001Okay, why don't we start over? We will caller me to order 655. Thanks to Jan for getting this under high pressure situation. Seems like we're alive and ready to go. Okay. Uh, agenda review. We are removing the parent survey. Is there any other agenda review items? I don't think so. All right. We'll move on to our public may address the board. There anyone on the public that would like to address the board? Oh, sorry. In the back, you know, I usually come um anywhere I need to stand in particular. Becky French, 18 War Lane, fourth grade teacher. So, I um I sent a letter to the board, but I just wanted to mention uh this op in this forum for other people that I would strongly encourage the board when we're posting our what is
002currently a French position to post that instead as a foreign language position. We did a lot of work, I don't know how many years ago, maybe eight or so years ago on the foreign language program. And what it talked about was the importance of the quality of the program and in particular the quality of the instructor. And it was very explicitly said it doesn't matter what the language is. And that's part of what just made me feel comfortable going Spanish and handover and French here is the language doesn't matter. They actually even propose some ideas like you do French one year and Spanish the next. You could do half a year of one. The idea is getting the kids learning a language. And I think nothing against French. It could be any language. We just
003want to cast the biggest net we can to get the absolute best teacher that we can. And my sense is there are more Spanish teachers around than there are French. And so I just for the sake of the program where quality of instruction is going to be the most important thing. I think we want to get on a path where that is our focus. And so I would encourage that we send the broadest net and that we advertise for a foreign language position. There was some concern expressed to me that the public got very upset about changes to the French program. And I really think we talked about when there were people upset about cutting time and all that. We were talking about the French program because that's what we had, but I think you
004could have replaced foreign language program. I really don't think the people that were advocating for more time needed it to be French. They just wanted a quality program. And again, they were looking back at that work we did and saying this is how much time it should get. They were going to that study and saying this is what a best program is. And again, that study said the language doesn't matter, the quality of instruction does. So I would just encourage you to consider that when posting your position. Teachers aren't a shortage enough without narrowing ourselves. Thank you. Thank you, Miss French. Great. Thank you for those comments. All right. Any other public? Anyone online? Got a couple people online, but nobody. Okay. No hands raised. All right. We move on to the PTO report. Not
005sure if we're getting one tonight. Oh, sorry. Who's joining? Oh, Jamie. Oh, Jamie joined. Okay. He feels busy out there. There was Okay, that's right. They were probably up there. Okay, that is fine. Um, business requiring discussion. We'll move on to now to our reading of our policies. The first one is the second reading of our sustainability policy. And the other one is the annual review of our I believe this is the investment policy. I'm guessing there's probably limited discussion on these. We've reviewed the sustainability one a few times now and then other annual change. And assuming chair no changes to sustainability policing identified uh and these will be moving to uh into our business action for approval tonight. So okay that was easy. Um our any other discussion on this? All right. Um, our
006committee assignments are posted here. Uh, we did meet as the four chairs a couple weeks ago. Um, and you can see I think this is the link to the Google. Is this actually an Excel link? Yeah, this is the hard Excel link. Um, but anyways, it's in the Google doc. Um, I'm not sure if anyone I mean feel free to change your committees if you feel that something's not there. Um, I think we tried to kind of take everyone's committees for what they were and balancing them somewhat. Um, Jan, you had requested a couple things. I think for like policy, we figured you seem like you're busy enough of what we had assigned. That was okay. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Um, and then Neil, I think you're probably on every committee again. I'm just kidding.
007Try to We really did try to split off. Obviously, we've got some new board members over in handover, including uh another one as well. So, once um Ken's that position settled up, we'll be reviewing this one one more time. And then, by the way, I think the the purple um that actually had relevance to I'm completely forgetting what it was now. Oh, that was actually was going to be active during the next year. to try make be carefully ready to highlight really which ones for some of the negotiation committees in particular are literally not should not have any activity this year. Okay. Um on that one we were going to talk about the PTO liaison just because that is one that is a little bit tricky. It's not really a committee per se and then
008it does cause issues sometimes when a board member is at the PTO meeting and if you have too many board members there then you have a quorum. Um, we were talking about at four chairs and we were thinking that it might actually be better to if the PTO president and maybe Sean if you want to relight us too. If you see the president if they would like a board member to attend, let us know that month and at our meeting we can have someone definitely be ready to attend. But I think unless someone really wants to I think board members are just so busy frankly with these evening meetings and the daytime meetings. It was just it's hard. And I think Lily was graciously good at it and she had the time to go to
009that meeting, but I'm I was looking around and it was really challenging with all of the other committee shop. I wonder if you would consider just doing a whole written thing. Yeah. They could review because they do appreciate having a board member. Okay. Maybe if you just did like top five bullet points for them. Okay. I can elaborate on it here. I'm willing to do that because they all have way more committees than I do and if I can just like email it to everybody in advance and you can tell me if I miss something or you can just but I don't mind doing that. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Um Okay. But I can't go to the meetings, right? And if that if that's not working, what we call my other thought was
010is maybe we could go like once every few like once every third meeting or something like that at least during the school year or show up every other meeting or something. One of us could definitely do that. Okay. But I think Sean, like I said, I'll email um the who's the president? I'm sorry. Put you on the spot now, too. Leah, that's right. I can send her it out because she sent me a couple updates and just let her know that and like I said and I'm happy to if she emails me and says I'd really like some of that one of these meetings. I'll totally attend it as well. Okay. Any other discussion on the committee assignments? Going twice. All right. On to um stress parting the ED funding update. Um Neil had sent
011out that update. We have gotten a couple well actually we haven't really received too much from our representatives which was making me a little bit nervous but then this kind of came through. So do you want to Nope. I'm going to turn it over to Jay because he's got more current information than I do. Sure. Okay. I can kick it off and we already we have the existing documentation already attached. Yeah. I feel like our our reps have done a nice job of engaging us in the leadup to to a lot of the Fast and Furious action that's happening right now. Last Thursday, um I attended a VSSA meeting which is the first one I can remember in a long time where we had I think almost every superintendent in attendance and we um had
012a presentation from Zoe Saunders, our secretary of education and then leadership from uh various committees uh including ways and means finance and the ed committee uh both the house and the senate. committees and um I I kept in each of their in each of their discussions the concept of consolidation was prominent and they were talking about like how many districts and so obviously the governor's proposal we we shrink down to five districts um and then in in in the house committee there's there's a number and then the Senate they're kind of agnostic about that piece of it but um certainly talked about consolidation but ultimately actually we had the president promate too. Um, and he assured us that no no changes immediately. We can kind of take a deep breath. This is going to take
013a couple years to get this fully figured out and implemented. But everybody else was pretty certain. The numbers ranged from from the low of five to a high of 15. But everybody said it's something like that. So as as they discussed it more, five seemed to be much more of a an unlikely outcome. But but the number got up to about nine for the the bottom and 15 for the top. And so there is a big push to do some real consolidation. As it stands right now, there are exceptions for the two interstate districts, us and Rivendell. Um which is is really interesting because that that um nobody seems inclined to talk about that much. Um, but we we have actually engaged legal counsel through the Dresden School District to monitor the evolution of this
014legislation and to um look at it through the lens of Dresden. Um, keeping in mind the enabling legislation that that led to the interstate school district which has a provision at the very end that says that neither state shall pass legislation that harms residents of either state. So that's the lens we're looking at it through. But ultimately the implications are are big just when you think of consolidation. Um the discussion about funding is we're we're still looking at a foundation formula and no one could give us any hard numbers but it doesn't seem promising is probably the best way I could summarize it in terms of the uh the the foundation itself and then the various modifications that happen along um similar lines to those that have already been developed. in the weighted student funding
015approach. Um there are some adjustments that can be made, but they don't seem to benefit a district like ours. Um it it it seems highly probable that we're going to be facing some serious funding challenges when all this when all the dust settles and the legislation's fully voted. I mean, we could spend a lot of time speculating on the likelihood of any of this stuff passing, but it seems that since we have both um well, everybody, our Democrats, our progressives, and our Republicans in the legislature, it seems like something is going to happen. It's going to be something substantial. I wish I could be clear. Yeah, I can add a little bit more to that maybe. So I do know so the bill um the house bill that's under consideration that has this this transformation
016in this H4 um passed out of house ed as you mentioned last week it is currently sitting on these as of today in house ways and means where they're spending some time looking at the the funding piece of this the funding formula stuff um and I know in the last couple of days there have been some um presentations from the joint fiscal office around what would a potential um uh what what could a formula look like that allowed for spending above that base amount in a foundation formula. And so I know that they were entertaining some various scenarios there um in addition to um what an excess spending penalty would look like with a foundation formula. The thing that I think we need to keep in mind in Norwich is that when you start talking
017about a foundation permit, you're talking about basically a set amount of dollars that's given to every school in the state. Set amount of dollars per kid. when uh you're a school district that currently spends little, you know, a trivial amount, but a lower amount than some other districts, then that foundation formula is likely to impact you less. When you spend a lot for students, that foundation formula change is likely to impact you more. And we are on the higher end of things. Um, so I'm looking at the latest numbers from last year. Um, Norwich ranks um, fifth in um, budgets per long-term weighted ADM kid and third in um, education spending for long-term weighted ADM. So either metric, we are towards the top. We spend more per student than um the vast majority of any
018other school in the state of Vermont. Which means that um you know whatever it is highly likely that the switch to a foundation formula will negatively impact our budget and school. I would tag on to that the provisions in for that also address class size, district size. Um, and uh those those items have been tossed around. There was a there was a provision that they were looking at class size of 12 for kindergarten and then moving up to um 15 I believe for up through grade up through grade four and then like jumping it up to like 20 or 25 even depending on who prevails in that discussion. So those will be those will be changes as well. And there are provisions that you can seek um exemption from that if you have a small
019school by necessity is the term they're using versus a small school by choice. And so there'll be provisions ultimately in the law where you have to make the case that you are small by necessity in order to to give an exemption from this. Have a question. In these conversations, is there any discussion around like alternative funding sources for Vermont such as changing how we tax second home owners or creating a marijuana tax or something like that? Um, I'm not stating I'm for against either of those things. I'm just curious. I know that other states have done things like that. I was just wondering, are they even thinking about revenue in a creative way? Um, I am not in tune with all of the latest discussions. I do know that last year and years past there
020had been discussion about potentially moving to an income based model for funding education. That didn't really get a whole lot of traction. I haven't so far heard a lot of talk about changing the source of education funding in the session. That doesn't mean that maybe those conversations aren't happening. I'm just not familiar with them. But all of the discussion around moving to a foundation formula that was all property tax based. I know that for certain. So um and to be clear, right, the so the education fund receives uh several different sources of revenue. Property taxes are only one of them. Um 100% of the sales and use tax. Uh there's portion of rooms and meals. Um uh all of the lottery revenue. So there are a lot of different sources of revenue. Um it's just
021that um yeah the one that you know it's the property tax one that it's it's really pitching folks. And what's interesting is we got a letter from our reps that said that the there's actually a surplus right now looking to do a one-time adjustment for so kind of also mindbending when you're like wait a minute we have a big problem here but there's a surplus that they might apply as a one time to buy down the tax rate. Yes. So that was one of the governor's positions um coming in was I sort of loosely tied I think to his education reform plan and that was um buying down the tax rate this year's tax rate with surplus money because basically he uh didn't he didn't want much of a property tax rate increase. And so
022even though um you know I would argue school boards and school districts all across the state came in very lean this year and conservative in their spending which resulted in I think only about a 3% um on average property tax rate increase forecast. He wanted that even lower. And so unfortunately my might my thought when I say unfortunately um uh I believe Houseways and Means um passed um the yield bill that used I think close to $120 million to buy down the tax rate for this year um to get it closer to like I think like a 1% increase. Um, but for anybody that follows this stuff, I think that was a a a bad idea. Um, because it potentially sets you up for a very large cliff the next year. And with all of
023the changes that we're talking about, possibly moving to a foundation formula and the fact that Norwich, I think, would be, you know, on the outer end of being adversely impacted by this, it just could make a bad situation even worse for us based on what they did. That's not final, right? It still needs to go through all of the the Senate process and then get through reconciliation. Um, but right now, uh, I I I I wish they hadn't pass that out of ways and means, but that's where we stand right now. Just so we know, I believe both Jim and Rebecca voted no on this. I did ask them by email. I said I I was kind of taking Neil's position because they're asking for our opinion and we get back to them and said
024that we agree that this buy down it might say taxes but it seems kind of shortsighted and I think as a board member we had approved budgets and everyone believes that you know increases that everyone can project is better. Um, it sounds like I was actually reading the email from Jim back that the day before they voted the yield bill, they discussed putting half of the surplus into reserve fund for future use. My question was it can you as a government can you store this money, right? Because I think it was a tab to spend, right? Like I was kind it was more of a government question. So he said that still would have bought down taxes but not as much. We would have still had a healthy sum for next year. Jim said that
025would have been a far more sensible choice. Um but it didn't get sounds like based on Neil's comment that basically they decided to just go for it. So I guess we can all be happy this year that we'll buy cars and else save taxes for the tariff. Uh it does sound like just one more comment on this. I mean reading the bill and I sent this to you. Sounds like the committee has been now reformed with the capital C, which was the committee that was formed last year that's going to be looking into all these details, right? Yeah. So, the the bill proposes that um so there was a committee that was enacted by law last year um to take a look at education reform state. They spent some time, you know, over the course
026of that year trying to come up with some recommendations. ultimately were unable to get a set of uh recommendations really to bring it forward. The body still exists um in statute and so what they what 454 does is use that existing commission. So the commission on the future of public education in Vermont and adds to it now a subcommittee whose task is to take a look at this consolid this district consolidation um aspect of things and to come back with a recommendation and just district consolidation or everything like foundation funding right now as I read the bill my understanding is that it's only focused on the consolidation piece of okay but taking some of your things it sounds like where they're looking at really detailed really detailed analysis requiring three options regenerated this one and
027I did notice there's stuff in there as well construction which is kind of interesting that was many many pages written on that all right rumor line yeah sure I just wanted to clarify Neil um you were in when talking about peral spending you said I think you said weighted the weighted so our peril spending when you say it's on the high end um that is not our actual money spent per student that's once it's adjusted for what type of students we have like when they're looking at it I know the state for funding they are looking at the new weighted students so that ranking of per pupil is based on two things how much we actually spend on our students and what kinds of students are walking through the door am I understanding that correctly
028yes okay clear it's based on the ADM which is the weighted ADM, right? So, we're only getting credit for some of our students. We're not getting No, I mean, we get credit for all of our students. It's just some master credit. Some some students are worth more than others. I mean, some students came from numbers based on the weighted, right? Right. That 820. So, last year's number was 828.89, right? So that's in the So our P per pupil spending could go up without us actually spending more per pupil if the type of student who walks the door changes. That is absolutely correct. I will say we I felt a little bad for Zoe Saunders when she came in because the superintendents once we warmed up and started asking questions um she was very much on
029the defensive but at one point someone asked a pretty poignant question about how can we because because all this is predicated on bringing greater equity and improved student outcomes. And so when we we asked multiple questions about so how can we promise improve student outcomes when we're cutting and consolidating the response was hopefully there's some miracle solution that pops up. I made sure I I I copied that quote because there's where we are. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the challenge, right? You look strictly at the governor's proposal and just to be clear, like the governor's proposal is no longer the one that's being moved through the through the house. Um uh yeah there wasn't I don't know that there was any sort of evidence-based um you know projections done on that model to indicate that
030it actually would have saved money other than um just strictly through consolidation and basically carrying back on on the workforce. Um on that note, thank you always on course. Any other discussion on this item? We will have a regular updates I think. I mean I think we'll probably keep an eye on Is there much I mean so between now and is there a lot of activity now or are we kind of like Oh yeah. Yeah. So there there will So um uh essentially what's going on right now is you've got a bill in the House, you've got a bill in the Senate, right? Um at some point they'll flop, right? But if I had to guess, I think what's likely to happen is that the majority of this work is going to end up in
031a in a committee of conference at the end of the legislative session. Um, and you know, unfortunately just the way that this structure works, like that's probably when it's going to get all figured out. And the thing that's unfortunate about that is that at that point things happen fast. And uh I won't say that there's no transparency because there's trans like you can watch these things on YouTube but but it happens so fast that there's not a whole lot of time that if you're trying to you know reach out to a rep or or get people to you know advocate for a certain position the time is gone by the time you're able to rally people together to you know advocate. So, um I would argue I think we want to make this a standing
032item on every meeting going forward. I think the next meeting we probably ought to have Rebecca and Jim, if not also our senators um to join us um just so that when uh you know that 11th hour comes and there's some horse trading going on as to what's in and what's out, at least our reps know our position on this. Um and and hopefully that helps to influence how they might you know vote and things. Do you think that will Yeah, sorry. I I thought the committee that was going to basically be formed for the next year and then make this decision at the end of the year. So here's the challenge, right? So if you look at the house like if the house bill were to pass in exactly the format that it is
033today, then yes, that is what happens is that there will be a committee to study potential restructuring of the of the district and the governance model. But just last week, the governor went very public saying he will veto any bill that um does not propose um a change in in the district in the governance and the district consolidation and a new funding formula this session. Oh, okay. So he's, you know, he's in my view, right, he's taking all the political capital that he's gained over the last several years and he's throwing it all out there this session and basically saying if you don't bring me something that shows true education reform, I'm going to veto it and we're all getting back together to figure this out this session. So there's going to be a lot
034of back and forth I think as we get you know toward into May and towards the end of June um as to how all of this plays out and and I don't you know I don't think anybody's got a crystal ball. I can't tell you what's going to happen but I think something's going to happen and and that's when we just be able we need to pay attention and and be watching. And then when do we think the the modeling takes place because that seems to be that that was the big in my mind the shortfall of the pre of the waiting situation is people just failed to model it correctly then you had a big huge mess. I mean at some point I assume that someone was going to model the foundation formula understand
035the impact every single school. Yep. So um in one aspect that work had already originally been done on the governor's plan. So the governor's original plan had a foundation formula that was like 13,200 per student and then there was some ability to raise a little bit beyond that and then some the student weights played into that as well. They issued um an initial spreadsheet that showed what the impact would be on school districts and that's the information that I brought forward to this board a while back like we would have been shorted several thousand dollars per student. Right? So in that formula things are not looking good. uh House Ways and Means right now is waiting on a report from Tammy Colby who was previously one of the authors of the waiting study from from
036act 127 on what a more reasonable foundation formula would look like. And so that I was anticipating getting any day now for House Ways and Means to review and consider. And so that at that point I think we'll start to have some numbers that we can you know model and run scenarios here and say you know what would the impact do financial formats do they ever change based on like economic areas? I mean, you can't pay the same amount for I mean, I know you have weights for kids, right? Based on what's 146, but day to hire a teacher in the city of Burlington or down here in the upper valley is different than hiring someone up in the Middle East kingdom, right? Or is that not Yeah, I don't um I don't know. Uh
037I mean you're right there is some cost differential based on just geography right and and where we're all located and our communities. Um but I will say in every sort of foundation formula that I have seen previously there that has not been taken into consideration. doesn't mean that it can't be but mo and most foundation formulas sorry I keep going on here allow for that's the foundation and for tasks to make their own decision on top of this and because of our Supreme Court case would be a different foundation formula um or is that I don't well you can have the foundation formula I think the question at the table what we talked about before was so what provisions might they allow in statute to allow money to spend more than that. And that was
038the excess spending penalty stuff that I was talking about before. They were running different scenarios in House Ways and Means this week as to how, you know, what would it look like if we were to allow that? Like how could that be built? How could it be structured? How would it work? Okay. I'm not sure if it survived, but there was a a chunk of the governor's proposal that talked about equity of teacher pay. They're talking about raising teacher pay where it's low to equal I guess it won't exactly equalize, but to was a substantial increase. So, we asked several questions about that, like how does that work when the purpose of this whole thing is to reduce costs? And I I guess they're they're anticipating greater savings from consolidation that part partially could be
039used to pay some teachers more. Yeah. You highlight the fact that I'm not convinced that it was it was a very sweeping reform plan and I'm not sure that all of the details were fully um considered and fleshed out and all of that. Um, so miracles. Yeah. Okay. All right. I think that's enough. Um, we can get SP. Are there any other questions from anyone else in the room on this? [Music] I agree with you though. Just pay attention. Okay. I'll I have a note here to reach out to Rebecca and Jim for our next meeting. I'll send the meeting to see if they can make it. Okay. Um, see parent survey results. We're going to move to the next thing. Our We have a donation um children's book fund. Do we have anyone that
040would like to speak to this? You would like me to read it. Sean, would you like to quick call for this? So, this is an annual donation that comes our way to support children's books and media at our school. I think it's based on some sort of student population. Weighted. It's weighted, unweighted, accurate, not accurate. But somehow they came up with 557. Okay, that's great. All right. Well, every little bit helps. So, thank you very much. It's great to know. Um, any questions on that? I'll just reiterate that this is a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation. That was one of the requests they had for public announcement. So, Oh, great. Okay. Well, again, we thank thank the Vermont Community Foundation very much for that. It's uh it's very helpful. Um we'll move on to
041our next item, which is the uh substitute nurse pay. I think Robin, you're discussing this. Yes, we have been I've been meeting with the nurses since COVID and now I meet with them monthly as part of our K through 12 meetings. And over the past few years, we've been talking about nurse pay, the impact that not being able to get nurses in the schools has on the principles and the assistant principles and everyone in the school. And so we talked about increasing our nurse pay from $175 per day, which is what it is now, to about $300 per day, which would bring us more in line with the hospitals near us. And um so what I put together for you was just some overall information about what nurses are paid in other areas. I gave
042you some information about what other school districts are paying up to usually about $250 and I gave you the the list of those school districts. I also provided the funding for nurses at DHMC. This was from the website. The nurses told me in their experience, some have worked at DHMC, they said it's much higher than that. And we could provide nursing through a private company called Dedicated Nursing Associates. I looked into that, but that is extremely expensive as well. For registered nurse, we would pay $72 per hour. So, we are recommending just increasing our nurse pay up to about $300 per hour. We think that will provide us with more competition in terms of getting nurses. And um I'll just give you some recent examples. We had our nurse at the middle school. She brought
043someone in. They were going to be trained. She asked how much the pay was per day. And when she found out, she said, "No, I can't do that." because her income is so much higher doing her PDM pay at the hospital. So you can see I did include some quotes just from the nurses and from our principles because our principles and assistant principles seem to take on that task to a large degree when we can't get nurse substitutes and I know substitutes overall across the district. It's a difficult thing, but um they're dealing with some extreme situations. So, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. And I know that Jamie and Jay can both speak to this as well. So, I guess is the are we are we approving this? Is this impact
044of the budget? Can we approve it? I mean, if we just I assume we all just say, "Yeah, this sounds great. Does it where would this come? I mean, we don't have an action item." Okay. Because this is the first time we've brought it to you, we thought the board would probably want a chance to think about this. We'll discuss this at each of the boards. Yeah. And then and then uh but it's we'd love the board's like thoughts on it. given the situation that we're in. How many do we have an estimate like how many days this might basically we're talking roughly what $125 extra per day. So like depending on how many days is waving her hands right Jane would you like to uh yeah I did a little research because I figured
045you might have some questions. Um, and so what I did was I went for for Marian Cross, you only have one staffer uh that this affects. And so I went back out and I looked at historically just through last year how many days um between professional development andor sick time andor um personal time, right? People can have, you know, 15 days of sick. they can have I think three personal days I think I can't remember I'm sorry and uh I think it's three to five um for professional development so if we raise it from 175 to30 the difference including tax between the two would be about $135 a day however so that would be uh $2625 however that assumes that we've been having substitutes, you know, fill the open positions. I don't think that's been
046the case many times. So, if you want to know what the total impact to the budget would be at a $300 a day with taxes, which would be $323, um, for approximately 20 days, if you were to cover 20 days at that rate, it would be about $6,300. I mean my perspective on this is um there's can we where do we find money to do something like this and I also would I'd love to understand how we're thinking about regular subs as well. I was here yesterday or Monday meeting with Greg and Greg was doing a million things. I happened to bump into a very beloved sixth grade teacher of mine who lives near me. Anyway, she was here for half a day because nobody else could cover for her and she had to get
047like drugs later that day go home. So, I feel like we we need to find a way to do this. I would love for us to find a way to fund it, take care of our staff um as much as we can. I also think there's a lot of people not working right now and we would have more sense if we raise the the price. I can think of some parents in the school district who don't have work who would probably be willing to sub if they could get paid more. That's just my address that you know here we to raise the sub pay you just we just can't raise this over or is the sub pay that's not historically brought to the board for board action. So we can raise the sub pay without
048doing I thought there was a problem there. We were talking about raising the sub pay but then we ran into a bit of a roadblock with regards to either agreements or something. The subs can get paid where we want. So when we had this discussion our concern was that we were talking about sub rates for assistance and we didn't want to raise the sub rate in a way that made our subs earning higher than our actual employees. Right. And um there was some minimum wage considerations to them from minimum wage. That was very raised the rates of our but to be clear tonight we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. One consideration for sts versus regular employees is regular employees get benefits and substitutes do not. So like now that I am a contract worker
049myself, you I'm sure I'm not speaking to you know I'm sure you know what I'm talking about but I think it's possible that I might get paid more per hour because they have done other things. Got it. So J. So Jamie, I just to address Jing, I would put a pin in that the next budget season. Maybe we when we're doing the line items for subs and stuff, we can look into more of the sub pay since we just approved budget this past year. Yes, Jamie. Yeah, just keep in mind, you know, from a financial standpoint, when an employes out, you're paying that employees wage plus you're paying the substitute's wage, right? And so we looked at the numbers of sick days in fact during negotiations at one point and they're substantial. So if you're
050going to update or raise your substit regular substitute pay, it it's going to be a substantial number if you're going to try to fill every single vacancy. But I mean, with your nursing subpay, you have a that's a that's a smaller number, right? Because you're not backfilling multiple people. You're only backfilling a one position. So like your your exposure or your maximum cost on backfilling that one position at this rate is, you know, that's finite, right? It's not like 29 FTEES times 20 days available or 100 if they have a 100 sick days banked or whatever that is. That's a much bigger number than the number that this is that you're discussing. Right. We are basically talking about one per school for Mary and Cross the middle school and the elementary ray. So John, from
051your perspective, it's important to have a nurse here every day that we can. Is that uh Yeah, I would probably defer it, right? Because he's our nurse. The change was not here. Okay. So that this job doesn't get done. Yeah. I also curious if we looked at I think we looked at a couple of years ago having a nurse float. If we compared what would the cost be taking into consideration the four schools that we did this and how different is that from just having probably it's very different but just having an employee flows between the schools because also the other thing that could be helpful for is all the screenings that we have to do that we have people for it's more than 10 times as expensive but but certainly worth thinking about in
052the future. Yeah, that was actually one of the other pieces that we talked about. If this did not turn out to be something that worked in terms of getting more nurse subs that we could begin exploring that next. Um, two questions. Did I hear correctly, Robin, that we there is a contracting company that that offers these services? Yes, I looked into the contracting company, but we would pay them for registered nurse $72 per hour. Okay. Um, and then based on sort of what your your experience and what you know, um, for that $300 rate, do we think that we are at that at that level attractive enough to get candidates? The nurses felt strongly that that would attract candidates for substitutes. And are there candidates out there? Yes, we did have one recently over the
053past couple of months who did go and meet with one of our nurses and said she was interested in doing it until she found out how much the pay was. So, I know there are some out there potentially. I'd just be curious if the other school districts that are listed are having any better luck with an increased rate of pay, but something just to check into. There was um there there was a reach out um that the Amy our HR human resource anyhow she did reach out to many schools and got the rates and everything else. Um there was a comparison again even a discussion might set even rate versus which which the $300 um I've seen it pretty close to this in another district but this would be a very very competitive rate because
054most of the schools are not at that rate. They might be some of the bigger ones might be close to it and stuff like that. Um but we obviously our region is really um probably one of the biggest driving factors are victims of where we're at. Share something just I think um it's really important not so much about the time it's more a medical emergency. Yeah. And or and we don't have like a lot of we have some kids but not with serious chronic issues right now but we did learn our school next week coming in moving in or something that's a big that's a big liability responsibility and I think that's why or if you just had a big head accident out there likely we do have emergency services clos but it is that's
055the part that I think is most important all I mean, I think I'm speaking on behalf of the board, but I think maybe you get or not, but it probably makes sense to continue. I don't know if it's worth even like trying to put this out there. And if you're getting a couple people to come in for the spring, I don't even know if it's like worth that would cost. Again, I don't know if that even works with budget. I don't spend money we don't have, but it's definitely not budgeted. It's not budgeted. Um, and I guess the question would be is to we put this into next year's budget then maybe or is the idea to see if there's a little extra budget and try this for a few days and see if we
056can attract people. I think we continue the discussion. But if the total potential cost to this for a year is $6,000, it might be money well spent. Yeah. I I don't know that you can just hang the carrot out there and dangle it and try to find out if people are interested and then say, "Well, you know, we don't have the money." Um, that'll definitely definitely have to be looking to make sure that we're it's got to be black and white on it. Jamie, Jamie, hi. Um, I realize I'm only the BA for another 20s something days, but um, so budgets are very fluid. They're fluid every single year. You build it, you know, nine months ahead of time. So for 6,800 or $6,300, um, you carry a substitute line. It's a substitute line for
057all of your subs. And in years where we've gone over in the substitute line, we go over in the substitute line and the surplus coming out of the other lines absorb it. Um, you know, so I feel the budget could absorb your budget could probably absorb that. Um, you know, if you want to give it a try. I I don't know that it's going to attract a lot of bodies because of again like Teresa said where we are. There's so many opportunities to be a nurse sub either at the hospital, at the nursing homes, at the assisted living facilities, at the other schools. I mean, it's a critical shortage area. Um but we can try and then we can adjust the budgets accordingly as you have turnover in staff andor there are changes in the
058other lines and we'll bring you this information at Dresden as well. Um, and that'll be a bigger number because you have more bodies, but or maybe it'll be a smaller number actually because they have multiple people who can probably usually fill in, right? They're able to fill in usually at the high school. So, it's not as big an issue there. Yep. That because of the multiple bodies, they split it split the FTE out. Yep. Absolutely. So, anyway, just my two cents. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want to be wasteful. I was I guess I was just thinking that if if you know even if we were to go forward with half this or you know basically enable them to fill half the sick days or something for three grand if we've got the extra I
059know what Jamie said I guess that's where I was going with this is we always seems like we always have flexibility the budget right maybe now Jamie's leaving you're here we don't have that flexibility anymore seems like there's always that little bit of wiggle room around the edges that we're talking a couple few thousand you know $5,000 want to just kind of test it. You would just want to just say we're going to do it. We're going to do it. Correct. But I mean at the end of the day, we're going to say that listen, we're do it, but it's going to be a max at five or whatever you say is like, hey, I would not like do more than that based on our surpluses and stuff, but just say that's okay. And I
060would say the the test if the test fails, we don't spend anything. Right. Correct. So, and then next year we're ready to put this into the budget or not. you guys say we didn't attract anybody at 300 bucks a day. Well, now we know. I don't know. It's just like um I'm not opposed to it, but strictly from a procedural matter. I think um it was only on for discussion tonight, so I wouldn't want to pass it, but I'm not opposed. like, you know, if we think the need is somewhat urgent, we can call the board back together again prior to a month from now to to get something approved or just tack it on to the end of a Dresden meeting. Um, but I would also want to have some sort of sense that
061our colleagues on the other side of the river are inclined to go in this same direction. Um, and that they're not suddenly going to, you know, we decide on three, they decide on 450. Um, and now we've got this competition thing going on for folks. And yeah, that's I wanted to see if we could avoid that. It seemed like Robin's proposal was for across the school, right? Yeah. Remember, we already have a competition having talked with people. We people get taxed from on taxes here and they say they've had people outside stood with Bridgeten um at trying to recruit new subs at an event and they said they've had people say you know like going through the process and say oh Vermont tax no because if they don't live here they're not filing Vermont tax
062they don't want to file it so they can be a sub at low pay. So we're already even though it looks even we're not even and I think there is a difference in the number of subs that come here. So I think we need to keep that in consideration on that ourselves. Okay. All right. Um so I think Robin, do you have enough to go? I think B I agree with what um J if you agree I agree with what Neil said. I think if this seems like it's something that's really pressing, let us know. And if not, you know, we can tack on something or if this is just I think you've kind of got a net head nod from all of us that this does make sense and we're going down the right
063path and it it's something that I think if it's or we think that if it's necessary that the numbers should work out. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Our business requiring action. I think we can uh there's no changes here. I think we can have a motion to approve items B through G by consent. That'd be the expansion minutes. Yeah. Yes. Do we have a motion? To approve items B through G by consent. Second by Gina. All those in favor. All right. That is unanimous. Three of us. We have Gina, Garrett, and Neil here tonight. Okay. Principal report. Skipping the recording chair was up. Oh, it's down in the executive session. Oh, it's down the executive session. You're right. I was going to skip. I guess I was skipping the I think that's got to
064be a mistake. That is a mistake. I'm going to pull that up on the agenda. It's something very serious to talk about. But I can do the principal report first. Pull that. Sure. Why don't you Why don't you do the principal's report? So I'll go over enrollment. We are up two students this month. Mainly because we had some students come back um about the same. I highlighted in my reports some professional development that we've done. I'm not going to reiterate but you can look through and I did want to say but didn't make it in here is we've been doing interviews for our positions. We have a committee who has met twice now and distribute number of candidates and we have all the candidates who will apply this year. We're excited about all the jobs
065that will come to any questions about the part of my love seeing the professional development stuff as someone who does professional development for business people. So that's really great to do that in this report was for you. Yes, I mean my own thoughts. Any other questions for Sean? All right. Um actually I'll just do I I don't we go on to the superintendent report. Jay, sure. I I really already gave that. I I had planned on reviewing what we discussed at the our last VSSA meeting. Um and we'll just say again to I guess be a dead horse at this point. There's so much happening as Neil mentioned so quickly. It's it's I think we all need to collectively keep our eyes on it. Um I'm fortunate to be part of the Southeast Superintendent group
066and we communicate a lot and we support each other. um we interact with our our respective legislators and so we're doing the best we can but I think the more that people understand what's happening here uh I made the point at our meeting that as far as a body wielding any kind of influence on the legislative debates I mean if this all goes through even at the best case on the consolidation side there'll be 15 members of the BSA um instead of 52 that we have now so our voice will diminish considerably when all this happens And so it's going to be important for our public people who we serve and and for our teachers especially who do have a a good strong association to monitor this stuff and and speak out, testify when you
067when you can and um and we're really in a battle for public education here. I feel very very strongly that that's the case. And it's not just here, it's on it's on the other side of the river as well. uh they're they're they're learning from the discussions over on our side of the river. Um and they're they're putting proposals forward right now in New Hampshire about going to a countywide system where they consolidate down to the county level. So if you can imagine all of Grafton County um administered by a single central office, lot to lot to keep keep an eye on. And really it's it's not just the funding, it's everything. That's why this this transformation word's being used. It's it's really trying to do a lot of really really short period of time,
068which scares me a little bit. All right. Thanks, Jay. Robin, did you have I see there's a your assistant report. Yes. I just thought I'd mention a couple of things. We did receive additional funding for our title grants in January. So, we made revisions to the grant and that funding was approved this past weekend. And Sean mentioned in his report and I mentioned in mine as well, the professional development, but you can see the list of other activities we'll be able to do because of that additional funding. And that um ended up being over $40,000 for MCS. Excellent. All right. In your last day as guest, so were you actually the principal for the day or were you just shadowing for the day? Oh, no. I've been principal for the day once a month. It's
069been great. should just ask Robin what her special skill is when she's principal for the day. Yes, every morning I like to start the day with a little dance party. I'm famous for that now. Sean's trying to figure out how he can do it. But no, it's been a lot of fun. That's a high bar. All right. Well, thank you. Any questions for Robin? No. All right. Teresa, do you have are you doing the business administrator report tonight? Yes, I am. All right. Have a couple things. Um, one, I have um I already we've uploaded the documents. Um, the final report, the auditor's report is uploaded. Um, we also have and I'll give these to you afterwards, but I have the um teachers collective bargaining agreement that needs to be signed. also have the um
070draft version of sports staff um that I believe Neil just needs to sign that particular one and then um then we also have um the financial projected report. Um what I'll do is I'll highlight a few of I don't know if I should bring this up on screen if you guys already have it up on screen. The financial report predict the surplus. Okay. Yeah, I know. I didn't lose it. It's in the U. Yes, exactly. So, it's there. Yep. Um, so basically what I'll do is highlight like under the Norwich revenues. Um at this time we're looking like we're going to be a little short on revenues in regards to extraordinary um needs those particular bonds and that's primarily due to I believe we have student debt left or something. debt. You hold on that
071which um will decrease what we may have anticipated. Um under the expenditures under the 1100 function, the regular instructional programming, um at this time we're looking at what looks to be a large surplus of 129,000. Um that's primarily due to vacancies that we have until positions. So, um, we always scope to fill them at any given moment. The next thing I'll just kind of point out is that the special education programming line kind of going in the opposite direction. Um, and that's due primarily to some medical changes and plans and transition um, the personnel and stuff. And then see the guidance programming 2120 is the code and again 24,871 a little and that particular savings at this moment is just due to um an anticipated medical insurance and um we didn't the person didn't have
072it. as well. But we got staff development back to the line 2213 right now. That one's kind of moving fluid. We'd still anticipate that it'll probably be used up because of a lot of professional development that's happening now here in the spring. again we have 2410 school administration principal's office um right now that one's over but that's primarily based on a lot of um H claims so actual claims that are paid out and so that one has been a little higher than anticipated this year for the um avenue challenge what is an H claim. Um, what is the H claim? Yeah. What does that say? H the the H like a savings a health Oh, health retirement account. Reimbursement or reimbursement account. Thank you. Health. Yeah. And it's usually like the way we're set up
073where certain deductions are the deductions are paid. Many employees have that $2,000 or a th000 or something. So um that is banked and then that would pay before the employee has got it. Got it. Thank you. Then custodial services. That one's still running with a little bit of a surplus that that once again is just due to vacancies. And then down below the bottom we have debt service. um the new uh I say sorry the playground anyhow that particular loan when it was written the loan was written at the bank we usually have about a year before we start paying but in this particular case they didn't do that so we did not budget for the particular just this particular year so that just kind of ran us in the red in that sense because
074the loan started immediately and when we ended FY23. Our fund balance at that time was $19812 that rolled forward. After our FY23 audit was done, it was just a minor adjustment of about 17,000 reclassification of an expenditure or so. So it brought up our fund balance at that point to $215,233. [Music] Um then at the bottom of the report if you're looking you'll see that the revenue variance was 31,297 our fund balance variance that I just spoke about $17,221 and then our expenditure variance at this given time and again our expendit our incumbances for the expenditures right now um the based on purchase orders already put in place and so again some could um in the end obviously this number could be decreased or or increased just a little bit between now and then and
075then our unassigned fund balance at this one moment looking at [Music] 155,79 have any questions That's helpful. We're in a good good position at the moment. Are any questions for Teresa? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. That was great. Okay. Um, yeah, I don't really have too much to prepare for a chair report. Um, I think everyone's off and running on their committees now. I know Gina sitt in the spec committee. Um Neil's been doing a tuition committee that kind of got off and running even before the committees were assigned. We did policy. Um and hope it's okay. J time we Jay had mentioned a couple months ago now about the order of resation which we put in in March. So um all of us on the SA level are starting to put the
076wheels in motion as far as what the next steps are there. So that's unfortunately causing everyone a lot of angst. We we're all thought Jay would be here for the next 10 years, but it is not all kidding. We knew this was coming at some point. So, um that's been some work as well for work going on behind the scenes. Um I think that's other than that like I said I mean obviously we'll be keeping a hold of the north side and again I it is nice to come to these meetings and read the principal report and know that everything at the school at least is going on as it should and and a a good place for all of our kids to be. So, um, that's, uh, as I drive by in the mornings
077and see all the kids running around outside and then listening to NPR, it's awfully nice to have those two things going on. Totally oblivious. Um, all right. Anything? Let me see. I think that is all we have for reports. Am I correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, I think at this point, our meeting is essentially over. We will come back out to approve the nomination list. Um but at this point we are ready to enter into executive session. Do I have a motion to enter into executive session? The language is there. move to enter into I move to enter into executive session at 8:03 p.m. in accordance with title one section 313 for the purpose of discussing uh it'll be personnel personnel correct so that's premature general public knowledge mater yes sorry um yeah I
078think we just say person Persona discussing personnel. Uh, sure. We're doing the ML as well. Yeah, that's just Yeah, personnel. Yes, it's all personnel. Okay, I do have a second. Second. All those in favor? Okay. All right. Thank you everyone for attending. If you are gonna vote. Okay. Um, all right. Return to public session. 8:40. We back on Zoom. Okay. Everything's good. Okay. Um, I have a motion to approve the nomination list as presented and amended. Yes. I move to approve the FY26 nomination list as presented and corrected this evening. Second. All right. All those in favor. All right. That is unanimous. Okay. And any agenda talks for next meeting? I've got a couple of them including, like I said, I think the main ones Rebecca and Jim andor Jim and of course another update
079on our funding state level and any other topics, please get them to me. Um, do I have a motion to next meeting is Wednesday, May 7th, 1st, 2021. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? [Music] No, is fine. I haven't had to think about Vermont in a while. All right, Gina's motion to journal. Is in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jan.