Five Town CSD School Board Meeting 03/04/2026

001Thank you for being here. Uh, welcome to the 5TB CSD regular school board meeting for Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 here in the Camden Hills Forest Room. Do we have any adjustments to the agenda? >> There's one slight adjustment and that is item number five recognition is going to happen at 7:30. So, it will likely not be item number five. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, public comment on items not on the agenda. So, we have a sign in signin sheet that Lewis had when you walked in and I know we have a few people who have signed up for commenting on non-aggenda items. Uh, I will call your name. Uh, if you want to come and sit in at this table, uh, say who you are, what town you represent, and your affiliation. Uh, you have

002three minutes uh, to share your comments. Just so people know, we the board receives comments. We don't engage in a back and forth. Uh so but we do welcome your your participation in in your comments. So uh we have a countdown clock and so once you begin talking I will start that countdown. So uh first person on our list was Faith. Faith Ben. >> Sorry. I'm hi Faith Our um resident of Rockport uh for many years and also a 50-year teacher here at the high school beginning when it was Camden High School, then Camden Rockport, then Camden Hills. I want to applaud and a US history and government teacher and I want to applaud the students and the administration for their protests. Uh recently it received some negative reports in the press uh saying that

003it was uh the loss of 30 minutes of class time and so forth. My point is that that 30 minutes was probably more educational than what might have been taking place at the same time. As a staunch defender of Amendment One, it is the students right to protest. I thought it was done well. There might have been one sign that was inappropriate that was taken down, but I applaud the students and the administration. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Just make sure that the voice is picked up. >> So, I've already been in contact with Colin and that the mic will pick that up. Thank you. >> Next up, Liz Dailyaly. Come on down. >> Hello, Liz Dailyy. Rockport. So yes, I um support what Faith talked about. I support the students and their

004experience or their effort in protesting. Uh the protest took place on school grounds which I thought was a safe place. Um it was peaceful. Students made signs and listened to a few speakers. Um one of my favorite signs is democracy is not a spectator sport. Democracy requires engagement, being informed, whether it's writing, calling representatives, attending town halls, or using our three minutes to share our opinions, or protesting. Never mind the Boston Tea Party. Protesting extends throughout our 250 year history. I support the students and those who chose to protest and those who did not. Choices, right? This was a safe place and time to practice a few democratic small D skills. Um, and also provides for a well-rounded education. This is citizenship. I hope that you as a board support our students in this effort.

005Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Judy. Well, good evening and thanks for this opportunity to speak to our school board. Um, I'm Judy Gove. I'm a resident of Camden, retired educator, and mom to three grown kids who graduated from this school and grandmother to a little guy who's at Rockport, Camden Rockport Elementary, and a 12-year-old granddaughter who's at the middle school. So, I just want to thank this school and community for the amazing opportunities our kids have to learn, to grow, to engage. And I think of our schools as kind of an incubator, a nursery for democracy where they learn to think critically, where they learn to hear other perspectives and ideas and really investigate what it is to be part of our communities, part of our schools, and be engaged. So, I want to

006thank you. I echo what my fellow retired educators have just said. Uh we're all kind of students of history and I think this is a historic moment. I do remember 1970 when we were all horrified and stunned by Kent State. And well, this is a different moment. And many years later, there's some similarities where I think we were all stunned and horrified, many of us anyway, thousands across the country, and with the ice surge in Minneapolis. And I know our young people were scared, were wondering, were horrified by what was going on with that ice surge and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Prey. They're adolescents. Their job is to think and question and wonder and start articulating their own viewpoints and concerns. So, thank you for giving them that opportunity and keep up

007the good work. >> Thank you. We really appreciate people coming and sharing their thoughts and supporting our schools and our students. Last week was public schools week, so I think we can still factor that into celebration here. Uh next up we have Jude. Um just a point of clarification. Um this is this is an agenda item, but there wasn't a another way to sign in to speak to um morning meetings uh morning club meetings because I know the student reps are right there speaking about that. Should so should I wait? >> Do you want to just add on to what they will be presenting on? >> Uh yeah, I think that would be more appropriate in terms of rules of the meeting. That's correct. >> There just wasn't a way to sign up that way.

008Thank you. And then last on this list is Kim Bernard. >> Okay. Thank you for allowing us to uh have an opportunity to speak. So I'm representing uh myself as the hatchery uh maker space manager. Um I just found out on Friday that my position was at risk of being eliminated. I was just hired this past year. So, I've been here seven seven months. Um, so I composed a letter. I think this would be the most concise way to convey information to you. >> I think this might be more appropriate for the budget. >> Okay. >> That's fine. If you think >> because you're speaking on a budget piece, so do you mind waiting until >> I don't mind at all. Wherever it's most appropriate. >> Thank you. Right. Next up is minutes. We need

009approval of the February 4th regular school board meeting minutes and the February 11th special joint board meeting draft minutes. >> Second. >> Any conversation? All those in favor? >> Great. Thank you. Uh we're going to slot in our recognition uh at the appropriate time when folks arrive. So we'll get back to that. Next up is stipen nominations. >> We have two uh spring sport nominations on here. Girls softball and boys JB tennis. >> I'll move the stipens. >> Second. Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? Great. Thank you. Year three, midyear strategic plan updates. >> So in the left hand side of your folder, you should see a document that is has some pretty pink on it. That's the document that we're going to be looking at for this. this um you had seen

010the implementation plan likely in the fall or in August at the board workshop, can't remember which meeting you start at, of what the plan was for this year, which we're in year three of our strategic plan and we've mapped out um the action strategies we're going to be working on this year. And generally in February or March, we share with you a midyear progress report based on where we are with each of the action items that were slated for this year. And in the column to the right, you will see those updates. You know, they're they're fairly short updates. Like if if something was done, then it just notes that it was done or some things have not yet been started. And um others have a tiny bit more detail, but you will be able

011to kind of see those I and you can take a minute to have you look down. You might want to just look down the righth hand column to see if you might have questions that are um you know arise when you're looking at where the progress is. But we have completed a lot of the activities that are in this plan. Um a few of them have not been started. Some of them are just ongoing things that happened throughout the year. Um, but I feel like we have made excellent progress on this this year. Mo most things have been done in progress. I didn't know if people had any questions or not, but this is really just to give you a check-in. You know, most of the administrators include updates on their monthly reports to you

012anyway. about the progress they're making, but this is just like a snapshot that we've been providing midway through the year. Uh, in looking at this, it seems like there's two big ones that are not started and have due dates coming up. So, I would just be helpful to learn more about the ELO piece and kind of where we might be on that. And then the one on page five in terms of using framework results to effectively address the findings of the review processing additional PD and purchasing of new curriculum and and instructional materials. I assume that means based on the DEI work, right? >> So I can speak to that one. Um so the framework will be reviewed um in the departments at the individual schools middle and the high school and then we we

013will begin a unit review but the budget cycle is not such that we could have done that had any suggested so and you'll notice it says year four besides use framework result >> so that would be next year so it's it's a little misleading that it's actually in this plan. They should have they could have been connected. But so this is year three. We'll do the review of the um framework and look at that with the social studies departments and then if there are recommendations, we'll capture those. They'll go department heads and principles to be considered for next year's budget process. If there's anything that's really critical and essential, then we could look at some other funding sources for the fall. But I think in general our curriculum has been pretty responsive and we had

014new materials purchased this year for English and um some other textbooks that were more um representative of current materials. So I don't think we'll be catching anything that's a big gap. Um especially with social studies being the first area for review. >> Thank you. Yep. >> I would ask Jen to to speak to Marx's other question about council. Sorry, sitting. It's okay. >> We have a bigger crowd than usual. Um, so originally when I had put the timing for the ELO component, I didn't anticipate that we would have such a robust increase in our offerings. And so really first semester was around um creating systems for getting our referral process through the application. and we really have in increased it's the highest number we've ever had for ELO's and so we really wanted that process

015to fully be fleshed out before we went to then figuring out how to strategically incorporate it with our within her junior year. We've had conversations um with uh Elaine and Colin Malone to try to find out the appropriate timing, but I really wanted to honor the process that was happening. And even though I picked a date in August, it didn't feel appropriate now. >> So, >> okay, that makes sense. >> Okay. I apologize if you address this and I missed it, but I was just wondering um if there's an update for focus area three, sustainability, the first action um strategy. It looks like that Dell is blank for u minimize use of materials that contribute to human illness or climate change. >> Yeah, if you notice the how I think the how was supposed to

016be over to the right. Oh, got it. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Okay, if anything comes up, you have this and can always email. >> All right. Updated FY27 budget presentation. Okay, I need a second to just connect to the screen. Um, I'm going to whip through the budget presentation again. >> No. Okay. So, I'm going to go quickly through some of the um slides quicker than last time. So, this is an update since you've last seen the budget. The expense increase is now at 3.76%. In February, it was 3.93%. So it's gone down slightly and the taxpayer increase is at 5.49%. And in February it had been 5.48%. So you might wonder why did the expenses go down but the taxpayer increase go up just a tiny bit and that answer is

017because we lost more revenues than reduced expenses if that makes sense because it's a factor of those two things. So, you know, in in this budget, we've fine-tuned some interd district expenditures, and that's actually one of the biggest changes in the revenue line was an interd district expenditure where we had charged some of the um we had charged something the IP coordinator, the high school had had also been in the combined district expenses and it is not a combined district expense. So that decreased the revenues coming from the SAD because they they don't share the IEP coordinator. I would suggest since this is the very beginning of this budget presentation and we just saw the uh police I mean the fire team arrive that we do the recognition. >> I would agree. >> Okay. So

018how about those being recognized and fire chief can join him. Come right up to the front. right here. >> Uh, do you want to just sit at the table >> table just so we can catch the audio too? >> You're welcome. Thank you for joining us. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. So tonight we are recognizing Bennett Cohen who is to my right and Connor Howland who's in the middle. They are both seniors at Camden Hills and they're both employees at Camden's fire department. We also have Fire Chief Farley here with us tonight. Bennett and Connor, who also happened to be certified as EMTs, helped save the life of a Tobagan racer at the recent Tobagan Nationals at the Snowball. And for that, we are immensely proud and grateful, and that's why they're here tonight being

019recognized. Their commitment to both their education and service to the community are remarkable. They both embody our vision for Camden Hills graduates. the list of safety programs they have completed that Chris sent to me, but was such a long list that I'm like, this is too long to try to read, but it is impressive. So, they have completed many, many safety programs through the fire department. Um, and their time commitment as firefighters has been tremendous. It's pretty amazing that these guys are, you know, on the firefighting team employed by the town and they're they do incredibly well at school as well. So, what they balance is pretty amazing. Um, so we just wanted to thank you both, tell you to keep up the great work. We are very proud of you. You're an inspiration to

020many. And as a little reward, I couldn't help but get you some lifesavers. Thank you. Excellent. Come back. >> Conor and Bennett, can you guys come back up for a second? I think the board wants to ask you a question. >> Couple question. >> Thank you again for joining us and for for your heroic actions and for your service to the town. Just wanted to give a moment for the board to see if they had any questions, but also if you wanted to kind of tell us anything about your experiences of going to school, getting this training, being on the fire force, uh, you know, what how do you balance all of that? >> Um, it's not as difficult as you may think. um it's not really um you know things like calls that happen

021aren't ever planned so you never know what type of a commitment you're making in one week um besides our scheduled trainings. Um but I mean me and Bennett have been doing it since winter of freshman year. Um that's when we got involved around December 2022. Um and um basically we thought going into it that we weren't going to do too much. we thought, you know, well, you know, this is pretty fun. You know, we like it, but um I don't know how far we're going to take it. Um and then a couple months, well, right after the summer, we were offered a opportunity to go to the fire academy through the um Knox County Fire Training Academy. Um and we took that opportunity to um do that. It was about a six-month course. Um and

022then at the end of that um both obtained our firefighter one and two proboard certifications. Um and then over this past summer we uh were made aware of the opportunity to take a class uh uh EMT course through um Connecticut Valley Community College um that was hosted in South Thomasson. So very local. Um EMT is something that uh I think me and Bennett were both looking for. We actually thought we would become EMTs first. Um we can both uh attest to that. Um so we were very enthusiastic about taking the course and um again it was about a six-month course from September to around end of January. Um and then at the end of that we um both took our tests and u pass the uh national registry test. Um, so that certifies you and

023all all places that accept National Registry, which are almost every single state in the United States. Um, and a few other places. Um, and yeah, those are like the two big things we've done that were out of that list that I just wanted to highlight. Um, but the actual value you get out of the experience, um, is second to none. Um, you know, I've always loved working with people. Um, and you know, getting to help them in a difficult time is something even better than that. Um, and it is like really hard to describe like, you know, the balance of how much fun you have doing it. Um, and the good feeling you get at the end of the day from doing it. Um, and a lot of people, um, me and Bennett both get

024questions all the time at school like, "Oh, you know, did you know what was going on here or were you at this or you know, how does that work?" And, you know, we get a lot of questions. Everyone thinks we're like always technically working um, 24/7 and we really are because we're on call 24/7. And, you know, you never know. like we'd be we could have been up at 2:00 a.m. this morning and, you know, not gone back to bed till 6:00 and then wake up an hour later and go to school or come straight to school from an incident. Um, I mean, there's been plenty of times where that's happened. But, um, yeah, and it's maybe Bennett can take over. All right, I'm losing my whole thing, but I'll try to wrap this up

025a little bit, BUT I think I've said a lot of things there. I'm just going to mention kind of a last last bit, which I think is super important, and I think it's kind of Connor and both my goal in these last couple months we have here at Kimon Hills. We really want to emphasize to all of our students that this is something that anybody can do. Every single fire department and EMS department within Knox, Lincoln, and Waldo, they all need volunteers >> and everybody's capable of it. We We both started when we were 14. We even at 14 were able to have a positive impact on our community. Through getting certifications, you can have a greater positive impact on the community and specifically, you know, people in these situations. So hopefully with your support

026and some things that we're planning, we really want to emphasize to the entire student body that this is an opportunity and we hope to uh get some enrollment in these local departments who are really looking for anybody. So we have a great group of young people who want to help and uh that's exactly what the fire and EMS service needs. So >> it's great. Do you plan to further pursue this as as your careers? >> At this point, I honestly not sure exactly what my career is going to be. This is always going to be part of my life. I'm going to keep on educating myself in the fire and EMS field. I'm going to, >> you know, increase my education in EMS. I don't know if that's advanced or paramedic and continue, but this

027is always going to be a part of my life. >> Yeah, I'd have to say the same. Um, yeah, it's not something that's ever going to go away now. Um, you know, I I still figuring things out. Um, but I I've, you know, sort of set myself up to, you know, keep myself flexible in the future. So, um, it's a good possibility. It's somewhere I could end up for a little bit. Um, not sure the exact direction. Um but you know I plan to pursue again like Bennett said um you know stuff in EMS and advanced skills in there. Um you know for my schooling I'm minoring in EMS so um that'll be a big part of my schooling. Um so I do hope to incorporate it somehow into my future. >> Anybody else have

028questions? Well, thank you again. >> Thank you. >> Okay, back to the budget. Not quite as excited, though. So, In addition to fine-tuning those interd district expenditures, we are doing the first phase of the windows and siding project. >> Um, we are in the last year of the teacher contract. We have not begun support staff negotiations. We're in a good financial position to build both the capital reserve fund and the undesated fund balance, which is good news for us. This is a look at our tenure enrollments at the high school. These are October enrollments. So this October the enrollment was 739. We're expecting it to be um around 700, just over our our projections have actually been high most years, you know, sort of based on trends, but it's been it's been coming in a

029little under than what we've projected. So, you know, hopefully we'll hit 700 next year, but you can see that that's been a bit of a decrease, especially the last few years. And unless we get a whole lot of more young families moving into our area, the enrollment will continue to decline. I mean, I have said this to the board in the past, if things continue the way they are, in 10 years, there'll only be 500 students at the high school. So that's a significant decline unless something changes with the housing market probably is the biggest factor in that. So on the expense side, the major impacts to this budget are that siding and windows project which the bond payment will be about is a loan payment $120,000 a year. This is just phase one and

030so we'll we've got three to four phases. So this is probably the year that has the largest expense. Chris Walker Spencer can correct me if I'm wrong with that. I think this is the most expensive year and then next year is a little less expensive. So we expect the payment to be a we'll add another payment next year and then a small payment the third year. And hopefully what was planned in phase four, we're going to do in years one, two, or three. But that's a big project that is about to go online at the high school. And we are still paying the loan we took out for the HVAC project that we did this past summer. We in this budget, we have three fewer staff positions that are currently staffed at um the school.

031I'll get into more detail on those when I get to the other lines. We've moved one ed tech position to be paid for through local entitlement. So that also saves money in the local budget. We in we budgeted 10% increase for health insurance which amounts to about a $213,000 increase to the budget. We haven't got we won't get our health insurance increase until after you have approved the budget. So, we're we're just going to stick with a 10% increase. We've only gotten minimal information that they hope the cap will be similar to what it was last year at 14%. We were high as a district, so I think 10% is probably a pretty good estimate for us. I don't expect it to come in a whole lot less than that. Hopefully, it won't come in

032higher. We've also added in this budget 1.5 um equivalent of 1.5 support staff to the central office and that is a half-time accounts receivable position and then the full-time equivalent of an administrative assistant to support four departments or four different roles. The facilities director, transportation director, the assistant superintendent, and the business manager. On the revenue side, we did get a decrease in our state subsidy by close to $120,000 and that was mainly due to significant decreases in Rockport and Hopes subsidies. We had a $19,000 increase in special ed tuition from other SAUs and we increase the SAD share of admin services. Did we adjust that number, Chris, from what it had been? I don't know. Don't hold me to that $85,000 because we also had a decrease in that revenue line and I'm not sure

033I updated that particular figure, but we had an overall increase in the SAD share even with that reduction. The 10-year look at the percent increases to our budget. The um row in pink is this year and you can kind of look back. The top row is the expense change and the bottom row is the impact to taxpayer. So this year we're at 3.76% to the expense budget and 5.49% to the taxpayer. Our average is just over 4% for the expense increase over the past 10 years and an average of 4.4% to the taxpayer. And again, that's the average to the district as a whole. That varies each year town to town depending on a number of factors. So now going through the articles, the regular instruction line has an increase of 1.8%. 8%. Teacher wages

034are budgeted at 3%. Healthc increase at 10%. We this year we carried a one-year computer science position and a one-year science position that were advertised and known to be one-year positions. So, those aren't in the budget next year because this was the year that they existed. And we are also planning, this is a change from the February meeting, we're planning to eliminate the hatchery workshop manager position and instead covering that with extra capacity we have in the English and visual and performing arts departments. So we're taking some extra capacity and current staffing to staff the hatchery workshop and eliminating the manager position. That is a change from February's meeting where the plan had been to eliminate an English position. >> Rick, thank you. Maria, could you explain what you mean by the I'm sorry, covering

035excess what was the language you used about >> excess capacity in English and visual performing arts departments? treat me like I'm a fool and >> so >> please >> they there are um not enough courses to fill all of the teaching positions that we have because we have more capacity than we need and that's part of the reason why we were planning to eliminate an English teacher because we had ex this year we had extra capacity in the English department and next year we have a reduction of 40 students so that will yield more capacity. So, we were planning to eliminate that position. Instead, we're going to use some of that excess capacity in the English department. There's also some capacity in the visual and performing arts department. And we're going to take those, let's

036just call them, empty um periods that a teacher would have that they don't have a class that they otherwise would have a class. those they'll they'll cover the hatchery workshop during that time that they don't have an English class or visual performing arts class. >> Okay. So they'll be essentially teaching not doing manager rules. >> Um not it the the what happens in the hatchery won't fundamentally change. So I would say not necessarily teaching you know sometimes it is kind of some of it is managing some of it will be integrating it in with other courses and other teachers like you know we have the freshman science class global science comes into the hatchery and does a project they'd be sort of helping manage that project when it came in they would be doing the

037work of the hatchery manager and it might change a little bit like it might be more integrated into other programs happening, curricular programs in the school, but fundamentally there'll be students coming into the hatchery working on their own projects just like there are now. Um so we're philosophically not changing um the vision of the hatchery. Um it's just going to be um like staffed differently that could provide some new opportunities to integrate a little bit more fully with kind of the traditional programming. Okay. But the teachers in those other program or maybe it's just the English program would just be basically covering hatchery work. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Two questions. We had a presentation actually in this room a few weeks ago about some of what I'm assuming falls under that role. The

038the the maker space, um the really cool recycled benches. How would an English teacher and a visual and performing arts teacher um be expected to manage projects like that? And if they are, is there going to be any kind of different or additional professional development provided on that front? >> This is where Jen gets to step in and address some of these details. >> I'd say thank you, Cricket. I I knew the questions were going to come. Um so Maria started talking about the fact that um we're calling it a teacher-led co-op model and this originated actually from a VPA teacher who is uh actually created the maker space at Lincoln Academy. I don't know if you've ever been to Lincoln Academy, but they have a pretty state-of-the-art um facility. It's a maker space and

039STEM facility. That idea came from her. She created that space. So, I feel comfortable in the fact that we do have not just existing capacity, but we have resources within the building. Albeit, it probably wasn't what was the first thing they listed on their resume. Um, but part of the the teacherled co-op will be ensuring that we have professional development over the summer. safety is a concern, how we conduct ourselves in the spa in the space. Sorry, I'm dealing with a cold, so my voice goes up and down. But um essentially, we have concerns related to how do we maintain the safety that we have in the space? How do we ensure that students have orientation, maintenance of equipment? So those are all elements that we have um not completely developed in terms of our

040professional development but we have identified things that we are going to address over the summer with it's actually three departments potentially maybe more departments that we'll be integrating um within that model. I apologize for not knowing this. Do we have um what I would have called like a shop program uh in in this high school? >> Um the space itself used to be called the shop. Yep. >> Industrial arts. Got it. Industrial arts. >> Industrial arts. The shop. It is that space for just a component of the hatchery. So I think one of the things that we're also envisioning is we have the commons which we can take you into that space but it isn't the space necessarily. It's what students are doing that's an interdisiplinary experiential learning and the albeit the workshop the maker

041space it has more tangible evidence but you know podcast social change. So the hatchery itself is a much larger umbrella and part of this co-op is looking to leverage all aspects of it. Um which I think is it's an exciting, you know, kind of focal point for teachers right now to think about how we can reinvision the space. Maria mentioned the nth grade program. We've already had opportunities for now, if you recall maybe two months ago, you approved in English 11. We have great numbers. It's pretty exciting. The curriculum hasn't been developed and so that's prime to incorporate it within the hatchery uh co-op model. So there's been an kind of influx of ideas and excitement into the hatchery. And for me that's the reason why I feel comfortable pushing uh or promoting this model

042as a co-op moving forward. >> Can I ask two quick final questions? Will there be any um anticipated decreases in student access to programming as a result of the staffing changes? And then um how do teachers feel about this? How do the English and visual performing arts teachers who would be in this co-op model feel about it? >> Many of them are here, so I'm not sure how they're going to communicate during this meeting, but um I'll speak on behalf of those two pieces. The first is um the hatchery itself has gone through evolutions and as you can imagine at the heart of our school are people and so really where the program was at its peak was with Danny Solomon. Um and so when Danny left I would say that the services we offered

043were not at the quality that they were at his peak. I would anticipate like any change in staffing, we're going to need time to invest in their teachers, really build the infrastructure. Um, I think the one thing that I have for this model that I didn't for the original one, which was we were talking about library services kind of having a co-op, we still were looking at reducing staffing, but with this model, we have Elaine Harvey, which would still oversee the hatchery space um, as the innovation center coordinator. So, having a common person I think is a really critical element to it. Um K, what was your second one? >> How do the education teachers feel >> feel who will be asked to step into this space or role? >> As you can imagine, um

044there has been very little time since this last alternative has been explored. And yet the level of activism, excitement, ideas, creative problem solving, the energy put into it in this short amount of time, I think is the reason why I feel comfortable with even more time we can develop a system that will perhaps not in its first year be at the Danny Solomon thirdyear quality, but over you know a two or three year period of time. I feel confident that we can get to that place. Great. And just so the audience knows, we're going to let Maria go through the rest of the presentation and then I'll open it up for public comment. I have the list here and then we'll go back to for discussion, but you can still bring up questions as the

045slides come up. >> So the next cost center is special education. We're seeing a slight decrease in this line and that's mostly due to the fact that we're moving the multi- lingual language teacher from 50% in the CSD to 10% in the CSD. That is because most of that position is being taken up in the SAD right now. So we're reducing the share at the high school. I also had mentioned that we're moving one edtech to the local entitlement fund. So that just shifts the cost out of this and then we just have regular salary and health insurance election changes that always impact the budget. Mid coast school of technology program assessment we are being assessed $165,000 this year. It's an increase of 23.1%. That is based on our share of t the taxpayer burden

046for Mid Coast and it's based on our student population at the high school the entire high school population relative to the other sending schools. We pay the highest share to Mid Coast right now something between 35 and 37%. The other instruction line which is co-curricular athletics has a 5.4% increase and that's mainly due to stipend increases and officials fees increases. student and staff support, a 5.9% increase. And that increase is mostly due to health insurance election changes. And we hadn't budgeted the 10 extra days for each of our five counselors that they have in their contracts. So, we budgeted for that this year, even though that's not really a change. Just had been a mistake in the budget last year. System administration is increasing 6.6%. I already talked about the um added position for accounting.

047The business office is within the system administration line and we have um the other administrative assistant position that we're adding. There was a salary adjustment for central office support staff this year that wasn't in the budget. There are health insurance election changes. The 403b for administrators was under budgeted last year. So there are some corrections being made there. And just as a reminder, even though 100% of the shared interd district costs between the CSD and the SAD fall in the CSD expense line, 50% of that cost comes back to the CSD as revenue from the SAD. School administration is increasing 6.5% and that is due to just normal salary and health increases. Transportation line is increasing 12.2%. That's covering some of that admin support that I talked about um in for the transportation director. Um,

048so some of that's coming from transportation, the facilities and transportation lines. And there are also some increases to the cost of route contracts. The facilities line is increasing 9%. That lease payment for the siding and windows project is $120,000. We have a new truck and tractor in the budget, but that lease payment will combined be $30,000. We are going to purchase chairs so we have enough for graduation. That's a $24,000 increase. We added that office support. There's an electricity increase and a field maintenance increase. Um, and that's all based on conversations we have had about our athletic fields and what we're going to do about them to better maintain them. And we're bumping up our maintenance of those and it's just comes at a higher cost. our debt service line is decreasing and that is

049decreasing mainly because the the debt that we carry the interest payments go down every year. So even though we're adding a $120,000 debt payment that's in a different line. This debt is just for the Mid Coast School of Technology and we have other loans that come under debt service. Chris a $60,000 placeholder in the event we went to bond. >> That's That's right. project. >> So, the actual debt that we're carrying only went down by about $11,000, the interest payment, but we took 60,000 out of the budget because we carried $60,000 in this year's budget in case we went to bond for the siding and windows project instead of did a lease and we would have had to pay $60,000 for the bond this year. But, we don't we're not doing that. And so we've

050got to take that $60,000 out. But we do expect this amount to go down each year because it's um debt on the Mid Coast, the new Mid Coast School of Technology, we pay the same share for the debt service that we do for the operating costs about 37%. Other expenditures, port contingency, there's a slight decrease there. Um we're going to carry $140,000 in the board contingency line. This slide reviews all of the expenses. That yields a 3.76% increase. We have our nonassessment revenues. They have gone down for next year. And you can see in that um fourth column over to the right, the dollar amount change, all of those in parentheses are all decreases that we're seeing. The biggest one is our state subsidy, almost $120,000. Fortunately, it's somewhat offset by the increase in advent

051services from the SAD, but overall we're having a $53,000 decrease in our revenues from sources other than taxpayers. So, that non-assessment revenue is about $4.8 million. And then we have to get the rest of the money to add up to $19 million from taxpayers. So we need to get about 14.3 million from taxpayers. Some of that is the minimum required to raise for a school. That's our ED279 adjusted local contribution of $8.7 million. Then we're paying that debt service. So we're carrying just over half a million dollars in debt service. And that leaves us to have to raise an additional local amount of almost $5 million. So overall, we have a 3.76% increase in expenses, a loss of non-t taxpayer revenue of 1.09%. And that yields an overall taxpayer assessment increase of 5.49%. And it

052hits the various towns according to that chart. Appleton is 3.3% increase. Camden 7.4. Hope 7.7 Lincolnville 6.6 and Rockport 2.8. And the 8279 tells us the percent that each town pays. And that is based on a combination of pupil count and property valuation. And kind of the way that it works out is Appleton had a relative decrease in its number of students and a and an increase in its valuation. But if you look at Appleton's increase in valuation, it's less than Camden's increase was, less than Hope's increase was, and less than Lincolnville's was. So it's all relative to what's happening in the other five towns. So Appleton has a relatively low increase because they have fewer students and their valuation didn't go up as much as the other towns. So it's the interplay of those

053two factors that result in what the tax impact ends up being. The way it impacts people's taxes based on their home value, which is how we raise the taxes in Apple. This budget is an $82 increase per 100,000 of home value. The average home in Appleton will have a $2989 increase in taxes due to this budget. Camden's average home will see a $104.3 increase for the average home. The average home is $66.38. Lincolnville $67.36 and Rockport $45.30. And just a review of the other budget information, the we're expecting the level of the unassigned fund balance to be about $1.3 million. That should say projected there for FY25. We've we don't have the FY25 audit yet. So, we don't have a precise number there, but that's our best projection at this point. And if that were

054true, then this year we expect to have $2.1 million left in our unassigned fund balance. And that difference is the amount we expect to be left over from this year's budget added to that fund balance. And then the level of capital reserve we will we're projecting to end this year with a pretty low amount $168,000 but we're going to move since the fund balance is going to be so healthy we're going to move a sizable chunk of that fund balance over to the capital reserve. So we'll end the capital reserve next year with 713,000 which puts us in a great financial position. will have a good amount of money in the unassigned fund balance and a good amount of money in the capital reserve. The capital reserve, we do plan to spend some money from

055the capital reserve. We're going to move $600,000 over from the fund balance. We're asking taxpayers to let us spend up to $300,000. We know we're going to spend 113 58 for the new intercom system. That is no longer half of the total, however, so that shouldn't say half of total anymore. And the propane tank array for $55,000. So those are two expenses that will come next year out of capital reserve. Total is 113,000, but we'll still be left with over $700,000 in that account. Then the special ed reserve is just sitting there with $75,000 in it. This article just allows us to spend that money if we need to for an unexpected private placement. This article just lets us spend grants and other receipts that we receive. School nutrition. We will be subsidizing the nutrition

056program with $62,150. This article allows us to transfer Mona centers if we need to at the end of the year. This is fairly small print, so I don't know if you can see it, but this these will be the two warrant articles for Mid Coast School of Technology. And it it just reviews what I've already gone over with, which is our operating cost and then our debt service. And then we have our adult ed budget, which is the bottom line is exactly what it was the last time I presented it. Um, we are actually getting a little bit more subsidy than we've gotten in the past, but we're expecting fewer revenues. And that's a pretty modest increase there of 3.9%, but you can see the impact it has to the towns, like a a 1%

057increase um for each of the towns. >> Okay. Thank you, Maria. We're going to turn to public comment on the budget. Uh, and then we'll go back to for conversation. So, first up, Jen Mson, come on up. Um, again, your name, your town, and your affiliation, and I will start the clock when you start talking. >> Okay. Jen Mson Appleton and senior member of the English department. I'm here representing the entire English department, and we would like to address our concerns about the proposed cut of an English teacher. While there may have been a pivot, the new proposal still may not address the needs of our most v vulnerable students. There is a cost to the decision to cut an English teacher and that cost is literacy. The purpose of literacy intervention through lit lab

058is to provide intensive reading intervention to students who are reading substantially below grade level and do not qualify for special ed services. Students in this situation are keenly aware that they struggle to read and are deeply embarrassed by it. They often lack parental advocacy. School has been difficult for them for a long time. They've worked for years to hide their reading struggles. They're failing or struggling in multiple courses since reading and writing is integral to core content and they're at high risk for dropping out. These are our most vulnerable students. The last time the lit lab was fully functioning was in 2019 2020. At that time it was staffed by Renee Randall who has a masterers of science and literacy education and is a state certified literacy specialist. In addition to Renee, we also had

059a full-time dedicated edtech in lit lab. The way Lid Lab worked was Renee used Nuia testing and teacher referrals to identify those students reading below grade level. Then after extensive one-on-one testing to identify a student's skill gaps, she designed and implemented an individualized intervent intervention program with and we want to emphasize this students showing significant growth because of COVID. we lost the edtech position and Renee was reassigned to cover regular English classes which eliminated lit loud. It was no surprise to us when we saw that our state reading scores had declined. In the past two years, however, we have strategically deployed Rene's skills to free up first one and now two periods for her to reactivate the literacy lab. But this still isn't enough. It is in raising this population's reading scores that we raise

060our overall scores. What Renee does is highly specialized and no other teacher in our department has that specialization. As a general English teacher, my training is in teaching kids how to use reading to learn, not learning to read. Any way you cut it, cutting or reassigning an English teacher impacts our neediest students. Although a fully supported full-time lit lab is the key to raising our state reading scores as in and is in the best interest of our neediest students, we realize this may not be the year to try to get an edtech back for lit lab. But we're imploring you to preserve the English teacher position so that we can still offer some semblance of lit lab for our students who are performing below grade level and uphold our community's reputation as one of the

061highest performing districts in the state. Our request is two-pronged and straightforward. To maintain our existing English staff and to work towards reinstating a fully functioning literacy lab by allowing our interventionists to serve full-time in that role. A fully supported full-time literacy lab is key to raising our state reading scores and is in the best interest of our neediest students. Thank you. The English department at CHRHS. >> Thank you. Thanks, >> Jen. Can I ask you a question? >> Yes. When back in 2019 when Renee was doing more lit lab, was Renee also responsible for our international students and teaching English to non like the ML position? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, she had that piece too. Although I don't know how many students she had at that time or never that many. >> The

062numbers were decent at that time. had a lot of >> students that were being served. >> It was a.3 position. So when the ML position went district, we actually kind of gained.3 English teacher. So that's my story. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Next up, we have Judy. Hi, I'm Judy Shelby, a resident of Camden and uh previously a teacher here at the high school in the special ed department. Um, and I just have some questions about the proposed allocation of funds in the budget. Um, as I've heard and everyone's heard, cuts are being prop uh proposed to the teaching staff at the high school. um given the declining student enrollment yet at the same time uh the I've also heard that the central office budget is increasing by 6.6%. Um with I think

063this is correct. I'm not sure this is a correct figure but 850,000 or so of that dollars being the CSD share um of that increase. Okay. the system. That increase appears to me to be primarily due to the proposed addition of one and a half new central office positions, a half-time accounting position and a full-time administrative support position, increasing the central office staff from nine people to 10 and a half during the time of what you've said is a shrinking student body. Um, as a result, if my figure of the 850,000 or so is correct for the CSD share of the system administration line, the the CSD is projected to spend about $1,200 per student on system administration, which is more than double what the average main school district spends and surprisingly actually higher than

064districts such as Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth, and Yarmouth, which we often compare ourselves. with. And then finally, and most importantly, we have a new superintendent starting in just four months. So I ask, does it make sense at this time to be hiring additional permanent office staff when we are cutting what I just heard was a very important position um like remedial reading. And I as as somebody who taught special ed here, I know there is a big gap oftentimes because there are strict guidelines for identifying kids as learning disabled so they can receive support in the resource room. And that program was very important for all the kids that Jen just identified that kind of fall between the cracks and especially if our NEIA scores are um are low and it's kind of the last opportunity

065in public education for those students. Anyway, as an alternative, I would like to propose or request that the board wait on those administrative um staff additions instead of hiring the new office staff now. Why not set aside the money as a conditional funding proposal and give Dr. Neil the time and authority to determine if she needs more central office staff or if that money might be better spent saving the teacher's job or even providing relief to the taxpayers. And another IRA where you might provide relief would be $24,000 for chairs for a one-time graduation each year. I mean, it seems to me that money would be better spent for the remedial reading teacher. >> Thank you. >> Um, I'm done. >> Uh, next up, um, sorry that we're both crossing out of a name. Uh,

066Winter Winter Lante Hi, Winter Lance, resident of Rockport and parent of a student at Camden Hills. Um, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to be looking at my phone a little bit at some notes because I didn't come prepared to address some of this. >> So, okay. Uh first of all on the the budget um I just think as a taxpayer it would be helpful when it comes voting time if the school board could address some kind of questions and concerns so that we could make a more informed uh decision at time for vote. Um, one of the things that would be helpful to have addressed is um, how the projected need or justification to build the reserve and show a a really healthy unassigned funding balance while also at the same time asking

067taxpayers to increase their u their, uh, taxpayer funding of that. Um, also it would be helpful to know what the thought process is on the projected impact of the declining enrollment that's projected. I think you said about 29% over the next 10 years is what you projected. Um, and over the since 2022, the enrollment has been declining already and our increases have been like 32%. So I don't know what you look into the future and estimate that impact to be but that kind of information would be helpful for us to understand the thought process behind some of these numbers. Um, I actually was pretty surprised after the last meeting I when I totaled up all the math, you know, because we feel it every year in our taxes when we pay our property taxes. But

068when I actually saw the numbers that our increase had been like 32% increase in school budget, which is 60 to 70% of our taxes over the last 10 years, I was like, "Wow, that's crazy." And but then I looked at the state averages and I see that actually state average is quite a bit higher. So I do commend the board on making some really difficult decisions and though we don't understand all of them and I may not agree with all of them, I can see that we are below state average for keeping costs in check. The other issue I wanted to address real quick was the hatchery. I don't know uh that was a surprise to me. I don't know how many people are familiar with what they do. Um, I would just like to

069say what our family's experience has been with a hatchery. If you have a kid that wants to get into college, it's different now. They they need passion projects. They need a well-developed portfolio. They need a lot of cutting edge stuff. Our son has been working with HR staff. He's learned Gant charts. He's learned to evaluate different project ideas, team members, you know, high tech stuff. all of these things, resources that have been put into that for him to help him develop that. I don't think a co-op model is going to lend itself to the type of ownership and continuity to give our students that innovation and cutting edge opportunity to be competitive and postsecary if we don't keep programs like this. Dig a little deeper, cut some more fluff, maybe don't get chairs, maybe don't

070spend another 30,000 on yarn or pouches. Let's find the money to keep that because I think that that needs to be built further, not cut. >> Thank you. >> I think that's my plan. Thank you. >> All right, June. Next up, >> J Mur. Um, speaking not as a staff member, but as a taxpayer and a parent. Um, so, uh, when I was younger, my nana would sit down with my mom and she would say to my mom, "You really, uh, we didn't have a whole lot of money growing up, and so you never want to save money on your dinner table." And what she meant by that was that, uh, if you got to make cuts, don't cut the healthy food. And in a school, the healthy food are the people. Um, you've heard

071now from Winter about the hatchery program. You've heard from the English department. And the two things that you've heard is that um the cutting of an English teacher is detrimental to the literacy programs and to the most vulnerable students at our school. And now you just heard from Winter and I think you may hear from Kimber, our hatchery manager, that uh the hatchery also is uh a place where um students who may need um you know different way of of being in the school can find a place to be and innovate and to experience education in a completely different way. Um, I think that really what I want to say to the board, uh, for you to think about is that, um, as a hope, uh, school board member, we spend a lot of time

072going through line after line after line of the budget and really making sure that the one thing that we always preserve because at the end of the day, when the kids walk into the school, what matters to the most are the people that are sitting in front of them in a classroom, whether it's the hatchery or an English classroom or anywhere. And regardless of the number of students that are walking around this building, I can guarantee you that every single adult in this build building matters to some kid, whether there's 750 kids or 500 kids. And so there's got to be ways to cut this budget that does not include getting rid of personnel. And I think I would be really proud of this board um and this district if they could figure out a

073way to to keep the people, the relationships, because in the end, I think that what that's what matters most to the students. um probably uh what makes a difference in me every day. Um and you know, I don't I don't think we need to uh beat the you know, graduation chairs to death, but I do think that there's probably a lot of ways that the board could cut the budget and maybe preserve both of those positions. I think that would really mean a lot to the students. So, thank you. Thank you, >> Kimber. I'm Bernard Patri, maker space manager. I live in Rockland. I offer the following information to pro to provide you all with a comprehensive view of the hatchery maker space manager's responsibilities as I've come to know them in the past six

074months and all of the facets that the position entails. I know full well that your roles don't allow you to visit the hatchery and observe the day-to-day activities in the maker space. I believe that having this insight may discourage you from um having three to four teachers of other subjects cooperatively managing the maker space. My primary concern for this scenario is safety. In order to oversee the wood shop, all co-op teachers would need to have extensive power tool experience and the ability to safely teach the use of the band saw, table saw, miter saw, scroll saw, drill press, joiner, planer, lathe, and the many other hand tools. Neglect of school safety, poor student supervision, and improper tool use could be hazardous. I have 40 years of wood shop experience, and I doubt that someone could

075be trained over the summer to run the maker space. Other areas of concern are co-op teachers would need to know how to maintain and service the power tools, equipment, purchase materials, replenish supplies, and keep a clean and orderly space. A complex schedule would need to be coordinated and worked around Mid Coast School of Technologies classes on white days. If no one was available to monitor the space, the door would need to be locked. Camden High School has such a welle equipped and wonderful maker space. It would be a shame to let this resource go underutilized and for students not to have full access to this great resource. Equally important to being proficient in woodworking skills is the ability to provide instruction in pattern and model making, sewing, fabrication, robotics, electronics, circuitry, soldering, 3D printing, mold

076making, button making, and plastic upycling. I have a list of these skills that the students work towards in the maker space. Semester 1 projects included designing and sewing work aprons, repairing sewing machines, upycling plastic workbenches, taking things apart, repairing them, and putting them back together in class for the class and for the school community. They created independent designs and built projects. They worked on electronics, circuitry, and with Arduinos. And I'm going to have to ask you to printer. >> Oh, >> I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up. >> Okay. I'm going to jump right to my last paragraph. I could go on. Um, I'm very happy in the maker space and I found that the teachers and the students are most welcome welcoming and have been incredibly helpful. Most of all,

077I love working with the students and it is my sincere hope that you will all keep the hatchery maker space in place position in place. >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. So that's what I have for public comment on the budget. Are there any other speakers for the budget? Okay, we'll move to board discussion and questions. Just for context, I don't have a question or comment yet, but can the display go back to the page that talk that showed uh the the staff Uh budget cut, please. >> This one >> I think it's the one before this that had the maybe this is the right one. That is the right one. Thank you. What's the total line item or the the total amount that corresponds with each of the three? I take

078take remove the word total. What's the the the dollar value that corresponds with removing the computer science uh position, the science position, and the workshop manager position. Please. In general, each teacher position, you know, I'd include the hatchery workshop manager, even though that's our teaching position, um, is comes in the range between 100 and $125,000 with salary, benefits, taxes, sort of that the total cost of the teacher. >> And it's going to be about uh each each one of those three is set at the same amount. Generally, it's likely that all three fall somewhere in that range. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um I guess probably this is a question for you, Jen. >> Um it feels like based on the the public comment from the educators that are sort of closest to this change,

079there's um a role in the hatchery manager as it is conceived of now. That um entails a lot of really specialized knowledge and the lit lab um role entails a lot of really specific um specialized knowledge and training. And I'm having a hard time understanding how those um how we lose the specialized sort of application of the literacy or >> so let me clarify what was asked for. >> Okay. >> Um because I think it's really important to understand the evolution of um our literacy specialists and the resources that we have moving forward. So 2019 2020 Rene >> was pre-COVID right before co it was uh we had a full-time edtech and 6 literacy specialist. It wasn't actually because of COVID that we lost the edte. She went on to another job and I'm not

080exactly sure why that wasn't folded in. >> I started teaching English classes so there was no >> academic journal studies. >> Okay. So she might have got reallocated. I don't remember all the details of why that shifted but it was around COVID and our response to all the other demands in front of us. Um next year the literacy specialist will be at 6 the same as it was pre-COVID. What isn't there is the support system of the edtech which I do think that needs to be a consideration moving forward. Um, as Rene's role involves testing, um, monitoring, and then delivery of instruction, it's really difficult for one person to encompass all of those pieces. So, there are unserved students in a building that are identified. That's legitimate and that really needs to be a consideration.

081>> But the lit lab is not being eliminated. >> It's not. It's just that it's not at the same capacity because it doesn't have the edte. >> Is it changing from what it was this year? It's increasing this year. So, it's going from two full-time sections to three, which is back to the precoid level. What isn't there and what is part of our consideration with existing staff. So, everything I've proposed would still um eliminate a full-time equivalent. >> Yeah. >> And then reutilizing our existing staff. Um, if that model falls short, then I would anticipate me coming back to the board and describing why it wasn't meeting the needs as I feel like they should. There's nothing that was said by the English teachers that I don't support, fully support it. Um, I think there's

082no doubt in in fact some of the information that Rene has shared a literacy specialist is um not surprising but saddening and that students who had a fourth grade level of reading precoid still have a fourth grade level. So their developmental stages have been disrupted which we talk about and anecdotally maybe um read about but when you see the actual student who's suffering in all domains um there's no I understand why there's full support by the English teachers. So next year the model that we're looking at is to use existing staff. I'm not going to guarantee that it's going to meet the needs like it did in 201920, but I feel like given the declining enrollment, that is what's being asked of me and I feel like we should give that um an opportunity to,

083you know, explore that uh infrastructure before we say we're going to add a position. >> That's very helpful clarification that I didn't mean to cut you off. >> Yep. So, I think you had two parts. >> Yeah. The second part is really just I'm trying to wrap my head around what feels like a very specialized set of experiences and skills in our current hatchery manager. How that's being filled by existing staff. Do they have those same qualifications and experience and things like that particularly around safety which you yourself mentioned is is a question. Yep. Um so you know I I would say that given our very you know uh beginning stages of conversation around it what I have been able to identify. So essentially just to help you understand the the infrastructure now I'm going

084to call it red and white days because I don't know how else to describe it. >> Um so on one set of color days we teach skills. Students are taught how to use every piece of equipment. That is the skill set you're referencing. >> Yes. >> On the other day, MCST utilizes the space. Um, students drop in, we have volunteers that come, we facilitate it in multiple ways. Those, so it's kind of two sets of skills that we are considering in terms of looking at teacher capacity. There's no doubt that um VPA's teachers because they are working with power tools because they do have those skill sets are more aligned the red day. I also think that we have not fully utilized the commons which is part of the hatchery and I see that as

085a much stronger um alignment for interdisciplinary experiential with the English department that is taking our existing programming and looking at it in a little bit of a different way but still looking at providing opportunities for eight sections of hatchery programming and what winter described actually is the so there's two pieces maker space workshop and comments of components what Hunter is talking about is still being maintained. So that's that is the complexity that is Camden Hills. We use one term to describe things that happen outside of our building, inside of our building in the commons in the hatchery and um the manager, the hatchery manager is one piece. Can I also add something else to that cricket just to help you sort of context some of the skills that Kimber mentioned? I'm going to take pattern

086making sewing. That's because Kimber is the teacher. The hatchery didn't do sewing in some of those things previously. Some of it is dependent on the skills that an individual brings. Plastic upycling didn't happen. Other kinds of things happened depending on who the person is. So there's no set of skills using equipment, but in terms of like there's no set of skills that's outlined like a math class would have. Um, and that has really varied. So those things like aren't set in stone anywhere. Um, so that also just needs to be kept in mind >> and and it's evolved just to add on to what Maria's talking about. So, you know, technically even the vision when Danny brought his vision, he actually brought the vision from Chicago. >> Yeah. >> And he brought his skill set.

087I never paid for lumber. Not not one not $1 for lumber because he used radical reuse. >> Great. Um, new person comes in who has boat building skills. He brings a car into the hatchery. Rock on. You know, I think the piece that's great about Camden Hills is we hire, as people have mentioned, we hire individuals with a skill set and then we take advantage of that skill set and we make sure that if like right now um we we actually are like year three of the electric bike model that was an volunteer coming in. We have resources in the community. It's the the ability to understand where the students interest is and then matching the skill set necessary. It doesn't have to be internal. It hasn't been internal through the existence of the hatchery.

088>> Okay, that's >> which is really hard to define. >> Um and so anyone hired in that space, I applaud Kimber. I applaud the prior people. Um typically they don't work in a public school. They don't know the public school infrastructure. And it's our, you know, desire to continue maintaining innovation. Um, but that really does test our our ability to understand what that looks like. It's not in a clear-cut bin. Yeah. >> Like a math teacher. >> I think I will just offer one comment. Um, when I think about a worldclass maker space tied to worldclass maker programming and I tooured maker spaces all over the country and public schools all over the country. Um, the the skill sets that we've talked about, they really do matter. You know, Kimber talked about coding and robotics

089and we're losing a computer science teacher and yes, there may be volunteers in the community, but I think just speaking as an individual, I'd love to hear more from you and your team as this evolves about how are we still ensuring that kids have access to those kinds of specific experiences with the staffing and program program model that's being proposed. So >> incredibly fair and I would tell you that it is in it will evolve with time. Um and you know I have been tasked with cutting one full-time equivalent. I feel like out of all three options that I have explored, the staff has helped me to explore, if you told me I didn't have to cut anyone, I I would I would happily um accommodate that request. But that wasn't what was requested. And

090I do feel out of all the options, um although there really needs to be some work in further developing that option, I think it's the most viable. >> Other questions? >> I just please have a comment from Marie. I think when you're doing the presentation about adding the central office staff, it would really help if you talked about some of the struggles that led you to that decision. for example, having a spending freeze because there's no one to process the accounts receivable or accounts payable and the trouble of people doing a whole season of coaching and not getting paid yet because of the the backlog in the central office. So, I don't think people understood as you were presenting it what the need there was. >> Yeah, >> there was not just a whim. Yeah,

091I mean it's a good point, Marca, and I do think that there's a massive misunderstanding that the central office has been so if the staffing in the central office, if the teaching staff had the equivalent to what the central office staff had, we would probably increase the teaching staff by 50%. like the central office staff has been so understaffed and you know people often think like oh this is based on enrollment or it's a tradeoff and you know it's not at all. Our teachers are able to have I mean we've created a great environment. We have relatively low class sizes. People obviously are very reluctant even if we only have 500 students. I heard Jude say she'd like not to cut any teachers from our current capacity. probably winter wouldn't agree with that. As our

092enrollment declines, we should probably make some adjustments. Taxpayers might have something else to say, but and there only so many pencils or paper we can cut. Um, but it's not the central office issues have nothing to do with enrollment. Chris recently did a study with central office staffing in the fact that we the central office is responsible for two separate districts. So, I I think about the hours Chris and I have put into the budget, and I bet it's been 45 hours for each budget. If we were normal school district, it would be 45 hours, but we're doing 90 hours because we have two budgets. And everybody who's working in the central office, most of those roles, business manager, accounts payable, everything in the business office happens double of what it happens in a normal

093place. And we've had people uh quit their jobs and go to greener pastures where they got paid equivalent or more money for half the work and they're like it's just too tempting because the workload is too great here and people are suffering. We're trying to stop that suffering and maintain the sustainability of the school system. And it's very hard for people to see that because nobody who ever speaks about it generally unless it's me or Chris or Jamie maybe. Um they don't nobody sees it. It's in the back behind closed doors where it's happening and it does have an impact. We did have to have a budget freeze um a spending freeze in the month of December because we lost our accounts payable person in July. could not find anybody. Hired somebody. She left us

094after maybe six or seven weeks. We were without somebody for a long time. We hired somebody else. We had temporary people helping, but we got so far behind. We couldn't process anything. In the entire year, we didn't process any accounts receivables. So, no money coming into us. We couldn't bill all of the 72 people who owe us tuition money. We couldn't bill them until like three weeks ago because we didn't have the capacity to take care of that item. So there are we are digging out of holes created by lack of staff, missing staff and just the load is so great. Um and it is really difficult for people to see that. um you know in terms of offering administrative support for instance to Chris Finelli. Chris Finelli has maybe taken maybe two days off

095now since July 1st and he's probably worked half the weekends since July 1st. People don't see the amount of work people are doing. We need to add capacity so Chris's job is manageable and reasonable. So while in the central office we're talking about kind of survival unless you just do something that feels humane for people most of the world doesn't see that that's the place we are in the central office and it's not going to be sustained unless we add some capacity and we've just been asking people to do heroic work for a very long time and it's taking its toll and ultimately that's not good for anyone. one because people do depend on the central office to be able to order supplies they need for their classrooms, to get paid on time, to, you

096know, all all of those things. But it is mainly and largely invisible. And people equate what's happening in the central office to what's happening with teaching staff. And you know, in my world, those two things have nothing to do with each other. And the central office has nothing to do with enrollment. I also think we've talked and it may have been in some public meetings in the past that weren't necessarily tied to the budget presentation, but setting up our incoming superintendent for success and ensuring that there's a well functioning um business office but central office. So >> did you have something? >> Yeah, I do. Thank you. And it might be a Jen question, but Maria, whoever wants to chime in on this, but hypothetical, work with me, please. Let's say we didn't have to

097eliminate for budgetary reasons the computer science program, the science or computer science teaching position, >> the science teaching position, and this third position, which as I understand it has now evolved from eliminating a librarian position to eliminating an English teacher position to now eliminating a hatchery program manager position. Say that those didn't have to be eliminated. Uh even with the reduction in enrollment, would those let would with the computer science program still have students wishing to access that class? >> So for next year, I have course requests already and there are students requesting computer science. >> Okay. So the science class or science teacher what was the class that that person was teaching or set of classes >> uh predominantly um college prep biology >> okay >> um we have and I'm not exact that

098those numbers the science numbers I actually haven't looked at we I just share them with the department heads the English teachers had um they were highly motivated to share so that's why I can share information around lit lab um I have looked at computer science because I'm talking with our applied academics teachers to try to see um the there are two predominant courses that have pretty strong interests. So, I want to continue running them and trying to find individuals within the building that can develop that skill set. It is very different than coming in with a computer science um degree. The person we currently have has been taking classes while teaching it. He's phenomenal. It's not an indication of the fact that we can't develop an individual skills within the teaching realm. We currently have

099um a person that we're doing that with. Uh biology I can't speak to to be honest. I have not looked at those science numbers. I do not know what the impact is. What I'm projecting is that we will reduce um forensic science and probably marine science and maybe a little bit of horiculture. >> Okay. And >> electives. So my question about as you said with the computer science program there is some interest there by students in taking that class or type of class. >> Yeah. >> Are there students who are interested in taking a program a class that would be eliminated uh by virtue of this science teacher being eliminated? >> I am projecting that. I don't have hard numbers to answer that, but just so you know, Rick, like um in terms of the

100board's conversations every year, I don't run courses even though I have course request numbers. >> Um I could have one teacher that teaches um AP Human Geo, an entire teacher that teaches that. That that's the level of interest. I have two classroom sets of textbooks. and it really does allow a student just because they've requested that that doesn't mean that there are not other options that could fulfill their interest level in the social department. So that is pretty typical at Gamon Hills that we try to use it as a guideline to the best of our ability student interest. Um but at the end of the day it isn't the only factor. There are other factors that we take in consideration. >> Take into consideration for what? how many sections that we run, which you know

101what we have for teacher skill set. That's a common conversation. Um, you know, right now we're looking at whether or not we should run, you know, media literacy and social studies. So, even though there are 11 kids that have requested it, it just isn't enough to run it. So, those are the conversations we're having having every year. >> Okay. And with respect to the the teaching the I guess it was the the English teaching uh position because functionally that teacher is being at least partially removed from English teaching and moving into a partially a hatchery program management at least gap filler. uh if this wasn't happening, if they would just those three positions were retained, are you confident that they would still be working in teaching and serving, I guess, a manifest need identified by

102our students that they're not sitting around, right? They're doing teaching work. >> Can I fill their schedule? Is that what you're asking? >> Would they be Yes. in providing an education or a valuable teaching service to our students that they've requested. Our enrollment is declining. Our course requests indicate that it is a reality for our district. I I know these are hard conversations. I could probably fill a half computer science. Um I I could I could maintain hatchery. Um I have a half English teacher right now that potentially I could increase literacy lab. So these are hard conversations. No one wants to have them and they're really difficult because we haven't had them ever in my time at Camden Hills. I wouldn't be giving you the facts by saying that even with course requests, it's

103there's an indication that we have more staff than we have requests. And that's a fact. And I'm sorry to have to say that. I'm not the I don't like that I'm in the position to share that information because I would love to keep every single person in this building. >> I guess then step away from questions for a minute. the process that we do this and maybe it's just there's no other way of doing it. We began with an arbitrarily selected number. we don't want we want to come in under this amount of an increase and then we backed into this by figuring out okay well how can we reduce reduce to get into that and I think to the comments that were made before about the importance of our most important our most important

104resource is our people and the same set of factors that lead to at least for now reduction in enrollment that's to say expensive housing inability of people with young families to find a place to live and live in our community is going to be impacting the people that that uh we would be inclined to hire when the need returns and I think it will I don't I I think that uh while we are seeing a demonstrated reduction of enrollment at the K to8 level yearbyear it's moving up we're talking about making changes now based on I think kind of movable uh that next year will be a there is a reduction but it's just as easy that we could because we have so many different sources of enrollment we could very easily fill that in

105the short term at least back at the high school uh >> I'd hate to get rid of student I I'd hate to get rid of uh people who are then going to have to go find teaching jobs somewhere else and they probably have a home now. They're going to sell it, but maybe they can't afford to come back and buy back in. And I'm wondering at the what what we what we pay teachers whether we're going to be getting teachers who can afford to move back into the community. So, I guess I am I'm swayed by this concept of our our people are our most important resource and in tandem with that, if we lose them, we're not getting them back. And I think if there is a way for us to move away from

106these, you know, this idea of we have to come in under this number, make a harder decision. Maybe we are going to ask for a higher level of taxes from our community base. I think we're we're ignoring that as a possibility rather than shifting from the elimination of a librarian to an English teacher to a hatchery manager. And I think that we all should be cognizant that there is another option here. >> Rick, I want to say that when you say that we've got all these other sources of students, every source is also declining. So we can clearly see enrollment projections that indicate it is going to continue declining and these other sources. St. George has been a great source for us. We have almost half the number coming into the freshman class than we've

107had in all the last five years probably. And so like the numbers of kids coming from the other sources is also declining because statewide nationally the number of people 0 to 18 years old has declined. In Maine that number has declined. It's not as and we face maybe more significant pressures because of housing in our area, but we're in that context of fewer people nationally and statewide in that age group. I don't think it's realistic to say that we think enrollment's going to increase. Like the only way that that's going to increase is if we believe that something's going to happen in the economy that is going to reduce home prices. I'm not sure anyone believes that the economy is getting better right now and that prices are going to go down. So I don't

108I think that you can only look at it with prudence saying we are on a decline with no indication that there's going to be a change to that trend that's happening right now. And quite honestly you know I typically come to the board with a recommendation of where I think a decent target for us to be fiscally responsible is. And when I came to the board with that this year, it was because I knew we can tighten our belts a little bit because we have declining enrollment. That target, it's not as though I cut staff because or I made cuts because there was a target. We set the target because we knew we could cut costs and use taxpayer money in a fiscally responsible way by making some adjustments. two of which we knew we

109were going to make over a year ago because we had a conversation to hire these people on knowing it was only going to be a one-year position. Computer science and science. In fact, science probably is a lot more complicated than you think because we we kept a position in science for all kinds of convoluted reasons that I wouldn't get into right now. But we did that knowing that we were only going to do that for a year. So two of those things it's like well that's already a given because we've planned that those positions were only for a year because of some extraneous reasons that we were going to keep them for a year. So it's not as though you know almost what you you're like I I guess the board as a whole would

110need to give me direction and and ultimately you need to give it to Leanne is don't worry ever about making any staffing cuts try to cut whatever don't provide I don't know I mean there the in terms of places in the budget to cut I can tell you right now there are two places where there's money in the budget and it's in facilities and it's in people. Everything else is pretty minuscule compared to that. And we I mean we are in a district that we actually spend quite a bit money per stu per student. We have a lot of programming and we have a lot of needs. But every administrator who's come into this district who's involved in budget conversations will say that we actually don't have money in many places in our budget. We

111don't have fluff. I would say we don't have a lot of places to cut. Could we cut $24,000 and not buy chairs for graduation? Yes. That's $24,000 in a $19 million budget. It's not a whole lot of money that like yes, that's a place where we don't have to go. We've been talking about buying chairs for like 5 years. Nonetheless, we don't have to buy chairs, but we do not have a lot of places like that in the budget. So, it's it's not I would caution the board there aren't a lot of other places where you're going to find money ever in this budget. And not that people are the place to find money. I'm not talking about needlessly finding money, but if it's clear that our enrollment is declining, we have more teachers than

112we need for our course requests. It's just apparent that that is a place that we should rightsize. And there just aren't a lot of other places. And if you know it's I think the board maybe is at this turning point and it's going to continue happening that if you don't want to cut staff then I think you should stop talking about being fiscally responsible because at some point it is not fiscally responsible to you know have class sizes that averaged at 10 in a high school when right now we average 15 which is really good. A lot of places in this country average 22 or 23 or 25. So like we have really like even what we're scaling back to most schools would um kill to have what we have. It's pretty luxurious even what

113we're left with. But I I mean I just like the board ultimately needs to own the budget and sort of figure out the approach that they want to take to it. Um we have the approach that I have taken to the budget is to maintain great programming. We're maintaining small class sizes. We have lots of resources. We highly value our people. I'm not concerned that students won't have strong relationships with the people here. I know they will. But it's also trying to be fiscally responsible at the same time. We're we're using taxpayer money to fund our school. And I feel like we have to consider that in our equation. We have a lot of people who live in our towns who are on fixed incomes. Most people in these towns can't afford to leave because

114they could never buy into this town again. And we have a lot of people who are on fixed incomes. And I think it matters that we balance and our balance is still very favorable to being excellent. >> Ethan, did you have something? No. Okay. >> No, I heard sorry. >> Um, does it have to be a question or kind of >> You can do whatever. >> So, I just had a concern regarding the co-op approach to hatchery, right? So first of all, students learn in different ways. Uh and experiential learning is incredibly important, but I feel like a more neglected idea is experiential creativity. Um students need room to explore their own ideas in a physical way and not just for an assignment. And I know plenty of people like that. They have projects, they

115have grandeur ideas, um and are just looking for ways to execute it. And so my fear is that having a shared co-op system without a go-to person to enable kids to pursue those ideas and have somebody to work with and develop that idea, I just think that'd be incredibly difficult to do that whilst working with multiple teachers. Uh and that it would it seems rely on a shared uh effort amongst the teachers. Um so I guess it is a question how do we ensure that we're not just doing it for projects for students or classes to incorporate students but to uh enable studentled projects. >> All eyes are on me. Good job. >> Well done young man. >> I could do an intro to that and I think it's important to remember that this is

116the first year we've had two people staffing the hatchery. So in past years we had one person who was staffing it and we still have that consistent person in a lane. So it's not as though we don't have a consistent person. We do. And so I think to address some of that is that a role that Elaine can play is being some of that consistent person. But I don't know if you have anything to add to that. >> I I just want to honor the fact that there will be trade-offs. I don't want to pretend that where we're at right now and where we're at year one are going to look exactly the same. What I'm confident with is with time that we will continue to develop the co-op model. I hope we're not judged

117on year one. I think that that would be really a sad benchmark um for anyone. Uh you know talked about learning a lot in the six-month period of time. that will happen with the shared leadership model but it'll take longer. So you're right um it's important for us to maintain the individual projects which have happened simultaneously with grade level projects and the purpose of the grade level projects is exposure. We want every ninth grader into that program so that they can see themselves in a different capacity in a different way of learning. So that's still the vision. how I do think it'll take time for us to get to full implementation of that. So I think your points are incredibly valid. So thank you. >> Thank you. I had seen Andy's hand and Marca's hand

118and then Sarah's something. >> Um I was just going to speak to the central office part of it. Um, I've been on the board for a couple years now and ever ever since I've been on here, I've heard over and over how much the central offices have had turnover and that one of the things that I've noticed is that Maria seems to be like take on more and more. It seems like whenever there's a crack, she's the one plugging it with her finger. and we're about to have the person that's been doing this for like 12 years not going to be there to keep the dam from crack like breaking wide open. And so if we don't fill some roles in the central office, I just don't see it ending very well. Um cuz also

119one of the things that came up when we're searching for someone is that you know you how how like we can't expect them to take on every single thing that she does cuz not only was she what for 12 years being the superintendent a teacher here for however many decades before that. So that's just like so much institutional knowledge and so much so many things that she's been taking on over and over and over again. And I guess one thing that um I don't know Maria. I' I've like never met her before being on this board. And like one of the things I've I found the most impressive is just like how much she does. It like blows my mind. Like I I at one point I was I for context I was an EMT.

120I worked 24-hour shifts. I worked triple shifts. That's three days straight. Then that's what and I did that for a couple years. And that's what it looks like to me that she's been doing for like 12 years. And if we have her leaving and then we're somebody coming in that has to like learn the state of Maine and a school and everything else, I just think that's just like that's too much to ask of anybody and they're going to be here for a year and they're going to be like they're going to be out. And so I think just having bringing somebody into the central office because it's been understaffed and maybe we just as a board we need to work on our messaging and letting the community know that like how we're bleeding a

121stone, you know, with with keeping things running and maybe we need to communicate that better so that people in the community understand that. But I just I just don't know how it go if we don't add people before Leanne shows up. That's all. >> Thank you, Andy. Marcia, >> my question was largely answered, but I just have another brief comment is when you did the SAD budget presentation, you talked about the importance of having a healthy fund balance, how it affects our loan balances and insurance rates, and I think that would be a good addition in this because the question was raised about why that would be important. >> Yeah, I actually jotted that down. The fund the having a healthy fund balance is the difference between an individual family having zero money in the

122bank versus having like an emergency fund in the bank. So many people might live without having any money in the bank or just having no money and living paycheck to paycheck. And you know people plenty of people survive that way. It's not comfortable. people don't feel secure. As a public school, we're expected to be financially solvent and stable. And in order to be financially solvent and stable, it's important for us to have money in our undesated fund balance and to have a healthy amount of money in our und designated fund balance and our capital reserve. The undesated fund balance is looked at like when we go out to get a loan for the siding and windows project. The companies that provide us a loan will look at the amount of money we have in our

123undesated fund balance as an indication for how financially healthy we are. And if they feel like we are not that financially healthy and we're a high risk, we will pay a higher interest rate. So instead of getting an interest rate on this package that we're getting is something like 5.48%. The interest rate that they might offer us might be 6.8% instead of 5.5%. And the difference in a 20-year loan for the amount of money we're taking out is millions of dollars more that we would pay because we don't have any money in the bank. So, our fund balance and our capital reserve have been kind of low lately and we've been trying to build them back up for the financial health of our district. It has a ripple effects that save us money down the

124road and it it sends signals to entities out there who are looking to do business with us that we're in a financially good spot. The reason why it's important to have money in the capital reserve is that every year we ask taxpayers to allow us to spend money from the capital reserve for unexpected capital expenses. We always have unexpected capital expenses. And for instance, everybody had the high school problem. We knows and some of our unexpected things insurance might cover which is great. But other things insurance doesn't cover like insurance covered the flood in the gym that happened. Um but like we had a water mane break and we have you know we might have uh well we did have all kinds of pigeons living in our solar array a few years ago and we

125have to unexpectedly pay sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year for something we have to take care of. The only way we can do that is using the capital reserve. So we have money in the capital reserve for those unexpected things and to help buffer other capital costs that we actually plan for because it can be a great buffer. Sometimes we pay for projects and we were planning on doing with the intercom. We couldn't put the intercom for like the third year in a row. I said to Jen, like, "Jen, we're not going to be able to put the intercom in this budget because we have too many other things that need to go in the budget. We were planning on not doing the intercom, crossing our fingers, it would be a catastrophe

126if the intercom goes." And then we figured, well, no, we can squeeze it in half here and half here. But the intercom is a great example. And now the intercom came in less. We thought we're paying for the whole thing out of the capital reserve so that our you know our budget comes in at 3.58% instead of you know 4.2%. So we try to put projects in the capital reserve when we can to help the act the budget each year. So it's it's a complicated array of sort of the funds and how we're managing them that's tied to the budget that we present. Um, but we are far better off as a district to have money in the bank in those two places. >> Marcia asked the same question I was going to ask. So,

127I'm >> Can you explain why the proposal to purchase the chairs? Like, what is the benefit to us of doing that? >> Well, part of it is convenience. Right now, we borrow chairs from other districts to have graduation. So, we own some chairs, but not enough for graduation. And for a few years, we've been trying to get enough so that we can have graduation without having to take a bunch of our staff. We need to truck chairs. Um, and it's quite time consuming to do that. Um, so you know, >> I think we also rent a U-Haul, keep them for two weeks. We use them for the middle school promotion. >> Um, they stay in a U-Haul parked out back at the middle school for a couple weeks. And >> if they're not purchased now,

128just to keep it in context, we don't have the same graduation date as the local um districts, so we kind of all rotate um and it's set in stone. So, we're always Friday. Um the reality is we're at their mercy. So we're we're so we're so happy that we have such a positive relationship, but if they had any event for their district, I can't imagine them choosing our district's needs over their districts. So we feel like we are in a very susceptible place, especially this year where I anticipate having our highest number ever um for audience members, which is exciting and also very nerve-wracking. So, um, and we've had a we've had a connection, a family connection between Staff here and Madonic, and that's how it surfaced. I just think that's a little bit tenuous

129for one of our major events, at least in this district. >> Thank you. >> It doesn't mean we have to buy it this year, but I do think it is a risk. The same as Maria was talking about for the risk of the intercom. It was a really halfbaked idea. No offense to anyone that came up with it. was really out of necessity, but not having an intercom and waiting for it to die um just didn't feel like the best model. And I think the chairs fit into it as well. Yeah. All right. Any other questions or comments? Next week is the budget presentation to the towns. Uh the CSD is at 7. No, it's 5:30 and 6:30. So, 6:30. >> So, I just I just want to be like really clear. The next board

130meeting we have, this board will be voting on the budget. So, if this board wants me to change anything in the budget, the board needs to as a group direct me tonight to do that because this is there is not another opportunity unless you want to do that in real time in the meeting that we're voting on the budget when we have all the warrants ready for you to sign. So, there's a lot of work for us to do to prepare for the next meeting. Unless I'm told otherwise, I will walk away from this meeting saying, "Okay, CSD budget is set and we will start prepping for the next meeting because there's a lot of work to do for that next meeting." So, I just want to be clear that if if Rick, you expressed

131some interest in something and I feel like if if like I again just want to be transparent that if if you like want to make some proposal to change something and the board agrees to it like I need to know that tonight. >> Um this is just that last opportunity unless the board decided to have another meeting, a special meeting to look at the budget again. Um this this is the opportunity before we leave this discussion on this agenda item. Rick, >> I move that we direct Maria to add back an amount up to you said between 100,000 and 125 uh within that range to restore funding for the hatchery program manager position and not require an English teacher to fill that role. >> Is it possible? Sorry, >> there's a motion. Is there a

132second? >> I have a second >> discussion. >> It's a wondering whether it's possible to know the percent change that would have on the overall CSD budget. >> Um it's46. So basically the way it works, it's 1% of the budget. I mean if it's a $19.2 million budget, 1% would give you $192,000. So, if you add in $100,000, it's about a half a percent of the budget. That's how it works. Mathematically, and I can't say anything else, can I? Sorry, >> you were gonna say something else. >> No, I just that So, that's roughly accurate. So >> we would be what? Okay. So we're talking about 3.76 and we're saying adding half a percent. So we'd be over four >> and then the taxpayer increase goes up. Depends. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Taxpayer increase might

133not go up as much because revenue is amount of money in revenues is different than expenses. So it's not like the expense would be per 0.5 probably affect taxpayers slightly differently. It would go up but I don't know how much it would go up. It might go up more than 0.5. >> It would go up four to 4.22%. The increase the the expense increase would go to 4.22%. I mean, you know, I did this math like relatively quickly, but um it it possibly >> What's that? >> No, I'm I'm going on $100,000. >> Yeah. So, and so my map looks like it would possibly go to a 5.9% increase the tax maybe taxpayers completely different. >> No, I understand that. Yeah. So, a taxpayer increase would be instead of 5.9 5.49%. Maria, my math said

134that it would be a taxpayer increase of 5.9%. >> But that's cuz you added 5%. >> That's correct. >> I'm saying that's not how the taxpayer increase works. >> Okay. because it's >> Chris may or may not be able to pull that number up. >> Sorry about that. >> I I didn't know how. >> I just wanted to state that I remember when Danny Solomon left, he said his job should have really been two people doing his job. So, that's what's sticking with me. if we're looking to go to the co-op model. It makes me very nervous to hear that some of the people that would be in the co-op, they it sounds like they don't want to be there. Understandably, they want to be in ELA. And I was curious about the split as

135well, ELA versus um BPA, how that would work. And it's such a it's such a fantastic program. And I know it's hard to cut places. Maybe this buys us one more year to figure something else out for next year. >> The increases are 4.3 and 6.22% to taxpayers. >> So essentially the expense increase estimate. I'm not satisfied with the plan for filling this role, but I'm very hesitant to increase the budget. Um, as a parent and as a former educator, I don't want to touch a thing. But when I'm scrolling through Facebook and I'm reading people's concerns about taxes and I'm thinking about all five towns and I'm thinking about, you know, I just saw today Knox County budget may have a 15% increase for taxpayers. I think that our the people not in this

136room would take us to task. And so it's almost a departure from what I personally want, but I'm thinking about the responsibility we have on that front. So I'm not in favor of losing this position, but I'm not in favor of increasing the budget. And because I don't have all the knowledge to move the levers around, I have to trust the administrators that they've thought that through um and that there are no other levers to pull. So that's where I'm at. I think one of the things that I've been thinking about is, you know, we've had this program in in different iterations depending on the the leader of it and it it still feels to not have that kind of fully deep integration with kind of across other content areas and and to have this

137interdisciplinary dream that that was created. And it feels like the proposal that we're getting might force that. It might jumpst start that deeper creativity and and melding of the hatchery across the rest of the school rather than it be this separate thing that some teachers are engaging with and some students are engaging in. But it's it hasn't kind of built its roots kind of solid across Camden Hills is my take of what my experience and I have been down there multiple times. You know, it's not it is not a fact that board members cannot go down and see the factory. We we can. Uh so Jen is that >> kind of right? >> That's the promise. >> Yeah. that I feel with the proposal and to kind of quantify a little bit. So, uh, Mr.

138Edge helped me with his last for EMTT. So EMTT was inspired as a ninth grader because we had full integration with that entire grade level and he came back got a jazz because he went to Haystack and then start building started building guitars and he went deep with his interest. So students are currently able to go very deep. But in terms of integration within the entire building, there are probably 45 to 50 students who will have gone through apprenticeship program. I'm proposing something that right now there's a teacher that's talking about the English 11. we are talking about social studies in an integration with you know um give back day. So there to me it might not look the same but that doesn't scare me. What what scares me is losing programming when when I'm

139asked to make cuts which I get it. I think it's a it's a it's a viable request. I don't like it. I haven't liked any part of this. do not like these conversations, but my main goal is to make sure I'm servicing our students and our community to the best of my capacity. And it will not look the same. But the but the prospect of so many teachers bringing themselves to the table is the best I have seen for excitement since it started six years ago. And you can't ignore that. Can't ignore it. Do I want to cut someone? Told me I don't have to. I'm good. Um, but if I have to cut someone, I do think I just need some flexibility of what it actually looks like on a day-to-day basis because I

140can't wait to see what the teachers bring to the table. >> Um, what about is there somebody that's like a central person in the hatchery? Will there be >> Ela Harvey is currently our inter coordinator and Kimber works within um over overseeing it as Elaine. Kimber is a component of it. >> Okay. >> Which is the hatchery manager. Sorry, I'm giving names but really it's roles. So, innovation center coordinator. Um Elaine oversees the hatchery space which is the commons and our workshop. >> Okay. Because I guess I'm just thinking if there were if there's somebody that's in the hatchery that you know like Kimber and the co-op, you know, like >> Yeah, it would be Elaine in the co-op. >> Okay. >> Yeah. because it it did feel in the presentation that we got a

141couple months ago, it felt like there were two silos there and it it feels like possibly doing this will create a unified more unified vision. But, you know, hopefully we'll see, >> right? And and I do think it I I've been here through every iteration of the hatchery program and it's like hiring a teacher. >> Yeah. Um, when you hire a teacher, they bring passion, they bring inspiration and their job is to ignite it in their students. Where that goes, I hope nobody knows. And you know, the hatchery is that on steroids. So it has never looked the stain the same. And I just hope that that latitude is given regardless of who's in that role. >> Any other comments on this? >> I have a question that hopefully Jen can answer. Um, Kimber spoke

142about safety. >> Yeah. >> Any concerns about um safety from your perspective? >> Kimber's been the best with safety that I've seen. Hands down. Um, she came in and, you know, I say things, but it doesn't mean people are really listening and and taking it to heart. Hands down. I I hate saying things out loud, but like in terms of incident reports and she's been there, minuscule. So, you're right. I don't want to lose things that I have seen and that is task number one for the co-op. It has to be addressed. Um orientation to equipment. Everything Kimber mentioned in terms of safety. How do we leave the space? How do we enter the space? Is it locked? There are one, two, three doors going into that space. That's that there has to be a

143lot of thought around safety and it's first and foremost. So that's step number one there. No question. I just one last thing I guess but uh if we're going to be take no matter what we do here there we're going to be taken a test by the people not in this room you know like any you know 49 there or not there's you know people are still going to be tested so like I guess voting for keeping somebody that's you know running the shop I guess you know that's I don't know what else to say, but >> you're right, Andy, but I do think people are paying attention to this very meeting like and so they're going to know what we started at and what we end at. So that that's where I that's where

144I struggle. I don't disagree, but that's where I'm struggling. interest question uh as proposed that's to say eliminating uh the position that the the manager position as it's been filled and have that uh an English teacher basically or a visual I'm sorry the other program >> it's an assortment of departments yeah >> other folks barring the the chance that one of them happens to be an expert in power tools Next year, do you anticipate that our students would be able to use uh all the the array of power tools that are down there for amit edge making guitars? >> Yeah. I mean that's the plan. >> Yeah. >> The plan is what >> that they're have the capacity to use the tools that are in the existing space. >> Okay. But among the folks who

145would fill that position, >> is there somebody who you know has that capacity? Yeah, power tools are used outside of the hatchery. I just want to put that out there. I don't know if anyone, you know, is aware by our >> they're they are used throughout the building. Our theater program, Bill sets, our VPA program is constantly using power tools. It is not unique to that space and it really shouldn't be seen that way. I have people in this building who have tremendous skills that use power tools. I I just want to bring that to the context of this conversation. This is not like hiring someone who has never done this before. Now granted, um VPA, but there are two individuals. One does actually use power tools and welding and things of that nature. Like

146they're in that realm. Um the other person is theaters. You might not have thought of her, but they build sets. They're working with power tools. They're teaching kids how to do it safely. So I would never propose an idea where I didn't think that there were existing people with that skill set. I think the biggest drawback is what everyone has identified. I have never once had to come up with a safety protocol that I need five people to implement. I have never once had to do a safety orientation that five people had to implement. It was one person and they just had to have unanimous decision between themselves on how to facilitate that space. It is the biggest drawback of this plan and it has to be what's addressed first and foremost in terms of

147personnel. I mean I I am I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm very blessed. There are individuals in this building that have capacity. Do I have eight periods of it? Not right now. Hope I don't. But I have enough to move the idea forward unless you tell me not to cut. That's the decision you have because I do think out of all the options we've explored for for weeks, months, I I I can't tell you that there's a better option. Any other questions or comments on the motion? >> Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? Okay. >> What was the result? I think >> what was the pass? >> It did not pass. There were three people in favor of it. Rick, Amelia, and Andy, and everybody else was opposed. >> I abstained.

148>> Well, that reduced. >> Oh, we can't. >> Sorry. I mean, >> the students not have a Okay. Hands go off. >> All those in favor? >> So, there's no abstensions. >> You should only abstain if you have a conflict of interest or >> Okay. You know, >> um Okay. >> Am I a deciding vote? >> No. No. >> No. Okay. >> All those in favor? Opposed? Okay. Motion's defeated. Are there any other proposed changes to this budget? Okay, thank you everybody. Next up is student representatives report, student perspective on club scheduling issues. So we wanted to bring to your attention the issue of when clubs should meet. Firstly, I think we should thank you for having um have putting in effort for having kids have the most amount of time to sleep in in

149the mornings. I I we very much appreciate your effort and your intention with the um limiting when clubs should meet. However, it has become a pretty big issue with a lot of complaints. So, that's what we're here to talk about today. >> Yeah. So, in everyone's packet, there should be a copy of the responses that we received from multiple um people who run clubs, whether that be student leaders, but there's also teacher leaders who um have written statements about the current scheduling issues. Because just to give an example or like just like a walkthrough of what's happened is when the district um initially, you know, pushed starts back to 8:45, they also made it a rule that people could not really come to the building before 8:45 for a school related reason because that would

150defeat the purpose of pushing back the start time. And that rule during our time of flex like during flex time, which just was removed in the previous year, it has this is the first year without flex, it was never really enforced. So most clubs that I went to, even when we still had that 35 minutes of flex time at the end of the day. Um, lots of my clubs still met at 8:15 in the morning to kind of balance it out because most people have commitments after school, whether that be sports or other clubs that would meet during flex time. So flex and 8:15 start for like clubs really maximize the amount of time that kids could have for clubs. And that resulted in there being a lot of clubs at school with lots of

151participation. And then with this year when we cut flex, it did definitely hurt clubs. And you can see that in the packet there are some descriptions of that. And I just know there's not a single student in the building who has said that it's easier for them to do clubs because it means now every single day they come at 8:15. But then after this first semester um the school started enforcing the policy as written by the board um restricting students from coming to school before 8:45 for clubs which now means that clubs have been pushed to meet at 3:15 which is basically impossible to meet for anyone that has any commitment after school which is most people because school sports start at 3:30 and you cannot go to a club meeting at 3:15 and make

152it to a sports practice. ractice by 3:30. So that's resulted as you can see like just as an example Joanna Bellington wrote for GSTA has gone from 20 kids to 15 kids to one kid. >> Wind planners was grasping on to an like one finger on a ledge now after like we just got back right before second semester started trying to do meetings again and it's just kind of totally been wiped out again. It's just it's just like each time we try to kind of get there, it just the finish line kept on getting further. >> Uh I also just want to add in terms of how well the initial intentions are put in place. Kids come well before and around like 8:15 anyways. If they ride the bus, they get here well before 8:45.

153If they get uh dropped off by a parent, most likely cuz they're going to work 8:30, they get here before 8:45. And as soon as they drive themselves is completely voluntary. It's not uh it's not a requirement to get here before 8:45. So I do think it having that policy of not allowing clubs to meet in the morning doesn't actually truly restrict I mean well allow for more sleep I should say. >> Yeah. Just wondering how this your ideas would affect kids who have to rely on buses >> who rely on buses for like a like it just means if you're leaving school you're not doing a club anymore if you're on a bus because if you're if your bus leaves 3:15 0% NHS biggest club in the school super important club for I'll just

154say like of course clubs are great for you know just getting these like interesting opportunities but like people mentioned they're super important for college applications and Kenan Hills has really excelled held with these like interesting clubs that allowed people to explore all these different opportunities especially like wind planners. I know from wind planners um we had like some of my friends sophomore year were were able to win a national prize for making my mcelium floats and all this other interesting stuff that just wouldn't be explored. But now you think NHS super important club especially for college ops especially just like it's the foundational club I would say at our school it meets at 3:15 starting today was the first meeting. If you're on a bus, if you have a sport at 3:30, you're not going

155to you're either not going to your sport, which I know in cross country, if I missed two practices, I wasn't racing on Saturday. So, that's not really it. You can't really do that. And then if you ride a bus, if you don't have a car, if you're if you either don't have a car or you're an underassman, you're just not going to any clubs. You're not going to NHS. You're not It's just you're kind of stuck at this like crossroads of like you you you have to pick. And it's there isn't really a good side to pick. But I know that like when I'm thinking for next year, I saw an incredible drop off in club participation this year. like and the only clubs that were really able to stick around were NHS and interact

156or like and they both met in the mornings because it just presented like people find it easy to come to school at 8:15 versus staying at school after it's dismissed. It's just kind of a mental thing too. It's like at the end of the day you want to leave but it's easier to start the day here. And when I'm thinking next year, I just don't really see how many clubs are going to exist at Camden Hills if they've been beaten down so hard. Like Amnesty was just reinstated right before the start of second semester and now I don't even know when it's meeting anymore. >> So I'm not really sure about that. >> To answer that, it is very infrequent and again he's just starting to back up >> but it is harder to coordinate

157things. >> So what would solve the problem? Uh well I think the only there's two solutions. One like the whole entire flex thing which I don't really know that's not saying that the board controls that's an administrative thing at Camden Hills but flex of course allowed time for students to meet in clubs and that's most of the times when clubs would meet and it kind of just presented a time where like if you had an interesting idea for a club you could do it and you could run it. If it didn't work out it wasn't that big of a deal because you're still at school. you're not staying after school and you're not missing any other commitments. But then I think that the most obvious choice would be to like rewrite that part in board

158policy that says that you cannot be at school prior to the start because up until last semester, even when we had flex, the school was not enforcing that. We were having clubs at 8 8:15 most days. So it's just I found it kind of strange that when you when you restrict that time at the end of the day, you get rid of flex. you then you don't support students and instead you reduce the amount of time that they can meet before school. So it's like I just don't really see how you could ever really meet in a club if you can't meet before school and a really large majority at least a majority of students do sports that start at 3:30. So it's just like you have you have zero time. So allowing students to

159meet at between 8:15 8:45 it does not impact mo most people were doing it. Most people are up. It's kind of it's a normal schedule getting school at 8:15. I do it a lot just to go to classes earlier to get in homework or redo tests or stuff like that. I just think that that was the most obvious. It's also no one was aware of it. It kind it it took everyone by surprise a few weeks ago when it got sent around that we couldn't meet anymore and it kind of just threw all these clubs that were just just getting back in the role of it like wind planners just having their first meetings back and now it's just there there really is no no way for them to survive. Ethan, you said that even

160the change from the eliminating flex and and when people were meeting in the morning this year, it it was fewer people than before. Even just with that change, right? >> Well, yeah, because Flex allowed clubs to disperse. Like I had always Interact because it's not run by the school and like it's literally run by Rotary. They love to meet in the morning. So, we met at 8:15 um every other week for Interact. But then Amnesty on the same day, Tuesdays, I would meet Amnesty after at 2:25 for um flex. So it allowed you to like have multiple clubs on like one day or some days you have a club in the morning, some days you have a club in the afternoon and then once you get rid of flex then it's every club has to

161be and so then you only have five days and people don't want to line their schedules with clubs at 8:15 every single morning. So people started going to less clubs and now those clubs don't exist. Like the club fair difference between freshman year when I did the two club fairs, there were so many clubs. When I saw it this year, just the sheer like the decrease in the amount of people who want to participate in clubs is crazy because it's just people don't want to. Starting at the beginning of the year, they thought it was already already a lot for the school to ask them to come to school at 8:15 every single morning if they wanted to have multiple clubs. But now the school is asking them to meet somehow after school. Like NHS

162even suggested meeting at 7 o'clock, 7 at night so that they could accommodate after sports because right now no one who does sports can really do NHS like it like you're just going to have to like miss your sport, I guess. But it for lots of people that you can't really do that or if you have any prior commitment, you have a bus, if your parent needs to pick you up at a certain time, if you have a sibling who's leaving school, it's just it's there is really no way to work around it. I don't see >> uh just to follow up on Marsha's question for for kids who take the bus in the morning, will they across the board be able to arrive for an 8:15 club meeting? >> It's a mix. start as

163early as 7:45 and we have our last bus roll in the 7 7:45 >> would be really early cuz they're dropping. >> No, they do. >> Yeah, they drop them off. They Our kids are genius and because there's two runs >> they mean the driver that's the crest run and they drop them off. So kids are kids are brilliant. We know this. Our kids are brilliant. So they get dropped off super freaking early. Sorry, super early and um we love you for that. And then we stop pretty much the bus runs I would say >> 10 minutes before school starts because we need to feed them breakfast. >> Okay. My concern, and I totally understand that you guys want to h, you know, have more time to meet and do all these wonderful things that

164you're doing, is would that be fair to students who do rely on the bus, who don't have their own transportation to get here? Um, would that mean that there's more opportunity for kids who do have their own transportation? Would those kids who rely on the bus to get here in the morning be at a disadvantage? They are for both. Yeah. >> Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't work either way. That's the thing. You either you either say that you can meet at 8:15 and a certain amount of people get that opportunity. Albeit some people on the bus who arrive past 8:15. Yes. They won't be able to do that >> or you don't if or you keep the current policy which allows no one to meet at 8:15 and no one gets to meet at clubs.

165So, it's like you're you're kind of like you got to pick the better or you reinstate flex, which allows unanimous participation >> more it's just more equitable. Um, but at this point, you're kind of either choosing >> to allow how we always were running it with this A-15 versus not running it, which is what we're doing right now, which means no club participation or extremely limited because I I don't know. I wasn't at NHS today, but I don't know how many people came. I know a lot of people did not come. And with a club that that like that is the foundational club at Camden Hills, there's 100 members in NHS. Knowing that that club found it hard to meet, I can't even imagine how other clubs with a way smaller base of students like

166GSTA that dropped from 20 to one. Like there there's just really like looking forward to next year. when you don't have club participation one year no one's there to carry it on and we already saw that with flex like clubs were just getting like weaker and I just like worried that really no clubs will be passed on and then it will be the responsibility of teachers to try to initiate that which is kind of just not what the school wants like it's supposed to be a student level >> it's not the spirit of a club >> um yeah no I I I totally hear you I just wonder like if if there are any legal implications around like the >> like What? Yeah, the >> Unequal access to clubs. Um, >> like I said, if

167there are students out there who rely on the bus, can't get here on time or can't get here for an 8:15 meeting, if that puts the more um maybe financially advantaged kids um in a better position. Um, so I just I I I completely hear you. Like what you're saying basically is if we were able to move it to 8:15, maybe that solves the problem for 85% of kids and that's better than no kids at all being able to be in clubs. But I do worry about like are we being fair to that 15%. Is there a legal uh obligation we have there? I don't know the answer. I'm not a lawyer, but it's something that comes up in my frame. >> Do we have provide a late bus? >> So it it fits in

168Can I sit with you guys? It's hard enough. Yellow is good. Um, it fits into extracurriculars. So, if you think of sports in clubs >> that's outside anyway of the school day, there's no doubt that this surfaced. And honestly, I can tell you I didn't know how many kids met in the morning because most of them met during flex. So this became more of a prevalent shift to morning um club meetings when flex was gone and then it surfaced that we weren't fulfilling the expectations of the board. Hence why implementation shifted. I was not aware. It wasn't that I was choosing not to implement it. I just wasn't aware. Wasn't happening at a high frequency. Happened at a high frequency and I was asked to address it. So I just want to put that in

169context. by the board >> by Maria. >> Okay. Okay. >> Because of the decision that was made by the board to go to a late start. I think it again this is an evolution that started >> Well, it has to do with the health of teenagers. >> Yeah. I mean, we made the board made a commitment when we moved to a later start time that no school activities would start prior to the school day. And it was a very intentional thing because it would defeat the purpose of moving to a later start time. like we might as well not move to a later start time if we're going to allow everything to happen at that same time. School would have started anyways. So like the board was made a very intentional decision to say if

170we're going to do this, we're we are not going to sponsor any school sponsored thing that starts before. You know, if you're on some travel soccer team that starts at 4:30 in the morning, we can't control what's happening in the community, but we can be consistent with the decisions we're making. When was the start time? >> It had been 8:00. >> Clarify something >> that I'm confused about, too. So, because it's just when that was passed, I'm not even sure when the later start was passed by the board, was flex time in the schedule at Ken Hills. >> Yes. >> So, if we're thinking about a policy that was instituted when there was a 35minut period for people to do whatever they wanted, which was mostly meet in clubs, I don't know. know it seems

171a little bit interesting to continue that exact policy when you remove the 35 minutes that people had to meet and do these activities. So, it's just because it it was made and it it's a totally valid policy when flex was a thing, but now that flex isn't a thing, it's just it's just you're like there really is a lack. Philosophically, I would argue if I were in a court of law using logic that if the board moved to a later start time with an understanding that nothing could happen before school and it and flex time had been available, it's flex time that should be adapting, not the board's philosophy about a later start time because that's like, you know, that's saying we care about equity, but we're not going to be equitable. I mean like

172for the board to make a decision to move to later start time philosophically and say like look we're going to be consistent with our behaviors around this decision we made just because some other thing changes you don't leave your values and your principles aside because some other thing changed that and you know we believe in honesty but we're going to be dishonest because something over here happened like I mean I feel like for the board it's a really hard position to say we believe this thing for why we changed to a later start time but we're going to overlook it because it's inconvenient. I personally think the board either needs to say look we move to a later start time whatever five six years ago for reasons that we cared about but we're willing to

173sort of sacrifice that that rationale and change the rationale. Fine. If and you know those conditions change or other solutions need to be looked at other than the morning if the board still believes what they believed when we move to a later start time >> right it doesn't feel to me like I feel like we're this conversation is like trapping us into like in the morning or night or you know are there other creative ways we can think about maybe it's not bringing back bringing back flex every day but like two club periods a week or or just something that could be looked at in a different fashion than this, which you know, to Sarah's point, like we're still not being equitable to all kids by having it in the morning. So, it it just

174feels like there should be some kind of other creative way. I know that's hard in a schedule that's already so packed, but it I don't want and I believe in clubs, so it's just it's a it's a hard thing, but it doesn't feel like it's like morning or afternoon and that's that's it, right, Rick? >> Yeah. Thank you. U and I've been harping on this restoration of flex thing since I first heard that it went away. Uh I one of the rationale I heard for getting rid of it was that when not every student was using it the way it was intended uh and correct me if I miss or overstate any of this but uh if it was when it was the end of the day students who just use that as a chance

175to go home early uh but nevertheless there were students who didn't do that who were using it properly. I think this wasn't a board decision and I don't know that it other than uh expressing our thoughts on this what our role ought to be in it but I I think that there is a an we ought to be revisiting this flex concept maybe just putting other uh parameters in place to basically you know say that you can't just leave that there had something more like an advisory so that they're if if stu if students aren't accessing it for clubs or some other u purpose like we're talking about here. Um they're using it for as a study hall or I'm just spitballing now but like basically attack the concern that led you to eliminate the

176program rather than just uh forget flex in its entirety. I mean, I'm welcome to I'm happy to bring that presentation forward. To say that we didn't attack the concern, I think is not a credible statement. I think I attacked the concern six years in a row. And if again, there are lots of things the board can tell me that they support, but I my job is to use the resources to the best of my capacity. And I have never once thought 20% of the students using a resource is the best of my capacity. And I would hope that you wouldn't either, Rick. Did we lose things? This is a great conversation. This is healthy tension. I love this topic. I'm so glad they brought it forward. It is a reality. You asked me three years

177ago, two years ago to talk about rate inflation. I couldn't find any data to support it. I do believe because of flex, we had club inflation. We're right sizing it. I think in a healthy way. Kids were had all kinds of things on their resume, but they weren't dedicated to one or two. Are they happy about that? Probably not. But this is the swing of the pendulum. But I also think what we're asking, what they're asking is maybe one or two mornings a week. It's not like it's Monday through Friday. And I do think it's teaching them time management because the problem with after school is that kids are heavily involved. We're talking maybe 40% of the students, those same 40% are also doing sports. Sports are always after school. So somehow we have to

178find a time in the day that doesn't conflict with sports. We're using lunch. We have chess during lunch. Um GSTA uses break. We are trying to maximize the existing time. What I think they're asking for is flexibility, not unfettered access to mornings, because I do think your point is a valid one. We should mix it within the day, but I think completely removing mornings is further restricting what I think has already been restricted with club access. I I think it's a healthy conversation. flex. >> I I think the numbers support that it's worth doing this for clubs. >> Now, with with that is your you have to acknowledge the premise that a lot of the students who would have been accessing it if they had to remain on campus didn't. They left, right? >> Well,

179juniors and Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That was the issue. They left, which is not what you want me to be doing with the taxpayer money, >> allowing them to leave >> when I could take 35 minutes times 4 days a week times 40 weeks. >> I'm okay with you using the taxpayer money for flex. I'm What are What are the downsides of what you're saying is like give me two mornings a week. What if I said give me two days a week of flex? Why is that a worse option than the mornings? >> I I think we're still having a conversation about the number of students using at Maria. That's my concern. >> Cuz more kids are going to go in the morning than we'll go during Flex. >> Definitely. >> You have I

180have an entire school at Flex that I have to worry about. If I allow 20 kids to come in a morning, I can manage that and it doesn't disrupt any other part of school functioning. I think if I'm talking about 740 students and really it's only let's say I even have every single club meeting, you're still only talking about maybe 200 kids tops >> that participate in clubs. >> Maybe. Maybe. I don't know how you do it on one day and still have 200 kids because they do lots of things. >> Yeah. So, it's just management and reducing unnecessary chaos during the school. And if you give me a morning, two mornings, I can manage that. And they're already right now not choosing 10 different clubs, they're probably now only involved in three. That's a

181reality. I agree. Flux has done that. I will completely own that piece. forget what's the rest of the motion. >> I was not on the board when the start time change was made, but unless I'm missing something, we're not proposing returning to the original start time. We're talking about 8:15, which was not the original start time, right? Is that correct? >> Clubs clubs starting at at 8:15. >> Right. Right. Right. No, I'm just saying when was the original start time. >> It was somewhere now. Right. So, we're not talking about going back to 7:40 as a time when students would be on campus. We're talking about 8:15. So, to me, I don't actually >> I don't think that um undercuts the principle of having high school students start late to get more sleep in in

182my mind and I'm very concerned about the fact that they effectively have no time to meet because of sports or I think it's mostly sports is my guess is the conflict. the after school conflict >> and I think I'm assuming the concurrence of kids in clubs and kids in sports is pretty significant. um you know when I was in high school there was a time after school before sports but I don't think the board can say um that we are honoring all of the needs of students if we are sort of dogged about you can't be in school before 8:45 because then I would it would be interesting over the next three years if we didn't change a thing what would club participation be like how would that affect college acceptances is like I think

183there are very real concerns about the excellence and health of the school. So the extent I don't know how this is done technically but I would be in favor of amending our policy to allow clubs to meet what 2 days 3 days a week at 8:15 >> you know I think the weakness with that is that the kids from Hope Appleton and Lincolnville can't jump on an earlier bus and they very likely can't get here to participate in that. But my understanding is how would that be handled after school? Same question. What's the difference for >> offer a late bus and it was there was no ridership so we stopped offering it for the second time we did that earlier. >> So why do we assume if kids didn't need a late bus? Why do

184we assume we need they'd need an early bus? I'm just I'm just playing it out. >> I I would say cricket I haven't heard anybody recommend that clubs meet after school. So I think it's a good point to even ask about a leap bus because I don't think the conversation seems to be revolving around having clubs be after school. >> It was about flex and they were home on the buses back for >> um kind of going from what Sarah and Marca were both kind of getting at. Are there times when other clubs meet during the day or is it only in the morning and that's it? I'm thinking about the kids from Hope, Appleton, Lincolnville who can't get in and effectively wouldn't be able to participate in the morning clubs. >> There are clubs

185that meet during the day. >> Okay. So, they would still have access to different clubs. >> Can I add on to that? >> Yeah. >> I'm going to be real. The times that you can meet during the day are extremely slim. >> There is a 15-minute break that includes a 5m minute, you know, you get there, you get food, and you leave. So if you want to get food at break or if you have a late arrival because you're a senior something like this or just you're kind of you're doing stuff in your class that 15 minutes of meeting in a club is I don't know when you get to a club and you're trying to do something in 15 minutes that's not really going to work that well. And then lunch I don't think

186that the school should really be advertising sac like you can't really sacrifice lunch. um like chess meets at lunch because it's a man who comes and plays chess with students so it's not really that crazy but if you're like amnesty meet and you're making this poster about this genocide somewhere during lunch period that's really not going to work that well so there's this 15-minute period I that is not a period when people can meet for clubs at Camden Hills in any any way shape or form at NHS it took 15 minutes for people to come sit down and take attendance It's >> it's like it's really not going to like >> and I can look at to be honest I when I say the parameters of the bus the first bus that drops off in

187the last I can specifically look at Hope Apple in Lincolnville in share times majority of them get here by 8:15 but there are I know there are buses that come 10 minutes before school because I I welcome them >> because I don't want some poor kid who try who's coming in from Appleton not to be able to be in NHS because they meet before to get there. >> That's actually not as much. It's mostly the that's not actually the demographic that you like busing typically is ninth and 10th just to share demographics. Um, so it typically NHS isn't the target audience that we're worried about busing. However, super valid point and I can find out when house schools get there. >> I do think it's close to 8:15. >> Um, but I can I can

188get hard numbers for that. And so what we're proposing or what I'm hearing is maybe do it two or three mornings a week. >> Great. >> I would just say that the idea of riding an early bus like getting on the crest and the crest bus sounds great, but like if you want to do that on my kids route, that would be 6:30 in the morning that you're getting on the bus at my kids stop if you live where they live. >> So yeah, it's dedication and then that like it's not just 8:15. It is then if you need the bus, it's backing up even from that. sometimes very significantly. >> Yeah. >> Jen, how did you solve the um jazz band? There were some other things that wasn't there band or course or something

189that was in flex too. Did that because that's for me feels a little less like a club and more like a class. Did that get put into the schedule someplace or is that part of this conversation? >> It's part of this that's acappella. That's so those are studentled clubs even though they're phenomenally talented. doesn't feel very studentledd. Um those are clubs also. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> The jazz band. >> That's I think >> kids stopped doing it. >> They would just go practice with the concert band and then show up. >> We do have a plan next year for jazz band. And and you're right. We have shifted things, but we also had declining enrollment in a certain area. We took advantage of the fact that Jazz Band's growing. >> So will that be

190in the schedule? >> Yes, it's in the schedule next year. Yeah. >> Jen, what would you do? I mean, like, we're hearing flex time was a problem, but I'm hearing you don't want to reinstate it. I'm hearing votes against the morning. I mean, how would you one, do you think it's a problem, and two, how would you solve it from an administrative capacity? >> I love that we're talking about it. I think it's a healthy conversation. I love that the students brought it to you. I I kids are there sometimes before I get to work. We open our doors at Camden Hills like no other school I've ever been in. And sometimes kids stay here till when you walk by you're going to see kids here. So I think as long as we're being thoughtful

191because I do think sleep was the intention. I I do not think one or two days of a kid coming in early is the antithesis of those intentions. I think it's teaching them, you know, management, time management skills, and they're committing to one or two now, which I do think is healthy. They were not very judicious about their choices in the past. They are now. So, when they commit to something, I actually think it's a healthy commitment to also come in the morning. I would also just like to add that, you know, since I've been here freshman of senior year, I had two clubs that met every single morning at 8:15 and it was or not, let's say, Interact and NHS up until two weeks ago. So, when we're talking about this, we're not talking

192about this 8:15 idea like it's some something new that we would have to implement like a new time to ride the bus or something like this. This is something that we've been doing as a school and of course we haven't been following board policy which we just figured out but it is something that we have been doing for at least 4 years because NHS until today met at 8:15 in the morning and it worked out. I know that there is an issue of equity with people who are not arriving on the buses, but unless like it it's just something that it didn't really seem to cause that large of an issue like Jen was saying that 9th and 10th graders are the largest like demographic for bus riders and you only have one meeting as

193a sophomore in NHS and then the rest of the people are junior and seniors. So it there were no major issues with the 815 for NHS and Interact up to up until this point. It was just right now that it came to the attention of the administration um and Maria that we were breaking board policy that it was changed. It didn't come from an issue that where people felt like they were being deprived of something that they were promised. Marsha, >> I just think because the scheduling is really not something the board decides, I'd like to ask them to come back next month with a proposal for us. And it could be that two mornings a week we change our policy, but I'd like to know who's coming on that bus 10 minutes before school

194starts. I mean, the total impact that that's going to have and just come back to us with a proposal because we're just going in circles at this point. >> I mean, yeah, theoretically, I'm going with two days, but I think we just need to ensure it's equitable. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Uh, just real quick, I just want I cannot recommend it enough. Please read the responses on those packets. Some of it is frankly just disheartening. Uh, there's plenty of clubs that are really badly suffering from this. >> Yeah, >> thank you for bringing this to our Did you have a comment on this? Yeah, I'll just make it really quickly. I'm sure everybody wants to go home, but um this is just me as a parent. >> Oh, sorry. Can you wait till this less

195transition? I can't hear you. >> Can you come up just I know everybody wants to go home, so I'll say this very quickly. As a parent, um thank I mean I these students are incredible. They've all been in my classes. It's like this is this is, you know, this is a real that's that's I mean I can't top that other than to say as a parent at some point the district needs to let me decide when my kid wakes up. Why don't we just do permission slips if we're that concerned about hypocrisy or or like care for our children or whatever. I think that I really appreciate the district making a decision for my daughter not to have to come to school till 8:45, but at some point I need the discretion as a parent

196to be able to decide whether or not she gets up and comes to a meeting at 8:15. And I think the other thing as a parent is that we don't live in Camden Rockport and if my daughter had to be here by 8:15 for a meeting and I realize I'm not a demographic that is, you know, I'm not low SCES. I get that. But I feel like it's kind of kind of crappy to say that an Appleton or a Lincolnville or Hope Parent wouldn't get their kid be here by 8:15 if their kid wanted to be here because they probably would. That's I just really I that b I bristle at that. You know, those families really care about their kids. They're going to get their kids here. And so let's give the parents a

197little bit more credit than that to make a decision about how much how much their kids sleep and and how much they care about their kids enough to get them to a meeting that is really really important. So I just like to say I think um momentum matters and if like these start dropping off if we wait for a whole month to give them >> uh an opportunity to get together they it might be done by that point and so I think can we maybe like >> you can make a motion >> yeah I'll make a motion to allow for three days a week for they can come at 8:15 start and and we will revisit in a month. >> A motion second. >> I don't understand the motion. Three days a week starting now.

198>> Yeah. Yeah. So, so that over over the next month until we can review the information further. Allow these clubs to start meeting at 8:15 so they don't totally die off. >> I'll second it. discussion. >> Um, I'll just add on something to just make sure that the board understands. When you say three days a week, that might seem like, okay, this is three days where people are coming in. I'm in three clubs. And that's like a lot at Camden Hills. They all meet bi-weekly. So, that would mean one week one, the next week two. So, it's like, and for lots of kids, let's just say they're in NHS because that's like the only club that they want to be in. That means every other week they would meet one day a week. It's really

199not an an like an immense change to their sleep schedule. Also, these kids are waking up before 8:15 and they're getting to school right now at 8:15. So, it's like if you're talking about the like me who's in three clubs, it just means one week I'm there one day, the next week I'm there two days early, which I'm already currently doing. So, it's like just for people to understand. >> I'd like to hear the proposal. I really would. >> And I'm not saying like like >> this is an interim step. >> Yeah. I think this is just just an inter give give them people a month they can make the proposal can revisit and get after having some more information. But I don't know. I just see >> so you're it's not like an official

200change to our policy. Oh exception. >> Yeah. Like a month exception to let like let this continue. Let the kids have their their clothes because I I don't know. I mean just seeing this the GSTA going from like 20 to 15 to one like that sucks. >> GSTA can only meet during flex if you read that >> morning. Yes. So if you're concerned about GSTA it's not morning. >> I'm willing to support this like one one month exception but I want to circle I think we need to restore flex in some capacity. I mean there should be another option discussed cuz I mean that was when you know whether you say it was just kids going to you know to clubs for the sake of going somewhere I don't know I mean that's you can

201paint things however you want what I know is that every student I know I've gone to through the school here benefited from flex and I you know it I think the problem that was expressed to us by Jen before was that we had students leaving early because they didn't because I don't need blacks. I'm just going to split. If that's the problem, create a mechanism where they stay in school and if they're not engaging in a club or some other activity like that, you're doing something some sort of school work. You're in library. You're going to fun something as functionally like a study hall. I'm not making this a part of the motion except to say I I would like to see something more in one month than just a proposal to figure out a

202way for kids to us to get around the spirit of the later start time when we have a flex option. >> And I don't know the logistics of it, but a way to address kids leaving is to not have flex at the end of the day, >> right? >> Yeah. What about a long lunch? I I remember I asked about that what when we first were hearing about this. I there was a good explanation. I don't remember why. >> I can't remember what it is. >> We can't talk a lot. >> I think I think some other things to think about is supervising 700 kids and you're you're forcing at some point club participation, right? >> Or an advisory structure that mandates midday which could help intervention. The other thing that happened with flex is

203like it really hit athletics. So kids are missing that fourth grade class. >> So it it wouldn't release any pressure in that. Um so there there's so many factors that I just think like >> for Jen to be able to explain all the threads to those. It's really hard. So, I just >> the midday break for 700 kids, >> okay? >> And trying to get them to not leave, not bathe, not you know, like make the list. >> Okay, >> that you guys are all going to have to volunteer for that's >> and I can report changes in >> behavior incidences. >> Okay, >> they're significant. >> Okay, >> if you especially if you try to >> just that one, >> if they leave, if you let them leave, you let them leave. But even

204that, >> right? We're either promoting autonomy >> and we leave which is our biggest thing that we do at Camden House agency or we restrict them during the day and then you there's a byproduct of that I don't think it is the way that we want our school to run >> what about uh like an elective flex >> I just say we should let them do the schedule I mean job Yeah. >> So, we have a motion. We have a second. Any other discussion on Andy's proposal to allow for 3 days of morning activities for the next month until we address this with a larger plan >> that start at 8:15. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> All those in favor? Opposed? Okay. >> So, you'll be prepared to >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Yeah,

205we appreciate the gap in your appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Chair's report. I think this might only take about 45 minutes. >> Uh, I'll have questions. Um, Just quickly, uh Bri and I have been working on Dr. Neil's visit uh with Jamie as well. Uh she's going to be here at the end of March and then in June. There's a number of activities where there'll be board welcome participation. Um having a number of activities with parents and the community. So we'll get those solid dates out to you. I'm just working on the last two with the villager cafe today. So, make sure you have all those this week so you can plan accordingly. >> Superintendent report. >> I don't have a report to offer you. I've been spending all my

206time working on the budget. >> You can go over that again. >> Uh, administrative reports. Jamie Stone, our assistant superintendent. my reports in the packet. I'm happy to answer questions if you have to say anything. Hearing none. Thank you for the report. Jess Yates, special education director. >> I have waited all evening to tell you that my report is in THE PACKET. HAPPY to answer any questions THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE. There's some moments of joy in there you can read at a later time. Photos. >> I have to say I was watching here as my face became more and more distressed just because >> Sorry, I forgot my mask. Yes. But um it's a little I'm not articulate after 10 o'clock. So >> thank you. >> Jen, you have any voice left? two questions for

207Jen. Her report is in your packet. >> Okay. Standing committee reports. Joint curriculum meets March 20th. Finance met March Matt February 4th. Minutes attached meets before the schoolboard meeting tonight. Thank you. >> All right. uh year-to- date uh our target is based on 18 of 26 payrolls through February 28th. Um we are um targeted to spend 69.2% of our budget with the actual of 62.5% and fiscal year the same um period of time a year ago uh 62.8% of our budget. We did talk about budget updates, but you saw them all in the um presentation, and I don't think anybody needs to hear Maria do it again. Up to you. Joint policy meets March 9th. Joint Facilities meets March 16th. Joint Personnel meets March 25th. Board Advisory Committee reports, Mid Coast School of Technology. Amelia,

208>> um your minutes are in the packet. And then this Osprey Nest, their reservations open on March 16th. if we want to try and go with the board, >> you should look at some dates. >> Great. >> Uh, and I know that uh, February is CTE month and I know MCST had a table in the Rotunda uh, Capitol building for a week. I just happened to be there and saw them and uh, one of our students here tonight was actually there at the table and got to meet him. So, >> yeah, they had a great time there. Um, excellent. Okay. Can I There the uh joint curriculum committee meeting is incorrect. The date >> 19th. That's right. >> It's April 13th and May 5th. >> And those invites have been sent out to people. >>

209The 19th, right? >> I'm sorry. >> 19th. >> It's April 13th and May 5th for joint for Hill. >> Okay. I had to 19. Okay. Um, okay. Preach your genoms. You see them. We'll look forward to them and we will adjourn. Thank you everybody. Putting walls.