realized that earlier today. >> Hang on to every year. So she's eight and she's a rising >> third grader >> at Warren >> and then her older brother is Knox and he's 10. He's a rising fifth grader and then his older brother Max is a rising eighth grader going to be in eighth grade. Got it. >> Crazy. I have a nine-year-old daughter who was going in the fourth grade basin and a six-year-old son Henry who is going into a six-year-old daughter going in first grade at one time and an 8-year-old son. Uh, I have Anna who's 20 and Olivia who's plenty. Um, >> I have Sarah who's 44 and Ally who is going to be 38. I think I got she's >> big. We're speculating. >> Yeah. And which one? Just maybe. >>
022And the the younger one just completed a movie that did very well about her experience, but you know, sort of growing up in this area and uh perspective on Prickly Mountain and the architects and the houses that are up there >> was made in Vermont. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Best documentary. >> It's an amazing movie. >> I mean, I'm married to an architect, so we have the passion for that, but it is amazing. >> I see. Okay. Oh, so I have my son Logan, he's a rising, he's going into fourth grade. And then my daughter Lemon, who's almost seven, is going into second grade at elementary. Both my kids went to way more in elementary. >> So my 49year-old and 47year-old Baptist because they wanted their kids to go to the school system and be
023close to me. Of course. Of course. I have five grandchildren. I have Stella Grace who is 12. She'll be 13 in October when she's going into the eighth seventh grade. Dylan who is going into fifth grade. And then we have three other grandchildren for my other son. And then uh going into fourth grade, second grade, and preschool. >> That's a handful too. Uh, yep. I'll be less. Okay. >> Um, I have Teddy who's seven going into second grade and Petey who is about to turn four going into uh second year of school. Both of >> Harley. He just turned nine and going into fourth grade. >> Okay. So my son Sam is 43 and his son Sunny is going to fourth grade in Morttown and I have a daughter who's 40. >> Dr. Mike, what
024classes I mean? >> I have three. So my my son Noah is 29 and he lives in Arlington, Virginia and he has a wife Willie and our only and our first and only at this point grandson Cooper who's four months old. Then I have Mara who is 28 and she lives in New York City. She's in Manhattan in West Village and works for a German bank. And then my youngest Sydney who went to UVM but she was our connection here. She's now in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is uh just received her therapist's license and she works for she works as a therapist for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center DMC. Shannon. >> Um, I have two fraternal twin stepdaughters. >> I do not have children of my own. Um, and one is an O oyster farmer in
025Maine. She graduated from University of Maine with a bachelor's in microbiology and she's practically running the whole operation. >> The other one Yeah. And the other one uh lives up in Burlington and she's a social worker and works mainly out of St. Albins. >> And she and her boyfriend are probably going to move to Arizona next year. Flag staff because that's where she wants to get her masters in social work. >> Great. Not until they are definitely coming back. >> Yeah, they won't. It's terribly hot and dry there. >> Okay, Lisa, you and me. >> I have one son. He's 36. He still lives in New Jersey. Um he's he has a degree in two or three degrees in art. He's not doing art at all. He's an environmental um uh specialist direct director of
026a >> I have uh three kids. Quinn, who is 32, Silus, who is 27, and Poppy who is 20 and just graduated from Harvard a couple years ago. Quinn lives in Burlington and works at JP Morgan Bank doing like technical writing. He's just like risen to the very top of her thing. He's excited about that. And my son, who is 27, who really benefited from our programs at Harvard, he came up through HCLC. He was a mechanic. Um he had mechanical techni tendencies when he was about eight and he has a very serious dyslexia learning disability that is makes life very difficult for him when it comes to reading and understanding words on paper and stuff like that. So we went another route and between Rachel Pots, Paul um Kramer and the whole team there
027he was able to graduate succeed. He's been in Denver for seven years, six years, and he has just come home >> because this Trump time is very hard on him and almost like he lost his job and he's uh broke and so he's moved home for the summer to work for Tiger and do a bunch of things and save money and try to get back out there because he's in love. And I had a daughter who's 20 puppy who basically runs the whole family and was our surprise extra child and is now like the core. These guys know her. She's a photographer. She was brilliant. She moved out. She just moved away. The whole idea of college to her is like laughable. I have no time for that. I'm very busy. >> She should move
028back to to Harvard and run for the board. >> She'd run the board. >> Do something. Yeah. So, well, that is very interesting. I just really need to know. I mean, I just I'm looking at you. I don't know how old you kids. I don't know what you got. It's good to know. You're all based in the reality of our children. >> Okay. Next piece is for Shandel and Dr. Mike to talk with us and give us their presentation. >> So, how long have we had we have some some discussions built into this, but we just need a little guide for how long you want us to go. you have about an hour, >> but I think dinner might come at I think I told her 7:15 that's important right on schedule. Okay. So, but
029if you go a little shorter, a little longer, whatever you feel comfortable. >> I think most of you know Shannon who's our director of curriculum and technology and I'll just do a little bit of an introduction. Um, one of the big differences for me being here and I in our little group I talked about moving from a larger district to a smaller district is we have a very small and mighty team and just just a little bit about you know our roles. I'll talk about mine and Shannon's. So when I was part of a bigger district I had two assistant superintendents who really you know there was an elementary principal who had a question they went to them. Mine mine was really strategic leadership kind of working. We talked about education. I had time to
030do more focus on the academic piece. You know, I had an HR director, an assistant HR director, a benefits coordinator, benefits secretary. You know, here we're a very lean machine and we work very closely. Shannon was the director of curriculum. Before I came, there was no technology director in our district. So Shannon being the professional she is, she said to the superintendent at the time, "You really need someone to oversee this. I'm happy to do it." So she has she stepped in that was not her her area of expert expertise although as educators we all work have some knowledge of technology. So, so the way we work is kind of the behind the scenes piece is when when we knew this was something that the public was talking about, not just our public, but across
031the state, across the country, uh we started talking about this and um so so when Ashley said, "I think we should talk about this at retreat," I started sketching out kind of some flows and ideas. Literally, I wor started sketching on paper. Then I put it and emailed Shannon and said, "Here's what I'm thinking." So then she and Nate, do you mind talking about Nate a little bit? He could not be here at that. >> Yeah. No, he wished he could be, but um he had something come up. Um Nate Jingris is um our >> his official title is assistant director for education technology, but he's really like an assistant I director. Um his skill set is amazing. Um he his background is actually he was a social studies teacher for many years and and
032um discovered he had a knack for fixing things and for working with people on technology systems and so we sort of ventured into that realm and um when we decide when we identified it a need in this district for a position like that >> um he applied and and I hired him in a heartbeat. So, um, >> he's he's very very knowledgeable, skilled, and he's a phenomenal communicator. I don't know if you if you ever get an email from Nate, you'll just be in awe um because he writes very well. Um, and so, uh, Nate and I took Mike's outline and we created a presentation for you. um you know after some editing and tweaking and and we've built in some pauses um so you can process digest ask questions but also have an opportunity
033to turn and talk we have some specific prompts for you to consider for that throughout this presentation. So, we're going to do a little bit of the tag teaming. And so, the kind of the framing I had, and I said this to Ashley, is you know, one of the things that actually it was it was we I lived very close to Gettysburg and one of our teachers dads was an educator and does battlefield tours. the phenomenal historian and knows Gettsburg and he took my administrative team and we did a leadership lessons from the battle of Gettsburg. And one of the things, one of the battles he talks about is um you know a battle where um the the general kind of pulled back and waited and I talked to you for an hour but the
034basic lesson was of this particular piece the leadership lesson from this little portion of our day was sometimes it's a good it's a some good leaders know when to essentially take charge and make a decision. will pull back and build consensus and kind of observe a little more. And and my takeaway for for a conversation tonight is with technology sometimes it's good to be a leader and sometimes it's good to kind of sit back and observe and see what happens. And Ashley and I were talking and I said like we were we decided with cell phones to be leaders because we had kids who were sitting in class not paying attention doing other things sending things and that was about kind of personal technology. When it comes to the larger issues of technology I think
035we need to do some things differently. So I think the board our administrative team which has started talking about this as well needs to really weigh in. And so our goal tonight is really to give you kind of a deeper dive into what technology looks like in our district. So with that, um, I will start out and, uh, I'm a Star Trek fan. So here's one of the other things about me. So this is this is probably my favorite movie. This is the movie. This is the Star Trek um, The Voyage Home when they went back in time to 1987, which is my senior year of high school about when this film was created. And this is a piece of that. Anybody ever anybody here start dark fans? >> So don't by choice. >> Tell
036people you have Dr. McCoy Scotty who've gone back in time to the year 1987 and this guy. >> Well, this is a fine place you have. You have a doctor. >> Thank you. I must say, professor, your knowledge of engineering is most impressive. >> Yes. Back home, we call him the miracle worker. >> Indeed. But may I offer you something, gentlemen. Dr. Nichols, I might be able to offer something to you. >> Yes. >> I noticed you're still working with polymers. >> Still? What? What else would I be working with? >> What else indeed? I'll put it another way. How thick would a piece of your plexiglass need to be at 60 ft by 10 ft to withstand the pressure of 18,000 cubic feet of water? >> Well, that's easy. 6 in. We carry stuff
037that big in stock. I have noticed. Now suppose, just suppose I were to show you a way to manufacture a wall that would do the same job but be only one inch thick and that be worth something to you. Hey, >> you're joking. Perhaps a professor could use your computer. Please computer. No computer. Just use the keyboard. Keyboard. Oh, great. transparent aluminum. >> What's the ticket, Laddy? >> So that that that computer is what I remember in my my one of my favorite movies when I started teaching in 1991, four years later, we had a computer lab. with 15 of these computers. So, kids were very interested in computers. Computers were an event at that time. They weren't they weren't really a tool. It was an event. So, I got one day a week for
03830 minutes. I could take my students down to the computer lab and we would go down and they would I would give them some kind of assignment and they would type on the computer and they thought it was the best thing in the world and they were so intrigued. But it was an event. At the same time, Shannon tried to figure out what this was. I'll tell you the story. >> I didn't know it >> of these little It's hard to see, but you can see little pieces of paper with handwriting on. My first year of teaching, September 1991, on the first of the month, you would get a little piece of paper from the secretary in the office, Nan Rutil, and you would have to record in the class how many students you had,
039how many were male, how many female, how many were white, how many were African-American, how many Hispanic. You fill out these little sheets and you sent them down in the office. So, fast forward to 2022 when I was in my last year as the superintendent in Pennsylvania. We were moving our central office to the high school kind of like here. Um, but we were put my secretary and I were cleaning out our files and we came upon these papers which if you if you're looking real close, they are from 1983 and it was the Pen Matter School District year end report to the Pennsylvania Department of Education on our male and female students, our our all our demographics. It went up, you put it in an envelope, you sent it up, they did all the
040calculations in paper. That's that's how things were occurring at the start of my careers. I don't think it's that long ago, but I'm dating myself. Um, so you want to take it from here? Take this one. Sorry. >> Sure. Um, so each slide is going to kind of cover a little bit of a different topic related to technology in our district. So this one is really um highlighting uh context and drivers. So, um, if you were following along this year, there was actually a bill that was, um, started in the House Commerce Committee. It was >> House Commerce Committee Bill that that Shannon brought to my attention association >> there. it wasn't on any IT director's radar because a lot of us we follow uh what's happening in the state house mostly in the ed
041committees and the finance committees because that's where a lot of education bills get talked about and worked on but this one ended up in weird committee um and it was uh H650 and what H650 attempted to do was um there there's been a lot of buzz lately and a lot of concern concern about uh access to technology, screen time, AI, a whole bunch of things. Um and and are all of these things that that schools are using, are they safe? Um are they useful? Are they impactful? All these questions. And so what 650 attempted to do was to um a couple of things to have a state register of any technology tool that was by any school in Vermont. So vendors would have to register and there would have to be a vetting process done
042through the um not through the AOE but through like the attorney general's office um to vet these products and deem if they are educationally sound they don't. So that was one part of it. Um another part of it was uh to provide support to school districts in their use of technology. Um, the bill gained quite a bit of traction and it made it all the way to Senate Finance during its third read, I believe. >> And this is one that I kind of filled it all again. >> What's that? >> 650. >> You're on the same line. >> H 650. Yep. >> Um, and it made it to the Senate Finance Committee after its third read. It was voted on by the House. the House approved it and um the Senate decided not to move
043it forward because there was a lot of testimony from uh education leaders uh who basically came forward and and honestly gave the committee a lot of information that it did not have. So they acknowledged that it was a learning experience for them. Um and that school districts, the majority of school districts already have a pretty good handle on how to manage um technology products in their districts. And we are one of those school districts. We belong to a consortium that does that. Many other school districts in Vermont are belong to the same technology consortium that works on they have lawyers who work on our behalf to ensure that any subscription that we are interested in has a data privacy >> and is also education. And so the state was essentially going to take on that
044role and have a more of a controlling factor to it. >> And of course, who are we? We're Vermont. We like local control. So, uh, a lot of voices are around the table. So, Bill went nowhere and it basically stopped. >> But the the piece is as educators, we've been using technology and things have progressed, things have changed. There's good and there's bad, but there's been a lot of public attention on the ill effects of technology. this session though and then all the comments we started receiving I think superintendents principles curriculum we we all knew that things were coming along with cell phones but all of a sudden this big public recognition of what's happening in our country I think it's a good thing but it also caught a lot of us offguard so that's
045why we wanted to take a couple of minutes before we go too far into what we're doing as a district just to give all of you just kind of a turn and talk to your neighbor group wherever you choose to just for five minutes and talk about what concerns you most about technology in public schools today and then what benefits or transformations do you see so kind of what are the goods and bads right now of technology so we take five minutes we'll just kind of do a quick report out at the end and uh find whoever is talking to you I like saying that the spark I have a concern about struggle with literacy. books and those concerns too much. It's really accessible was like, "Oh, I got speech spectwhere. So I think you
046know that bullying in our school children at the same time I told them to manage And I was on this thing we had question. The second question, >> but was it from We got about two minutes. >> We have to find a way to embrace because we know so we He has their own >> sounds and then I suppose supposed to access. very wrap it up. Sh will kind of moderate our discussion to kind of have everyone report out the things that you're talking about. >> Um, and uh what is sort of a a a takeaway from your conversation or like a top concern, a top wonder? Um we'll go from there. So we'll start here. >> I think what you just said you about focus, why don't you share that? Um so one of
047my biggest concerns is just losing the ability and sort of um restricting students developing the muscle to focus at such an important time in their life because technology is so distracting and we you know it's very easy to just um be very distracted by it. We did recognize that technology has some amazing benefits particularly like for um IEPs and learning differences that there are really amazing ways um to use it and that it is you know we we can't be leites and pretend it's not happening. So we want to teach our students to use it but not um but not atrophy their ability to think for themselves, do their own research, make critical arguments and write and focus and learn all those fundamental skills that we learned in school ourselves. >> Go forward. I mean
048I I uh I think I think the the overall is is how we implementing the technology specifically in a lot of IEP situations and are how are we working with the kids to understand how make sure I get this right how we use the tools correctly to not turn them into a crutch is it is that >> yeah we're we're talking about how the importance of teaching the students and our responsibility as board members as educ educators part of the school system that technology is going is going to exist. We can't there there's no going back but there's a very fine balance and I think a big challenge of needing the technology in the classrooms is teaching the students how to use that technology in appropriate manner. If you're a student that needs to use
049voice to text, if you are a student that needs is more of an audio learner and you need to listen to stuff more than you know visually, how do you balance how how do you teaching the students how to say okay this is an appropriate time for you to be using this piece of technology but this is now an appropriate time where you need need to close need to need to close the computer. We need to turn the phone off. you need to pick up the piece of paper and you need to pick up the book. Um, I think that's that's the biggest challenge because I think everybody in this room can say that there are ways that either our own children or close friends children are benefiting from how technology can help them to
050be the successful student that they didn't think that they could be. But it's not a replacement for those skills. >> Yeah, I think we were talking about thinking critically. So that what you see on AI, is that the truth, you know, or how do you know to maybe get multiple sources of opinion and to look into things, but from the timesaving thing to be able to zero in and get some information you need and find out that you see the source and go deeper into it, you know, I think I do it all the time. And I one thing we're talking about students also from an administrative standpoint that was my first computer when I you know spalding middle school you know graded school and and I remember before that I was doing all the
051scheduling by hand you know trying to figure out so you had sixth seventh and eighth graders and you've got three different groups saying each thing I can't even remember now and >> you got your papers out >> you got the papers up and trying to figure out who's going to be here and what section and do you know and it was I mean I'd be up till 2 3 in the morning doing this work. So it really revolutionized and when I went to work at Rochester school you know we brought in uh power school or wind school or you know and it was just amazing that I could get all this stuff in here and get it scheduled in and so that you know and really have benefits for both the students and administrators using
052these things so that I had more time to be present for students for for other issues that came up or I would add even even if AI is the truth I you're still, you know, even if a student were to go in and stuff around and try to not make it look like AI, they're still not >> getting that critical thinking. >> Uh, and also I would just add that somehow we have to I think we have to find a way to embrace all this which is very challenging because this is where we're going and I think that's the the biggest question. Um, but it also, you know, it's it's a crush for for students outside of the class, outside of the school and at the house, you know, the home like they'll turn to
053their phone and their iPad and so, you know, it's makes it that much more difficult inside the school to be less reliant on it when they know when school day is over, they can go to their phone. That's really challen. And we sort of didn't talk about this, but I think one of the challenges for the educators in the room and parents and stuff like that is what are the fundamental skills that that computer is replacing. So kids need to understand what multiplication is. Yeah. Even though they can go to their calculator and do it, but they need to understand the fundamental. What's the fundamental basis for that? Or in language, you know, whatever. That's all. But I just think that's one of our challenges is that kids understand it and then they learn how
054to use that tool to help them move along at a very different speed and at a very more significant challenge. But this video here are mostly >> Sure. Um I think we trying to those two questions. We're really trying to to find that balance between what you guys are talking about in terms of teaching skills and but also living with the reality of what kids are going to be using and what what they're going to be doing out in the world. Do you guys feel like that's a fair? >> You can't ignore the fact that technology is going to be part of most of the people's jobs at some point. And so acknowled it's hard when we don't know that. We know that at home in every house it's different how those things are handled
055and monitored and and in a lot of places they really aren't. You know, people are just on their iPads all night and on their phones. >> But I would also call out Tony M just technology. >> It's a really big word, >> but like there's a big difference. We have >> Okay, I spent hours scrolling and I should have gone to bed. That's terrible. And you know, I use chat jug to be able to quickly tell me what this the highlights of one of these bills is, you know, which is helpful because sign and I will go and check to make sure the truth >> but they give me a sign. And so like understanding the difference between the math second grader rising third grader uses after he's done his worksheets but it's entertaining and
056also maybe teaching use of math versus like Minecraft right >> the difference not to be kind of cheap but this is a technology. >> Yes. >> Right. Yeah. You know like if you look at the definition you go to track GPT or wherever and what's the definition of technology it's anything that improves human function really it's such a broad term and I think when but when we are saying technology here you're thinking about um the iPads the Chromebooks the the online things that kids are engaging with on a daily basis but really technology is any tool that helps improve really conveying function. Um so it is a broad term like um in many of our schools we have what are called phone act devices which are for students who are hearing impaired they're the microphones
057that the teachers wear around your neck and then that's connected to speakers that I like about the room that's a technology you know this projector is a technology so I think when we say technology we want to be um really just cognizant of that the conversation we're going to make is about concerned about technology what is what's the thing that we're most concerned about? I don't think anybody's concerned about the console, >> you know. So, just I was I mean I know that seems kind of silly, but um just want to be like really clear in terms of this conversation or future conversations. >> No, I'm concern specifically about what because that'll be helpful to the administration. >> What what and how the other thing so you know I got involved with the American Association
058of School Administrators. We had a conference call because they needed something added to one of our national uh lobbying priorities because there's a lot of talk in Congress about this too. And they made the point so they had a call to get our input on the language and somebody made the point that you know 30 years ago even 40 years probably in the 1970s when calculators started to become really big and people were concerned about people losing their skills. schools didn't institute calculator policies, board policies for calculators. So, they made the point that we have to be very thoughtful about how we're advocating because to Chad's point and to all of your point, we have to be very specific about what the skills. So, so um any other comments before kind of we the next
059piece we're going to go through a couple of slides to give you some background. >> So, just taking some notes that maybe this could be like either a now conversation or a future conversation. just some highlights from each of the um the groups is words like distracting words like um IP accommodations. I wrote down this but like as relating to like assistant technology as part of that um but distractions also where our district right now is engaging kind of districtwide around um instructional practices focused on uh self-direction and another word um that goes with that is executive function. It's actually a district goal for us this coming year that all teachers are going to be engaged in around and technology is just one of those things that can contribute to student just many other things
060that contribute. So we're looking at student self-direction as a whole you know um and then um so anyway just a little little sidebar around that and then efficiencies how can like Bobby you were talking about when you were doing everything by hand now there's like a machine that can do these schedule for you. So, and a lot of us are using technology to be more efficient. So, >> so they're they're they're and one of the reasons is we think we want this to be the start of some conversation because we think it's very important for the board to come back to this. We think it's >> very important for the board to give some direction and leadership of where you want us to go. about I'll say professionally there were two things over the last
061three years that have really alarmed me that caused me to really start focusing. Um the first and I'll go the academic then I'll go into the mental health piece. First academically Ashley and Cindy know that uh I I teach occasional graduate classes. I've done this since 2008, probably one or two a year. And um it's it's online asynchronous master's degree for people. It's do either research and education or some there's one I'm doing right now called the craft of teaching. And um it's graduate students. So it's it's teachers who are working on their master's degrees. And I have noticed in the last probably the last 18 months I used to do especially with the research course a lot of like I would read the paper and I would do a lot of grammatical checking as
062Steve would understand as a professor and send it back and say okay you really need to put this in a form you really need to go back pay attention to your introduction your conclusions your citations sometimes >> in the last 18 months I have done significantly less of that and talking to kind of the the chair of the department uh she said Mike I'm hearing that from professors and that's a hot topic in not just school where I do work but school universities across the country in fact I had a meeting with a parent a Morttown parent who's very concerned who's starting a little group that I met with a professor at UVM in their medical school uh who who has said that this is a big topic at UVM as well. So, it's one
063of those things where I can tell you I I the quality of work I'm seeing is far superior than what I saw two years ago. And I don't think that's Yes, >> I didn't interrupt. No, you don't finish your point. No, it's fascinating. I mean, I I I want to get into like the normative statements here because you're saying a lot of things and super interesting. So like in the past you've seen errors come in and sort of things that you gave feedback on and you're no longer seeing those things. And so is what's the implicit point that you're worried that the other students aren't engaging and they're passing along to AI to do and it's sort of a pass through or are you saying that like the product's better and I'm curious about if
064the impact on them like I'm just curious >> the product's better and I wonder about the process. Yeah, >> that's my that's my question because the the conversation the robust conversations are less and the questions that come to me are less as well. So I I don't have I don't have evidence. I don't I can't say that it's because >> students are cheating and not doing the work themselves. I some some may be maybe they're writing the paper and putting it through AI making it better. Uh, I don't know. But that's I think that's leading a lot of people to really start questioning our students and how prepared they are. So, so my I guess >> I guess it's more making I'm not sure. I'm saying observation. I still don't know. >> The other piece
065though that that I do know so a little over two years ago with mental health. One of the pieces that let when I first started coming here, even at my last school, there was a lot of concern with teachers over cell phones and wanting to ban cell phones. A little over two years ago, Jonathan Height, uh, who actually, my daughter went to NYU Sterm School of Business. Jonathan Height is a social psychologist in Sterm School of Business, he's the one who wrote Anxious Generation. So, it caught my attention through actually the literature that I got in the mail from NYU and I read it and I gave it to the high school principal and said, "You should talk to the teachers about this." And that's kind of what led them to decide the band. But
066what I what impressed me most is he has open sourced all of his research. So, you can actually go online and look at all through Substack all of his research and it's pretty compelling. the mental health impacts that can be at first he wasn't sure they were directly attributable to the rise of cell phones uh smartphones and technology but the the research is becoming more conclusive now so that is something when we talk about kids and mental health it does really concern me and again I don't have solutions uh but I know that we're at I think we're at a point where we need to be asking a lot more questions than we are test the the research and Shannon is seeing this conversation that he's been having with a teacher committee this year. So
067there's some of the insights from mental health. Um yeah, >> she's going to take the next couple of slides and jump in. Please jump in and just ask questions. >> What part of mental health is it? I mean is it the isolation? Is it what are where are things leading? >> It's it's I would say it's a variety of of pieces. Um, isolation, depression is one. >> The social media, the most profound moment I had, and some of you know this because I shared it last year. We had a lot because we were the one, we were really the first school that really did self in a band. Well, we had a lot of schools that came in with us. So, I sat in on some of the sessions and it was always one of
068our principles, uh, one of our teachers, one of our school counselors, and usually two or three of our students. And you probably know all the students, but we had one student who you would all know if I mentioned her name since last year. And she told the story of students who stopped participating in Harvard assemblies because if you've ever been in it's it's one of the most remarkable things we do and it's all studentled and they always do some fun games where they get students on stage and they do you know some silly things. What she said is she stopped volunteering and participating because what students would do they would record these silly things and then post online >> make fun of them. Yeah. So, so online bullying and she said this had a huge
069impact on her and again this is one of our top students like a really respected kid and that really hurt me like and I thought like I should have known like why didn't I know about this and I talked to the principal and she's like Mike we've heard it but kids won't always report those things but I will say that like between the isolation the depression the amount of screen times the lack of focus and the >> bullying, >> the implicit or explicit bullying, it's had an impact. >> And also just social like influencers, right? There's all these influencers out here that are talking about what you're supposed to be like. And if you don't look like that or you don't sound like that or you don't have that kind of money or whatever, you're
070not from there, you know, then it just it makes you feel, you know, kids are impressionable and it makes them feel a little less than, you know, and but they're addicted to it. they want to they want to keep watching the influencer and and doing things like that. So, um just as a disclosure, we do um we don't block all social media school because our schools use Instagram, our schools use Instagram to post things. Um but we do have web filtering in place that that limits a lot of other like kids can't get on TikTok. That is one that I bought immediately. Um, so just know that that we're doing our best to to prevent kids from at least this kind of access while they're at school. >> Go ahead. Um just really quickly um
071the reason why this is split screen here is because I think when we talk about concerns even though some kind of cross over that that middle line when we talk about concerns of technology we often think about these things and these are the social media things that kids can get on and be exposed to the things that Mike was just talking about. Um these on this side, these are um a little um clipped little uh picture clips of icons. There you go. Icons of um tools that we actually use in this district um that are educational in nature or they serve an educational purpose. >> Um I'll just pull out a couple of them really quickly. Um Desmos we use for two things. we use as our um our source for middle school math curriculum
072and we also use for our act 139 uh mandatory K through three reading screener um is through the parents composite that provides Desmos. Um VTCAP you all you should know uh this is our state assessment that is given online through computers. Um so kids have to access it there. Um speech to text is like a tool that you were talking about um accommodations. Um this is a tool that we have available for students um who might have difficulty keyboarding and so they can talk at the computer and then it'll write the sentence for them. And these are kids who are on IEPs and have those kinds of accommodations. >> Hello Kita. >> Go Guardian. Teachers love Go Guardian especially at the middle school level because what that does is a teacher can do it's called
073a display. They can insert a display of GoG Guardian into every one of their students Chromebooks. So the students when they log into their Chromebook can only go to the thing that the teacher has allowed them to go to. So it puts a control around it. We have majority of our middle school students use this. We have it available from grades five to nine but with a sprinkling in lower grades and a sprinkling in upper grades as needed, but we really target those middle grades. Um and teachers can set up these scenes where um students are only allowed to go where the teacher allows them to go. So those are just some examples. >> Yeah. Um, so like Lexia, I know like Carly uses Lexia in his classroom um, for reading lessons and purposes, but
074like it seems to me when I'm reading information about learning and learning to read and technology things, it's it seems to be that the studies are showing it's better to use like pencil and paper and an actual book as opposed to online technology. So like when we choose to use a program like Lexia or anything similar that we're using are we looking at the data and the science behind it before we implement like what's that process? >> Yeah and maybe if we can just wait a second show you a little clip onia. >> Yeah and I can address that question at that time. >> So I think one of the things I'm thinking about here is that we have this is sort of a curriculum question which might sound a little um say is there
075a plan? Do we have any kind of a curriculum in place to help students to identify the good and the bad about the internet? Um because so my my daughter recently wrote a piece about you know the basically the the negativity that people don't realize are you reading actual facts and you know stuff about bullying and stuff like that. So we and I'm thinking about health class. We're always talking about you know health class is part of the curriculum teaching the kids you know the importance about health stuff and it it changes as as your age get gets older. Are we at a point where we want where in curriculum this is an important thing to talk about the ways in which you can use specifically social media for educational benefits because that does exist.
076There are there are aspects of of social media that that can be very educational, especially in very short clips of of information versus the stuff that can end up having a very negative mental impact on students. And while it's not maybe a traditional topic that we think about, it seems like it's something that curious that if at some point there'll be something that helps students to identify that because whether we like it or not, this stuff is happening every day and you know, kids are creating their own Instagram accounts from different, you know, sports and I'm constantly being told just don't Instagram get the in go get the information from there because it's also used to share very benefit beneficial information and she doesn't recognize that you can also just go to a website instead
077of going to Instagram because Instagram is just linking to the website that you need to go to. >> Um so interesting question. >> Yeah. So can I answer that? We do not have a curricula like a a a canned curricula a specific curriculum that addresses those things. Um what does happen is I think pockets of teachers here and there as kids are engaging with technology and things come up and kids ask questions. Teachers are addressing those questions in the moment but we don't have something to hand to teachers that say okay if you're a third grade teacher you need to teach these concepts about uh how to responsibly use technology. Um this is actually a conversation that that committee that um Mike alluded to that I formed this year. This is a conversation that we're
078having currently about that because that also requires a lot of professional development for teachers and finding the time to be able to deliver that professional development and balancing that with um all the other things that are required. So um but yes, we are we we just we're recognizing it as a need and we're trying we're having a conversation as a committee to figure out um how we can what should we roll out and how can we roll that out to teachers um within the next couple of years. >> I'm going the wrong direction here. So this is the to go back to Pam's question about Lexia. We wanted to show to give you a little understanding of kind of the breadth of Lexia and it's something we use a lot of students use. Lexia Core
0795 reading helps students of all abilities in grades preK through 5 become successful readers and confident learners. In core 5, students develop both foundational and advanced literacy skills, so they have the skills and knowledge they need to make the critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn. Our three-part adaptive blended learning model is powered by connecting artificial intelligence with human intelligence through data that keeps students motivated and engaged as they work independently through their personalized learning counts. in the online student program provides teachers and school leaders with real time student data to make informed decisions all without stopping to administer a test and connects that student data to drive the teacher-led classroom instruction. In schools and districts that use Core 5, students receive the exact reading instruction they need when they need it.
080Teachers can easily differentiate instruction for each student using meaningful data. And school and district leadership can see a full picture of academic progress across a district, school, grade, and class down to the individual student. And to strengthen the schooltoome connection, families can reinforce learning by practicing new skills and using core 5 at home. Every student deserves the opportunity to become a successful reader and confident learner. Let's see how core 5 can make an impact on student achievement and teacher effectiveness in your school. So I think we we both have two pieces that we want to highlight and then we can talk a little bit more D's question which is a very good question about the benefits of reading the way we learn >> the benefit of Lexi and I I just brought this question up
081with with Chris and Sarah at Brookside and I specifically asked them kind of their experiences and what they will say is going back to this parent from Nortown who met with me u there's some things that Kids like some of the gamified instructional pieces which teachers it it's probably not as instructional valuable. Person Sarah said we don't have kids who are like oh I'm going to rush to school to get on Lexia today. Uh it's it's not that high interest as high interest for kids but what it does is it's one of on on the plus side and on the plus side of AI is adaptive. So it will, you know, you think of those old tests we took as a kid, those 100 question tests where you answered and and you then realize some
082point they go from easy to hard. Lexia will start you and then jump you based on your level so that you are not sitting answering 100 questions that you know 75 of which are illrelevant to you. It's adaptive to the ability of the student and on the back end thing that parents don't see is it gives very robust data that then helps teachers group students where when I started as an assistant superintendent we did a lot of work that it's called the dibbles test. In order to administer the dibbles test three times a year I was trained. So, there was a group of us who would go in, we'd spend a day and help a teacher in a classroom because you had to spend about five minutes one-on-one with a student to get those scores.
083You would score them by hand. It was a very good test and it gave you good data, but it was extremely personnel intensive and it it it took us a day for one class of what a teacher can do with Lexia in probably 20 minutes. And is also not our reading curriculum. It's just it's a one tool that teachers have available to see on that particular day where a student's reading level is at and then they can use that score to determine um the kind of readaloud text that they're going to give to the whole class or um as Mike said grouping students um who have similar needs. So that way, which is a common instructional strategy, is to have maybe two to three different groups of kids working together on a different task in
084your classroom while the teacher is a freeze the teacher to meet one-on-one with students um to check in. >> So when I said to them, if we Chris and Sarah, if we would were to ban the use of technology in grade one, what would you say? and their comment was teachers would really have to rethink instruction because of the loss of a tool like Lexia, which is one of those in the positive columns of good things that technology does. >> Is it possible to actually see Lexia and actually I mean that the promotional thing was interesting, but I mean like a lesson and what is it that it does in a lesson? Well, I'm studying Italian like I'm Duolingo. >> Yeah. Yeah. And >> although you mentioned Duolingo and Babel, Lexia's parent company is Rosetta
085Stone. >> Okay. >> Which >> and we all use Dolingo too, right? >> What's that? >> My kids have used Dolingo out of the schools. >> Uh we block it because they won't send a DPA. >> Yeah. So if they're using it, they're getting around it somewhere. >> My kids are using Dolingo outside the school. >> That's fine. >> Well, it's there are problems with it. I can see the problems with Duolingo, but I was just wondering, you know, what So, what is Lexi? I mean, you have a a book you're read, you know, I just don't >> they're they're working on word parts, uh, letter sounds. It varies. It depends on what grade level you're on because Lexia does align with the Common Core standards. >> Okay. >> And so, at kindergarten, you're learning
086sounds and letter names. And so Lexia is going to have >> you know little activities if you will based on those learning outcomes. >> so then teach teachers go through some professional development for learning how to use this appropriately. >> It's actually because the student signs in and because of that adaptive nature it doesn't require a lot of professional development because it's built in. That's what actually is really good. Lexi is a really phenomenal tool because it's not a lot of time for teachers to learn. Um we have it so um kids have these little spoils. >> So what's built in? Tell me what what is built in. >> What's built in is when um a student logs into Lexia, say for the first time, they log in using these little um little laminated cards
087that they swipe the camera on their iPad and it's through an app that we have called Class Link. So they don't have to memorize their password um because the password is built into the little QR code that's on their little swipe laminated swipy. So they log in with their little swipy. The Lexia based on the information that that's behind that swipe already knows that that child is in kindergarten. It'll load a lesson that the teacher has selected >> based on the standard that the teacher wants the student to work on >> and then the teacher is just relying on lexia's question baked. to deliver those questions to that student >> then they get recovering from where all the students are instructionally >> and I would imagine the legacy of question bank isn't just made up
088by AI but it's like a data source that's already been recruited by teachers >> yes and every few years like a lot of big tech companies they do it's called a linking study where they look at the test results and they compare them across years >> to see how accurate the questions are in relation to a bunch of metrics. >> It's research based. >> Yeah, of course. >> So, um, any other question? Lexi is, by the way, just one tool. We have others. Um, if you're interested in kind of going down a deeper rabbit hole into some specific tools, um, we can I'm happy to come back and >> or let us know. We can we can visit sometime next year. Yeah, >> I was just going to ask about maybe seeing it happen in
089the classroom like not not any of the confident like student information but actually see you know we've heard from several parents in the community that they're concerned about how technology is being used in the classroom and we have all gotten you know letters from you know as board members um and it might be something that's beneficial to actually see how is it being used in the primary school Well, and that's I'll also just to kind of jump ahead on that piece. It's one of the pieces that this parent talked to me about and it's also some of the questions that I'm starting to ask as as as the person that you're hiring to make sure that we're doing things right. Uh and one of my questions has been and I've talked to a number of
090principles now is you know are one of the concerns raised with me is are teachers using screen time as a reward in school >> and that's something that that our conversations have been in some cases it's very defined but in some cases yes um and that's something that you know principle they've all said we think it's time maybe we have some best practices and have some commonality over what we too. Um recognizing too that that again it's kind of a complex topic. >> Go ahead. >> Um so speaking of Lexia in particular, >> it seems like there's huge benefit to teachers, administrators, and seeing what's going on behind the scenes and grouping kids and saving time. And I can understand all of that. But I think one of the things that my original question is
091that like what is the retention rate for this information for the kids because my understanding is that they're not like with the technology and the games which I can safely say Harley does not like it for its games and just not really enjoying Lexia. No, it's not that fun. >> Well, Lexia doesn't have games. That's not >> activities or whatever. He doesn't find it like that exciting. But like my understanding is that the retention rate for like the learning is not as high when you're engaging with it in like a technology type setting like Lexia as it would be as you're doing like a manual pen and paper type activity. And so that's one of the things I didn't see in that. So have we done any testing to figure out if like yeah they
092might learn it. They might get a sticker. They might get to move on to the next level or however it works but like >> test the retention. Yeah, that would require like having one like two class. We'd have to do like a science experiment one class not at all. So, let's explain. I will say to to the shadow point >> answer that question >> I just worry that we're like losing out on effective long-term education for shortterm benefits of um not having to figure out personnel to which I get we're really short on personnel too right we don't have extra teachers to come >> deliver a dibbles test three times a year but like are we losing out on ed substantive and quality education as a result >> well I would say too to go
093back to Shan's point it's that Lexia is not our reading curriculum, >> right? >> So, it's not there is some of those other elements that are also occurring as well. But I will also as a side note, this is not a rabbit hole I want to go down now, but one of the pieces that Shannon and I have identified that I identified when I came in is one of the vestages of being a supervisory union is we don't have a standard. We don't have a standard >> curriculum >> seriously curriculum across the district. Part of the reason that we have not charged down that road is it's very very expensive but it's something that China and I are at the point where we think we need to do it. >> So >> this is a
094residual effect of merger. >> Yeah. And and that's I'm putting that out there because it goes to your point too. But that's something I think >> we do need to find we do need to make it a priority as a district because and the other piece is it has to be a priority and it's something that is never easy to do. I did it in my last school. uh your elementary teachers, everyone is kind of wetted on what they have built done developed over the years. So I will tell you now if we go down that road you're going to get complaints. >> Yeah, >> it's one of those things that don't take >> this stuff isn't replacing traditional teaching methods. This is a supplemental. It's like a five minute thing maybe on a Tuesday
095that teachers are doing with kids to get some baseline data. >> Yeah. >> And it's reinforcing something that classroom teachers were >> lang and making and and >> sometimes the big words confuse me. Are you saying that we don't have standards across the district for what we expect from our kids? >> We do. We have learning outcomes in every grade level for the content. Now those standards sometimes when people think a textbook is not a curriculum. >> Yes. >> But we don't have a standard textbook series across the schools and that does then lead to making it hard as administrators to follow a scope and sequence tied to your curriculum. We use common core. So that that's the piece. But it's those layers that are built upon layers and and that that reading series is
096something that really is foundational to ensure that you are all delivering a kind of a more cohesive and consistent curriculum tied to the standards to all your schools. Sh's the curriculum person, not me. Is there anything you wanted to add to that assessment? >> No, I would say that's a very deal. What's your question? Um I'm curious about consistency across classrooms and maybe this ties into your thinking about kind of developing best practices about technology as a reward but similarly like are there um are you considering you think we should consider best practices around like you know don't use Lexia more than five minutes on the Tuesday um like are there is there consistency across class about how much these tools are used and do you think that there should be best practices developed about
097how much they are? >> I would say yes. CH's a little more closer. >> Yeah, I mean the the tricky part there is we would have to it does vary by classroom. Um, of course um there's probably, you know, depending on the grade level we're in school. Um, and it's it's it's tricky to write like a prescribed like during your 90 minute literacy block to write a prescribed this is what all teachers in second grade will do to include screen time with Lexia because when you look at a particular class, there's a variety of needs within the class. We might have one classroom that needs more spelling practice versus another classroom that needs more, you know, oral reading practice. And so to prescribe something, and I'm I'm kind of taking it like way far this
098way, you know, but to prescribe something like that, we don't want to be that rigid. We want to say within that 90-minute block, kids need to be reading, they need to be writing, they need to be practicing spelling. Um and there's a handful like um developing their fmic awareness skills and whatnot. You teachers need to be following these learning outcomes for that specific grade level and you have 90 minutes to do that. >> Yeah. And and to be totally clear, I want to let teachers teach and not I wouldn't want to be super prescriptive. um but more like setting up guard rails so that you know when you know red flags are raised when it's getting into the territory of like we're leaning too much on the technology in classroom >> and I think that's
099what I've heard from principles they would like to do more >> looking like kind of doing an audit with teachers and say you know when you get in a day or week you know what's the estimate of that exciting kids are spending on students >> and the other piece that's part of that sometimes we don't think about is we have a very different district configuration wise. So, Brookside has kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade. Most of our valley schools use a multi-age classroom. And we do that because there's only enough students for one group per grade. So, by doing multi-age and putting, you know, first and second grade together, you don't have kids who are in the same class with the same kids for seven years, which is extremely hard from an instructional perspective
100and for parents. So um so it's hard to prescri overprescribe that too. So >> no I understand simply said yes. >> So we this is really good conversation and I do think we need to come back to it. We we've got we thought we were very Yes. Go ahead. Can >> I just say one thing I mean one piece that is a little confusing about this is that we talked about there's so much data here but you're using very vague terms about how much people are actually using this. Don't we have like detailed information about how often kids are using this and is that not information that you can give can give us? >> Yeah. So, so it's it's you need um there are there if you if you go into Lexia, you can see
101students performance and I think you can see I I don't manage that at the district level. I I think he's talking about instruction classroom. We could give you I don't know that. I'm not I'm not there enough to to have that level of detail. It's something that we would have to check with the principles. My my question is I I would be very interested in seeing like for you know average class average you know across different grades different schools like what the average amount of time where kids are logged into Lexia per week per day per you know I mean like understanding that it's going to vary but like we're talking in very vague terms about something about there's very concrete data available and I think that would be valuable for us to have >>
102like Chromebook sessions, right? Show me Chromebook login in the year on year shows trends. That's just an interesting big picture question like the district level. >> Oh yeah. >> And he's asking how much what's your teachers guidelines and I'll just say like we we don't know how to because generally from the board when we're doing something like this we're giving you the not even the 20,000 foot per year view the 50,000 foot view. Right. >> All right. I know there's food and I know we've gi um and I know that's on individual computers, but like what about like uh what are the big screens that the teachers have that they can write out? Yes. >> Um like what happens when they're like do we track like when they're showing like a video or I know
103like we showed a lot of like social media apps and things, but like YouTube I know that's something that Harley's used in his class before. They've shown YouTube videos. like do we have any parameters or policy over how teachers are able to select or choose like YouTube videos that they're showing to a classroom? Yeah, they are allowed to. And if there's a video that they come across that is actually educational, we a lot of YouTube videos are blocked. And so, but if there's one that they come across that actually has educational value, it's blocked, then they have to put in a text support ticket and we vet it. And then if it if we it looks okay, then they find them on it. Um, we don't I'll just say this outright. We do not have
104any kind of policy around the time that teachers spend on um video streaming, access to Lexia, any to we don't we don't have that. That's not something that our district like I can't hand you something that says here are our rules around teacher use of these tools, how often, when, things like that. um because we frankly we have a lot of tools and we could go down that road but that would require a lot of time. Um >> I I know very few very few districts who do that. >> Yeah. I mean I think the overall concern here is just is screen time and the impact on that. >> Yeah. Um, and I there, you know, there seems to be some interest in Lexia specifically, but I just, again, I just want to say that's
105not our only tool that >> it's not just Lexia. >> So, I've jumped forward a little bit just because we're and I I think what we'll do is we'll come back and build this into some presentations for the year. But I do want us to hit a little bit >> there. There was a parent who's also a teacher who talked about giving teachers the ability to opt out. >> And I do want to address that question. Um because going back to my first slide with the little paper pieces um there is so I did a presentation for my last district and this the district the 6000 on the individual lines of data that we were required by the state to upload and all of you know this from going through the budget year this year
106with the long-term weighted average daily membership but we came up with something the larger district more kids something like 1.2 two million individual lines of data that we had to upload every year. So, do you want to kind of go through this piece of where we use where teachers use kind of on the management side of data? >> Yep. Um, so these are this is a list of sort of the major tools that we have in the district that that teachers need to use and a lot of these are used for our data compliance purposes. Um, powers school of course is what's called our SIS, our student information system. We are required by law to hold a record of every student and we use powers school as our system to do that. Um, power our
107data in powers school feeds directly to the Vermont Agency of Education for state reporting purposes and so we do need a tool to manage that data flow. Um, jump rope starting in grade seven is the breakbook program that teachers use to record grades on assignments and it's also where parents can log in to see how students are doing across all of the courses. Um, it helps to calculate uh course scores at the end of the year that then get transferred into our transcript gets graduated from Harvard. Um, smart plan express is our subsystem. the teacher is sick on any particular day or needs to take personal day, vacation day, what have you, um they log into smartfind, they log that time. Smartf find feeds into e finance. So if there are payroll implications with that
108absence, um then payroll can sort that out. >> Just in the three of us, if I take a vac, if I'm taking a vacation day on a Friday, I will submit my day through uh Smartline Express. they'll go to the business office. They'll know the deduct of vacation day from my account and to pay me for that day. Uh and and so there's all kinds of pieces that our systems are integrated and it requires I have to use the system. Uh the same with uh within einance there's a component called employee records which is how we distribute teacher contracts. Uh it's also how when when there's there's another system we use when teachers want a professional if they're taking a graduate class I approve those so they put in the request it comes to me
109I approve it uh it goes to Heidi and Lisa's office who then knows to pay for the course and then knows my assistant then knows when the transcript is uploaded that that teacher has so many credits and they can eventually be paid at a whatever the increment is. So these are all very embedded systems but a lot of these pieces then also get reported to the state phone and personnel. >> Um just quickly the rest of them Google workspace is our email accounts, our Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, things like that. Um transportation we use pickup patrol. If you are an elementary student you are familiar with pickup patrol. Um food service. Erica Dolan has a program that she uses to log all of our >> meal sales, meal counts, things like that. >>
110Hey, Lisa was serving two weeks ago. I was running the register. So when student so even though we have universal meals, we still have to log that because the students come through, they come through. I verified that the name that was right and then that goes to accounting. So then Eric can ask for the reimbursement from the state for the number of student meals. We are required by the state of Vermont to use a system called Vermont um to log all of our students IEP information. Um so there's that. Um so in terms of this question, you know, what would it look like if teachers could opt out of using technology? They really can't. >> Like I I would say to you like we're not going to be able to do our job if we
111let teachers opt out of using the system. There's a different question. So when I like read your mind, right? There's a different question between opting out of job related items and opting out of having a student's dyslexia. >> Right? So >> there's there's there's a difference there. Or opting out of using any technology at all. Imagine a second grader coming into a classroom where a classroom of second graders where there's no projector, no screen, no devices. There's just old good old paper and pencil and chalkboard >> chalkboard maybe. So question here is you know what might so just I want to acknowledge that there is a difference between work related and >> I have no problem making everybody participate in this stuff that seems perfectly fine. I think my concern as a board member relates
112entirely to what are we doing with our children and how the children are interacting with it and this seems perfectly fine like no questions or problems about making teachers and staff use all >> but I will tell you there are people who want to opt out of >> why would that be >> I like pickup control and I like that I don't have to call I can just change my kids pickup and say exactly where they get on or off the And the staff like it because it makes it safe for kids. >> How do you feel about taking a break right now? >> Well, we can and there's probably there's probably just because we want to hit Lisa. Maybe we can wrap it up with this piece because we've talked about we've talked about
113elementary more or less. But uh today Lisa sorry today Shannon and I got our annual agreement for the Vermont Virtual Learning Collaborative GPVLC which because we are a smaller high school we have students we have courses we don't offer except online. So we have students who actually participate and the list is pretty long of individual courses that our kids will take. >> There were 41 students total this year who access real online Dan's um was really >> yes. Yeah. >> So there's there's things that kids do that rely on technology and that was one of the pieces when the state kind of asked me to look through their model policy. I gave the feedback of you do have to be careful about what you include because we do have students who are taking these courses
114who stay in the high school. >> You go to Kate's Garden you'll regularly see that and they'll be working on their computer or on their technology with this. And we also have students for example who use smartphone who are diabetic who use it for insulin. So there's all kinds of different technologies that it is pretty gets pretty complicated. >> So I just want to acknowledge as we wrap up this conversation. I don't think this is the end of this conversation. >> I think it's the beginning. It's the beginning and and you've raised a lot of things that we we need to look into and and and to to look into basically I'm hearing, you know, screen time is a big question. >> Um the types of applications that kids are using and how often are
115they using them and how valuable are they and are they actually adding to student learning or are they not adding to student learning. Um these are all things that um if they have questions that um you would like better answers to or you would like to dive into, pursue, um I'm happy to come back and to continue this conversation. Um and just know that that I just want to repeat something I said earlier that the committee that I formed this year that's made up of mostly middle and high school teachers talking specifically about AI. Um but this whole question of just technology this has come up within that committee and and we have lots of questions as well. Um because we do acknowledge that um there might be such a thing as too much screen
116time. Um and we are also curious around the answer to that question. um and what kind of conversations and also training we need to provide to our teachers to make sure that what instruction that is happening in our classroom is the best instruction that they can give >> and with that so some of your table conversation could be there's a lot of discussions about going peck-free in earlier grades Los Angeles just did something yes and and and our caution is not to say we shouldn't do it our caution is >> to give you the ability to start asking questions to make you informed because what we've learned from our legislature is a lot of times as verers when there's a problem we want to fix it and fix it tomorrow and we're going to pass
117a piece of legislation and then it's not going to work and next year we're going to come back and fix it and by fixing it we're going to make it even more cumbersome and then the next so so I think what we're saying is we want to avoid that but we want you to start diving deeper and asking some conversations >> and and doing it in a way that we can make some really good informed decisions. >> And actually, you guys, at the end of our workshop, we're going to have one little brief section where we give these folks ideas of what we want to hear about next year and we build them into the meetings. We build in it's our professional development to advance these questions. So, this is definitely going to make that
118list. But think about what that as we go through these, think about what we can give Mike and Shannon and Lisa that we want to work on and want to hear about as we go through next year. >> So, we're still on video, so I'm gonna I'm not going to pause the video, but I will silence this while we're eating dinner. Help yourself get some delicious Good job, Sha. That went really well. I've never been in a classroom. Yeah. >> Carl asked me that for some some Carl likes to do some some really relaxing summer beach reading. So that's that's actually a question. I I have some books pulled that I can send to all of you. Great. >> That'd be great. chat to tell me what might be different for technology in the classroom.
119But like that would be helpful. I think about it right there really video. She's gone. Okay. Are are you ready to start Ashley? >> Envisioning is having a meeting on August 18th to gather when we gather all that information before the next schoolboard meeting. So August 18th will be the next building facilities. >> I would add that through all of this through all the negatives that are pushing us to this Okay, I think I have everything set up now. I think I'm off mute and on. Let me pull up. Hold on. I have to be mirroring. I have a career center meeting >> right thereation. retreat. So I don't have 430. >> Did you see it? I saw that. >> So, I just want to be able to tell everybody and tell what I'm doing.
120>> These are five-year projections. There are assumptions built into here, but again remember there are projections based on figuring out what future inflation rates are going to be um compounded >> assumptions. That's what she said. >> LTW ADM for based on enrollment projections. Um and one thing I did not adjust is the yield. Yeah, >> I used the December 1st's yield of 88.49. Now, if you remember with the influx of the 100 million coming in, the yield went up to 9,41, but I'm keeping it low. So, that again is an assumption based on what we got this past December. Um, will remind everyone we have election coming up to make the primary the primary is August 11th and early voting starts in another week. 27. >> Let me just say >> yes. >> We have
121a Senate change. >> Just want to review what we're what our forecast was for our approved fiscal year 27 budget. Our fiscal year um per pupil spending was 16,22878. The threshold projected for 27 was 16,470 which brought us $241 under the excess spending threshold >> using18 >> percentage the the percentage >> 118 >> correct. Okay. >> For fiscal year 27. Okay. And if you remember, for every $1 over the excess spending threshold we go, we're taxed an additional dollar. So it's $2 for total taxation at the back end when CLA's come into play. And remember, just moving the small needle in 27 of 1% or 2% has definite tax impacts on the back end post CLA. So to start the projections, I had a look at our enrollments and our forecast for our enrollments and
122what we're dropping in terms of our ro enrollment projections. We get this uh our projections every year from the New England School Development Council. We call the NASDAQ. Um and we go out to them based on our snapshots. Um and they look at births that already happened and then they estimate births that could happen. >> I just sent that out to the whole board on Monday just so you had it at your fingertips. >> And these are live uh links so you can just click on that. You can see that. So you'll see actually we are and I if you recall I did an enrollment projection back in December. Um and these are pretty similar to the enrollment projections that are projected back in December. >> So first column birth year >> no the first
123column is a school year. So that's the snapshot that we take every October 1st is the school year that we take and the numbers if you look at fiscal year um I'm sorry October 1st 2014. >> Oh. Oh god. Okay. I'm sorry. No, it's two. It's two columns. >> It's two columns. Sorry, I just was giving you the history. >> Yeah, I apologize. >> So, if you'll see um if you look at fiscal year 209, which is October 1st, 28, you'll see we're looking at an uptick of 13 in our enrollment. That's based on >> live births. So we know in fact in fiscal year 24 Warren only had one birth but in fiscal year 25 they had 16 births. >> So I'm I track birth rates actual birth rates now by town. So there
124is an uptick in that in fiscal year 29. So then in order to be able to project out for the next couple of years, I had to take those projected enrollments um up or down and then look at what our ATW LTW ADM would look like to be able to do the calculations. So then I played around did our calculations and you could see we are projecting our LTWA ADMs are going to except for fiscal year 29 will go up slightly. Our LTW ADMs are going to be going down based on enrollment projections and those numbers hurt us. The lower the LTWM the costs go up. So then I wanted to be able to now that I have the LTWAVMs I have um I used also um the projection the inflation rate I use JFO's
125inflation rate that he forecasted in um that he put out on October 25. Um, and then based on the inflation rate and based on the new H949 calculator in terms of what the percentage is going down each year, I was able then to um estimate the excess spending threshold for the next couple of years. Um, I actually ran this by Jake Feldman who is in the JFO office and he gave me the stamp of approval and we like these projections. He was very comfortable with 26 through obviously 28 through 30. 31 and 32 are really, you know, just assumptions. Well, so it's 28 and 31. >> Lisa, can I ask what question you saw? >> Sure. >> This may be for another slide ignorant here, but like when we talk about potentially a new formula,
126is that relevant to this spending threshold like the formula? still a very yes it is >> and that would change. So when we start talking about out years like 30 31 that's where it would be different just trying to keep >> this is based on what we know the information we know now we know it's going to be the excess calculator is going to go down next year in 20 I'm saying next year because I'm already in 27 so fiscal year 28 we know it's going down to 15 115.5 and half percent a full percent of a full percent and then it goes down a half percent and half percent all the way up to 2032. So, I just want to prepare you all so it's easier to show you on this spreadsheet because you
127guys are used to this spreadsheet. So, I projected out to fiscal year 32. >> Button, little right button there. >> Oh, great. >> Okay. So, we know what our approved budget is. Here's our approved budget. our cost per pupil. Um we were under the excess spending threshold by $241. So that was um a plus for us. We didn't need to bring our debt in. You recall the debt um we could use the debt to adjust the debt exclusion to adjust only if we're over the excess spending threshold. And it adjusts the penalty. It doesn't reduce your educational spend. it only adjusts the penalty. So then I'm projecting, okay, what does fiscal year 208 look like? And based on my projections, what I did was I did a 5% year-over-year total expense budget. Now, this 5%
128is realistic to a point because actually this would include to just have a 5% year-over-year from fiscal year 27 to 28. We would have to make cuts to keep a 5% budget. >> I'm sorry, a 5% year-over-year increase. When I plug in assumptions for wages, health benefits, transportation, utilities, sped ed, I exceeded 5%. So at a level service budget, we would be looking at a cut again in fiscal year 28 to keep. If what board charges me was only a 5% increase, there would be a cut. So when you go through the steps, you'll see the everything that's highlighted in yellow, the LTWADMs. That's our projected LTW ADMs based on our enrollment estimates. So I'm projecting a decrease in our LTW ADMs. You'll see in fiscal year 28, we're projecting a loss of 24 students.
129Um and the e the cost per pupil would be 17,248. The excess spending threshold are highlighted in blue for fiscal year 28. The excess spending threshold is projected to be 16,562. And because we are over the excess spending threshold, we can use the debt exclusion. We fiscal year 28. My debt is dropped down to 503. um which would be reducing my cost per pupil by $1938 because remember fiscal year 28 our projection is a 115.5 for the excess pending threshold calculator. >> You just confirm 28 is this coming school year. No, that's 27 one active. But >> so for the one that >> So we've already approved the budget for this. >> That's approved 27 budget. >> What we're talking about now is what we have to pass next year. >> But it's for the
130year after. >> No, it's for Yes. For 28. Yes. >> So anytime you see a fiscal year 28, it's for 2728. You always look at the end. I always work in fiscal years, so I always look at the end of June. So that's what I'm looking at. Make sure. Um, and just to give you a little tidbit of cottisel, um, I shared with the administrative team of where I'm projecting for us to end fiscal year 26. And keep in mind, um, I don't have all my bills from said ed because fourth quarter bills don't come in until the end of June's. So, I'm sorry, special education. >> FedE is a lot cooler. Can we just policy to refer to it that way? >> So if my incomers and projections are correct and we don't get
131additional expenses beyond my projections, we will be ending fiscal year 26. $50,000. >> Oh god. >> It's the closest I've ever been. Is that what you're saying? $50,000 in the glass over >> you mean like you're with only 50,000. The emphasis is like that's a lot of money but it's not a lot of money budget 50 grand left. >> I'm just trying to understand how much just keep in mind last couple years we've only carried over 500,000. Prior to that it was always 1 million 1.6 6 million >> and that will then be transferred into our maintenance reserve. >> So this is how close we are budgeting >> and so we are down to the wire. We're even using our contingencies that I have planned in each school has minor contingencies for whatifs were to
132happen and >> we have loads of those. >> We had a lot of what this year >> we had a lot of whatifs this year. So, I mean, that's how close it is. Now, I'm anticipating that we are going to still keep that and be in the black and not enter into fiscal year 27 >> in the red. Um, but that's how close we are budget. And that's how close when I say there's nothing left to cut. There is nothing left to cut. I have bare minimum contingencies. We're not even going to be able to carry over a lot of money. We're going to have to budget within our expense budget to have money transferred into the maintenance reserve because we need to maintain a maintenance reserve. On average, >> it now >> right now
133I have to top my head. It's it's probably with the expenses we've had, we're only doing what with what you guys approved this past spring, >> bare minimum safety. We are probably at 1.5 right now. I have to look at because we're we've pulled some projects back and held on because this was getting so close. >> And we did get that $500,000 back finally from the refund. >> That's in there. That's >> that was repaid because we had laid that money out. So we've been reimbursed for that. >> So that's how close we are budgeted. >> So that is very scary. On average, you really should be putting at least 8% aside in your maintenance reserve for capital planning. >> 8% of the annual budget >> of the annual would be four million. >> Yes.
134>> Perfect world. >> In the perfect world, but you can. >> So, I mean, so you should be planning more and we're we're planning bare minimum. I mean, bare projects only for safety. I mean there's no if and when when a principal comes to me and says I would like to do this and like no sorry no I can't. Is it a safety hazard? Is it a safety issue? Is there any safety involved in it? You know and we're writing safety grants. Um we just got a safety grant for uh a hardwood because we have an issue with uh the ladders going up to the roof. So we just uh the cost to replace both ladders was $20,950. I just wrote a grant and we got >> got >> 20,000. So we're only spending $950.
135>> So you know >> a safety grant. >> It's called a safety >> granted. >> So I wrote it. We actually had them come out. We had them inspect it and said this is a safety issue. And they said, "Oh yeah, you're right. It's a safety issue." doing. So having it on an an inspection helps us and we can get normally that grant is only 7,500 but because it's cited on a safety call out when we called them to do the call out we got up to 10,000 and it's a grant each year and what I asked was for a phase in approach. So we got it for fiscal year 26 and July 1st which I've already know they'll approve it. um they're going to approve on July 1st when I submit for the second
136half they'll get the additional 10,000 so I can then make that purchase for 20,950 and it's only cost in the district 950 one piece of good news >> yeah so I'm sorry if you continue now what I did was if you'll see I used 8 um 800 uh 8 uh 8849 throughout the rest of the projections based on the December number. So if there's any money that's coming in onetime funding, that would have changed this. And these numbers again are all assumptions. But if you look in for fiscal year 28, we're exceeding the excess spending threshold by $494. We would be taxed double that, right? When you then look at the penalty in fiscal year 29, if you go through everything, um fiscal year 29, you'll see our debt has changed. We actually are paying
137off some debt. Um bonds are being um they're coming to maturity. So we are um there's two small water bonds. So our debt is going to be reduced um by 200 some dollar 200 and some uh thousand. So we're down to $227 $227,928 which then we can use the debt exclusion um on fiscal year 29. So if you see in fiscal year 29 our excess spending threshold is 18485 we use the debt exclusion that brings us down to 18,397. In fiscal year 29, the calculator for the excess spending threshold drops by 1% down to 114.5 and it brings us still over the projected excess spending threshold. We would be $1,55516 over the excess spending threshold. >> And that's per student. >> That's per student. >> Go ahead. Can you I I think you explained this
138when we talked initially about how the debt exclusion works, but could we this coming budget cycle float a bond and have like a increase? Is there a limit to how much you can increase the number that you know 503 and 227 reduces? >> Right. So if we have and I did that on that one of the last presentation I did. I said if we had a $20 million >> Yeah. It reduces your It reduces more of the debt or the penalty. >> But does it keep the bigger the bond is the more it reduces it or does it is it capped? You remind me like >> it's not capped. It it depends on what bond for a 20 million bond you know what my what my payouts would be on you know monthly >> on
139my yearly payments I would add up and it would reduce my o overall penalty. >> But we would still pay those things. We still have to pay this. >> We just don't pay $2. We don't pay $2 tax on every $1 over on those dollars, but we still pay the bonds. So, it's not free month. >> It doesn't reduce your educational spend. It just reduces the penalty. The debt exclusion only reduces the penalty. It's a a measure calculate the penalty $88. >> That's what it takes it down per >> per student. Yes, that's the solution. >> So, in fiscal year 30, you'll see we're actually then >> the system gave up. >> There we go. >> So, yeah, I think we go. >> Um, if you see in fiscal year 30, we're actually 2,152. this
140school year 31 3316 that we're over the excess spending threshold >> and we still have to double it, right? Like so it's 3,000 you have to pay $2. >> You have to an additional so it's six correct and then eight. So again these are our debt actually drops down slightly in fiscal year 30. Um it only $700. You see I have $700 more coming off. I have one more water bond coming off. Um, and then in fiscal year 34 is where I have a big chunk coming off. Um, 2034 I have a large chunk coming. >> Don't worry, we're going to adapt some more. >> I know I know I'm the pilot guy or whatever, but so when you talk about when you talk about the homestead tax rate associated with this, are you are
141you factoring in the penalty? No, this I haven't factored in the penalty because you have to look at what the um CLA's are posts. So that's our district. I'm factoring in the penalty here, but when I'm actually bringing it down here, this is still it's kind of in flux because we don't know what the true um >> No, I understand that we might get some relief from the yield rate, but like in this spreadsheet you built here for the the estimated equalized homestead tax rate, not adjusted for the CLA. So, like for example, in fiscal year 30, we're over by 2152, which means we're going to have to pay an extra $12,152. So, it's going to make our spending for pupil go up to $23,000 per student. >> It will be going up. Yes. >>
142And then, but we'll only receive 192, but we'll pay in 23,000. Correct. >> And then the state will keep that extra money because we've we've gone over it, but so that's not affected in your homestead tax. >> No. Okay. So, it would be it would go up by maybe four cents. >> Yes. It could go up four or five cents. >> I didn't pull it all the way down because I was still working on these numbers. Yes. And then I didn't even bring in posts because I This is what we need to focus on here. >> Yeah. >> This is, you know, here. And again, what's highlighted in yellow is estimates. This is a 5% year-over-year increase. And again, that would be cuts every year to maintain level service to even get to a 5%
143increase. >> We had to cut a million to do a 5% increase. >> So, you're saying it's not sustainable. >> This is not sustainable. Absolutely. What I did for my revenue, I actually I had a boost up here. Um, but I only planned a 2% increase in my revenue because I'm hoping that um, based on what I'm calculating for extraordinary and how we're we're shifting some expenses for sped uh, for special ed um, you know, I'm only being very conservative in my revenue projection of only a 2% increase. So, this is a 5% year-over-year increase in our expenses, 2% increase in our revenue, and you'll see the percentage for our educational spend is 5.6 and 28 increase 5.6. So, it's basically almost 5.6 throughout. >> Can I ask you the assumptions? Did you include a
144uh salary increase for the teachers? And if so, what did you >> I did realistic assumptions from what I'm hearing districts are settling on. >> So yes, and then what I did was for um the support staff. We know what the support staff is for this year 27 and 28, but I did assumptions in you know 28 uh 29, 30, 31 and 32. So they're realistic assumptions. um you know it again it's assumption >> more more >> right and and what I did was um >> um special education um I believe I did um I did a 12% increase to special education um I did um health benefits at 10% um because last year was 7% but the year prior was 12 year prior was 16 and the was 21. So again, these are based
145on assumption >> and he just said he wasn't going to help with that. >> Did you ask the assumption? Am I >> No, I was my head and I can also share this sheet to see all the formulas behind it. Yes. >> Thank you as a question. Um my question is about the 5% increases. So you mentioned to restate that planning language for me because would appreciate you helping reconcile it with this conversation we had a few months ago or weeks ago about this notion that we control 25% of our budget 75% of our budget is more or less fixed you know um and that's not the same as 5%. So, I guess I'm trying to understand like what we can control, what hard choices we could make, right? You know, um there are things
146we could cut that would get us enough savings to cover it, but I guess I'm just trying to understand how you arrive at the five and a half percent and how it jumps from 3.4 like what what drives that and then how does that relate to this notion that we control a quarter of our budget and not the other 75%. I know those are two different things, but I'm trying to look at the fact that 75% >> well 70 it's actually even less than that because 72% of our budget is salary and benefits. So I mean so once we No once we >> I guess the question I'm asking is that we can change it by having fewer teachers >> right like I guess I'm trying to understand like when we talk about like >>
147I'm just trying to understand that part but also just like what is underneath that 5%. So is that really just like healthcare premiums fixed costs? Can you just like unpack that a little bit? >> Sure. Sure. What I did was >> 5%. Am I wrong Lisa? It's kind of what we have felt for the last two budgets that the community will pass and we were right over both of those times. >> But it was 3% last time, right? >> That's our educational spend because we had such an increase in our revenue. >> That's what I'm asking about though. >> So our budget, we don't get all >> So keep in mind, so our budget this year, our approved expense budget this year was this number, 5.4. 4% >> was our >> spend. You have to
148then net out the revenue >> to give me what my educational spend is what I get from the state. >> The education spend is what we say comes out of the education. >> Other numbers come out. There's different revenue sources, federal revenue sources, other revenue sources. >> Extraordinary that I get that. But keep in mind this is everything is based on what the community approves our budget for. So when you're talking about the 5% you're talking about the the top line number >> not the 3.4%. >> Correct. >> So >> because in fiscal year in the fiscal year 27 budget which was approved if you recall I had a large increase. See $8 million in revenue and I had 9.2 million projected for fiscal year 27. So I had an increase because we had we
149did very well on our income on how I'm banking everything. So we did very well and I'm projecting that again the next year. Now I didn't want to over project. So I wanted to make sure that I'm you know 2% is realistic. I don't know what's happening in the future. I don't know what the rates are going to be in the future. We don't know what's going on. So I budgeted conservatively for revenue of only 2%. Keep in mind this is the approved budget. This is what everybody monitors in terms of our increase in spending. They don't really look at what we're asking the state to fund our districts. >> So, the property taxes are based on the 3.4%. >> Right? >> So, that's really what we're asking the taxpayers to increase, >> but they
150they focus on the big number, >> this number here. >> So, here the the line that says total education spending >> where it says percent shing is 3.43%. Is that the same calculation that's in the difference column after FY28? >> Yes. Mean, Yep. So, this is because we have less revenue. I didn't put the percentages here. I'm sorry I missed that one. Um, but we have less revenue coming in. I only in increased it by 2%. You'll see 2% 2% 2%. This is only an increase of 2% over fiscal year 27. We're going to have a a increase in our educational spend because I had a 5% increase up here and less revenue coming in. >> I think that's the So the 5% increase is that 2.6 million there is dollar%. >> Yep. Oh, I'm
151sorry. I just did the difference rather than the percentages because I wanted to be able to show you next, you know, the dollars are important. $2.5 million would be an increase projected for fiscal year 28. My early projections look at almost 3.63 $3.4 million in terms of projections for what our snapshot is based on our um FTEES. Now, now do we have control over 71% of our budget? We don't. But we do there are some things based on um we have no control based on contractual obligations. I mean I have to pay contractual obligations but things could pay based on the number of FTEES. I mean there are some controls and there's not controls. >> Yeah. So >> I just think a basic understanding of why this >> we are do not have control and
152what we do have control over would maybe not right now but at some point would be helpful. >> And it does get a little complicated because we say that lower percentage but technically this board approves teacher contracts and support staff contracts. We say we don't have control over contractual expenses. Technically, we do. Realistically, >> no, we don't because it's >> because if we say no is driving it and we either are going to show up, kids are going to show up with some dancers in the room or they're going to be outside. >> So, when you say that, you get some push back from legislators who or, you know, you said that to the governor. He'd say, well, you know, do a better job of negotiating your salaries. >> But that's realistic. But to put
153a So, I appreciate this. Put a finer point on it though. We're talking about the the negotiated contract for a teacher that's working not the total number of teachers that is up to the board but if there's a teacher there's a negotiated set of jobs and that's the so important distinction but yeah saves money >> right so the I mean the >> salary and benefits of 71% of our budget >> then and I can share this again with you I mean not including salaries um 84 $4 million is special education. Uh our transportation budget is going to be over $2 million. Um when you start adding all of those things, our health benefits um all the total package um with health benefits and all the other things that we all the other benefits is over
154$10 million. Um health benefits alone are $6.4 million. So and I pledge a 10% increase. So when you start looking at what we have control over, we actually technically have less than 25%. Because you know, do we have control over, you know, repairing our buildings? Yes, we have to. We're stewardship of our building. So do I not make those repairs? I have to make those repairs. So there's certain things I mean really what is discretionary are supplies or um possible software. We're not going to choose to use a baseball team athletics are but I mean my crystal ball is in the shop and I didn't see anybody else wearing a crystal ball here but like we can't be the only people that are in this position I I know I understand. So it's like it's
155like this I mean it's just not we're not going to make it till 31 like just >> like no one in the state's going to make it to 30. >> But in mind we've been up against that excess betting threshold for years. >> But but no because we're in the top 20% of >> likeending spending. So we're subsidizing other schools. Not to call out this, but like when New receives funds, they're not going to pay the same. >> Well, when every dollar we pay in, we get 83 cents back by the time you compute the yield. I I totally understand that, but we're and we were before they changed the rules. We were spending more money than other school districts. So, we're not in this position because we have teacher contracts where our teachers are
156making so much more money than other teachers. You know, everyone's in the same boat. We're like, we're all not trying to figure out how we're going to make this happen and the legislation's not listening. But I mean, I'll tell you, the legislators aren't listening. >> Governor Scott just vetoed legislation to cap teacher healthare. >> Yeah. Right. >> And we're not all these school districts. Now, now what I will say though is is we not everyone's in the same boat because some districts spend less than we do >> because English foreign language and >> no I want a fair thing to kind of understand like our like >> they have they have less physical infrastructure. >> Okay. >> They offer less programs. >> Okay. So, we just had this whole debate about music, and I'm not
157not proposing, but we we offer a very robust music program. Some schools don't offer prek classes. They say we're going to pay the required tuition. So, but we offer those things because our community has asked, the boards have responded to our communities who want those things. And that the same things that I'm mentioning to you are things that we have heard from our taxpayers and our parents that they value which is why they live here. So it's that double-edged sword where you Barry is one of the lowest spending districts and they they have lower cost per pupil. They have higher class sizes. They have less programs. >> It's sh they have more kids. >> Sorry. >> So their long-term weighted average daily metric is higher and they have less teachers. But you said infrastructure. So
158is our like we have more infrastructure than other school districts >> and so because we're choosing to have infrastructure over services. So maybe we need to increase services and decrease infrastructure. >> Yes. >> So here's my question with that. I I like where it's going. So go ahead. >> Okay. So I guess what I'm I'm asking. So we're going to be trying to make a case that by closing some of our schools we're going to be reducing infrastructure. So and will we be able to show a savings? I mean the governor was not able to show that. So we have to demonstrate it on the local you know what this savings will mean that question. >> Okay. >> So we did we did somewhat of that exercise when we looked at the true X columns.
159>> Yeah. um bit different scenarios and I had to project out what if if we we did this this this and there there was cost savings >> and so you know the same thing would be applied to do new projections there would be cost savings >> you increase scale going back to the music conversation you compare Brookside with one music teacher in one larger building and increase number of minutes that students receive services versus our for Morttown Weightsfield based in in Warren who have two music teachers but those kids receive less instruction and less instrumental work because and that's where that's where the scale piece comes in and that's where the average person doesn't realize that but just just take it look at it on a principal perspective you have one campus of larger the
160state requirement is one principal if you have 10 full-time teachers which we have at each of those schools. >> Yeah, >> that's where you get you get savings. It's the conversation that the board has debated about for years about middle schools. You have you are saving on your scale because of staff. So, it's it's not just it's not just the infrastructure, it's also the um staffing levels that are required to maintain more buildings. And that's part of the philosophical and financial discussion of the board has to decide where you land on that. >> Sounds good. >> Well, I have one question follow question about the cost. It's more like I I don't understand. I'm I'm always like bad with finance and get impatient, right? It's sort of like when will that money be here? So,
161you were showing us something earlier like, oh, we're going to need to find two and a half million dollars. that that's going to be tough. Like does making changes to infrastructure proceeding with some of the ideas that we've been talking about, does that actually do we realize savings equally? Like how does that work? Or would we put up a bond to like finance something to float us until we're in this new world? Can you just kind of give me the like >> depending on depending on the approach and the phase in approach if there's a master plan and the phase in approach there could be cost savings based on that model. So depending on the model um and how we implement the master plan if there were if a decision was to be made um
162to um you know consolidate and have less campuses um then we would basically develop a plan and a modeling to be able to show what that cost would be and where the savings would be. And obviously if if there's going to be some um infrastructure improvements to move one school into another school, we have to factor that in. What the cost >> for that help you with the 50 grand in the bank account? That's I'm trying to understand how these that feels like out years. >> It won't but it but knowing what the costs are and what the ultimate goal is. Yeah. >> Spend now have a return on investment in the end. Yeah. um that there will be some you know challenges and some tough decisions that we'd have to make but if with
163justification and a good business plan and to realize the return and investment on savings in the long run. >> Yeah. >> Um if we have it all laid out, share it with the community >> and to be able to say here's now if we are status quo this is what's going to happen. It's going to impact taxes. you know, there's no if, ends, or buts. If we don't change anything, we're looking at, you know, $8,000 and just believe we're 30 32 >> based on these assumptions. Again, these are just assumptions. >> If if we don't do anything, we're not going to be affording, you know, property taxes, right? What's going to help at some point is is what that $8,000 and change based on assumptions means in people's pocketbooks come tax time. >> Yeah, I
164can do it but again it's based on CLA. >> No, no, I know but yeah, >> it's based on I mean I can there's still going to be benefit. So and the the other thing I mean there's all these ideas you know candidates running that we could bring more revenue into the state different ways but our state is basically bankrupt. So >> yeah, that's upside down. We don't keep throwing money down, >> but when just to get back to your point, it might cost us money, >> but see the ultimate goal to return on investment and what do we want to look like and where do we want to be? >> So I guess that's all. Go ahead. >> If we pick on so like let's say let's say we do this and we have
165to we get a bond approved, right? that that debt load is gonna we're going to be over the excess spending threshold with our bond. It's like we know we're going to go over that number, but we're not going to be paying a penalty because our bond payment is going to be so big that all the money we go over the excess spending threshold is going to be our debt up. >> It'll be and it'll reduce the penalty. >> Yeah. I mean, well, hold I mean hopefully it'll be we're going to like you said, we're going to have to spend money to have a savings in the future. We're gonna we're gonna we're going to cut our per pupil spending because of you know I understand that money moves with kids right these kids the consolidated
166schools there's a certain amount of money that's the building a certain amount of money it's so it's not we're not going to just close the school and like oh yeah that school cost 10 million we're not >> we're going to save three and take seven with it not real numbers at all but you're right >> so we're going to pull we're gonna have to pull a big bucket it's going to be a big payment and it's not going to be fun and maybe we can find other ways to finance it. I don't know how that works, but we're going to we're hopefully avoiding >> any and the other piece that you're going to have to and we'll have we said we we told the building use committee we would go into more detail with this
167because Lisa and I have to brush up on all the numbers, but yeah, when you appoint a board member to a merger study committee, the state is incentivizing us merging districts, not just us, but districts merging with other districts and incentivizing what bonds will be. One of the challenges with a district like us is we're a high spending district. So a lower spending district is going to be very leerary about saying yes, we want to merge with a higher spending district. But there's incentives to reduce our number of buildings. We can make ourselves innovate for a merger. If then mergers could be forced on us. We don't know that if it doesn't work, you know, if we're stubborn and hard-headed collectively across the state, then it's and people aren't sliding into mergers. They'll force the
168they're gonna force it because it doesn't if it doesn't move that well that's just what I >> right now we're not attract >> we're not >> Can I ask one other question? The nuclear option >> our spending's out of control. We can't we can't do anything about it and we can't get a budget passed. So we're forced to work with the last year's budget. How long like we we what would we go bankrupt? 87% >> only 87% is is allotted to us until a a budget is passed. >> So if we can't get the if we can't get towns people to pass the budget, our school system would we would it would grind to a halt. We wouldn't have any money to fail a budget vote and we have another another >> and we would
169have to jettison very quickly jettison >> lots of folks >> the baseball team. >> You already had this conversation. We lost some votes and then we talked about how it would compound. Then we owe interest on all the debt we'd have to take out to pay for things. All these fiscal hawks that are burning down our budget or we don't have those cuts. We can't get to that number. We we've cut it right force our hands to close our schools. It's the only But what you're what he's asking is we we we're only operating at 87%. We're not going to get a budget fast. How do we move forward? You have to cut until you get a budget hand. >> But we but we're at like mandated program. We don't have >> This gets back
170to the whole 2575 what can we cut? I hear what you're saying. It's like >> right then you do a deep dive and you cut >> We're not required to cut transportation, right? >> We're not required to provide school buses, right? We cut school buses and then everyone has to drive their kids to school. >> There are certain things. Yes. Right. Those are the things >> you can and and there's things like you know it's not good the the hit or miss >> reducing you know classes but you would there have been cases where you would you could say we're going to close this class we're going to keep all the schools open we're going to close this class like they did a number of years ago and make them go to these two schools
171>> and reduce teachers that way >> happens with the kindergarten that's just one They're not happy, they can't just go to the tint. >> So, I mean, we're we're stuck against the wall. >> We have to we have to get out. We have to get the we have to get the community to get behind us and understand the severity of the situation. So, if we don't, the nuclear option is a terrible option that no one wants regardless of who they are. >> I can tell you that people still don't fully even people in the district and we've we've worked really hard to educate. I've worked hard, the board worked hard to educate people and there are still people who think that we've made reductions because we just want to cut >> that personal agenda and
172we have chosen schools and have something that we we have some we're going to do this. It's like I don't know a more reluctant group doesn't want to affect that kind of negative change then it is upon us to make it a positive. I mean this is >> Steve. So I mean if this is the route that you want to go the consolidation route you have to sell it and what people understand the most is their tax rates. So I think on the last line of the spreadsheet you didn't put in tax rates and the CLA and stuff like >> well I put the district tax rates but I didn't put the town tax rates because it would be CLA. That's what people need to see. >> I think we'll need best we'll need best
173estimates of those with a clear understanding of what the assumptions are. Best estimates for tax rates if we just stay divorce estimates if we go through some consolidation plan with the bond. >> Yeah, it may be all the above. And you know, it may also be that the board decides to go to go through with whatever the budget is and and very explicitly lay out >> the damage that would be done >> if if it's not passed and and there's all kinds of options you have, but that but I think you have I think it has to be you got to plan for all the above. >> So is then is there a reason why we wouldn't start in public sooner than what we said? I mean that is there a reason I I understand
174to drop it the information is going to be coming in. Would it make sense and I guess this might be the form of a action item that we consider having some kind of special meeting over the summer? >> Not over the summer. >> I'm sorry. If we are telling people that we're cutting a school, they're going to churn for three months before they hear anything from us. They need to stand up. But I'm not saying three months. I'm saying that from now, which is June 24th through the month of se July, we can't do it. >> No, but August, what about >> Well, we can do it in August. >> We have a billing abuse meeting on August 18th. We can talk more about it then and we can be more can have more information.
175I already I already see many many meetings the next year way more than I think I think one thing we could do is >> just to maybe in the meantime maybe work with Lisa and Lisa to to filter some information out there and I know not everybody agrees with valor we can use frontboard form but we could use that time over the summer to get the information out there about what >> and we can talk to people >> but we can't put information out there if we're not moving this forward right I think Lisa contains oh you can't get some information out there. My experience and I get your frustration, but after four years here, >> summer sounds like people care about school. Am I wrong? We have made meetings and scheduled, you know, to
176to express to the public our reasonings behind whatever behind wanting to do a big bomb for Harwood or wanting to have a meeting to talk about something special. And in this time of year, it is very hard to get the public's attention. We we think they're as worried as we are. I'm afraid that they don't. >> Well, I I would say this is my experience, Ash, because we we tried having a budget committee and that was not extremely productive in July. That's one piece. The second piece I've learned living in Vermont is people do really dial back in the month of July. Yeah. >> The third thing I learned is I was talking to someone today because people always say when they say, "Oh, you're the superintendent." Uh, "So, did you finish school on Friday,
177too?" And then, and then I remind people that, okay, you have to remember that I am the CEO of a $50 million corporation. and the CFO of that $50 million corporation has to number one get a little bit of rest and then number two there's a whole lot of internal planning and roll over and preparation for audit work and preparation for new contracts and payroll work and when when you take I can tell what happened but when we had the the just being very frank when we had the finance committee it fell all these budget discussions fall on Lisa degenerate and she doesn't have time to do her rest of her job, get rest, and do the prep work that's the intense prep work that's necessary. So, there is when when I started here, the
178the board chair at the time said, "Mike, the board takes off in July, and we do that because it's necessary because of our size and because of the very consolidated school year we have." So that's that's just my >> okay >> I want to make clear we we we have released a great deal of information to cut down on the churn. We've informed people that it's one valet elementary school which means >> um I think there's still going to be churn but to that end I do think there are things we could do this summer that take very late lifting. I know waterberry select boards already asked the school board members to come in and talk again on September 14th. It's already on their calendar. all the other towns here could make an appointment with
179your town flood board for September. >> I would do that. I'll do that. We can do that. >> So, there are definitely things we can do between now and then to start working. >> It's on our communication plan, but when we met as a communications team, I was told I had a lot of planning work happening in the month of July so that we could launch it in August. The challenge I'm seeing is I don't I involve Lisa, but we we can't meet unless the schedule we're not meeting in July. We're not going to get prep work done until August. So that won't be ready September. >> What is the prep work? That's the calendar. What else is there? Just curious like just pieces that we were just starting to talk about music committee that
180weren't you know this five year revisions out there, but what that actually looks like it's still >> phasing of it, >> right? But I guess the other thing that um Steve mentioned that the tax rate is really important to people. The other thing that I think really for better or for worse being frightened really helps people and saying if we keep all of our schools open we're going to have we our deferred maintenance costs are already at 100 million. Keep them all open. Those are just going to get worse. The schools aren't magically going to fix themselves. We can't fire teachers to some extent because we still have classrooms in every school. Like we're going to have to cut other things. What we're going to have to cut to make this work is music, sports,
181transportation, like all those things. We need to like use that as >> as leverage for better for worse. So, I know we want to keep this really positive, but I do think there's so many upswings for what the kids will experience, but I do think we need to be prepared with all the fire and brimstone. >> I I also maybe it's just my own I love that quote, but I do think the climate has changed versus 2017. I mean, I I I think, you know, I've bounced this off some people just hypothetically. Um, and I've had there's been no push back and I think, you know, a lot of people turn to be upset. I I think you we got to prepare for the worst and hope the best. But I do think a lot
182of people out there are ready for this and >> I think there's different groups in our communities that look at a different different age group. >> Sorry about >> I'm so I just one of the things I'm sitting here and thinking about everybody's always concerned should say everybody else there is a lot of concern about program cuts. Every time we talk about budget cuts, we have to talk about program cuts. And this this conversation about consolidation, correct me if I'm thinking wrong, would help to maintain many programs that people want to see in the schools. >> That's right. And that I think is going to be a very important piece that yes, we are talking about reducing the number of elementary schools, but here are the things we're going to be able to maintain because
183if we don't make these drastic reductions in the number of buildings, then that means that we basically has anybody watched u Matilda the Matilda movie? Yeah. Mrs. Crunch Bowl at that school, right? That's what I think about is that we would become a school district where it is just you walk into the classroom, you have your math, you have your science, you have your history, you have your lunch, you have the gym, and you go home. >> And that's not what our schools are about. There's so much more schools. But if we don't make this help people to realize that we're not actually trying to take things away from our students, we're trying to make sure that we can maintain. >> That's going to be the key to this. And >> I just want to
184make sure that this is something >> that's the message that the message >> it's not just maintain. Yes, you're going to need a reduction in the number of staff. Yes, >> that's that's unfortunate. I have had very very difficult business decisions myself in these last two months that were very hard to make, but it it was for the better good of the long-term picture. And that's what we're trying to do. keep this >> and I would say to that point too things like first thing is the teachers that have struggled the most are teachers who are working very hard because we've already reduced supports in their building and that's it it is our smaller our smaller buildings that that's one of the challenges the second piece from talking to people who've gone through this and
185I mentioned this to the building use and I would say JB put out a thought but there's no And we emphasize there's no plan. This is just kind of a thought of things we really need to discuss as hard questions. The thing I learned from speaking to districts in Vermont that have gone through this process is get out early. Yes. >> Not with the plan, but with more of a a conversation of these are the realities kind of like Ashley and Cindy did with the bond issue and engage people in >> effective. >> What are your thoughts and dreams? What concerns you? What do you want to see? Because there there there is no five-year plan right now, but there needs to be very quickly. And before that plan can happen, you do need to
186thoughtfully engage people because you can't you can't you can't >> drop something. It has to be and and by getting input what we learned from the bond process, we didn't get to a bond, but what we learned is >> we didn't know nearly as much as what pe interested people until we went through that process. So, >> and we were wrong. We didn't have people had totally different focuses than we were even thinking about. We learned a ton. And I think that is the way we have to go to every town. We have to ex expose the board to the communities over and over and over again. Um I have seen it sort of work with the bond. We've developed some there was a curiosity and there were people that we had meetings that had
18710 people. We did about I think we did eight or nine meetings >> went to every building. >> Yeah. And we and we had a few like we had one um some big ones cross it was big and face had 50 people you know want to talk about it want to hear about it want to be infused by it like it can be done >> and that's the planning work that needs to happen now and that's so what we and what was effective is >> Ashley and Cindy as the committee chairs went to every meeting Lisa and I went to every meeting and then the local >> great people in Tim >> and and the local board members members from those towns were there >> and it was it was just good conversation with a
188very short message >> to Kaitlin's point though we don't I mean we don't have the time to pass around all you know >> you're too much we don't need to get out there right away eiidoid >> crafting whatever message it is we're going to be spreading because like if I turn around >> people in town watch these movies sure >> and they watch the vision very carefully and they're having conversations They are and we should be part of those conversations because they're going to turn. >> Exactly. >> That's part of that's part of why we're trying to talk about this tonight. So you have you at least have some confidence in your response that we're looking at a financial crash over which we have no intention to. We are looking at developing a five-year plan
189that by necessity we need to at least look at the issue of consolidation. This is not just about closing Northtown school, which I know over the past year has been a big issue. This is really looking at our district, looking at creating new district that's composed in six towns. If people move to this town because there's a great school district and they come to a school district, they're not coming to little TV schools anymore. We're just not doing we can't do it anymore. that that's the response I have and that we understand that this isn't something we can do in a minute that it's going to take us a fiveyear plan to take a look at it and how we're going to do it and then we plan to start communicating with our towns in
190September. >> Yeah. And then you can respond that. So you can just be you need something like what can you be saying when people come to you and say geez just shoot me >> we need to insert ourselves into you know in the music I mean I think an example is what happened with the conversation on music at our last board where like >> there I mean I wasn't involved in any but there was one >> something that got out and suddenly there were you know >> rumors spreading that weren't necessarily truthful tonight. Don't we think that's what's going to happen though? >> That's what always that's everything that's going to happen. Swallow deal with Let me say the other thing. I really did do this with the Ducks Waterberry deal. Took us four years.
191It did not take one. We didn't do it over the summer. We just started getting it out there. What if we merged with water barracks? Just that alone caused buzz. The letters we got as a school board were crazy. And then at some point later on in the process we had meetings between moderate industry and people but it just t it took us four years to do one school consolidation just doesn't happen quickly. And I think a critical distinction between um the situation like the music situation is if we put out that we are there will be opportunities for community participation in the fall that we're not going to make this decision >> in a bubble in a bubble. I think that's what sort of incites the panic is like the decisions being made tomorrow.
192>> They're closing our school. They're going to say that anyway because people are only going to choose to pay attention to what they want to pay attention to. >> You'll get snippets of information. Just remember, you know, what happened with the whole preschool stuff. you know, before anything was announced about preschool and how things were were going to be made available and how we're doing the preschool hubs, everybody thought we were just mixing preschool, >> right? Right. Because that's that's what happens. And I understand we want to try to get ahead of those things. But also to play the devil's advocate, we don't have the freaking answers right now. And so if we're trying the best that we can do is saying that hey >> the conversation has started >> the the the thought process
193has started >> and we plan to start actively researching viable options starting in September fiveear phase >> for a phase plan and no matter what people are going to be upset no matter what we're going to get emails about like how crappy this decision is and No matter what, there's going to be the push back. But I think what would be even worse is if we try to relay information now before we have even a concept of the plan other than we know that we need to close some schools to provide a better and more robust education system and to prevent taxpayers from just going bankrupt and having to leave Vermont. it. >> Go ahead. >> Um, yeah, I wasn't proposing that we have a meeting right now, but I but I um think that
194given people's calendars and what happens and it might be good if we had a date in September through 9 so we could tell people that we're going to have, you know, we talked about it last year. Nobody >> think people show up to the meetings. >> Well, nobody comes to the annual school meeting anymore because there's nothing. But this it it kind of along the lines of what you were talking about Cindy where there was a you know you have a potluck you invite people in you make and we plan for it if we knew what the date was going to be in September. We could plan a whole bunch is working on a calendar of the release of like you know of interaction but we can put things on we can put some dates
195on the calendar for meetings. I think that's a great idea. Um, we can we could set up seven town six towns of meetings if we want to do that as part of that >> and that's something we can email about during the summer. We're not having a conversation about we can say hey >> these days >> these are the dates that we're talk like there's you know those are the kinds of things that we can be loads of room for input you're not gonna we're not going to go without talking >> so I like the one thing I just was going to say is the takeaway in the message is status quo is not sustainable right yeah >> so I mean we have to do something in terms of otherwise it's double taxation So it's
196status quo. >> We have 5% yearon-year increases >> population static at best and we're about to get huge penalties and still bankrupt. >> Correct. But even at 5% still looking level service at cuts at least a million dollar >> right >> status quo is not sustainable. >> Those cuts don't exist. JB, thank go >> in my mind it's obviously incredibly important to get get out to each town and get their input and and feedback. But in the end, people are going to be pushing back. Some aren't, some won't. But I think, you know, this forward, if we're going to go, if we're going to go down this road, we got to take a hard look at the numbers. And I think we already have a ballpark idea of what the best best path forward is.
197And I just I don't want to get caught up in this whole melee of, you know, people coming in with their, you know, protesting this and that when we know we either we're going to go down this road, know we're going to make we're making the right decision. Uh so I think the >> community the community meetings really need to be just kind of like introducing all of this and getting some feedback. But >> I think we need to set a course at the beginning >> for the most part. Yeah. and and pursue that and stay on that road or we're just going to get lost if >> you along those lines. I mean, one huge question I have is the district consolidation. Now's the time to ask that, right? Because like it's relevant to
198how we're consolidating our facilities in our own district is relevant to the conversation district consolidation, which is part of the current policy, whatever this thing is we're in. So I guess I'm trying to understand like do we need to exhaust that process for ourselves? Hey, we look at everybody. We look left, we look right, not interested. Let's move forward. >> Or do we want to move forward and with a contingency because it makes us more attractive. I just would love us to at least have a general sense of that relationship. >> Yeah, I think what I think what you're saying is I I think we need to formulate a plan. I think we need to have a plan when we go out. I don't I don't I don't see us going out going out to
199the different towns and getting feedback and then coming up with a plan because that's not the community give us feedback why we should keep our little schools open. I think we're asking the community for feedback. It's like what do you want? >> What do you do most important thing? I mean that's >> Let's hear from Steve. This man's been trying to talk. I mean, uh, >> forget about that. >> I kind of agree with Caitlyn that the work had been done in July because people have been talking about what sort of message do we want to get out over the summer and you know the messaging most of the activity will happen in the fall, but that's a real message to us to get out. So, I'm going to suggest that uh I set up
200a meeting about the public outreach committee and David and I will nobody else has to attend. We do just work on this. The only way that we can do it. >> They said we think that's a good idea. >> We think it's a good idea from the building and visioning committee there too. grill. >> No, we Lisa and I agree. We think that's a good idea. >> I can't you can come on >> now. And and you can so just to remind everyone open meeting law you can you can re you can do this you can open meeting law allows you to email if you're setting up a date for a meeting, >> right? >> You can you can email back and forth on that. So that's not We'll set up the time and then
201I'll I'll send you to the board >> and then you can de you two can meet with Lang and debrief the rest of the board. >> Yeah, the 20th of July works for me. >> On vacation when you go on vacation still meet >> July 20th is great. >> You can meet Zoom just zoom >> not we get to July 4th >> and you're basically looking to do a work meeting. So, I mean that's I think that's I think that makes a lot of sense. >> Yeah, July 20th would be >> Yeah, because you guys like Mondays, right? That's your big meeting days. >> What's that? >> Well, school board have on Wednesdays. You know, Mondays Monday the 20th >> July 20. >> Let's let's let's think about July. >> Oh, that's a good point.
202Um, look, let yeah and I will do some email. >> Just keep us because we'll have to we'll have to do some kind of just let us know we can figure that out. >> All that stuff. So, we need do you need to know about it? >> You don't have to go until a few days before. >> Maybe I I think I have to let people on the board know that. >> Yeah. Tell your thing. Sorry. >> I I at this point seems like a good junction. I um my husband and I have talked for years about going to Italy and he wanted to go and I you know we've gone through various things but I find we got to do it because we're not getting any under. So my plan is to be off
203the board by January. Um I would like to see us get a Weightsfield rep to replace me by the fall if possible because then they have a chance to really see the workings of what's going on. But I will make a commitment as a community member and I will continue to be involved definitely until we leave. >> It might take us longer than >> well Bobby and I are going to work with somebody. I'm going to have Bobby, >> right? Okay. So we we're some things and we all she would be wonderful and we I also have um Kayak >> thinking about people ones. Yes. So, we'll we'll do the best we can to get, you know, get somebody on board. And I'm sorry that, you know, it's just we're not getting any younger if
204we don't do it. >> No one can condemn you wanting to break away. >> I mean, I've got a lot I'm doing to do because I got involved in a lot of different things, but I realized >> I know you've been on a burn. I've been on a burn, but I've, you know, it's like, okay, um, I got to make time for my family, and we're talking about going to Italy for a year. >> So, that's we're hoping that it'll be have two bedrooms because everybody wants more, >> but um, yeah, anybody's welcome to come visit us. Well, we did have a little thing, but we've run out of time and we're all tired. So, I think we're going to wind up our meeting and wind up our school year at least until July when
205Caitlin gets back from vacation. >> Remember that time you were insisted that we meet in July? You were on vacation. Yes, I'm spending most of July here. I'm going to Berlin Copenhagen. >> I'm spending most of July in South Ducks, Vermont. >> By the way, we're empty. European officer vacation is in July.