001None of them like touching your pouch. >> Okay, thank you. >> Rudy's going >> and then I tried to do that this morning. >> All right, we're going to get started. >> Just one second. All right, student representatives, we're ready. Um, so I would like to call the business meeting of the Portland Board of Public Education to order. It is Tuesday, September 9th, uh, 2025. Uh, we're meeting in a hybrid format with some of us here at Casco Bay and some online via Zoom. Um, I realize I just started before tech checking with Dr. Warren that you were ready to call the role. Okay, beautiful. Um, so you can call the role whenever you're ready. >> Great. Good evening. Can you hear me? >> No. >> Greg, can you turn up the my mic? >>
002Can you hear me now? >> No, it's We just need more volume. >> There you go. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, here we go. Member Ali Ali. Member user Ali, Vice Chair Bondo, >> present. >> Member Briden, member Lena >> present. >> Member No, member Operman. >> Yep. >> Member Sautell. >> Yes. >> Student Representative Fitzgerald. Student Representative Cuba. Student Representative Lee >> here. >> Student Representative O'Brien >> here. Student Representative Ziggler. Uh, Chair Lent present. Thank you. And now, the pledge of allegiance. I >> pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Portland public schools recognizes the original inhabitants of the land on stand. The Wulis Tiguay or Maliset Mcmack Ponabskot Pasimquati
003tribes known collectively as the Wabanaki Confederacy or people of the Dawnland. We are honored to have Wabanaki children among our students today. And as a district, we are committed to making the past, present, and future of Wabanaki peoples visible in our schools and classrooms. And now I'm going to turn it over to uh Student Representative O'Brien uh to read our mission and our definition of equity. Thank you. Is my Can you hear me? Okay. Um, our mission, the Portland Public Schools is responsible for ensuring a challenging, relevant, and joyful education that empowers every learner to make a difference in the world. We build relationships among families, educators, and the community to promote the healthy development and academic achievement of every learner. and our definition of equity. Equity is all people being held to high expectations
004and having access to opportunities that are reflective of their individual needs, identities, and experiences. Equity is achieved in Portland public schools when there are no identifiable differences in outcomes and experiences for any population subgroup. >> Thank you so much, Student Representative O'Brien. Um, and if we could um, uh, get her mic just turned up a little bit, um, I think it will help, uh, me and others here. Uh, and so now we're going to move on to public comment. If there's anyone here for public comment in the room, you can come up to the podium or um, if somebody joins us on Zoom, we'll wait just a couple of beats to see if anybody um, comes up. All right, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment and I'll um uh start my remarks.
005Um first, congratulations on a great first week of school. Um it was really exciting to get around to some of the schools. Um, and uh, I told the staff at Ocean AV this, but um, my cheeks hurt when I left because I was smiling so much because of all the interactions that I was seeing between staff and young people and just um, the welcoming and warmth that comes out of our schools um, is just uh, remarkable and it made me um, incredibly proud. So, I just really appreciate everybody um, and everything that they put into making this first week of school a really really strong one. Um so thank you for that. Uh I also got to um experience some of our secondary schools uh middle and high schools uh and see how the phone
006free uh environment was going. Um and I noticed and heard a couple of things that I'd just like to say out because I know we're still working on this making it um uh better. You know, I heard um well the first thing that I noticed was that there were young people talking to each other in the halls in a way that I hadn't noticed before. Um, and I also, as a short person, I usually get run into in the halls in the high schools, um, because everyone's looking down and that didn't happen. So, that was um, exciting because young people were looking up. Um, and I saw a lot of engagement in classrooms. It was really, um, uh, great to see. I do, um, I do know that some of the lines were really long,
007especially at Portland High School, and I think that they're getting um, better around that. Um, and then I also heard um from several students that they're still just worried about communicating with their family during the day. Um, both being able to contact them and having their family uh be able to contact the school effectively, especially if they are a um a family who is not comfortable speaking English. So, we you know worked with some adults to kind of help um make those connections um because there is like some some problem solving that has to take place within the schools. But overall, I just again am really grateful for all of the effort that has gone into this. Um, and it's just something that we'll continue um to work at um and and review. Um, I
008wanted to just call folks attention. There was a great newsletter that went out uh today. Um, the uh and one uh several of the things in the newsletter um one of them is a virtual information night um for high school preference process. So, for anybody that's in the eighth grade, uh that is taking place on September 29th. Um and it'll be part of the process uh to do your high school preferencing. Um and then on a a sadder note, I just wanted to um send condolences uh to uh the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis uh who experienced a school shooting since the last time that we met. um and two young people were killed uh and 21 others were injured. Um and it's just unfortunate that we have to um continue to uh send condolences
009and that we don't make policy changes to protect our schools in these ways. Um but I um every year around this time I always like to point out that there are gun safety resources on the public Portland public schools website. Um and uh uh also just some data to to help us understand like how big of a problem this is. Um so there are 4.6 million children in America who live in homes with guns that are both loaded and unlocked. So it's the unlocked unsecure piece that becomes the threat, right? Um, and every year in the United States, nearly 360 school-aged children are age 17 and under uh gain access to firearms and unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else. And also more than 700 um uh uh more die by suicide with a gun each
010year. Those are really big numbers for our young people and I would like them to not be that high. I would like them to be reduced um uh completely. Um, and I think one of the things that we can all do in the community is just to be talking more about gun safety. Um, we started to do some playdates with some new families this week. Um, and I have a conversation with any new family where we go. I ask them, you know, do you have guns in your house and are they secured safely? Just even that that um question can help people have a conversation about gun safety and making sure that our environments are just a little bit more safer for our kids. Um, so if you go onto our website, there's a there's
011a school safety tab under the about page and you can find lots more um resources and data there. And with that, I would love to turn it over to student representative Lee who's going to give us our first student report for this year. >> Yes, thank you very much. Uh yeah, it's an honor to be back here uh delivering first report of this new school year and yeah, good evening everyone. Uh it is the second week of the new school year back at Daring High School. For our new freshmen, the entrance into high school was rung in back on August 26th when the new ninth graders and their families were welcomed to the Dearing campus for an evening of fun beginning in the auditorium before uh giving students an opportunity to meet with their new
012adviserss and get a tour of their new classrooms. Schedules too were given out in addition to new laptops and ice cream. The ice cream part sounds pretty fun. Um, yeah, but our freshman class isn't all that's new. Daring's new administration team includes Rebecca Shuer as our new principal, though she is currently on a temporary leave of absence, and Jeff Bernap and Carly Friedrich, the newest member of the Ramly, having just transferred from Lincoln Middle School, um, as our co-assistant principles. And last week, Mr. Bernap was actually honored with the Dearing Star Trophy, uh, which is a weekly staff tradition in which one staff member shouts out another for outstanding character and contributions to the community. So, congrats to him on that. Um, and one notable schedule development is the movement of long advisory, which before
013was on Wednesday mornings and now it's being moved to Thursdays. Um, this period is now slightly shorter, functioning more like a typical learning center period, um, except for the fact that you can't be booked to go to another classroom besides your advisory. And this year, in addition to attendance being taken for advisory, daring students will start receiving grades for their advisory participation. Um, participation in the sense of like them being there or not. Um, yeah. And so students in advisory will be participating this year um and this is sort of a continuity from last year but uh in lessons from base the social emotional learning curriculum and they will be engaging with common sense education's digital literacy program with a focus on responsible technology use. And speaking of technology, probably one of the most notable
014changes with this new school year has been the implementation of the new district-wide cell phone policy. Um, I'm sure it's not our first time hearing about it for anyone here. Um, on the first day of school, many students experienced severe crowding in hallways when it came time for lunch as students wishing to leave the building rushed to get uh their yonder pouches unlocked by a limited number of teachers. As more teachers have been enlisted to help kids get their phones locked and unlocked more efficiently, the crowding issue has gotten better, uh, but still does remain an annoyance around lunchtime. There is also a new one entrance policy, uh, put into effect yesterday at Daring, which mandates that all students enter through the main Stevens Avenue entrance um, in the front. Again, just in the interest
015of making things uh, more efficient in terms of the yonder pouch system. To that end, I do think it's worth mentioning that the quickest way to walk around to the front entrance involves walking through the Longfellow Elementary playground, um, which can create an uncomfortable situation for PATH students entering later in the day who don't want to encroach on, uh, the Longfellow kids during their recess. Um, yeah, changing topics. Uh, tomorrow from 5:00 to 7:00, Daring will be hosting our open house. Additionally, it will be picture day. So, a lot going on tomorrow and uh be the beginning of year busyness won't be slowing down later in the week as on Friday the annual club fair will be held welcoming students to a new year of extracurriculars and athletics. Um I'll be hosting the table for
016Breia, the literary magazine club. One of those clubs uh at the fair, the Dearing Players, which I'm also a part of, uh will be beginning auditions for our fall musical, Mamma Mia, uh this week under the direction of our new co-drama adviserss, Christina Kelly and Laura Hag. Endearing athletics have also been rolling along going into our their second week. Our girls soccer team just won the Casco Bay Cup against Portland and Waynefleet for the first time ever. So, that's pretty cool. Um, and our golf team has had their best opening to the season in 10 years. Um, meanwhile, cross country has gotten off to a great start this year, hot off of their performance at the SMA opening meet at Noble High School. At that meet, junior Charlotte Pelliere came in first place in the
017girls race and accomplished senior Peter Rank finished in second in the boys race with the Dearing boys finishing first as a team overall and the Daring girls coming in second as a team. And additionally, Dearing girls soccer, volleyball, and football all kick off their home openers this week. And one final thing, we look forward to the start of esports next week. So overall, the start of the school year is always a unique uniquely exciting time at Daring with new energy, new faces, and new opportunities. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Student Representative Lee. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. That deserved applause. Um, does anyone have any questions? >> Yeah, Vice Chair Bondo, go ahead. >> Thank you for the great presentation. So, can you just give me the advice? I that hasn't been a
018super big topic of discussion um with students that I've talked to. Uh I haven't really heard anyone give an opinion about it one way or the other. I think we definitely have an attendance issue with advisory. Um even among students maybe you wouldn't expect but I think it's yeah I think it's it could be an effective way to entice people to go if you're getting a grade for it. So, I haven't heard there's a big issue or point. >> Any other questions? Uh, could you remind us what esports are? >> Are electronic sports. Um, I believe that our team does Mario Kart, Overwatch, Super Smash Brothers, and for Fortnite, maybe. I don't know. Um, yeah. >> Oh, thank you so much for that. that I had no idea. Um, and also I just really encourage
019all of you to use more mascot puns within your presentations. That's really wonderful. So, thank you. Thank you for that. Um, okay. I think we can, um, go ahead and move on to the report of the secretary, I mean, superintendent. I'll slow down. >> Please give me a little bit more. Um, just want to start first by just a thank you to our staff who worked tirelessly throughout August uh to make sure the facilities and transportation were ready. Um, and then on the academic side for a smooth start of the school year, I had the opportunity to visit all of our schools on day one and day two um, and I'm now going back through for the second time and it's just great to see the energy that is there. Um, and really a credit
020to the staff for the work that they do. I also want to address just uh three things that have come up recently um so that folks have that information. Uh the first is that on Sunday families should have received the income form that helps us get additional funding from the state uh based on socioeconomic uh factors for our students. It's very quick and so everybody who has students in the district should have received it um on Sunday and then they will receive follow-up emails just remind and texts uh reminding you to fill it out. Uh it usually takes less than a minute to fill out and you can fill it out for all of your kids right there. Um and so please keep an eye out for that. Um it closes at the end of
021September so it's a pretty short turnaround. It closes on September 27th and again this can have significant impact on the funding that we receive from the state and so it is very helpful for everybody to fill it out. Second piece around cell phones. As board member Lee mentioned, uh last week was the start of the new cell phone policy and as we have seen um there are some initial hiccups that we would anticipate with things such as lunch. Um and that we don't anticipate it to be a panacea or an immediate cure for anything. Uh but initial feedback um from students is generally it's not as bad as they anticipated and from staff that they're seeing really positives from student engagement. And so that's been positive. Um and there's been a number of requests about
022information about how much in total we ended up spending uh for Yonder and the Yonder equipment. And so just happy to share that it was $110,000 across the whole district. When you think about the six schools, that is about $18,000. Um, and that is not costs that have to be repeated every year. Uh, but that there will be costs for replacement. Um, but not at $110,000 per year. Um, and not at the $18,000 per site. Um, path is paths is also um cell phone free but with a slightly different practice where um it is about locking it up in a like lockbox kind of thing that each classroom has representing uh recognizing that students are coming from multiple sites. Uh last thing is as it's the beginning of the year and families are still looking
023for um afterchool and wreck services just a reminder that those services are provided by the city and so encourage you to go on to their website. Uh I believe at this point they're looking at weight lists in all cases and trying to think about potential solutions um and continued advocacy for just additional seats in that. Um but that is a city service. Um and so uh we certainly partner with them and work hard to give them sites that are clean, accessible, fun for students. Uh but also in terms of how many seats it is a city service. >> I believe that is the topics for the day. Thank you. >> Thank you, Superintendent. Um and board members just to make sure that you saw them in um diligent community is also where the other personnel
024items where the board does not vote on but just for transparency sake to see um who is uh coming into the district and those that have resigned um that is where those uh lists will be. Uh and then we have our report of the secretary. Okay. So, tonight we have the consideration and action to approve the meeting minutes of August 26th, 2025. Are there any corrections to the meeting minutes? All right. So, I see no corrections. So, the meeting minutes are approved as distributed. Um, and now we have personnel. I know Okay, I don't think I've ever been up here this early for personnel. You caught me completely off guard. I was off there doing stuff. And so, um, our personnel agenda item tonight is just simply to seek your approval for the hiring of
025probate probationary teachers. >> Wonderful. Um, so, uh, do I have a motion for the consideration and action to approve the personnel items listed? Election of teacher candidates. Um, thank you, board member Oppperman. Um, I'm sorry, board, uh, election of teacher candidates, probationary. Um, is there a second? Thank you, board member Lena. Any questions from the board? Uh, we don't have public comment on personnel items. Any general discussion? Then by roll call vote, please indicate whether you are in favor of the consideration and action to approve the personnel items listed. Election of teacher candidates uh probationary. Dr. Warren, will you please call the role? >> Member Ali Ali. >> Yes. >> Member Yser Ali. >> Yes. >> Vice Chair Bondo. Member Brighten. Member Lena. >> Yes. >> Member no. Member Operman. >> Yes. >> Member Sautell.
026>> Yes. Student Representative Fitzgerald, yes. >> Student Representative Cantiba, Student Representative Lee, >> yes. >> Student Representative O'Brien, >> yes. >> Student Representative Ziggler, Chair Lentz, >> yes. So, the motion passes unanimously. Uh, and up next we have new business. >> Thank you. So, this is also me. Um, so in front of you this evening, we have a request for your approval for something called, and I'm going to look so that I say it the right way, but it is the workers compensation safety incentive program. And through this program, the district is able to attain a percentage discount on our workers compensation um, insurance rate that we pay to MMA, the main municipal association. There's three tiers. This is simply asking us to try to move forward with tier one, which is a 5% discount.
027We anticipate that being anywhere from a $10 to $20,000 savings um to that particular bill. And then of course over time we will aspire to achieve the goals for a tier two or tier three. They're a little bit more um rigorous but we felt confident that we could get tier one. I was asked yesterday evening. So I will just um share ahead of the ask. Um I know I was asked about the three tiers. So just to give you an idea of what we are required to do for this tier one um discount uh it's things around safety ensuring that our schools are developing safety plans ensuring that we are aware when there are workers compre related issues that um that I'm aware of that my department that the superintendent is notified as applicable um
028and that we have a process for communicating any sort of safety concerns. So the tier one uh bar is pretty pretty easy and we feel fairly confident that we've we've already attained that. So we feel that we can move that. It gets a little more complicated as we go in through tier two and tier three. So as I said that will be aspirational. Some things are not as hard. A slip and trip and slip trip and fall safety policy. We can probably develop that pretty quickly. Um and then it does get more complicated in tier 2 where um there are requirements to respond to certain deficiencies within a 90-day window. And we know from from past that sometimes getting folks to to engage in responding to those deficiencies is hard because it requires some change
029in mindset, change in habits. So, um that is something that we will aspire to get to um for that tier 2 7 and a half% discount in the future and to get to tier three um actually feels a little easier than tier two and I was talking about it with our facilities team today. Um but tier three is just about ensuring that we have full leadership engagement on our safety committees that we have accident review policies um return to work light duty policies. So some things that take us just a little bit further down the road. If eventually we get to tier three, then we get a 10% discount on our um on that particular bill. So, so this evening we're asking simply for the board to hopefully authorize for us to go ahead and
030send that in to MMA for that 5% discount. >> The vote is Yeah. Um uh so I think um we would we'll need to just get um approval from the board to override a second read. Um uh so I think what may make the most sense um is to have a question period first um to get any information or questions answered and then we can move into the voting process. Um so I would be looking uh for any questions from the board on this. I have some questions. Um is um is this a new program or is it just something that we have not participated in in the past? It >> is something we have not participated in in the past. >> And how is it um uh in enforced? Like do they do an
031audit? Like do we submit proof on an annual basis? Like what is the um accountability look like? >> Yeah. So they'll actually come out and have meetings with members of the HR team and and this already happens anyhow as well as members of the facilities department um to conduct walkthroughs to take a look at our facilities and so they already come out and do some of these assessments with us. Yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions from the board? Yes, Vice Chair Bondo, go ahead. when we apply for that mean just for the the facility the building or or the employees. >> So our workers compensation insurance policy basically right is so that if if an employee has an accident at work they can complete the the paperwork and and um we don't make the determination
032so I feel like I should state that because we get asked that a lot. We don't make the determination as a district. Actually, the insurance agent makes the determination of whether or not it's an eligible event under workers compensation. Um, >> so it's something different or we just adding up to the the half national. >> So, we already have this policy. We already have a workers compensation policy in the district. What this is is there's an opportunity for us to actually get a a discount on that policy if we if we sort of check certain boxes off, right? We develop safety plans and we ensure that our staff are aware of what the safety protocols are at our different campuses. So by checking off those boxes, we can get a discount. And we felt that
033the tier one things were really things we were already doing and we should take advantage of this discount. Um right, $10 to $20,000 is great. And so um we felt we should do that. And then again, like I said, aspirationally, I think we felt like we should really be working toward whether we can achieve those other levels. But right now, we we know we meet the criteria for a tier one. So, why not take advantage of the discount? >> Okay. Thank you. That makes sense. Thank you. >> And I just have one more question, then I'll come to you, board member Uberman. Um, is um is it a big lift in terms of paperwork or like Okay, beautiful. And board member Uberman, go ahead. >> I just want to thank you for looking this up.
034>> Oh, thank you. And I will thank Gavin Pat, who's our um project manager, who um you know, this came to him was presented to him and he said, "I think I think we can do this. I think we can do this. So, um, so he he's the one who got it here this evening. Wonderful. Any other questions from the board? Okay. Then I will make a motion um to go directly to second read on this um it's not a policy. What would I call this? On this uh >> enrollment in the program. >> Thank you. on the enrollment in the program of the incentive uh workers compensation safety incentive program. Um is there a second? Thank you board member Brighten. Um and we're just going to do um uh we'll do all those in
035favor but any discussion from the board on going directly to second read. Great. Then all those in favor please raise your hand. Okay. Beautiful. That is unan unanimous. Um, so then I will um make another motion um to accept this uh proposal for the work workers compensation safety incentive program um to improve um our enrollment. Is there a second? Board member Upperman. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Any public comment? Yes. This would not directly be a personnel item, so we could have public comment. Let me just double check. Um no one on uh Zoom. Uh um any discussion from the board? Okay. Uh so then with roll call vote um please indicate whether you are in favor um for the consideration action to approve the workers compensation safety incentive program. Dr. Warren, will
036you please call the role? >> Member Ali Ali. >> Yes. >> Member Yusra Ali. Yes, >> Vice Chair Bondo. >> Yes, >> member Bryen. >> Member Lena. >> Yes, >> member no. >> Member Operman. >> Yes. >> Member Sautell. >> Yes. >> Student representative Fitzgerald. Student representative Cantiba. Student representative Lee. >> Yes. >> Student representative O'Brien. >> Yes. >> Student representative Ziggler. Chair Lent. >> Yes. So, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Um and uh now we're going to uh I'm going to bring a motion to enter into executive session. I know that this is a pretty uh short meeting that we've had so far. Um but I think that this is probably going to be the only short meeting we have uh this year. So I think that we will embrace it.
037Um so with that uh I'd be um making the motion for the consideration and action to enter into executive session pursuant to 1 MRSA 4056D to discuss the student enrichment coordinators um negotiation also known as the SEC um unit. Uh um is there a second? Thank you board member Ali Ali. Um all those in favor all right so we'll go ahead and move uh into executive session. Student representatives, you're welcome uh to Leave. Thank you. >> All right. Don't think my microphone is on. >> Testing. Testing. >> Testing. Yeah, it's on. I think >> there it is. Um uh so we'll journ in just a second, but just a reminder to all board members that at the second meeting of each month um the PAS culinary students are going to be making um a meal
038for us. So if you want to come early and get a meal, it's open to all staff as well. Um so 5:15 um there will also be like little to-go boxes in case people need to bring food up here um you can do that. Um and super appreciative to paths. And with that, I'd be making a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Thank you, board member Oppperman. All those in favor. All right. Uh we are adjourned at 7:15 p.m. Thank you. >> Good night.