February 4, 2026 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, you are good to go. SBSD Owl Cam: Ready? SBSD Owl Cam: I'd like to call to order the January 21st, 2026 SBSD Owl Cam: Regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. SBSD Owl Cam: At 5 p.m. today, we had a steering committee meeting, which just concluded. That's a meeting with the city council to talk about their budget and talk about our budget. That's now over. SBSD Owl Cam: The next item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. SBSD Owl Cam: We've already said the Pledge of Allegiance as a group tonight. Should we say it again? SBSD Owl Cam: Okay. Do we have consent from two-thirds to want to be on? Okay. So, we already said the Pledge of Allegiance earlier, so we won't say it again. SBSD Owl Cam:

002Next on the agenda is announcements. SBSD Owl Cam: Do we have any announcements? SBSD Owl Cam: I have an announcement in… SBSD Owl Cam: February, the school board will be talking about SBSD Owl Cam: The Williston Road Streetscape Project, which is shared with the city, Which involves, talking about SBSD Owl Cam: Transferring some land from the back of… SBSD Owl Cam: Rick Marcotte Central School to the city so that they can widen the sidewalks and make things safer back there. So you'll hear a full discussion of that on February 4th, and we'll also talk about it on February 18th. So if you're interested in that, please come to those meetings. SBSD Owl Cam: Yes, I'll share a quick announcement. At our last meeting, I expressed that it was my intention, to room, for the school

003board, but just simply due to personal capacity issues, I would not be running, just wanted to press that SBSD Owl Cam: truly and sincerely enjoyed my time on this board. I hope other community members, use this narrow window here to collect their signatures and smoothies. SBSD Owl Cam: Yes. SBSD Owl Cam: And that's… So, thank you, and I'm sad to hear that. SBSD Owl Cam: That's another reminder for a second. So, if you want to run for school board, there, you can go to the city clerk's office and get, SBSD Owl Cam: a paper that, I think 30 people have to sign? Yes. It's also online. 30 registered voters. 30 registered voters. If you want to run for school board, now is a good time to plan a party. SBSD Owl Cam: There are 4

004seats. And there are 4 seats available? SBSD Owl Cam: So, it's a great time to get involved. SBSD Owl Cam: I will also make an announcement that, I wasn't sure if I was running last time we met, but I have decided to run again, so I am in the process of collecting my signatures, and you can just print it right off of the internet if anyone is looking for it. SBSD Owl Cam: There are only 20 slots on the, petition, so make sure you print out two, so you can fill out one and a half pages, or just two full pages, just in case. SBSD Owl Cam: And I, also understand you won't be able to come back, but I really appreciate having you on the board, so… Thank you. It's been a pleasure, really

005enjoyed the time here, and yeah, the community's great against this forward, Dr. Parker. SBSD Owl Cam: Also, community, feel free to reach out to me, and I won't speak with the board, but I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone is wondering about running, and wants more information, or who understand what it's about, and… SBSD Owl Cam: Happy to… SBSD Owl Cam: communicate that. And you might want to get a couple more than 30, because some of the people will turn out not to be registered voters, and so you will end up losing a few. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you, Chris. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, the next item on our agenda is to review and accept the agenda. So, what we currently have on the agenda is comments from the public. SBSD Owl Cam: Then

006we have our student representative report. SBSD Owl Cam: Then we actually have a community forum to talk about Vermont School District redistricting. SBSD Owl Cam: This is to discuss the possibility of a school board making a statement, as other school boards have done in Chittenden County. SBSD Owl Cam: After that, we will have an action item on the school district redistricting statement. This is not about redistricting schools within our district, this is about redistricting SBSD Owl Cam: By joining other districts. SBSD Owl Cam: The next action item is a vote on the meeting warning, which is the official text that will go out on the ballot. SBSD Owl Cam: I believe that's right. Yes, sir. SBSD Owl Cam: What company? SBSD Owl Cam: Yep, I've got it right here. SBSD Owl Cam: The next action

007item is, high school choice capacity. SBSD Owl Cam: The next action item is our third reading of a change to our executive limitations related to video surveillance. SBSD Owl Cam: This will be the fifth time that we have brought this up, and the third time that we have discussed it and had it available for discussion by the board. And so we'll be taking action on it tonight. SBSD Owl Cam: And then, we will have two discussion items, the budget communication plan, talking about, now that we have approved a budget, how we communicate that. SBSD Owl Cam: And also, a discussion on, how to get started with updating our ENDS policy, which the superintendent has said is the necessary first step to having a strategic plan, really moving forward with any kind of transformation. We need

008to look at our ends. SBSD Owl Cam: And finally, a… well, not finally, actually. Finally for this page. Superintendent report. SBSD Owl Cam: Then there's the consent agenda, and then, in case we need it, an executive session. SBSD Owl Cam: which we… SBSD Owl Cam: At this point, I don't know of any topics that we need to cover for the executive session, so we may end up not having that. SBSD Owl Cam: So, does anybody have any, comments or amendments to the agenda? SBSD Owl Cam: So, I was gonna offer one amendment to the agenda, and to clarify, we need a two-thirds vote to… SBSD Owl Cam: amend the agenda at this point. I was just wondering if the board wanted to consider again the choice of the SBSD Owl Cam: 3.4% budget, given the

009tax increase. SBSD Owl Cam: So… At this time, it's not a time to discuss the merits of that. SBSD Owl Cam: Discussion, but it is just, wondering if two-thirds of the board would be in favor of Literally. SBSD Owl Cam: relitigating, talking about that again. And as context, I have talked to the lawyer and the city, this was actually weeks ago, in terms of when the absolute latest time that we could SBSD Owl Cam: Send the final budget to them, and SBSD Owl Cam: It's… it's… today would be the last possible time that we could make any kind of change, without, seriously inconveniencing everybody. SBSD Owl Cam: So, if there's any interest on the board about relitigating that discussion, I wanted to offer that as an amendment to the agenda. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there

010any interest in… so I would be for having that up for a vote again tonight. SBSD Owl Cam: All right. SBSD Owl Cam: Sounds like a no. SBSD Owl Cam: Any other, changes to the agenda? SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, we'll approve it as… It stands. The next item on the agenda is comments from the public. SBSD Owl Cam: There are 3 opportunities for the public to comment. SBSD Owl Cam: Right now, about anything. SBSD Owl Cam: On the agenda… stuff that's on the agenda, stuff that's not on the agenda. SBSD Owl Cam: Before the board takes action on an action item, but only on the topic being action. SBSD Owl Cam: and at a community forum on worn topics. Tonight is a community forum on one topic. The board will not respond to public comments

011unless this meeting is a specially designated community forum and the comments on a topic worn on the agenda. SBSD Owl Cam: You'll be given up to 3 minutes. SBSD Owl Cam: Please do not violate anyone's privacy. SBSD Owl Cam: Unofficial complaint agreements cannot be filed during public comment. So, do we have any public comment? SBSD Owl Cam: Sarah Pineda, nurse leader, and, also a spouse for the resident. SBSD Owl Cam: Just wanted to add some context, and… but I do realize that the budget has been approved, and we'll move forward to the ballot, but, SBSD Owl Cam: And I appreciate that work, but just wanted to add some context. SBSD Owl Cam: From a health services perspective, I want to note that while the district may remain within state-recommended nurse-to-student ratios. SBSD Owl Cam: The

012approved budget does represent a reduction in nursing capacity. SBSD Owl Cam: In addition to those ratios, national guidance from organizations such as NASIN, which is the National Association of Dental Nurses, and the AAP, emphasizes staffing models that consider student acuity and complexity. SBSD Owl Cam: State guidance also recommends and relies on district-level nursing leadership to implement state-level changes SBSD Owl Cam: And reducing that has implications for how health services function day-to-day, and larger issues like, chronic absenteeism. SBSD Owl Cam: So, that's all. Thank you for your work, I just wanted to add that context. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any comment online? Do you raise comments online? No race teams. SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, we'll move on to… Next item, which is the student representative report. SBSD Owl Cam: Wednesday, January 28th, is the late

013start for both the middle and high school, so classes will begin later, so make sure you check your school's individual schedule and your bus schedule. SBSD Owl Cam: Today, 8th graders visited from various towns like Georgia, Grand Isles, and North Hero to see what school feels like for 9th grader at South Burlington High School. Current 9th grade student ambassadors volunteered to have students shadow them for the day and show them all the great things we have at South Burlington High School. SBSD Owl Cam: And I want to say thank you to everyone who visited, and the guidance office for their work on… SBSD Owl Cam: Tomorrow, the high school will be hosting the 8th grade Academic Information Night at 7pm, so during this event, 8th grade students and their families can come, they can see

014the high school and receive information from both guidance and current freshmen on the high school experience. SBSD Owl Cam: On Thursday, January 29th, the high school will be hosting a post-secondary information session for juniors at 6.30 in the auditorium. SBSD Owl Cam: So, any students that want to learn more about post-secondary opportunities are encouraged to attend. More information will be sent to their emails. SBSD Owl Cam: That's all. SBSD Owl Cam: Great, thank you. Was there any board questions about the… It was updated. SBSD Owl Cam: I have a question. Do you ever have an opportunity for folks to register at school for voting? I mean, would that be… I mean, I can imagine you probably do it in, you know, before a primary election, but I'm not having… SBSD Owl Cam: how often we

015do that? Yeah, I was gonna bring it up, actually, during our gardening discussion, but I was saying it now, too. SBSD Owl Cam: Mom and I've planned for this year, and very similar to last year, is to hopefully give some kind of budget presentation to at least the seniors and the juniors, hopefully during advisory, so that we can keep them informed and stop the spread of misinformation about the budget. And then we always do a… SBSD Owl Cam: voter registration table, during at least 3 days lunch period to try to get those 18-year-olds to register before March 4th. That being said, a lot of SBSD Owl Cam: the senior class does not turn 18 before March 4th, but we usually get about, like. SBSD Owl Cam: 15 people to register each year, is my memory

016from last year, so that's what me and Melvin's plan is, and then… During lunch. During lunch, and we'll make sure we communicate that with our announcements to Superman. So when would that be? Probably February? Yeah, we'll start… SBSD Owl Cam: presentations will probably be the mid-February, hopefully, depending on the nicer schedule, and then voter registration will be, like. SBSD Owl Cam: It's really cool. SBSD Owl Cam: Any other… Board questions for the students. SBSD Owl Cam: just, I'd love to maybe see your presentations and maybe get some ideas from you about how to present the budget. Yeah, see, we'll make sure we share it. Well, they've been doing a great job. Do you follow them on Instagram? You've done a great job with Student Perhaps. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you, nicely done. SBSD Owl Cam:

017Great. Well, we are very far ahead of time here. The next item on the agenda is a community forum to discuss Vermont School District Redistricting. So this is not about school consolidation, this is not about SBSD Owl Cam: Consolidating schools, redistricting schools within our district. This is a… SBSD Owl Cam: topic about statewide redistricting, and a chance for the community to offer any feedback it has, in addition to anything that any of us may have heard from our individual constituents outside of a school board meeting. SBSD Owl Cam: So… Is there any community comment? SBSD Owl Cam: on… your discipline. SBSD Owl Cam: Please. Perfect. SBSD Owl Cam: Frequent flyer. I know, what the heck? SBSD Owl Cam: Sorry. No, thank you. I… just… I sort of have a question, like, I don't know if

018this… this is a discussion, but I… SBSD Owl Cam: So when we talk about redistricting, I think at first, when you hear that, it sounds, like, really scary, because no one wants to lose, like, their school. But then I was discussing this with, SBSD Owl Cam: actually a physician that I've worked with on some health services stuff that SBSD Owl Cam: used to live in Hawaii, and she said that there are, like, very few school districts, but each school acts like… There's one school district in Hawaii. Okay, so… That's one. Yeah, but… SBSD Owl Cam: from what I understand, like. SBSD Owl Cam: each individual school or group of schools still has their own sort of vibe. SBSD Owl Cam: So I was just wondering, like, your thoughts if you… with, you know, hearing more…

019Yeah, we… it's a great question. SBSD Owl Cam: We can't do anything about it. I read the three scenarios the BSBA is also backing, and it is for 11 districts, and it would put us in Chittman County West with, SBSD Owl Cam: So it'll be our Burlington… I just want to say that what you're saying is VSBA information, it's not official school board information. No, no, this is from Zoe Sondra's office. SBSD Owl Cam: So, that… because she has proposed two… three different things. So, okay, fine, I don't have to say… No, no, please, please do, please do. But my point is… SBSD Owl Cam: This is not up to us, nor any other school board. They may be against it, we may be against it, they may be for it. It doesn't matter. This

020is going to come from the state. SBSD Owl Cam: The current… if we go to 11 districts, it's going to be between 4,000 and 8,000 students. SBSD Owl Cam: And… SBSD Owl Cam: I don't think we will… we will not get a say. Right now, they have us with, and again, this is not Berthenstone, none of this, or Burlington, Colchester, Milton, South Burlington, and Manuski. That would be one district. So, I guess my… And just to… I believe that implied district would be north of 20,000 students, right? No, it would be 10,591 students, it would be the second highest. SBSD Owl Cam: They want… and then this one in central Vermont would be the highest at $11,936. So they've kind of… they've re… they've reworked it, so nothing's truly outrageous. SBSD Owl Cam: But we

021would be the second highest, Central Vermont, and then I think the one with Essex seeding, I can't remember the other one. SBSD Owl Cam: They would be the third highest, so anywhere between 4,000 and 8,000 students. But again… What would be yours? SBSD Owl Cam: This is, again, this is a proposal. Yeah, right. So, it'd be South Burlington, Burlington, Winooski. SBSD Owl Cam: And Milton. And Colchester, sorry. SBSD Owl Cam: Burlington, Colchester, Milton, Southampton. SBSD Owl Cam: Skin. SBSD Owl Cam: So that's 10,000… so that's the current… that's one of the… I was just wondering, so say we join districts, and will we have an opportunity to, like, remain any autonomy as South Burlington? Like, keep our wolves… SBSD Owl Cam: mascot, like, as our group of South Burlington schools. SBSD Owl Cam: It's a

022great last point. I'm not sure that we know. I don't think anybody knows. I just… I think that's a big part of it for the community adopting it, is initially I was, you know, it's scary to be like, oh, we're gonna lose our sense of community, so I think it's just an important point to see if we would be able to… because my understanding is that's how SBSD Owl Cam: it functions in Hawaii, but, SBSD Owl Cam: I think that's just an important… SBSD Owl Cam: point of discussion. Great question. I would encourage you to go to the state legislature. They are the ones who are actually going to make the SBSD Owl Cam: the determination. But I think it's also… it would be interesting to look at Hawaii, like, and see if that's what

023it looks like. Not that that's what it's going to be, but just, you know, because that, I think, is, you know, we're talking about how to present the budget, and how to present redistricting, or SBSD Owl Cam: consolidation goes right along with it. Even if we don't have control over what it ends up being, there's a… I feel like it's our opportunity to try to… SBSD Owl Cam: really, you know, communicate with the community. Edie and Martin were the vice chairs of that community. They had extensive talks with the Hawaii school district people. Okay. So, they would have… they have a lot of information. SBSD Owl Cam: And they, they didn't really consider creating one district in Vermont that was on the table there for people in it. Okay. And then I don't know what,

024what they, what they learned. SBSD Owl Cam: But, they're… yeah, they have a lot of really good information. And if you go on the Agency of Education website, there's information there. I tried to read through, but it… right now, nobody really knows. Right. So, these are really good questions. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. Can I just address that? To go after the name and the mascot, right? And the teams. It's not the purpose of redistricting, and so I would hope that would be… SBSD Owl Cam: the very last part of the conversation, and defer to… Right. I just think it's just… the community would accept, like, be more accepting of it if that, you know, information was clear. SBSD Owl Cam: Right. Well, I just want to go to something that Laura said about how there's

025nothing we can do, and I think that we actually… SBSD Owl Cam: have a lot of a voice as a school board in terms of influencing the state and, SBSD Owl Cam: One of the opportunities that we have, since we haven't made a statement yet, for or against SBSD Owl Cam: Is to use that voice that we have to infect the legislature, because if we speak. SBSD Owl Cam: As a school board, if we… you know, it's not common that we make a statement like this. It's not common that we make a statement. I think in my time in school board, I think we made one, or maybe one. SBSD Owl Cam: As opposed to just individual school board members making their opinions known. So, I do think that… SBSD Owl Cam: If we make

026a statement. SBSD Owl Cam: the Secretary of Education will hear it, the Governor will hear it, the Legislature will hear it, and hopefully that will give us, you know, just maybe a little bit more say in the future of South Carolina. Please. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. I'm sorry, Sarah. SBSD Owl Cam: Do you recognize I am? Diane Bugbee: Hi, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Diane Bugbee: First, I just… I want to give a shout out to our student representatives as part of the high percentage in South Burlington of voters that don't have students in the district any longer, I feel like you are always well prepared, and Diane Bugbee: well-prepared and kind of keep it real as someone that's no longer connected with the school. With that in mind, I

027just wondered these, the work group that looked at the two models of, potentially, to redistrict school districts, were students included? Diane Bugbee: in those groups, I think sometimes, Diane Bugbee: Folks that might experience a high impact are not included in such groups, and may have questions that are highly relevant that other people may not have thought of. Diane Bugbee: I don't know all the questions to ask, quite honestly, and, I appreciate your having this forum to, for residents to listen in on and learn. Thank you. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know if it was Steve. Yeah, I don't know. Again, I would… I would point people toward Martins, you know, look at me, when… SBSD Owl Cam: I just forgot her last name. But they were the co-chairs. And also, Secretary Saunders, if you go

028to her website, she has information, you can ask them any questions. And I guess, before Gemma, before I… I think one of SBSD Owl Cam: The intention of this community forum is not to provide official information, because SBSD Owl Cam: as Laura was saying, there really is no official… like, the South Burlington School District doesn't have any official information about redistricting. It's all state-level stuff. I think the question… SBSD Owl Cam: The inspiration behind having a statement around it, a community forum around it, is to say, from what we know, from the limited information that we have, like, how can we SBSD Owl Cam: put together a cohesive statement, and then make our voices heard. So, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of information to get. Now, Jean Marie may have more information, but… SBSD

029Owl Cam: I had just two comments I wanted to share with the board. I was a school board chair as our, school district and supervisory union went through the Act 46 school consolidation process, and SBSD Owl Cam: It was very intensive. It took a lot of our board time and energy of many, many meetings, really slogging through all of the details around SBSD Owl Cam: what we do have control over and what we don't, how do we close the school? How do we don't? How do we not do that? And so you… there are a lot of things that you… you could be in control of when we went through that process. I would encourage you as board members, and particularly you, Seamus, as the board chair, to really have your voice heard at the

030State House, because SBSD Owl Cam: like, what… so if they decide that we're going to merge with whatever these towns are that they've assigned us to, then they have… someone has to decide what that board makeup looks like. How many seats does this town get at that table? How are those assigned, and SBSD Owl Cam: And then you have to create all the policies that are going to operate that district, right? So, SBSD Owl Cam: You know, I will… I'm really glad to hear that you are spending time trying to get community input about what this looks like, and it is such a whole new concept for the state to consider, but make sure that you as board members and the other board chair definitely hear your opinion, because I think that that's valuable information

031that SBSD Owl Cam: the state needs to hear. SBSD Owl Cam: My second comment is also kind of related to school redistricting. You know, I am new to this role, but I spent some time this fall with Dr. Clark at a VSBA conference. I got to meet some of my colleagues around the state, connected with some of our friends at the Burlington School District, and to that end, we are having a very, very early stage SBSD Owl Cam: kind of brainstorming conversation next week with them, with my friends in the business office, and the Burlington School District Business Office, to just start kind of spitballing ideas of SBSD Owl Cam: redistricting or not, what are the ways that potentially we could partner, that would make us be more efficient? And, I will tell you that

032I am a girl who, when you give me a broad idea like that, I immediately go right down to the weeds and be like, alright, how can we make this work? And, I'll share with you that the one idea that I have, and actually the Burlington School District finance manager was SBSD Owl Cam: kind of courting me in this idea. As you know, we have done a really impressive job building our transportation team. We have a new manager who's been with us for almost a year. Those of you who ride the buses, potentially, or are parents of children on the buses, we stopped our rolling cancellation of buses last fall, right around Thanksgiving. SBSD Owl Cam: So, like, a year ago, and… So… SBSD Owl Cam: others around us are like, hey, lady, how did

033you make that happen? And we would like that to have the same effect in our school district. So, Burlington uses the city bus, GMT to transport… do the majority of their transporting of their school children, but they also do have a small number of buses that they have in-house and transport primarily their special ed students in their buses. SBSD Owl Cam: Our transportation manager, and I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I'm going to, because I think this is such a great idea. Our transportation manager, we kind of stole from Green Mountain Transit, so he spent many years working for Green Mountain Transit, public transportation, so he brings to us now, the knowledge of how the city bus system works. SBSD Owl Cam: He's now spent a year with us, understanding how school busing works,

034and wouldn't it make sense if we could, like. SBSD Owl Cam: bring Burlington under our umbrella, so that if they have, like, 4 buses that they're running, we're running 20? SBSD Owl Cam: Like, if we could somehow partner to have his expertise SBSD Owl Cam: bring everybody under that one umbrella, that we're all employing them together, getting everybody where they need to be. You know, it's a unique situation having a supervisor who has that, background, working on the city bus company. But, so… so those are the kinds of ideas that we're just beginning to think about. That work will start next week. Maybe it'll go nowhere, maybe something great will come out of it, but… SBSD Owl Cam: redistricting or not, there hopefully are ways that we can be more efficient and more thoughtful with

035the ways that we and our neighboring districts are spending our money. So, just wanted to share. Thanks all. I think that's, just… Awesome. Yeah. Vermonters are stronger together. Collaborate. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there a comment. SBSD Owl Cam: Would you recognize Elizabeth? Elizabeth: Hi, can you hear me? SBSD Owl Cam: Yes. Elizabeth: Yeah, thank you. I probably should have just stayed there, Seamus. Just a couple of quick comments, and thanks for providing the opportunity to have this conversation. One of the things that I think about, and I do think it makes sense, as South Burlington is a leadership district within the state. Elizabeth: To weigh in with, some kind of statement is. Elizabeth: I think it's incumbent, as this, you know, train leaves the station, that the districts who are going to be impacted keep

036the process honest, and one of the things that, is driving this is really, cost reductions and sustainability. Elizabeth: But I also think about the questions that may be asked, like, how does South Burlington benefit? Where are the gaps? Elizabeth: that have been identified relative to the values that South Burlington holds for its students, and I've heard, you know, the vocations of the tech side of the equation mentioned several times over different meetings. So, you know, having a clear understanding where there's an expectation of a large district to benefit from the process. Elizabeth: And then again, where can South Burlington contribute its leadership and expertise? And I think, Jean Marie just gave a good example there, in… Elizabeth: you know, one of the operations that might be transportation, but there may be other areas, operational issues

037that would include efficiencies where South Burlington may be a leader relative to neighboring districts. So, I also think Elizabeth: Communicating, as this process moves forward, the values that a large community has, and a leadership community for its students is important, and weighing that against the process that is unfolding is really important. Elizabeth: And then I can't help but think of, Elizabeth: the link to the city's recently adopted economic development strategic plan that really has identified industry clusters that drive job growth, and think about how that Elizabeth: those strategies can be woven together, and those would include aerospace and companies like Beta Chips and Electrical Manufacturing, digital services, environmental consulting, and life sciences. And I think, South Burlington Elizabeth: has a rich history of partnering with different organizations that, maybe isn't necessarily seen around the state,

038so that could be an area of contribution. But I, again, my thoughts are a little bit disjointed, but I do think a seat at the table with a statement that represents a significant district and kind of keeps the process honest would be very helpful. Elizabeth: Thank you for the opportunity. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you. SBSD Owl Cam: 34 comments. SBSD Owl Cam: You know, I have looked at the world. SBSD Owl Cam: consolidation from Essex Junction merged with the town, and that… SBSD Owl Cam: That did take a long time. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't think it's saving the money. SBSD Owl Cam: So it is… SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I'm just saying it. I just don't think that that's our job. I mean, people are getting paid to do that job, but I think,

039yeah, maybe make a new statement in support of it. SBSD Owl Cam: Because right now, if most districts are saying they don't want to do it, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: maybe don't want to ask our opinion, people are in favor of it. Like, get some feedback from us. That's the only way I can think of to… SBSD Owl Cam: Have a say, because the legislature's… SBSD Owl Cam: Oops. We'll go strong, we should take it there. And there… I think what you're saying also is that there's a… there's some urgency, too, because this, you know, we wouldn't want the legislature to move forward without us having said our piece. SBSD Owl Cam: And maybe having been asked to comment and testify for them, you know? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, they want to talk to…

040friendly with SBSD Owl Cam: I very much support us putting out a statement in favor of redistricting. As board members know, this was one of the early, sort of, questions and issues that I raised. I think the math makes too much sense for us to not be SBSD Owl Cam: Considering this, and the tone of surrounding districts resisting it allows us to stand out and maybe have a greater voice at the state level proactively. SBSD Owl Cam: recognizing the inevitability of what Vermont will almost certainly have to be one way or another. SBSD Owl Cam: And to put real specifics to it, you know, hearing that maybe a proposed district might be 10,000 or 11,000 students, of which we are a part of, we may decide, or to express, it's not our choice, we may

041decide to express that that is tutoring, right? That we would prefer to be in a 5,000 or 6,000 student district, or maybe that 11,000 is a size that we embrace. So this is a… SBSD Owl Cam: There are some specifics like that where maybe we can reflect our community's goals and values proactively by being one of the SBSD Owl Cam: Only districts, at least in this area, that is Leaning into inevitability of this. SBSD Owl Cam: So the, SBSD Owl Cam: Gene Green mentioned was, you know, there's gonna be discussions about how to constitute the resulting school boards, and I think SBSD Owl Cam: one of the things they say about power is that if you want power, you probably shouldn't have it. And so I think that this is also our way of saying,

042you know. SBSD Owl Cam: take… do the right thing for the students. Do the right thing for the taxpayers, and if it means that SBSD Owl Cam: I'm not sitting in this chair as the school board chair, like, that's okay with me, you know? Like, there's… there's a necessary transformation that I think we're seeing in the state, and… SBSD Owl Cam: We shouldn't be afraid of that. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any other community comment on this? Elizabeth: Anybody online? No answers. I will just… SBSD Owl Cam: Not looking at anybody, but staff members are reminded that they are allowed to make public comment on specific protection for them. SBSD Owl Cam: I… I think it's interesting. Joe, how… what's the biggest school district that you've worked at in, SBSD Owl Cam: Ohio. 15,000… no,

043at Westernville, 15,000 students. Right. 25, 26 schools. SBSD Owl Cam: So that's the number that Vermonters are just like, what? That's… so it… I think it's an interesting opportunity to have a superintendent who has been in charge of a school that big, and that it… it doesn't have to be that scary. And I also think South Burlington SBSD Owl Cam: we're in a unique situation. Our school's not going to close, and we are very lucky for that, and I recognize that this, SBSD Owl Cam: opportunity will close some schools in Vermont, and that is very sad for towns. And so. SBSD Owl Cam: I try to think about us as being, like. SBSD Owl Cam: sort of a little bit luckier in that department, and, like, how can we rise up and, like, make something

044good out of what we've got, and feel grateful that we still get to be South Burlington SBSD Owl Cam: Even if we do mix with other people who… that could just be more people to share their thoughts, and they'll grow our… maybe bigger, so… SBSD Owl Cam: Bye. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, I mean guilted into… Yikes, I saw you make eye contact, so I visited you, yeah. As a staff member, as someone that is, has SBSD Owl Cam: is new to Vermont, and comes from… well, I'll just say it, I grew up in LA. SBSD Owl Cam: huge. Vermont is so very small compared to what I'm used to, and… and the organizations that I've worked with before. This… a lot of people that I hear from the staff are worried about losing their job.

045SBSD Owl Cam: So, can I sit here and say I don't want… I want to merge, but I still want to be the HR director? Yes, I absolutely do. But do I want to be the HR director and the 10,000 student? SBSD Owl Cam: organization. That's a lot for one person to do, so I… there's so many things that are up in the air that you don't know what's going to happen. But at the same time. SBSD Owl Cam: remembering my why and why I wanted to come to this… to this school district is because of those students and the future of our… of our world. And… and we need to do what's best for them, and if that's this, great! SBSD Owl Cam: I think… SBSD Owl Cam: And, well, now I know. South

046Burlington leads the charge. We are… we are one of those, and just like Emily said, we are the lucky ones that we… we have a lot to offer. We have… SBSD Owl Cam: we're… we're kind of gonna, I'm gonna say the mentor, or we're gonna be the ones that are… that are going to be helping other smaller, school districts. We have more resources than others, so I feel like SBSD Owl Cam: We will… that'll be doing good work. But… but you are very right. Staff are nervous. SBSD Owl Cam: Am I gonna lose my job? SBSD Owl Cam: We're already making cuts just on our own. SBSD Owl Cam: So it is a concern, but at the same time, SBSD Owl Cam: like Laura said, this is not our… we're gonna do what they tell

047us to do, so… but yeah, just offerings. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, and Daisy in the Essex-Westford District, nobody lost their job. Great. SBSD Owl Cam: So, that's what I mean. Yeah, I just fear going from 2,000 to 10,000, that's… We went from two superintendents to one. That's really inclusive. SBSD Owl Cam: And I, and I… Burlington has so much more… so many… so, for example, their HR department is… SBSD Owl Cam: 5 times larger. SBSD Owl Cam: Than, than ours. SBSD Owl Cam: So yeah, I don't have those resources, and I don't have people specifically assigned to do a lot of what they… what they do. I don't have an assistant HR director, and I have two assistant HR directors. So yeah, there's a lot of differences. SBSD Owl Cam: Thanks. Thank you. SBSD Owl

048Cam: Is there any other community comment? SBSD Owl Cam: Anybody online? SBSD Owl Cam: Nope. SBSD Owl Cam: Are we ready to move on to the action item? SBSD Owl Cam: Beautiful. SBSD Owl Cam: All right, so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Vermont School District Redistricting Statement. Does the school board wish to make a public statement about school district redistricting, as other school boards have done? So, to clarify, this is not about SBSD Owl Cam: consolidating schools within our district. This is about Statewide, district-level redistricting. SBSD Owl Cam: And this will be the… SBSD Owl Cam: third time that we've talked about it in the last three meetings. Because you have a statement, right? SBSD Owl Cam: I had a… the statement that I gave that the board,

049helped me throughout SBSD Owl Cam: was really non-committal. It was a… we were interested in BOCES, we're not saying we're for it or against it, but we're open to talking about it. It was not as… I don't think it's as forceful as what the board's looking for now. And you gave that in testimony, and when there's… I gave… yeah, at one of the… one of the committee meetings. SBSD Owl Cam: That statement was much more to our surrounding communities to see if there were already early, moving sooners with whom we could have a friendly early dialogue with. None emerged. This would be much more forceful and directed possibly at the state level. So to start the bidding. SBSD Owl Cam: I imagine a simple motion like… SBSD Owl Cam: I move that the South Burlington

050School Board should make a public statement in support of SBSD Owl Cam: Frank discussion and open dialogue. SBSD Owl Cam: And specifically in support of… or… and specifically say that we are open to… SBSD Owl Cam: the idea of school district… school district redistricting and joining with other districts, to provide better academic opportunities and also be more cost-efficient. Something along those lines, I was thinking, and to allow the school board chair to release a, SBSD Owl Cam: Press release to that effect. SBSD Owl Cam: So it's not just a statement that we make and put in our minutes, but it's also something that I would release to the press, forward to the agency of education, forward to the governor, forward to the legislature, all those things. So, how does the general concept of a motion

051like that strike you? SBSD Owl Cam: Sounds good news. I support the motion, and I would ask, although it doesn't need to be a part of the motion, that when we do that letter, we actually go as far as to say, you know, we support this, here are some of the benefits we see of this, here are some of the things that South Burlington as a district believes it can offer partnering districts. SBSD Owl Cam: And here are some of the things that we might benefit from through partnering with other districts, or combined. SBSD Owl Cam: So my only pushback on that a little bit is that I don't want to put ourselves in a position tonight where we can't decide about all of that. I think there's a follow-up. Like, I think that SBSD

052Owl Cam: It's… SBSD Owl Cam: now that the legislature and the governor are talking about it, and so it's now that we should come out with just a basic statement of, we're open to it, talk to us. We're, you know, like, we're ready to move into the future. And then, I think, like what you were saying earlier, like, maybe there is community opinion about SBSD Owl Cam: 6,000 versus $13,000, or 10,000, or whatever, and I think that… SBSD Owl Cam: If we can get a seat at the table, if we can say we're a leading, like. SBSD Owl Cam: anything was saying, we can show that we're leading on this, then that's when to bring up the specifics of SBSD Owl Cam: you know, more specifics. And it also gives the community, you know, like,

053let's say this comes out of the news, that our school district, unlike other… our school board, unlike other ones, came out. Maybe that will bring people out of the woodwork in the community in South Turlington to say, hey, this is what I'm concerned about, and then we can collect that feedback in the second round. SBSD Owl Cam: bring that. Is your, is your hope to actually have the statement written tonight, or to agree to make a statement? My intention, and again, we could change it, is to only make a motion tonight SBSD Owl Cam: that says that we are open to discussion, we are specifically open to school district redistricting, which is a step beyond BOCES, and authorized me to write a press release to that effect. SBSD Owl Cam: I do want to appreciate,

054though, that we brought in both sides of that coin, right? When we get to that point where we're having a conversation about what the great South Burlington can offer, we have a lot to learn. I mean, I was at the VSBA conference and had a great conversation with Mr. Challia and Winooski. SBSD Owl Cam: We've got some stuff to learn. SBSD Owl Cam: So I, just wanted to… I really appreciate that. Melissa. SBSD Owl Cam: Indeed. I might be out of order for a second. SBSD Owl Cam: I got a quick question. I haven't… I don't know a whole lot about redistricting, so I'm having mine explain, like, a five moment. SBSD Owl Cam: From what I've heard from the board, it sounds like redistricting is completely awesome, and I see no downsides. SBSD Owl

055Cam: So, what I'm wondering is why, like, what are the downsides that are making other school districts not want to SBSD Owl Cam: I guess, go forward with it. SBSD Owl Cam: It's a big change. Besides, it's, like, a lot of work. I get that. It's a huge amount of participants. I would love to hear from your experience, Laura, having gone through it. I'll just state, based on my SBSD Owl Cam: research and reading on it, most of the resistance that I've seen is a concern about a loss of identity or local culture, which is something that Vermont certainly prides. SBSD Owl Cam: And is a big part of, you know, Vermont identity. And also implicit in that, and I'm… SBSD Owl Cam: I'm guessing and projecting a little bit here. There's also a fear

056of a loss of SBSD Owl Cam: you know, roles and opportunities, right? If… if there's a small district, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: that becomes part of a larger district, there might be one less rule for a principal or other administrators, and although that's not explicitly stated, I… SBSD Owl Cam: cure that and some of the resistance, but Laura, what other resistance… No, that's about right, and then there's, like, the fear of losing the jaws, I mean, then you go from two wounds to one. You, SBSD Owl Cam: But it… a lot of things do stay the same. They're all legit fears. SBSD Owl Cam: No religion, and it's not… it's… I just don't think it is gluteness, you know. I'm not saying… SBSD Owl Cam: just because it's hard, it's the right thing to

057do, I'm not saying that at all. Just saying that sometimes the right thing to do is really hard. Those are legitimate concerns. But they're legitimate concerns, yeah. The question is whether they are still things that are worth doing, and why they're… not to make light of those challenges, even though I am in support of it, it is a puppy. And let's face it, we went from, like, 5 buildings to 10. SBSD Owl Cam: That, that's a lot to manage, and then… yeah, so it's just… that's just… So the Federal Reserve SBSD Owl Cam: Bank of Boston did a big report on, SBSD Owl Cam: Redistricting, and some of the things that they specifically mentioned as challenges to redistricting are things like increased transportation costs. SBSD Owl Cam: And also, there could be a need for

058capital spending on… SBSD Owl Cam: You know, like, well, we're gonna… we're going to, you know, maybe close the school here, but we have to… SBSD Owl Cam: much improve another school over here to take all those kids and put them together. So net-net, you could argue that it's better for the students in that nicer, newer school, but on the other hand, there is a capital expenditure up front. And maybe a longer bus ride. Yeah. And if a small town loses their school, that's… SBSD Owl Cam: detrimental to a town to lose their school, and I think SBSD Owl Cam: that's scary, and I think mostly it's the unknowns that… that it gets the big pushback, which I totally understand, and change is… SBSD Owl Cam: incredibly challenging for a lot of people, and when

059there's, like we… Laura said, we don't have any control, it's… SBSD Owl Cam: that is an automatic pushback. So, I think those kinds of things, the, are why people… SBSD Owl Cam: are opposed… That would be my… what comes to my mind when I think of what I don't like about it, you know? Like, I am saying I'm open to it, but, SBSD Owl Cam: I have concern… I am concerned. SBSD Owl Cam: About what… what could go wrong, or what we might lose, but there's also things we might gain, and change is the only constant, so at some point… SBSD Owl Cam: We have to accept it. SBSD Owl Cam: Can we ask any of the legislatures to come and talk to us? Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think we should ask either Martine

060to come, or Evie. SBSD Owl Cam: Or now, but they're not on the Education Committee. Whoever's… I think that would be better. I, I do… I would oppose to bringing somebody in who is openly opposed to redistricting. I don't think that serves any purpose, and I honestly believe that's why it failed to begin with, because the chairs SBSD Owl Cam: openly stated that they were against it. It was like, what else, basically? Because they… because there was no… I don't… SBSD Owl Cam: I can give you… okay, that's fine. Alright, great. Well, I'm not… I don't want to ask you to speak for other people. Well, I don't think necessarily what you were suggesting. I think it was more of an informational… and if the concern was about some… bringing somebody who was against it,

061I think we could similarly just bring SBSD Owl Cam: somebody who's for it has somebody who's against it. Well, that would be perfectly acceptable, but I don't want all of my information from somebody who doesn't want to see it happen. SBSD Owl Cam: valid. Yeah. We kind of just talked about it, and I don't think this is a reason we shouldn't pass a statement, but… SBSD Owl Cam: Do you see the infrastructure aspect of it being a large challenge? Like, the fact where a resident is getting a new high school, and then if we join with them in our high school, is… SBSD Owl Cam: So, I'll tell you my… You know what I mean? Like, you think that will be a… Let me tell you two things about that. First of all, my biggest

062fear in this whole thing, going to Bolman's question, and also to your question, you know, my daughter is in 5th grade. SBSD Owl Cam: And if school consolidation goes forward, you know, we live 3 blocks from the high school, and we bought the place so that we could live next to the high school. SBSD Owl Cam: you know, Emily said we're not going to close our high school, but… SBSD Owl Cam: you know, who knows? It could be out of commission during the years that my children are in high school years, right? You know, and so that's, like, my fear, but I think, again, like, what is their values that I want to teach my kids? SBSD Owl Cam: it's like, sometimes you have to get on the bus for one. You know, sometimes you

063have to sacrifice for the greater good. I think that's, like. SBSD Owl Cam: something that this whole country could learn a little bit right now, but that's my greatest fear, is that we, you know, that this high school goes out of commission for a few years, specifically in the years that my kids are going to be there. But the flip side of that, in terms of infrastructure costs. SBSD Owl Cam: is that a big interest I have is re-establishing the legitimacy of public education and the willingness of the community, not just the school community, but the non-school community, to put money into public education and not look to SBSD Owl Cam: alternatives like school choice, school vouchers, privatization, charter schools, all that stuff, right? And I think that if we have a, SBSD Owl Cam:

064If we have a more rational cost structure, if we don't have, what is it, 250 school districts and 80,000 students, then that may SBSD Owl Cam: That moves the conversation forward with those skeptical voters who are skeptical of supporting all these little things, but may be more ready to support something that's bigger, stronger, all that. SBSD Owl Cam: Great question. SBSD Owl Cam: Especially as we're at the 35-minute mark for the community forum, are you looking for a motion, or… So, I can propose a motion if we don't want to discuss it anymore. SBSD Owl Cam: Senator. SBSD Owl Cam: Please. So, I would entertain a motion… SBSD Owl Cam: to… sorry, let me pull it up here. I would entertain a motion SBSD Owl Cam: to state publicly that the South Burlington School Board

065supports frank discussion and prompt action to address cost and academic proficiency concerns, and specifically is open to the idea of consolidation with other school districts, and authorized the chair to release a press release to this effect. SBSD Owl Cam: Good news. SBSD Owl Cam: Austin moves. Jen seconds. Any discussion? And this is an action item, so we are accepting, again, public comment before we vote on this. SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, joe, you haven't weighed in at all? You have any? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I think that there are a lot of concerns. I listened to Sarah's concern about SBSD Owl Cam: you know, losing the identity, but this I know. I was not aware of the districts that we had been looped in with. Again, it's not… No, I know, I know it's not gospel,

066I know it's not actually happening, but pretend that that did happen. We're not all of a sudden going to only have one high school. You won't be able to do that, right? So districts will retain some of their identity for some time. SBSD Owl Cam: There are facilities issues, we're going to have to figure out, but they're not going to put kids in beds. SBSD Owl Cam: worse buildings, they're going to put them in better buildings, and maybe have to create new buildings for that, so I think that's a positive. Some of the concerns come with not just everything, everybody else, like a loss of programs. If there's a… SBSD Owl Cam: a special program that is unique to this school district, that they've always had, that… that we just get it, but nobody else

067does, and time comes for budget cuts. That could be… it could be a favorite program that goes… that goes away, so… SBSD Owl Cam: I'm supportive of the board making a statement. I think that, I think… SBSD Owl Cam: in addition to being good for this area, I think this is really good for smaller districts, because kids in South Broadway would have a lot of opportunities for coursework and extracurriculars and athletics. SBSD Owl Cam: kids in rural parts of the state do not, and I think that redistricting is really beneficial for them, for that reason. SBSD Owl Cam: Any other board discussion? SBSD Owl Cam: All right, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, the motion passes. SBSD Owl Cam: All right, the next item on our agenda is a vote on the fiscal year 2027

068Annual School District Meeting Warning. SBSD Owl Cam: So… So, this is the language that goes on the ballots. SBSD Owl Cam: Based on the decisions that the board has recently made about what the SBSD Owl Cam: budget size will be, the 3.4 increase, and also about the capital reserve fund question. So, now Laura's gonna read. SBSD Owl Cam: So, in warning, City of South Burlington School District 2026 Annual Meeting, the legal voters of the South Burlington School District are hereby notified and warned. SBSD Owl Cam: to meet at their respective polling places at the Frederick H. Turtle Middle School at 5 home in Dorset Street. SBSD Owl Cam: Orchards go up to Baldwin Avenue, the Gertrude Chambers go at 262 White Street, and the Kevin Dorn Senior Center at South Burlington City Hall at 180

069Market Street on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. SBSD Owl Cam: at 7 o'clock in the morning, at which time the polls would open until 7 o'clock in the evening, at which time the polls would close to vote by Australian dollar on the following articles. SBSD Owl Cam: Article 1, Election of Officers. On the first Tuesday in March 2026, the voters of the city shall elect them among the legal residents of the city, one member for the remaining two years of a three-year term. SBSD Owl Cam: One member for a 3-year term, and two members for 2-year terms. Thereafter, the election of school directors shall move for the length of the term the member whose term is expiring. SBSD Owl Cam: Article 2, Budget. Shall the voters of the South Dillington School District approve the Board to

070spend $73,939,121 SBSD Owl Cam: Which is the amount the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year. SBSD Owl Cam: The South Wellington School District estimates that this proposed budget, if approved, will result in per-pupil education spending SBSD Owl Cam: Or $15,696.08, which is 8. SBSD Owl Cam: 5-2% higher than per people education spending for the coming year. SBSD Owl Cam: Are the three additional appropriations to districts, capital reserve funding authorized? SBSD Owl Cam: Shall the South Willing to School District's Board of Directors be authorized to allocate the audited surplus funds for the 2025 fiscal year in the amount of $2,554,157 SBSD Owl Cam: 57 cents to the district's capital reserve fund, which in combination with funds previously allocated in the future, may be expended for future capital improvements, as determined

071by such board, and detailed in the district's Facility Stewardship Plan. SBSD Owl Cam: That's the same may be amended from time to time in accordance with the requirements of 24ESO 2824. SBSD Owl Cam: Let's see, only places are at the Frederick H. SBSD Owl Cam: Toto Middle School at 500 Dorset Street, Georgia School at Tribalton Avenue, Gertrude Chamberlain School at 262 White Street, and the Kevin Dorn Senior Center on South Bones, Pacific Hall, and 180 Mocket Street. Voters are to go to the polling place in their respective district. SBSD Owl Cam: The legal voters of the City of South Carolina School District are further warned and notified that a public information meeting will be held to discuss Articles 1, 2, and 3 on Monday, March 2nd, 2026, at 6.30 p.m. at City Hall Auditorium in

072Market Street. SBSD Owl Cam: The legal voters of the City of South Edmonton School District are further notified of vital qualification, registration, and absentee voting relative to said unit showing as provided in chapters 43, 51, and 55 of Title 17, Lermont Statutes. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm hilarious. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you very much. So, is there any board comment on the… Language. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm pretty sure that state law has a template that we just fill up. Yeah, for us to say, no, don't do that. SBSD Owl Cam: I would entertain a motion to approve the fiscal year 2027 annual school district meeting warning as presented in the board materials for this meeting. That's just read by SBSD Owl Cam: Clerk Williams? SBSD Owl Cam: Remove. SBSD Owl Cam: Jen moves. I'll second. Emily

073seconds. Is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any public comment? As this is an action item, we are accepting public comment on… SBSD Owl Cam: Well, in our luncheons. SBSD Owl Cam: All right. All those in favor, say aye. SBSD Owl Cam: The motion passes. SBSD Owl Cam: The next item in the agenda is the fiscal year 2027 Public High School Choice Capacity, Title 16, Section 822A, SBSD Owl Cam: Can I ask you, Joe, to… Yes, so, this is every… SBSD Owl Cam: This is not related to tuition-based students that come from the islands, right? This… this is, the board setting the tuition… I'm sorry, setting the limit of the number of kids that we can accept SBSD Owl Cam: without tuition into our district. We're required to set a minimum of one

074SBSD Owl Cam: and no more. And the reason that this district has always set a limit of one is because no funding comes with these students. These are not tuition students, these are students who, in Ohio, would call them open enrollment students, who would come in without any funding and would use our resources. SBSD Owl Cam: So, the recommendation is to do what we've done in years past, which is to set the capacity of one student at the high school. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any board discussion on that going forward? Do we ever accept more than them? SBSD Owl Cam: Or do we have… did we mostly accept zero? You have to accept one. SBSD Owl Cam: And my understanding from Pat Burke is that we'll get a few kids will apply, and they

075do a random lottery to select the one. So there is one of these students in each grade by the way by the student. SBSD Owl Cam: And this would be a freshman, so there'll be one more freshman. SBSD Owl Cam: And is the cycle only in that registration period, or can it happen at any point in the year? SBSD Owl Cam: No, it happens in the registration period. SBSD Owl Cam: Yep, excellent. SBSD Owl Cam: Person is accepted, then they have to reapply each year? SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know the answer to that question. I don't think so, but I… I'm speculating. I don't… I don't… I do not know for sure, but based on it. SBSD Owl Cam: issued a board-based early on. I don't think so, because there's some commitment somewhere in

076our, SBSD Owl Cam: in our charter, that you have to continue providing services to students, but… No, because they have to pay every year. I don't know, we should find out. Well, these were… SBSD Owl Cam: Right, but tuition students do pay, so why would… And this is not specific to a tuition student. I'm thinking about another situation where it's basically the board, or the district had an obligation to continue providing educational services to a student. SBSD Owl Cam: Without revealing personal details. So my understanding, based on that, and using the same principle that applied there, I would think that these students wouldn't have to apply every year. That would be more humane. Yeah, I would hope that… SBSD Owl Cam: Once they accepted that, if they wanted to continue the program. SBSD Owl Cam:

077I think the continuation is part of the grace that we give students. They didn't have to lose this. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any other board question or comment? SBSD Owl Cam: So, is the motion you need to set the capacity at 1? Yes, the motion is to accept the document that grows. SBSD Owl Cam: provided to you by the lineup. I wrote about it in the board update last week. SBSD Owl Cam: And… yes, it is setting it up. SBSD Owl Cam: Great. So, I would entertain a motion to approve the SBSD Owl Cam: Fiscal year 2027, public high school choice capacity, Title 16, Section 822A recommendation of 1, as presented in the board packet. SBSD Owl Cam: So, nope. SBSD Owl Cam: Is that loop? SBSD Owl Cam: Dan, motions, Austin seconds. SBSD

078Owl Cam: Is there any discussions? SBSD Owl Cam: I just actually have a question, and that is, how does transportation work for that? Is there any requirement for transportation that's just strictly for SBSD Owl Cam: The tuition for acceptance. There's no, yeah, no tuition. This is a tuition-free student. They provide their own transportation, but they can come to our school, without any funds falling. SBSD Owl Cam: And this is an action item, so we are accepting public comment. Public comment. SBSD Owl Cam: You're me. SBSD Owl Cam: So, just… okay, so just another question. So, this would be an example, also, of students that are not necessarily in an area where there would be school choice. Correct. It would be students that perhaps are in the new ski, but they want to come to South

079Burlington, and so they have the chance to enter this lottery system, and you allow up to, like… SBSD Owl Cam: It's only choice, too. Yep. SBSD Owl Cam: All right, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. The motion passes. SBSD Owl Cam: So the next… SBSD Owl Cam: item on the agenda is an action item on a change to our executive limitations around video surveillance. This is our third reading of the proposed changes to the policy. This is the fifth time that we've mentioned it in a public meeting. SBSD Owl Cam: And the general idea is that we are… SBSD Owl Cam: Allowing principals and administrators more access to video. SBSD Owl Cam: And that's why we've been sure to talk about Warnit, SBSD Owl Cam: three times and tell me we're going to talk

080about it five times. So, Joe, do you want to just give a reminder of what we're talking about here again? Yeah, just a reminder, this is what the principals, will tell you is really a safety initiative that, currently, anytime that they need to review tapes, SBSD Owl Cam: Either to look at a, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: behavior that has been reported to them, or something that they feel as if might be going down in the moment. They have to submit a request to me and the police chief to get permission to do that, and then the tech guys have to go in and find the video and upload it to a file and share with the principals. SBSD Owl Cam: Which is, my understanding is it's unusual even throughout Vermont. Typically, principals have the

081ability to, have live access to the cameras. SBSD Owl Cam: And to the recordings, and can access those as needed. It takes a lot of, thread tape out of, SBSD Owl Cam: Defining, these sorts of things, and, speeds it up. Speeds up the process. SBSD Owl Cam: So… We recommend that you approve this. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any further board comment on this comment? SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, I would entertain a motion. SBSD Owl Cam: to… approve the revision to Executive Limitation 2.1, SBSD Owl Cam: Regarding video surveillance as presented in the board materials. SBSD Owl Cam: Second. SBSD Owl Cam: Laura moves. Austin seconds. Is there any discussion? And since this is a action item, we are accepting public comment. SBSD Owl Cam: on this. SBSD Owl Cam: No, I'm not. Okay, SBSD

082Owl Cam: Board discussion? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. The motion passes. The next item in the agenda is the fiscal year 2027 Budget Communication Plan. SBSD Owl Cam: So, we just approved a budget, just approved, the ballot language, and so now, topic, while we're here in forum, is how are we going to tell the community about it? Obviously, it's not the be-all, end-all discussion of it, but we have to start thinking about precisely those communication SBSD Owl Cam: concerns that… SBSD Owl Cam: We were talking about earlier. Yeah, who wants to start the bidding on how we should talk to… or how we should organize how we should talk about it? SBSD Owl Cam: We could have follow-up meetings, we could have a committee. SBSD Owl Cam: I'd love to hear,

083Joe, your thoughts, or perhaps how you've done this in other earrings to get the most traction across your feet, because I have a few ideas, but I'd love to hear SBSD Owl Cam: Any suggestions? Yes, I think, first of all, we need to, sniff up our website. We have a lot of documents that are prepared that have not been placed yet, and we're waiting to be placed until we're made final decisions and whatnot, so that could go out immediately. We can report to social media. SBSD Owl Cam: when I met with the, Rotary Club last week, and… SBSD Owl Cam: And we were going through the three-questions meeting, and they talked about the need for communication. I asked those folks there who are, SBSD Owl Cam: Good luck. SBSD Owl Cam: elderly, maybe, and not

084about kids in the district, and so what… what do you… where do you get the majority of your information? And their answer was front porch. They use front porch more than any other means. SBSD Owl Cam: And so right now, the district does not have a front porch subscription. We get 5 seats from the city, so I've asked Delina to look in the district, getting our own front porch thing, so we can actually have our logo on it and get messages out. SBSD Owl Cam: That way. I've been using AI to come up with some videos that are going to be helpful to explain what this is. I have one prepared that I'd love to share with the board, and probably will in this week's update. SBSD Owl Cam: Other than that, I am… I'm

085speaking to Rotary next week. Seamus and I did the TV show, last night, and SBSD Owl Cam: whatever, and of course, the more budget flow is going to be published next week. It's not going to be mailed out, because that's a huge mailer, but we… I mean, we could do a smaller mailer if the board wanted to do that. SBSD Owl Cam: So I have a couple thoughts about that. Also, is I think that the… SBSD Owl Cam: as I was told very early, actually before I became a school board member. SBSD Owl Cam: it's really the job of the board to pass the budget that we approved. It's the board's job to advocate for effectively. Can't necessarily spend money on that, because state law says we can only inform the public. We can't… SBSD

086Owl Cam: push them towards a particular thing. We can't spend money on that, but as politicians, as people with voices, as people who are advocating for things, we are allowed to advocate for it. Joe's role is technical expert. SBSD Owl Cam: You know, non-political, nonpartisan, so, SBSD Owl Cam: I think it's important to have both a really simple explanation of what's going on from Joe, and then I think it's also for those people who voted for the budget especially, to have, a political voice SBSD Owl Cam: Which doesn't mean that we have to release a unanimous board statement about it. People who voted for the budget, especially, I think, should feel obligated to speak out for it in the most effective public ways that they can… that they can do that. And you don't need

087a unanimous board. SBSD Owl Cam: To… to do that. So, I just wanted to say there's a little bit of a difference between what Joe does and what we do, but both are necessary, and when one of those SBSD Owl Cam: is lacking, then we have problems. That's a good clarification. I will not be encouraging anybody to vote for or against. I will be giving facts about the budget. This is how much it is, this is what it might cost you, and this is what reduction will make. SBSD Owl Cam: So I guess the meta-question here is, like, how do we want to approach this? Like, do we want a committee? Do we want to just keep talking about this in our… in our… in every single meeting? SBSD Owl Cam: Do we want to

088hire a consultant? SBSD Owl Cam: Oh. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't think we should. The message should come from us as the stewards of the budget, personally. That's how I feel. I also… I don't know the right format to communicate this, or who the right person is, or the right medium, but… SBSD Owl Cam: I think it is important to recognize that this is a… SBSD Owl Cam: heavy burden on taxpayers, that we don't treat that lightly, that we're aware of that, and that we made the best decision we could, balancing all factors in front of us. I think it's just important to recognize I don't want the taxpayers to think that we treated SBSD Owl Cam: This number, which we know will be a burden on them lightly, and then we arrived at this

089number after full consideration, and SBSD Owl Cam: Not to play victim, but also to point out that many of these factors are outside of our control, and our state-level factors SBSD Owl Cam: We don't need to beat that. SBSD Owl Cam: forced to death, but it's probably important that the voters know that, you know, we did what we could, and this is what we believe was the best balance, as important. The way our votes SBSD Owl Cam: And I have a follow-up question to that, but I do want to also ask the higher-level question to the board of SBSD Owl Cam: Do we want to have committee? SBSD Owl Cam: Or do we not? SBSD Owl Cam: That's the people's feeling about that? SBSD Owl Cam: Comedy would be appropriate. SBSD Owl Cam: Appropriate. SBSD

090Owl Cam: How do other people feel about… because the alternative to having a committee is that we all have to do it in quorum, which means that we would certainly have to do it, we'd have to talk about it at every single meeting, and we probably would also have to have a special meeting or two to SBSD Owl Cam: you know, get just, you know, to get the ball rolling. The committee is ready to sort of allows us to move faster and be more nimble. Are you talking about an advocacy committee, or an informative committee, or one that looks right? So, I would say it would be an advocacy committee that is not allowed to start mine. Gotcha, because that's what state law says. Right. SBSD Owl Cam: So our… so that's two people saying,

091yes, committee. SBSD Owl Cam: I, I would… I would support a information committee. SBSD Owl Cam: I would retract my statement as an advocacy. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, as Joe said, Joe's not gonna… SBSD Owl Cam: try and sway people one way or the other. It's just about getting the information out, accurate information out. SBSD Owl Cam: But what about our role? Accurate information out to the public. Yeah, I think our role is… I agree. I believe our role is accurate information to the public and openly letting the public vote with the material information we give them. I do not believe our role is… it's just my personal opinion, to state that clearly. SBSD Owl Cam: I do not believe our law here is to try and convince the community of any vote. It

092is to say, here's this, here's the budget that we believe SBSD Owl Cam: you know, is it the best interest of the community based on all the factors that we considered? Here are some of the factors that were in front of us, now you vote whether or not you agree or disagree. That's how I feel our stewardship is, and maybe we disagree on that. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm basing this on… before I became a school board member, I talked to a principal who I have immense… a very long-tenured principal who I have immense respect for, and… SBSD Owl Cam: that person said to me, you know, it's really up to the school board to pass the budget. And the way that I interpreted that was. SBSD Owl Cam: beyond just informing, because certainly we, at

093least in years past, have sent out enormous mailers with an unbelievable amount of information. But that also meant, like. SBSD Owl Cam: drafting a budget that the community would pass in the first place, and second of all, advocating for effectively, you know, showing up at Shaw's and, you know, saying, hey guys, you should vote for it. So if we're… and I'm not saying that we have to do that, but I'm saying that we should consider as a board that it may be our job to do more than just inform. But here's the thing, if the vote had been 7 to nothing last week. SBSD Owl Cam: Everybody agreed this was intended to. SBSD Owl Cam: you know, then you can advocate for it. There's a 4-3 vote. SBSD Owl Cam: So… SBSD Owl Cam: my

094opinion is it should be informative. It almost feels like a personal conflict, right? So, I publicly stated I would not vote for this budget as a community member. It would be… SBSD Owl Cam: Disingenuous, at a minimum. SBSD Owl Cam: for me to try to tell people they should vote for it, when I myself don't… Well, we're supposed to speak as one voice, even if you're in the… even if you don't agree with the vote. I absolutely agree. I really do. Well, hold on one person at a time. You want to finish your point, and then we'll go to Laura? SBSD Owl Cam: Sorry, go ahead, breathe. SBSD Owl Cam: There's no question. Believe me, I've struggled with this, right? Because I absolutely support the voice of the board. The majority spoke. SBSD Owl Cam:

095That was the decision. But my understanding of the decision was the decision was the number that goes on the ballot, and I will not… I will be the wind under our sails, right? To say, yes, it goes on the ballot. SBSD Owl Cam: But for me to have publicly stated that I'm not going to vote for it, this is… the budget feels different, because we have a secondary action as community members. SBSD Owl Cam: to vote separately from what we decide here. I am under no obligation to vote yes, simply because the board said yes. I am also a community member, I'm a taxpayer, and a parent. SBSD Owl Cam: And I have my right to make a choice under those circumstances. And so, in this one case, the way our governance system is set

096up. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm stuck. Yeah, I want to talk about that, but Laura, would you like to… SBSD Owl Cam: You can vote however you want, secret ballot. You can do whatever you want. It's just my understanding is that we speak as one voice, so if it had gone the other way, I would have to be in person. SBSD Owl Cam: And how I vote is a different matter. SBSD Owl Cam: But we are supposed to be… we are… that… that was… that was the majority that spoke, so we are supposed to be… Can I just ask a question? Can I ask a question about… I think, just from my own understanding, when you said we are out there supporting that. SBSD Owl Cam: how do we all interpret that? Because it's supporting and

097advocating. SBSD Owl Cam: And, like, I felt very conflicted about my vote, yet I support the number we're putting to the ballot, because the community came out, in my opinion, and said, that's the number we want, and that's the voice that I heard, so I said, if that's the voice I'm hearing, I'd like to give the community that chance. So I support that, because it's what I heard from the community. SBSD Owl Cam: But I'm not sure how far that support should go to advocating to saying this is necessarily the best and right number. This is my fourth budget. I have never heard such a conversation, and we all did not agree. Right. We… this is… this… this is… this is unchartered territory for me, that once we voted, that was it. SBSD Owl Cam:

098You supported it. And we… if we don't support it, then who will? SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, we can't get behind it. I think this is… this… because this is why we're not politically, we're elected officials. SBSD Owl Cam: But we're not really politicians. We are not representatives, we're not senators. We have to speak as one voice. That's what makes it a little weird. Well, can I follow up on that? Well, I just have a legit… just a question. We've been through the budget process multiple times. SBSD Owl Cam: and I don't want to splice and wordsmith here, but to me, I do think there's a distinction between supporting and advocating. And I'm curious, when you say support the budget, I fully support the budget we're putting out there to the community, I am curious

099if you… when you say support, does that also mean advocating? SBSD Owl Cam: That's a good question. I've not been on the budget committees. My experience is that this board just could not get a budget committee off the ground. SBSD Owl Cam: Because it's… it's a lot harder to do than… than you think, coordinating two people with schedules. SBSD Owl Cam: But I'm… I, I… SBSD Owl Cam: I think we can all agree on correct information. I think we can at least do that, and then… and then in front… I mean, definitely front page reports form, though. SBSD Owl Cam: That, that is, I mean, yeah, that is what most people use, so… SBSD Owl Cam: If the board's divided on advocacy, then this gives out information. SBSD Owl Cam: Well, I just feel like

100you… we gotta sell this, we gotta sell this. So, let me reference a couple different things. Yeah, I don't see how you can avoid it, but go ahead. So, state law… well, let me start with… we had a training last year with Pietro Lin. SBSD Owl Cam: And he was training us on what it means to, like, speak with one voice. SBSD Owl Cam: And so he gave us a couple different scenarios, and he said, for example, would it be okay for the school board to tell the superintendent… for one school board member or two school board members to tell the superintendent to… SBSD Owl Cam: you know, do X things with the program? And the answer is no, because the board, when we're instructing the superintendent to do something, speaks as one voice in

101terms of, like, we pass the majority vote, and then that's the voice of the board. That's what the superintendent, that's the decision. SBSD Owl Cam: On the other hand, he said, explicitly, you know, can the school board pass a budget, and then individual school board members, and this was the explicit example he gave, stand outside of a voting place with a sign that says, this is a terrible budget, don't vote for it? And the answer to that question is yes, absolutely, that school board member has the right to do that, right? That's, among other things, you know, they're politicians. SBSD Owl Cam: Which is a matter that, you know, reasonable people can disagree about, but he said explicitly, and he's just a lawyer. SBSD Owl Cam: We are politicians, and, we have a free speech

102right to begin with, right? State law. SBSD Owl Cam: you know, Vermont statutes. SBSD Owl Cam: specifically compare us to a legislative body. And so I think that it is true that we are elected officials, but I think we can also read into that, that, we should be taking the role of representatives, and if you look at the SBSD Owl Cam: State House, or the Congress, individual members do advocate for individual things. So what I was suggesting SBSD Owl Cam: was that I think that, for example, we could form a committee of the people, or at least some of the people who voted for the board, and they would actively advocate for it. SBSD Owl Cam: And what that means… or we could also take an option, not form a committee, not do any board

103advocacy, but just the people who on the board voted for it should do individual political advocacy, which I think would be wonderful and valid. So, I just wanted to provide a little bit more context about the concept of SBSD Owl Cam: On the one hand, speaking with one voice, and on the other hand, us as politician. SBSD Owl Cam: I have another idea option, which would be a board committee that SBSD Owl Cam: really is trying to convey information. I mean, it's hard enough for us to try to explain the tax number, then the state coming on top and adding a tax number, so I would say that it would be a great idea for the board committee to SBSD Owl Cam: get the information out, but I'm keeping accurate information. Yes, but, and… SBSD

104Owl Cam: if people who did vote for it would like to do their own advocacy on top of that, they are welcome to do that as well. But I… I think… SBSD Owl Cam: this board makeup, I think the best idea is we all can agree that accurate information is the necessary thing for the voters to have. And how does that relate to what Joe's doing? Because he is also on the information side. SBSD Owl Cam: That's just another way to get… accurate explanation. SBSD Owl Cam: We could also say that the information that we are putting out is the information about how we arrived at this number, whereas Joe's role is information about how this number will be utilized, right, at the… SBSD Owl Cam: You know… SBSD Owl Cam: So we can say,

105here's the information we have that could lead us to this number. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt. I would also like guidance from whatever that committee is about what questions are you get… your community members here, what questions are you getting that we need to clarify, or what information isn't out there? I'm more than willing to SBSD Owl Cam: I'm pretty good at putting stuff together, and definitely I have access to the website and whatnot, but I need to hear from you what questions are out there, so I can get those answered. I think that number, that… that number that SBSD Owl Cam: how it's going to affect a condo and a house is something that is extremely… whatever it ends up being, it might be a number that isn't nice, but it's the number, and

106it's, like, honesty, and it's something people can understand. It's broken up four times… 400… SBSD Owl Cam: Right, that's what I mean. They take that number, and then say, how's it gonna split out? Where's my three? Generally, that number is, you know, that we have that by now. I think that would be, that would be helpful. I have a calculator prepared, again, with a huge, huge… SBSD Owl Cam: huge red caveat that this number… But people can even look up their own home value, put it in, and see exactly how much they're paying to go up. It's like the cities amount. They gave an approximate SBSD Owl Cam: Of what it's… you have two cars, the condo and the home… I have that ready to go. Based on… on the website. Specific values that were

107updated. SBSD Owl Cam: So, like, when you looked at the home, it was something around, you know, the average home that they SBSD Owl Cam: It was estimated at $450,000 or something, so if you're… SBSD Owl Cam: Ours is less, it's going to be slightly less, more, slightly more. It was… it was an approximate. What I don't have, I mean, almost half of the public gets that, discount. I don't know how that is calculated, or who… So generally, that's what we've done is that, but people are… SBSD Owl Cam: Given the formula, you can figure that out on your own. I mean, I know what… now, I mean, if your home is… or if your income is $115,100, you do, and because, like, I qualify, so you… you… but anybody can do the calculation of

108their own home. I remember Tim saying, look, we can't do everybody's, but, you know, a house and… No, I can do that, but what I can't tell them is what you're saying. Yeah, so it's approximately SBSD Owl Cam: approximate. SBSD Owl Cam: And, also, the other paper, I mean, we have not written an article for the other paper, they do… we do have a slot once a month. SBSD Owl Cam: So, that is another place. SBSD Owl Cam: And that might be another place, I mean, where… let's say that we form this committee, which I think we should probably vote to charge… or no, actually, we have that for the next meeting, is the actual vote to charge the committee, if we want to do it, but SBSD Owl Cam: That might be a case

109where a board committee might choose to do a little bit more advocacy, you know, and not do so much just information, but also say, this is why we think this is SBSD Owl Cam: why we came to this network, so… Do we have just a clarification question? And I don't know if I'm misremembering or just overthinking it, but… SBSD Owl Cam: Is it important, or is it… SBSD Owl Cam: necessary and illegal to not proceed this way. For those of us who are running for re-election, is there, like, a… SBSD Owl Cam: a window where we are not allowed to submit as a board member, or, right? Like, there's the… because of campaigning, because of using our position. SBSD Owl Cam: to… SBSD Owl Cam: advocate for ourselves in any way. I'm not saying that

110would happen with the… with advocating for… but there could be that possibility, right? I think that's a good point. Like, you're not allowed to… So maybe three people… So maybe it could be perceived as campaigning. I think that you lost. Yeah. Wait, what's wrong with campaign? Like, writing… writing one of the guest perspectives as a board member during the election window. SBSD Owl Cam: You could use it. I've written, you know, articles for the paper, you know, there's… Well, we shouldn't self-chill. SBSD Owl Cam: if this is a question that you're interested in, we should ask the lawyers, because I, you know, again. SBSD Owl Cam: I was just planning on not writing anything for that period. Don't write something, just have whoever is not up in election, but don't self-chill. SBSD Owl Cam: At

111this moment in our democracy, people need to hear from politicians and need to have the democratic process transparent and in their face. So, like, if you have a question about the legality of it, don't assume that the answer is no. Check with our lawyer. SBSD Owl Cam: In my opinion. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I haven't… Otherwise, I think the requirement would then fall to the three of us to be writing something, and perhaps we need your voices to be heard during this time. Or Austin. Well, I'm saying… SBSD Owl Cam: Yes. So I'll follow up on that if you're interested. SBSD Owl Cam: It would be good to have clarity, just so… I'm sharing with you right now with the calculator that I put together. There's some… I have not published yet, but it has

112the average condo assessment, the average house assessment. It has SBSD Owl Cam: what the city rate is, it has what the school rate is, it has what the millennial rate is, right? And I also have a list here for the grant list, so you can go in and you can find your own… Yes. And find out exactly what your property is worth. SBSD Owl Cam: And I even color-coded these based on, you know, green and… What were board members left? SBSD Owl Cam: Oh, green is commercial, you know, and so you can find what your number is, and then you can… SBSD Owl Cam: I should not be in charge of fees. That's great. Nonetheless, you could add that, you could add your number in, it'll tell you what your rate's gonna be. No, it's

113not yet. I put it together. I wanted to wait until we had a discussion. Maybe you could put income SBSD Owl Cam: as an input, and then it would automatically adjust it for whether it was homestead or not. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know, I don't know any of the tangles, so don't ask me… Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I don't know, is it a sliding scale? Is it, like, anybody under 115 gets the same discount, or is it… SBSD Owl Cam: Why don't you just put a disclaimer at the top, that people should check themselves, right? This isn't going to apply to everybody. Yeah, it will. I'm just saying that, like, as an additional challenge that I'm sure someone in your staff could handle, like, the… the calculation SBSD Owl Cam: takes into account the

114homestead, which is possible to do in Excel. So maybe you just include that, and then somebody enters not only their house value, but also their income, and it tells the number. But I like the idea of having a strategy. I like the idea of having a committee SBSD Owl Cam: Because I like a strategy, I mean, we've got in here a plan, but, like, what is part of that plan? So perhaps it's picking up the website, as Joe indicates. SBSD Owl Cam: And having this kind of tool, which would be great for people to see. But there's also going to be, you know, broadcasting information, whether it's on Facebook, or Front Page Forum, or Instagram, or… SBSD Owl Cam: At sporting events, have a table at a sporting event, whatever. But, like, what are the

115facets of outreach? And I am very much for providing information to people. Like, how can we inform the community? This is what we were charged with, and this is how we came with the number. SBSD Owl Cam: And I do think that there is still a lot… I'm still not fully understanding SBSD Owl Cam: the weighted average, and how that changes, and how the education fund has impacted us. It doesn't make sense. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, you're telling me there's some schools where the budget went up by 5%, but they're having a minus 1% impact to their property taxes. That doesn't make sense. People need to understand what is in our hands, what's out of our hands, why is it that South Burlington is being impacted by all of this. So we have to

116be crystal clear on how that message is communicated, I think. And there should be a separation of powers here. SBSD Owl Cam: between… SBSD Owl Cam: you know, like, the things that you're talking about, like, making that point about how South Burlington pays for other school districts, that is not Joe's job, but it very well could be our job, and maybe that doesn't count as advocacy, but it does count as political effective SBSD Owl Cam: communication. So I have three things that I think we should consider, because this is just a discussion item. So the first thing is, do you guys want to put an action item on the next meeting agenda to charge a committee to do this? Yes. Okay. SBSD Owl Cam: Is that the broad agreement? Yeah. Okay. SBSD Owl Cam: Another

117thing that we should consider earlier rather than later is whether we want to, pay for a mailer of any kind. So we don't have to talk about that now, but we should think about SBSD Owl Cam: you know, whether we want to pay for a postcard to go out to everybody. Not in today's day and age. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, you want to get something out of everybody, you know, yellow paper. SBSD Owl Cam: Another paper goes to… I mean, not sure. Yep. SBSD Owl Cam: Mallow goes to every house. That's what you're patient about the… SBSD Owl Cam: My position hasn't changed on that since the last time we talked about it, before we had a budget vote, which is, no, I don't think that's money lost on. So, I'm not going to

118put an action item anywhere on spending money on a mailer. I will say, in private industry. SBSD Owl Cam: there's a renaissance of direct mail, and most politicians do, too, because they know it works. Even if that person pulls it in their hand for 2 seconds and goes into the recycling, it's still, like, a big… SBSD Owl Cam: part of the campaign. So let's just think about it. We're just, we're just bringing it up, as my old English teacher would say, throw it to the ghost in the basement for consideration. Great. And then the third thing that I think we should be considering is, to what extent we should be SBSD Owl Cam: Front and center with the concept that we have a 0% budget ready if this one fails. SBSD Owl Cam: this board

119might say, we don't want to mention that ever again, or the board doesn't want to mention it, and individual members do. Or we could say we want that to be, like, you know, something that I've been SBSD Owl Cam: saying as an individual person is, the board is doing a democratic experiment here. That's how I defend it, is I say, you know, we really want to know what's going on. So, something to think about is how much we want that to be front and center. SBSD Owl Cam: Can I propose something? I think we absolutely should mention that we considered both budgets and landed on this after careful consideration so that everybody knows we went through that exercise. I don't… I think we would undermine this number by saying, don't worry, we've got a 0%

120prepared, which SBSD Owl Cam: motivates people to maybe vote this one down. We are prepared, and due to the work that, you know, Joe and this involve us have done, we are ready for that, but… SBSD Owl Cam: I don't think we should undermine this number by… SBSD Owl Cam: advertising that that is a ready and waiting second budget. I think we should say, we reviewed two budgets, we reviewed everything carefully, we chose this one for these reasons, here are the factors that are contributing. So I think people should know we've done the effort on the 0% budget. I don't think we should tell them that we have it. SBSD Owl Cam: Right. Yeah, I think they should know that they get one shot, one bite at the apple, right? If this board's decided that

121if this 3.4 fails, that they're going with a zero, I think people need to know that. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, so you would say we… sorry, it's kind of the inverse of your point. It's like, it's not for people that are going to vote no if we tell them, it's for people who are not going to vote yes if we don't vote. If they want it, right? SBSD Owl Cam: if they want it, like Joe's saying, if you want the 3.4, you better vote, because it's only gone down. Yep, and it's going to be less. That should be common. Has it ever been a statement? SBSD Owl Cam: Just over what I've looked at over the last decade, I think 3 times it took 3 votes, and each time it went down, down. It's never

122stayed the same with Donald. I heard board discussion a couple of times during those failures. We could put it SBSD Owl Cam: Right back out there. So, like, 3.4 fails. SBSD Owl Cam: It's technically an option, and I've heard it discussed, just I don't… I think… my memory's the same as it didn't actually make it to me. It'd be surprising. Taylor, yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, any other on today? I'm sure we're going to talk about it basically at every single board meeting going forward. Sure. Gene Murray. Do you mind? Sure. I just, SBSD Owl Cam: I wanted to say two things. One is… SBSD Owl Cam: it's January 21st, so we're running to, like, March 2nd. Yeah, less than 6 weeks. Yeah, so I… do whatever you want to do, but, like, let's

123not waste a lot of time making decisions on when the committee's going to get together, because I know, like, that's hard, no matter the group that you are. So, SBSD Owl Cam: That's the only… and I really like you people, but, like, less meetings in the evening with you all would not break my heart. Don't invite me to your room. And, I think that the mailer is sort of normal operating business. I was anticipating that we were going down the road of a mailer. If you don't want to do that, like, that's totally fine. I think that SBSD Owl Cam: might be an unusual thing for the residents to not get a mailer, but my recollection, the price tag on that was about $50K. SBSD Owl Cam: I… I don't know the answer to that.

124I… what I do know is that the last one that went out, yeah, was… yeah, I mean, I got one in the district that I live in that was, like, a 8.5x11, SBSD Owl Cam: Card stock, no, not stapled, but full color, both sides. Like, the last one that… I was anticipating we would do a, postcard, not a full-sized piece. SBSD Owl Cam: And you could make it one or two… you could reduce the… there are ways you can reduce the cost of a print document. SBSD Owl Cam: So… SBSD Owl Cam: my thing here was to just say, well, we're running out of time. If we want to do anything like that, because somebody's got to have to create that, it's got to go to a printer, it's got to be mailed, and I

125don't know what the mail service is like in South Burlington, but in some towns, it's not super speedy. SBSD Owl Cam: We shouldn't drag our feet, and I'd say too much. So, if I… so that is an option for the board. If two-thirds of the board SBSD Owl Cam: approves. We could amend the agenda and, charge a committee right now. SBSD Owl Cam: And so then we don't… I mean, because there's not a lot of… you know, the purpose of warning meetings is to give the public a chance to SBSD Owl Cam: upon… like, give comments on things. This is not a particularly controversial thing for us to charge a committee. So, is the board interested in amending the agenda to include an action item to charge a committee? SBSD Owl Cam: For this? SBSD

126Owl Cam: Yes. The implicit question there, too, is are you prepared to volunteer for that kind of agent? SBSD Owl Cam: I should not be on that committee. Right. Okay, so I would… okay, so we're going to amend the agenda, and we're going to convert this into an action item to charge a committee for the budget communications plan. So, SBSD Owl Cam: I think that… SBSD Owl Cam: We could leave the composition of the committee open, and say, allow the board chair to decide, or we could also bake it into the motion, who wants to be on the committee. SBSD Owl Cam: I would also not like to be on the committee. SBSD Owl Cam: Because I voted against the budget. SBSD Owl Cam: I would like to say, I think it would be great

127if we could have either Allie or Lindsay. SBSD Owl Cam: Sure. That wouldn't count towards our quantum, and… but we should also have you guys included, but… SBSD Owl Cam: first-class people. Is there interest? No, I would enjoy being a part of that conversation, and I think both of us could bring great ideas to this. So, do we have 3 board members who are willing to volunteer for this committee? SBSD Owl Cam: all the time. SBSD Owl Cam: I do not have the time. There's just too many meetings, and I have a master's program, I teach full-time, like, I cannot, like… Does it have to be 3 people? It doesn't have to be 3 people. Do we have 2 people? SBSD Owl Cam: I don't have time. I do not volunteer. Oh, I can even

128volunteer. Okay, so we have one board member currently on the committee. SBSD Owl Cam: That we're talking about for budget communication. Like, zero communications experience. Well, here's the thing, Emily, I can help, because in Essex, we did, we send out a postcard, the union sends out a postcard, it's not that complicated, so I could… And we can support, too, like, I mean, if you come back to us and say, we need X, the whole board can support you. It's just more a matter of, like, having a meeting. SBSD Owl Cam: this weekend to talk about… or talking with the superintendent, Jean Marie, and saying, these are the things we need… the whole board needs to do. It's more about organizing the board's effort than actually you have to prepare everything yourself. And I can help

129too, I just can't take a leave. SBSD Owl Cam: I can… I can help, too. Why don't the three of… five of us talk? SBSD Owl Cam: Austin didn't help. You didn't join the meeting. I didn't help. She said he'd just help. Well, he can help once the board is… once you've reported back to the board, then. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, so I would entertain a motion to charge a Budget Communication Committee SBSD Owl Cam: comprised of Emily and Laura and Jen, and that committee's… And Mom and Mom and Allie. And that committee's, will end when they have reported back to the board SBSD Owl Cam: necessary action steps for the board to take on the… communication plans. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm sorry, too. SBSD Owl Cam: Laura moves. I second. I second. Emily seconds.

130Is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Cam: All those in favor? Okay, so we now have a board committee. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there any more discussion on the budget communication plan? Can I make one last comment? Yes. I just was going to say that last year, before the vote, we did, like, some real grassroots stuff, like, we did a honk and wave, the central office staff did, with some of the SBSD Owl Cam: principals, did a hunk and wave over here at the corner of Doris History. Like, I think that some of those really… SBSD Owl Cam: low-tech… SBSD Owl Cam: high personal contact things are really successful in getting folks to turn out to vote for you. So, like. SBSD Owl Cam: talking at the… at a sporting event, and I think, like, you

131folks have talked about communication committees in the past, and ways that you can connect with your constituents, like being at the dump on Saturday morning, and those sorts of things. So, I think that there's value in those things that are beyond… And that's value. Yeah, beyond, you know, in addition to a mailer, that you're not going to catch everyone with any one thing, but, SBSD Owl Cam: I just want to be as supportive of those sorts of things. Okay. Jean Marie, and I are the administrative liaisons to the communications. One last budget communication thing that I forgot to mention, but I have heard from constituents, is that, in their words, these are their words, not my words, they don't want the students to be weaponized. SBSD Owl Cam: They don't want… Halloween. SBSD Owl Cam:

132So, like, and so my interpretation of what they were saying is, don't tell the students, doom and gloom, everything's gonna fall apart if this budget fails, because that is problematic for parents to hear. So it's just something for the board to hear that I've heard from my constituents. That is not true. SBSD Owl Cam: In my opinion. SBSD Owl Cam: And it's not true. That they're… everything will fall apart? Right. Right. Well, I'm just making the general comment of not necessarily using students as a vehicle to get the message out. SBSD Owl Cam: In any capacity, on either side. Not thinking about it very carefully. Well, I mean, if students want to advocate on their own, they are welcome. Oh, yeah, of course, they have free speech. Oh, yeah, but, it's good feedback to understand

133what turns voters off. SBSD Owl Cam: And so, I couldn't sure. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, great. I think it's an important point, because there was… there's always been a pattern, right? As soon as SBSD Owl Cam: that number goes on the ballot. We become camps of good and evil, and the students are in the center of that, and there's a lot of rhetoric, and I think it's harmful. I don't think it promotes the kind of partnership that we all want to have, and it defeats the whole purpose of SBSD Owl Cam: Serving the students, so… Okay, so I'm right. Next agenda item. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, so the next thing is planning for updating ENS policy. SBSD Owl Cam: And so, I'm not going to ask for an amendment to the agenda to charge committee

134tonight, but I was going to suggest that maybe the right way to approach updating the ENS policy is to have an ENDS policy committee that we could charge at a future SBSD Owl Cam: But let's… but let's just spend a couple minutes talking about the concept of updating NANS policy, why we want to do it, and just general interest in it. SBSD Owl Cam: What else has been updated? Absolutely my spirited. SBSD Owl Cam: As far as talking about a committee to do. SBSD Owl Cam: I want to wait until after the election. That's what I'm gonna… I would agree with Dan, like, there's no point in doing that now. I've got 4 people running. SBSD Owl Cam: four positions. Yeah, that's a good point. I just think it's not at their dose of talent.

135SBSD Owl Cam: We were having an internal discussion, the administrative team, and I firmly believe the ends need to be done before the strategic plan, and I also think that, most likely, that strategic planning will be, like, first semester next year, just because things take a long time, you know what I mean? In a perfect world, it would all be done by the end of school. It's just not gonna happen. If we're going to do it well, and do it right. SBSD Owl Cam: We shouldn't rush it. Okay. But if the board had a… had a goal to get the ends done before August 1 or something, I think that's a reasonable… SBSD Owl Cam: Like, maybe we could work backwards from what you would have seen. Yeah, so I, I mean, I think in

136our… if that were to happen, I think our goal would be SBSD Owl Cam: finish a strategic plan probably before Thanksgiving, before we start getting into budget season, you know, a couple months, probably be 5 or 6 meetings with community, etc. SBSD Owl Cam: And then, you know, January 1, this is the first semester of our new strategic plan. Okay. I would just say, I mean, I'd like to circle back to the idea of getting a schedule out there that we have, so that we can see a year at a glance, and what do we have, insofar as our strategic plan, and so far as our ends policy, insofar as our monitoring reports, and so far as all of it. SBSD Owl Cam: Like, I think it would be nice to have that in one

137pager, so that we can actually see, and then we can be prepared, and the community can be prepared, and understand what's coming on the pipe. SBSD Owl Cam: So, if we can maybe put that… I know I've brought this up before, it doesn't have to be a Gantt or a RACI or whatever, but just have some kind of schedule for all of these things that we're talking about, and putting it on a calendar so we can… we know what's coming. SBSD Owl Cam: So maybe we'll put that in the parking lot, and… SBSD Owl Cam: I think we do need to… SBSD Owl Cam: As a general thing on the school board website, have the addition that we've been talking about around. SBSD Owl Cam: You know, listing out the… SBSD Owl Cam: the dates,

138and for example, this date had a monitoring report, we had this result, and this date, like, what we're discussing now, and I think I'm happy to move on from this topic, because I think what we've established for this ENS policy update is let's SBSD Owl Cam: Let's try to have the board part of it done. SBSD Owl Cam: in August, for example, so that the superintendent can work on a strategic plan that's done by Thanksgiving. And now, I know that if there were some SBSD Owl Cam: Yes, please. One side, yeah, let me… and I think if various community members who have been involved in this process in the past work here at this meeting, what they would say is, okay, guys, if you want it SBSD Owl Cam: If you want to have your

139board's ENS policies done in August, you have to start a community process. SBSD Owl Cam: in April or May. So, that's probably what we're starting to think is right. Well, I mean, to get it done by August, we need to start before. I mean, it will be… the first committee meeting for the strategic plan will be the day after Labor Day. SBSD Owl Cam: Period. That's… SBSD Owl Cam: Literally, I thought what I was gonna say, was that there needs to be enough time for the community to engage in it before the school year is over, and then the community's not going to engage as well over those summer months. So, like, there… it needs to be shown that there was, like, ample meetings. Yes. SBSD Owl Cam: Or else it's not going to seem

140like you're being transparent, unless it… Great point. SBSD Owl Cam: So that's February, so maybe we'll… SBSD Owl Cam: put an item on the February 18th agenda to… SBSD Owl Cam: Charge of committee? Why do you wait for after the vote. After a vote. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, so March 3rd. March 3rd is the 4th, so March 4th. March 4th. March 4th. Okay, so we'll plan on talking about updating the ends policy again on March 4th. Great. SBSD Owl Cam: Next item on the agenda. Is any more board comment on this? SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, next item on the agenda is the superintendent report. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, so I want to talk to you today about these 3Qs that I've been talking to you about for a long time now. I finally have wrapped

141up the 3Q process. Turns out that I ended up with 33 different meetings with 316 different participants. SBSD Owl Cam: And I got a ton of feedback, that I took all of that, and I used my friend AI, and I entered it, and asked AI to come up with what were the most common themes. And these are what those are. What… when I ask people, what do you most like about South Burlington schools. SBSD Owl Cam: Dedicated and caring staff. SBSD Owl Cam: Rich diversity and inclusion. Special education innovation. SBSD Owl Cam: Extracurricular club options. Strong sense of community. Academic rigor and opportunities. Supportive social-emotional learning. SBSD Owl Cam: Positive transitions. Intellectual freedom for educators. Safe and welcoming environment. SBSD Owl Cam: I asked people what were the 10 most, what were the most common

142themes that came up for what can we do better? SBSD Owl Cam: Improve academic rigor and college readiness. So you're going to see some of these are in conflict, right? Address behavioral issues and discipline. Ensure special education compliance. Enhance budget transparency. SBSD Owl Cam: Modernize facilities and cleanliness. Strengthen communication between central office and schools. Optimize transportation and busing. SBSD Owl Cam: Provide better training for staff. SBSD Owl Cam: Standardized resources across buildings improve student accountability. SBSD Owl Cam: And the 10 most common items for what do you expect of your superintendent? And I couched it as this. I said, what do you need to see a year from now to think that the board made a decent decision? SBSD Owl Cam: Pirate. SBSD Owl Cam: Maintain high visibility. SBSD Owl Cam: Prioritize transparency and honesty.

143Foster collaboration and relationship building. Develop a long-term visionary plan. Ensure accountability for all. Oversee and align special education. SBSD Owl Cam: Advocate for marginalized students. Continue effective communication, for example, the videos. Restore community pride and trust. SBSD Owl Cam: Listen and respond to feedback. SBSD Owl Cam: So those were the top 10 in all of those things. This, afternoon, I sent, out an email to our parents, and staff. I put on our website, SBSD Owl Cam: a survey, asking folks to go through these, and they are to select their top 3 for each one. And then of those 3, what is the highest priority? SBSD Owl Cam: I also have spoken with South Burlington, and they're going to include the survey in the mailer, or the email, or the newsletter that they send to their

14410,000 people on their mailing list. I want to ensure that we get people other than just families SBSD Owl Cam: and staff members to complete the survey. And so, SBSD Owl Cam: that survey will be up for some time. I will send a few reminders, and SBSD Owl Cam: After we have that data, I think that will be a good SBSD Owl Cam: resource for the board to use as you create your ENDS policy. It'll be a good resource for me, then, to use as we do our strategic plan. SBSD Owl Cam: So, I'm really grateful to, really all the people that I met in this process, all the feedback they gave. One thing is very clear. People in this district are very passionate about their schools. They want to do great for kids. SBSD

145Owl Cam: They, they want to see South Burlington to be the premier school district in the state, and they were very, very clear about that. So, thank you for your patience as I went through this, and… SBSD Owl Cam: I'm glad that part of it was done. I enjoyed it. I'm glad it's done. Before I forget, I need to get that city mailing list. SBSD Owl Cam: That Joe just mentioned, so that we could get SBSD Owl Cam: our budget information, because I get those emails from the city. I don't get anything from the school district, which is fine for no kids in the school district. Well, you should be on there as an authority. Well, I… but not too long, personal. Okay, gotcha. Whereas the… SBSD Owl Cam: city ones I get for my

146personal leak. SBSD Owl Cam: So, if we can get that city mailing list… She goes out. SBSD Owl Cam: The people in the city send out our budget information to where? SBSD Owl Cam: And they may even send it for us, because we have a really good working relationship now, they're very helpful. In an email that goes out already, if they don't want it to be, like, just a South Arlington School District, then yeah, something that's a good idea. Yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: So, any questions about the repeat process and what we're doing next, or the thoughts, advice? SBSD Owl Cam: I guess one thought is, how will you ever do a loop back with folks? Like, how are you going to re-engage with these folks? Like, you've talked to them now, and that was

147fantastic, like, how… what do you see as follow-up? Yep, I see a follow-up, but I think the next follow-up really is… SBSD Owl Cam: Is this process that we'll go through with the strategic planning and with the, SBSD Owl Cam: with the new ENS policy. And then after that comes out, I think that is… At least an annual SBSD Owl Cam: Regathering, probably not 33 individual meetings, but, SBSD Owl Cam: a town… not a board meeting, a superintendent town hall, come in, and let's talk about these. But more than one, right? Because people have different hours that they're available. Some people prefer to do it remote. I think that's… SBSD Owl Cam: part of the program is you have to ask people how you're doing, right? SBSD Owl Cam: So, I know it's nebulous, but

148it'll happen after the plan starts. Well, now you have their contact information, so you could reach out, say, you know, because I do know that that was one thing that… SBSD Owl Cam: I remember there was a discussion in Donuts, and it was great for the people that are in the community to have kids in the schools, but it's how can you SBSD Owl Cam: cast that net a little bit wider, and include others. So, some of them thinking about, like, quarterly touchpoints. SBSD Owl Cam: year, wherever. So, Front Forge is completely new to me. I guess I understand it's just a New England thing. We only get two posts a month, and that's not enough, so that's why I've asked the lineup for us to get our own account, so we would have many

149more posts, and from what I understand, people really SBSD Owl Cam: look at that. That's their… again, Rotary says that's the most looked at, social media. SBSD Owl Cam: Well, I really appreciate that you went out to people. You know, like, it's hard to attract people to our events, so… SBSD Owl Cam: It's really great to get that out. I'm curious if, like, do you see people that you met at those events at, like, the grocery store, or out in the community? I know you don't live in South Burlington, so you're not there so much, but, it could have been just creating those relationships where you might see them somewhere, and they'll be like, I know the superintendent. SBSD Owl Cam: I… yeah, I do do that, and I'll tell you the other thing that

150I've done. Depending on the group, and the size, and the passion that they had… I've shared my personal cell phone number with a number of them, and… and there's… SBSD Owl Cam: I'm not going to say who the person is, but there was a Saturday at, like, 10 o'clock in the evening when I got a text from this gentleman who had a great idea about what the school could do. And… and I engaged with him for about 45 minutes, you know, SBSD Owl Cam: and I don't even… I can't even remember what the issue was or what we did about it, but the fact that I was communicating with him and felt like he had my ear, I think, went a long way. So, yeah, I mean, I… I think that people are very… SBSD

151Owl Cam: Pleased with changes that they're seeing, and how we are about SBSD Owl Cam: Not just communicating, but listening, and having, open doors, and… SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I think it's going well. I, I have to say, I love, Wolfie. Oh my goodness, it's just a delight, and when I saw the social media post of you and the young student who won the book, it was just really heartwarming, and it's just, it's wonderful to see SBSD Owl Cam: See the connections that are being made, and all the diff… you know. SBSD Owl Cam: I feel like sometimes a lot of… a lot of emphasis is put on the high school, which is… it's a really important school. SBSD Owl Cam: But I… I just love the way that I've seen you communicate with all

152the levels, all the grade levels, and doing something for everybody can feel like they're connecting with you, so… I told Shannon, it's my creative outlet, and you know I was a camp director for a long time, and a DJ, and that… that really scratches that itch. You got the good voice thing going down. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, it sounds like Kermit. Every puppet I have sounds like Kermit. SBSD Owl Cam: All right. Is there anything else that you want, I think you mentioned a video that you might want to show? SBSD Owl Cam: Doesn't have to be tonight, but… or you can send it out separately. Yeah, I put together a… yeah, I'll send it to you in the update this week. I used, SBSD Owl Cam: again, an AI notebook LM to create a

153video that discusses our budget, what the tax rate is, and all of those kind of things. And I shared it with a few people in the office who thought that it was presentable, so I want to… I'll share it with you before I post it, but I think it was… SBSD Owl Cam: Pretty well done. Yeah, you guys. SBSD Owl Cam: does a lot of work for you. Beautiful, yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: Great. Thanks, Robin. Do you have any questions or comments? SBSD Owl Cam: Okay. SBSD Owl Cam: The next item on the agenda is the consent agenda planning. SBSD Owl Cam: So, the first item on that is to approve the minutes of the January 7th meeting. SBSD Owl Cam: That's for the nose. SBSD Owl Cam: The next would be the… account payables,

154So this is, SBSD Owl Cam: Superintendent Clark, do you want… I never remember this part. Do you want us to… SBSD Owl Cam: have a formal action where I list out all these numbers, or is it enough, since I'm on a consent agenda, just… SBSD Owl Cam: My understanding is a consent agenda is enough that one motion and one second can approve all of these things, unless somebody on the board wanted to remove one separately for a separate vote. Okay, but… SBSD Owl Cam: But we should, for my… I thought, okay, right, except for the AP voucher checks, right, those guys we have to do separate. Okay, so does anybody have any comments about the accounts payables? SBSD Owl Cam: 1306 through 1338. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't have a comment, I just… well, maybe

155it's more of a… it is a comment. What did you ask? SBSD Owl Cam: No, no, anything. Okay. So I did not know about Vermont's Act 166, because I happened to notice there were a lot of charges for that, and just for people who do not know about that, so it was passed in 2014, it established universal pre-kindergarten program. SBSD Owl Cam: for providing all 3rd, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds not in kindergarten with access to 10 hours of publicly funded, high-quality pre-K per week for 35 weeks annually for the mixed delivery system of SBSD Owl Cam: public and private providers, ensuring all Vermont children get a strong start in early education, regardless of family ethyle. SBSD Owl Cam: So, I just… I… because I noticed there were a lot of different… I mean, there were

156over, it looked like more than 30 different child care providers that were taking in over 100 students, and I didn't realize that before, so I just thought that was an interesting observation. SBSD Owl Cam: And I don't know if the community knows about that, but there are, you know, obviously there's SBSD Owl Cam: I think there's a lottery for kids to go to pre-K at some of the schools, but if they do not go to those schools, then they have the opportunity of attending SBSD Owl Cam: these other facilities under Vermont Act 1166, is that correct? That is correct, and we have two, people on staff who work with those families to make sure that they're getting the supports that they need, and they interact with the liaisons with the private preschools. SBSD Owl Cam:

157Okay. So, I guess that was one question, was… SBSD Owl Cam: Is there anything… have we ever considered bringing them in-house? Because I'd be curious if there was ever, like, a cost-benefit analysis, and maybe we don't have the space for it, but for sending them out versus bringing them in, and what would that cost look like? Because I was surprised, like, some of these costs are pretty, pretty high, and is that monthly? SBSD Owl Cam: Where's that? Because I don't remember seeing that before on AP Vouchers, and maybe I've just messed it. SBSD Owl Cam: I can't answer that question without looking more into it. Okay. As far as the bringing more kids into preschool, that absolutely would be a space thing, and there would be some sort of cost analysis we may do. Remember,

158we're doing the facilities usage, study, and that will SBSD Owl Cam: I can ask them to make sure they look into that also, but really, it's just a matter of space, right? How many classrooms do you have? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking from an outsourcing, like, this is how much it is if we send them out, versus if we brought them in, what would that be? Yeah, I mean, I could… SBSD Owl Cam: My wife's a preschool teacher, and she is a preschool teacher at a YMCA in Ohio, and I can tell her, I can tell you this, her salary compared to a certified teacher is nothing, right? So, I can't imagine that we would be able to educate preschool kids less SBSD Owl Cam: expensively, than other places, but it's

159always something we can look into. And would you say, last question on this, would you say that, you know, of the 3, 4, and 5-year-olds in South Burlington that are eligible for this. SBSD Owl Cam: Is it… it's not probably 100% that are actually doing it. Is it, like, how… how is that decided? Like, is it just free preschool period? SBSD Owl Cam: is free preschool, and it is done on a lottery, and we, next year, I put in a word update, you know, we're going to have all of the preschool at Chamberlain, but we will ensure that we have the same number of kids from each attendance area selected for it, so Orchard and Mark, our kids will have the same SBSD Owl Cam: a chance to get into the program as Chamberlain kids

160will. SBSD Owl Cam: And it's a free program. But if they don't go to that program, then… It would pay for them to have 10 hours of service at another preschool program. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jen. Thank you for asking questions about that. Important oversight. SBSD Owl Cam: Let's build it. SBSD Owl Cam: Any other questions about the accounts payables? SBSD Owl Cam: Then we'll approve that by consent. Is there any objection? Okay, so those are approved. SBSD Owl Cam: The payroll warrant number 14, are there any questions about that one? SBSD Owl Cam: No, the only thing I would do is, I would just like to add, because I had to go back through, if we can just provide a description of what the Vermont employment pool is for, because I wasn't… Oh,

161okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, sorry. SBSD Owl Cam: So any… No, okay. SBSD Owl Cam: So then the next is an action item. I would entertain a motion to approve the AP voucher check to Howard Center in the amount of $106 to $445.57. SBSD Owl Cam: We'll discuss the motion. SBSD Owl Cam: Dan, motions? I second. Emily seconds. Is there any discussion? Any board questions about the check that Howard signed? SBSD Owl Cam: Not specifically about this check, but I'll just note that I did ask Dr. Clark just for some clarifying information about how programs like the Howard Center fit in with our district investment plan. No issue approving this one, but it's just a program I'd like to learn more about, and I'm curious about how it fits with our long term. SBSD Owl

162Cam: Fiscal responsibility, or we consider that credibility. SBSD Owl Cam: It's a great question. I CC'd all of you on the response to the… to Austin, because it was such a good question. It's complex, and it's a… it's a thing that every district does. That's not to say that we SBSD Owl Cam: that you shouldn't be asking those questions, and I'm sure we'll, at some point, be able to give you a report on exactly how many… what does this mean in terms of staffing and students being served, and those sorts of things. What… what monitor or report does Howard Center? SBSD Owl Cam: Lambda. SBSD Owl Cam: permanent students today, or… I don't… SBSD Owl Cam: Their special education one, it would be that. Okay. Well, part of Howard Center, where we outs… where we

163send kids to their schools, but the Howard Center clinical clinicians that are in our schools would maybe be social-emotional? SBSD Owl Cam: I'm looking up our board monitoring calendar. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, if I'm reading this correctly, I don't think we have… SBSD Owl Cam: Our special education monitoring for our upcoming funders? SBSD Owl Cam: Well, I'll follow. Yeah. Okay, sounds good. SBSD Owl Cam: Any more board discussion? We just… we're on a motion to approve the Howard Center check. SBSD Owl Cam: All right, all those in favor? Aye. The motion passes. I would entertain a motion to approve the AP voucher check to Vermont Mechanical in the amount of $162,366.60. SBSD Owl Cam: Open motion. Dan moves. I'll second. Laura seconds. Any discussion or question? Jill? Yes, so wouldn't it be helpful to have

164an explanation on the voucher that… for what exactly that helps for? Yeah. Canberry, do you know offhand? SBSD Owl Cam: I am confident in saying it's not any one item, but it's a variety of invoices that have come in that have rolled up to the over $50K. Yep. Facility work happens, as you know, adds up really quickly, so I… SBSD Owl Cam: Vermont, again, was here a lot, doing work constantly on our systems, so, I can't say exactly what that was. Likely is the heating systems. It's like HVAC stuff, right? HVAC? Yeah, HVAC, for sure. HVAC, yeah. Okay. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I was just thinking it would be helpful to have a little description, because as we were going through that, I was going back, trying to find what the… where there was detail,

165because I saw that it was for multiple invoices, but it didn't have any description, that's all. Yeah, I would say that, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: the district hired me as the operations manager, not the finance person, and so I'm still getting up to speed with the rest of you. But, one of the things… I'm glad that you're asking these questions, because one of the things that our business office team is doing now is making sure that there's as much detail on here as you'd like, because we want to be as transparent as possible with you. So, like I said to Daisy, I'm pretty sure when it says AP Payroll Warrant Number 14, there should be SBSD Owl Cam: a number there of how much… like, I'm not sure all the information got onto the

166agenda for that, so… SBSD Owl Cam: I think we're still kind of working through… that's new for, the folks that are creating the agenda, you know, having this information on there, so, your point is valid, that I don't see any reason why we couldn't SBSD Owl Cam: have a little, you know, asterisk there that this is, you know, 6 invoices, each for… that were for X, Y, and Z items, or whatever. Yeah, so thank you for the feedback. I'm happy to bring that back to the team. SBSD Owl Cam: This one specifically looks like a combination of, SBSD Owl Cam: 8 invoices? Yes, right. Just to reiterate that point. Yeah, they're… they're really, specifically doing HVAC work for us, right? Yeah. And that… that's all I would say is, because then it would be helpful

167to say, like, this is for SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. It does raise the concern that I had when we had only one bid for the boiler and Rick Marcotte from them, is that, you know, if there's no competition for our business, there's also no price… price pressure, you know, on them. So, it's… I am… I'm… SBSD Owl Cam: I'm a little concerned about that, but it's not the right forum, so… Thought about that. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you, Chamber. All in favor? SBSD Owl Cam: The motion passes. Is there any, comment about the leave of absence? SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, that, that… Passes… February 4th agenda. SBSD Owl Cam: So far, we've… what we've got on it… That's working, so… SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, great. So, what we've got right now for February 4th is,

168monitor… 2.10, Curriculum Development and Review. SBSD Owl Cam: monitor… 2.4 financial conditions and activities, so both of those are action items. SBSD Owl Cam: And then discussion item, the Williston Road Right-of-way request. This is the thing about behind Brick Marcotte Central School City, and then also another, discussion item on the budget communication plan. SBSD Owl Cam: The committee for which we charge tonight. SBSD Owl Cam: And that is the only things on the Feb 4 agenda for now. SBSD Owl Cam: And if you have any suggestions for other things to add, please let me know. SBSD Owl Cam: not gonna do the entity policy that they've taken. You had asked for a special education kind of report, Seamus, and I was hoping that we could do that February 18th. SBSD Owl Cam: Yes, so there's

169no specific item on the superintendent's report right now. I hear. SBSD Owl Cam: But not monitor, they're just… SBSD Owl Cam: No, no, not monitoring. Yeah, just an update on special ed, and, you know, just… you know. SBSD Owl Cam: Alright, any other future agenda items people want to hear about? SBSD Owl Cam: One that I've been thinking about, and there's… I don't think there's any urgency around this, it's more one of those things we'd love to know more about as a board member, which is, educator professional development, right? Just kind of some visibility into how we grow people. SBSD Owl Cam: And how we, you know, create careers that are fulfilling SBSD Owl Cam: What does the professional development look like? Kind of your 3Q approach, or what's working, what's not? SBSD Owl Cam:

170would monitor a report. It's not a monitoring report, this is just, like, one of those ad hoc learning about… We don't monitor professional development. Does that come into treatment staff? SBSD Owl Cam: That's concerning. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm on our professional development. Well, we're… we have honor operations. Yeah, and it's in support, treatment staff. It's in treatment staff. You're looking for more than that. You're looking for just an overall view of… SBSD Owl Cam: What kind of PD do we do? How do we determine what PD do we want to do? Those kinds of things. SBSD Owl Cam: That's what I'm looking for, Tommy, if I'm not within my head as a board member to ask for it. SBSD Owl Cam: Oh, it's just… Okay, write that down, too. Okay, SBSD Owl Cam: And… that's

171it for the consent agenda and planning. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there anything else that we can talk about with trades opportunities? SBSD Owl Cam: We had talked about that recently, and I don't know… There's some things about the trades that we can start to laugh with and think about how we can… SBSD Owl Cam: So, I think that might be an interacting to add to the discussion for Feb 4, just understanding what is… because… It's available, what's out there. Could be a good community forum. SBSD Owl Cam: The only… my only concern, and this is only about scheduling, is that if we tie trade stuff in with SBSD Owl Cam: ends updates. Is there… are there any kids this year who are gonna be SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, you know, like, the four kids

172who couldn't get access to the HVAC program. SBSD Owl Cam: Has that ship sailed for this year? Like, anything related? Yeah, yeah. So… so that's the thing about trades, so we can't… I think we have to be very prepared for next year. I mean, this is not the suggestion. I… I mean, we are pretty… our hands are pretty much tied with… these are the, SBSD Owl Cam: career technical centers that we're aligned with, and… Well, hold on. We only… let's only discuss Schedule A on this. Do we want to talk about trades on February 4th? Can I make a suggestion or a comment? SBSD Owl Cam: That feels like something that would be a wonderful consideration for maintenance calls as well, and that might affect scheduling. SBSD Owl Cam: I might put that out there.

173This year is a somewhat vague take, so to speak. Maybe that conversation is best had either as a part of or on the other side of the MLC, which I think we said we were going to talk about on March 4th. SBSD Owl Cam: So, one of the big things about the ads policy for me is… So, put that in there as a quirky dot. SBSD Owl Cam: Perfect. SBSD Owl Cam: With the targets of attention. SBSD Owl Cam: So, on March 4th, specifically mentioned the trace of the policy update. Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, because there's so many things that we're gonna be talking about, but it's like, I'm just interested in… let's start… SBSD Owl Cam: Give us some details on it. Like, what are some

174other options that we can be considering? SBSD Owl Cam: And we start putting kids with a lot of mechanical. SBSD Owl Cam: Since we're spending so much money on that. I love that. What? What? Diesel mechanics. Yeah, well, yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: As a part of this bid, you have to apprentice. You have to take on apprentices. Two birds with one stone. If it's not illegal, do it. SBSD Owl Cam: That would be great. So, my takeaway from that was that we're gonna add SBSD Owl Cam: The February 4th meeting, a discussion of ends. SBSD Owl Cam: March 4th, and we'll put, like, in the little example text, for example, grades, and how we'll clean this policy into our grades. Yes. Great. SBSD Owl Cam: I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Oh, wait, first,

175does anybody want to have an executive session? No, no. Okay, great. Then I would entertain a motion to adjourn. SBSD Owl Cam: Lauren knows. SBSD Owl Cam: Second. Austin, seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Cam: Look at you, Jen. No! All those in favor say aye. Aye. SBSD Owl Cam: Meeting is adjourned. There's one here you all need to sign, the… so make sure you…