Norwich School Board Meeting 09/03/2025

001Mhm. I'm glad someone else is here. I didn't see any wrong day. I hear this now. >> Oh, that's what I'm talking. >> Oh, I mean, you think we should have it? >> No, we just shut it down. >> You did just shut it down. >> Did someone do something naughty? >> Lots of people. Lots of people. mostly around we were making changes for the bill restrictions. >> Yeah. How ironic. How's the transition going? Well, let's hear it. >> Good to see you here. Congratulations, Mr. Now just take it to the finish. >> Oh, I know. >> Is that your family? Do you have a road up in your family? [Music] >> I'm guessing one of your grandparents had 12 children. Yeah. Time is 7 hours. We'll be here to order 637. Uh we get

002an agenda review. We do need to add the K to get us. So I might add that to the first item. >> That makes sense. >> Yeah. You suckered through the whole meeting last year. All right. Um, anyone else have anything to add to the agenda? No. Okay. Um, any public questions or input? Actually, I'm not online yet. back to >> you joining from here. Where do you find the student? Morning. All right. And if not question from the public uh we got PTO reportsuming we will not okay with that. >> Thank you pick me up if I'm here. >> Um I think so. Maybe can you guys get your chair forward? Maybe it's awkward because you're too obvious. So is back Rebecca Holden is here. Obviously one of our legislators, she graciously um volunteered

003to give us an update particularly on the committee redistricting committee and anything else that we should be aware of. And when you read my or our um notes that we have for the budget guidelines, you'll see that we talked a lot about what's coming at the state level as we talked about our budget guidelines last Tuesday in our budget meeting. So great over to you. Thank you. >> Well, thank you. And I know it's been an amazing tomato season here, but I'm glad to home. So, thank you very much. >> I would be remiss if I didn't start. congratulations and thank you to for all the amazing work and so excited to have the good work continue. So really excited about that. Um and thank you for taking care of our kids. Most important thing

004that's all here. Um I want to first I'm gonna not try not to talk too much. I'm not going to go through the bill because you not go through all the um uh redistricting task force because I think I just want to talk things you might want to look at as you move forward. But I wanted to just make sure everybody is aware of a couple changes in act 74 that were acting with H4 that will affect Norwich pretty hard. Um the first is when they did even before act 454. Um there was a change in that the state used almost 120 million to buy down tax rates on budgets last year after people had voted on the budgets. That means, and I'm sure you've noticed this already in your budget process, um what I'm

005starting to hear statewide is people are seeing um what they anticipate will be a pretty significant jump in tax rates associated with that episodic use of one time money in the state. So, I apologize. I actually voted against this with about three other people because we were hoping this surplus on one type of money could have been used for permanent cost containment to smooth increases and slow the curve permanently and instead we chose to put it into tax abatement on a budget some people already voted for setting you up this year. I think it's terrible policy. I will continue to advocate against it and I'm sorry that your first act of this budget is to start to enter a um I wanted to also put on your radar that there is a change coming through

006the homestead exemptions and on the one hand it should increase the amount of home on paper to people whose household income is 115 and below. You think about whose household income is in that range and also who is just over that range. Um, these are often families, single parents or they're people with uh two working uh two working parents maybe working full-time as a PT and a danger zone. But given the recent um evaluations that have come out, I think we also all need to be mindful that that cap to certain amount of property and as the baseline values continue to escalate with no relation to gravity um people are going to find that even if they are technically out of the first portion of society in them. So I want to say that because

007people often say oh George can afford it but you know and I know that there are many people who are really concerned right now not just because of the changes in the tax law changes in underlying property and exemption and I feel like I need to say that because we do have a cost challenge why we're losing in particularly people who are earning between 50 and 150 a year those folks are just leaving because they're saying we can't afford to buy in and we can't afford to pay taxes if we do. And so kind of if we want a vibrant future, we need to be thinking about where people can, you know, I will just acknowledge because um we are a high spending community. But just acknowledge this is a school board that made a

008commitment to the idea that the people who work and teach and care for our kids are being people who can afford to live in our community. And so this is this is a a place where your your values are gonna be really important, but the are going to be really tested and the state makes some of the changes ahead of. So I want to acknowledge the careful work you've done. And I also want to acknowledge the state is not making it easy for you right now. I also firmly believe that if you have a spending problem, it can't be solved with a tax formula. it's a spending problem and um you know advocated quite strenuously put some language that I thought would have targeted the underlying drivers of cost and some of the biggest drivers

009are social support services Vermont districts spend about 2,000 more dollars per year on support services than do districts in New Hampshire or New York or Massachusetts. That's very clear and has been true for years. Our schools serve a different role than schools in other states, but that's coming off the property tax, which is a slightly more aggressive tax paid. And it's just something that we can we can't um change our funding program out of that particular problem. So, this is this is a tough tough moment. Um what what um I think Neil invited me to come talk about today was the redistricting task force, which is part of this larger book. You know, we know that the big drivers of cost are healthare and related services. We know that a big part of the bump

010this year in the budgets was actually construction because several districts have managed to cut the bottom and that cost in our education funding is shared. That's a piece of birth tech as well. We know that it's its increases in support services are expenditures on support almost twice the rate of our expenditures on instruction as a as a state. And so when you're talking about higher cost and lower performing, it's because we are using our schools as a safety net of last resort, but what we aren't doing is putting that that emphasis on improving teaching and learning, which is what feels. So that's sort of what you're trying to navigate through is how do you maintain your commitment to your community and navigate some of the the chaos in the state? That's what it is. And

011it's going to get more chaotic and more unstable potentially because of what we're seeing. And we know that Medicaid some people say they might be say it will not this year but after the next election of course you can imagine why um you know we could see some pretty significant challenges that we're to address. We also know that the agency which has been unable to provide as many data and one of the funding sources is potentially in line to lose a significant number of staff in fally funded positions and the only way we need our state obligations to this point is by dual purposing those to state state um state Medicaid because Medicaid school is Medicaid that's actually going to clean out the positions of the agency and because those positions fun and Medicaid. So,

012there's a lot going on and it's easy to be overwhelmed. And what I'm going to tell you is this is the time to take a deep breath and what is it? What is it that your kids need and how can you try to keep driving that direction despite what feel like a lot of state level and I say that because there's a lot of very ambitious st you know stuff and his press conference Phil was saying the redistricting task force needs to forget about the data they just need to do their job and draw the line but drawing the lines is not I mean that's actually easy I can draw a map right now I agree with you in actually drawing a lat map that makes sense and actually makes kids better off and makes

013communities better really hard. And it is super hard when the agency cannot even provide EDM counts for districts. And thank you to to Neil and to um to the office of director was able to confirm that indeed the count of students enrolled Mary across the 10%. Especially if you hear 10% is bigger than some schools. So we need to we need to take a deep breath. We need to just keep pushing on what are we trying to achieve for our kids? Where are the opportunities to look for scale partnerships in ways that actually could leave kids in Vermont and our communities better off? And what if this is just going to kind of fall when people think makes sense and we just don't know right now. And there's about 150 offramps built into this. You

014know, if you talk to the administration, it's a done deal. They just do the math to go. Mr. Ry, we had more staff. We had more experienced staff and six was for the most part voluntary and people had two years to develop to get this is not that I don't think people have really being asked and as that becomes more and more obvious people may start strategic decision. So I'm saying that because I'm hearing from other state people talking about closing their schools get choice people doing that. It's too early. You know we all need to take a deep breath. Your school is a good school because you've got stable leadership that stayed here for years and has stayed focused on making it good for kids. That's what we need you to do as a

015school board and it's what we need every single school state to do right now in partic because we do have cost concern. You know, one of the things I the reason I policies bill, which is boards of collaborative education services several years ago is that we know that one of the big drivers of increased cost is around extraordinary expenses and extra staffing and special education. You may think you're staffing because you have a 5 to1 staffing to student rat student to staffing ratio but you are the highest ratio in the state right now and more than you know twice a month. We have districts and supervisory units with ratios of two months two kids per one adult >> and it's not in teachers it's in support services. So the more we can ask the agency

016of education to stop talking about plans we all know are never going to happen and to start talking about the reality of their reality and what the data well how we can serve kids better because I'm going to tell you putting a one-on-one a kid is not actually serving that kid well it is not the right thing to do ourselves get to better kids and also text because they're you know you've done you've done tremendous work in this district. So why I don't know why you asked me to come but I want to tell you what is we've decided no matter what they say about just draw the lines because it everywhere we said no we can't draw the lines until we have a problem because we need to be able to come back to

017communities and say we're shedding these lines because we actually think this is going to make things better and here's why we can't do that if we don't solve and actually Jay Adams um is very some revisions around meeting um and and so we have a definition of what it is we're trying to do because it can't just be we need bigger districts so we can have a new funding board because we could fix 127 there's a three big problem we could fix 173 there's some real problems with that too we can't just keep changing the old and then we're changing to something better and so having that definition contributed to hope to some weed on was a goal just going to draw if we don't know what are the goals we hope to achieve and

018we can't positively how those changed maps will actually lead to better quality to better opportunity for kids to equal opportunity for kids to more affordability because instead of you know paying 150,000 for an out of district placement at a for-profit venture. We actually are inhouse opportunities that are specialized settings that allow children to return to the classroom more quickly but also frankly cost us very much because that's what we're seeing statewide. We can do this but it's not easy and it's not as simple as so one thing I you can do is support in pushing back and trying to do this right and not just do this fast and I hope you also will use your voice you're going to get communication from the DSBAN about input into the hover and please do take the

019time to tell us what you expect from the same because I I think we're struggling for a bit of a lack of leadership, but you have the perspective locally to talk about maybe something can move forward. And I think to the extent that districts are providing that kind of careful evidence-based thought, then that's something we can lean on as we push back decisions that are being made really in the expediency of a funding change in the interest of children and communities. And I'm you know I think there are many ways to solve every problem. my law of people here but in every district and say we're really trying to get ahead of that posture but student so I won't talk any more than that unless you specific questions but did I not >> one thing

020probably what everybody is thinking here our status part what is the likelihood that we are included in these redistricting sections. >> I It's funny we were talking about that today and I have consulted with our legislative council. You should consult with your own legal um because the interstate is a um a fundamentally entity. I don't think it's actually you need to do anything and you may have noticed through the bill there around the interstates and there are two reasons for that. One is it's very these changes can be imposed on the interstate and until we know what those districts are very risky to tie the spending over the base to the lower lower you know grandless areas which includes so there was some anxiety around that. I think the challenge is also if they try

021to improve the funding formula I don't think the cut can come from the other side because that's aity you can not so then the question is you know are you an impath the constitutional issue because if you try to make those cuts at the elementary level nor actually can't meet its constitution opportunities to So talking about scale education at the elementary level. So my guess is that this is just one of the 700 offerings in this bill. I mean it all we get to the detail but this is seriously dis serious about I think it's careful decision. I didn't vote because of this bill because I think it's sloppy. Um, and I think if they don't answer to this, they we know it. But if I if it does look some merger moving forward that

022leads Norah to the scale where it's soverely impacted or if there is a funding through the deny you ability the children in the town and I think you may have to and so it's I think this is one of those unanswered questions. Yeah. And I think also we're not we're not a K12 because you have different structures and you actually can't change it. You're a minority within the dress. So it's not you could change it to the district if you want to. was a little disappoint, you know, dollars on legal fees to be able to, you know, justify maintain position because of state level action that's trying to potentially, you know, do it. bus >> and and and your and the cost that you incur contribute to distribution, right? It it state I mean again

023I don't think that a funding form is the reason to redistrict the entire state. I think you have to redistrict the educational taxes which no one is public for yet. It's not that they're there. We also 127. Um the two big and the three big complaints two big complaints I one is instability but to me the instability is from the epic like if you buy down 120 million of course you got next year so that's easy to fix just stop money and the other is concern it is true to anybody given more always talked about they proceed to continue to cover these are objective measure on their kid an easy way to fix that would be to set the equal to one and that's actually I'm trying to get that limit they were to reduce

024their budget and force them to spend they're not spending enough to be the key they need so you could fix The other thing that's incorrect in 127, the air study put together to adjust recommended weights explicitly said that tuition students should not be weighted um because they're um there no variable cost they attend the fixed tuition. So effectively we're overunding every kid to go out of private under the new formula. It's going to be funded based on the um the the student weight like but for the next couple years we are also funding districts that no high school and if they were struggling small districts which means that there are poverty rates that are similar to margin but subsidized school. If you think about that being the outcome, first of all, it means they're undercontributing,

025but it also means that they're going to hit a tax wall because when and if you shift to a new and take out huge tax wall, ironically for districts like challenge to be the penalty is going to go to sub districts in transition. There's just a lot of that objectively is really really challenging for me to tolerate unfortunately and it's an interesting bill. um it pass on the string of Republican votes and the vote the majority of Democrat but what that tells you there's a lot of a lot of people aren't sure two questions the 12 million what is a percentage of like it's a lot >> it's It's not much, but the rule of thumb is about that every 11 million or so is about >> so end up with lower taxes because of

026that. It's hard for us to know that because >> it effectively lowers the assess tax rate um compared to what people would have expected if they looked at the numbers that you presented. >> And what did you say? What was it? >> A rule of thumb is not perfect. you may analyze it but it's about 11 million is about >> and you made a comment about Philip and so I thought that when school thing in this latest only >> it's out of state public school it's funny they count um they count dreads in the out of state public school so you you get it either way it's funny because then in the mapping tool it means means that that isn't counted as part of the regional capacity. It's not one of the high school that

027people can select when they're in that capacity. >> People used to be able to send their kids that far to get paid for. >> Uh people have been Yeah. I mean, under the current up until now, it's people in towns that closed their public schools and chose to pay vouchers. We're choosing to send I mean, we have kids in London. We've got kids in a Lutheran kids going to a school in New York City. Um so people are like those out of state private schools will not be able to receive tuition once this is full. There was one other thing that just occurred to me through that conversation, right, that's means to this board, but more likely in our role as members of Dresden school district. If the redistricting task force comes up with a

028new model that excludes Dresden as a destination school, then the current students that may end up disappearing and going someplace else, which would cause, you know, a revenue issue on the dress side as well. It's even more serious than that in that you will hide the revenue ratio no matter what because if that funding program goes into effect because it would fundamentally cap what you're allowed to charge tuition for a student who is not economically disadvantaged at about 15,000. So it it if you which is significantly lower the tuition. So you are talking about significant revenue in the in the foreseeable future if this bill moves forward. I have a quick clarifying question. Are you referring to students outside of the north who live in Vermont who are paying tuition to go to Hanover? >>

029You can still allow tuition to out of state schools. There are public schools along the border. Significant numbers over near student over there. And then the White Mountain Regional High School which is St. Jennifer London students as well are um there are parts of this you know the boundary states instead and in some of the cases they particularly in areas where people don't if they lose access to the school they may actually not have access to the challenge One of the things I want to point out is I know that you had mentioned before we spending districts. I don't disagree with that but I also want to put it in a little bit as well too right especially when you take a look at what we're spending per student which is the thing that sort

030of drives the tax rate is that when 127 the change in the student rates went in um our spending didn't change much. It was I think an average budget year of like maybe a three or 4% increase but our student count our equaliz weighted student count changed around >> right so from you know we close school on a Friday we open up on a Monday same population walked through the door but suddenly those that that cost per kid just escalated >> dramatically >> it's also distorted in the state records because they seem to treat Norwich students as if tuition students, but they're also allocating to the quote unquote tuition some of the management costs that would be excluded from tuition and special cost. So that's >> yeah and then the other thing um I do

031know just from spending time which comes with a certain reputation. It's a wealthy town that you know can afford to spend a lot of the kids. But it occurs me too in this last round of budgeting if we just flip the view of that a little bit. We are what I think I hear in a lot of education circles is what people want, right? all the things that have proven to be beneficial for education, low poverty, engaged parents, uh the appropriate amount spent in the right places, you know what Sean has done by decreasing the number of ed assistants, but then bolstering that in the actual teacher population. Like we're doing all of the things that everybody in Vermont says makes a good school. >> And the results, I think, show that they're absolutely right.

032But the flip side is that the outside view in other places when they look at a town like which is is a different view it's not it's not one of success of like look if we do all the right things then you get good >> I think that's right I think it is also true unfortunately that there are some communities that have demonstrated through the votes that isn't the education in those communities and again I mentioned >> 127 increased their tax capacity. So they had they had to spend less to get more and they still lowered to so there's a different dynamic there >> and the way to address that here. So that's why I'm looking at whether or not you set the deal at one district to those kids because those kids do deserve

033that we take for granted sometimes and we do deserve to get that cat. Um I think there's another piece in this bill didn't mention there is an effort to split the non you know we can't just raise taxes on what so we can't just bring them up but we can look at people tell me I know it's a hedge on the stock market because the return on my property there is greater than on the stock market that's not Okay. When people expect these are the people who don't and they can rent it out, you know, and pay tax to a job and trying to stay here. So that is going to be broken and that will allow for some change in how we because what's happened in some communities is it becomes too expensive to

034live here. people leave and when they leave you% and when they leave you don't just especially here when you're on the border with you're not just losing the property tax and so you can talk about equity but we lose the people paying taxes so I think what we're And I appreciate that this board is consistent saying her kid deserves a better chance, but do community. I'm not sure. And you're not the only ones having conversation. They're very there are allies and part of it is helping us find land in the common sense that allow us to bring down. >> Yeah, sorry. Um, Bradford is also upset. I work in the district up there and they are not happy with what's going on either and people are worried like they're seeing what's happening in Norwich and

035then that third and then >> yeah looking that they're their assessed value of their homes is going up not quite at the rate that Norwich is but sort of the same thing is happening people are being priced out of living there that have been there for a long time um which is and that's another ironing I mean you know we defin we have a emergency and as a state it would have been great if we prior times the places with the greatest scarcity which tends to be near job centers including frankly the upper valley because we actually believe it or not are near the highest job density in New England. Yeah, I know in New England but um we are going to put out making the rules now. I'm going to try to rem remain

036optimistic, but we are going to allow districts to withhold up to 200 million a year total from the education fund, from the property tax, which is aggressive. We already say too high to fund municipal investments that create um hopefully big development, particular development. So how that works with actually serves the intended go of the state is going to entirely depend on one of the concerns and the auditor spoke to us is why would you why would you write rules so it doesn't make sense to develop funding it and my concern is we have been too because then we would be paying for development it would have taken place and when you think about what makes sense it's p it's waste are is water because those are shared and developers are happy to build they just

037can't. And then I just had a clarifying question. Um when you said to be in touch and to keep sending ideas to you um the legislative session doesn't start until January. So, are you asking us to be in touch with the committee or to be in touch with the legislators while they're out of session? Like, what's the best way? What are you looking for? >> So, two two things. I mean, the BSBA is is working and one of my concerns is that input to the task force on which lines is that um that the feedback won't be sustainable because just the people we're getting a lot of right now. what would be helpful instead of just saying what we don't do people would also say we should do because there are there's some amazing work

038going on creating these board education and shared service model there you know the fastest growth is an extraordinary it's increased like over% just a couple years there's a real problem there it's because of the way the funding is written and because of the lack district based alternatives that's a solvable problem so to the extent that you can direct us to the solid you guys. You can always reach out to me. I work for you. >> Well, we work for you too. >> When the FBA reaches out, they'll give you an email and I can send it to you as well or to to Garrett. But please don't not just because you can't emerge or you think you can't be merged, don't not weigh in what we need to be doing in the state because you

039are part of the state. We need your email you can send to and thank you. >> One more question. Do we have any um clarification on where that might be? Because one of the things that we did recently, especially the budget guidelines, started talking about all of the facilities improvements that we're looking at over the next, you know, five to 15 years. Um, and the numbers a little scary on just local. >> Well, I think um I was extremely disappointed. I didn't expect the especially ones that cap the amount keywordation plan. I didn't expect a lot of money to be generated there. When it went through the house, it would at least it would go into beginning to build construction. What would I have done 120 million towards the construction? You know, if you could

040do that for everybody in the state because it's a shared system. If you look at who's bonding now in certain districts that either disproportionally benefit but Woodstock you mentioned I mean their building is so obsc and they'll never bill would have indirect in conference committee they chose to redirect instruction reduction. So once again, you don't have fun. One of the things that you can point out is when people are paying for their bond regular education spending, they're actually cost shifting that to other and so we need to have an external expression money for that. Um it's I'm sorry I don't think I bought ended up getting taken out >> is is the redistricting tax looking at you know condition to >> it is one of the criteria that is there one of the things that

041I mean the task that was given they've asked us to do in the meeting I'm just going to be totally this is not this is not we are no position We don't the agency has not given us any meaningful data and and now we have just you know five more meetings and I don't you know this one data I don't know how to do that um because I don't think we can do attention to that one of the things that we're um where regional high school might be seated and trying to figure out how we locate them in sort of the population center of and target resourc but I don't know if we have no data >> it there is a problem and and you know it's it's not just here two things I would

042say about that we're still finding schools that are finding that they're contaminated PCBs I mean Hartford is trying to decide now whether to start over and there are regional conversations going around you know from district south about whether They just need to bring the regional high school together, >> you know, maybe do that together scale. I would also think one of the things at the state level to me a deteriorated building is just an unb. And so people are saying well take on the cost of their bond. Yeah. And they don't want to take you have maintained. I mean, you it goes both. And so people know how we're >> and Harvard. >> Yeah. So anyway, glad to bring you [Laughter] try to respond to every email. I get really appreciate and I really appreciate

043you Neil Ted by you know voicing concerns. I think we just have to keep showing it. I'm trying to show you to reach out. You think I'm missing something or what you're doing? >> Oh, yeah. >> We took care of that. obviously put in all the issues at a very deep level. We're all happy to see Jay also >> he's been very useful in putting his talents there. And again, I would just summarize as we're about to come into our budget discussion tonight too that I keep kind of forgiving Neil says this too as far as I guess a little bit of a reputation. But when you do look at Virginia and others who haven't been with us, if you put all of our budgets for the past 10 years in the spreadsheet, which I've

044done, the average increase has always been like low single digits, right? At least here. And if you look at the number, you made the comment for Sean. be looking at the number of sports staff. When I first showed it on the board or a couple years with the board, I think it was in the high teens and now we have and our budgets now we're getting to a point where we want to cut it. either there you have to cut section which means we're three sections to two which means the class size might go 15 to 25 or right I think the math just so it's really hard but and we lucky that's why it's kind of frustrating too on this note that you know we are as Neil said kind of the optimal school

045size from Zoe Sanders's graphs like we're at 2 kids roughly every building's got 300 to 700 kids in it >> um and then when you go to you know even the buildings things in comparison to the Colchester brought up as far as their bond. You know, they got 2,000. It's basically the exact same size district, exact same spending per kid. So, I mean, technically, if we were left alone, we didn't have all this knowing this. We didn't have all this uncertainty, we probably could go bond for this and move ahead and be like, let's fix this. Let's do what we need to do because all the bonds just came off in Dresden. It's time to start thinking about the next 20 years. But we can't because we're just sitting here waiting for like the next

046fall in general. So anyways, and I guess that's what going into budget season to your point is we are just going to stay the course. It's a 3% increase. We might get it even, you know, right? I think that's that's what we're doing. We're just kind of keeping as low and keeping costs as low as we can. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. I what worries me is that people have been waiting for how many years now for the state to decide and indecision is its own and maybe that's something you can speak to just politely that we really need to stop doing things that aren't going to work and starting on what we can do because people can't wait. I mean, I think Sher said when she was talking about, she was like, I

047know you're redistricting, but we actually can't wait to do this. That's something they they need to hear. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you again. >> All right. On to our our meeting here. Um, so now do my thing. We'll move on to um Brian for our internet upgrades. >> Um sure. So Brian Patton reputational technology. Um as you've heard me speak before, my big push over the last year year and a half is to move us toward a resilient sustainable technology environment. One of the things we've been doing about to understand, you know, what we can afford to maintain. So one of the things we've been doing is making sure one of the things that gets lost when we're trying to do too much is going back and you know at

048the end of the year sort of saying well what can we close out what do we not need this year who who left and so we get in this technology de so one of the things we did is to sort of try and clean up who's on the admin and who's doing this and we're like okay we'd like to change the password so that everyone who needs a password will need to get back on. So in very broad rush terms um we have and everything we're going to say tonight does not apply to 504 that's all so very broad we have um sort of three areas that we're looking at one of pushes all machines to be honored across the district. The ones that my district are given to students and staff about that. So

049those have um a very top secret delivery password that's 25 characters long, not human readable because we don't want to change that. That's the one that's really really bad. If we have to change it, bring down machines to then we have a sort of little gray area where it's staff mostly there's some do that but we've been trying to recognize that staff is trying to do a lot. So recognizing that tech team can only sort of push people so far like technically that might be in play but for now we're just going to change it to you. I came last time or something to make sure >> um we've developed an account system where we have six or seven categories now starting with full employee going down to volunteer what they get when they get

050an email trying to clean all that. So there's that category. And then the final category is which contrary to what some people believe is not being taken down. What you've taken down is the ability to self. So that's a kind of you no longer do is show up and just sign. Um we you know as most of you know or you speak about the issue is that we have foreign machines on our network that we have no control over the security. It gets very dangerous. We like we like our own machines on our own network because we can control their configuration and their security is why and I think from the predecessors why we like to district based machines and we can do that and I'll revisit that so that we know every machine. So

051um bell to bell arrives in New Hampshire and sort of saying okay now you need to uh kids cannot use any of their personal devices from you know starting bell to ending development. Um, one of the things that you can make happen is to sort of say you can't connect. There's no Wi-Fi. You have your machine, you have your Chromebook that's completely connected to anything, but you can't connect your phone or your or your own personal computer. A lot of it is focused on. So um we sort of gave people a heads up and said hey this is happening people said what does that mean after 3:00 what happens when we get um you know we have to get in touch we're we're sort of starting to work on that one of the things that

052just happened over the last week is we sort of as I sort of said we changed the by pass so that everyone you know like we had to touch. So we were sort of saying well pass sort of say there's going to be leakage of that just because this week sort of said it's you know a big security breach to say when you use a password on your phone some you can actually see the light share but you know some people like oh so that's what you want. So we did that in sort of optimum sense. We probably have a couple months before leakage becomes significant probably more. So we had 12 would all connect to you know 600 students that would not be >> Yeah. We'll talk about that, but I have a make

053sure that I use everyone's time and you know John. So this was like you might imagine source of great frustration. We met we started to plan for the next thing that we would do which is to uh move all the faculty and all the VIPs onto the guest which has this unique capability of if we give you password login and password combination and you share it and that person is using it you can no longer get so there's some unlikely one which is just like um so we planned the weekend and we set but late Friday it came to our attention that the um own machine top secret very long notable password they've been breached into a while. So now we don't know how many of those 800 were ones were the ones that we

054hoped would never be shared. So now we have to sort of stop pause for a moment and kind of go well now we can't go ahead with that plan because if we then shut down the B1 that would drive you know we don't want safety reason so right now I'm the rest of the parts of the team are reaching out to people to sort of say how do we solve this problem real solving it for real I know hope isn't a strategy but you know sort of said because we believe it's going to be somewhere between tens and thousands of dollars to solve this work the way that corporations really do what they give significant side just in case I run out of time. One of my last asks of this group would be I'm

055coming to each of the awards is to sort of say would you consider forming an ad perhaps one time technology advisory group from the works that I could talk to and really get into some of the sort of deep like I think this is the right way to go but they kind of say what's the reality of these kind of u so that's what we're doing right now we're going to reach out to see what costs come back to you with like this is the plan we are um one of the things that happened uh today is one of the students. So the high school has gone full one to one make sure that having unified you may remember from my previous presentation we're trying to get K12 uniformity across so that we're not trying

056to split multiple operating systems you know we'd like to so we're trying to get everyone to use Chromebooks the high school that's last year in the spring the faculty committee sort of agreed and sort of said okay we we try nine and 10 this year is 11 but they agreed we will now do it will be because of for a variety of reasons technical and issues you know we know exactly that's but today one of the kids turned in their work that's on my my personal So I rang a very large bell with Lauren and Julie and her team sort of saying right now there's some discussion about what is it committee has come up with the local SA policy but there's question like the law itself draft teachers will not be used to enforce

057this program teaching not at least like so it's a good question we're trying they institute their own ban last year as well it's working relatively well we're just going to go with that but that's assuming it's just phones um there's as you guys probably can imagine the attack vectors through the phones are much much less than group here just because they've been so so that it just happened a single digit hours ago still working. So kind of the following situation I wanted to talk to you all. >> So sorry to jump in simply to the policy this morning too and this came up down the road just but I guess my question is what problem are we trying to solve? So we have the band of bands. Let me just like put a snare. So

058the band we have a belt balance phone. So that seems pretty easy just kids can't use their cell phones. But then now we have the Wi-Fi issue and was the wifi issue basically changed to try to enforce the belltoell phone and then maybe ask a different way is again not be dangerous but this actually might be a dumb question I guess but you know let's just take it when you're at a hotel or something. Why can't the high school just have a guest network and then the network that all of our critical systems are on and that the everyone can join the guest network and the kids want to have their phones on the guest network doesn't really matter is they can't use their phone during the day and at 3:00 when school gets released

059if they all want to run outside and or you know run into the hallway and check their phones on the Wi-Fi that's fine. So what what am I what am I misunderstanding? Is the guest question I mean is a guest network a security issue? >> Well we don't we don't we don't have one that's completely separate from so creating one would cost money. The message we're getting from you is like we have no money and I have other ways to test. So basically we have right now in high school and I'm going to see these high school we have one network Wi-Fi network and you can't we what we need is that's the part we can get down specific of course it's right you know like the hospital has 150 tech people right hospitals doesn't

060have to deal with >> we can have two networks they're not two networks you have You have the public do >> not what I'm describing as far as like our office like we have our all of us are on Wi-Fi and then we have a guest >> right so this come in they just sign up for the guest password they don't have access to anything that's in our office but we had that's just a that's like network I sort of told one of those groups I was talking to friends of Norwich friends of hand want to contact that bet Julie will flush and was like set but there's a kind of part of it was um I got calls from my team last year sort of saying do I have to come in for the

061prime to you know make sure it's there so I have to check do we support do we provide support for non school hours. He said no. So it was kind of like nuance here coming out which is like non school hours. >> Yeah. >> My my take on it was kind of like 8 to three instructional bell like school hours. But Julie feels strongly and differently that's like no we have co we have sports we have theater we have those are school hours. So that's a debate that's going on right now. But you know when we're trying to told you cut scope here's one that I can cut now you know parents feel very strongly well wait a minute this so on so I must stay in touch your kid has their problem it works

062247 you what happens if I need to tell them I can't pick you up if they need to tell you the They start there's no settlement. Cool. I was like, not true. We tested it this afternoon. Is it good? Can you send the pass? Absolutely. So, I'm kind of like what's what's the uh I mean from my perspective you guys you can tell but from my perspective this is convenience that we offer. We are told being told to cut anywhere we can putting this back we've done it we have to sort of like turn the system to turn it on turn it off and fundamentally my understanding is that I've talked to which is if we would fix the setting this would be a non issue we wouldn't be getting that >> question um I'm

063I've seen where um putting a cell tower on a building can actually be a revenue opportunity for the organization because at least it used to be this way that the cell companies want to have towers to be able to provide service and so like people who don't go to Han Kai who drive to the co-op might be thrilled to be able to use their cell phone between downtown and co-op I would say as a human being I'm one of those people off my mother one and it falls down. So I want to hear this and we need if we need money is that a way that we could solve the problem which is I think um people who are visiting the school need to sometimes be like I have myself I need to be able

064to access my emails sometimes and I'm in the school district. I'm lucky that I have VIP password but if I were not that person that would be helpful. I think a lot about the after school things that are happening. I think not just the kids I actually also think about the adults. I think if an adult is in the soccer field and they have a heart attack, I don't feel like we have a good way. I mean, I'm just going to say it. I think it's a liability for the um school district that we don't have a great way of reaching out to emergency. I could be overreacting, but I'd rather see us be number. So, have we thought of looking at a way to say, "Hey, AT&T or Verizon, like we'd love to sell

065you some space on and say I see where Garrett's coming from." I think um if we if there is a way maybe what is the number would cost to have the Wi-Fi that would be part of making a decision also having to participate in committee if it's necessary I used to oversee in my previous role be happy to be involved >> well I think I think this is a great conversation obviously so it doesn't really impact yes um I think it does help all of at least >> with kids and children with kids that are sound like this really kind of high school thing. Um, and I I mean, at least from my perspective as chair, I think I'm still a little bit confused like again I said policy, but what are you trying to

066solve and what it would cost to actually have a proper guest network that's separate from security perspective, our school network, and that's all our sensitive data on? You may or may not know I put money in budget last year for doing answering that question this year. >> Okay. So I guess we need to basically I think probably elevate this because if I was again I'm not telling anyone to do it but at least as we got here it just seems like again the kids aren't allowed to use their cell phone if someone wants to see the you know get Wi-Fi and check their not does seem like you know there probably should just be a Wi-Fi it's available 247 high school the kids also put belt on their cell phone things seem to be and

067it sounds like it's just a budget issue then as far as putting this proper technology in place. So >> you can go ahead and answer but I do have a question or a point to make. >> I don't want to say more. I think that's like it sounds like it's it's probably something else is more than addressed and or we probably just need to we're going through the budget and make sure you can make sure that this kind make sure that budget people particularly overview address >> I just want to make sure that whatever happens with this that we don't put the teachers and the staff in the position of being the device police cuz that is a horrible position to be in and it could take up literally 80% of your teaching time. And

068so, you know, if some, you know, if there's a technology fix that makes it easy, the devices just can't be used because they can't be used that lets the teachers teach. um you know so I just I want to make sure that whatever our solution is that this bell to bell ban I agree with it that there yeah I don't want to turn our teachers into peace then >> thanks [Music] to maybe wings I think that the bill developing policy initiative that came from the state which is separate if I'm understanding correctly your concern tacked on to that about hardening our security around our IT infrastructure to make sure that the bad thing doesn't happen. But we'll do one refresh like resetting everything and to the extent that previous budget requests have been denied because

069money was tight. I still encourage you that same, you know, request or whatever you need comes forward because we're just starting the new budget right now at level two, right? So, conversations with Julie and then making sure that those things, you know, come forward to the budget committee and then the full board as we move through these things and also to understanding what's the opportunity cost of not doing this. I don't know if there are insurance implications that if we're not hard enough that our insurance carrier is going to be like, "Well, we told you what you needed to do and you should not do that." So therefore, um, so separate those two things. I am perfectly fine sitting on a committee if we really want to spin one of those up. I'll just caution

070folks that if it's a board level committee, then open meeting law, all of that stuff. And there could be a fair amount of executive session discussion there if we're talking about you know security related IT things that we're looking to put in place that we don't want to make public. I'm also I'm not trying to circumvent a very very process of the meeting law but I'm happy to meet with individual just like if you but you could have your own ID committee you could bring in some outside that may not necessarily be board members and I think similar level discussion I think the value that you get board not this board really the president board is well we need a budget for it or are you going to be willing to you know put the

071money in the budget in in order to fund this thing. >> I think maybe closes down. I would say something. It seems like this should almost be some problem in the administration. Again, it seems to me to be a what problem you're trying to solve here. And that's why the policy because the policy is pretty easy cell your cell phone. I guess again I don't want to hide behind like because it's been we've been hiding behind this for decades now like well the teachers can't enforce this and therefore just the kids use their cell phone. That's just in my mind laziness. It's not in the thing the kids the kids can put their cell phones away if someone was working. I guess the question is this a security problem why we cut the Wi-Fi kids

072off their device. What was the answer to have them only use the Wi-Fi for their school devices to prevent them from putting their personal devices onto our networks >> because of the belt to bell ban or because of security? >> Because of security. Okay. So that's a good I think my best >> yes >> statement and question. Um so yes I work at the high school but for example I'm working on an action plan and we're trying to build a community uh representation. Okay so we have a lot of volunteers at the high school. I there's a lot of volunteers in all of our schools and a lot of times we share documents and since the security measurement we agree with that's impossible. We can't do any kind of group online meetings because they can't

073access the system. Our community refining council can't access anything. So for me who's trying to build community connection between our schools, our kids and our, you know, the rest of our community, it is a a lot more work. It's hard copies. They can't be active members of contributing. I mean, I think about the whole when we were doing, you know, portrait of graduate and how many community members we had when you're sharing documents. So it's a small problem but it's actually a big one. >> I don't know how we navigate. Nobody said anything about that. >> Why is that again? Why it's I mean it seems like we gave them sort of like oh give them email email address not thinking about what does that give them access to? I mean so there's a question

074of like what we're trying to do with this sort of bucketing thing is to sort of say I mean I think we I think certainly a policy it might be law that we cannot give access to our network hasn't gone through our HR vector you know so we're trying to establish everyone's guest network which they used to be when it's all work why can't we do that again >> um the guest network um >> because that's what used to be great. >> You could share Google Docs. I could share with people outside and they could sign on and do work and they can't now. So, I don't know. Haven't talked to Brian or Suzan or anybody changed the fact that kids couldn't share Google forms and stuff because it's a vector for communication with people

075that we don't want. >> So, I would argue that there's a level of detail here that is not going to be solved. the appropriate work due issues. All right. It sounds Michael. >> Yes. Neil was so successful in almost moving us on. >> I would add one thing. >> To the extent it seems in 2025 that the internet is part of Maslo's hierarchy of needs. Seems that this isn't a one-year thing. need to figure out from the technology perspective and policy perspective and norms and education perspective how we want to deal with it. >> Yeah, >> I I worry about spending a lot of energy to do it a creative and less expensive way as opposed to finding a single straightforward way to decide. >> If there's one way that everybody does, the impediment is

076dollars. Let's just have that discussion about the money because it feels like there are lots of things I want the administration devoting their time on particularly in education 2025 wrangling the internet right if like let us wrestle with the financial trade-offs. >> Yeah. >> And and like try to figure out what the straight way is because Michael delayed the ending of this discussion. So, I work at one of those local institutions that does this. And I will say um don't anticipate that one single solution is going to um get you more than six months to a year and then the next thing that wasn't there previously. You have to guard against that. This is a moving target and we will always have >> lived through a ransomware attack at healthcare organization where sometimes the old

077stuff stops working >> but I just um you know you take your best shot take your best shot >> and for the record I want to apologize for being late. I did not anticipate that 1.7% of the town of Nor should be playing youth baseball this fall and so just took a while to get out the field. So >> thank you. >> All right, Brian, that sounds great. Um I'll close on this with our budget cut in the community. One one of the things that we have talked about with Sean policy. No, no, not one of the things that we talked about as far as we wanted to understand as much process is the federation of technology resources and just getting back here. I think it um there's it might be causing some lack of

078technology support here, right Sean? So again, nothing to talk about tonight, but just as far as our budget goes, we just want to make sure that, you know, that we're kind of get the right dollars in there because I think it was all intended in a good fashion to optimize costs, lower costs, move people around all the buildings. I I haven't answer, but I'm hearing that you would like to really talk about tonight. I'm just saying that like here I know this is one this is one of the points that we put as far as to kind of make sure that we understand as the budget process goes through. So >> just to be clear the cost would be in positions we talked about adding a couple positions to our school so that we would

079be able to part of federation >> and be aligned with the other schools in the district. >> Okay. So that's just I would encourage you to get this budget together. That's one of the items break. Okay, great. Thank you so much, Ryan. Always helpful. again. Glad that you're here as well helping out and making sure that everything's working. All right, we have the policy. We'll move on to our item. Is it B or C now? >> Thank you. >> Anyway, so reading the policy. So, this basically is the behavior threat assessment policy that's required by law 1st. Um, this is the first reading. It is here. Um, I talked about Brian. She had reviewed it with with Sean, the administration here, and he had no issues with it as far as reestablishing the procedures. Um,

080do you have any comments on this? Sean, do you have any thoughts on this? You're good. >> I have a question. >> Yes. Can you give me an example of what? >> The extreme would be a school. >> Okay. >> And one other thing is a requirement policy that we have and it's supposed to be approved by >> Yeah. I guess definitely would do our second reading in September. >> Yeah. So, we should be good to go. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. On to our budget guidelines. Um I have to apologize that I So, we had our budget our first budget meeting. Was it last Tuesday or week Tuesday? >> It was just last Tuesday, right? >> So, Teresa, myself, Neil, and Sean met. Um we had a good meeting to we review the

081quick model that we all looked at before. Um we had done a lot of work on kind of looking through what the quick model added in it what the CPI rates were. We know there's a lot of unknowns there, but the quick model, right, is basically taking all of projecting out of the STE track CPI increases for everything else. Basically, everything except for our our labor negotiations, which is we know we have a teacher contract coming up to be negotiated last one year. This one do starting this fall. So, obviously, we cannot really budget for that. So what we recommended was based on the um and unfortunately I admit that the first thing is a typo so I can fix that. It's actually supposed to be 6.7 in the first everything else should read. Um

082I do apologize I didn't get this online until this afternoon about 4:00. Um so we can we don't need to approve it tonight necessarily. If people want to give me some comment on it maybe it helps just to go through what we wrote. do that. That would be a good thing. The group right now want me to read this later. >> You read it already. Um, so again, BA basically paragraphs one and two are in Neil or others if you have comments as far as I hope I got all the acts right in the years that we that they were done correct with regards to act 127 things. basically summarizes what Rebecca just talked about as far as the, you know, act 74, which is really page 454 and then act 27 going in place,

083um, is really what's going to be driving some of the unknowns this year, but again, we're pretty much moving ahead with the fact that they've got these, you know, committees in place. The one question I have for you Neil is there is there we got the redistric is the commission on the future of public education running previous is no longer that is still in existence until operational but it's scope and its focus have dramatically decreased. So, should I just remove that from here? >> As far as I looked online, it looks like they're still having bi-weekly meetings. I didn't know. >> Yeah. They're no longer sort of the massive reformist task force. So, there will be some work to do potentially upon recommendation of the redistricting task force. Okay. Should I leave should I leave?

084So you again this year we went through the quick model as you can tell from the fairness blue and gold on the 3% again exclusively labor and contract settlements. Uh the quick model is basically producing a assumption or projection using the July CPI 2.71 and that's for the total budget. Um the it's pretty close to what the actual school budget would be with um and then basically the projected budget using a CPI increase of 3.2% which is a little bit more conservative and it would result in a budget increase of 3.2%. So that's why our committee last week we looked through and said let's just go right down the middle have 3% budget increase. Um, again, I highlight the fact that we're going to be entering a year one contract. And then you can see

085here with items one through four, we did summarize the things that are, you know, weighing on us as we are keeping this budget, you know, pretty much flatline. Um, so you've got the tax bills that have been received with the new appraisals. I think, you know, I've heard tax bills go up. I've heard tax bills go down. Um, obviously it did achieve the objective of getting our C our CLA close to 100%. Um the bigger thing of course is the implementation of student weights which would happen three years ago and we are going to meet it in the third year. That discount the discount and Neil we don't know the discount right because it's 21 cents last year. >> Yeah because it depends on the yield number >> on the yield number. So all that

086we do know is the discount will be less than what it was last year because it's supposed to be coming down every year as they as we ease into the fiveyear assuming we get through five years without change in the system. Um, you know, number three we talk about here is just the Dresden assessment in Norwich and the fact that, you know, really we've been benefiting from a lower Dresden assessment because of the debt related to the middle school and high schools really coming off the building that was done about 20 years ago. Um, and then of course the big one which is what Rebecca was really here talking about which is the school consolidation and regional group and the reform is in process. Um and I actually I think I actually wrote pretty much

087what she said here is that you know because of the redistricting task force drastically alter our education funding and government's landscapes and I mentioned here that there are a number of multiple offer some of the most concerning elements which is also said and the last section is is that while we recognize the 3% target we're required to see budget we have asked both Theresa and Sean to talk to us about in our future budget meetings is the technology support requirements which we just talked about um to the extent that may or may not need to be added to the budget. Um and the big one really is the facility needs because in the quick model we about $14,000. So it's called capital expense but really is our annual maintenance. Um and we'd like to make

088sure that we have our arms around that and it's the appropriate number. Is it too high? Is it too low? It's flat exactly flat last year. um is it going to cover the maintenance needs for this year because thanks to Jamie and all the team in place before you know to be fair the school's done a pretty good job of continuing to keep up maintenance on an annual basis aside from that we had and then the big one also at the end is we wanted to just get make sure that we really understood the infamous Mary across Fruit timeline because that continues to come up every budget cycle >> and we kind of kick the can down the road like, "Oh, that's a big project. Oh, we don't really know." Then, you know, everyone kind

089of looks up to make sure the roof is safe. Um, but I think it would be good for us just to have a little bit more clarity um on that as we're going into this budget season. I don't think we're actually going to act on it, but I think it'd be good to get our arms around what really is that. I think Tony probably would just give us more what really is the state. What really are we talking about here? >> Yep. and doesn't understand and I guess I'll talk about it in my sorry when I do my report. >> Okay, >> I do mention that. Okay. So, as for tonight, um I think we could if if everything's okay. I mean, so one will open for discussion, but I think that actually for tonight,

090I can make a couple edits like I said to the 25 26 to 26 27 in my header if people want to give me any other edits as well once you does anybody else have any to give me. But I think as far as tonight goes, I mean, we could actually approve which is what we're representing for a um a recommended budget guideline 3% and we can do it with you know we'll submit the budget guidelines to final or we can find so Michael any questions comments or thoughts >> no I mean I mean the intention of the document is set guidepost to guide us it doesn't lock us into specific things. I I don't personally I don't feel a need to pre-negotiate a new position of the budget. I mean I think this board

091has done an excellent job trying to react to very uncertain situation at the federal and state level and so I don't see any use in delay. It seems like perfectly fine guideline. I'm comfortable with that. When we were in economic distress time in Dartmouth, we did something pretty cool around budgeting. would be doing like this where we ask people to look at if you had to cut 10% what would you cut and then how would you reinvest that money and I think what that does if the cult are really um focused toward always like taking a stock of what might we stop what can we what do we need to keep doing to maintain what do we want to stop doing in the long term so what can we start doing that will help us

092continue to deliver and I don't know if we have the best fear or ability to do that but it's pretty cool way of budgeting and getting you to look to the future, not just to stay at the >> know that's a great point. um a couple well even last year past couple years actually usually had Sean and Tar Jam at that point at least as we got into the final days of the numbers were coming out for the first time what we could do if we needed to save X and we did talk about our budget meeting last week if we as we get deeper into budget season that we could do that we're at a point now unfortunately with the tool where it's pretty, you know, there's not much left other than taking, you

093know, so that at that point I think we decided not to go forward with that recommendation because we did discuss it, but that would kind of just mean at this point I think it made people really nervous. >> Yeah. And I maybe to clarify, I'm not saying we should plan to cut it. It's more like is there anything which there sounds like there really isn't, but it's always I just do that at home. like what cable channels we're spending on that nobody's watching we can reinvest it on that we will like that's all something new and exciting and maybe it's used to be an interesting budget >> you're right that >> it's our motion as we start we did last year we did that the year before we start saying okay what's the yield what's

094the CLA what's our student count our ADM and all of a sudden it's like gosh like this means These tax rates are our budget's only going by two but tax going by 15%. That's probably a discount. >> Yeah. Anything else, Michael? >> Yeah. We just um there are a lot of similarities between education, healthcare um including that much the cost of it um is tied up in people, right? Um I would say that in doing this for my own organization, we've talked about okay, what what could you stop doing? i.e. service line reductions where where I feel like we've had more success that might be relevant for a school district is what services can we share with others and I know that we had some discussions with other school districts last year about regionalizing certain

095back office services and being a help for that just because something like that doesn't work once doesn't mean it can't work in the future and so it's just another you know way to combat statical bias budgeting in line with what Gina is talking about and I think it's you know worthwhile. >> Probably more appropriate at the Dresden and SA level, but you know, >> interesting to think about at each of our boards. >> Okay, that's great. >> And I'm sorry I just [Laughter] read it and if you want aside from I think there are a couple of references to there should be 73, but I was going to ask you to make sure I was okay. I was thinking which act when who did what in 2000 last year. So t why don't we um

096take that offline and post. So you want to >> I mean yeah the things that I saw that needed to not material >> yeah however the chair would like to handle it I think for the good news right to the extent that these budget guidelines are also used by the administration and they're devel developing a ballot sounds like there wasn't a whole lot to send here tonight. So I think Sean can anticipate that guidelines that will eventually be approved. Um and so we just want to wait and do it at the at the next meeting. That's it. >> Actually, why don't we just change that? Why don't you and I get your edits because at the end of the day we're not we're not changing the 3%. We're just changing some of the setting all

097up. I'll fix that this week if the board's okay with it and give Ryan the final budget guidance to post and then we'll be all talk. Okay, next up I did not approve the stuff that you said. >> That's a bad thing. We're good. Um, yes. So, Lisa and I have been the current approvers. It is time to is time to change, right? Sometimes >> I can't remember. >> Um, >> I can't remember how long we've been doing it. >> I don't I think I would like You got Neil taking you know the approved. >> All right. Uh this interaction I think we can um go forth with this. We've got our budget guidelines here. We got our minutes. We got approve of expenditures. So, do I have a consent motion for B through >>

098Move to provide us B through Dent? >> Second. >> All those in favor? That is unanimous. All right, moving on our reports. Um, I will make my one report. Um, actually the big update for us really is with regard to everyone's price analyst serve. It's been in the Miss Finance Committee. Um, so I think, you know, we're all, again, I just want to be crystal clear from their from the chair perspective, we're all very much in support of the Norish finance committee and the work that they're going to do. Um, we just wanted to make sure that it was, you know, put in place properly and that they actually have a charge that everyone agrees on. So, they actually have clear directions as far as what they are doing and how they can be helpful.

099Um, so I did talk with Mary Leighton last night who's the chair of the uh Norwich Select Board um and suggested that we I would send over the previous and the previous charge that was drafted by Neil and Tom. And actually I was just informed today by a member of the public that we actually had that in a meeting back in 2020. My name was on it as well. Um but we never signed it because it never going it never went over to the select board. So there was it never went forward and that's why the finance committee move forward either. Um, I do think that one thing that we will probably edit a little bit after time, which I I do agree with, is I think there is probably some language that we should

100talk about a bit just with regards to the how the Norwich Finance Committee interacts with some of the administration because the administration's role isn't really to report to the Norwich Finance Committee. Administration's role is really to report to the school board. >> Um, so it's fine. Again, the way this is going to work is very much like the finance committee. It already works. They come, they have their own meetings. They come to our budget committee meetings. They come to our school meetings where we're where we're doing the school budgets. We will u probably set up at least one meeting where we invite them to specifically at least for our budget committee meeting to answer questions and to help them get through things that they want. Um but again I think the only thing that Mary

101I think was a little bit concerned about me at the town and definitely here at the school board is is you know the budget the Norwich finance committee just like the handler finance committee is minor thing is is they're not reaching out to Teresa and picking up the phone and saying I need this this and this and this. I mean they're basically accessing all the same reports that we are as a school board. So I think that's the one thing that might be a little bit more clarifying the thing which I can work on a bit if Mary and then the select board you know want to work on this with us. Um she said it sounded great. She was going to bring up their next uh select board meeting which is I think sorry

102September 24th. Um, so I think we, you know, filled in the tap forward here and again it was really just having some input for being with the candidates which is part of the MLU and the clear which is second document and those are documents that Neil sent to us last week that are part of the 2020 resurface. Okay. So that's my chair report which was more of a functional report. We got move on now to Sean report approaching age 15. We grew a little bit 325 students. They got fire from a couple weeks ago. Unlike all of the turmoil education outside of the school, we've off to a really good start. Our teachers were ready. Having five days of inservice at the beginning of the year was great to allow us all to come back,

103ready for kids. Our kids have come back positive and excited and ready to be here. And without sat here tonight things few highlights this year the outdoor classrooms have been used or their plans to be utilized much more. We had a teacher that went through a whole nature based masters program. She's doing some work with the rest of the staff and it's quite exciting to have more grade levels thinking about how they can utilize the Norwich nature area and bring that into their curriculum. That's a great thing. Um we are working on one of the things that as a school we could work on is getting kids here getting here on time and attendance wise. So is that adding to the who's wise word and to the board reports what our weekly attendance is and

104last week we had 99% we started out really strong it does have an impact on learning when we have for a week then a week or are late three or four days a week. So we're really working on that. One of our school goals is is to see how we can encourage people to show up on time and be president one school session. So we've started off really strong and I think we can only stay strong. And the other thing that I would like to highlight is really pleased that the school administration came over and part of opening the doors welcoming kids. It was really refreshing and I brought over this and since then multiple times we appreciate and other than that if you have questions about my reporting compliment is as a parent here

105I was like so um like envious of the two things in here one was the community reading program. I thought that was super cool. I wish I could have done that when I'm a parent and I think it's great that the nature or horse riding is also in fourth grade. >> All right. Thank you, Sean. Did you just did you just through your watch? [Laughter] You actually get your own reporting. So, we're on the secret report. >> Yes. Well, we did I feel like fabulous opening. It was um a great week last week and I actually was able to start here with the Mary and Cross teachers the Wednesday before because they came back early and um Sean prepared an amazing breakfast for the for the staff. And then it was just nice seeing the

106schedule that they laid out for the five days. It was really well done. I heard a lot of positive feedback about the choices from which teachers were able to choose. Um, so that was really great. And then we had our opening day with the entire staff on Monday. We had our practice and I did a little opening speech and then we had a student panel which people loved and we recognized teachers and staff members for their service in 10 20 and 30 years. So got a lot of positive feedback and then Wednesday it was the culminating experience of bringing all the students back in and so overall I just the week was just so positive and I've spent already a lot of time in the buildings. I've been in each of the buildings. I've been

107here multiple times. I think at least almost every day I've been here in this building. No, it's a good start to the year. I'm hoping I can keep that up for the beginning of the year, but we'll see as things, you know, start to speed up. But overall, I think really positive for the climate action plan. >> Okay. All right. Any questions or comments for Rob? >> All right. None. Lauren. >> Yes. So, we previously submitted my report. Hopefully, you'll have a chance to review it. Um, and I'll just give I think two additions. Since I wrote an upload of this report, I'm pleased to be able to share that the Beth Act 230 grant has been approved. So, Um, it's a very wonderful moment for me, too, because that was the first grant that

108I tried and submitted and to get it approved. I'm like, "All right, Rob has been a great mentor, very patient with me, and we're moving now." Um, and then I would just add uh that I also really enjoyed starting my day here on Wednesday with Robin and the staff and the students and the families returning. Um, with the special note that somehow we managed to coordinate wonderful blue outfits I'm happy to answer questions. >> I don't have any questions to say. >> No, that's great. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. And on to Teresa. >> Um, I too uploaded my report. um just kind of basically highlighting that business office is still wrapping up um finishing up, tidying up, getting ready for next week's audit. So um and this year they're doing something

109different. So we're starting with the Norwich audit and all auditors will concentrate just on Norwich, then we'll move on to the next district. So it might be a little a little better, which is kind of nice. Um we finally, good news, we filled our spot. So yes, Shannon Butler, she is the administrative assistant at SU forget how we're labeling that, but um so yes, so she started last week, which was fantastic. She's been great to work with. Um such a peppy attitude. I'm being very uplifting, which is great. And then um glad to know that this Monday Janice Starky is going to come from ARMS and join us as the assistant VA. So I'm excited about that. She's been great to work with for the last year. So I think it's going to be a

110really great addition to the office. Optimistic human resources still wrapping up, you know, loose ends with with a lot of the new personnel and everything else. um transportation. Um I did get off for for this school I got off to a little bit rough start in the beginning of school year just because of the medical situation of the driver, but luckily that driver's doing better and everything else. But um other than that, we're hoping again to kind of keep an eye on the the drop off times and the pickup times and still trying to make sure that we can get a better flow on some of that this year. um our maintenance I met with Tony and Matt again recently um we're forming the facilities committee so that'll be off um that will we'll be

111able to what we'd like to do is get one personnel it'd be nice if the principles joined us but at least one designated person from each of the schools >> to be part of our committee and everything else and then hopefully um we will have somebody join us from outside the district to get that. Um so that's that's just kicking off and we're getting ready going and that'll really concentrate on um what what we've said over and over really clarifying what is capital improvement, what needs to be over here and handled and then what really is maintenance. And so separating those out, really moving forward on figuring out what we need to do to take action to get roofs fixed and things like that and keep up with everyday maintenance. Um, you know, issues that

112need to come up. Um, food service, it really hasn't changed since since the last report. So, that's pretty much um all set. And then I uploaded the financial reports for the FY25. These are all unodudited and everything else, but we right now between the revenues and expenditures we're looking at,000. >> Nice. >> We're in good shape. >> Any concern about the delayed and revenue? >> Uh, no. and and I have been in constant contact with treasurer Cheryl Lindberg, but I've also spoke with I'm going to say her name wrong, Barry. Um I spoke with her this last week and everything else and put the bug in the ear that you know it would be nice we when they have a meeting on the 10th if they have received anything or have anything to give that

113would be great. Other than that right now we have enough funds to another district but there is to the end of September. um and everything else. So by then we should be rolling in the tax. We've been very been very conscious about what we're paying and just like payroll is important but others if they're not here right now we don't receive your tax bill. >> Well thank you Teresa. Any other questions for Teresa? super helpful. >> Just on that last point, do do we have pardon? People have said this before, do we have any lines of credit or have we ever done a revenue anticipation loan or any of that? >> Um, I haven't approached that yet. We were doing everything to avoid that else, which um working with the town looks like we can

114avoid anything in that doing. Um I know in Vermont you can do a line of credit through the banks and stuff. I've done it kind of prior to the district when we had tax >> issues. But um so that's still a backup plan if um they tell me by the 10th when they have their meeting that we're just not going to be able to loan you anything. So yes, so that is >> okay. >> Yeah. And actually, um, is this more of an issue because of the reassessment, the tax bills going up or is this something because remember a couple years ago we changed the tax dates or is this going to be an ongoing thing or is this just more of the shift? Remember >> I I don't believe it will be an ongoing

115thing. Um I do believe I and I think it was just last year so I remember it too and we didn't receive our first payments from them. It was midepptember last year also just because of when the tax bills went out. So that's probably kind of you know and the under being able to um you know not spending your own budget fully also gives us that surplus of money that we we're hanging on to and stuff like that. So yeah. So I mean I can't see if after this I mean because that's a big task when they do the re reevaluation. So I imagine rolling forward unless there's some huge skewing again you're not going to not be rolling into that anytime soon. >> All right. Any other questions for Teresa? >> No. >> Thank

116you. >> So executive session do we have to go out? I don't see anything in anybody. Okay. So, nobody was all ready to come in. I need two. So, just so everyone knows so Neil is correct. Um, you know, there is so we're going in for contracts negotiations. We're actually supposed to have two motions and that's going to be and I can help you everyone out. And then basically things like if we had you know negotiate with real estate or appointments or employment or disciplinary those are all we do one motion and also very clearly state what it's for and the actual number. So it's not hard. We just have to in the future. >> I like lamination. >> So the every Gina all of the rest of you should have received the laminated because

117it came from BS. >> Uh I I put that there next. >> The new board. >> Uh that was board member appreciation. Oh, I >> not yet. >> What have you done, Gina? >> All right. Um, so again, so that concludes our September meeting. Um, as far as agenda, talk to your next meeting. Feel free to get me any agenda topics. Um, at that point, we have any other comments, questions? No. Um, I do a motion to adjourn. >> I move we adjourn at 8:27. All those in >> favor one. The