001Hurry up. Hurry up. Paper. You need paper. Good evening everyone and welcome to the school board meeting for Wednesday, July uh June 11th, I'm sorry, at 6 PM. Would like to make note that we have all school board members present. And would you please join me for the pledge of allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item three this evening. It's the approval of the school board meeting minutes stated for May 28th, 2025. Is there a motion? School board member Johnston. Thank you. Um I move that we approve the school board meeting minutes stated May 28, 2025 with an amendment to um reflect. Okay, we
002will do the amendment after. Okay. Yeah, we need to uh get the second for the motion and then we'll bring in the amendment. Thank you. Okay. A motion has been made by schoolboard member Johnston. Is there a second? Second. Second by school board member KDR. Okay. Any discussion on the item? No. So, I would like to amend the motion to um include that the resignations referred to in the last meeting should have been ex should have read that they were accepted as of the end of the 2425 school year rather than the 2526 school year. Okay. Thank you. An amendment has been made by school board member Johnston. Is there a second? Second. Second by school board member KD. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay. Roll call vote on the amendment. School board member Waroff.
003Yes. School board member Prebble. Yes. School board member Richards. I was absent so abstain. School board member Roach? Yes. School board member KD? Yes. School board member Truman? I was also absent so I'll abstain. And school board member Johnston. Yes. Motion passes 5-0 with two abstensions. Now back to the main motion to approve the school board minutes. Any additional discussion. Okay. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff. Yes. School board member FBLE. Yes. School board member Richards. Abstain. School board member Roach? Yes. School board member KD? Yes. Schoolboard member Truman? abstain. And school board member Johnston, yes. Motion passes. Original main motion passes 5-0 with two abstensions. Okay, moving on to item number four. There are no adjustments to the agenda this evening. Item number five, there are no correspondence. Now takes us to item
004six, and that is public session. Would like to invite members of the public to the podium to speak to the school board. If you would please state your name and address for the record, you will have three minutes to address the school board. Good evening. My name is Anmirie Ramsey. I live at 41 Tpines Drive in Sako Main. Um, I would just like to extend our thanks to Superintendent Ray and to the school board meeting, uh, school board members for their continued efforts and progress in the instructional support negotiations. Uh, the SEA would like to, uh, you know, remain committed to supporting our colleagues throughout this process and we're hopeful for continued collaboration and some positive outcomes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Okay, not seeing anyone seeking any recognition. Moving
005on to item seven that is the superintendent report and that is superintendent Ray. Good evening. Several items uh to report on. Uh just want to thanks to the Sako Masonic Lodge for their partnership with us in the uh bikes for books program encourages encourages literacy by awarding 20 brand new bicycles to students uh who read age appropriate books. Um winners will pick up their new bikes at the Saco Bike Rotary on the 14th and helmets will be uh provided as well. So uh that's always a unique program and exciting. Uh I want to thank the families who joined us for Beyond the Buzzwords, a forum on bullying, behavior, and belonging at Sako Middle School last month. Uh for families who are unable to attend, we have included um a slideshow and a brief for question
006survey in the superintendent's newsletter. Uh we encourage families to take a moment to share their feedback by the 15th. As we head into the summer, I wanted to highlight some of the uh free summer nutrition programs. Uh many of our students face hunger when they lose access to school meals. Um so we want to say thank you to Sue uh and with the work with the USDA, free meals are ava are available in designated sites for children under 18 um in the city. Uh, Youthful Main will continue to support families with free food distributions throughout the summer. And then last day of school tomorrow, that's a good thing. Um, eighth grade promotion tomorrow night at 6 PM at Thornton Academy. Um, followed by a dance at 7:30 at SMS. Aid for SACO kids ask uh
007foundation is holding its annual mini golf fundraiser on the 13th from 12 to 7 at schooners. Um along with a limited scramble tournament from 5 to 7. Um hope you'll consider bringing your family. Um all funds raised are outside the school budget and uh support aid for SACO kids. And then um couple of things is the other night we did have a sitewalk uh and a few people were able to attend. If you can't uh didn't get a chance to make it and you want to get out to the site, reach out to us. Um because it's uh I think that once you're on site, you recognize the size of buildings and the infrastructure that's going to be put in there. Uh it's pretty remarkable. Um and then finally uh yesterday also uh we had
008our budget validation vote and we were very happy that 77% of the public uh supported the school budget that we put forward. Um considering some of the challenges that other communities uh you know those numbers starting to close feel pretty good when you have 77% of the vote. And then uh just a big thank you to all of our staff, teachers, ed techs, principles, bus drivers, uh as we come to the close of the year, thank you for another great year of uh incredible work. Um, but it's also as as as one group of people kind of close the year, our custodians are just kind of starting the hard part of the process and they're there every day in the summertime uh getting our schools ready for the fall because we're only like 10 weeks
009away and you start back up again. That's a lot of work to do in 10 weeks. Uh, yes, Jeeoff, 10 weeks. Maybe 11 if the calendar's off, but uh, we're back. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions or comments for the superintendent? I just wanted to give another shout out to the Masons. I've been following their book and their bicycle thing for months. I have a couple dear friends with them and it's amazing what they do. We encourage the kids to read, earn a bike, give a kid a chance to earn a bike that doesn't have one. It's huge. So, just shout out to them and all the other good things we do. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Schoolboard member Truman. Um, this wasn't in your report, but I just thought I'd
010bring it up because, um, this was my first experience with it with the book that the fifth graders get to print, um, with their stories in it. Um, didn't experience that with my first child, but this year it was pretty amazing. The book quality is amazing. the PTO did funds this project and I think um it was really great to read through a lot of them and their the variations of what they wrote were super funny to very thoughtful to just so heavy and um reading about their experiences was really great as a collective. Um, and then also another thanks for uh the field days this year were super fun and I saw a couple of you today and Marie in particular in her Christmas outfit uh while I popped popcorn over at SMS all
011morning for however many students and then the I got to participate in the third grade too last week which was insane. So in a good way in a good way. Um, so this year's been really great and I'm excited for for next year. So, thanks. Great. Anyone else? Okay, moving on to item eight. That is the chair's report. School board chair, I don't have anything new to report um this evening, but thanks. Okay, moving on to item nine. There are no staff reports tonight. Item 10 is the board subcommittee minutes. The minutes are attached in your packet. The policy and personnel committee meeting next meeting is June 11th at 5:30. The finance and infrastructure committee meeting is to be determined and the curriculum committee will be next Wednesday, June 23rd at 4:30. There is no
012old business tonight. Item 12 is new business and item one is new hires. Is there a motion? Madame Mayor, school board member Truman. I move we approve the nomination of, and forgive me for butchering anybody's name, uh, Emily Boyard, teacher at Fairfield School. Katherine Favro, a teacher at Fairfield School. Ryan Martin, physical education teacher at Sako Middle School. Ariana Hadiares, social worker at CK Burns. Isabelle Simbari, speech and language pathologist at Sako Middle School and all those listed in the stipen memo and issue a contract for the 2526 school year. Thank you. A motion has been made by schoolboard member Truman. Is there a second? Second. Second by school board member Purbble. Any discussion or comment on the item? Okay. Not seeing anyone. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff. Yes. School board member Prebble.
013Yes. School board member Richards. Yes. School board member Roach, yes. School board member Kder, yes. School board member Truman, yes. And school board member Johnston, yes. Motion passes 70. Okay. Item B this evening is resignations. Is there a motion? Madame Mayor, school board member Truman. I move we accept the resignation of Molly Joyce, speech language pathologist, Sako Middle School at the end of the 2425 school year. Motion has been made by school board member Truman. Is there a second? Second. Second by school board member Purple. Oh, I'm sorry. Schoolboard member Johnston. Any discussion or comment on the item? Okay, not seeing any. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff, yes. School board member Prebble, yes. School board member Richards, yes. School board member Roach, yes. School board member KD, yes. School board member Truman, yes.
014And school board member Johnston, yes. Motion passes 70. Okay. Item C this evening is a building update. Superintendent Ray. So, a couple of quick things to update uh on the building project. Tomorrow, uh Megan and I have a meeting with the DOE to hopefully wrap up a couple of final questions. Um, as we are on the schedule for June 27th to present and meet with the state board, you have site approval first and then you have the building approval as the second piece. Once the building approval goes through, that is the process that allows us to go to bid. Um, and with any uh say knock on wood or good luck, we would probably be opening bids somewhere around the start of the school year. Um, so we have a lot of work to do
015this summer, but that process is moving forward, which if we were at the point where we were early September uh of opening bids and probably about a month of negotiation on those before Halloween, we really could think about having a groundbreaking. Any questions or comments? Super uh school board member Roach. Uh yeah, I just um this is an aside or um but I want to uh congratulate I think because of SACO's leadership on this. I know we're on the state list but um LA yesterday's votes in Cape Elizabeth and Scarboro after two tries I think for each community they passed their new buildings and renovations. But I w I do want to give a direct uh congrats to um Pat Fox who used to be our public works director here in SACO and of course
016involved in buildings and infrastructure. He became the town manager at Cape Elizabeth and I do believe that his experience here and watching what what what we went through I think he I'm going to credit him to make a big difference there. So um so SACO leads and other communities uh I think follow. Thanks Kevin. Just one other piece on the building project as you think about um a really important thing that every one of us can do right now that's in the room is to reach out to Senator Collins around um the budget bill that they're working on. Part of that budget bill has the roll back of some of the um energy credits um that are in that in the program. And why the energy credits are important to us is that we stand
017to receive upwards of a million dollars in reimbursement for our geothermal heat system. Um, and this is one of the areas that uh many of the members in the Senate are very concerned about being pulled out uh of the law because many of the states throughout the country are dependent on solar energy uh in the energy credits for a lot of new bills. So, um if you want more information on that, I can get that to you. Uh but this is very important for SACO uh and Windham who's also right in the middle of a project um to see that go through and they're talking about that sun setting at the end of 27 um is in the bill now and we're hope we're hoping that gets at least extended well forever but until 32
018um because we want to take full advantage of these credits because in our case a million could be on the low side and it could be upwards of much more than that. That comes in a direct reimbursement to the school department. Thank you. Any other questions or comment? School board member Truman. I just wanted to comment on the sitewalk the other day um which was very exciting for a multitude of reasons. Um, one being the traversing of the tractor treads in there were really fun. We all went for a nice ride through the and um, but not only that, we also saw moose tracks which was really exciting. Um, but the the scope and the whole layout of everything was pretty incredible because we're like that pink mark over there is the end of the
019building. So, it was like it's a very large. It's very cool. We got to see even where the basketball courts are going, which I know Jeff is really excited about. We're going to just keep calling you out during this meeting. Um, and uh, I'm just I'm really excited. It was a really cool walk to walk through there because the last time I went through was in this winter time when there was knee deep snow and the trees were still there. So, um, to see it all cleared out and getting ready for with everything marked out was pretty pretty fun. So, with the pictures helped too to visualize what I was what I was looking at. So, that was fun. And I think for our administrators that uh once they saw where the four corners of
020the buildings were, the fact that they realized that 15,000 steps was going to be an easy goal to you guys are going to get every single day. you're gonna get all your steps in. uh is is just definitely and when and just so that like the community can understand is one of the things is the principles were kind of going through and saying okay what does the size of this compare to um something else and you know I had some documents on my phone and when you think about the elementary school one through five that's about 160,000 square feet and if you took Bitterford Middle School It's 144,000 square feet, so it's going to be bigger than that building. Uh, and then Wendy's buil uh the uh prek uh K building is going to be
021about 40,000 square feet. Um, which because it's not on top of each other, you know, there's not two stories, it's going to seem very much uh more spread out. So, um, just great to see the project the process continuing to go. I'm hoping that going from the parking lot to the building won't be as difficult as it was to walk that distance. You know, I think it'll be okay. I think we'll be I think the other piece that for again anyone who wants to go out there and see that is when you think about on the pictures and you think about looking at like the courtyard space between the buildings it looks very massive like there's this like this big distance when really probably the distance between the two buildings is not that much more
022wider than this room. Um, so it'll be very interesting to see how that that plays out. School board member Roach. Um, a fun observation, but first question about the route one access. Is there going to is there an ongoing discussion with main DOT about about what they will do maybe longer term with route one maybe in time for 20278. I think that probably Kevin the biggest like we're locked in for what is currently on the plan for the school site. I think when you look at what Route One develops into, some of the bigger work will be decisions that the city and maybe developers have with the large parcel of land that's on the between the interstate and route one on the other side of the road. Um, I think that will probably drive a
023lot of those decisions about traffic and, you know, our hope someday, knock on wood, is that on the route one there might be a stoplight or something that would allow a little more in and out. I think what happens on the other side of the road may dictate that more from this point moving forward. Yeah, because we one of our joint meetings with city council, we had talked to, you know, make sure we we stay close to them about economic development and and that corridor overall. Uh on a fun observation, um when the school is built and maybe we have some funds or or donations to build like a little walking bridge over the eastern trail, um we we could have uh we can combine with Thornon Academy some walks. It's like a campus of
024the Eastern Trail. So you never even have to hit the roads and you can you can go from campus to to campus and uh well good weather you can. So but yeah I I had done that on my bike um this this past couple weeks and I was like wow this is really really nice thing to advertise once we get the school built but hopefully we can don't have to get on the uh Milbrook road and we can actually walk from the eastern trail onto the campus. So thanks. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, moving on to item D and that is from celebrations to aspirations our 321 year end and reflection. Thank you. So we just wanted to take an opportunity for some of our administrators to share some highlights from the year and some
025goals moving forward. So, I'm going to start with communications and accomplishments from a district level perspective and then our principles will have an opportunity to share a little bit more. We were featured in the news in 50 different stories including the Beth Johnston Way announcement, some of our regional, state, and national recognitions at multiple schools with SACO Middle School taking the lead in some of those recognitions. and we're looking forward to launching new websites that will go live this summer. When we look at our parent engagement, we kind of look at two metrics here. One is the open rate, meaning when you receive it, do you click on it? And the other one is the engagement rate, meaning do you click on or engage with other buttons within that. When we look at that from
026a superintendent newsletter standpoint, our rate is 25.6% 6% higher than industry standards for the open rate and 35% higher for the engagement rate. And our principal newsletters enjoy an even higher open rate with 64.4% above the industry average and 28.4% above for the engagement level. Another fun fact about that is that our average read time on those is six minutes. So that's good news because it's not just people clicking around aimlessly. They are actually reading and digesting the content and information that's in those newsletters. From a curriculum standpoint, this year we were able to accomplish six of our early release days as math and ELA curriculum design team facilitated at our elementary level, which is what we feel is the most productive professional development to have our indisters leading their colleagues in things that they're
027experts in. Our middle school social studies team selected materials and those were approved by the board. So that was a multi-year process that we're excited to bring to fruition. And then our district growth in math NWAS, which will also be highlighted by some of our building principles, that growth rate was in the 61st percentile when we look from 24, spring of 24 to spring of 25 as compared to 23 to 24, which had us in the 49th percentile for growth. So that's a really good measure that we're not just I personally like to look at the growth more than the achievement because that's showing us that more than 50% of students are growing a year or more which is awesome. Um goals for the upcoming school year are to continue our look at preK through
028five ELA resources and an implementation timeline around that and the finalization of middle school curriculum guides which all content area teams have been working on diligently at the middle school for over the course of this year. The biggest summer project that we have is in addition to professional development opportunities that we have I think 150 different teachers signed up for individual opportunities this summer. One of those is the continuation of resource selection andor a pilot for our ELA resources. And that's a real push because we know that um we can do better in that area and we feel that those resources and having an implementation plan for that will get us there. I'd like to pass it off to Dr. Jessica Clark to share a little bit about special services. Hi. All right. This year,
029our special services team achieved several measurable outcomes aligned with our district's focus on student growth, inclusive practices, and instructional excellence. We successfully dismissed 57 students from special ed services, evidence that our targeted interventions are effectively supporting students to meet the IEP expectations. We also increased our district's capacity to deliver structured literacy interventions by training 25% more of our staff in the Orton Gillingham uh Sunday system. Uh this is have been uh instrumental in helping to design foundational reading needs or programming for foundational reading needs. In addition, we expanded the unified program at both CK Burns and Sako Middle School offering opportunities in soccer, basketball and botchi. and that uh we do continue to support the district's commitment to inclusive community-based experiences for all students and we're incredibly proud that both our SMS and our CK
030burns are official unified schools with the stickers in front. Now, our summer work is directly aligned to improving service delivery and instructional quality. We will be conducting an in-depth analysis of IEP needs and redesigning daily workflows and schedules to optimize student support, strengthen compliance, and improve the efficiency of service delivery across our schools. We are also increasing staff access to professional development, something that Dr. Kimell shared last time we were here together, ensuring that educators have the tools and training needed to meet the diverse and evolving needs of our learners. And finally, we have two focused goals to support district priorities. First, we'll continue to streamline our IEP and 504 workflows to continue to enhance compliance, strengthen case management systems, and improve team communications, resulting in more consistent and timely support for students and families.
031And second, in collaboration with building leadership, will lead the development of a district-wide intervention approach to preK to 8 writing instruction by establishing clear standards, building progress monitoring systems, and implementing targeted interventions, helping ensure that all students develop strong, effective writing skills as part of our broader literacy program, therefore minimizing the need for specially designed instruction. Thank you. I believe I pass it off next to Sako PreK. Good evening everyone. I'm J Walker. I'm the director of prek. I'm happy to share a brief update on the important work happening in prek this year and what's coming next. To begin, we have a few celebrations worth highlighting. Our prek team participated in the AIM literacy module of practice project. This is a professional learning experience focused on high impact strategies for early literacy. This helped strengthen
032our instructional practices and deepen our understanding of how to support young readers from the very start. We also launched a schoolwide implementation of Eureka Squared Math. Our team has done an excellent job adapting this program for our prek learners and we're already seeing meaningful engagement and strong foundational math thinking. And excitingly, well over 80% of our students met expectations for uppercase letter identification this year. That progress reflects the daily intentional work of our teachers and the strong literacy foundation being built in every classroom. Looking ahead, we've identified two key goals for the coming year. First, we're planning to use Linkit for preK assessments. We'll be working to ensure that all preK teachers gain comfort and familiarity with the platform for progress monitoring. And this will also benefit our kindergarten teachers who will have access to
033the student data as children transition into K, helping them plan and differentiate from the very beginning of the school year. Second, we plan to introduce a pre-K handwriting program. This will support fine motor development and more closely align our students with kindergarten handwriting expectations, helping to smooth that academic transition even further. Finally, our summer project focuses on the Rising Stars from Me program. This is a state required quality rating system that supports and encourages early care and education programs across Maine to continuously improve the quality of care they provide. While we currently meet the minimum standards, I believe that many of our current practices already reflect a higher level of quality. By pulling together and uploading the required documentation to demonstrate this, we have the opportunity to increase our rising stars level, which should could
034also lead to increased grant funding that supports our prek program. It's a meaningful investment of time that can yield long-term benefits for both our students and staff. I'm proud of everything our prek team has accomplished this year and I'm excited about the direction we're heading. Thanks for listening to me tonight and I believe I am turning it over to Wendy at Fairfield. Good evening everyone. Uh thank you for the opportunity to share celebrations and goals for Fairfield. Uh we celebrate a lot there and I am grateful to share some highlights. The first celebration is this year we implemented an attendance um intervention and so my resiliency coordinator Ally Desardens with the strong support of our nurse Jess Morgan collected our chronically absent students um list and all staff signed up to be part of the
035intervention as a buddy. So, anybody in the whole staff, custodians, somebody that works in the kitchen, teachers, and just took a few minutes or seconds to meet with students. And out of the 26 students that were chronically absent, we increased their attendance for out of 24 of them to over 92%. That started in March and the end result was in June for that data. The second celebration is we implemented SRSS, a student risk survey. This was actually piloted last year in second grade, I believe, at Young School. And it's just a survey that teachers do about externaling externalizing and internalizing areas of student behaviors. Through this data, we were able to provide intervention for students that scored at a high risk for internalizing and externalizing areas for all of those students. And we were able
036to see 45 more students that scored a high risk in one of the two areas. So, we'll continue to use that to drive our interventions for social emotional support. Another celebration is we brought the greenhouse back and yeah, woohoo. And um that was under the leadership of um John Bickl, one of our special ed teachers, and he got a group of students together. They um he applied for a grant, the main environmental education association grant. Using those funds, they planted over 300 flowers, which we're using for confetti tomorrow during our end of the year celebration, which is very cool. Um, goals for us, we'd like to start our attendance intervention a little earlier next year. That had a huge impact and we are we want to help families and we want to incentivize kids uh
037to be at school. Another goal, and Meg already spoke about this, is our literacy. We're doing a lot of research for our best practice and next step for SACO schools. So, over the summer, I'd like to continue that work. I'm part of that team and continue to help our teachers with professional development and support on implementing those evidence-based curriculum and strategies. I welcome any questions if anybody has any. just let's go by member Truman. I just want to say how excited I am that you got the greenhouse back. I'm like really pumped tonight. I'm like um because I know it was kind of like I remember doing the fundraising for it back when my oldest was there and then uh it kind of went by the wayside because I think the teacher that used to
038run it had left. Um and I saw John out back one day. I was like, "Oh, what are you doing?" And he's like, "This is my happy place." He was so excited to He is owning that place. owning it. He definitely was. So, I'm excited to hear that you guys are doing uh confetti with all the flowers that everybody It looked busy in there. Yes. Yeah. I'm excited. That's great. We'll expand next year. His goal is to add some vegetables. So, we're all of our celebrations are also goals. Thank you. No problem. No problem. All right. Hey everybody. Um so uh just some things to celebrate. Um 70% of our students scored in the 441 first percentile uh in math which um we still have work to do but we're we're we're getting there. We're
039starting to feel more comfortable with Eureka squared and we'll tie in some goals with the the literacy side but math I think we're really you know heading in that right direction. Um not quite there, but we're getting there. Um but we're we're continuing to get better. Um I'm really proud of our community partnerships we have. Um you have, you know, some of them listed here, Animal Refuge League, Gorm Bike and Ski, Sco Parks and Rex, Sako PD, Sako Eagles, and you can read down the list. Um and we're going to expand that too where our whole school uh morning meetings we're going to start um bringing in the community a little bit more and actually u meeting with the team leaders on the 24th and 25th of June and really looking at um thinking outward
040a little bit. I I think we need to um get our kids to start thinking about other people besides themselves. And so I'd love to kind of get our second graders maybe stepping out a little bit and maybe, you know, going to um you know, the the center um I'm trying to think what it is. Um um just around the corner um for older people um seniority program. Yeah, the seniority program right there. maybe go down the uh the street and sing to them or, you know, just kind of hang out with them or we go around the corner and just connect whatever community um people want us to. And then actually we serve them. We may do some stuff on campus, but we're we're looking to do a little bit more um that's not
041just about us or just about our kids, but about serving others. Um another thing I like to celebrate is just our tardies. um really were tough in the beginning of the year because of traffic and then um really started improve but then in the winter hit it went down the tubes again and it was like everybody was late. I was averaging 23 a day or like seven or eight% of our school population and I sent uh a letter out and then overnight it went down from 23 to nine on average over you know the next few weeks and it really improved dramatically and that just kind of ties into what um whenever we reach out to families they respond. It could be like for we need food for families. We need clothing. We have people
042bringing beds and furniture. If you look down our hallway and our bus hallway, we have beds and furniture, you know, for people that are uh that were homeless and now are finding places. We're actually supplying stuff with them. So, whenever we reach out to the families, they respond. So, uh thank you to the many families that help out. Um some goals we have um we want to continue providing clear guidelines for tier 2 and tier three behavior support plans. Um we've improved dramatically at this as a celebration as well, but we still have work to do. Um with Jeremy Allen coming on as our behavior RTI person, I think he's going to help us get there to where we need to get to. And um kind of tied in with the the district uh goal
043around the science of reading and just helping staff understand the shifts from previous practices. Um, and that kind of ties in just to where our literacy goals are, and we're looking to improve that. Uh, summer project, I want to uh spruce up the yard. Um, if you ever come to Young School, nobody knows where the front entrance is. Like, if you go to Young School, people show up at every door and they never show up at the right one. So, I'd like to have better signage. I'm going to ask the PTO for some help along this. Um, and then where our storage trailer was, I'd like to improve that area a little bit around the sheds. I may paint the sheds myself because it's kind of making me crazy and maybe plant some flowers around
044the sheds and just make the outside of Young nicer. We have three years left. Let's make it as nice as we can. Um so any questions? Yeah. Um as one of those parents who uh in the winter time suddenly was very late every single day and I'm really sorry. Um if there was an option because Charlie hates putting on his snow pants for morning recess. If there was an inside morning option that might help with that winter, we'd be willing to do that. We can because I'm assuming there would be some people on duty that would rather be inside too. So, yeah, I think we could putting them on and taking them off is such a I agree. No, I totally get that. Thank you. Any other questions? School of Roach. Um maybe not just
045for well for all schools, but especially for Young and Sako Middle School for the tardiness and and traffic and everything. So, we got the highway project going. Similar to the letter you had sent out. Should maybe we should try to push more parents to the bus especially for the fall kind of, you know, that that season just cuz it's just going to be worse. And you still got the route one Elm Street from Bitterford, too, which Yeah, we got about a hundred cars dropping off every day and about 70 that pick up every day. That's about the average. Okay. Um, but it's a lot better than it was during CO. So, right. Right. So, yeah, I agree. It'd be better if we had more, you know, kids ride the bus. Okay. Be a question. Jody,
046Kevin, anyone here that has the information? Do we know when the exits will open? I know at one point someone had talked about this summer spring because as of right now, the anticipation is November. hopefully just a little but that it will be at the end of their construction season it will be completed because Megan and I were having this conversation the other day is that we know what the studies say but I think that it's important for us to understand that families so we're going to start school with the current situation have something change which could then change bus routes to be either longer or significantly quicker. Uh and so for us it it probably makes almost like two different starts to the to the school year around busing. Um and just you know
047we were hopeful back when it was talking about the spring we were like saying oh please open before school uh ended so that we could see the impact Um, but I do think that that's something we're going to have to plan for for the fall is that we'll have our our one set of bus routes and then I suspect that is going to change a lot for us transportationwise once that opens yet. We don't know exactly what that change will bring for timing. School board member Roach, would it be a big hassle if if it everything gets completed in November? see how that goes and then during the school break um for new year you can maybe reset the buses then is that too much of a hassle halfway through the year I don't think
048that it so there there could be several different approaches to this so when you think about let's just assume that it makes everything quicker right let's just take that approach one of the things that we would then think about which we wouldn't be able to address immediately is that maybe in another year as you look at your start times and how we move a bunch through the city that might have an impact. You may have a quicker speed from going from young school back to the middle school because there's not so much traffic there. I mean, if you're if you think about middle school traffic now, buses that are going to the middle school on the way in are backed up past young school and waiting for a bit. And so if that becomes a
049very smooth flow of traffic, that will change something. And then if we see runs that are, let's say, much quicker, we may then think about how do we decrease some of our longer runs by rerouting some things. And so I think that I wouldn't want to commit and say, yeah, you can do all of that in a week and a half time around a holiday. But I think it would be something that we would continue to pick away at throughout the school year. Um, I always tend to, again, when you think about anyone who lives towards the shore or if you think about the routes that are way inland, those tend to be our longest runs. And so if we can pick up some some time, especially coming from the shore area this way, um
050I think that we would continue to to look at our rerouting and how we would do things to help improve because nothing's positive about being on a bus for 45 plus minutes. Uh and we just want to try to condense that time as much as we can. Um but it will be interesting. I just don't know what to expect. And that is something that we can definitely keep track of as the first part of the summer progresses and we get more updates from the DOT. Um, luckily all the rain's been on the weekends, so that hasn't really uh prevented any of the work that they've been doing, but we can keep monitoring and keep an updated track and let you know. Hopefully, it will be done sooner. Any other questions? All right, next up, April
051Noble. Thank you. Evening, everyone. It's exciting to come up and talk about the school year and and think forward to what's to come. And I want to start by um just giving a brief um overview of something I'm not sure if the board um recognizes what we did last summer. Um I had met with the executive director at Sweetszer. We applied for a grant through the Davis Foundation and we were awarded a $400,000 grant to help improve social emotional learning in uh CK Burns. So, we've used that funding for staffing and resources and professional development and we've met every marker of our first year with that grant. It is a two-year grant, so we have some more work to do. Um but two things I'd like to highlight in that is the partnership that we've
052created with Sweetzer and um we're now looking to hire a second outside Sweetzer social worker that will work with our uh students next year which will you know offer more opportunities for some social work and then um parents may remember that we sent out a climate survey to both parents to all three parents, students and teachers in the fall. We will redo that climate survey next year at the end of our study and I'm really proud that out of 17 indicators we scored um effective or highly effective if in every category and we use those results to write goals for ourselves as a team to determine what our next steps were. So that was really that's a really exciting project that's ongoing. Um others have talked a little bit about NWAS. I have to say
053that uh CK Burns is a real standout in math scores for NWAS. If you see there, our third, fourth, and fifth graders all scored with growth above 81% with fourth grade being highlighted at 88% growth, which I've been in a principal for 15 years and I've never seen scores like this. I'd like to state that I believe it's a direct correlation of the work that we're doing our um from our interventionists working really with really small groups on tier three interventions helping students kind of fill in some gaps to our classroom teachers who have worked real diligently especially this year on refining their practices for interventions with kids who are not meeting standards to our coaches who have uh provided a lot of professional development in the area of math. to um just the school
054as a whole and the CDT team providing outstanding professional development. I think that is a direct correlation to the scores that we're seeing in math. Um some other folks have talked a little bit about unified sports. I'm just really proud and want to give a shout out to Tom Partridge and Sam Goodchild and Kelsey McVey and Kelsey Noise. They really were behind um getting the unified sports as a pilot last year and then full implementation this year. just a great program, great partnerships. Um, everyone always says if you can get to an an SMS uh Special Olympics game, you've got to go. You've got to come see that elementary school kids, too. They're just shining with pride. So, thank you for um being supportive of that. Um, in goals for us, we began implementing alignment
055with other buildings this year for protocols, specifically in RTI. And I think it's really important to highlight the procedures and practices that we do in Fairfield and Young and in Burns and try to mainstream and refine some of those practices as we begin to look at prepare preparing ourselves for coming together. Um we thought we did a great job in RTI at CK Burns and our team went out and observed at Fairfield and Young and brought back some of their great ideas. So I think as a team we're working really well to look at district protocols for our future. Um the work that we brought in this year on professional development was outstanding. Really high quality offerings for our teachers and most of it is right inhouse. Our professional teachers and our coaches and our
056interventionists are providing that training and that training is ongoing work. It's not a oneandone. You've learned it and now implement it. And I'm just excited about continuing that professional development. And to highlight one of the summer projects we're doing is um working on part of that grant. Our social emotional learning team is coming together. We have established a time in our uh daily schedule next year in every classroom that's going to be called classroom connection time. That's how we're going to start our day. Very similar to what Marie Susi has talked about with the bar initiative and the eye time. Um and some classrooms have that in a morning meeting now, but we're implementing it in every classroom. and some teachers are going to need some guidance on what that looks like and what is
057best practice for how to come together um for building that culture in that classroom. And so that social emotional learning team will work together this summer using the resources that we were able to purchase with the grant funds and putting together some resource packets and instructional guides and we'll be providing professional uh development to our teachers in our opening days. So looking forward to all the exciting things that are to come. Happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. Any uh schoolboard member Roach uh mentioned the climate survey and you teased us with a link here but don't have access. The the two links aren't accessible. Yeah, neither one but I'll make sure that those are live but those that will give you a better overview of what the grant actually is and
058all the um assignments. So I'll double check those links. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else for Marie? All right. For Sacramento Middle School. Thank you. Thanks. So, um, Principal Susy unfortunately couldn't be here tonight. She has a family member who's at a stepping up ceremony for 8th grade and so she is attending that and asked that I share some of the highlights, goals, and summer project. So uh one celebration is the expansion of academic learning environments including an alternative ed program that is now up and running. The projectbased 7th8th combo team having a twoperson team that allows students to kind of have a smaller atmosphere rather than a four-person team. Our ESOL team and expanded response to intervention programs. ESOL being English for speakers of other languages and having that program expand this year. The
059implementation of bar which principal Cece shared in a little bit more depth including those eye time activities that were implemented in all advisories as a way to both build student skills and build opportunities for students to connect with one another and with staff members. In NWA, the eighth grade math shined at Sako Middle with a score in the 68th percentile for growth. Goals moving forward will be to continue the implementation of BAR and expand the number of staff that are fully trained and then restructuring the enrichment block to provide personalized interventions for students in the 25th to 40th percentile and looking at not just utilizing our interventionists for those interventions, but utilizing staff members that have expertise in math, reading, or other intervention areas that can support student goals and kind of those areas where
060we might be able to catch kids before they're far enough behind to qualify for more intensive services. and the summer project. We have a student, community, and staff surveys and focus groups that were conducted with the help of a consultant reviewing all of that information and kind of summarizing it up to tea up for goal setting for staff in the fall and kind of framing a vision and a mission for SACO Middle School moving forward. We've had such a wonderful opportunity to do some of that work at our elementary level and looking at the new buildings and it's and utilized our time and energy on the facilities and upgrades in that way at SACO middle. So, we're really excited to be able to do some of that visioning work and goal setting at SACO Middle
061School as well. And I'm happy to answer questions about any of the previous slides or about SACO Middle. Great. Thank you, Meg. Any questions or comments? Schoolboard member Truman? Forgive me if I'm not remembering correctly, but was there an issue with the bar funding? Um, am I remembering this correctly? You are. Okay. But so we had what was included in the grant was a three-year commitment from the state of Maine to train and provide resources. Luckily, we just completed our first year. So, we took advantage when it was available of kind of the most important onboarding. We're looking to our title 2 funds and to local funds to continue to expand that training. And we do have like kind of the physical resources and the internally phase one trained staff that can help continue that.
062So, we're not stopping that work. we don't have the same support from the state or the same financial resource from the state to make it happen in that way. Right. Okay. That's kind of where I was going because I was going to ask that question until I I was going to ask a different question until I saw that they're still continuing it in this slide. um because I think it sounded like a fantastic program when we first were introduced to it and to get a hands-on with students and getting to the root of any problems ahead of time and um so I'm glad to know that you guys are still working with that program. Yeah. And doing the best you can with the limited resources that you were left with. So yeah. So, as an
063example, one of the things that we were supposed to be provided is like a I can't remember if it's monthly or every other month coaching session with like a bar expert. We're probably not going to do that because the cost of that is pretty high, but we do feel like it's important to make sure that all staff is trained. So, we need to figure out where we can find that money to provide that professional development. So, it's just about kind of picking and choosing what we think are going to be the most high yield portions of that and then holding back on the ones that we don't feel are as coste effective for the outcome. Okay. Anyone else? School board member Roach, not to put you on the prior presentation about bar itself, but in
064terms of just the historical team setup that SMS has had, how is that done for you guys? And is there anything on team setups that would say significantly change in the fall? I would say that bar is less about how you should structure your team and more about how you should structure your team's procedures to address students holistically. So it doesn't dictate how many people you should have on a team or what teams should or shouldn't be teaching in terms of contents or subjects or how to merge or split those subject areas. What it does do is say when your team meets here are the steps that you should go through to talk about your shared students and then a different layer of team talks about all students in the school using data from the
065teams that all interact with those students. So it's there there may be, you know, things that come out of that process that might shed light on things that work better than others for more students, but generally speaking, the bar method is more about how do we have conversations and create goals and outcomes for students that are positive, not so much do this, but use this process to make your own decisions. Um, totally separate subject. I forgot to bring it up. U we were talking about the buses, but I'll use this spot. Um bike lanes for the older kids for SMS with the new construction. Is that is there a set um not that I'm aware of? Okay. I can double check on that, but off the top of my head, I don't believe so. School
066board member KDR, this probably would have been a better question during the bar presentation, but I didn't think of it then. Um So obviously the teachers and the staff are having these conversations about the students. Is there a point in which there's parental involvement in that? How exactly how that looks is kind of determined by the team. So the intent of it is to include all stakeholders in those conversations and think about the best most productive way to do that. It's not prescribed that it's done in a certain way, but certainly using parents as team members in that is part of the solution. Thank you. Anyone else? Much and congratulations to all the principles and staff for a great year. And these were amazing updates. Love the format. Um, very informative. Thank you. Okay, that
067now takes us to item E and that is an ESSA public notice. Okay. Yes, there is um the attached information should look a little bit more like what you've seen in the past. We were able to get our title one funding preliminary allocation which gave us an increase a pretty substantial increase over last year's. Our title two allocation has not come in yet. The state of Maine has not gotten that from the federal government yet. Our title three and as if you'll recall title two is for teacher quality and professional development. We generally utilize that for a class size reduction at CK Burns. So, it's one of the teachers salaries at CK Burns and then also for professional development above and beyond that. Um, at this point we've been advised for the federal funds through
068the state of Maine, but also have a backup plan for having a reduction in funds. So, we would have local funding absorb that classroom teacher or consider implications of an increase in class size. Though I don't anticipate that that's a reality given our current numbers. And um we would have to look at our professional development and focus on the most high impact slash lowcost opportunities and not andor see what we have for local funding with respect to that. So don't have any numbers yet. Those uh those funds are used for ESOL multilingual students and can be used for a variety of different supports in that area. Again, if we did need to reduce or eliminate, we would have to look at our elevation program, which we purchased, is incredibly helpful to our ESOL staff, but
069it is also something that can be done more manually and without the digital platform. we would have to look at um the community supports and partnerships that we pay for through that and potentially look to other grants or organizations aid for SACO kids that could support that. And of course um prioritize any resources that have direct impacts to students and to instruction and try to kind of second tier those that might be um more staff or external oriented. Our title four fund preliminary allocation did come in actually between the first writing on of this memo and a revision that we did Monday and our preliminary allocation there is just over 40 $2,000 of last year's title 4 gets split between three different areas well-rounded educational programming safe and healthy student programming programming and effective use
070of technology. And in the past, we've used those to purchase technology related to robotics for CK Burns, provide our fully funded outdoor learning overnight for our seventh graders to the ecology school and other kind of shorter term initiatives that we fund through that. the reduction elimination plan. Hopefully, if preliminary close to preliminary, we won't have to consider those reduction or elimination pieces there. Our overall shows right now a decrease of $120,400, but that's only because I'm not counting anything that hasn't been allocated to us yet. And we have continued to hear that they anticipate getting those numbers because it isn't part of the federal government's budget for this year. It's part of the federal government's budget from the prior year. So, um, obviously it's a complicated web to try to understand why it's taking months
071longer than it has in the past, but we're committed and hopeful that those will come through. And lastly, I have put at the bottom the private or non-public school allocations that were required to preliminary numbers show the full amount allocated to SACO, but we do have an obligation to provide a percentage of that to Thornton and to Margaret Murphy. And this year those percentages are just under 38% for Thornton Academy and just over 1% for Margaret Murphy. Those organizations can elect to accept or not accept funds and they are none of them are eligible for title one. So it's only title two, three, and four that they would take a percentage of. We will accept public comment on these. Meaning, if there are suggestions or ideas or criticisms of how we are looking at spending
072the funds, there's a form that you can fill out or you can reach out directly to me and we'll keep that public comment open and available for consideration until June 25th. Great. Thank you. Any questions or comments for Mike? School board member Roach. First off, I just spent a minute trying to figure out what PD stood for. So, so I know there's no such thing as a dumb question, just dumb school board members who ask questions. But, so I figured it out. But um but what concerned me, what got me to that section is that on the title two um to to account for the when the funding goes away, uh are you more considering that the local funding will absorb a classroom teacher or increasing class sizes, which is usually an issue, of course.
073If that if that money was to go away, Kevin, we would look at in absorbing that on the local side and figuring things out. All right. Thanks. Hey, anyone else? Okay, thank you. Okay, moving on to item F that is the strategic plan. Okay, me again. Um the curriculum committee has discussed this at the last couple of meetings. There's a backup there. We are tasked with keeping a strategic plan up to date. We've been very inshed in the building project and the planning and work that goes around that. So we are definitely due for a strategic plan update. Really the key components of that are engaging multiple stakeholders from community members that don't have students in school to parents to students to staff members to administrators and just kind of getting a where we are
074as a district, where we want to go as a district and creating a five-year plan to kind of outline that. Some of the work that the curriculum committee has been doing is strategic plans and kind of thinking with the end in mind. Not so much of what we want the individual pieces to be, but what kind of product are we trying to create so that we are sure to be collecting the right information when we reach out for that kind of feedback that we're building to kind of a known entity. Um, some of the timeline highlights is that we'll be looking to put together a strategic planning committee over the summer and in the early fall with the intent to collect stakeholder feedback in starting sometime in September through November. And then in November through
075January, we'll look to look at that an analyze the data that we've collected, develop a draft, and have an initial review by that planning team. And then we'll look to finalize the document in early 2026 and look for schoolboard approval to implement and launch that plan at the end of next school year. certainly welcome anyone in the community to reach out and participate in that. We're looking to kind of keep the curriculum committee as the group that is the planning committee, but maybe add some extra strategic plan curriculum committee meetings. And we generally meet at 4:30 on fourth Monday of the month. And we'll if we do add extra meetings try to keep it at that same time slot so that if that's something that folks can commit to and they're interested in being part
076of the planning kind of behind the scenes process of the strategic plan, we welcome you to join us. And of course all stakeholders will be included once we kind of seek additional input in the fall. Great. Thank you. Questions or comments? I just want people to Megan and I have talked about this. Um, and please be aware this is not a plan of things that we want to add to the budget and or purchase. This is about taking the funds that we are giving and how we apply them appropriately to practice to serve our community for what we want for our kids as they move from childhood to adulthood. So Brown during some of the other conversations of our prior plans and Megan and I have had discussions about what that product will look like
077as it's not on specific things. It's more 30,000 foot view. How do we push things forward in our community knowing that I think what's hard is that you also have the new schools that are designed in some ways. There are some of this work has almost been done because of design of buildings. Um so just want to just want to make sure that people understand that we may have a little bit of a different vision for this than what was done prior. Thank you. Anyone else? School board member Johnston. Thank you. I just wanted to say that even now after having done been involved with a couple of strategic plans from the past, it's a little foreoding because it's such an important thing to actually, if you will, do it right. But um it it
078is very important to I think look at what has happened in the past and try to tailor it to where we are now. And um I think that it's a bit of time and dedication, but if people are interested, it's it's definitely something exciting to get involved in. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, thank you. Okay, the next item up, item G, and that is the 2526 board calendar. So, in your packet is um the calendar for the upcoming year. as you can see, keeping the similar format to what we've had. Um, also added that uh curriculum committee date on there. Uh, we will only have one meeting in June and July again. And um, our important piece is around basically in July a lot of those pieces about hiring. We need to keep that process
079moving forward. Do you need a motion or anything? This is just Okay, great. Just making sure. School board member Roach, before it said the finance committee was to be determined. Um, so there it says the next meeting is 4:30. Um, I just recommend that, you know, I'm year close is 6:30 and I wouldn't mind, you know, I know some negotiations are going on right now. I wouldn't mind uh, you know, at the 9th meeting just I know it's like only a week. I would peek at that. My recommendation would be to we can schedule a separate one. Okay. Uh later that month because the 9th won't give you enough information because you'll still you'll still have another round of bills coming in. Yeah. Um and so we can schedule something later in the month you
080know private sector had. I'm like all right let's let's let's see what they are right away. But yeah, I think we're going to be pretty pleased. Okay. Okay, great. Moving on to item H. Is there a motion for the first reading of policies? School board member Johnston. Thank you. I move we approve the first reading of policies JLCB immunization of students KBF parent involvement in the title one policy KBF-1 title one parent involvement policy KF community use of school facilities KI-E agreement for classroom observations great thank Thank you. Motion has been made by schoolboard member Johnston. Is there a second? Second. Second by school board member Truman. Any discussion or comments on the items? School board member Johnston. I just wanted to point out that KBF which is par parent involvement in the title one
081policy and KBF KBF-E1 title one parent involvement policy sounds like it's repetitive but it actually is not. Um, I might be wrong in trying to simplify it this way in in case board members want to understand, but um, I think that the to do with the federal law delineation of responsibilities both on the the school's part and parents part and KBF E1 actually talks about the opportunities more not so much the in implied but the opportunities for parent involvement in more detail to understand in more detail how the various ways of I don't know if anybody was curious about that but I thought just to mention it thank you we appreciate clarification. Any other questions? Schoolboard member Roach. I I think you guys might have did clarify that because when you open the document of
082the second one, it says instead of policy, it says procedures. Say that again, Kevin. So it says the the second document, the E1 says Title One parent involvement procedures instead of policy. So, okay. That is why that's Yeah. So, I think there's been some erroneous think the title just needs to be changed. Yeah, it needs to be changed. Yeah, that's all. Yeah. Yeah. The what what you explained matches that. I just Yeah. So sorry there that I think it's just a matter of matching it up and getting it changed in the the master document. So that item three KB involvement policy I mean procedure should be procedure procedure should be procedure. We can we can change that at the second reading at the final reading. Okay. Not a big deal right now. No problem. All
083right. Superintendent Ray, do you have that noted to pass on? It's been it's already been noted. Okay. So, yes, we can approve it as is now and then during the second uh final reading. Okay. Anyone else? Questions or comments? Okay. Uh roll call vote. School board member Waroff. Yes. Schoolboard member Prebble? Yes. School board member Richards? Yes. School board member Roach? Yes. School board member KD? Yes. School board member Truman. Yes. And school board member Johnston. Yes. Motion passes 70. Okay. That now takes us to item 12 and that is other information. Um I would just like to throw out two pieces of information tonight if I can. Um one is actually as we were talking earlier about the uh bikes for kids with Masonic Lodge. This Saturday is the soft bike rodeo. It is
084being held at TA and it is from 10 to 12 and where students and children can come with their bikes and their helmets and can basically learn um rules, procedures, how to bike, um some first aid. Um it it's just a great event. We have been doing it for a few years now. It is sponsored by our bike and ped uh pedestrian committee. So hopefully everybody can make that out. What were the What were the hours on that again? Sorry. 10 to 12. Rain or shine. I'm sorry. Rain or shine. That's what it says. Yes. Sorry, everyone. Okay. My second item this evening, um, with school break less than 24 36 hours away, um, everyone knows that the SACO splash pad is open. Um, with that we have laid down grass seed. So there is
085a fence that is going around the perimeter of the splash pad. Um, we have put up some benches and tables for people to sit and still enjoy their time. But we do ask that everybody kind of respect the fencing so that we can get some fresh green grass grown and have a real comfortable place for everybody to sit and relax later in the summer. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Schoolboard member KD. Just about the splash pad. I've seen just online a few questions about whether or not it will be open during um the summer camp hours. Yes, it is open all day. Um the wreck will be using it as well. They will have scheduled times that they will have the w kids over there. Um but even if they're there, it is still
086open. Um, so it is going to be a collaborative effort with everybody there and um, so yeah, I mean the hours are the hours and it I believe 7 p.m. Um, and again just to remind everybody it is a 20 minute run. So if you get there and the waters are not on, just press the button and it will go. So yes, we're hoping everybody will be able to work together and um, when the kids are there just respect and on both sides. use it. We can use it, too. Absolutely. All ages. That's one of the advantages is we're really hoping that some of our senior residents have a nice comfortable place to go to um just to be able to cool down as well and be able to interact with the kids. And Jeff
087will be the first one down there. Schoolboard member, superintendent. So, On the July 9th meeting, I will not be here. I'll be in DC uh at the annual meeting for lobbying. Um I know that's a summer night. Meg will be in the chair. I hope that I don't get reports that you're out of here in 20 minutes because she'd like to spend a little bit more time sitting here. Uh so she's looking forward to a good one and a half, two hour meeting that night. Um, so just make sure Kevin that you have plenty of questions that night uh for her. Uh because you know me, don't worry. I'm traditionally known for my quick meetings. That's a five o'clock meeting. We're out at 510. So exactly. Don't worry. I'll make sure I'm watching in from
088like iPad or something. And we're heading to the splash pad because it will be 90 there. There will be no splash pad meeting that night. I want to go to that. We're having a splashpad meeting. We're just going to cancel it here and go there. All right. Anyone else? Okay. Moving on to item 13. There is no executive session and item 14 is adjournment. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Motion made by school board member Truman. Second by school board member Prebble. Roll call vote. School board member Waroff. Yes. School board member Prebble. Yes. School board member Richards. Yes. School board member Roach. Crazy in the sunlight. Yes, indeed. School board member Ger. Yes. Schoolboard member Truman. Yes. And schoolboard member Johnston. Yes. Motion to adjourn at 8:22. Passes 70. Thank you
089everyone. And I do apologize. Thank you for putting up with my coffee this evening.