December 18, 2024 School Board Meeting

001Okay, with that done, we will move on to focus on student learning and student spotlight. Great. Thank you so much. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here. It is my favorite time of the board meeting where we get to where I get to share some of the wonderful teaching and learning happening. And so with that. I'm going to welcome Chamberlain art teacher Jenny Goodrich and some of her students. Jenny received the incredible honor where she is and our students and their ornaments, which feature a variety of diverse perspectives. are on the national tree in Washington, D.C. And Jenny recently had the honor of attending that. Principal Holly Ruel of Chamberlain is here as well. Please feel free to join. You're a big part of this. With success, pull up a chair. So with that, I'm

002going to turn it over to Jenny. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you for having me here. It is such an honor to have our students represent the state of Vermont in Washington, DC. What people don't understand or really know is that there's one large national tree And then it's surrounded by smaller trees that represent the 50 states. But also Native tribes and other regions like Puerto Rico and Guam. And so we were really, really lucky to have 21 students design ornaments that hang right now currently at our national capital. The whole idea behind it was what makes Vermont beautiful. So that was my question to our students here. what makes Vermont beautiful and we were able to really take those designs or take those ideas that they have of our natural beauty here in Vermont and to

003turn them into 21 completely different ornaments. This was not just a Christmas display. However. the national tree lighting welcomes people of all nationalities and also just winter time and celebrating lights and gatherings with families and friends So I think that was really important to highlight. We were interviewed by Jack Thurston recently from my NBC5 News. And Jack was trying to get like a little a little question to kind of stick you like right on the air and he asked during these polarizing times. Why do this? What does this mean for you? And I said, you know, no matter what your politics or your religion or beliefs, we can all be connected through art. And I feel like that really really resonates in our bulbs or ornaments that we made I'm going to just fast forward.

004I'm doing that wrong. No. This first one is created by a student not here. His name is killian I had to write for the national tree ceremony had to write something. So basically what I just said, here it is in written form, but I'm going to fast forward Maybe. doing this wrong. Here are some of our students. We have Aaliyah on the left. She spent a really long time you know when you think of Vermont, you cannot not think of maple syrup and sugaring What's incredible about Chamberlain School is that there's over 37 languages spoken and I hear that in the art room quite often. My first year here, thank you so much to you here. My first year I was like amazed to hear student conversation while making art of how do you say

005this in Arabic and this is how you say it in French and that sort of thing so Again, I think there's nothing like more beautiful than our students being represented in Washington, DC. We have students that created the hermit thrush, other students that created the Green Mountains our state fish, the brook trout And like I said, we were in the news. There is a display with all of the ornaments printed out and scanned at Chamberlain School. And Lil's here, Lil was one of them. Lil is here. Yeah, we'll get to Lil's picture in a minute. It was really special to have two students come and visit the tree lighting. It was incredibly cold. It was funny. The emails before were like, dress warm. And you're thinking, well, we live in Vermont. And it was unseasonably

006freezing cold and we were sitting on metal chairs for hours. So we did dress warm. That's Tao. And then the Vermont tree is very small. All of the state trees are so small with our national tree in the background. And of course, Santa made an appearance It was actually so cool that President Biden, when he came out, he did the 543-2-1 countdown in the beginning they usually save it till after their performances, but people were so cool that that some of them chose to go home. So that was incredible to have him there and vice president Paris. And last quarter. So I'm going to have our students that are here. Just say your names. Can you say what grade you are? And… My name is Rosal and I am in third grade. My name is

007and I'm in fifth grade. My name is Thomas and I'm in third grade. And on the left, we have TJ or Thomas's picture. Do you want to say a little something about like what did you include in your ball about what makes Vermont beautiful? A sunshine and the green mountains in the back end, the lake moisture. And my transplant. And Lilz is on the right. Do you want to add what you included in your ornament? I added the hermit blush in winter With the sun shining. And Rosalind's is on the left here. Do you want to talk about yours? I have a hermit thrash. I have… I was in the background. Next to the hermit thrush, I have… a leaf from a sugar weasel. Yeah, so I mean, overall, I feel like this was sort

008of an experience of a lifetime for us at Chamberlain. So I'm very proud of all of that. like anything. Well, the other interesting thing just yesterday, Vermont Fish and Wildlife contacted us because they recognize that we have some incredible conservationists here who are celebrating some of the Vermont species. So some of the ornaments that represent animals native to Vermont are now on the social media page for Vermont Fish and Wildlife. And we're just really, really proud of our students. And Mrs. Goodrich has also been selected as the Vermont art teacher of the Year as well, which is separate. Which is separate, but it's a big just honor on honor. But now we know why. I am so proud of you all and really appreciate you all coming to share with everyone. This is an important

009celebration to celebrate our students and our teachers and our administrators. Thank you all for your awesome sharing and just the love you put into this. This is really great. Congrats, Jenny. Thank you for coming. And thank you to the parents and guardians who supported this as well. Appreciate you all. You all are, of course, welcome to stay or head out. If you prefer. All right, moving on. Our next agenda item is public comment. So this is the community's opportunity to share questions. feedback and concerns of the board. We ask that you keep your comments concise. Please give me three minutes and that you refrain from using any information that would identify a specific person. Please raise your hand in the room or use the Zoom raised hand feature. We'll only use the online chat to

010manage tech issues. We're not able to take action on any issues brought to us during public comment. However, any board member may suggest tonight that the issue or question be added to a future agenda for discussion. We may also delegate addressing issues to our superintendent, Violet Nichols. And it's always helpful if you can email us a copy of your comments for follow-up. Just one note, if you're here to comment on the budget, we'll have plenty of time after the budget presentation and section to take comments on the budget. Is there anybody in the room who would like to make a public comment? Just raise your hand, identify yourself, come up and identify yourself. My name is Mark Gable. I'm the parent of a Nordic athlete. I was hoping that I would not be the one

011who had you speak tonight the person who thought she was going to come and speak is having to drive her kid to basketball. As of this week. For the first time in seven years. So South Bronze and Nordic program no longer has dependable transportation to go and come and go and come. sleepy hollow through a loss. We had a bus group i'm sorry. Apparently. our child's bus went into a depth the first night of nursing season. It was a perfect storm. things were rough. So, um. seven years of driving of buses going to Sleepy Hollow. There's only been a couple of instances like this But rather than addressing the source the administration has pulled the plug on transportation to Sneaky Hollow And the answer, as of yesterday. was to put inexperienced young drivers in carpools

012to take their own cars sleepy hollow where there's limited cell service The road is mud. And it is different. Well, from what I've heard in a bus But there's safety in numbers and it keeps the students together. asking young drivers to transport themselves out there is, in my opinion. Very unwise choice. And shows a lack of understanding on the part of the administration that should be addressed and it should be addressed immediately. Because to my knowledge, there's no plan for tomorrow night either. And the students will be coming back out there again. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to make a public comment? Okay, seeing none looking online. I see no hands raised All right, for that, there's no more public comment. We'll move on to the next item

013And actually, the next item is introduction of new board member and i would just like to, I want to welcome Karen, but I also want to, if we can push that one down a little bit, I'd like Chelsea to do the actual introduction if you don't mind. I'd love to do it, but… And I see our chairperson in the room. So if there are no objections, I'll hand the chair back over to Chelsea. Welcome, Karen. We're excited to have you as part of the team. Thank you. And you're coming on right at the right time. So thank you. Thank you. All right. We only moved, no amendments. We simply moved some items around. All right, agenda item five, student representative report. Thank you. Unfortunately, Ali cannot be here tonight due to travel, so it will

014just be me, but we have three announcements. The first is the SBHS Music Christmas Tree Pickup is happening on January 11th. If you live in South Burlington and would like to participate, please leave your tree on your curb no later than 10 a.m. on the 11th with the check made out to SBHS music of $15 for small and medium-sized trees and $20 for large trees. All profits go to new instruments and musical experiences for SBHS students. Last week or last board meeting, we discussed that the RMCS and Chamberlain winter concerts are happening tonight. We are excited to also announce that in addition to these evening performances, RMCS students will also be singing at the City Hall Auditorium. During the day this Friday, December 20th, city employees are invited to enjoy this concert with kindergarten in

015grade one performing at 9 a.m, third and fifth graders at 10 a.m, and second and fourth graders at 1 p.m. And this is also a reminder to students and families that winter break is this coming Monday, December 23rd. through one search and reimbursed. Students will come back to school on Thursday of June. Thank you. All right. That brings us to agenda item six discussion items. We have Finance Committee 1 to 4. I'm sorry we moved that to after the budget discussion. Well, what do we think? Do we want to recess at 6.17 p.m. We'd like to move that as well. We have budget warned for 705. I'm wondering if we should consider reviewing our policy first to give more people time or do we want to jump right into budget? I think… That's where that

016happens. And I offer that we do revised policies and say, I don't think that was going to take a lot of time We can get through that pretty quickly. Is everybody amenable to that? So we were going to move up action items, agenda item nine for third reading okay yeah okay sorry Yeah, great. All right, agenda item nine, third reading of revised E2 security camera policy Do we have any questions on the revised policy? So just some housekeeping. This is our third reading, which means that we have at Two meetings ago, we read through the whole policy and discussed it. Last meeting, we made any additional revisions or edits that we thought were necessary. And this is the last meeting to discuss before we approve. I just want to know, I know Appreciate the addition

017and storage security to item number four, which is regarding the retention overall of the footage. So thank you for adding that in. Thank you. Any questions about those? Do I have a motion to approve the revised South Wurlington District Policy E2 security cameras as currently written? Chris moves. Do I have a second? I'll second. Laura seconds. Any discussion? Can I signify by saying aye. Aye. in the public domain. The motion passes. with one extension. Okay, that took two minutes. I think we should move on to budget if you're all set. Yeah, great. I think that's what most people want to discuss. All right. Is that looking good online in person? All right. Well, welcome. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm really glad to have a robust community discussion and to help in this process,

018I'm going to welcome the team who's been working closely on this. Tim Jarvis, Senior Director of Finance and Operations. April Jennings, business manager. Monica Gerosher, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Social-emotional Learning. Kristen Romick, Executive Director of Education Support Systems. And Jodi Valancourt, Executive Director of Learning, who is joining us virtually this evening. And sorry, folks, I didn't put two tables up here, but we'll follow. I think April probably we just shared them. We've just gone to the stable. All right, perfect. Thank you. I added a bunch of chairs was my focus when we were setting up. Thank you, Bridget. So, you know, this was an extremely difficult budget to put together. We knew that we were facing You know, the real fact that we had really limited financial supports this year and far

019more diminished than any other year that we faced. This is undoubtedly the hardest budget season we've faced as a district and when we're tasked with, we're really maintaining high quality of education to support our students. We have to think about what we value most. And so we went to our ends policy, which is our vision for learning. So it is our ultimate goal of what we are supposed to achieve. And with this, we took a real focus here on equity and trying to preserve equity for students at the very heart of this. none of these reductions are going to make outcomes better for students or teachers. We know that. But when we're thinking about what are we really trying to achieve and preserve, we are trying to look at going beyond formal equality and look

020at achieving equity where there might be an unequal distribution of resources to, you know, due to the impact of historic marginalization. So this budget was developed to try to maximize equity where we could for groups whose qualitative and quantitative assessment information is showing some more significant needs. We also have to adhere to legislative requirements and regulatory requirements. So there are requirements by the Agency of Education that we've got to attend to, legal aspects in order to achieve our ends, and really try to provide at a cost that our community will support. As most of us in the room know, we have two failed budgets last year, and that was really difficult on our students, our staff, our families with our riff and bump process. Those votes meant that our staff was was really put through

021a great deal of trauma. So trying to minimize that to the extent that we can this year. So due to the impacts of Act 127 and the use of two fiscal years of surplus funds last year to maintain what we could this year. We are going to be reviewing some really drastic reductions, trying to achieve Tax rates. that are near historic averages. All right, Nick, we'll see if the clicker works. It does. So to talk through a little bit more about what was included in this budget, I'm going to welcome Jodi Valancourt, Executive Director of Learning, to talk through some compliance pieces and where we have requirements to meet. Okay. So there are some requirements related to different laws and also the education quality standards that we have to ensure that we are maintaining. Act

022173 does require us to provide supports for students who struggle in school. And so that, of course, comes with the need for specialists and roles like that. Act 139 is a very recent piece of legislation related to early literacy. There is a requirement in that law. that has to do with the instruction that's happening and ensuring that we are providing explicit instruction using evidence-based instructional materials. And there also is a piece in that law related to screening students for their reading skills in the early grades. And then the education quality standards also outline the different required content. It does address some ratio requirements in terms of things like nursing, ensuring that you have like a nurse for so many students, those kinds of ratios. And then, of course, there's the alignment with the South Burlington

023board policies including the equity policy and the ENTS policy, both which Violet just spoke about in the vision slide. Jody, I think this was you too. Oh, this one is me as well. I'm sorry. Well, that's okay if you can do it. Okay, so it looks like this is about connecting the vision that we just talked about and the approach for the budgeting so I see the ends. policy here, the lifelong learning, the personal development, the citizenship, and the academic proficiency, those are our expected outcomes. For our students after their experience in South Burlington. school district. And that requires combined effort of central office leadership and building administrators, faculty and staff, and school board and community. Thank you, Jody. then this is me. So we discussed these factors at the last meeting, but for those

024who are not here or just to refresh everybody. These are the factors, some of the factors, major factors that are impacting our budget planning for FY26. As Violet mentioned, our current budget this past my third try with a 8.18% increase in homestead property taxes because we were able to use the previous year's surplus to pay down our net education spending And thus we had a very good outcome in fiscal year 25 compared to the rest of Chittenden County and statewide. which we do not have, unfortunately, at our disposal this cycle. We received the December 1st letter from the state's tax department, which we discussed at the last meeting as well. Both the yield which is a very major factor in the education funding formula and South Burlington cla were more favorable than we had originally

025expected. The yield, we had the opportunity last Friday to attend our monthly, it's called BASBO, it's the Vermont Association of School Business Officers. so basically my and april's colleagues across the state and everybody was still very, very surprised at how low the yield was. and are trying to understand exactly where the yield is going to end up. Because it seems like it's such a disproportionate cut from last year But they're going to have to find other funding sources in order to fund even a modest increase in expenses across the state. But nevertheless, that is a number we have. We'll remind you that that number is not finalized until the end of the legislative session. next spring. And yet it's a critical factor for what our tax rates are going to be starting on July 1st

026next year. The CLA, which is the real estate inflation factor, we thought it was going to be even lower than 75%. I would also tell you that this is still an estimate. Although we would expect if it's consistent with previous years that we will get a final official number around New Year's Day to help us celebrate that week. of joy. So those two factors are still undecided. The pupil count, which I'll show you a slide in a little bit about the details of that. Those are also lower than they were in last year's budget cycle. So that causes a negative impact on our tax rate. This is a number that swirls around a lot and so They sent us our first version of the pupil cow and everybody was kind of in an uproar because

027they didn't seem right. There seemed to be some fundamental flaw in the way that the state had calculated it. in its first round. And again, at this meeting we had last week We heard from the agency of education that in fact there had been a number of mechanical issues with their first version We just got our second version a few days ago. And although it's still lower than what the cow was last year, it's better than the first round. And I'll just remind you that Last year, we didn't get our final count until version six. And that was like well into January after we had already formed our budget Unfortunately, the timing of all of these state provided tractors are not aligned with the way that we warn our and vote on our budgets. So

028things could literally change day by day. And we have a calculator that we change the numbers and we see what the new numbers are that come out of it but It's discomforting. that these numbers are not solid at the time that we're discussing the budget and options that we have with the budget but That is just um a statement of fact, an unfortunate one. Some other macro factors. most economists in the federal reserve are estimating fiscal year 26 inflation rates of around 2.5%. Which is better than in previous years, which is good. We have both the teachers at union support staff buying agreements expiring at the end of this fiscal year. So on June 30th so negotiations are commencing to commencing to review that and to seek agreement on on a new contract. And then

029the state mandated contribution that we need to make to the employee health benefits program is proposed to increase by 11.9%. that alone increases our expenditures by about $900,000. So that is not an insignificant number. And we have zero control over it. So that is the sideline state. We hadn't included an enrollment slide before, but at the recommendation of some of some city people. We put one in for this presentation This shows you what our pre-kindergarten to grade 12 enrollment numbers are. And the way we structured this was structured this On the far left, you have it by school and then there's an elementary subtotal December 2023 and December 2024 are our actual numbers that are provided by our data group within the district As a baseline. And then for fiscal year 26 through fiscal year

03030 These are the numbers that are provided by the latest sort of independent data which was the McKibbons Demographic research report which was published in October 2023. So you'll see a a fairly big jump between December 2024 and fiscal year 26. teachers next fiscal year. And what I will point out about this This is a detailed report. And I have the link to it in this presentation. So when this presentation gets posted to the website, it's already in there from last year's budget materials, but If you want to take a look at it, it's a scientific approach to projecting both population and enrollment It's way beyond my skill set to understand all of the nuances of it but We look at mortality rates and building rates and 20, 30 individual factors that go into the

031calculation of this. I want to say surprised, but I'm always interested and knowing in knowing how do those projections line up against reality right because there's no way that anybody knows exactly how many students are going to be enrolled in our schools from year to year, let alone five years from now. And for the December 2024, which is our current enrollment as of this month. McKibbons was estimating that we would have about 68 more students than we do. And almost all of that was in the elementary schools. The high school and the middle school were within two or three of actuals, which I thought was pretty good But for whatever reason, causes our elementary population to be less than they expected. That's just a fact, right? I won't say that completely discounts the analysis because

032it's the best we have to go by. But I will just indicate that I think it's if it's overestimating our elementary population by 68 students now I'm not fully confident that this fiscal year 26 elementary total of 1131 is going to be achieved. It's just something to keep in mind. But we wanted to share this with you. And if you're interested in the science behind this, I would invite you to look at the report. It's about 24 pages long. It's filled with statistics and and commentary and whatnot but what as an important point in considering Especially for future years where our budgeting I just want to share this with you tonight. The next slide is the next slide Again, every time we say long-term weighted average daily membership, people's eyes blaze over so I prefer

033to just call it our pupilence I wanted to just, again, as a point of reference, I wanted to include probably more detail on this slide than is necessary because most people would probably only be interested in the last column on the right, which is like, what's the total flood I thought it would be interesting to include this data. and show you where it's moving and where it is versus last year so The way you read this is that there's a starting pupil count, which is in the second column, and that's the two-year average ADM plus state place students. So that's kind of where your starting point is and then where If you remember from Act 127 and the many, many discussions we had about that last year. the state introduced a new methodology for adding

034or subtracting weights to different categories of students. And you'll see on the note below that grades one through five are considered neutral so you get no extra points for grades one through five and you don't get any deductions for grade one through five. It's considered completely neutral. And that is sort of the model that the state uses for determining whether additional From a grade perspective, whether additional weight should be assigned or not. So for early education, pre-K, it's actually a negative way So when you move When you add early education pre-K students, your relative total actually goes down I guess the assumption there is is that the assumption is fewer resources are required and i'm not I'm not saying I'm the expert in this because I'm not. the the concept is that fewer resources are

035required to teach early education or pre-k versus versus the neutral, which is grades one field. one through five, whether that's true or not, and I'm sure we can invite some pre-k teachers up here who could easily argue against that state state assumption Middle school, you get a little bit of an extra weight for your middle school population, high school, you get a little bit of extra weight where the numbers really move more significantly is with economic disadvantaged students. And with English language learning students. Where you can see their weights are pretty significant to add to your total score, so to speak. The… The economic disadvantage category in FRL stands for free and reduced lunch, even though the state now has universal meals. there is still a view towards determining whether any student would be eligible

036for free and reduced lunch based upon certain statistical information around family income whether or not they are on Medicaid and things like that. And this is probably, I think the economic disadvantage column is the one that was causing the most consternation. between version one and version two and probably will continue because first of all, it's fed by multiple data sources Including direct certification. We ask families to actually fill out a direct certification form that is used to determine whether or not they would be eligible for one of these waves. we get medicaid data. There's a variety of different ways This happens. And from what I understand, the reason why there has been a statewide drop in this FRL wave. And you can see last year we had 780 and it dropped down to 751. is

037because the state had actually suspended or suspended suspended some of the rules about rolling over from one year to the next because of COVID. And so it wasn't necessary for people to recertify themselves as being eligible is kind of rolled over from fiscal year 24 to fiscal year 25 whether you recertified your family or not. And then I think that for fiscal year 26 for the first time, they're going back to the original methodology of trying to more proactively certify whether a particular student was eligible for this rate or not. That caused a lot of the sort of concern from many, many, many towns Why is my FRL waived? Why has it dropped? and that's the region and it's a very complicated statistic that the state uses and if anyone is is interested in pursuing

038those details, we'd be happy to share them. But suffice it to say that the FRL weight did not help us. The figures in red in parentheses at the bottom of the slide will indicate that those are those changes that have had a negative impact on our total count. And you can see in the far right lower column our total number dropped by 67.34. And so you probably were like, what does that mean right i mean it's a number but It's pretty significant because it's pretty significant Just that number alone in the education funding formula increases our tax rate by almost 2%. from what it would have been otherwise. So if it would have been a 4% increase, now it's close to a 6% increase just because the ltwav has changed. Again, these aren't final. I'll

039repeat, we had six versions last year. It's probably, you know, I work closely with our data team in the district and they're deep, deep in the weeds of this stuff uh And they basically have to reconcile the status of every single student we have in our district against these. criteria. So we're working closely with them and with the state um to tweak this to make sure it's right. and that we're not missing out on on the possibility of increasing our number, which is what you want to do in this case. I think those are a lot of the state and macro factors that now I'm going to, I think, move over to christen. Thanks. Excuse me. So as we navigate the complexities of balancing our district's financial realities with our steadfast commitment to high quality

040education, I'm going to start sharing some of what the adjustments or the possible adjustments we're going to discuss now are. So the adjustments are up on the screen. There'll be two slides that I'll be showing you. I'm not going to read the slides. I'm just going to share some of that information with everyone. Last year we faced difficult decisions, including the reduction of middle school instructional leaders and informational technology educators. This year we're proposing additional adjustments that include the reduction of three elementary instructional coaches The remaining information technology educator as well as the curriculum area supervisor model We recognize that changes like transitioning away from the CAS model, the peculiar supervisor model may feel like a step backward. However, our intent is to realign our resources to ensure leadership and support remain sustainable while adapting

041to our current financial realities. the proposed transition to a teacher leader model which is reflected in the slides up ahead of us. is to transition reflects the realignment. While this model will not replicate the structure of the capacity of our current systems. It creates a collaborative framework leveraging the expertise and insights of our skilled a really skilled K-12 educators. by prioritizing our student-facing teachers, this approach maintains essential leadership functions and aligns more closely with effective practices in other districts in our area. At the same time, we're prioritizing critical areas of student support. And you can go to the next slide that'll just Again, some more information. special education adding a K-12 program manager to strengthen the services and special education health services establishing a district health supervisor to address overall student wellness. And then student

042support will continue to maintain vital roles, including our ninth grade dean. our director of student counseling, our athletic director are all continued areas of support. Absolutely. Maybe. If you want to move the mic that has the red on it, actually. And then make sure that the button is illuminated with green lighting. Okay. And Kristen, sorry, could you repeat what you just said? part of what you were maintaining. Yes, absolutely. So while it doesn't replicate the structure or capacity of our current system, it creates a collaborative framework leveraging the expertise and insights of our skilled K-12 educators. By prioritizing student-facing teachers, this approach maintains essential leadership functions and aligns more closely with the effective practices that are in other districts in our area. At the same time, we're prioritizing critical areas of student support. So in

043special ed, we're adding a K-12 program manager to strengthen our services. We're establishing a district health supervisor to address overall student wellness. And in student support, we're maintaining vital roles, including the ninth grade dean, the director of student counseling services. And our athletic director and our athletic director We believe these strategic adjustments will help us continue to meet the diverse needs of our students foster professional growth for our educators and a responsibly managed district resources. And I will pass it over to you and Monica. All right. So just as Kristen said, I'm going to reiterate that each of these positions. are incredibly valuable. And… there will be negative impact on student learning and wellness and each of these positions. Chamberlain Elementary will have a possible reduction of an instructional coach part of a school counselor

044a reduction in days with the SEL coach contract and the behavior of analysts. Rick Marcotte will also have a reduction of instructional coach reduction in classroom teacher part of a school counselor and reduction of days with the ACL coach. Orchard Elementary to discuss is a reduction of the instructional coach a classroom teacher part of a school counselor, part of a registrar half of the library media tech reduction in days of an SEL coach. and the addition, the proposed addition of behavior facilitator. Tuttle middle school reduction of part of a nurse. reduction of part of a gen ed clerical assistant reduction of our STEAM teacher. and the potential addition of a board certified behavior analyst. Athletics. fall, winter, and spring reduction of site administration, which means no night games, including football. the potential reduction of JV

045football. fall here. JVB boys soccer, JVB voice basketball. JVB baseball. gymnastics, reduction in uniforms, equipment, and general supplies. South Burlington High School. of the reduction of three paraeducators. reduction of a social studies teacher a science teacher, an English teacher a math teacher. the school counselor. part of the library media tab. substitute for meter part of an EST coordinator. part of a career development center coordinator part of a guidance admin assistant and part of a nurse. So, of course. these adjustments would have an impact. And because of that. we try to engage in a process For our budget development and decision making that included multiple stakeholders. So we asked principals to consult with their staff to get feedback. And to submit proposed budget line item and staff reductions. to Tim and April and Violet and Christian

046and Monica and myself. in conjunction with looking at that school-based feedback, we reviewed feedback from the community survey the finance committee. We looked at student social and emotional learning data as well as achievement data. There was a review of alignment with other local school districts regarding structures and best practices. And then we incorporated board direction and the budget factors of real estate inflation and tax rate factors. That being said, it is important, it's critical to acknowledge the impact of the adjustments that were just discussed. those proposed adjustments do preserve arts programming as well as advanced placement curriculum. But they… do also include the elimination of instructional supports such as coaching. ITE and the CAS model. it would be critical to ensure that we have a system for incorporating teacher leadership K through 12. Teacher leadership

047is absolutely a critical factor. It does, another impact is the reduction of administration um and The impact of administration is tricky because oftentimes it's invisible but you know that it's going well when things are going well. So that would be a major impact as well on students and teachers. and the district. the reduction of nursing services for students. would be incredibly challenging. Our students have fantastic relationships with our nurses and that provides them with services that they might struggle to access other places. We would be looking at an increase in class sizes. And in larger class sizes, it is more difficult to create and maintain those strong relationships with students. that are critical for the highest levels of learning. It also would require a reduction in athletics and co-curricular offerings, which oftentimes are the high

048point of students experiences in school they form such strong relationships through these And learn so many of those critical skills that are connected to learning in the classroom and learning outside of the classroom as well. And then also the reduction of pre-kindergarten programming. And we know that the vertical alignment of curriculum from pre-kindergarten all the way up through the end of high school is one of the high leverage actions that you can take to increase achievement. This is a slide showing what our staff changes have have been over the last three years. So in fifth year 24 We were coming out of ESSER funding and consequently had to reduce our FTEs by almost 24. Even though these were ESSER funded and not within the general fund, they were very critical individuals who are servicing our

049students. I think it's important to maintain that differentiator. Forget about who's funding it. we needed those positions and suffered by needing to cut them. Last year, largely because of our ability to use the surplus to lower our net ad spending. We had a net reduction of almost seven FTBs And then if you add and subtract all the numbers on those previous slides a through 11 it results in a net reduction of a little over 16 ftvs which includes a net of the additions and the eliminations So that's the sum total of what was on. those slides that pursuant Monitor review. That put us in a position of creating models. I mean, there's an infinite number of models that you can do. But what we were working with was three primary models the first model was

050incorporating the changes that we just described. both in staffing and programming and facilities and everything that was included so That was sort of a ring fenced model there's a model two which is taking out some of those cuts. and preserving things like nursing for providing some additional instructional supports and having fewer reductions in general across admin leadership. Physicians. And then there's a model three which is putting some more things back into the budget such as pre-k programming more instructional supports fewer athletic reductions etc so there's there's basically there's three general models. And I think we wanted to intentionally call these models as opposed to options because I remember last year when we were going and everything was crazy and changing by the minute and laws were changing and we had like do you want option

051one, option two, or option three And I think the board felt like, okay, well, I guess I'd have to choose one of those three options. And I didn't think that was necessarily correct to phrase it that way. So what we're talking about is really general models. But the only way you can calculate tax rates is if you have numbers. And I keep stressing this to everybody, but I need numbers in order to do that. These are the financial impacts of those three models. So it's split up into two columns. One is the impact on general fund expenditures. And one is what would the impact on the homestead tax rate be and Again, the homestead tax rate increase is using the current yield and the current pupil count Both of which are subject to change. But

052given where those factors are as we sit here tonight, model one which would obviously have the more significant cuts, deductions. would result in an increase in expenses of 6.81% and an impact on homestead tax rate of 6.65. So in all of these models, just the way the math works is that the impact on the general fund is pretty consistent with what the impact will be on taxes. We felt that it was. important to show a range. We know that the state In their 12.1 letter expects and predicts that the increase in a tax rate will be around the 6% mark, 5.9%. We also know that there are many people and influential positions in the state government who want that number to be much, much lower. And some are asking for a cut, but below zero.

053Some are cutting for significantly below 6% all right so We just wanted to to demonstrate what different models would look like under current financial factors. And this is what these models look like. The next slide. is the yield. So as I mentioned before. the yield is probably the most important swing factor here between what happens between today and July 1st when the new budget goes into effect and when our taxes are being calculated because a relatively modest change in the yield will create a very significant increase in our tax rates and you can model this out across any number, any range you'd like But I really just wanted to highlight that. as long as the yield is unknown being impacted our tax rates and then it can move. We didn't want to use these as

054a fear-mongering slide. But I also didn't want to be in the position of if the yield does drop 10%, Just say, by the way, your taxes now are going up 14% and it's, well, Tim, you told us that they were only going to go up 6%, right? It's really just for educational purposes that people understand both the complexity of this formula as well as the variability of the formula using factors that we have no control over. So just for reference again. we just presented some different models with different yields Which, as you can see, produce very different Good balance. Thank you, Jen. Yeah, this is difficult to be transparent about factors when it's shifting sand, you know, working on these slides and you know working with administrators today to bring positions back after our second

055LTW ADM yielded just over 28 more students, right? So the number is shifting is something that we have had to really navigate in real time. And, you know, please know that we're going to maximize every percentage of ground that we gain to maintain critical staff to support our students you know meeting the achieving the ends is our ultimate goal. And given the complexity and the extremely limited resources that we're seeing here based on 127, our LTW ADM weights. And factors ranging from health insurance costs Across the board, not to mention our significant facilities needs. We're in a very difficult position, one that's unprecedented and um you know there's um lum faces across the board for good reason. This is not a time as a superintendent that I I ever thought I'd have to be in.

056having these conversations with you all tonight. And yet, you know, this is a time where it's going to call for us all to have significant resolve to do what we can to support our students and our staff and one another during this time. And we're going to remain committed to achieving our ends. in support of all students Throughout this process, supporting our valued staff is incredibly important. As well as our students and our families, parents and guardians. Due to the impact of Act 127 and our use of surplus funds. significant reductions are going to have to be made. We're striving to preserve the equity of services for students who require additional support. And to close the equity gaps that are persistent and longstanding within our district. were identified by the Agency of Education for these

057persistent equity gaps, and we have a responsibility to address them. We believe that this budget is developed to maximize equity, to adhere to regulatory and legislative requirements, and come at a cost that the South Burlington community can sustain in order to achieve our ends. And finally, I just want to thank you all for your support. For all that you do being here tonight. open it up to blind discussion. Board members, questions, comments? Oh, sure. I always have them. Can we go to the slide where you talked about impact on showed us the different increases based on I can't remember which slide it was. It was two or three back Just a question, Tim, as I… democracy line. Got this one right here. When we have impact on general fund expenditures, is that the increase in

058our ad spending from year over year? So are we talking like last year our spending was 52 million, I think. What I'm not seeing here are the the numbers around what our revenues are and our ad spending so to get to this homestead tax rate you must have calculated all of that already right it's actually just based on expenditures because we were focused on spending. we could provide those numbers for that. I'm curious if you've got those numbers around what our net that spending increases because I'm trying to understand how much we're increasing that spending last year. Yeah, I mean, the net ad spending increase I would presume is significantly higher because the $3 million surplus was applied as an offset last year. than isn't there this year. So our revenues which the surplus was

059included as part of those remedies in the calculation of these isn't there. So we started like for net at spending we started three million dollars in paperwork Okay. Are we going to get those? When do we see those numbers? I guess I'm curious. we may get them into that. if you can ask somebody else a question. Sure. as we look at, I noticed in one of the models we were looking to carve out some monies for our capital reserve fund Which I think is absolutely necessary to do. I'm wondering as we look at the dollars here, I was looking at the stewardship plan. And we had close to $3 million called out for fiscal year 26 in the stewardship plan with 2 million against bond. Is that 2 million already approved monies in a bond

060and you were budgeting $700,000 for or something like that rough figures yeah the bond the bond that was approved in march of 23. was the $14.55 million bond. We typically have a few years to spend it Six million average for the instructional designs And then I believe we have I think four and a half million of unspent capital approved bond money. versus a laundry list of projects, which is like multiples of that. No, we're like, guys. part of that bond money was originally intended to fund some major renovations and restructures in the high school and middle school bathrooms. and things like that. And then we went out and we worked with Doran Whittier to try to find contractors to give us bids on that and we couldn't even get anyone to bid on it but

061they told us that the number of dollars that we were earmarking for those projects was millions of dollars less than it was actually going to cost. And so we had to address more near-term issues, especially with roofing And our HVAC systems and we were able to put the heat pumps in the Rick Marca and Orchard School to provide them with air conditioning which was a a significant issue that we were So we were dealing with as well as a number of other enhancements being HVAC controls. Everything was geared towards what is the best use of the bond money that we could address sooner rather than later. We also at that time didn't know about PCVs, and we didn't know whether we were going to be facing a situation where we would require significant bond money

062to pay for remediation and abatement of a PCB situation. Fortunately. as the testing was winding up. For the schools that were on the list, we did not have to do that. it gives us a little extra money that we would have allocated otherwise to have. a short answer to your short question. is yes, there is still money available to use in the capital reserve fund. I think the inclusion of the 250,000 was simply to ensure that the savings plan for the facilities uh stewardship fund would not be ignored. Last year, at one point we were going to add over a million dollars to it you know that got ticked off the list right away or close to the end drive the tax rate down. So we didn't put anything in yeah three years ago we

063had less than $50,000 in our capital maintenance account and we said every year we're going to commit to contributing to this because we have such significant facilities needs which impact our students ability to learn. I mean, we can all of our students can't even enter every class in the high school, right? and um So last year we had we contributed a modest amount for fiscal year 24, fiscal year 25 it was it was reduced to try to reduce the number of staff that were Rift and then in each of these models, there's an inclusion of $250,000 toward that capitalist account. And we've heard, I think, pretty clearly from the community that The facilities are one of the biggest issues on their minds. You could ask some of the folks in the room who are shop

064vacuum their walls. Sure. So what I'm understanding is, so I'm just looking at the fiscal year 26 stewardship plan there's bond amount in there of 2.3 million. So that would come out of the available 4 million that we've got right now. If we find people to actually do the work. Okay. So we're looking at the bond money we have available right now would potentially cover us for fiscal years 26 and 27. If we're lucky if yeah i mean those projects have not gone out to bid. So, yeah. if our facilities manager who is pretty good at his job. estimated at 500,000. for a particular line item I don't know where it's going to go. It could be 1.5 million. And then you really just need to decide relative prioritization. Here's an example. So just a

065few weeks ago the boiler at Chamberlain, which is like 60 years old essentially dissolved and required immediate replacement, right? That was over $100,000. That was presented to the board and we approved it right so There's another one just like it. at Chamberlain and there's more like them at the other schools and so we're just we're reaching a period in the life cycle of these buildings that all of this equipment and machinery is going to need to be replaced and that's why you need this money set aside because If the boiler at Rick Marcott Same thing happens to it. you need to have that $100,000 to go out pay for it. You don't necessarily Think that's how you're going to use that money, but you have to have a reserve in place to deal with emergencies

066like that. And I've just pulled up our slide and I want to just draw your attention to the facilities section here. So it's including 250,000 for the capital reserve fund, but there will be what we're referring to as kicking the can down the road here. I mean, the significant reductions that were made in the facilities budgeting should be highlighted. We're canceling cleaning at central office. This budget would be a reduction of cleaning services and standards at every school. And it would include differing building maintenance. The state is having discussions about a construction maintenance reserve fund, which was eliminated a long time ago. There's a fair amount of pressure from superintendents to bring this back. the secretary shared that there's conversation about movement there, but it's something that is badly needed. And the idea that we

067put a set amount into this reserve fund. for high school and middle school renovations is important, but it would have to be combined with significant revenue sources other than simply the savings account over time. And with that, you know, the shaving down of the facilities budget to retain staff and programming to the extent possible certainly includes deferred building maintenance. So just, I guess, a comment to the board is this um and and i guess to you as well tim i mean are we looking at going back to the community in the near future for the volunteer. proposals we look at what potentially is going to have to be done Because I think this was the sort of the deal with the devil we made several years ago when we voted on this rule and said,

068no, we don't want the new schools, we understood it was going to be sort of this ongoing potential bond issue. Well, we certainly knew after what we went through last year with the vote Yeah, we weren't going to propose a bond this year. So there's no possibility of that. We're not thinking about that. And it's more to do, I think, with the strategic decision making around how to spend the money that we still have. And where should it go? focusing on health and safety you know You know PCB, that's great right but We've done a lot of roofing as an example, but it's not all done. So some of the projects included in the facility stewardship plan is to finish all the roofing at the schools to ensure that we have a good 10 to

06920 year life cycle that we don't do any more roofing We were getting bids on repaving the The parking lot between the high school and the middle school, which was a rack and possibly doing some of the other sidewalks and things because that can be a safety issue. as well but we don't have enough money wish we had. was enough money to do like major major changes And I don't mean just building a new high school and middle school, which was floated down decisively right by changing the traffic flow around the high school, it's a nightmare. I mean, anyone who's ever picked up your kid at the high school or middle school at 3 30 it's like, I hope you have an extra half hour to 45 minutes to wait and not do anything else

070because you're going to be in line. So, you know. major window projects may not be as important right now because there weren't PCBs and that's where we thought some of the PCBs might be. Because there were some discovered in the high school a few years ago, but not in this current round of PCP testing. So we have to put the money where it's going to be best utilized for I think health and safety first and foremost And there are certain limitations in these old buildings that you can't just like start knocking down load bearing walls and Even some of the handicap access I think you mentioned that like, you know, there's some rooms in the high school you can't get wheelchairs or other can't provide access so that's important too. but it will be It

071will take some resolve. to put a bond another bond in front of the voters because this scenario of spending is not really likely to change in the next couple of years. And so there's going to be pressure every single year what our tax capacity is to fund the state education funding right and so we all hope that we all hope the work being done by the state by this joint committee on the future education or future state of education vermont how to address some of the chronic funding issues, the funding formula, the fairness of it the You know, the ongoing necessity or appetite for funding schools that have a handful of kids in them and they need a principal and they need admin and they need a lot of things, right? it's still too early

072to tell. whether those changes are going to significantly impact basically the yield that are used or if they're going to change the formula altogether and not have property tax be the dominant the dominant item, right? I mean, we would love to be in a situation where we didn't have to talk about property tax. it's like focus on educational outcomes, focus on spending per pupil focus on on are you managing expenses in a reasonable way versus everything directed at the tax rate, which I don't think, and this is only my second year And I don't think that was such a major issue four or five years ago like what's my tax rate now it's like every single town in this state is talking about the tax rate And especially after last year when many towns passed

073their budgets with very, very high tax rates. increases you know the 15 to 20 percent plus which we did not suffer here but many others did and so if I was in a town where last year my property taxes went up 18%, I would not want them to go up 18% again. right but All of these discussions inevitably gets directed at the tax rate, which I think is very unfortunate because it's not talking about students and it's not talking about education structures and outcomes and I wish it was. I wish it was that easy you know and you can talk about this in a completely different context than how much are my taxes going to go out Now, that being said, I'm a taxpayer in South Burlington and i have students. to students in high

074school. So all of this, I hate to say this at every meeting but It's very personal for me. in this discussion because this discussion because I don't want to make any of these cuts. I wish we didn't have to, and I don't want to. But it's up to the voters to decide what they will what they're willing to bear we simply don't have control over many of the factors that determine what that tax rate is going to be. So we do the best we can. And we tried to strike a balance between programming and outcomes and spending and etc. So. Lemonics is fun and um So I tend to editorialize. It's really important to me. Thank you. I appreciate it. I do have a couple more questions, if that's okay. I know we're okay. We've

075warned this for 55 minutes and we're a little over an hour now, and we do still need to take a look at it yeah so let's try to wrap up for the discussion. I mean, but we need to also So let's wrap up our questions. I'm like, no, no, no questions. I would say I would call for the orders of the day and continue for public comment. Yeah, this has been one hour. We have to talk about which rebuttal. I thought that was next meeting. Okay, we're doing that tonight. One, two, or three. So I just think we need to get feedback about what direction we would like the next step. Long questions? Are you able to describe the new teacher leadership system and how administrative roles within departments at the high school are being

076shifted? Yeah, it's a great question. So this is something that would have to be co-created by educators and building base leaders and you know some of the folks in central office. The idea here is that teacher voice and teacher leadership is incredibly important and it's not something that we can go without. And so if there weren't, you know, last year we lost our middle school instructional coach This year, there's conversations about you know the potential of losing elementary instructional coaches and cas and ITE. And, you know, I said early on in the budget season there's going to be big gaps. We don't have enough now. We don't have the resources that we need. And this would be a significant void. So ensuring that there's some teacher leadership in place is critically important. increasing equity and

077having this be K to 12 is important. So teacher leadership models include stipends for after school leadership and teacher voice. It wouldn't be the same or a replacement for instructional coaches or ITE or CAS. It would, though, be a way to have teacher leadership and teacher voice. And a lot of those leadership teams the teacher leadership model focuses on inclusion of a variety of different departments within each school. So, you know, I think it would look different in each school, but the idea is to ensure that there's teacher voice and teacher leadership in some capacity, albeit significantly diminished. And there would certainly not be the same quality of supports. So there are questions and comments from the board at this point? I can probably make me answer. Quickly, if you've got something else. I guess

078my only other question is i you know these are some significant cots and changes as we look at, I was looking at some of these specific reductions in enrolls, there were two cuts at the elementary level. And I apologize, I don't have all the slides in front of me, but it was two people. any teachers or whatnot. Yes. So as I look at these, I'm just, I want to make sure that we're still in and we're still in you know we have a policy around couples per class and such and we're still in alignment with that. So last year when we were looking at these same terrible reductions, we modified the class sizes. And last year we had pretty significant cuts at the elementary level for classroom sizes. So elementary classroom sizes are are high

079in preparation for this budget, you see we've done that evaluation at the high school level where we've in the middle level where we've looked at enrollment of every single class tried to maintain programming. But there will be increased class sizes across the board. Just one question or point of feedback I had for the next budget. presentation, would it be possible to get the average long-term weighted Long-term weighted average daily membership numbers kind of in comparison within the Kevin projections Just so we can see the difference in what we're projecting to have for enrollment and then maybe historically or maybe it would be better historically like what our pupil counts are versus what our funding well the the you're kind of mixing up two things. So the comparison with a long-term weighted average daily membership would

080have no relevance in your kid because which is the number of bums on seeds. where that would have relevance is comparing it to our internal enrollment patterns. I guess what I'm looking for is like we project how many bums on suites will have but that's not necessarily how much funding we'll get per student and so I think it's probably I don't think that would give you the outcome yet that you're looking for because First of all, those weights are limited prices last year. And there's no real comparison pre-Act 127 and post it. 127 by. We could do it for one year, but it wouldn' But comparing the McKibben data to long-term weighted ADM, just it's not a logical comparison to make. They don't really relate to each other. Because McKibben doesn't have any any data

081or information to determine what the weights are. They don't know how many free and reduced lunch students we have or they don't know how many English language learners and stuff. I guess what I'm looking for is a relationship between we look at enrollment projections to kind of figure out what our operational needs are going to be. And I'm thinking about five years from now I could be wrong, but I think we're going to go through five years of this kind of difficult funding situation and I don't want there to be a misinterpretation of Well, this is how many students we were projected to have multiplied by how much we receive per student. and not take into account that it's I guess I'm looking for that missing piece. Does that make sense like it makes sense,

082but there's no data to provide that as an increase. yeah okay there's no like projected data either. There's not a McKibbons report. The state is having a hard enough time to give us the data of what's in place yes and it took six versions. It's such a complicated i mean it's such a complicated slight editorializing. The complexity of what the state has to do to calculate this stuff is just mind-blowing to the average person. and even to me. they have overcomplicated everything. Every legal change has been consulted The methodology is complicated, the way they get the data sources is complicated. The way they calculate the data is complicated. Everything is is no disrespect to legislature but it's it's so complicated that it is not you can't the average person just can't even grasp it. you

083know which is why it's why It's always so challenging for me to try to explain it because it's so hard and you have to know way more than you need to know. to understand how these calculations are done. And, you know, the agency of education does their best But they've lost key staff in their finance area. They've made this particularly complicated this season. You know, they're dependent upon people. as well as computers and computers. The law makes it complicated to execute the cancellations. But… What you're asking for is perfectly rational. I just, I can't do those numbers. begin to tell you about the garden. But I think it is important to track when the kid is like I did, track the McKibbons projected estimates versus what's real like how many students are actually in our

084schools And for whatever reason. The estimate for how many elementary students were going to be is higher than what it actually is. And if you remember over here, that data was really One of the driving points were having resilience. Because the professional estimator was the estimator projecting a higher number of students than are there today. I do have the i do have the net hit Figures for you, Tim. So this is calculating last year's net ed spending, which included this three million dollar surplus with this year's net spending so model one which was the most aggressive model the increase in net ed spending is 13.57%. the increase in net head spending for model two is 14.93%. and the model three is 15.40%. If you can send this to me in the email if you would.

085I've not asked my board right now, but I'm curious that we not taken that three and a half million and put it against reducing the tax rate what are And unfortunately, part of the issue is that we didn't make some hard choices last year, I think, because of that that we would have probably is going to impact what our net spending increases. The only reason I ask this is because I think we got caught last year really stressing the overall ed fund and there's really a very big push to control spending. I know we're trying to do here, but we can't recite the fact that our decisions here impact the entire state overall. I think it would be helpful to know what that increase in spending was. with the surplus as well as I don't

086think putting these numbers against statewide averages Well, my concern is that, you know. somebody hears a number like a 13.57 increase you know south barlington is increasing spending by almost 14%. And I think if you look around the rest of the area you're seeing rates increase anywhere from 3% to 5% to 7%, right? So we stand out as an anomaly when you know behind the scenes it's a lot because we He did that huge amount of surplus last year, which is kind of again coming back home on just this year is what it is. Okay, I got some more numbers for you. If I add $3 million back into the revenue fund. as if we had this money to do all over again with surplus. The Model 1 tax rate increase would be 0.96%. Model

0872 is 2.29%. And the Model 3 is 2.76%. Okay, wow. So that shows you what $3 million did to our yeah Yeah, but we can go backwards. No, no, I'm not saying that. I feel like… We have to take lessons learned, though. Right. But what I… I thought that was a given. Right. I just want to put that 13% in context, right? Because I think that's critical. Well, it's important because it is. It's important not to look backwards but to explain variance it's important. And to say that the primary reason why our tax rates are at the levels everything shows them in the presentation has a lot to do with not having that three million dollars in surplus to apply against them And folks will say in your lowest model, you have a 14% increase

088all the way to 15 and a half, you know, that's South Burlington, right? And then, you know, us knowing the massive possible reductions that would be. our schools. All right. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Any furthermore discussion at this time? So how much feedback would you like this time of your budget annually? We're looking for guidance and want to hear feedback from the community as well the board want to reserve feedback about the models until after the Yes. Thank you all so much. Thank you. So just as a reminder, as we get set up here, we need to keep public comment two minutes per person. And if you hear a point that you wanted to make already stated and you still want to come up after, just please try not to be redundant and

089repetitive. it doesn't help. And if you're online, please just raise your hand and to the online participants. after in person. So please come up to the podium, state your name for the record. My name is Karen Bowman. This is my 26th year working for South Burlington School District. is my 26th year being the EST coordinator at South Burlington High School. I'm speaking about the 0.4 EST position cut at the high school in this proposal. The role is a 40% position, so it's not part of the position being cut. It's the entire position. This position, I urge you to keep. Educational support services essentially will no longer exist with elimination. Act 173 is an act relating to enhancing The effectiveness, availability, and equity of services provided to students who require additional support. cutting this position is

090the antithesis of complying to Act 173. EST is a Vermont state mandated service that was designed to support any Vermont student who is struggling with academic or social-emotional needs and not already identified through special ed services such as 504 or IEP. I coordinate these services every single day. We have 66 students that I case manage. With current EST plans. And we are having an additional two referrals per week. that come in. I mean, with teachers, students, school counselors, families every week for state required meetings I manage updating file all these plans Communicate with teachers, students, and families all in support of student success. and for equity. New EST referrals are for students whose families are concerned that their student may have a disability. State law says in order to proceed toward an evaluation, students and

091families must start with the EST process. vaccinate with the coordination. Other referrals come in from families who students have just been recently diagnosed with anxiety and depression. or are not progressing in academic areas as they should be. Teachers regularly make referrals to the EST team when they identify a student who is struggling. This position is valuable. It speaks to creating equity, keeping equity, and supporting SEL at SB Please do not allow this position to be eliminated. Thank you. Any else in the room who'd like to come in? Good evening. My name is Kristen Corsell and I am the Lone Instructional Technology Educator for the district. Also known as ITE or technology integration specialist Or to some students, this is Chromebook or the Bebot lady. My role isn't often clear based on the title, although simply

092put, if it has to do with supporting students and teachers with educational technology for learning. unlikely behind it. I've proudly served at South Burlington students and teachers for 19 years. And it's worth mentioning that while my focus is on students and teachers. I've also supported staff across our district. here in the central office, the bus garage, and even some of the school board members. I'm here to express my concern regarding the proposal to eliminate the last instructional technology education position. within our district. The role is vital for enhancing student learning in an environment that is increasingly reliant on educational technology. Last year's budget eliminated my two colleagues, leaving me as the sole support for all of our schools this year. As you know, educational technology is no longer a supplementary tool But a fundamental part

093of South Burlington students educational experiences. The Instructional Technology Education position directly supports the effective use of digital tools and instructional technology in classrooms ensuring that all students benefit from engaging innovative learning opportunities. Without this position. Teachers will be left with their crucial support they need to integrate technology in their instruction. limiting their ability to create dynamic learning experiences that meet the diverse needs of all of our students. The absence of this role will directly impact students by eliminating support for access to personalized learning tools Assistive technology, interactive lessons. in the essential skill development that technology fosters. Teachers and students rely on the expertise and support of the instructional technology educator to navigate the growing number of digital tools and resources that are integral to the curriculum. This position helps educators implement innovative teaching practices streamline

094lesson plans and provide tailored learning experiences for students. In an environment like South Burlington where technology is central to student engagement and achievement. The loss of this position will significantly injure the district's ability to maintain its commitment to excellence of education. I'm sorry, Kristen, that's about mine. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Hi, my name is Megan Sweet. I'm a CAS of school counseling at South Burlington High School, a resident taxpayer. I prepared some comments tonight based on what was previously on the slides. prior to this evening and certainly recognize the difficult decisions you all have to make in balancing resources and flex priorities as a district And I just want to acknowledge I appreciate some of the things I was concerned about seeing them back in the budget. Yet, I still feel the need to speak

095up about the cut of a school counselor. By every measure, local, state, national, we're in the midst of a youth mental health crisis. And we see that and we work with those students and families every day at the high school. I think it's important for this board to understand the impact of such a cut at the high school. And certainly in Tim's slides, I feel it doesn't accurately represent the student caseload that we work with. of the 804 students at the high school, there's an additional 25 students who are spending their senior year at college and early college. the only adult in the building still working with them very regularly is their school counselor. The reduction of this one school counseling position would result push our caseloads close to 190 to 1 at the high

096school? and growing as we see the forecasted increase in enrollment over the next two to three years. I also you know and thinking about the reduction of and this is certainly not about me personally my position, but the role that I play in that within our department And the Administrative Task Summit I'm able to take off the plates of our school counselors so that they can attend to the varied and multiple needs of our students. And so while tonight I heard that the CAS of school counseling might be put back into the budget. I don't really have a sense of how that will be separated from all the other cas and And so I feel concerned that that remains a cut potentially in This budget resulting in even higher counselor caseloads. The impact of these

097categories. I apologize. My name is Christine Old. I'm in my 10th year at South Burlington School District. In my years, I've had the incredible fortune to be an instructor in heterogeneous classes at the middle and high school. This means I've worked with all students across all ability levels and who represent the range of families we serve. Several students who are participants in the Holocaust studies course i co-teach I've worked with in sixth grade, ninth grade, and now is 11th and 12th graders. The budget proposal slides include the line that achieving equity may require an unequal distribution of resources and services due to the impact of historic marginalization on student achievement. Further, it states that the budget must be developed to maximize equity. I can tell you without reservation that a budget that includes a reduction

098of paraeducators nursing school counselor. EST coordinator and increase class sizes simply does not reflect the needs of our most vulnerable students. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the presentation seeks to assure the community that AP courses will be preserved. It feels notable that we are removing positions that interface with our most vulnerable youth while maintaining AP coursework. Aside from equity concerns related to that prioritization. This budget includes a full reduction to our social studies department This represents the second full reduction in two years. I do not know how we can promise the community that we will provide the same course offerings, including AP, Well, down to full teachers. I recognize that there are factors outside of the board's control. What is within our reach is engaging in a transparent process that is honest with

099our community about the impact of the cuts, what we stand to lose. And the gap between our stated values and what these reductions represent Suggesting that this budget keeps equity at the forefront feels deeply disingenuous and out of step with the needs of our most vulnerable youth. Additionally, making promises that we may not be able to maintain sets us all up for failure. Earlier this year, I wrote to Superintendent Nichols with concern. For the second year in a row, our Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and social emotional learning was tasked with the responsibility of serving as a building level administrator. Although I believe Monica is absolutely incredible. I do not feel any person can exist in two places at one time. To me, this presented budget is one more example in which our central

100office has drifted from its stated goal of reaching all learners serving our most vulnerable. something for which I believe we need to be more honest. Some of you guys might know me. I'm Jason Singh. I work over in the IT department. As our new systems administrator. Before I get into what I'd like to say. I just want to say that the position you guys in, I can appreciate how difficult it must be. And no matter what the outcome is, it'll be uncomfortable for the district. A lot of people have invested their time and lives here, so I totally understand the sensitivity of the situation. So I'm here to advocate for keeping the IT department. Last year's budget, we eliminated three IT-based positions, two of which were IT-based After getting a chance to work in the

101district the past year and a half. in two different roles, I can see how technology heavy SVSD is and having enough IT staff to support the teachers and the students is crucial. Without an ITE department, we would be unable to keep teachers updated on new technology trends and serve the district the best we can on educational tools. that can be used in student learning. teachers would be left with the lack of professional development on the technical side when it is something that is essential to our district. As of just this year, we've put interactive displays in four different schools And IT was a significant part of that process. We are constantly looking for new ways to implement new student-facing apps and we would not be able to be as flexible unless we had ITE, we're

102also considering bigger infrastructure changes and to not have anyone to assist teachers when those changes come would be difficult to say the least. I feel like it's easy to overlook the importance of those who work in IT outside of the help that we do face to face. IT also assists other members of our department with teacher and student app issues or to help communicate information from IT to teachers. They assist in helping set up accounts before the start of the year, along with other things to help prepare teachers for the new year technology-wise. In an ideal world, it would be great if we didn't have to cut anyone, but I know that's not realistic. All we can do is vouch for ourselves and for our team. I've worked in multiple school districts and I know

103our district IT team is very confident And I know that you can trust them in continuing to provide the best technology needs for our district. I appreciate everyone's time and thank you for listening. Good evening. The words I'm reading tonight are actually from my friend and colleague jp painter He is on a select board in his own community. Would you mind identifying yourself just for the record? Yes, I will. Thank you. My name is Phil Sirks. And I'm reading the words of JP Painter. So you might say I am not JP Painter, but I am playing him on TV. As I was saying, he is a select board member in his town, so he's attending a different budget meeting this evening Good evening. My name is JP Painter. I am the curriculum area supervisor for

104mathematics at South Burlington High School and have been teaching in South Burlington High School since 1999. I've heard a lot of talk about equity during the budget season so far. Equity is likely one of the most ubiquitous words in education today. At the last meeting, one of our board members asked our director of learning what was meant by the use of the word equity when it came to our curriculum and i appreciated the question and the response which aligned to the words provided in one of the early slides in tonight's presentation specifically The budget must be developed to maximize equity. I'm here to call out our budget process as it stands right now as it is not being conducted in a way that will maximize equity. the community quote unquote themes identified in previous budget

105presentations being used to inform the budget process are based on fewer than 40 responses to a survey sent out to some of the South Burlington taxpayers. Any mathematician will tell you the data as it stands is currently invalid. One of our budget votes last year saw approximately 4,000 people vote of approximately 15,500 voters. The number of respondents to the survey represents approximately 1% of the folks who voted during the final round of last year's budget. There are clearly many voices that have not been heard. This process is not equitable with so many voices. one of these quote unquote themes identified reduction of the curriculum area supervisor position at the high school. I'm not sure there are many community members who understand what a curriculum area supervisor does. Given the potential elimination of this position. While

106talking about an equitable process, I'm convinced that the board and perhaps our district administration don't fully understand what a curriculum area supervisor does. Tonight's slide deck named the curriculum area supervisor position as a district position. it is not the fact that it is identified as such shows a misunderstanding of the position at best. At worst, it shows an intentional dissemination of misinformation to satisfy another quote unquote theme of reducing district-level administrative positions. That's time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. My name is Melissa Schaffee. I'm a resident of South Burlington, an SB alumni, and an art and technology educator at SVHS and FHDMS. FHTMS, students experience a rotation of exploratory courses. theme is a multidisciplinary course centered on problem solving with new and current technologies. theme is essential to prepare students with skills in digital literacy

107through typing digital navigation, AI, engineering, 3D printing, laser cutting, and digital organization. In 2023, FabLab at FHPMS was eliminated and replaced with a study hall. The morning exploratory rotation now includes STEAM, multimedia, studio art. and a study hall. The proposed elimination of the 0.6 FTE steam force Leave a secondary vacancy in the morning of exploratory rotation. This may result in an additional study call, larger class sizes, and most importantly Bossing students skills with the technology they use for learning every day. STEAM is also the only proposed cut of a classroom teaching position for FHDMS within this budget. Please contemplate the greater negative impacts this will have on all student experiences and the lack of digital skills, both short and long. Despite decreases in technology education. Students will continue to need current technology education for their

108success in their school years beyond. Thank you. Any other public comment on that? Hi, I'm Noah Everett. I'm a co-president of South Burlington Educators Association. And I'm here to just make sure that this board has some clarity about reduction and what a reduction is. So some of the things that are being proposed appear to be kind of a shell game of where some work is going to do. And I urge the board to reduce, meaning to no longer have So when you reduce a position, you are asking for that work not to be present in the next school year. So I think a good example is the curriculum area supervisors If you're reducing that work, you're saying we no longer need that work. you can't then move that to another shell game of stipended leadership.

109If you're reducing nursing and you can't then have a new nurse coordinator position that's going to pick up that direct nursing work. if you're reducing in any other area, do consider it a reduction. I know these are difficult times. And I know that we're going to offer less of the program, but it's important that we are clear that that's what we are offering is less. not a shifting of work, whether that's EST moving to a K-12 special education coordination those those pieces have to be owned as what they are because the men and women who are doing this work currently And I've been putting their life into it. deserve that in return. So just consider that as you do consider your reductions and what we can live without. Thank you all for your time. I'm

110Megan Emery. I am a parent in the district And I came tonight because I care very much about this community. in addition to being a parent in the district so i would be here whether or not I'm a parent in the district i think this is a crisis in our state. What I want to say, I am an educator at UBM. And I understand very much what you have heard your faculty say to you tonight as a faculty member, we do give our lifeblood to our vocation. And with that in mind, I still do believe that Given the financial realities and the reductions that have to occur. that there are positions that are really, really essential. And it comes down to the arts music foreign language in addition to the four. um you know language

111arts, social studies a science and math. And technology will follow. In order to be able to use technology, you need to understand ethics. you need to understand math. You need to understand how relationships work in our society. And those are the building products. Once we have that. we can then give a student a tablet or a computer and use that that very powerful instrument, but with that basic knowledge of how we get along with one another. and how we look for facts and how the libraries Google is just like a library. So basics are really important. And then we can build on those basics and high school and there's a place. Anyway, I also wanted to say that in order for students who are in really dire straits in their home life financially. socially, emotionally.

112Mentorship is really an important thing. And I know that that was cut last year and then that this morning. Some of these students just need an adult who can accept them for who they are and then set limits And I just wanted to make a pitch for that because I do think that for students to learn They have to be open to the learning. And they need to feel accepted and feel those limits about the acceptable behavior and just being present So I know your job is tough. I know their job is tough. I do it every day. I feel for them. I feel for everybody. But I just have to say those words. So thank you. anyone else then? my loudspeakers myself. My name is Phil Sirx for the record. science teacher in the

113high school for 13 years. When… Citing the survey, the feedback input survey, and when examining a summary of the preserved programming it's really not difficult to discern whose voices are being heard loud and clear and whose are left out of this conversation. And the first sentence in the presentation tonight had to do with quote unquote maximizing equity in the vision statement. So if we're going to talk the talk, let's please walk the walk. And the positions that are proposed to be eliminated in this budget proposal are the ones that provide the guardrails and the supports for equity. And one other thing I noticed, there's a slide that I saw tonight for the first time about projected enrollments. It looks like in the next five years that high school enrollments are projected to increase by over

114120 students And that seems like the largest delta out of anywhere in the enrollment data in the district. That's four sections of NYU. Just putting that out there. Thank you for your time. Bridget Burkhart, president of South Burlington. I'm just going to make two very short comments. One is about enrollment data. I urge you, I've been urging it four or five years, please get rid of McKibbon. He has given us information that has been so inaccurate that it's led us to decisions that were probably decisions we might have made differently if we had not based them on his his algorithm, which is not based really on Vermont reality and especially not based on South Burlington reality we've had multiple conversations with him to try to fix the problems with that algorithm and If you go

115back and look, it looks more even than it is in terms of what his projections were versus what came out because he just adjusts them every couple of years on our dime. to make them look a little bit better, but they have been inaccurate and very challenging to use. Two, I would just urge you in future budget meetings to put some of the numbers back in. We used to do a lot more. I know that it's complicated education funding formula. We used to do a lot more with trying to walk the community through how we get to those numbers. So overall expenditures. where other sources of funding are coming from, how much we're asking from the ed fund how that relates to cost per pupil, how the CLA and the yield actually impact the tax

116rate, and then what that means for an average taxpayer in South Burlington. I know that can be complicated or scary for some folks, but I think it's really valuable and it feels more transparent to folks who really do care about the numbers and are willing to dig into them. So that's all I had to say. Really just process. And I'm happy to ask or if any of you have any questions or would like any further input, I will do it offline. Any other comments? Can I just got to show hands? Hello, I'm Rachel Stern. I'm one of the Howard Center School Services clinicians, and this is my fifth year at the high school. And my comments are brief. I just have a couple questions really and looking for some clarity around the additions. And I

117just kind of want to reference what Noah Everett spoke to, which is that these additions, which presumably are sort of meant to um not um meant to address some of what the cuts will mean in terms of impact. It would be helpful, I think, to have further clarity on what the job responsibilities will really be, because in my experience working with some of the students on my caseload, there isn't nor as noah referenced like there can't be a substitute for a nurse but really experientially having someone in the building that you're able to interact with face to face cannot possibly be replaced by someone in a remote or kind of managerial role that focuses on oversight. And so the kind of disconnect the difference between someone across the street and someone in the building just

118cannot be emphasized enough. And so it would be helpful, I think, to think about, especially when we're really thinking critically about the budget but in adding any sort of positions um i personally would love to understand what those responsibilities will look like more concretely. So I think I'll leave it there and I appreciate You all for those things. Good evening, Lindsay Hudson, School Counselor at South Burlington High School. scribbling through my notes to not reiterate anything. So one thing that I am struggling with is some contradictions that I'm trying to grapple with in the presentation. And I'm also just trying to understand it as it's shifted from what I understood it to be this morning. Knowing that it's a moving target. But one piece that I wanted to point out was you know there is

119there was a quote wanting to prioritize critical areas of student support and I don't see how that lines up with reducing social emotional supports, which I would say we were kind of devastating in the current budget at the high school level where it already feels like we're pulling on by skin of our teeth. The other contradiction that I am curious about is prioritizing student-facing positions and not to reiterate, but like Rachel just said, the addition of these two district positions, district health supervisor and PK through 12 special ed program manager. I'm curious what those roles are. And if they would be in one of the school buildings, student facing. Just anecdotally, our student support services, CAS, which I believe is also on a list of getting cut um is integral in the daily operations of

120ensuring that our media students are getting the support they need on a day-to-day basis that is constant juggling and needs like somebody on the ground in the high school absolutely The other piece that I'm curious about is CAS being listed in the district, not in the high school. I think in looking at the impact of the high school and how it runs operationally. It is pretty devastating the dismantling that's being talked about. And with no clear plan of how that is going to work otherwise. I'm really concerned about that and all of the roles that those CIS positions hold. And finally, I just want to add some concern which hasn't come up at all, I don't think about. There was a personal finance graduation requirement that was approved by the board a few years ago

121that next year's graduating class of 2026 is the first class that will have that requirement. In addition to the other existing graduation requirements. And currently, after losing a full-time social studies teacher last year, which is the department that now holds personal finance and another full-time social studies teacher being on the cut list for this coming year. This year, we had to prioritize seniors because of the reductions. And so we're looking at needing to get pretty much all 220 something rising seniors and an additional 0.5 requirement that we currently don't have the FTE for. And so I'm just curious if the board is aware of that. Thank you. Any other public comment in the room? We unmute colleagues. Hi, can you hear me? She's talking to her meeting. Sorry, for some reason, I cannot hear you.

122I don't know if you can hear me. I can hear you. Okay, super. Thank you. Thank you all very much for your time on this. I do serve my… Sorry, Polly van derputen. I teach German and French at South Burlington High School. I do serve on the board in another district and we are also currently going through a lot of budget conversations. So I absolutely empathize with the challenges that you are facing with this. it is not easy anywhere. I wanted to speak to a couple of things and ask a couple of questions about the proposed budget cuts, specifically about the curriculum area supervisors, the CAS position. Some of the conversations that we have been having in the high school have been around Things like who will be conducting teacher evaluation because this is something

123the CAS people do. Teacher evaluation is essential to holding teachers accountable, to making sure that they're doing the best possible job. And it's very time consuming to do it well. So that's something we're on a three-year cycle for at the high school and I have found it to be one of the more functional aspects of our building. Another thing that the CAS position does is manage department budgets. They look at professional development and best practices and bring it to the department. And they serve as a bridge between the administration and the teachers. They themselves are teachers. So anything that comes in as a new idea or something we need to work on is something that they are living through and then they are able to communicate between teachers and administration. My experience with it has

124been that it's essential. And I would just ask the question, if we do not have these positions anymore, who is going to do this? Who is going to hire new teachers who is going to evaluate teachers, who is going to navigate between parents and teachers, who is going to manage professional development and budgets for departments. We don't have an answer to that yet. The second thing I would like to say is about mental health. We are not really quite yet out of pandemic behaviors. Meaning we still see students who are struggling. And I have found some of the people I have most closely worked with in helping my students have been The ninth grade dean, the SAP counselor, the EST coordinator, and the school counselors in particular. So I am wondering if teachers do not

125have these resources anymore, who is going to provide them? Because they are the difference between a ninth grader being successful and making it to 12th grade or not. This has been my experience with it. Thank you very much for listening. I really appreciate your time and I do fully empathize with the challenges of this process. That's going to wrap full of comments this evening. 813. So we will take a quick break for five minutes and come back at the end of the time. And they give you a number. Thank you. All right. We are still on agenda item 8 FY26 budget. So at this point The person in the community, we've heard from our administration and as a board, I don't want to drag this out, but I think that we each need to weigh

126in on which model we'd like to see the administration continuous for our next budget Would it be too much to ask for just too much recap of the models. I'll be honest, I don't fully understand the difference between the two and like Why are they fucking like pre-selected like can i pre-selected they move parks around. I don't think this is like a menu selection kind of thing um Because it's my understanding that each line item, not only is that not really like board jurisdiction but it's has financial impacts that might not mesh with another aspect of, let's say, the model. But also the way I see this is like model one is the most reductions and then the most model two and model three add some back. In the… with an eye on the clock,

127I'd just like to ask the board to I mean, add as much info as we need to, but give some feedback about which model you'd like to see the administration move forward with. I'd like to see model three. um i think I'm in a building every day as well. Yes. I think we did just hear like, you know, add everything back gosh, that would be really great. I would love that. Need to campaign for that and have a societal shift But I'm hoping that we are hoping that Yeah, because I'm looking at fewer athletic reductions instructionals, fewer instructional support reductions I mean, these are things that keep kids in school and keep them engaged. And… That's what I would advocate for. And we our surrounding communities are supporting their budgets. I'm hoping that South Burlington

128will as well So I think I'm mutually important. That's my goal. I would agree with my totally not totally new eyes, but basically new eyes that See… that fleshed out. would be good. And then when we have more, you know, as the numbers change from the state Maybe we have to go back again I also agree with Bridget that seeing the actual numbers would help. I actually wondered if you would have some perspective on that demographically i won't put you on the spot by any means. Well, I mean, I don't know anything about specifically but i i mean i am sitting here wondering I mean, we know physically how many children, I mean, how many pupils we have And there are models you know that you can use based on the number of two bedroom,

129three bedroom you know the maybe we can come up with something that we think is a better. I don't know if we're even allowed to do that, but… You know, it's not impossible We have most of the information at our fingertips. Hi, Chris or Tim? Capital Reserve Fund is a priority. I think the message was bottom clear from the community that They want to use Honda for a while and you're going to have to do your oil changes and set aside money for repairs. And if you don't set aside money for repairs, that debt service will reduce our ability to deploy that money if you are educational. just that aside the I'd like to say add everything back in. I'm not there. I think there's been some decent recommendations that i think just doing the

130status quo doesn't make sense. And I think it's time for us to take a hard look and look at the way we do business and deliver education in the, I shouldn't say places like deliver education in the school district I'm curious, but one comment that really stood out to me was the um was the cutting of services that help marginalized communities while maintaining some of the AP stuff, like just that that message just kind of understanding some of these recommendations would be helpful just that that really stood out to me. The special education piece There were some great recommendations. But everything else is kind of on the table, I think. That's just But that doesn't fit one of these three so i don't instructional supports that would be two or three right fewer or model

131to provide some instructional supports Model 3 preserves instructional supports. Am I right? Okay. some level two or three. Yeah, but model one doesn't model but model two doesn't include some of the facility stuff There's 250,000 included. for the capital reserve account for each in model two so model three is in addition to monetary. So it's in there. Yeah. For clarity's sake, the capital reserve fund is included in each of the models. So the special education that whole bubble There's some adding special ed, adding interventions that's Fantastic. I addressed some of the concern so I'm not clearly where that falls on which of these models so that's so the the positions we talked through tonight are all in model one so everything included there, all the changes are model one. Model two would be adding more

132supports back in and model three would be adding even more supports back in. So everything you see is the would be the minimum under model one. So the special education and the staff for this eight positions here. All model one would be in model one, yes. And it would not be altering. It would be in model all the models and model two and three would be even greater support. So it would give us the ability to preserve a lot of the the many more positions. Would it be in the wrong spirit to, you know, when you're trying to compare let's say software options that you're going to subscribe to and you go down the checklist and it shows you what what's included in this version. maybe that would be a good way to compare I

133don't know if that's in the wrong spirit because when you get to select which software it's like, well, no matter what, I'm getting a service I'd like to have but it might be helpful just for clarity's sake of seeing my capital reserve fund that's included. Sure. A couple of comments first. I appreciate the modeling, but I kind of don't want to speak to model one two or three I want to make sure that we're not currently emphasizing or placing a lot of emphasis on the tax rate because that number is so ambiguous at this point that to start saying we're going to go with a particular approach based on what we perceive the tax rate to be at this point is really putting the cart way before the horse. I guess what I'm very interested

134in is understanding the overall spending and increase that we're going to have from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26. And again, in light of the overall education fund. I think we just need to be very conscientious of any pressure we're putting on that unnecessarily. Again, saying that, I don't see that in this budget. I mean, it's an increase for us but again we artificially suppressed it last year quite a bit but we are we are essentially, if I'm not mistaken regardless of what we do going to be looking at a double digit increase on what we're demanding from the end fund. So that definitely is of a concern that I have. That said, as I look at some of the proposed cuts and everything, I want to recognize what Noah said about administrative work

135not necessary it's either not got to be done or it's gone right So I am not an expert on the administrative work that's being done and what those decisions mean, and I will defer, of course, to your expertise on that. But I do recognize that and I want to acknowledge that because the work is there, the work is being done, and where does it go if or it goes away and what the impact potentially would be. So I definitely want to echo that concern that I have. Not that we And I think we've heard from the community as well that if we're going to make cuts. they would prefer to see it on the administrative side, but we have to recognize the potential impact for our students on that. I don't want to speak to

136necessarily particular positions in the cuts. I do have concerns around cutting nursing, cutting the counselor. I see those as very directly tied to student supports and from an equity perspective, I would I would think that some of our neediest people do rely on nursing and on counselors and local counselors. And I'm not sure the number that was mentioned, the 190 to 1, that that's that you're huge. Right. But again, I'm not sure exactly what that means. So I just voiced that concern as we look at the overall. changes i agree with Chris. I think that we do need to the facilities we need to start very focusing on that leaf. put it under, we've kind of put it under swept it under the carpet for a couple of discussions here, but that's something that I'm

137glad we are focusing on in the budget as we go. So I wish we weren't even talking about cuts at this point That's where we're at. So from my perspective, those are the aspects that I really look at. So I guess if we were to look at sort of where you're heading here, Violet. I'm leaning more towards model one with a taste of model two where we're bringing back in some of those direct supports. And with an eye on what can be retained administratively so we're not really damaging some of that cross-pollination that's happened vertical whatever Anything else from the board of this? I think… If I could have had a crystal ball last year, I don't think I would have made the same recommendations that I made last year, just looking at what it's

138done to us this year. and it feels disingenuous for me to sit here and say These look way better than I thought they were in the letter. a month and a half ago, but also knowing that they could change to exactly what we're most afraid of very quickly. And… While we may be looking at like increase in spending, we're looking at reduction in services, period. So I have got to… I think this year I would like to support model one I don't want to be in a position where we have told the community that we think the tax rate is going to be one thing and that it is vastly different. I just see all of these as enormously painful. I don't think that the board has the perspective necessarily to know things like caseload.

139So like you're citing 190 to 1 caseload What does the work for one of those 190 look like. you know is it i just i just think having the board have that kind of a granular discussion is just very misguided. I think we have to really look at Year over year, what are we going to ask our community to support How are we going to fund it? I just think it's going to be painful no matter what it sounds like we have a balance of model two and three model one meaning and so I think that's your conglomerate and you know conglomerate advice back is I think you have a balanced perspective on the court right now. That's not a super clear directive, but perhaps it's helpful in understanding Yeah, I appreciate that. It's really

140helpful and it's It's heartening. Model one is would be very hard. for our students and staff. And so I am hearing the feedback and hearing it's it's more leaning toward a model two and there's compromise in there. And hopefully that will appeal to taxpayers and also support students So thank you for the feedback. Digital McKibbon? It's really misleading like the further you get away from projection I would absolutely agree. Our last report from him was 2024 and i elected not to do one this year. So we've already We've already moved away from it. It's just the most recent one. I don't know how much it is worth. $5,000. Can I just follow up as you said like this is going to be really difficult on our students and staff. And I just want to say

141that like, I fully recognize that And I think that the more we shy away from these hard conversations every year, the worse the next year is going to be. And that's what I'm feeling this year is last year. I wish that i wish that we had made some different choices because I don't think this year would have to be as harsh. And so I hope that next year If I sit here. It's that we are trying to lessen the pain each year and not just pushing the pain off further cure as we go. If that is it for FY26 budget. I just want to make sure, since I was not in the room when any amendments were made against I think we had talked about talking about the finance committee and such. I would offer

142that we strike that for this agenda and move that to it. so amenable to those important Does that mean Ron could have done the clinic? Thank you. Item 10 agenda planning set agenda for January 8th meeting. So we're going to add Getting to sort of topic in there around community engagement on the budget. Sure. Do you want that in discussion? Yeah, in discussion. Just a discussion item. Did you say community engagement around the budget Yes. thinking about it. That brings us to agenda item 11. And I'd like to do something a little different And I've learned from some other boards and board members. Are there any questions about anything on the consent agenda? Karen, normally I would go quite nice ways on consent agenda, but it seems like it's unnecessary kind of a time waster.

143So instead, I'm just going to ask If anyone has any questions and that's permanent state orders, anything that we need to approve. If you have questions, this is the time to ask. concerns, anything? If not, then I will just say the consent agenda items are approved. Nice and efficient. Which brings us to agenda item 12, adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn the regular meeting of the South Wellington School Board on December 18th? 37 p.m. Any discussion? All right. Thank you.