001e e e I I call this meeting to order welcome everyone and good evening welcome to everyone in the room welcome everyone at home this is the Bangor school committee regular meeting today is Wednesday May 22nd it's right at 7 um so let's go ahead and get started and please rise for the United States of America the rep indiv thank you the first on the agenda we have a couple of recognition the first one is Main's 2024 P County teacher of the year taker thank you chair H the Bangor school department and the bangar school committee would like to recognize Bangor High School English teacher and graduation coach Emily throt as Main's 2024 pcot County teacher of the year 600 teachers across Maine were nominated with Emily being one of 16 chosen Maine County teachers
002of the Year serve as ambassadors for teachers students and schools throughout their years of service congratulations Emily have everyone student than next we have 2024 m m special education teacher yes thank you chair the Bangor School Department the Bangor school committee would like to recognize Bangor Regional program special education teacher Kendra Perry for the main Administration main administrators of services for children with disabilities special education teacher of the year Kendra was selected for her outstanding contributions to the field of special education congratulations Kendra and we've got one more person we'd like like to recognize tonight that was not on the agenda uh Luke Dean the second student of the committee in Banger school department history so second student representative on the school committee so we're very proud of you Luke um you've added a lot
003to our meetings you're insightful you're witty and I think you represent the community and your school with dignity and respect so we really appreciate you and the person that you are congratulations are there any adjustments to the agenda yes your we' like to strike D d2a from the agenda okay can I get a motion please so move second any questions or discussion all in favor thank you moving on to public comments and just as a quick reminder as always members of the public May address the school committee for up to three minutes on school and education matters public comments shall be directed to the school committee and be brief and not repetitive the school committee's practice is not to respond or debate with speakers during the public comment period we are here to listen the
004superintendent or his staff will follow up on comments outside of the meeting as appropriate the committee will not permit profanity or shouting and request that speakers be civil discussion of specific Personnel or student matters and complaints concerning specific employees or students will not be allowed but will be addressed through established policies and procedures before speaking we encourage speakers to review school committee policy ACD which provides that the committee does not and will not discriminate nor tolerate discrimination against students or employees on the basis of membership in a protected class speakers who share comments contrary to this policy will not be allowed to continue before uh starting please state your name in place of residence and do we have any public comments tonight saying none we move on to uh superintendent's proposals and updates um we
005have one action item and it's divides first three of fy2 budget business director Jerry Hyman will present our revised first reading of the fy2 budget you never heard this well good evening evening so when we last discussed the budget obviously you passed the um the second reading a little while ago we presented the city the city had we had a really nice dialogue with them there was a lot of discussion and they felt we could do a little bit of tweaking with the budgets and they suggested um some things we could do and we um agreed so I'm going to let you know what we've changed in the budget and what we haven't and then I'm going to hopefully briefly go over it tonight to get into first reading then on the 12th we'll take
006it into more detail for the second reading so that said there was a lot of discussion around um the um two large projects we had slated for school the step room renovation phase two and a loading dock renovation they felt that it could be better funded another way and out of the um budget itself so it didn't directly impact the mill rate so we work and work we analyze the schools fund balance and um the debt ratio Etc see what we could um do and at the end of it we decided that the school could use their fund balance for about half of those projects the city city was willing to use theirs for the other half a very good compromise and it got both projects out of the budget and therefore no direct mill
007rate impact the other change that we did we had $120,000 in there for a consultant for the state of main construction contracts our applications will be submitted in August then scored and only if scoring goes well would we need a consultant to do some further um studies so we decided to P 120,000 until such time as we got the score um couldn't kind of read the landscape whether investing that funds in a consultant would make sense at time so we uh P the 120,000 out of the budget for now and we'll address it later if we need to spend it we will probably that with our fund balance as well so in total there was three changes $910,000 it reduced the budget um nicely and um I'm going to go over the numbers now for
008you so this is the revised first reading I'll try to be brief I know you've seen a lot of this about three times already is there a in the this budget um that lays out what you just said just showing what I didn't include it in the in the um packet but I can certainly forward it to you I've done that one page I did it again so we made no stat changes no benefit changes so all the new positions that we've talked about over and over with the special education the ml teachers the um map coach they're all still in there nothing changed on that FR just those projects everything else remain the same I can get that to you um tomorrow morning I can shut down so we're going to start again with
009the ratios that we um have seen several times comparing Bangor to the state of Maine um in the categories that St lays out and the um the amount we dedicate to each category and this is the same numbers in graph form that you've seen a couple times already nothing obviously changed back so we're going to start with the always like to start with the revenue so um the 910,000 these are the um a lot of these are the same numbers of before but I'm going to again for you a reminder the um very first line is the required local appropriation that's what the state um tells you you should spend raise locally to support your school system for the structure and size that it is they analyze everything you can possibly imagine and they come
010up with a very complex formula and that number has not changed in any of the presentations and that remains at 19,2 $97,000 the amount that did change is the second line um we always spend more than the required local appropriation so that's the local appropriation above required and that amount is the one that changed the $910,000 so that's still um increase from last year well it's total is 10,365 th000 it's an increase from last year of 2,487 th000 so that what would be um required from the citizens of Bangalore to be raised through um taxes to fund our school the uh third one is the state aid that obviously has not changed um there was no last minute um extra money coming from the state in the budget um for the schools so it remains
011steady at 26 m426 th000 an increase um over last year is $572,000 the bottom numbers smaller revenues I obviously kept the same have not changed them since last year because they're really not what drives the um the needle so to speak but if you look at the very bottom the bottom budget now is below $60 million so the new budget total is 59 million 530,000 it's an increase of just over $3 million 3,30 1,000 their percent has dropped down to 5.37% so that's all in the right directions if you um from a taxpayer standpoint I think it's a better reflection of what the budget should be and obviously the increase is simply driven by Staffing at this point um as a reminder the numbers on the very right hand side of the slide there's one
012through 21 if you want to further definition of where the revenues come from the next two pages in your packet um give you a little brief answer to that question it's always good to as a refresher once in a while then we go on to look at the same numbers but in an expense form and we're looking at it for the account categories the state of main puts together they require every school department to do a budget with these categories because they need to compare apples to apples so this is probably the only time except for at the end of the year you're going to see a presentation in the account categories we usually look at it as you'll see in a few minutes and then the division format so all the numbers remain the
013same I'm going to tell you the ones that changed and the only ones that changed because of the projects a lot of the dollars were in our facilities maintenance as you can imagine there was $550,000 the Cabinetry for that project was in regular instruction that was $240,000 and the last $1 120,000 for the consultant was in the system administration so those are the only numbers on the whole page that have changed from previous versions that you've seen and once again you can see at the bottom the budget of $59 m530 th000 see the $3 million increase and the 5.37% increase and I have notes on any one of those sections you want to dive in we'll go deep um so just let me know and on the 12 what we'll do is we'll read these
014numbers in one at a time to make sure they're in on the record at the end we'll U you'll see the U the article that I'll help you vote on next SL so the um account categories I have notes on everyone correspond and you what what the categor doing in the school system and the um major increase factors of that category and the only one only thing that really disappeared from those notes are projects and um the consultant there a couple pages of that correspond with and uh this is bar graph of the count category you can see um L share of our dollars get spent on regular instruction and special education that that didn't change so then in your packet if you want I'm going to go through it fairly quickly but we take
015each account category we talk about what's in the account category from tools perspect for programming and then we break it down to correspond to the first page you already saw but in more detail so this is telling you is regular instruction was $25 million $382,000 an increase over last year and it shows you exactly where the increases came and then it goes on to the other nine categories I'll C slowly so you can see it but if you want me to stop I have notes on this as well so it goes in order um with first special education read it special education other instruction student staff support system administration which is where that $120,000 was school administration which is principles Etc Transportation that's our bus contract and the others transportation that we provide facilities maintenance
016that's that 550,000 was taken out of this made a big difference on that you can see the um year toe increase went down to 91,000 after taking those projects out Deb service remain the same I'm increasing this the anticipating and was good to see that I work with the city CFO we working on our um upcoming debt all the capital projects that we've done over the last three years together we've agreed to bond six of them starting with Cameron stadium and we've increased the budget anticipating that fonding coming on and those that service payments coming and the budget was spot on so good to good to hear good to see to approve and then all others it's a very small category so this is the um one that you see every month and you'll so
017also in your packet we have um I Mark T this is the budget divided up into our divisions so this are all our schools technology and service special educations in there because it's its own division so it breaks up the expenses you know obviously the total comes down to the same amount 0 5059 m530 th000 um so the only two that have changed from everything else you've seen before is all the projects were bangr high so bangr high was reduced by $790,000 and the $120,000 for the consultant was on the the business that's the only two numbers that changed on this whole umic and the UN increases the same the percentage is the same and yes I have notes on every one of them um for your reading enjoyment it tells you um what's going
018on and in the um Division and major increases or from here I'm sure you read those now this one again um compares the left hand column uh Compares with the U state aid every year the Upp or down the green is um the state aid going up and the um on the one on the left the local is are we putting more or less in from a local perspective and it started back in U 2010 it's so long I had to break it up into two pages but you can see the very bottom one you can see on the left the state on the increasing $572,000 that I refer to on the revenue slide and you can see the um the other one decreased by 910,000 but it's um going to be an increase of
0192 million $458,000 um request from the taxpayers and this is a a graph of the state sub we we like it when it goes up um starting to speak a little at the top but we like the trajectory over the last few years it's uh funding has been very good to the school department the next one a little more revealing this is um the state aid as a percentage of our budget and you can now the um the pil got slid over a little bit I apologize but hopefully you can see that we're it's going down now which means we're spending a little more than State AG is is not keeping up with it so we're the vered is now shifting to the um other local appropriation that's what it's telling you is the state
020aid was keeping up with our spending last last few years and it's turned the other way so we'll just have to monitor that so we don't overburden the taxpayers uh this is the charter schools you saw this before that hasn't changed and the mill rates it's not changed um since you've seen it from the very first meeting and the P graphs this is um physical 24 and 25 and you can see the slices between the um categories the state of main puts together really doesn't change much you can see the yellow and from this angle it's like paint but it's reg instruction and special education are the biggest wedges whole p and next time uh we'll U read these one at a time if you're um an agreement that the budget is the way it
021should be um to formally accept the budget at the second meeting so that's first five articles and three pages but we'll we'll read them one at a time and vote on them if you're in agreement so I think that's all I have for you um if you have any questions please let me know and I'll answer them like I said three changes and um makes a big difference $910,000 thank you so much thank you ation second any question none all in favor that's a seven Z thank you Jerry that was um next we have a couple of informational items the first is report of reassignments for school year 2425 I'm reporting the following teacher reassignments for the school year 2024 2025 Laura Clark from grade three teacher at Downey school to grade three teacher at
022Fruit Street School Megan Bridges from grade two teacher at 14th Street School to grade eight English teacher at James F Dy School Jessica think from spe language pathologist at William S Cohen School to 4 fth speech language pathologist at William S Cohen School thank you next report of resignations for school year 2425 thank you I'm reporting the following teacher resignations for the school year 2024 2025 Sarah Woodworth English teacher Bangalore High School Patricia Hafner grade three teacher Abraham Lincoln School Suzanne Galant five speech language pathologist Bango Regional program James bashard music teacher has come school thank you U moving on to business action items um and then we have one action item and it's the minutes of the regular meeting of May 8th 2024 recommending approval of the draft minutes of the May 8th 2024
023regular school committee meeting can I get a motion please so move second any question or discussion all in favor 70 you next um the March 2024 financial report I'm recommending approval of the March 2024 financial report motion please so seconded any questions or discussion all in favor 70 thank you um next we have Personnel we have teacher nomination recommending the following teacher nominations for the 2024 2025 school year with a one-year probationary contract Jennifer Parks kindergarten teacher Abraham Lincoln School Jamie Pernell physical science teacher Bangor High School Carly peler special education teacher Fruit Street School motion second any questions for discussion all in favor 601 thank you next we have extra Duty assignment recommending committee approval of the following extra Duty assignments for the school year 20124 2025 Aon santier grade eight team leader James
024up County School Tom Sullivan assistant football coach Bangor High School second any questions or discussion all in favor 61 thank you next is the big one administrator nomination we have superintendent of school the bang school committee will nominate a superintendent of schools for the 2024 2025 school year okay and before I read off the nomination I have just few words please bear with with me so first and foremost I'd like to acknowledge the intense search process that we all went through I also want to recognize um not only my fellow search uh school committee members but also an Extended search committee that included 10 other individuals um in addition to us so in February the Bangor school committee contracted the main School management association to conduct a nationwide search we had an exceptional pool of
025highly qualified candidates to choose from and we considered ourselves extremely fortunate now as one of my colleagues here put it we had luxury of choice following the competitive search and selection process in many many hours that included feedback from community members through our superintendent search survey and staff listening forums extensive applicant screening and interviews with extended search committee members it then moved to just the seven of us for the second round and final interview we did background and reference checks and made our decision based on the input gathered from this entire extensive process we are absolutely thrilled and pleased to announce the nomination of Dr Marie Robinson as the superintendent of schools we believe she has the leadership Vision skills and experience to lead our district a little bit about about uh Dr Robinson Dr
026Robinson is an Innovative Progressive and dedic ated leader with over 25 years of experience the majority of Dr Robinson's career has been spent in the Philadelphia area um where she taught elementary and middle school for 15 years before she Shi before she shipped it out of the classroom to serve as an instructional coach and later a building principal Dr Robinson and her family moved to Maine in 2016 when she accepted the prek 12 building principal position at RSU 89 Cath in schools in 2019 she was named a district superintendent and earned her PhD in education in 2021 with a focus on learning instruction and Innovation during her tenure at Kaden schools she has supported Innovative efforts to enhance the public school experience by expanding Pathways for high school students integrating Elementary curriculum and utilizing the
027outdoors as a strategy to deepen learning and support mental health theau in schools as a result has been recognized the past three years by the US News and World Report achieving a 100% graduation rate and three of the last six years and increasing attendance by 5% and just last year katad Middle High School was named number three in the state of Maine in 2024 so as um on that note can I get a motion please so move second any questions or discussion all in favor zero thank you conr the committee and myself I'm proud to welcome you here Dr Robinson please thank you so much chair I am just truly honored um and grateful to be nominated and approved as the next Bangor School Department superintendent um I'm thrilled for this opportunity as you did
028mention a lot I did uh come from Philadelphia those are my roots that's the the um the accent that you hear and it comes out at random times so you will hear it um but again I've come to grow love and um just been truly truly amazed at the um community in Maine and I'm excited and and just so so thrilled to be able to get to know the student staff and community here in the Bangor uh school department so thank you so much and I'm looking forward to this journey congratulations so we move on to Second reading of revice policies and may we take them all together sure thank you chair revice policy GDB 5 lunch a compensation guide revised policy GDB 6 Executive Office comp compensation guide Revis policy GDB 7 support staff
029compensation guide Revis policy GDB 8 adult and Community Education compensation guide revised policy GDB 9 supplemental compensation guide revised policy GDB 10 educational technology staff compensation guide I revised policy ingaa service animals and schools revised policy jic AA student self-expression revised policy jic bull in schools revised policy JLA local wellness program revised policy jlc da medical marijuana in schools revised policy jld dbg reintegration of students from juvenile correction facilities thank so move second any questions or discussion on any other all in favor 7 Zer thank you um next we have donation uh read by uh member s thank you chair to the Abraham Lincoln school from cassella waser a cash donation for students having a total dollar value of 2,000 to Vine Street School from Hanford a cash donation for students having a total dollar
030value of 538 to Fairmount school from Maine Savings main Credit Unions campaign for ending hunger a cash donation having a total dollar value of $1,585 54 to Fairmount school from the fields Pond aabon Center 20 packs filled with student field student field study supplies having a total dollar value of 950 to Bangor High School from Walmart Food donation for Teacher Appreciation Week having a total dollar value of 300 to James F dowy school from George and Mary Wright a cash donation for the library having a total dollar value of than you um motion please second any question discussion all in favor 7 Zer next we have several and um first reading of Revis policies and may we take them all together please recommending first reading of revised policies revised policy KDA Public Information Program revised
031policy kdb Public's right to know freedom of access revised policy KF Community use of school facilities revised policy kgd Community use of instructional equipment materials revised policy kcd public gifts or donations to the school revised policy khb advertising and schools revised policy Ki visitors to the schools revised policy kja distribution of non-school materials revised policy klg relations with school resource officers and law enforcement authorities revised policy k& AG reporting child abuse neglect and revised policy LEC educational research and surveys interviews or evaluations of students family or faculty motion please move second any questions or comment all in favor 7 Z thank you moving on to committee updates any comments and or questions from the committee joh thank you um I just wanted to give a shout out to all of the staff teachers principles everyone
032who made the week of testing um digestible and dare I say enjoyable for the kiddos um this was my child's first goar around with standardized testing and as a person I had struggled with test anxiety and I was worried about his ability to cope with that and I was trying not to project but he did get very nervous the week before um but whatever they were doing in the school and what he came home with and the little cheering card and the you can do this notes that they got um and the in his particular School gifts gift bags made from second graders to hand up to third graders um he came back feeling super confident after day one ripb and ready to go day two and said Mom that was actually pretty fun which
033I never thought I'd hear about a standard s test so whoos to everybody um I don't obviously don't know everyone's experience across the board but I'm sure you all did a wonderful job and made that the best experience it could be so thank you all very much remember FR thank you uh I just wanted to add a word of thanks to member du Blan for your service with us it's hard to give up this many evenings uh people I think tend to think the hardest thing about well we all have to run for office but you had to go through a process too to get selected to this and uh it's hard to put your name forward but it's also hard to be here when it's 85 degrees and sunny outside and all your friends
034are probably out doing things and your commitment has just been exemplary I think you f F this role amazingly well and also brought really good insights into the high school to us as Sophia has as well uh but I feel fortunate to have served alongside you here and it'll be fun to watch your track from here and just hope you enjoy graduation all the fun activities that come along with it I also just wanted to add another word of Welcome to our new superintendent your husband it's nice to meet you both have you here I think you'll find that people in Bangor really love our schools it's a very pro-education community and people are supportive and appreciative of the people in them which you will be soon yourself so I think you'll be greeted with
035a warm welcome I hope so anyways and I'll be excited to see how how you bring your own talents and insights and perspective to bear so looking forward to working with you number Bren I would just like to say well obviously welcome Dr Robinson Robert M to have you here um and thank you to the everyone as you said Mara that was participating in this search it was um a lot of collaborative art conversations and I know a lot of people gave up a lot of time for that we were really lucky to have the community that we do um I also wanted to say um just a public thanks and acknowledgement for Patricia hner the third grade teacher at Abraham Lincoln um who is moving on she is a phenomenal future I will speak
036for my colleague here M throughout we have children in her class um and have they have had such a bright intuitive kind and welcoming experience um as her last year Abraham Lincoln thanks to the way that she framed a lot of her education um with a lot of uh sharing and of personal connection and some really valuable people and I would be remiss if I didn't publicly acknowledge and than for her her time here at at than scho Department thank you I I also want to recognize Patricia hapner my son and daughter had her for third grade this year they absolutely adore her um I know she's going to be greatly missed at the Abraham Lincoln School and third grade is a it's a tough school year for a lot of reasons some of it
037is the standardized testing it's a it's a challenging year academically both for students and teachers and I Mrs hner just does it with Grace with Talent and she'll be she'll be missed thank you coms I want to open up by just congratulating our new superintendent uh congratulations uh I also just yeah I want to close out by just saying I'm grateful really to all of you on the committee for welcoming me in the last couple of years I've had a really good time it's been a learning experience I remember back when I was a kid and I thought the superintendent's only job was to let Mom and Dad know about snow days I thought that was the only thing they did that's not the case now clear that up I didn't know until like last
038year so learning experience and I'm really grateful I've been able to get a better understanding of how our community really functions and uh I'm planning on going into education as a part of what I'm doing high school and I would not B First Choice yeah con um I wanted to give a a Vib um sorry it's okay I just want to make sure nobody else has any questions trying to move it along s any other I do have a quick comment too and I have to a quick shout out to um Vice chair luchano and member s because the three of us served as an ad hoc um search committee members um in addition to what we all did there was a lot of behind the scenes that a lot of people you know did
039not see a lot you know reviewing the um hiring policy and coming up with the questions and doing a lot of the work so many many many hours and long nights I think for all of us for all seven of us oftentimes from 4 to 9: and so and um I've heard in the community people say well that was so bad we have dedicated school committee members um you know gave up many many nights many of us have young children you know so we left them with our partners and spouses and um this was a wonderful process and again much credited to all of you they want to acknowledge that um on to Representatives reports um so again I want to think up to you to um congratulate Dr welcome um to the bangro school
040uh Department congratulations to you as well graduation and your excellent service on the school committee um and to everyone on this board in the large resch committee it was a it was a a long process but you guys made it efficient fun effective I appreciate um so I wanted to give an update on the Dei deib I don't know if Tim wanted to talk a little bit about the um training that we not training it was more of a collaborative effort with um a lot of the other school committee members across the state um just getting the ball rolling about um having larger discussions about U the working sure I'd be happy to yeah um yeah and then I I talked a little bit about this at The Retreat that we had recently so I've
041been working with Steve Bailey over the last few weeks to put out a sort of a a solicitation to all um school committee members throughout the state who serve on school committees and also serve on some type of diversity Equity inclusion and belonging advisory committee so Russ Shelly and and Mara this year um and just sort of a an ask for or looking into interests from others to come together and have some sort of community um during the 2024 2025 school year and potentially meet on multiple occasions share ideas uh identify common problems barriers initiatives and potentially just support one another within a community um and just kind of expand the work to to a Statewide level so um we we had our initial meeting um about a week ago uh we had 50 member
04250 school committee members from across the state Register to the msba um meeting and 20 attended chair Hassen and member of Cary myself were there and 17 others and we had a really powerful discussion and and there's a lot of interest in in coming together multiple times um next year to sort of support one another in this work going forward thanks thank you member and thank you for just um proposing that idea and getting involved rooll on I'm very excited about what's to come from that collaboration um also the um diversity Equity inclusion belonging um advisory committee met yesterday um BL together and um we had a great a robust discussion about um closing the loop of um the work of the advisory committee and um when the recommendations this time it will be happening
043um in the June meeting the advisory committee does the report out in just um ways that that advisory committee can get feedback about whether the recommendations are wild whether they're being implemented um and it was a very good and discussion I think a lot of things will come out of that um to make advisory committee feel more purposeful um in their impact um yeah so that's update I'll let the more update since they're going to be doing a complete update um next June I mean Jun to come on June any other represent okay staying on let's move on um to student Committee Member update you have any um the seniors got to have fun at prom last Saturday I think my invite might have gotten lost um and they also had their awards ceremony last
044night where they were um while a group of seniors were awarded the superintendent supp just a couple updates about some upcoming events uh Memorial Day per is going to be hosted on Monday the 27th stepping off around 10:15 in downtown Bangalore RTC is holding the change of command on Wednesday the 29th so I'm all used up they're all done with me RTC down there and I'm proud to announce that Eva kums who is a rising senior is going to be the one I my shoes and she's a very very confident leader very kind person and I can't think of a better person to take control of that group so it's Wednesday the 29th at the high school in Peaks aoran and Senior salute is going to be held June 6th procedes looking forward to all
045the activities um moving on to information items we have several inform dates Sunday June 9th 2024 we get to celebrate Luke and others um Bangor High School graduation 4M at the Cross Insurance Center uh Wednesday June 12 2024 we have um a workshop with City councilor 6:m right here at the library uh Wednesday June 12 2024 another regular meeting 7 p.m. here in the liary Library um Tuesday June 18th 20 2024 we have our end of year recognition uh uh here um at the B at Bangor High at 7:45 a.m. and school committee members are encouraged to attend um as we all know June our June 26 regular meeting has been cancelled and then Wednesday July 17 2024 another regular meeting 7M right here in the library Final Call for questions and or comments from
046the committee n adjournment can I get a motion please so move second get