March 18, 2026 - School Board Workshop

001We will press on without Lauren for now. She may turn up. Upcoming meetings, our next workshop will be April 15th, 6.30. We will be back at the high school library doing an adult education tour, which given the size will probably be fairly brief, and then move into a budget, another budget workshop. Before we take a brief timeout of our recording to go tour the middle school, or do we want to do questions from the audience when we come back from that? Our agenda says we'll do it after. Our agenda says we'll do it after. So for those watching at home, we're going to disappear for a little bit. We'll be back to do a budget workshop. We'll see you then. They'll put on their productions with all of this, and they get to practice with

002it from beginning to end. It's awesome. Yes. Back. We just had an awesome tour of the middle school. Thank you to the middle school administrators for taking us on that, and you win marks for the sharpest, most fast-moving tour we've had this year. Always a contest. Everything's a competition, Sam. I was a little scattered when we started. We are missing Lauren and Teresa, and I do know I have heard from both of them. They have some extenuating circumstances, so they are excused. Old business. We are going to tackle... Nope, comments from the audience. Any comments from the audience? All righty. So we're going to move into our budget. portion of our workshop by starting with parking lot questions from 225 How's that is that working all right, so oh look Could have done it from

003my seat. Oh well Okay, so this is our budget workshop to talk about our parking lot questions From our departments kind of presenting our priorities from next year for next year's budget. What we're going to talk about tonight, I'm going to do an introduction with kind of going over some background information that we kind of talk about every time we talk about the budget. And then there are four primary topics that we received questions from the board on, either in writing or during our meeting. The first is to talk about subgroup data, overview of that academic data as we're looking at it by subgroups. A little more information about summer school, talking about some of the data, as well as kind of digging in on some options we are thinking we may put forward. There

004were some questions about the physical education program and athletics, both the wellness equipment use and some more information about police presence at games. So we are prepared to talk about that. And then we have some more information. There were some questions about bus safety features, what's included, different types of buses. We have some more information about that, as well as information about Maine School Management Association fees and the services that we get for that. So working through our introduction, a lot of that background information, this is all stuff you've seen before, but we're going to just keep bringing it back to you. Those include four main topics, academic performance, our enrollment and staffing, our maintenance of effort, and our budget timeline. We've included in this slide these four things with links to all of the

005times we've talked about it and all of the documentation to try to just put that a little bit more at the fingertips, not only of the board, but of our community. If you're interested in any one of these topics, you should be able to click all of these links and find more information about it and see the videos for the meetings where we presented about it. But to give the high-level overview, these are just a few of our data pieces that we've talked about. Our literacy and math performance continues to outpace the state, with our literacy performance being a little bit higher than our math performance, which aligns to our budget priorities for next year. Almost half of our kids that are eligible take high-level classes such as IB and AP. About 22% of our

006kids go to PATHS, which is our Career and Technical Center. About 40% of our kids play sports. 34% are in our co-curriculars. And our per-pupil spending last year was $19,858, which is lower than the state average. Our enrollment and staffing, we anticipate that our current enrollment is going to be steady for the next 10 or so years. And kind of looking at how we have looked at, because we did have declining enrollment over the last 13 years, while we're leveling out, we looked at about a 10% decline in student enrollment over the last 13 years. Over that same period of time, our staffing decreased by 11%. Rick, that door has to stay open because it's a public meeting. Yeah, yeah, I think we gotta leave that one too though. Yeah, okay, so Maintenance of effort.

007So this is a statistic we've talked about in a couple of different places. To say again, this is for reference only. This is not a budget proposal. But to give the board a frame of reference, if we were to make no additions, no changes, no reductions to the current budget, it would cost us about 6.7% more to educate students next year. Just to give you a sense of that, we do have indoor air quality bond payments. Those were passed at referendum. That is part of that 6.7. If those debt payments were not included, the cost of education with no changes next year would be 4.95%. And then just to check in on where we've been and what it is we're doing now and what we'll be doing in the future, you have seen annual department

008reports. You have had a data dashboard presentation. We have had a workshop where you had an opportunity to ask questions. We're having two workshops on budget priorities. So on February 25th, we shared with you things that we're thinking about as we want to build next year's budget. Tonight, we're answering questions that you had about that presentation. So that's the purpose of what we're doing here tonight. The administrators and I will then use all of that information to build a draft budget. You will see those. The Finance Committee will see that next week. And then the whole board, and then we'll make some changes. The whole board will see it on April 15th, have an opportunity to give some input. And then I present my budget on April 29th. The Finance Committee goes to the board

009on May 6th. District Budget Meeting, May 21st. And Referendum on June 9th. But just to situate us in what we're actually doing tonight, the purpose of tonight is to answer the questions that you all shared with us about the priorities and ideas from the February 25th meeting. And now I will hand it over to Kathy for a little while. So I'm not going to present about subgroup data. One of the questions came up about are we looking at differences in our data. and breaking it down by the subgroups. So tonight I'm going to actually talk about how we're doing that and what the process is for this spring because we are currently doing that. So I showed you the data dashboard which actually got updated two days ago. So the ones that were in your

010board presentation had the cohort from 2020. The administrators just got the 2026 version. So the state is a little late on updating it. But I wanted to kind of show you what the subgroups this the state is asking us to kind of break down. So as you can see, we can see all students as kind of the first category there. That's where we can break down, there was question about gender, so we can break down by male, female. We can break it down by economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities and ethnicities. Ultimately, when our staff is looking at this data, you can kind of see where our struggles are. There's a little key that has a circle that hasn't not met. It has a checkmark if we've met. Again, what you're seeing on the data here

011is old. The one that was just updated on Tuesday is what our staff are looking at. So I gave you Dunn's and the middle schools as well as the high school. You will see that there is nothing for Memorial and Russell. They don't do main. through year so they don't have data so we have local data but they don't have the state reported data so what is our staff doing about this subgroup data so we are looking at it we're looking at all of these categories we're also looking at English language learners if we have ten or more in the school we are looking at chronic absenteeism and truant students which we talked about at the last curriculum meeting and then there might be other data points that the specific schools might want to address

012and they would look at those additional groupings. They are all making plans. In this, they only focus on literacy and math. Our middle school, high school is looking at science and social studies. As we've heard from the board and looking at our data dashboard, we started to talk about science as one of our weakest areas, so we added that to our plans. So the next step is we are doing a data dive. Most of them used the last workshop day on Friday to kind of start this work. So in pre-K-4, they're looking specifically at literacy, mathematics, and chronic absenteeism. But in grades 5 through 12, they're looking at that literacy, math, science, social studies, absenteeism. And for the high school, we also add graduation rate. Ironically, today, Rick and I were just talking about, so

013they're all working on this advanced targeted plan. the three schools, Dunn Middle School and High School, are working on these plans. The middle school was making an advanced plan, but they actually got downgraded to TSI like Dunn is. But it's still the same targeted support plan that they're going to do. So they're actually examining all of their subgroup data right now and making a plan on how they're going to address it. And then on May 6th in the curriculum committee, they're actually going to showcase their plans and they'll present their ATSI plans to the curriculum committee. So feel free to come that day. If you would like to see the plans, we'll be publishing them anyway. So what I was kind of saying here is we're reviewing old data, but now our staff have the

014updated data. So what that slide says is we were looking at old data, but now we actually have access to the new data. So that's... even as old as a Tuesday. So that's how we're addressing the subgroup data. So I just wanted you to be aware that even though we were looking at the high level and when we were presenting at the data dashboard, our schools are really digging deep and going down to the student level. Summer school was also, any questions before I move on? Or are we doing that at the end, Penny? I think we should do it as we go just so folks can keep their train of thought. Anything about the data, the dashboard? Sam, you're making a thinking face now. Fran? Oh, sorry. You've got to turn your mic on

015now. Sorry, I made you turn it off. Okay. There we go. I just can't read this. I've blown it up, I've tried everything, so I don't know what it says. We can send you the link. This is just a screenshot of the DOE data dashboard. So it's been linked in our, it's on our website. It's also linked in our data reports. So it was just, it was meant just to show, not to read the report, but just to see the subgroups that these reports are asking us to break down. But I can certainly send you the link so you can look at the website. Okay, thanks. Yep. Anything else? Okay. So more to come. Wait, sorry, I knew it. Sam. I mean, you might as well do it. So when we look at these subgroups,

016we only have 1,700 students, right? So a lot of these subgroups must be, you talked about a sample of at least 10, right? Like in my statistics training, we don't start to talk about relevant data unless we have an N of at least 50. And I think even at 50, your error bars are like 5% or something. So when you're talking about a class of 10, I hope we're not making any major decisions on what 10 people are doing. I'm just saying that out loud. If we have a class of 10 things, 10 any subgroup that is, it would have to be a very large deviation from the norm for us to take action on that. Great point, Sam, and you're exactly right. You have to take subgroup data, particularly in numbers this small, with

017a certain grain of salt because one child can pretty significantly sway a data point in a single year when you're talking about groups of 10 or 15 children. But that doesn't mean it's not worth particularly at the school level, at the class level to have them looking for trends on that. A trend we have seen emerge for us is around economically disadvantaged children. Unfortunately, that's a data point we don't get to know who the kids are. Like whereas with other data points we can say, oh, these are these kids, we can target them. That data point we don't get to know who they are, but we can talk about what strategies do we know support economically disadvantaged children and try to. move that forward. So it's about looking at the data over time and it's

018about really digging in and so as you look at these reports where the department says hey this might be something you want to look at that we're really digging in at the student level to see okay is there something here what else can we be doing. And in the dashboard it does have a Number count of how many kids are in there. It'll just be suppressed at 10. That's their their cutoff Most of the time these are three-year averages, so it's not just like a one-and-done Year, so we do kind of look at that as a three-year average as well, so it kind of helps out. Yeah, that was basically my Question looking at this How many students are you know with disabilities and in disadvantage and in various races? And then I can kind

019of look at those numbers and put them in context myself. Oh, that's only few people I'm not going to draw major conclusions from it So I was just wondering why that information wasn't provided so I mean I know I mean I have certain assumptions about the school body as far as the student body as far as you know races, but you know I don't really I don't really look at put people in subgroups. I basically just look at students I don't really care what group subgroup there, and I know it's important to you and across the state but I was I wish that this table had how many people were in these various subgroups so we could help put those numbers in context so when we report to the curriculum committee we'll have charts that

020do break it down by how many students and each of the subcategories all right good just for clarification on the IB and the AB programs is done by percentage and I get confused whether or not you're talking about percentage of 1800 students over here says 1787 students so what is that percentage based on the percentage is the percent of students that are eligible to take IB courses and so no that wasn't my question I'm sorry I'll make it a little clearer you determine that number What is the amount of student population? Do you use 1,800 enrolled students, or do you use from the population? Where does that number come from? And how many students does that amount to? Are you talking about specifically the AP enrollment, Fran? I'm talking about AB enrollment, 45%. So you

021would think you'd take 45% of 1,800 students. But that's my question. We're not doing that, right? 45% of eligible students. So out of the 500 students at the high school, give or take, half of them, only juniors and seniors, are eligible to take. International baccalaureate classes. I got you now. All right. So it's 45% of who it's available to, which is only juniors and seniors. And AP is only sophomores, so it's only of the sophomore class, only 10th graders. Very good. Thank you. We good? Okay. Thank you. Okay summer school. That was a hot topic at the last time. I'm ready to present a couple of options for summer school I just wanted to kind of we did a deep dive on our summer. I think We had a conversation prior that summer school has

022looked differently each of the years. So I tried to kind of do a bird's eye view. Under each year, you can see if it was an invite only or if it was an open invitation, meaning all the students are allowed to attend if they so choose. I tried to put down what the amount of how much it cost us to run the program. And I gave you the funding source. So if you notice, all of them have been grant funded and not any local budget. Last year we didn't have any summer school. I then did the impact. So the question was, what is our impact or how much benefit did we have for each of that? So it was a little difficult because the data, when it was done differently and it was a collection

023of data and it was different grants, they all asked for different data points. So I tried to do my best of trying to understand, like, sometimes it was kindergarten jumpstart. Sometimes it was a boost for just first and second grade, embark for third and fourth. I tried to show you which grades were allowed to attend. and what our data points. So we don't have in those young grades NWA like we had some of our spring to fall data that we could use, but not for our pre-K friends or our K jumpstart. So we had to use some different data points. So I pretty much put down if they had data that show that they maintained or grew in their standardized testing, I counted them as being successful. And so you can see through the years,

024we went back to summer 2021, all the impact from the last five years. There was a lot of options that we had. So I'm gonna roll out two options tonight. The first one I'm kind of rolling out is like a remote learning option. So it would be like a summer adventure. Every Monday we would roll out a different activity package for students. And ultimately I kind of use the Explore read build discover reflect so an activity that would take about 20 to 40 minutes each day And you would have like that schedule all the way through and the connections would be to different places in Gray-New Gloucester. So we would try to have kids read and do some science and then have a connection or a little field trip somewhere in the community that they

025could extend their learning. Again, it's optional, but it would allow students and families to have some learning going through the summer. In terms of how much it costs, we already have money in this local budget for this year for some summer work, so I would just use some stipends to pay some teachers to build out these lessons. I gave an example of like... food to farming here's some activities for pre-k 2 3 5 and 6 8 and you can kind of see that explore read build discover reflect and we would build out those lessons push them out and then parents can choose to do them and we would make some great connections within the local community so it would just be a little bit of time on our staff to build out those options and

026then we would push them out electronically each week so that would be option one Option two is similar to some of the other summer schools that we had in the past. So we would just offer rising kindergarten through rising ninth grade students. And it would be, so as I said, would it be invite only or open invitation? We're suggesting invite only. We would be focusing on students that have academic interventions this past year that would benefit from that continued learning through the summer. I am currently writing a grant through Title I that is due March 31st to be able to have the summer camp for Pre-K 4. So that was rising kindergarten to rising fifth grade. Those are our Title I schools, so we could use Title I funds if we get the grant to

027provide the summer. the summer school option. Unfortunately, in terms of the grant timeline, I need to pass in the grant in March. It will be reviewed in April by the DOE. A grant decision will be April 30th, so after Chanda's school board presentation on the budget, and the grant would open May 1st to start buying materials or things that we need for the year. We would be following... the same schedule as ESY. So with Holly, she's already decided with her special ed, her extended school year services for special ed, we would combine those so we can combine transportation and food service and things. So I'm looking for the grant to pay for pre-K four. So local funds would be through the rising six through the rising nine. So the local budget impact would just be

028about $50,000 for salaries, benefits, and supplies. in order to provide summer school for the middle school. We're looking about inviting between 10 to 15% of each grade level of students. So we're not talking, you know, it's like for all kindergarten, so Russell Memorial together would find out what the need is for the 10 to 15% of those students. We're looking about one teacher per grade level, and so they would be providing those services. What this budget does not include is Holly's special educational, special ed extended year services, transportation or food. That would be in a different line item. I have not included that in here. We are recommending though if we don't get the pre-k for grant that we don't provide The middle school if we know that interventions are most impacted if we start

029at the younger grades So if we're not getting the younger grades, it would be really difficult to just to provide for the middle school So that would be our recommendation at this time So our ask is about fifty thousand dollars in the local budget so that middle school can have summer school But if we don't get it at the end of April, we wouldn't offer summer school again which is why we offered the remote option so we could at least offer still some summer learning so yeah let's pause there um questions or feedback on the summer school potential summer learning options misty so to clarify if you don't get the grant You there won't be any correct or you wouldn't if we if you get approved for 50 We couldn't put the 50 towards the

030peak the pre-k to 4 that could be an option as well and just not do middle It would be just the earlier grades. Yep. Okay. Yeah I mean I I had the same thought if we're willing to invest Around 50,000 in 6th through 9th graders and we also know the most important place we can make impact is K through And if we don't get that to cover $60,000, would we not just move that and at least offer it to the younger kids? And then if we were able to do some version of option two that I really love the summer adventure piece, would there be any reason to not also put that out? We can do that. You mean this one? Yeah, I'm thinking like do we throw it out also to daycares? Like is

031it a way for people in the community to stay connected throughout the summer, which is probably a completely different target group than the summer school would be? Invite people to send in pictures that we could share on social media to keep that like community, family, communication goal going even for, you know, something fun. I thought that was very thoughtful. Yes, I'm looking at the slide 16 the summer school data and I know you weren't here and I was so maybe I should know but from 2023 to 2024 There was a almost a 13% increase but the previous two years it was averaged about five It was was there any particular Reason that that one that increase was so much more than the previous two Making me remember Jim, but as I recall we had a

032change in the summer school pay rate That was pretty significant between those two summers That would take up most of it Or a lot of it the other big difference between those years is we have in the past tried to bring in a lot of We needed a little bit more staffing as I recall in the summer of 24 versus summer of 23 Based on the needs of the students in the program you also brought in some special guests as part of the learning Institute and so some of the costs were contracted service to have the increases and what those yeah like field trip a field trip can make that big difference and other things so do we have a sense of how much 2026 will be relative to 2024? Well, we're doing bare bones.

033So we're not really doing field trips. We're not doing a lot. We're not doing the arts and learning. So we're just doing skills-based learning with targeted. So that's where I'm getting about the $60,000 for salaries, benefits, and supplies. Thank you. Yes. Then potentially would there be yet another option where if we did get the grant funding, we could just do the younger ages? So you're saying if we don't get the grant, don't do the older kids. But if we do get the grant and do the older kids, it's a $50,000 spend. Is there a universe in which in trying to pass the budget, we do a grant-funded younger option and the send-home things, and that is basically a zero spend? Correct. Yes, that is would would be an option either in what we build and

034propose and or as the budget becomes the facilities committee and or the school committee because the the date on the grant information is after I Hand over the budget to all of you, but it is not before the board budget vote We should have the information before the board budget vote assuming they're on time with the grant information so we would have that, should have that additional information before you finish your actions. So it is a competitive grant. They have only a third of the money that they normally have for summer, for reallocation for summer grant. It really, a good portion of it is your socioeconomic status. And so our economically disadvantaged, we're about 37%, which actually hurts us on the rubric in terms of they're looking at other districts that have much higher percentages.

035So they will rate them. put us in a particular order and then whatever they ask it will go till they run out of their money so I'm not sure how many other districts will be applying I'm not sure how many will be asking so I don't want to overspend and over ask so we get bumped and not picked so we're trying to kind of be reasonable in order to win the grant so Tuesday night I heard some exciting news presented by the town of Gray's librarian and she shared her excitement with the number of increases in the summer program, literacy program that we the taxpayers are paying for. And so it got me to thinking that how much do we work together with either Gray's, Gray or New Gloss's library and perhaps even give the

036librarians some What do you call it? like a project or whatever for students that could go to the library and say, we're already paying for that. And so that could be part of their summer routine. There was a major increase last year. So I think that if the board wasn't aware of that, they should be, and it was paid for. So we should be looking into getting that kind of input. And perhaps that could be the offer and spending more money. on uh handling just a few few people and that's it goes right to the spirit of option one fran like if you look and discover you see take a virtual tour to pineland farms or chipman farm i could see us having little passports and the um each place that they go they get

037stamped or or that kind of thing but we would be working with our current libraries that already have programming and we would be building our programming around those things and uh it doesn't mention um the number of hours, it did say something about, it's a family thing, right? Yeah, it's about. You mentioned something about family, but here it is, commitment of three to five activities, 20 to 40 minutes each. Yeah, so you could do about 20 to 40 minutes each day, you could complete the activities. Each day. Yeah. So I guess we don't have an answer to that right now. How would that impact you applying for the grant for version two? Well, I'm still going to apply for the grant either way. We're going to try because the grant closes March 31st. So I'm

038actively applying right now. It's just whether we want to have the conversation about the middle school or... what do we want to add to the local budget, what you want to do for that option two of how big do we want to do the program for this current year. So we could ask, I gave you option one, which is in this year's budget, so there's no ask for next year. I'm offering to do the grant, which could be zero budget, but I'm also giving you the other option of expanding it to middle school, which would be that $50,000. Other feedback on these? Sam. So first of all, I just want to say that I find 80% if students participate in the program 80% of the time they were able to show progress based on spring

039to fall data. I find that very compelling, right? I just want to say I think spending $114,000 to make sure that any kid from grade one or two who wants it does not have any summer slide. probably is really good spend as a community. So I appreciate that data. Because, you know, and just to make sure, the grades one and two only, that was any grade one and two, right? There wasn't the targeted one-fifth version of that, right? No, the 2024 grades one and two was invite only. So we were targeting our neediest kids. Oh, that was invite only too. Yes. Yeah. The only summers that we had complete open invites were summer of 22 and summer of 23. Look right underneath the date, Sam. You can see where it says invite only or open

040invitation. Oh, I see it. I'm sorry. Yep. No, you're fine. Gotcha. Okay. Well, still. So in 2023, if we spend $100,000 and 83% of the kids, and that was all K through one through two, right? So. I think that's a smart spend. I think $50,000, you know, I think I would support it even if we didn't get the grant. You know, if you tell me that we can have that kind of impact on these targeted kids, that probably has a serious benefit to all the teachers when they come back for real school and all it costs is $100,000. I think that's a smart spend, you know, in the context of a $37 million budget. Anybody else? Yeah. Misty? Yeah, I have to agree with Sam only because if we get the grant wonderful, that's free

041money I think that's awesome. And hopefully we will fingers crossed. I'll pray every day That we do get that but if it's only 50 to add five through nine as invite only for kids that are have intervention Issues I think that's not a lot at all to make sure that all of our Pete K through nine are included in that I think that's a small number. I agree Sam Hunter are you trying to raise your hand? Raise it then I will know Kind of piggybacking off what Sam is sort of saying, you know, I'm really in favor of option two I think it more effectively targets the students who need the most support You know our role as board members in this district district is to ensure that all our students especially those who are

042struggling receive the best possible education and the resources they need to succeed so you know fifty thousand dollars for that or potentially you know at least free part of it sounds a lot better i i took it as option one was more optional um i i even though it's free i i think that option two on the better hand was better designed to target those in need which i think of summer school as that You know, and I think that the $50,000, like Sam said, is not too bad of an ask to ensure those kids get what they need. Gary? Just, again, I guess piggybacking onto this, I think that I would have supported this for the dollars whether we had a grant or not, in the sense that we're looking at K through 8,

043K through 9. for the same spend that in the past we've done K-2. It seems like if we target it, that's a pretty robust program, and if we can get a similar growth in the middle school grades that we've gotten historically in the K-2, if we can have that kind of response or anything close to that, that feels like money well spent. And if you add the option one maybe on top of it as an option for families that can't maybe commit in the same level or the kids don't qualify for the invitation but it gives them an opportunity to continue their learning through the summer. The whole thing together for $100,000 or $110,000 spend feels like a really robust program with a lot of options. If we're seeing 60, 70% improvement in performance, which

044is what it historically has shown, I think that's money well spent. If we get a grant, it's great, but I don't think the grant should be the determining factor. Great. Anybody else? I definitely would encourage the administration to consider... Putting this together and not being neither or because of the invite versus the open invite You know, the the do-it-yourself is very much an open invite I think you're probably still gonna see some gains from those parents who may be families who aren't your target group But they are looking for things to keep their kids learning through the summer like great. Let's put it in their hands so Hopefully that's in given the way the board rightfully so but routinely presses and hammers on the performance data for us to say we don't have a hundred

045and ten thousand dollars out of 36 million budget to spend on improving our academic outcomes is Feels a bit odd. So Jim maybe I missed it in your presentation but on the option to budget the says these budgets do not include special ed transportation and food service are those costs captured elsewhere or are those going to be something additional yeah so Holly will have a budget for her extended school year services I haven't outlined all of the dates yet so I don't know about like and where the students are so transportation how many bus drivers will need you know from the different areas um and then food service so it's hard to kind of see because um i gave you numbers but and when we get down to how many students we have we'll determine

046that that budget i don't have that yet and that will be a different line item okay thank you yeah i think the other thing that's important to note is that that special education extended year services esy services is in is already a general fund spend so that's not necessarily an ad And food service, we offer it as part of the summer meals program, so we get funding for that. That generally doesn't cost us anything locally. And then it's just the transportation piece, which is always just a little bit hard to separate out because we transport all the kids together. And then on top of that, what we're sort of proposing under doing an in-person potential is kind of proposing that we do it at a single site, which should reduce the transportation costs that we've

047had in the past instead of going to three to four sites. um so that's just it's not a number we've we've put we've really nailed down yet but we kind of wanted to get some feedback from the board see what they're thinking and then we'll continue working the numbers as we bring our budget proposals forward marginal cost will be that much it shouldn't be that much no it shouldn't be much more so um based on the fact of our testing we usually use that as a guide you know the testing itself so these years we have had some school and there has been no improvement in the testing because of it. So I, wait a minute. Based on, that's what this says. But the test scores, the test scores show that the students have not.

048has not shown an impact of going to summer school and has had a major impact or even a minor impact on the test scoring. Hang on, we've got to be accurate. So on the slide that's on right now, it is showing specifically that the kids who participate over the last five years have shown anywhere from a 66 to a 90%. improvement or towards progress towards maintaining or growing their test scores. So again, what are those numbers? 77% was that equal numbers and 85% and it's showing that they maintained or And that's an investment that just allows them to maintain. We expect that they would improve by having the summer school program. Well, no, because the summer slide is kids do not generally even maintain over the summer. So our test scores generally have a dip

049from spring to fall because we have to get them back in school. So what this data is showing that the kids are coming without a loss or are improving. what the data that Kathy is showing us says so we just we have to you know make sure that we're being clear on our statements again what are the numbers those percentages how might what are the numbers themselves I'd have to go back and look because every year was completely different on your say asking how many students attended I'd have to I don't have that with me today, but I can certainly email that yeah So to get a handle on on that and again, it might not even make an impact on how they perform in their testing I guess maybe what I should have said

050Has it made? you have statistics here, but When I look at the numbers myself raw without any background I see the numbers not indicating that there's a lot of improvement. Fran, we don't know what numbers you're talking about. On the testing on the... We have to talk about data that we have in front of us. It's just a base... It's a gathering of information. So, and again, if we can get some background information on this, that would be a little more, you know, informative. Well, I would say last... presentation we talked about our math let me give me a math example when we were talking about our updating bridges two to three Danny showed that our math scores have increased 15% during that 15% was also during the time that the summer school was happening

051so our math scores are improving in that k2 by 15% and a portion of that could be about bridges but also the impact of the summer school programming that allowed our kids to maintain or increase. So it depends on which data point. When I look at all our data points, we have DRA levels, we have reading levels, we have word counts when we're talking about kindergarten. So some of these students are in pre-K going into kindergarten. We haven't really tested them in NWA yet. We're doing letter counts and words, sight words. all of those things that you don't even see that kind of data because we're not presenting all the different data sets that we have for our students. So please trust that we have a lot of local data that we are doing and

052showing impact to our students for sure. And when I talk about that data we've received, the testing, yes, from year to year, but when you go from the second graders who are now in third grade, they seem to drop, or third grade to fourth grade. You know, it's consistently coming down, so by the time they get to high school, the numbers are not as great as they were when they were in second and third grade. So it's a decrease if you look at it from that perspective. Yeah, so we're gonna move on to staying focused on the data that we have in front of us. Are there any more? I have one data question, please. Okay. Just I kind of sympathize a little bit with what Fran's saying and that like for instance the the

05366% of students participating made progress towards maintaining or growing standardized assessment scores. Okay, it's the ore. If you were to take out the ore growing, it's not exactly a very impressive statement. So is there any way to parse out who's just sort of maintaining, you know, not getting dumber over the summer, and who's actually making some progress? I'd like to point out the goal and purpose of a summer program. The goal and purpose of a summer program is to decrease the amount of learning that children lose over the summer because every child, no matter their experience, generally speaking, loses learning from the time they walk out our doors in June till the time they walk back in in August. The purpose of summer programs and why they were started originally and why there's federal funding

054grants is to try to stop that backward slide in learning. So the outcome of a summer program of all the goals, every grant you apply for, the data they ask you to report is who maintained their score from the time they left in June to the time they came back in September. If they grew, even better. You get a gold star for that. But the goal is that from June to September, they don't slide backwards. So that's why the data when we talk about summer is always going to be maintain or grow. You will never hear me talk about that when I'm talking about a school year. Because from the time they come to us in August and leave in June, if all we've done is maintain their learning, then we have failed. Then we're

055talking about growing but for the purposes of a summer programming the entire point of having a summer program is to prevent them our most vulnerable children from having that big dip from the time they leave us to the time they came back. Maintaining is a successful outcome of a summer program. I would also draw folks' attention to the dates in the time of summer school. So it's not a full day and it's a targeted intervention for kids who need the most intervention. So that maintaining or growing should, doing that at all should read as a fairly successful piece. Misty, you had your hand up. Yes, that was actually, that was almost to my question, is that this looks like it's only four weeks. Correct? In the morning. Yep. So they're learning 9 to 12 and

056they're eating 12 to 1. So there's requirements of time that they have. We don't eat for an hour, but yeah. You know what I'm saying. So in the grant, we have requirements of how many instructional time that they have, how many days a week we have to have. So we're mirroring the ESY. So the first four weeks will be four days a week, and then the last week is three days a week, or three days that week. So that's kind of that August 17th. through the 19th is just three days. So we'll mirror the ESY and we'll have like four hours of instruction and then we'll have some other build in times. And just to reflect back on the years before when we had summer school, was that also just four weeks? For some reason

057I thought it was longer. It was different each time. You are correct. It used to be longer. We originally went five days a week for five weeks. We're shrinking this time. We used to go five days a week for five weeks for that same time, though, right? Nine to one. And then we've slowly been cutting back. And some of that staffing, we've got to look at what our staffing interest is in order to be able to provide these. So this is all great until we if we don't have staff to provide these interventions. It's gonna be really difficult Okay, big okay. We'll see what the numbers come in. I think part of what we need to help remember and remind ourselves and our community when when we do invite folks to these programs too is

058this is not camp it is not daycare it is not it's never gonna be a full day it's not gonna be five days a week it is targeted instruction for kids who need it it's not school it's not all day it's never gonna be so I think you know we just need to be clear on that then you should remove the word camp out of the option to right I mean I think that I am gonna move this forward yes take the word camp out scrap it it's a really cute poster we hate it all right maybe academic camp Kathy, thank you so much. Why don't you take five? So PE and athletics. You guys look fresh. Come on down. We are ready. All right. So I'm going to take this slide and talk about

059both the curricular and athletic part. Again, as you can see, the cardio room and the weight room are both used by our curricular and also athletic use. They support our PE programs and all of our athletic programs promoting our overall wellness goals throughout our district. We currently have a high participation rate. We have 105 students that are currently enrolled in PE classes that are using both of these facilities with similar numbers last semester, slightly higher, but very similar numbers last semester as well. We also use the cardio and weight rooms approximately 20% of the day. So as we know, winter months, we'll use that facility more, and also weather dependent. So at least 20% of the school day. This is accessible to all students, so regardless that they participate in athletics or not, both before

060and after school. Right now, we currently have all five mornings. We have someone staffed, and we have students present, and also about three afternoons a week. So again, this gives, ensures that all students have that consistent opportunity to grow. and to improve their health and wellness. Coaches also can schedule space. We have coaches that do team clinics, team trainings, conditionings, and supplemental workouts as well. Due to the frequent use and obviously the age of the equipment, which we discussed last time, there's definitely a rise in maintenance and repair costs for this equipment. So starting to upgrade it will support the student engagement, the curriculum side of it, as well as the academic performance, and also maintain kind of that safe learning environment for our students. The next slide is dramatically different. So let's just pause

061here. Any questions, further questions about the equipment? Fran? Okay. So when you say 105 students are registered, correct? Yes. How many actually use it continuously? It's just like any other group that you would sign up for and then, you know. No, good question. So the 105 are students that are currently enrolled in PE classes that use that facility. So we have 105 students this semester that are accessing that space. So we have, for example, we have a weight training, we have a fitness class, we have lifetime sports. So we have different classes that use that throughout the school day. And they're divided into a period of time, each group has different days and different hours, right? Yep, we have an eight block, so they're scheduled within the eight blocks. And so I don't understand what

062the equipment use is, at least 20% of the school day. Yep. Yeah, so we I don't understand that yeah, so we combined all the classes in the curriculum to see we have some classes that will for example If it's nice outside, they'll be outdoors rather than be in the weight room or in the fitness the cardio room So we did all the classes and sort of did an assessment of at least 20% of the day at least like a block and a half of every single school day. There's somebody in that room using that equipment Again, it's much higher if it's you know winter time and also depending on weather But every day there's at least 20% of the day that that room is being used during the school day And again, it's an hour

063before and after school Daily every day in the morning and then an hour after school approximately three days a week with different groups of students Okay, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Sherry? Is PE still a required class? I remember it was a required credit. You had to take two PE classes. I'm just wondering, is that still? Yes, so we have currently it's two PE and health credits. So at least one credit, which is two different PE courses, has to be in the PE. 0.5 can be in health. And then that other .5 can be either or. So they can choose a different PE class or one of our other health offerings. Okay, so this equipment is being used for graduation requirements. Yes. Okay, thank you. Raise your hand. Thank you. You're allowed. Go ahead. You

064know, I think it speaks to the broader point of... maintaining our programs responsibly when we're talking about this cardio equipment. I'm concerned if we were to delay or push off these necessary investments, like replacing it, eventually we're going to have a much, much higher cost all at once. I think it's the wiser choice to slowly replace them. I think you discussed the last workshop. We're not going to do all of them. We're only starting periodically. The biggest thing to me is that it's not just for the extracurricular, but it's also part of our curriculum. It's honestly, to me, no different than replacing outdated textbooks. To Sharon's point, it's a graduation requirement. We'd be essentially failing the students if we didn't replace the equipment that they need in order to graduate. That's my biggest thing. I

065also think of After school as well, I played multiple sports and we certainly lived in the cardio and weight room. You know, and I think that's a big thing that we offer students as well is not just during the day, but after the day, you know, we want them to join a club, join a sport. You know if we don't make these upgrades and keep the conditions in poor, you know, I feel like less kids would actually Potentially you want to do extracurriculars, for example You know that I have other points, but that's on the next slides. Holy Okay, I just the hundred and five students are currently registered in the course Is that what 20% of the high school student body approximately? Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks And we also have clubs like, for

066example, eSports. One of our teams, part of their program is going down to this room and kind of incorporating some fitness. So we have a lot of our clubs that may not be fitness, directly fitness related, but part of their programming is to get the kids moving and using this equipment as well. That's very cool. So the eSports kids are doing like a warm-up? Yep. I am so into that. They do a warm-up. We should do that before board meetings, guys. We should be having a warm-up. Okay, I think we're safe to move on. All right, police presence. So the needs have increased, as many of you have probably been watching the news and seeing things going on, not just in the state of Maine, but across the country. We've had a 100% increase at

067the middle school. That doesn't mean that we've covered all of our middle school games with police presence. It means that in the past, we really haven't had a need for police presence up until this year, where we have had some... some support at some basketball games just due to fan and spectator behavior we've had an increase at the high school as well really you know primarily football games we cover all those games with with police presence but we're looking at adding more coverage for soccer for basketball some lacrosse games ice hockey games etc so the need is going up it's not substantial but it does go up pretty much on a on a regular annual basis As far as the accountability and reporting piece, all action taken by law enforcement is reported by law enforcement,

068meaning we don't really have anything to do. We're hands off. I might ask law enforcement to remove somebody from a premises or from the venue, and then once that happens, law enforcement really takes it from there. And we don't have any legal ground to stand on as far as fining people or sending bills to people or anything like that. That's really not what we do. We remove people from premises if they need to be removed, and we can order a no trespass order to be issued to people as well, and we've done that before. So that's really the accountability part of what we do with the police coverage. We covered this in great detail at our last meeting with this additional clarifying information. Any more questions about that? Fran? So based on our last meeting.

069that it says we have no legal standing at all. So who calls in the law enforcement if there's a problem? I'd like to clarify that statement. We have no legal standing to add penalties to individuals or to communicate their infractions. So some of the things we've been asked to do is, well, why can't we put pictures up of the people and shame them? That would not be a good idea. That would put us in very legal sticky territory. If law enforcement, so when we bring in law enforcement and say please remove this person. What happens to that person whether they're arrested or not all of those things? Anything can only be reported by law enforcement We do not have the right to add on penalties on top of what law enforcement decides to do and

070we do not have the right to Advertise things we believe to be true that it is law enforcement territory. We don't we don't have the authority to do that I do understand what you're saying, but all action is taken by law enforcement and is reported by law enforcement, but who gets the law enforcement involved in the first place? We do. We do. We do. We're following the policy, then in this case we notify or we hire for an event. basically. Correct. And they take over from there. Okay. Correct. Just wanted to make sure that's clear because it's a little confusing in here right here. And that's fair. It was in response to specific questions about can we give them fines? Can we shame people? Can we do all of these things? And the answer is

071no, we can't. We can ask for law enforcement to issue a no trespass order. We do do that. We can ask law enforcement to get involved when we need them. But beyond that, we've got to let law enforcement do their job. When we get a schedule so we have the fall schedule we look at the schedule and we look at our football games our soccer games Etc and then we schedule out according to who we might be playing if it's a rivalry game if there's a recent history between the two schools or two communities So we just go right down through the schedule and then we we ask the police officers to be at those Particular games that we need coverage for Can we get a feel for just the scale of what we're talking

072about? So we can request no trespass orders. How many no trespass orders have we requested in the last year? I'm not saying it has to be an exact number. Is it 5, 10, 20, 100? In my three years here so far, I've issued one for athletics. How many times have you asked a police officer to remove a person from an event? Just off the top of your head, estimate. At Gray-New Gloucester, zero. In my career, four or five. Okay. So it's still a relatively minor issue. We're not being overrun. This is not something that happens every game. Nothing like that. No, and I think an important point is it was something we wanted to make sure we drew the board's attention to because it isn't small things over time. We're trying to get ahead of

073something. There's no epidemic of police being involved, but we're saying at this point we are uncomfortable enough, often enough, that we would like a little budget for the middle school to have an officer available so that it does not get out of hand. Yes, and that amount is... Very small. Right. We're talking about like five grand or something, right? We're talking about a couple thousand dollars. I just wanted to make sure I had the scale understood. It's not like we're going to have a 24-7 police presence at the middle school. We have some behaviors we'd like to discourage with a very small amount of money. Misty. This wouldn't fall under like SRO responsibilities. It has to be law enforcement separate. It can't be we already hire to do this stuff. The SRO does not work

07424-7. So they have a regular schedule. And so when we say we have a Saturday football game, oh, you're the SRO, come on down. It's basically like it's an extra shift. It's an extra shift. Yeah, correct They as far as I know they get first refusal at it So Eric is first refusal if he wants it you can take it But if not, then I'll just go to they're less expensive. Are we saving anything to have our no person here? No, it's the same fee to to Cumberland County Sheriff regardless of who it is The advantage of having it be our SRO is he knows the kids and often knows many of the families, and that has been very beneficial. And Eric does pick up quite a few of the shifts, and that's been really

075nice. Hunter? Quick question. So this increase covers, like, the whole school year, right? It's not a la carte, so it's... Let's say we see all of a sudden a sudden spike in we need police presence. It's not going to cost more. It covers us for the whole year. Is that how it works? Well, no. We're guessing. It's per event. It's per event. Okay, so it's more a la carte than a contract. This isn't like plowing where you hope that you make out with the snowstorms. Well, I mean other than like if we need them a bunch more than we thought we will have to pay more So potentially it might actually cost less is what you're saying. You know what it could hopefully we found we needed them less than we could hire them yet

076Then yes, I would that would be my favorite budget savings Yeah, I think I mentioned this last time too is we're very fortunate in the Cumberland County area as with to only have one SR or one deputy present so many schools You'll see they're paying two or more deputies, but we have a great partnership with all of our surrounding schools So like we'll attend to be an extra body at their schools. They'll send an administrator Because obviously they usually be with the home team So one of us would go to the sending schools and they send someone so it really helps like reduce the amount of law enforcement you have to which has been very helpful. Great. All right. Thank you. All right. So there were a couple of questions on transportation safety features and

077purchasing options, and I have a couple of slides to talk about that. First, to kind of address... the fact that the safety features are optional. I put this together to indicate we purchase our buses through the state of Maine master agreement for bus purchases. And that is very beneficial to us because the state of Maine has purchasing power with all of the districts in the state. And with that, there are the safety features that we'll prioritize, which are going to be on the next slide. Those are not included in the base cost on that master agreement. So to answer one of the questions that had come in. Sorry, let me just stop you there for a day. I just want to stress with the board and be clear. When we say safety features are optional,

078we mean including ones that are required by law. So there are parts of a bus we have to have by law that in our base price in the master agreement are not included and then we have to have them added. So every single safety feature that you see on these buses when we are buying a new bus we have to say and yes we'd like the optional stop sign that comes out and all of the things. to be clear yes they are required by law many of them it doesn't mean it's coming in our base package we we have to be right on top of that the state of maine is helpful with us in that but every just about i was shocked to see the number of safety features that are not just included

079on a bus that we have to include as an optional add-on that's not really optional because it's required okay you may continue thank you chenda So these are the two safety feature options that we are prioritizing. So on the left-hand side is the crossing arm, and you can see that that arm is extending in front of the bus. So it forces somebody who's crossing from the right side of the bus to the left side of the bus to be further out from the bus so that the bus driver can see that student, whoever it is, crossing. It's in their field of vision. On the right-hand side is the extended stop arm, so it's the horizontal piece coming out from underneath the stop sign. And that would also have, you can't see it in this picture,

080but it actually has LED lights that would go along the perimeter of that arm. So it's a lot more visible than just having the stop sign itself. I'm sorry, there's one other thing I just wanted to mention on this. There is LD... 159 is legislation that is still pending and there is an amendment to that legislation that where there could possibly be funding for crossing arms we just don't know yet So I think in a prior presentation I had mistakenly put the flat nose type D bus on the right hand side as a picture that showing the crossing arm because I thought it was a good picture and it really depicted what I wanted to show. Unfortunately it brought up the question I believe that you know what to compare these two different types of

081buses. So now to answer that question first we don't have any flat nose type D buses in our fleet. We have all the dog nose or type C buses on the left hand side. And just to list kind of the differences, again for the type D or the flat nose, pros to that type of bus is that it has a tighter turning radius, larger capacity and there's better visibility. Those buses would be used more in like urban areas where you needed to navigate like tighter streets. The cons to that type of bus, they're more expensive by 7.4% than the Type C, poor access to the engine, and rougher ride, and most importantly, it would not fit in our bus garage, so it really wouldn't be a good option for our school district. So those were

082the two differences with that bus. I think... Yeah, I think that's good. So let's see if we have any more bus questions. Has David clarified all of our pressing bus-related inquiries? I just have one on the picture itself. On that cross arm, the yellow thing is on the left-hand side. The arm is coming out from underneath, but that stops the student from rushing. until they get the signal, correct? No. It doesn't so much as help with the traffic coming down. You'd have to have that. See what I'm saying? The crossing arm is about the student. Pardon? You're correct. The crossing arm is about the student, not the traffic. Right. Yeah, just what you said. And it makes them go farther away from the bus, which makes it easier for the bus driver to see them.

083Okay. All right. And then... I'm going out to stop the traffic. It looks like it's just a pole on that bus. Is that what I'm looking at? Or is that just a mirror pole to hold the mirror? I can't tell in the picture. Do you see the red and white? It's the red and white. I see it on the other picture, yes. So ideally your bus has both of these things. Both of them, okay. Yeah, one's for traffic, one's for the kids. Yeah. They both extend and retract. So when the bus stops, they would go out. When the bus goes again, they were retracted back in. So we're looking at just a crossing arm. Is that what we're suggesting? Or we already have that? No. So right now we have a fleet of 18 buses.

084Ten of our buses would need to have the crossing arm added. And none of our buses have a stop arm. We would be adding a stop arm to all of the 18 buses. Okay. Thank you, David. Sure. I don't know if I can ask you to hand me the remote, and then I don't have to. Fight your way out again lose five minutes as I move through the room. Thank you. I appreciate it. Hopefully it'll work from here So the final question that we had come up from last presentation was around Maine School Management Association and what kinds of feeds and services, kind of what's included versus what isn't. So just to kind of add some depth to that conversation, Maine School Management Association is an umbrella organization that encompasses two groups. One is the

085Maine School Board Association and the other is the Maine School Superintendent Association. So you'll hear all three. They are all related. MSMA is the umbrella of MSBA and MSSA. If you are a member of either of those two organizations, you automatically are a member of MSMA. These organizations provide a lot of similar things, particularly under the umbrella of MSMA, such as policy samples, required policy lists. They'll consult when you have like a language question about policy. They help us with state mandate reminders. Those sorts of things are provided in your annual fee costs. Within the Maine School Board Association, which school boards are members of, you can see what our annual costs are related to that. There's additional support provided around government advocacy. The MSBA, as you all vote every year of representatives at some

086of those meetings to kind of weigh in on potential legislation. And then MSBA, MSMA advocates on your behalf. They also have regional collaboration meetings. You probably get those, board members get those invitations in their inbox to come to be able to collaborate with area groups. And then you get policy updates, legislative updates, those sorts of things. Superintendents and assistant superintendents can be members of the Maine School Superintendent Association. I am a member of that group. As part of that, I get access to contract database. So if I want to know what other, for example, teacher collective bargaining agreements are around the state, instead of going to each individual person's... website, I can contact the Superintendent's Association and they can help me get access to that. Additionally, they generally keep compensation databases, so not just that

087collective bargaining agreement, but kind of for all different positions, so you kind of see what comparable compensation is around the state. We have monthly county meetings. So all the Cumberland County superintendents get together once a month. We also get together every other month. We do Cumberland York together. The main Department of Education comes to those meetings. Usually Commissioner Macon comes. We have the opportunity to ask questions, get clarity, get legislative updates, those sorts of things. We also have the opportunity, any one of us can put something on the agenda. So if we have a problem of practice, we could use some assistance from our colleagues. We have the opportunity to do that. Then additionally they provide mentors for new superintendents as a new superintendent. I took advantage of that My mentor is Heather Perry from

088Gorham School Department Also happens to be Maine superintendent of the year and was a national finalist So I'm super lucky to have her she and I get together every now and again Just to run things by her. She's someone I can you know really call she checks in on me, which I really appreciate So that's what our membership fees go towards In addition to all of that, these three organizations all offer fee-based services. Any of the conferences or workshops, webinars that they offer are usually at an additional cost. So all of us that go to the Maine School Management Association, we pay a fee for every person who goes to that. They can be hired to come in and do consulting. They can be hired to come in and do training. Any of these organizations

089will come in and do workshops with school boards or other groups if necessary. You can hire them to come in and analyze your policies or your entire policy book. And then they are sending out more individualized coaching opportunities where you would send an experienced or retired superintendent into your district to do some coaching if you needed it. They do a superintendent search. You all used MSMA last year to do your superintendent search. So lots of different things like that that they offer that are above and beyond what our annual membership fees are, and we pay for those kind of on a more as-needed or as-desired basis. On the very detailed offerings of our professional associations. okay on the annual cost for the main school board association is that based on school district size or is

090that a flat fee for all school districts to pay I don't know the answer to that. I just know that that's what our bill was this year. It's very high, I think, when, you know, superintendents only two grand. The other question I've mentioned this before, and I do appreciate your effort in trying to cut down on the legal expenses, and as I've stated before, we... we need to use main school management for most of our research. I do realize that we have to have attorneys for legal cases, that type of thing. But for a lot of this everyday type of thing, we should be using them more and less for attorneys. And I would think that who would... complain about that cost who do you who would you say listen these these costs are getting

091too high you know who does that who goes to that group that says that because that's a lot of money so you're upset about what the annual cost of the school board association would be then I would contact the director of the main school board association that would be for my does the school do that members you are all members of the main also we can so each individual each individual can contact them and speak it is your professional oh okay I wanted that on record thank you friend you are a member of the main school board association oh dear so I don't tell my friends everybody friends a member okay we're gonna send her to vote for us actually this year All right, I think we have really done a great job thoroughly exhausting

092these topics, which is awesome. That's what we're here to do. And that is not the last thing we are here to do. We have a draft itemized budget increase and decrease list. that everyone received in advance. So do you want to, I know everyone should have looked at this and we walked through a lot of it today. This just has the numbers. How do you want to tackle? I'd love to just kind of situate you in what I'm providing and why and then get a little feedback from the board about this some of this initial thinking. Great. I jumped it on. No, you're fine. Don't worry. So, you know, just to again situate where we are in the process, like we're in the place where we're trying to set budget priorities as we are actively

093building the budget to present the initial draft of next week. We presented some thoughts to you over the last couple of weeks. We've then been kind of thinking more about it. And so what we provided to you here is, you know, some of the potential investments that we're thinking about as we build the budget. Some things that we've talked about that we're thinking we may table for now that we might not push forward in our budget. And then we're looking at, you know, we're always looking for savings, of course. So what are some things that we're finding we can do differently or we can do more efficiently? So starting to identify those as well. So this is a very draft initial thinking list that I would love to take the opportunity to get some feedback

094from the board about your energy and appetite for some of these ideas to help inform our work over the next couple of days here while we build a draft to bring to you. All right. So, Misty. Thank you. A couple things. Is it the bus? Which of the arms is potentially not being paid for? Or if we get that money? The crossing arm, the $19,000 is potentially included in the governor's supplemental budget. Okay. And then your tabled, if we are proposing to move the school program over to an increase, that says $190. So if we were to do K through eight, full five weeks, five days, full academic and enrichment program as we have done before, it costs close to $300,000. actually a little bit more. So when we were kind of sharing like we

095want to do summer school, we had shared that number because if we were to do the full boat, that's what it costs. So as we kind of heard feedback from you, went back to the drawing board about what can we accomplish, what's reasonable, what's appropriate, we're kind of looking at the proposals we shared with you today. So that's where that number comes from. It's that idea of kind of backing away from doing the full five weeks, five days, full day enrichment. K through eight and truncating it down to more of that four weeks, couple days a week, really focused, limiting participation. Okay, so sliding that over to a lower number that we talked about would be going into a different category. Yep, so that shows up on the potential increases category. That 50,000 for summer

096school. It's about halfway down that bulleted list. Other questions? About the material or Sam mostly just a process question Under the potential increases like obviously we're not increasing the amount of health care that we're providing but that's going to be a significant budget driver not that we have anything to do about it, but I think There earlier we surfaced the fact that there's going to be another five hundred thousand dollars that we have to spend for health insurance like that dwarfs actually all the rest of these increases That's a great point, Sam, and I appreciate you sharing that. I really have only brought to you at this point things we have a significant level of control over. I understand that. I'm just saying, because people are going to be looking at these budget drivers and

097be like, oh, okay, that's like half a million bucks or so. But that actually is dwarfed. And I think everybody understands the salary increases in there, too. But just if we're going to have the debt payments in there, maybe when we... as soon as possible letting people know that salary and benefits are going to go up this much, health care is this much, and then these are the other increases. Just because I think it gives a sense of proportion. These are relatively small increases compared to what is really the driver of the increase. Yeah, and we're hoping within the next week we're going to know at least the range of what they're proposing for health insurance. We don't even know the range right now. Fran, did you have a question? I do. Okay. On the

098high school cardio equipment, that $9,000, is that annual or is that a one-time? So what we're proposing in the current year is that we replace three of the treadmills, and that costs about $9,000. My vision of that is that we would look to sort of replace a couple every single year versus, like, the original room was replaced through a grant, and it cost. a significant amount of money. We're looking to not have those big hits to the budget of needing an entire room of treadmills replaced and instead looking at trying to do a couple at a time every year. We just haven't had it in the budget before, so it would be a budget add for the coming year. Okay. So in addition to technology is like a million dollars and we're going to increase

099by another $128,000 and that was for... I can't put my finger on what he said at the last meeting, but the white, yeah, okay, yeah. Okay, so that's about how much that will cost. That's about what that will cost, yeah. Okay. Two questions. The in-debt payment, does that include the bond? That is the indoor air quality bond. That is the bond. Yeah. That is the bond, yeah. That isn't currently in the general bond budget. Right, oh, so this increases, so this doesn't... This is just increases to our debt payment that doesn't include the other debt payment we make. Last year we chose to reduce that with our capital. So it wasn't in. Our regular budget. So that's come back around and we're going to have to address that. And it doesn't include like we have

100other debt payments like that. That's not part. This is this is specific to indoor air quality. Part of why I was asking to Sam's point about assumptions that may be made in the public. This is an increase to our debt payments, not the total of our debt. Correct. OK. The other question is, what's the potential middle school math decrease? What is that? So that comes into sort of that totality of curriculum materials that we invest every year and we kind of move that around. So our intention when we bring you the budget next would be to invest in K-2 math materials and K-8 science materials at the amounts that you see in the left column. That last year we invested $70,000 in middle school math materials. So you'll see that $70,000. come out of math

101come excuse me come out of the middle school budget line and you'll see that thirty three thousand and seven thousand going into those lines so it's one of those things where it sort of lives on different lines over the totality of curriculum investment we're looking to invest about forty thousand less in the next budget cycle than we did in the current budget cycle compared to the current Sam So the special education line, obviously that's a big number. And this maybe is just on me. When I was absorbing the presentation, I was like, oh, maybe it's going to be kind of a wash because some of the special placements are not going to happen. Can you remind us what the drivers are of that number? Yeah, we're going to have to pick that apart for you

102a little bit. And it's a big moving target at the moment. Seed payments, which, sorry, I'm freezing. This is like the Medicare stuff's not coming through? Yes, but also how we have to expend and how we're then given money for it later isn't a one-to-one as often a year delayed. So we're seeing increases in those lines despite also having some pretty big decreases. But when we bring that article for you, we'll have that in much more detail. And then we're also working, we're trying to work all the different opportunities to really be as efficient as we can with those funds. i'm hoping to see that a little lower before i get it to you great uh so given um the time and we've hit the pressing questions i'd love with the important nature of this

103information where we've heard a lot of information and now admin's asking for our feedback Why don't we just go right down the line and give some gut feedback on, you know, what do you think of this? Or do you think these are the things we should be focused on? Are you worried about some of these? Are there things you want to advocate for? Now is the time. Let's start on Gary's end. For the most, looking at these increase, decrease, and tables, is that we're staying with that material or in general? yeah I would say with this material assuming these are the things the district has identified that they want to there is there really isn't a lot that I am concerned about I mean it would the except by concerned I mean as far as

104whether or not they're necessary appropriate I mean I'm obviously concerned about the increases and I think we can't not be but There's nothing here that to me does not seem like anything we should not be considering I mean some of the stuff special ed and some of the other things they're mandated We we're not gonna be able to do much about some of these costs Like you said these are things that we kind of control that isn't I don't think that's really something we control much of I mean most of these things we've already discussed bus routing software the bus modifications to buses this is just what it costs it's what it costs to to move the district forward i don't so i guess i think we're in the right direction uh i don't really

105see anything that i would suggest we not do yeah misty we're just saying like how do you feel closing arguments put your uh put your flag in the sand where you at I think overall the administration has done a good job with breaking these apart. I do like Sam's idea of like putting the necessary things in a different column. So it shows that those are the things that we have to do regardless. And then the increases, obviously things that change with what decisions we've made this year. I'm I part of me is just a little bit angry about the school stuff on the buses that we have to pay for that are required that just makes me so angry and I would like all of us to contact our state legislature legislative bodies to fight

106this because spending 20 30 32 thousand dollars on things that are required from the state to do to our buses I think is ridiculous when it should be paid for so I'm a little bit angry about that Nothing to do with what we're doing here right now. Sharon? Yeah, so I was also kind of blown away by how much we have to spend just for what seems like pretty basic bus equipment, but I'm all for it. Nothing really surprised me except for the middle school math, but that was explained. It's not that it's going away. It's just that it was something that we paid last year. The only other item I was a little bit, I guess, questioning was the human resources systems and protocols. I know, I think it was last meeting we had

107talked about, there's still quite a bit that's done manually, paper. And I'm just wondering, I don't know what that entirely covers, but even if it's a cost of $14,000, if it actually makes everything much more efficient, if it could not, if it potentially in the long run isn't going to be a savings. It's not a huge item and especially when one of the decreases is central office operations software. So I'm just wondering if like with one going out, one going in, it's not that big of an increase. Basically kind of what I was expecting but also knowing that there's going to be more coming with the health insurance and I think dental insurance too is going, maybe. It's never going down. But yeah. more comes. Just quick, I think none of these things are anything

108that is a surprise to the board members. I think we're all familiar with just about every one of these issues and the relative cost of each. I guess I would just quibble with maybe putting the larger budget drivers up at the top of the page because just the smaller ones, you can just start out with a small one and then you have the bigger ones at the bottom. It just kind of is upside down. And, of course, the bigger drivers in this particular one, as Sam said, aren't even on here, and they really need to be included. I think that's it. So for the increases, all for the routing software and the Transportation and Safety Committee that kind of is in the same vein as that, seems like a no-brainer, the digital time cards. Also

109would probably be like a one-time thing along with the routing software other than maybe like a subscription thing so those would Kind of be like a one-time spend For the summer school. I think the 50k is fine and just hope for the grant to get approved We can't do much if our Wi-Fi can't support it so That seemed fine with me I think laddering the high school cardio equipment Kind of like what we do with the floors is a good idea. The debt service that we voted to cover, I don't know as I support us funding part of those payments. I guess we'll have to flesh that out a little bit. I would echo Sharon. If we can put in the human resource systems to make central office more efficient, if that nets us more

110time working for the students, I would be for that. Thank you. I echo what's been said. This is such a bare-bones comp. These are well... explained, well supported, asked. The one, I think what illustrates how hard you're working on every penny is the tabled. I'm just curious about the splitting the seven hour. You know, we keep talking about moving the ed tax to seven hour days. So just doing that would cost, it looks like that would cost 72,000. And then we're saying, okay, well, let's inch along 6.75. So that would only cost 60,000. Am I understanding that right? There's like a difference of 12 grand. No, no, no, no, you're saying that would be literally 72 another 72 to do the full seven. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you like that is

111that's crazy All right, so That makes more sense Yeah, I I have nothing that isn't already been said hunter A lot of this isn't really surprised me because a lot of this is stemming from both committees that I sit in. I think we've strongly identified multiple times our science test scores. I think multiple people have brought it up and discussed our test scores. So I think it's a great thing to see this increase of we identified this is a need and that's what we're asking for. I think it would be unwise to see a cut to that. Same thing with our math materials. These are things that we have identified thoroughly and discussed multiple times. Same thing with the bus items. It would be nice to see the crossing arms be funded not by us,

112but by the state, even though it's kind of counterintuitive. But I think a lot of these items and potential increases are great things. I think overall the overall picture of our increase in our budget is not really an abnormal thing I sort of took a deep dive and looking at lots of other districts and what their potentials are so we're not really an outlier with what we're asking just to keep that sort of on the back end of things To speak, I've already talked about the cardio equipment. I think it would be wise now to invest the $9,000 versus, I don't know the number of cardio equipment we have, I forget, but potentially if we have 10, that's $90,000 all at once versus we can split it up. So I think it would be wise

113to start doing that cycle now too. And that's pretty much all I have to say. Thank you, Hunter. So the facilities investments, that's just like the increasing by like incrementally each year as recommended by the facilities committee. So that's just the gap between whatever we spent last year and this year. I do support that. I'm assuming we're going to get a proposal from the facilities committee about how we're going to use or not use the capital reserve fund this year to spend. Okay. That's all great. I think the ed tech spend. is really important. I think we're gonna find increasingly that competition for people who actually want to work as ed techs is gonna get more and more and we need to be a place that people wanna go work. There's gonna be competition for

114people willing to do that. So I think getting out ahead of that is good. Like I said, I would support the $110,000 for summer school if that's what it took to run that program. I think that is just really good targeted spend that gets at exactly what our goals are. If I had to choose $60,000 additional to summer school or $50,000 for facilities investments, I would probably choose that way if I was forced to because I just think. I do think our facilities are important, but I just think that's, if I was gonna get banged for my buck, I think that's about as well as I can spend it, is that summer school program, if you look at that data. One thing that we talked about that I don't see here is some spend to

115potentially get the discussion around consolidation started. I think we were talking about throwing a little, is that gonna come later? Yeah, so facilities committee is well underway on putting together a strategic plan for that, and it has action steps for each year. And then we've been kind of talking about then how that fits into that annual investment of facilities funds and or use of capital reserves. So you'll see all that coming forward. Okay, great. Because I want to get that started if we need to spend money to start that. I think now is the time. Every year it gets, you know. We were just walking through this middle school and the amount of money that we spent to add those four classrooms on the middle school was like $2.1 million. And the fields project that

116we turned down when we did that spend was something under $2 million. And I know that that fields piece is now at least $15 million. Every year we put off potential consolidation. I don't know what the percentage is, but we're probably increasing the size of that project by 10 to 15%. So I really want to start. I think there's a lot of momentum for it in the community, and I want to make sure that that is included in this budget cycle. So I think that's all I got. Okay, first of all just to start off LD 2226 was on the floor just in this last few weeks and I looked at the list of schools that gave testimony and SAD 15 did not and I know we wrote a letter But I have a feeling

117it never got to the legislature. I think it just sat up in Augusta So if it's you know the voice our voice did not at least according to the list of schools that were listed under that bill So I just thought we should you know be aware of Because I didn't know the process until I read the bill and I realized what had happened So we should keep that in mind when we're looking for additional funding and that type of thing you know we tried but everything we went down the wrong path in in this case all right so now to the budget i'm going a different place we've been to most of these items in different committees and stuff like that one of the things i've been mentioning right along and one of the

118trends i'm seeing throughout the state lewiston and other towns cities and towns have now started cutting their budgets They've made layoffs in positions. They're recognizing the cry of the taxpayers that the budget's uncontrollable. And unaffordable, I should say, is the word. And just as we were trying to make a trend of funding, fair funding for our district, other schools are doing the same thing, too. So what I'm suggesting is not out of this world. and I have been mentioning right along, we need to make cuts in this budget. So far I'm hearing increases. And, you know, I see there's some cuts, you know, obviously, but it's not going to make that much of a difference on the bottom line. What's going to make a difference on the bottom line is going to be some elimination

119of some administrative positions. I think we're overloaded in that department. to have I'm sorry but you know we have quite a few principles I would suggest that we start eliminate at least one position because we have two in one town also assistant I'm speaking I'm sorry I have to finish my comments could you elaborate when I finish you can ask ask me okay Because I don't want to lose context of where I'm going. Okay. So the issue is assistant principals, you know. I don't know how many we have, but if we do and if we're paying for that position, we need to, for those positions, we need to look at that as areas that would be safely. making an impact on our budget, but that would not impact the kids' education, adversely or anyway. And,

120you know, so I think that is where I think we need to make a major look at. and we have to look at other areas that we can cut. And I know everything is necessary, but is it really? I heard comments at the last presentation about the kids having to stand outside for 15 minutes waiting for the bus, and I'm thinking, what? You know, we should be spending money for things like that. It's not making much of an impact, that particular statement. I'm just showing the statements being made that... You have to stop back and say, are we just catering to every single need of the students and not just the educational need, but all the other kinds of needs? How much in this budget includes other additional needs beyond education? We think it's all

121necessary. Summer school is absolutely necessary in order for the kids to succeed. And that's it to me. There was a time we've had summer school taught the generations, but parents always paid for that, you know, for the individual needs of their students. So we have to start looking at some of those areas because this is not a sustainable budget. The people will not be accepting another $2 million increase or their votes. That's my comments and I know I'm all alone. I mean, I'm not being naive here. I know it's just, you know, but at least I'm putting it on the record that at least there's somebody on the board that's looking to make some cuts in the budget that won't impact the students adversely. Thank you. Thank you, Fred. I do, for a point of

122clarity. You're talking about other districts who are proposing significant cuts. I do want to correct a thing here. Lewiston, their proposed budget includes 30 job cuts. That still is an 11% budget increase. So they are cutting 30 jobs to hold their increase to 11%. So their budget is by no means decreasing. So the South Portland is in the same position. So just want to be clear. But their budget is still going up 11%. It is not a decrease to their budget. Okay. So Dr. Turner, is there anything else you need from us in terms of feedback? Tonight to move forward with a proposal to the Finance Committee. No, I really appreciate this I know it's a little different than how we've done it in the past I can't I have to say I was really

123thrilled to hear people say wow. There's nothing on here. I'm surprised by there's nothing on here I don't know about that means we've done a good job kind of talking to you about what our needs are and kind of where we're headed and Appreciate having that shared understanding as we get into the actual budget proposal so i appreciate you all just being really candid about sort of what things are important to you what things you think kind of move things well clearly we think all of these things are important or we wouldn't have brought them to you so getting the opportunity to kind of hear from you what your priorities are as we look to build a responsible budget is super helpful so we will use that feedback and then bring some proposals over the

124next month, month and a half until we are at something we're ready to bring to the public. Excellent. Well with that