001We're okay. Good evening. My name is Jennifer Prebble and I'm the SACO school board chair. I'm calling this meeting to order at 700 PM on this Wednesday, August 13th. Please, we have All school board members in attendance with the exception of school board member Johnston who is excused this evening. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. All right. Moving on to item three of our agenda this evening. I have approval of school board meeting minutes dated July 9th, 2025. Um, do I have a motion? >> Chair Prebble. >> Uh, school board member Truman. >> I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated July 9th, 2025. >> All right. I have a motion by school board. >> Oh, and a second by Jeff, school board member Richards. All right. Any discussion on the
002meeting minutes dated July 9th, 2025? All right. Uh, roll call vote. School board member Waroff, >> yes. >> School board member Richards, >> yes. >> I vote yes. School board member Roach, >> yes. >> School board member KD, >> abstain. >> And school board member Truman, >> yes. >> All right. Motion passes. Five yes. One abstension. Moving on to item four, adjustments to the agenda. Um, I do not see any adjustments that were brought to my attention this evening. So, we can move on to item five, which is correspondence. I was not had any correspondence brought to my attention. So, we can move on to item six, which is public session. Please feel free to come before the board and speak your name and address for the record. And um, have three minutes. Right. Um,
003seeing nobody is seeking recognition for public session, we can move on to item seven, which is the superintendent report. Superintendent Ray. >> Right. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for coming out on such a wonderful night. I know there's no place you'd rather be right now than uh here. Um, but just a few updates. um about the the summertime. So, first and foremost, uh this is for the board and community. Another exciting milestone in our building project today. Uh we received uh final design approval by the state board of education this afternoon. Uh and so following that approval, we have a target date of August 20th or 21st to place the ad for bid. We are hoping that on August 28th there will be a kind of um pre-bid construction walkthrough where people will come to
004ask questions. will take all of the pre-qualified biders out to the site, walk them through that and tenatively right now we are aiming for October 8th to be the bid opening day. Um we're kind of going back on a couple of dates and I really wanted to have it on a school committee uh day so that we could talk about it that night. Um things are progressing uh very nicely uh on that and we received unanimous support from state board of education to go to the next step. So um we are another milestone exciting day for us. Um just wanted to mention um we will talk about um busing. So, one of the things that is really really important if you're watching at home and we will send out a a reminder is that if
005you've changed addresses, you've changed daycare, you've done anything with your afternoon schedule that our schools or transportation office should know, please do that now. It's very, very difficult for them on the first day of school to make all of those changes. for kiddos. Uh so we appreciate it if you can reach out and do that. Um now um teachers are back 21st, 25th, 26 and then we'll have our students with us on the 27th. Um, one of the things that we're paying attention to, um, right now in in contact with the city, um, I'm hoping that I'll be able to send out a communication sometime early next week. I just as I drive through the construction by the turnpike, I worry a little bit about what that may look like, not only for bus and
006car traffic, but nothing tells me that's the best walking to school situation either right now. Um, so if parents are watching this and your kids take a bike or they're taking on their electric bike or they're walking to school, let's see how the next couple of weeks develops. Um, we may have to make some temporary changes for things. And I just I'm not loving how we drive through that situation right now and see that seems like that could be very challenging for us on day one. Um, Means on the other hand when people say oh it's a challenge maybe I'll drive my child to school that also could make it much worse for us in the afternoon time as we have our elementary kids or buses arriving late at the middle school to pick kids
007up. So we're watching that piece from a hiring standpoint. We are in really really good shape right now. um at least the other day I think Jess you said you were down to three or four opening five so five edtech openings we haven't been that low ever um so that's a real positive thing for us um with the hiring piece um and then finally I'm gonna ask uh Don to come up and with him um and I and I look forward to having when we meet with the council coming up having a a greater discussion, but it's been we're not quite a year, are we, Don? >> No, September will be a year. >> September will be a year when we've started um a collaboration with the city. Um and I just want everybody to
008clearly know my stance is that this is going extremely well. I couldn't be more pleased. Um, and the work that Don and Andrew um are doing on the school side is not only just appreciated by me, the clarity and they're on top of things, but hearing from the principles and staff how things are happening is great. And so sometimes we do some things that go well, sometimes we don't. Let me tell you, this is a great collaboration. I'm so happy that we're doing it. and Don wanted to um kind of update you on some of the summer projects that are going on. So, Don, >> I just wanted to take a couple of minutes kind of give everybody a quick idea of what we've already done, what we're working on right now, and what's coming
009up because when you put it all down, there's there's quite a bit of work that we've completed already. Um remember, a lot of these are not just for looks. Um it's safety. It's again, we have a beautiful new school that we're going to be building, but we still got another few years to take care of the ones we have to make sure that the students are safe and our buildings are safe and everything. So, we Andrew worked on this list this afternoon. We've been out stripping floors ourselves. We've been out putting sheetrock on walls. We've been doing all that stuff all week trying to get down to final details. So, um I'm going to just do a quick rundown for you. If you got any questions after, please feel free and I'll give you my
010best hint on it. Um, Fairfield School, we had a lot of sprinkler deficiencies that we updated this year and have taken care of and everything is back 100% again. Um, we had to do some wall reconfigurations for some special students that we didn't know about at the beginning of the season. We took care of. Um, Young School, we've done the same thing with our sprinkler system. all of our deficiencies that were listed um through our contractor and with the state, we've taken care of and got those all taken care of. We had nine rooms that had carpet that was just beyond going one more year. So, we had nine of them that we took care of, which you know, in same as a house, it means stripping everything out of the room, stripping the carpet,
011making sure everything is good underneath, taking care of it, which we we have all of those nine all done. Um probably some of the more important things burn school um we had a circulator pump that was one of our VFDs that we just had changed last week. We have two pumps in that school. We've only had one pump for two years. So that one pump has been doing the work of two for the last two years and I was getting a little nervous we weren't going to make that. So we actually got that taken care of. Um, one of the bigger ones we had at middle school, uh, back behind the library, we had a roof leak that every heavy storm, we had water coming through the roof, ceiling tiles had been changed 10, 20,
01230 times. I don't know how many. Um, we hired a contractor to come in. We lifted up the unit on the roof, found out that it had been installed improperly in the first place. The drains were on the back side instead of the front side. We have had two rainstorms since we did the Haven't had a lot of rain lately, but we've had two raintorms. Both of them are dry. We put new ceiling tiles in. Everything is dry. Insulation's dry. Hopefully, we got it this time. Um, the roof fascia we've had replaced. It's been in sections the last three to four years and they weren't installed properly. So, the last windstorm we had tore them off. We had those screwed down, tightened up, and all new done this year. Not only for the looks, but
013to stop the water and also for safety. If anybody was outside and one of those 10 foot pieces of fascia came off, it's liable to hurt somebody. Um, boiler repair. As you know, that unit, those units up there aren't that old yet. We've had the middle unit, the second one that we've had troubles with. We had a new boiler and oil pump put in that already this summer, so it's all prepped and ready to go for the winter. Um, we're going to keep a close eye on that and make sure that we don't have any problems. part of a real quick explanation on that. We had a few costs come in on our heating system that we found out we had too much power going to the building. We had enough that we had to
014get CMP involved. They went all the way back to their main substation. Didn't find it coming up anywhere until it got to the school. We had CMP come up. We took the transformer apart, which is original with the school. found out we were feeding way too much power into the school, which caused us to burn some of our heat pump motors out, some of our other pumps that took care of our VFDs and all of our units on the roof. Um, we shut the school down one night, had that taken care of. We had our electrical inspector and electrician up there. Um, CMP came and turned it down. We're running proper amounts of power now to it. And hopefully that was one of the problems why we had that issue with that boiler to begin
015with. Um, the generator that's been a two-year project is complete. It's online. Um, I get an email every Sunday at 2:00 that tells me it's running and it shuts off 15 minutes later. It's on a cycle. We've had the transfer switch installed. Everything is all set up there. Um, we have 200 gallons of fuel in it. We will be filling that up pretty soon before winter, but we'll wait until the anti- gel gets in it to take care of it. that that school is 100% generated now. So, it will run 100% everything in there, heat to water to you name it will be in there. Um, cafeteria borrowed lights painting was finally finished up this year. We got all of the window finishes on it and it's completed. Looks nice up there. It's a kind
016of a nice look for sitting in the cafeteria. Um, middle school has two giant fans on the ceiling. Both of them were not working. One was burned out and had been removed at some point. Don't know why, but we had both of those changed. Um, the gym has kind of got a pretty good faceelift. It has been completely painted. We changed the colors over to the school colors. It's got a light blue, a gray, and a white on the walls. Um, we are in the process of the floor being finished right now as well. We've stripped it now, and it's the first time that floor has ever been stripped since it was installed. Um, had a bunch of people involved in the layout of it. Um, it's going to blend in really nice. They started
017painting the floor today. It's been completely stripped down. Two coats of sealer. It'll have all the paint with the SoCo logo and everything on the floors written down. Um, we have three pickle ball courts, two volleyball courts, and the main basketball courts plus the practice areas on the basketball. And those are all recessed below. So, no more tape on the floor. This is all in the floor permanently until we decide to finish it somewhere down the road again. um classrooms up there. We didn't have a whole lot of carpet left. There was 11 classrooms that still had carpet in it. We removed those this year. Everything is VCT. Everything has been rewaxed. We have put everything in. We used two coats of sealer. Um we did a little bit of checking with the custodians this
018year. On all of our floor finishes, um typically you would do what the package calls for. I've done this for years. We always put five to 10 coats of wax on the floor. The last few years they've been doing three to four. We did seven to eight on the entire school pretty much all through. So, we've got a really nice base coat. Hopefully, it'll hold up a little bit more so we can keep the floors cleaner through the off season and possibly recoat somewhere around Christmas if we need to to keep it up a little bit more. Um, the hallway floor is a whole different type of flooring system. Um, we don't really we didn't really want to we didn't have time to get into that this year, but we did have them repaired. So,
019all of the tears, rips, and everything else have all been repaired, glued back down. It's getting fresh wax on it now, and we'll be done. Um, the back side of the building had a lot of demo back there that had just been kind of thrown out back. We've cleaned it all down, carried all the brush away, cleaned up around the greenhouse, um, gotten that all taken care of. Um, PreK came to us. We met with the owner of the building, very nice gentleman, um allowed us to put in a wall and a door just for one of our special students that we could take care of and that's already done and been all completed. Um we have a a bunch of project projects that are going on right now that will be done soon. They're
020putting in a new dry sprinkler valve. The valve at Burn School was a 1952 valve. It no longer has parts available for it. So, we were one test away from not having a sprinkler system. Um, we did get they are changing that today and tomorrow and that will be completed and will be 100% tested. Um, the condensate tank which is a special job. We've already signed the contract on that. They'll be doing that sometime in September. It's a special order for the heating system. Um, that'll be all changed as well as one of our boilers that had a pretty bad leak in it. So, we should have both units back running for the winter with a condensate tank in check along with a new pump. I'm hoping that we can control the heat over it
021burns a little bit better. Andrew is getting really good at testing thermostats which are air controlled. We bought our own tester so that we can do it ourselves and save a little money and time um and be in there when we can be there. Um we also have a new door going on the back side of burn school because the door is so rotten it doesn't shut anymore and security is kind of one of those big deals. I like to make sure the building can be secure. So that'll be installed soon. um middle school H-wing. We've reconfigured a bunch of those up there. That's getting finished up right now and the doors are being installed. Um one of the biggest things that we found out probably last October, November, is middle school has not had
022an alarm system for almost two years now. Um we've done a lot of talking back and forth with contractors. We recently just signed. We went with a different contractor that I use with some of our city buildings. local, much easier to work with, way cheaper in the long run, and very responsive to our phone calls and everything that we have to do. So, they will be installing the new panels next Tuesday up at the middle school. So, before we open the school, we will have an alarm system working um and fire alarm will be actually working the way it's supposed to be instead of kind of on and off. Um, we had to do some work in one of the gym offices, a little bit of reconfiguring. Um, our custodial office. We had one upstairs.
023We've gotten rid of that office. We're moving that downstairs. It's so our supervisor is downstairs on the main floor so that Marie can find him or anybody else he's in an eye shot or where he's supposed to be. So, we can take care of that. Um, again, the gym floor, if you wait another couple of days and swing on by, you'll see it pretty much coming together. They started putting the floor paint down today. um the middle school facility storage building that was on hand probably a year and a half ago or so when it started we found out wasn't really what we needed. Um and then I did a little bit of checking and some rechecking and we were able to use one of my contractors from the city that we use on steel
024buildings. Saved about $100,000 for the same building that will be installed by Irish Fan. We should be starting digging that probably next week um with the foundation and everything under it. Um, we got a couple of doors over at adult learning to take care of. Um, central office. We got a backflow that's being changed. And other than that, it's just all of the cleaning that we've done. We've pretty much stripped every room, clean floors, whether it's extracting carpets or doing the proper waxing on it. Um, we're coming down to the wire here now, but I think we're going to be pretty good. So, any questions at all? try to make it a not a long meeting and make it a schoolboard question. But going back to those heat pumps from that CMP was uh providing
025too much juice for um >> uh what was what's the ampro there? Like what? What? Um >> they were always supposed to be two, give or take. We were 495 to 500. And then when they turned it, they actually took it up to almost 515 at one point. Luckily, our electricians were there and were monitoring it. We had disconnected the building at the time so that we could really watch it when they were turning it. >> Um, we did have them check our other buildings at the same time >> just to make sure, but that was the only one that we had had a bunch of different pumps in different units that we had had over the year or so. It wasn't like it was one after another. But you got to remember a lot
026of those pumps are anywhere between $500 and $3,000. So, you only lose one or two before you start wondering how come what's going on. So besides making the heat pumps last longer, is there any like electricity cost savings of them fixing that >> there? There could be more. It's more the parts savings cuz you know we shouldn't be changing a lot of those pump motors in some of those units up in the up in the ceiling and up on the roof as often as they were. There there's been quite a few over the last few years. So I'm I'm hoping that kind of knocks that down quite a bit on our heat wheels and everything else on those parts in there. He found it. We We were in there working and said, "This is ridiculous.
027We've got you up here every week for another something going on." What did CMP say? >> Uh if we could have tried to push it to try to get a little bit back, but it wasn't just one pump. It was spread out throughout. So, some of them were 10 years old, some of them were two years old. But we were at least happy to get the response from them. They jumped right on it for us and got it taken care of in a pretty timely manner. Especially week before we put the generator in because I wasn't comfortable with having the generator and the transfer switch put in. If we were throwing too much power out, it would back feed something and cause damage to a $300,000 generator. So, >> any other questions? >> I just
028board member say I don't have any questions. I just want to say thank you so much for taking care of our buildings and getting them up to where they should have been. >> We're getting there. >> Getting there. I know. But thank you very much for for all the work. >> And I think you guys just got a snapshot of why I feel this collaboration is so good. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Anything else for superintendent report? Good. All right. Going on to item eight, chair's report. I don't have anything to report this evening that is as fantastic as that. So, we'll move on to item nine, staff reports, which I did not receive any updated staff reports. So, we can go into item 10, board subcommittee meeting minutes. Item A, policy and personnel committing
029committee meeting. Our next meeting is was this evening at 5:30. Um, I'm sure you'll see another one popping up soon. Item B, finance and infrastructure committee meeting. Our next meeting will be August 27th at 4:30 p.m. Item C, curriculum committee meeting minutes. Our next meeting will be August 25th at 4:30 p.m. Any questions regarding the committee meeting minutes or meeting times? All right, moving on to item 11. There is no old business which we can then slide into item 12, which is new business. Um, item A, new hires. There is a memo in your packet. And do I have a motion for new hires this evening? >> Chair Prebble, >> school board member Truman. >> Before I make this motion, I just want to apologize for any butchering of last names. I've read through it
030and I'm like, there's a chance. I move we approve the nomination of Lindseay Puffenburgger, special education reading specialist. Donna Powell, preK to two IEP coordinator, Elizabeth Blanchard, K to2 music teacher, Jonathan Loren, CK Burn, STEM teacher, and Ariana, first grade teacher at Young School, and issue a contract for the 202526 school year. I have a motion by school board member Truman. Do I have a second? >> Second by school board member KD. Any discussion on the motion for new hires? All righty. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff. >> Yes. >> School board member Richards. >> Yes. >> I vote yes. School board member Roach? >> Yes. >> School board member KD? >> Yes. >> School board member Truman? >> Yes. >> Motion passes. 6. All right, moving on to item B for resignations. There
031is a memo in your packet. Do I have a motion? >> Chair Prebble, >> school board member Truman. >> I move we accept the resignation of Katherine Alexandra Alexander, speech language pathologist, and Tina Nightingale, young school guidance counselor, effective immediately. >> I have a motion by school board member Truman. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Oh, second by school board member Richards if I heard right. Any discussion on the motion on the table? >> School board member KD. >> Just um as a parent whose oldest child has been extremely impacted by both of these individuals, but especially Miss Alexander, I just want to thank them for everything they've offered to the students at Young because they've really made an incredible difference in my son's life. Beautiful. Any other um questions, comments on the
032motion? All right, moving into roll call vote. School board member Warorn, >> yes. >> School board member Richards, >> yes. >> I vote yes. School board member Roach, >> yes. >> School board member KD, >> regretfully, yes. >> School board member Truman, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6. All right, moving on to item C, annual letter. Superintendent Ray, >> this is just anformational um agenda item for you as each year we submit a letter uh to the city county uh council for the annual report and I just wanted to provide you guys a copy of that letter. >> Any questions on the letter for superintendent? >> All right, moving on to the next item. Thank you for that letter by the way. Moving on to item D, which is building updates. We already got a
033little bit of a taste of it, but take us away. >> Yeah. So, um I mean that was the big news of the day is that we've moved on to the next piece. One of the things that um we will be working on next will be um selection of and advertising of owners rep and clerk of the works. um so that we have those in place as we begin to open bids and go through that piece. We also are working and me help me remember the name of the consulting company for the geothermal. She can't remember yet, but we are competitive energy solutions out of Portland. Um and this is the group that specializes in the tax rebate piece. um that we work so very hard on. This is actually looking like based off the
034initial work that they're doing that this could be we were planning on hopefully 1 million. I think we're thinking that it could possibly be much larger than that. Um but still, you know, don't want to throw false things out there and have them people remember those, but we're trying to maximize that um as much as possible. Um as we start thinking about the next milestones of going out to bid, uh which will be next week. And then um the reading of the bid uh and opening of those um very shortly after that we will be working on making sure that we have that ribbon cutting in place uh so that we can get to work. >> Any questions for superintendent? >> Quick question. Uh what are the roles of the owner's rep and the clerk
035of the works? >> Okay, so the owner's represent and I sometimes get this confused does a lot of the commissioning work for the buildings. There are representatives of dealing with as a conduit between architect the builders and the DOE as such a important project because again it's not only um local money but state money that's involved. So they handle that piece. Your clerk of the works are going to be the people who's on the job site every single day running reports for us, taking a lot of pictures around the installation. We will actually in this project have a clerk of the works and an assistant. And the reason for that is you have two massive projects at the same time. These need to be individuals who are willing to shut down the construction that day
036when they see something that doesn't seem right or if they see a substandard product or if we see that I'm just thinking of examples. Let's say our foundations down and we're seeing a lot of cracking immediately. Um, those are really the eyes and the ears on the site all the time that knows when to stop, knows when to call, you know, so that when when they say, "Don, Jeremy, Meg, Oakpoint, get over here," that means that they're hopefully um stopping a problem so that we're not dealing with something in three years from now. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Um, moving on to item E, title funds update. Superintendent Ray. >> Yes. So, um, Meg put this together, uh, and this is really justformational, uh, at this point showing how much funds we
037are getting or plan to get based off title funds um in the upcoming year. >> School board member Roach, >> you say at the end of the memo uh that um you're dependent on the non-publiclix to get their application in. Um number one, is TA fully aware of this? This was memo is August 7th. And what happens if they don't um participate or fill out the application? >> Yeah. So, Meg is in constant communication with the non-publix and has given uh deadlines to get those things in. Um basically, if things don't get done, it holds up our ability to get the grants processed. Any other questions? All right. Um, moving on to item F, enrollment update. Superintendent Ray. >> Yes. So, um, as you know, we've had the welcome center, um, which has been a
038was a big part for us the last couple of years. Um, and we continue to look and watch our enrollments. And when you think about our enrollments right now, um, where we're at, we're at about 1923, which is about where we've been the last couple years. It's not a big spike or anything. Um, we have seen um, a decrease in the number of ML students based off the hotel closing. Um, seems like a majority of those students are moving to a community that I also serve in as superintendent. Uh, so those families are still with us. Um, but I while we're seeing a few new ones, we're also seeing a lot of kids exit out. So I don't think we're going to see nearly the number of students next year. What that will mean for
039us is we did a couple of positions um that were in our budget for e for e uh edte that we've kind of hit a pause on right now um had not hired. We'll have a conversation as we know uh every fall throws us a curveball in one way or the other and our principles may come to us and say this situation has just happened and we may come to you asking to reallocate some staff um around once we see what the new population and you know level of students are. Um I haven't heard from principles that we're really worried about any class sizes anywhere right now. Um we certainly our biggest concern is always burned school um because there's really not another place to put another classroom. We've been monitoring our superintendence agreements um
040and certainly in situations um where we can take a student. We do when they're asking for something that's three through five, we typically just say no right out of the gate um because there's just not enough space in that in that building. So enrollment wise, I'm thinking we're probably going to be fairly flat compared to the year before. Sorry, not to put you on a spot for math, but um the total uh of the hotel asylum kids was over 100 last year and you you say it's the 35 to 39% drop, but there's only a handful left in the hotel. So, are you saying that the 35 39 cent drop is a drop overall, but those kids found uh homes in SACO? Some did, some did not. Um, early indications were there was going to
041be very limited housing in SACO. Um, in the last uh conversation we had with Chris, we were seeing some 16 I think, but not a lot. Um, but we've also had some newer uh new housing developments which have brought some kids. So, I think we're going to see a drop in ELLL students. I think we're going to see a slight in increase in uh students residence buys through the city there. And I suspect that when it comes we're going to be right in the ballpark of 10 or 20 students from where we were the year before. and we're going to count um whoever's in the hotel for this school year even though the pro the program to be fair to them the program ends September 30th when school already starts so we're going to we're
042going to include them. Okay, good. >> Any other questions for Superintendent R? Okay, moving on to item G. Cohort two child developmental services schools special services superintendent right >> okay so as we know fouryear-olds um in the transition of CDS services to the public schools excuse me something the state has been working on and something that Jessica and her staff has been uh very enthusiastic about uh taking on uh here in the schools. We did not go in cohort one. I think there was too many questions for us this winter spring. Um Jess felt like the team was ready and that some of those questions were being answered. Uh certainly space always is an issue and we have entered the cohort 2 piece where we will be serving those students. We received our application from
043the state which is at approximately u $600,000 for the year give or take. Um now is the piece that we work through that piece and that allocation and say okay here are our costs. But one of the you know big pieces is that we have a very complex special education department as it is and to take on you know another possibly 60 plus students um is a big ass for the department. And we wanted to think about um where we were as a school at prek, where our staff was, the work that we had on our plate coming forward, and the funds that were available. Um, and we've outlined that we'd like to recommend some staffing changes. Um, as you know, J has been working as a teacher and as a program director in that
044building for the last several years. And now there's going to be another big influx of students that need to be served, IEPs monitored, um, assignments made for services, and we felt that for that building and consistency, we wanted to recommend that Jana J step back from the teaching responsibilities and serve as that site director and program coordinator for um, the case manager for those students, which would put her more full-time administration available for whatever's coming up throughout the day. Um, and that we would hire um a part-time teaching position to replace her essentially no cost in the local budget because we'd be using the funds that has built-in administrative and other pieces into it to support that salary piece. Um, because this is going to be a lot. Um, and I think that having somebody
045sightbased, uh, is really important for us. Additionally, as we think about it, um, one of the other pieces as we see more students coming onto the roles here is just thinking about how are we going to serve all these kids. We're probably going to have to start thinking over the next couple of years prior to getting into the new school space. Like we're pretty good over there, but you know, you could have a lot of call for services. So where does that um and we're a pretty big successful special education department that it's not probably reasonable to think that the existing staff could totally manage another 60 to 70 IEPs. Additionally, three-year-olds are part of the process, and we hope to bring that on board um and take on those services a little bit quicker
046than maybe the state um has granted permission for now. Um but then there's nowund and something kids that will be monitoring their plans. And so, as we put this forward uh to you guys, this is our recommendation. J does a great job. we have all the confidence in the world of her. Um, and not only will it help with the CDS work, but I think it will just make for a better functioning um, of the building over there so she's not pulled in so many different directions. >> Do you need a motion from us? >> I would like to have that. Like to signal our support to do that because it's a change. >> No, 100%. I just >> the way that we did things and um just really would like to have the feeling
047of the board. >> Can I also ask do we have to make the motion first before I ask questions or >> it has more to do with like facilities and that sort of thing? >> I think you I'm happy to answer that question. >> Yeah. >> So like >> granted we're moving into a new building in three years. >> Do we need to modify? I mean, I know it's like too late for that probably, but like >> No, we've planned for enough space in that. >> Okay. >> I think that as we begin to open that building and think about the services that we're taking on now, do I fully believe that um I believe Meg, it's 11 spaces that we have in that building, correct? 11 classrooms. Do I really think that do I
048think that all families will access prek services? No. Because some of them are probably have younger kids in in a daycare as well and you want to keep your kids together or you have a really good situation or or whatever. But I do think that as we explore the three-year-old programming, um, that will be a transition as we'll have to think about space and how much we take on and and is that going to be the appropriate space for that. Some of that's not all day programming. Some of that's just going to be um receiving therapies or other pieces that may that may occur in that building. Um, but I think that this is going to be a lot of work uh in coordinating those efforts. Uh, I think it's the right thing to do.
049Uh, it's where we want to be as a community and we need someone other than the department running point on those pieces because it's just going to be so much. >> If the so for the three-year-olds, it won't be like they're going to be a whole there's going to be a whole classroom. It's just >> correct >> smaller services that are going to be offered. So potentially could just use one classroom to offer those services. Is that what you're thinking? Or I mean maybe more classrooms than that, but >> I think we have a lot to learn first. >> Okay. >> Um before we, you know, get too far out of the seats, but I see it as offering. It could be a place for speech. It could be a place for OT. It could
050be those types of things. >> I'm just trying to get wrap it around wrap my head around it. Like how is this how's this going to look? if we needed more classrooms or or what you were >> I think we're going to be good right now. >> Okay. I'm already like >> sometimes you don't know what you don't know. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm happy to make the motion. >> Okay. >> Uh how do I make the motion? >> I would move like to move we approve um the IEP facilitation and LEA role. Is that what it is? Why don't we go down to >> Sorry, I read that wrong. I read that wrong. Primary. >> Why don't we just >> Item H. >> Yeah, let's make the motion on item H. >> So, moving
051on to item H. Appointment of preK special services site administrator. >> Perhaps that will >> I jumped the gun on that one. >> That's okay. Um, Superintendent Ray, any other further explanation on item H? >> I think I think we have it. I can entertain questions. >> Any quick questions? Oh, super wornoff Carolyn Warnoff. >> She said thank you. Uh you said state funding will be provided for the transition. Is that what does that mean specifically? >> So they're run uh when I say transition the plan is that this will sit outside of the EPS formula. Okay. and that they will be funding. Um, think of it a little bit like title funds in a way that you have your regular school budget and we just talked about how we get title one funds. This
052will be a fund that separates by themselves that supports these services only. We actually really worked hard uh and advocated it for that way because if you think about across the state what we didn't want to see have happen is these funds go into EPS and then a board and anywhere in the state. This wasn't about us. We were trying to think about say where a community let's say had a capital emergency and that a board was forced to make a decision around their budget where they might take from this pot of money to fix something. These are for services that need to go to our three and four year olds. And the amount of money could could change each year based off the number of kiddos they're projecting that you serve. It's uh you
053know they give us the number of kiddos, they have a weight, they have a a dollar amount um and this year it's about 600. So those funds will be supported from that pocket of money um to add the additional time to JA where our regular budget would support the salary of the teacher portion of her day. >> Any school board member KD, >> you can absolutely tell me that this is a question for much future date and much in the future. Um, but I'm just the four-year-olds makes total sense to me because they're already in preK, but I know that some three-year-olds through their IEPs are recommended to be placed in preks before they reach four years old. Like my son was one of them, but COVID kind of ruined that. Um, and so I
054just don't know how how will that be managed. And you can again tell me that that is a problem for another date. But >> I'll take you up on that piece that uh that's a piece that we'd have to think about because obviously space will dictate a lot of things. Um and then we'll be in one situation where we are today in a different situation uh when we move to the to the new school. I think we have to have consistency of funding that's going to occur. I kind of believe that when schools step up to the plate and deliver these services that we will see more kids coming our way. I hope that happens because we know prevention is the best scenario which could and I'm talking way down the road really make a
055different allocation of what we have throughout our district of where we spend our money and which services we provide. I mean certainly if we were able to work with families on speech related issues as three and four year olds whereas now they may not be getting service at all that may change our allocation throughout the district in 10 years. Um, so I think we'll probably have to be very um we'll have to be learners. We'll have to be uh flexible and we probably will have to come up with some, you know, strange solutions uh as this goes. You know, the other piece I'm going to say is that if you do this really well, you're going to have people wanting to be in your community. Uh, and so, um, don't know how we will handle
056that issue. Haven't been asked that question before. Um, we'll have to get back. I'll just have to talk it over and see what that's all about. >> Fair enough. Thank you. >> School board member Roach. >> Just one example. You mentioned OT and I that's occupational therapy. Okay. Therapist. So assuming you have the space, assuming the funding's consistent, what about that person that is doing that? So if the if the number of kids is high, um is that type of position easily filled? How many OT's do we have in the district right now? >> Three. And again, I think as you look at what may be needed as you ramp up, maybe well, let's hope is very different than what you might need after 10 years of doing that program. I mean, I think the
057thought is early intervention and there would be theoretically a shift in services to the younger age. Um, that's what you would be hoping for. Any other questions? >> All right. Is there a motion? >> I'll take a second stab at this now that I've actually read this part. I like to jump the gun sometimes. Um, I would like to move we ex um I move we approve the assignment of the prek special services site administrator to ja walker. >> I have a motion on the table by school board member Truman. Is there a second? >> Second by school board member KD. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing no one seeking discussion. School board member Waro, >> yes. >> School board member Richards, >> yes. >> I vote yes. School board member Roach, >> yes.
058>> School board member KD, >> yes. >> School board member Truman, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6. All right, moving on to item I, literacy pilot update. Superintendent Ray, >> I'm gonna hand that one to Assistant Superintendent Parker. All right. >> Thank you. So, this is um information that I think we've kind of kept the board along the way, but tonight just want to kind of formally announce what the pilot structure will look like based on our review of ELA curriculum across this school year. Um, the team that reviewed curriculums really felt like there were certainly a lot of moving parts and weren't quite ready to make a commitment to one curricular adoption until we really have a boots on the ground feeling about how that looks with our students. Some of the complexity around
059that was the fact that our kind of top priority program that we looked at as a resource is Amplify CKLA which includes a phonics component and a knowledgebased component and then the fact that our preK uses the main state curriculum preK for me and planning forward with the fact that there is a K for me and a first for me curriculum through the date and that our prek and K will be together. Though the K for me and PreK forme programs do not include a phonics or phmic awareness component. So the team really wanted to make sure that we were trying out CKLA at the K all the way up through fifth grade level as well as our kindergarten and first grade teachers having two teachers per grade level try out the K for me
060and first forme programs so that we can make a better decision as we approach budget season for next school year about what a full adoption would look like with a little bit more confidence than the team could recommend for this year. So the pilot will look like two teachers at each grade level, both in amplify CKLA and then K for me and first for me with the exception of second grade, which will have two pilot teachers at Young and two at Fairfield. The reasoning for that is we like to be able to have the teams of teachers working together to collaborate on that pilot. We did not double up in K and one because we had two different programs that we were looking at. So, we didn't want to have too many teachers piloting something
061in entirety. There will be professional development associated with each of those. We already had some teachers attend some trainings around K for me and first for me. We will also have an opportunity for our pilot teachers to share with those teachers who aren't piloting, for our non-pilot teachers to engage in the training around both of those if they would like to on an optional basis, and an ability for them to observe their peers that are piloting. And lastly, we'll be continuing some of the same assessments that we use in our non-pilot classrooms so that we can kind of compare apples to apples in terms of the classrooms using different resources as we um move forward and make that decision. I will kind of be clear that for our second to fifth grade students, we're really
062only piloting one. So, it's kind of like looking through the fall to see if we really feel like we want to move forward with this. And if not, we would be looking to kind of pivot an off-ramp to decide what that means for the future of the curriculum for those grade levels. But that was really the highly rated highest rated resource for those grades and our our teachers are pretty excited about that. Um the funding for the piloting implementation utiliz utilized existing grant funds that we had through title allocations for professional development in FY25 which we can expend through the end of September. And then we were also able to kind of utilize some of our title one resources at um Fairfield and CK Burns in order to make those purchases. And um other good
063news in the funding department is that if we do decide to move forward with this, the pilot kind of buys us those teachers forward and then we could make a longer term commitment, but we would have already invested in the classrooms that had piloted. So it gives us a little bit more of an on-ramp towards that funding as we plan for the next fiscal year. >> All right, any questions for Meg? All right, I guess no one's seeking questions. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item J, which is Catholic Charities Grant. Superintendent Ray. >> So, um, this spring we were really thinking that the grant for the welcome center and Catholic Charities money was going away. Um, however, the money did come through uh at $163,000. So, we're going to be able to keep the
064welcome center open for another year, which is just pretty remarkable resource um for our new arrivals, for students who are dealing with homelessness, etc. Um, want to thank Catholic Charities who reached out to us and, you know, a couple of years ago was able to help us secure this funding. It goes a long ways making a difference. You know, a registration for a newcomer, three to four hours maybe sometimes. Um that is time that is tough in the middle of the school year for a principal or secretary or someone on staff to pull away from serving current students. So we're just pretty we're just pretty excited that we're able to uh keep our program running have another year of it. >> Any other questions? board member wrote >> a question just a comment. I use
065my soap box. So the federal government with no moral compass cut off this funding after asylum seekers were granted and they can't go to work the first six months and yet you know Catholic by name not by religion but just by charities came through for us. Is that what you're telling me, >> Meg? That that money does run some through the federal government. Um, but Kevin, it it I think it's still probably because it was allocated during a different budget year for federal that we will have it. And I think we may be really talking about this next spring whether we can continue those. They were probably more of a grant recipient. >> But do you know the spirit of that executive order? >> Okay. All right. I'll end the soap box. Thank you. >>
066Any other question for Superintendent Ray? >> Okay. Moving on to item 13, other information. Um, I was not made aware of any other information to be aware of. Triple checking. All right, moving on to item 14, executive session, labor contract negotiations pursuant to M1 MSR 4056D. Do I have a motion? >> Chair Prebble, >> school board member Truman. I move we enter into executive session for labor contract negotiations pursuant to one MRSA subsection 4056D. >> Any second on that motion? >> Seconded by school board member KD. Any discussion before going into executive session? >> All right. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff. >> Yes. >> School board member Richards. >> Yes. School I vote yes. Woohoo. School board member Roach. >> Yes. >> School board member KD. >> Yes. >> School board member Truman.
067>> Yes. >> Motion passes 60 to enter executive session at 8 o'clock on the nose. All right. And I believe we will be meeting in the conference room downstairs. Perfect. >> And coming back. Are we ready? >> Yes. >> All right. Let's get this rocking and rolling. Do I have a motion to come out of executive session? >> Chair Prebble. >> School board member Truman. >> I move we exit executive session. >> I have a motion by school board member Truman. Do I have a second? Second. >> Second by school board member Richards. I'm assuming no discussion. So, roll call vote. School board member Waroff. >> Yes. >> School board member Richards, >> yes. >> I vote yes. School board member Roach, >> yes. >> School board member KD, >> yes. >> School board member
068Truman, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6 to exit executive session at 8:15 p.m. Is there a motion or any report from executive session? Chair Prebble, >> school board member Truman. >> Oh, I wrote my notes. I move to approve the negotiated contract for SACO instructional support staff. >> I have a motion by school board member Truman. Is there a second? >> Second by school board member KDR. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion, roll call vote. School board member Waroff. >> Yes. >> School board member Richards. >> Yes. school. I'm excuse me, it's late this evening. I vote yes. School board member Roach, >> yes. >> School board member KD, >> yes. >> School board member Truman, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6. All right. Um, we are on to item 15, which is
069adjournment. >> So moved. >> School. So moved by school board member Truman and a second just for fun. >> Second, >> school board member KD. Thank you. Let's do a roll call vote. School board member Warorn, >> yes. >> School board member Richards, >> yes. >> I vote yes because it's getting late. School board member Roach, >> yes. >> School board member KD, >> yes. >> School board member Truman, >> yes. >> Motion passes 6 to adjourn at um Come on, watch 8:16 p.m. Thanks and have a great evening. Take care.