001e e e welcome to the Sako school committee uh board committee meeting for July 14 2021 call the meeting to order at 700 p.m. let the record reflect that all school board members are present with the exception of school board member one and School Board member six let the record also reflect that superintendent Ray is here with that uh move to item two approval of school committee meeting minutes dated June 16 20121 is there a motion to approve the minutes Mr Mayor School Board member L Fortune I move we approve the school committee meeting minutes dated June 16 2021 second motion's been made by school scho board member L Fortune second by School Board member prebble to approve the meeting minutes for June 16th 2021 any discussion roll call vote School Board member prebble yes
002School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 52 5 Z moving on to item three any adjustments to the agenda tonight none no adjustments to the agenda moving on to item four any correspondence at this time no corresponden at this time that moves us to item five public session uh anybody any members of the public that would like to come up and address the school board please come forward and be heard please state your name and address for the record and please speak directly into the microphone my name is Julie petran I do not live in Sako but I am an employee of Sako through the years I've worked with great leaders good leaders not so good leaders and finally
003why am I still working here kind of leaders it's sad when you start questioning yourself about leadership on the other hand I've been fortunate enough to work for Julie SMI and she is an exceptional leader when we left the RSU we had Carol marot as our curriculum director Carol was the gal that had the go-to attitude and got things done Carol always lit up the building with her energy as she began to her retirement process Julie SMI interned for Carol and was then hired Julie also has that electrifying energy about her and she has brought the curriculum to a new level staff were excited about trying new um curriculum Rebecca sit and spelling Eureka math Handwriting Without Tears some new literacy procedures that assisted those struggling readers and I'm sure I've forgotten many programs that
004have not been mentioned Julie SMI was appointed director of prek while holding the director of curriculum position in 2018 her office was moved from central office to Parks and Rec with the two prek classes she was expected to start up the prek program as Saka was just starting tol explore this new venture the staff completed the screenings and placements they held the open house for families with completely empty classrooms even these hurles did not stop Julie she sought out professionals across Southern main for information and guidance building very strong working relationships along the way and in 2019 the prek program expanded to five more full day classes and I was fortunate enough to join this amazing team we originally started out at toddlin we were locked out by the city 2 weeks later and moved
005two more times in 6 weeks three classes were at First Parish Church in the basement two classes at young school and two classes back at parks and W in order to make this work we all pitched in and even rode buses as aids to get our kids to school Julie also rode the bus Julie helped cover classes for prek when we were short-handed although through all of this she still managed to complete her work on her curriculum her reports grants and still attended her meetings as Co became our nightmare Julie jumped in to find out what she could do to make the online learning Successful by securing ISL for math new cell for literacy and other programs used throughout the district during our time home she worked on the possib impact of covid and what
006it might have on the staff and students no one has ever been through something like this before and it was unprecedented Julie was following the social emotional aspects and beginning to resear research workshops for staff during our time home taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do for yourself this is one of the many attributes she has blessed The Soca school department with as well as professional time professional development for all it was an extremely long four months of being home but Julie still did not stop working she felt so strongly about the emotional support of our staff that she wrote the social emotional learning resolution in April and the school board adopted it and signed it in May of 2021 this document hangs in all the schools prek finally received
007the okay to move back to toddlin building in June of 2020 staff me me members were washing their own rooms as Furniture was being delivered we did not have access to any custodial staff under covid restrictions we screened students from the parking lot in July and rescreened in August and started in September we were up and running with a lot of covid changes in hand and whatever it took we as a team were going to make it work with Julie leading the way pre beca prek became one of the most successful buildings during covid and we only had a handful of close contacts and closed one room for 5 days once with the termination of the superintendent this past April Julie submitted her application for interim superintendent we thought there was hope how lucky we
008would be as a school district as a community to have Julie at the helm with our inter as our interim superintendent with her positivity and drive she would honestly begin some of the healing that we so badly needed and unify our district as one this hope is now lost the reorganization plan is very thorough but does not pro approve this plan with the termination of Julie and the hiring of the assistant superintendent will save the district money and provide the necessary curriculum support as needed for Sako staff across the district have already seen drastic changes to the schools in June with the cleaning of materials classrooms May no longer be friendly warm or welcoming but seem institutionalized this takes away from what Sako schools are known for Community I have one page left and it's
009going to be brief thank you you're welcome Julie smite's position as our curriculum director is now being terminated some school board members have said she's only been a curriculum de she has not been a curriculum director for three to four years just prek director I find this difficult to swallow as I see Julie on a different level than any of you might see her please know Julie SMI was never just a pre- director does the community know that she was never compensated at any time for this pre director position it was an expectation placed on her with hopes of failure and that didn't happen Julie has that can do go team attitude and she has built an extremely successful pre I see this dedicated woman coming to work every day with a beautiful smile and
010no matter how much it hurts we're losing the beacon of light and inspiration a person that actually cares about every person in this District whether it be a staff student or their families and she has been a strong leader and she would have moved moved Sako to a positive direction I hope I've been able to provide some background for people that may not know our past present and now what will our future bring please remember the Soca school department has what I call a missed opportunity the opportunity to bring our school system to a new level of social emotional learning caring loving and nurturing environment for all students I it is now a missed opportunity because you're letting her go Julie will land on her feet she'll be loved gifted and strong but wherever she
011goes that employer will be the luckiest of all thank you thank you Julie anybody else please come forward and be heard hi my name is Martha velosi I live at One Richards Way in Sako I've been a teacher in the soc school system for 38 years but I've been teaching for 48 years my children children both went through the S so school system I come to you tonight with a saddened and heavy heart about your decision to eliminate the curriculum director position held by Julie SMI as we all know Julie has held this position for about nine years and has brought the S schools to a level in education that is exemplary it is the curriculum director who is responsible for the staff development which directly affects every single student in the school system having
012worked for her these these past years I have seen her passion for curriculum for staff development and above all the students who have the best education possible she works tirelessly for the socc schools and now 10 years later you have decided to eliminate her position I personally personally feel blindsided with your actions and I know many other staff members and parents feel the same way you have chosen to do this when school is out when parents and teachers are on vacations and do not look at their emails this community will be shocked when they hear this in September I understand that the interim superintendent will be in charge of curriculum how is this person going to dedicate the immense amount of time to make this happen by doing this I feel we are taking a
013giant step backwards educating the children in Sako we just went through a pandemic a curricular curriculum director is more important than ever to bring the educational level back up for our students what per percentage of the interim superintendent time will be dedicated to this is this no longer important for the children in s Julie has held two jobs these past three years she has created the most amazing prek in the state I asked you to spend one day one hour one minute in her prek and see what goes on there are many times when the school board addresses issues and it's always K through five but I don't really hear prek through five very often are we not a part of the school system it is amazing what these children are learning under her leadership
014it has also been said that Julie has not been the curriculum director for the past three years I don't believe this is true she has been doing two jobs curriculum and prek which are two full-time positions she has also been addressed by the school b as school board as curriculum director so I beg to differ that she has not been a curriculum director I hope that you go forward involving staff members and parents on your decisions when you hire administrators it is the staff who works daytoday with children whether in the classroom as a teacher an edtech a secretary a custodian a bus driver or a cafeteria worker their import is invaluable I feel personally this is a very sad day in Sak for our staff who loves Julie for the children she hugs every
015day and for the parents who have come to respect Julie and rely on her for help I ask you as a Schoolboard to please do what is best for our small community and not lose our autonomy with all due respect what happens in bitterford does not mean it has to work for Sako eliminating the curriculum position is such a disappointment but losing Julie is a travesty I know I speak for many many other staff members in Sak who feel the exact same way that I do tonight but will not speak her come to the because they fear they may lose their jobs what is Sako becoming are we going to be a fear-based school system or a system open to all staff members being able to have the an opinion or an idea to better
016our students without worry their jobs will be cut thank you very much thank you Martha again please state your name and address for the record uh my name is Nicole Yanni I live in 25 Miranda Circle I also happen to be a edtech for the prek system and I know a couple Lely board members because I have seen their children go through the program I would like to express my concerns for the Sako school system with eliminating the curriculum director position I understand that there is restructuring I understand that the new assistant superintendent is supposed to take over this role but I will remind the school board we are coming out of a pandemic the curriculum director has a very pivotal role in helping the community the children the families the teachers we are the
017tools to help them overcome these obstacles that they've encountered in the past year and we as teachers and Educators need a support system and we have felt that support system and love from Julie SMI the curriculum director we like what we have we enjoy what we have we know what we have right now having something that you can trust going forward is such a key thing if I have to look up and realize that I don't know that person and I don't feel comfortable going to that person how am I going to help when I have a question because my little because I have a question of my teacher I need to be able to feel like we're a team we're a community and having that position there has helped us so much and I
018see so much benefit in keeping that position I understand budget I do I live here I understand that we need to restructure that things need to change I understand that the past is the past and we have made so many mistakes in the past so please let's not make a mistake in the Future Let's help the community Let's help our teachers Let's help our children I really truly believe that and I just wanted you to know thank you thank you Nicole any other public comment this evening come forward and be heard hello Kevin roach 18 Vines Road I know I like all of you um first I want to from the community thank you to the school board for uh being on being in office and running for office uh I think after what we
019went through the pandemic and being on Zoom meetings that you know it's been a very stressful time uh to come to this point and I just as a community member want to thank you for for um taking on this role um and also thank you for making the needed changes um that many of you were brought onto the board um to to move Sako forward so that's what I'm up here to talk about and on your agenda tonight is the uh formation of the school um construction committee um we a lot of the hard work by you guys have been done already now it's up to the community to come together and once and for all get the new schools school or schools into this community it has been a travesty of what we have
020for buildings in this school in this community a travesty people move here people move here for the school system but they move here for what they see at Thorton Academy they don't move here for the trailers they don't move here for a 100y old building they don't move here for you know not working AC and and all that they you know this is a great community and this community deserves schools and what's been absolutely lacking when we're already on the state list is any sort of planning from the prior Administration so now is the time the time is now to to move the community forward you know it's going to be a few couple years before the shovel hits the ground but we need to act yesterday and I appreciate you guys getting this on
021the agenda and I look forward to uh any participation that myself and other um interested parties uh and interested citizens would join uh would join in I don't have a kid anymore from prek to 8 but I'm working with the third kid theory if I had a third kid I I really want this to come come through and see future generations and kids get get into these newer buildings and and get to 2021 in a modern school system thank you very much for your work and time thank you Kevin any further public comment public comment is now closed moving on to item six superintendent report superintendent Ray all right good evening several things uh to talk about uh as a report and one of those is that the fiscal year has ended in Jason's working
022really hard on bringing those numbers together and I think we feel really positive about a good fund balance this year uh hopefully exceeding uh what we had estimated in finance committee and and within probably about another month Jason we'll have a good idea of when everything's paid uh having that positive fund balance which would be able to be used for carry forward in the upcoming budget uh one of the items that um has become a little bit problematic is many times we come up with school policies and we look at school policies that we need to respond to certain situations and then as we go through our policy guide some of the state required policies aren't there uh so communicated with the policy committee that uh I'm going to be getting a a quote from
023Main School management associations to do a thorough review of our policies to make sure that we have all required policies uh and that they are updated because when in absence of policy uh it puts you your District in a very sticky situation we've found several situations where we don't have required policies uh principles and directors have been doing a great job hiring new staff uh the job market right now uh when you get pools they they move quick and so principes have moved uh and directors have moved very quick to make sure that we have staff in positions in the fall one of the big deadlines that will be coming up on September 29th is uh the application for Esser funds which is stimulus or recovery package number three uh is due and that's uh
024a couple million dollars for sto so we'll be working towards those applications getting those in looking at how we use those funds in the best way to support what we have going on in the building and also support uh Capital Improvements that could go forward of that money 20% of that needs to go towards um learning recovery and so we'll be looking at how we use those funds in a way that supports uh academic and social emotional learning um tomorrow I expect we will receive some guidance from the doe and the CDC kind of giving us a glimpse of what the fall might look like as many people know the national CDC um kind of put out some guidance earlier in the week and through some of that guidance it looks at what are local
025conditions uh for the virus and certainly we have a variant so we're going to have to make some decisions um by mid to late August about how we will reopen schools and what those CDC recommendations are going to be uh and in anything that we do here will also be including our parks and wreck into that conversation and uh I've had conversation with Ryan so that uh we're always on the same page moving forward that a kid who whatever happens during the day is similar to what same requirements would be after hours and Ryan's been great at that um another real possible uh situation for us is on October 29th 9th there is uh the deadline to have applications in for revolving renovation funds so anyone who may not be familiar with the revolving Renovations
026that is a um a fund established by the state where you can apply for certain types of improvements within your schools up to a million dollars every five years now if a project is funded through revolving re Renovations you look at what your state subsidy local state share is so we're about 50% here of our funding comes from uh the state or 47% whatever that number is and if a project is approved the state puts their percentage that 40 some odd percent towards the cost the rest is picked up by the locals on a 10-year interest free loan so very good deal for communities typically those spend uh typically that those go around roofs ADA compliance Safety and Security uh and right now $45 million is being pushed forward so um I've been in conversations
027with oako already who which is our architect for the school and with Mike and we will be going out and evaluating some of the situations that make the most sense for us to move forward put the application in and hopefully have a situation where the state is picking up you know 45 50% of the tab on something that we would then pay interest free so uh really good deal on that uh if you can be successful and I've had some success with those in the past and then finally um we'll be talking uh in the in the update about school subsidy and the positive news that the legislature and the governor have signed off on the budget that brings 55% which um will put us in a much better spot financially to take care of
028some of that negative fund balance any questions any questions for the superintendent no questions superintendent R thank you moving on to item seven chair's report moving on to item eight staff reports there's none reflected in the confidentials so we will go to the item nine which is the board subcommittee meeting minutes so there were subcommittee meeting minutes for the Strategic Committee in your packet any issues with the meeting minutes no issues being reported uh there's no old business tonight that brings us to item 11 new business we have item a new hires is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Johnston I move that we accept the nomination of Patricia takus Sako Middle School 7th grade humanties teacher Kelsey MCB districtwide physical therapist Jessica Hamilton Sako Middle School grade six project-based Math teacher Melanie
029C young school kindergarten teacher Jeremy Allen Young school special education teacher and Rita Newman Saku middle school special education teacher and issue a contract for the 2021 2022 school year motion's been made by Schoolboard member Johnston is there a second second second by Schoolboard member L Fortune any discussion seeing No Hands raised nobody seeking recognition roll call vote School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune School Board member tardiff School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 this brings us to Item B uh resignations is there a motion Mr Mayor Schoolboard member Truman I move we accept the resignation of k Sorry keev Leman Sako middle school special education teacher effective at the end of the 2020 2021 school year motion's been made
030by school board member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member prebble any discussion seeing No Hands raised nobody seeking recognition roll call vote School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes Schoolboard member L Forin yes Schoolboard member tardiff yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 moving to item a reorganization plan superintendent Ray will you be doing a presentation on this trying to get that out there hold on just a second please Mr Mayor just quickly before um I sent a note real quick earlier just to let the school know that there was a slight modification to the or chart um it's a really minor one but if you have the one from the pack it's upd School Board member La Fortune Is this
031different than the one that was sent out uh in the updated confidentials that's the one I'm referring to that's that's the correct one the one that was in the packet is out of date Okay so so as my uh as we started here and we looked at last April one of the things that I had uh communication with with the board was looking backwards into some of the things that happened in the past year the real need to have an assistant superintendent on board um when superintendent not available uh when you look at operations when you look at change in leadership while at the same time uh most school districts have an organizational chart and plan of of flow and that is a policy that is not uh in our packet and something that should
032be uh in this situation the recommendation right from the beginning in conversations with staff uh was to certainly to look to add an assistant superintendent position that would be responsible for curriculum in other day-to-day tasks and act in the absence of the superintendent if there wasn't one so in looking at a kind of reorganizational plan we also wanted to have something that clearly defined reporting structure where principles directors what that organizational structure would look like uh to bring Clarity for the district I think one of the things that we met with the leadership team on they were looking for some real clarity it like where do things lie who do we go to who do we report to what is the hierarchy uh and that has been provided for us in this plan um also
033in the plan um we have talked about that yes there is cost savings that we have throughout the throughout the district that we have been looking at whether it be from sh shared superintendent services to reorganization to Food Service savings we are looking to set a situation up where the administrative team is sharing a vision rowing in the same direction um and moving forward uh and So based off the direction of coming up with a reorganizational plan and making sure that we have somebody in this position that can be served in absence of the superintendent i' would present to you um what was in the document we have attached a job description uh to that and any comments would be appreciated thank you very much superintendent Ray any questions for superintendent Ray School Board member
034of Fortune um I don't have a a question per se um I I actually had a very quick conversation just earlier um with um with the superintendent about the job description and the one question that I had I guess um is whether or not we would be or he would be flexible with respect to the 2-year um successful experien superintendent assistant superintendent Etc item uh just from the standpoint of there may be very good internal candidates that maybe don't have that yep that we would not want to scare off or dissuade from from applying for this position so anytime you write qualifications you're looking for the ideal uh in a situation but certainly not always that ideal is what comes forward and the best candidate in any situation obviously the hiring committee board Andor superintendent
035would have the ability to wave some of those conver uh qualifications I think that it's important um that we have the certification of at least a superintendent or an assistant or the ability to get that and then certainly um you can look at successful or suggested experience uh coming to the table uh in all of those again the board superintendent through the hiring process you're going to bring the best candidate forward that you think is best for the district to best to move uh in the right direction any further questions School Board member Johnston I think m is more of a comment I want to thank um Kevin for bringing this question up we had had a little bit of a conversation about it and the clarification that superintendent Ray has just given us is
036very helpful I think it it it gives us uh the ability to be more flexible um and again to bring the best candidate forward so thank you for that explanation School Board member of Fortune um just a quick question related to that so assuming that this does get adopted when um when would the position be opened and posted so we have posted anticipated okay um for that position because you have posting requirement of how many days and then we have a policy of hiring administrative staff and so knowing that we're moving towards the beginning of a school year and that someone could have a possible commitment to another District our goal would be that meeting that timeline of forming the committee in the next week or so having interviews and hopefully when we come back
037here uh in early August or before that if we need to have a special meeting that we will have a candidate to present to the board any further questions is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Truman I move we accept the reorganization reorganization plan as presented by the superintendent motion's been made by Schoolboard member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member M tardiff any discussion roll call vote Schoolboard member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member Le Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes Schoolboard member Truman yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 brings us to item D School subsidy updated Revenue superintendent Ray all right so great news on school subsidy that um the governor and legislature finally met the promise uh that voters
038had required them to to fund schools at the 55% level something that's been on the books for you know probably 15 years now since EPS 20 years now that we've never got to that and the current budget that and formula that you were working off was at 51.8% and so in order to make that change what happens is the local required mill rate goes down from 7.9 to 7.26 which is great news for Sako because what that does is that brings an extra $1.55 million in subsidy now in addition to that when we were going through the budget and we looked at the Ed 279 it was noticed that we were not receiving the state reimbursement for the pre Center the pre Center is a lease situation and with lease when you're leasing space you
039have the ability to apply for the state and get $8 a square foot back that was something that didn't get done this fall we worked with the Department of Education Mike and I we got the the the application in and the state granted that change for us which brought us an additional $81,000 so that when our new subsidy comes out we're going to the the city of Sako will receive $1,633 $458 so great day for us so then we look at what are the uses and in your memo um by law there are some uses that school committees have the right to adjust things um and they have their right to make increased expenditures what I am going to recommend the following steps for us to consider um because again years of school committee city
040council superintendents coming and saying if only the state funded at 55% and now we're here uh so I think that one of the pieces that we need to avoid is just adding a bunch of stuff the first thing that I would recommend to the group is that we currently have on the school side a negative fund balance which means that over the past several years had spent more money than what had been appropriated and that fund balance is at $995,000 this allows the team to start fresh pay that off Jason and the group had done a great job over the course of the year managing uh the budget with the finance committee and you have a positive fund balance at the end of this year so that means you're starting next year in a place
041where you could have the budget which you could Infuse money if things like property valuation went up or the state changed things and we know that property valuation is going to go up in southern in Sako and in Southern Maine and what's the challenge behind that is that when you look at property valuation from a Statewide level if your community or your region is outpacing the growth by the rest of the state it's going to wind up in a higher Mill expectation here because they're assuming that your property value can carry the load and so we know from looking at realtor reports or just reading the newspaper every day that if a house in Sako hits a market the person might have a time to you know to say yes before there's a million offers
042coming in um and so and those many of those as we can read go for more than listing value so we know that over the next several years property in Sako is probably going to outpace the state which will be challenging for us so this gives us a chance to to pay that back um and think about moving forward uh on a positive note the next piece is that uh the city uh through conversations has you know really stepped forward and I know that uh mayor doy will kind of pledged that you know no matter what the city could take care of the money for architect costs this would be an opportunity for with the school subsidy to take care of that not have to take money out of the city's coffers it would be
043very clean that it's set on the school side um and there would be $300,000 that wouldn't have to go through that transfer process with the city um and it would be fun fed in our budget it's there it would just be a change to the revenue sheet and then the last two pieces is that um we had looked at what is what is now remaining and you've got almost uh $600,000 that would be left um and kind of looking at a situation where we could uh sorry we'd have $337,000 uh remaining and we would take a situation where we could apply that towards the tax rate uh or the city council could take that money and put that into Capital reserves I'm not familiar enough of where the city is is on setting the tax
044rate and I know that date is probably coming very soon um but we'd be able to come back to the city council and have that discussion about what would be the best use of that fund city council would have the ability to change the revenue sheet um based off that and work with the board and U lower possibly lower the tax burden or put that towards capital reserve which has been certainly a challenging for our schools any questions for the superintendent is there a motion Mr Mayor Schoolboard member Johnston I'm move we accept the updated fy22 school department budget supplement budget as presented by the superintendent second motion's been made by Schoolboard member Johnston seconded by Schoolboard member Truman any discussion seeing No Hands raised roll call vote School Board member Preble yes School Board
045member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes Schoolboard member Truman yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 brings Mr Mayor from this point forward just I would work with uh Brian to have a conversation with the of when we could get to the city counil um because I like I said I know your date for setting probably the tax requirement is coming really soon okay next is item e a first reading of policies for several policies kcb Community involvement in decisionmaking JCB immunization of students BCC nepotism CC administrative organization and CCA Sako school department organizational chart is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Johnston excuse me I move we approve the first reading of policy jlc B immunization of students BCC nepotism CC administrative organization and
046CCA Sako school department organizational chart thank you School Board member Johnston you do realize that you have left out kcb Community involvement in decision making is there a reason there is okay um according to my notes and perhaps they're erroneous but according to my notes I believe we've actually done the first and second reading on that um back in probably late May or something like that um Sarah what do you do you Sarah thinks I might be correct about that I think she's correct I think we had this thank you for the clarification the superintendent will look into that and make sure that uh we haven't errored uh with that uh is there a second second second by School Board member prebble any discussion seeing No Hands raised roll call vote School Board member prebble
047yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 that brings us to item F School construction committee and we'll start with the school construction timeline superintendent Ray okay this is a very exciting time for the community as we can begin to think about the school construction process uh and moving forward with that and the first two items are really more informational of looking at what are the first steps um that need to happen and currently right now we are sitting at step number four where you have selected a designer and selected to work with oako and then the next two pieces will be meeting with the doe to begin looking at all of the
048requirements that they will have for us around building a new school which will be looking at land looking at grade level configurations looking at new versus Renovations all of these lists of things traffic studies they will say hey these are the things we need you guys to do as a community uh in order to move forward and then also from that piece most important importantly is site selection and review uh you have to have a public hearing on those pieces and for us here we know that land will be something that will be considered traffic will be considered all of those pieces and we need to get to that point where between six and S and the state board of education site approval is the biggest piece site approval includes where it's located and what
049your grade levels are going to be huge piece for the city in order to do that if we wanted to have a goal and again this would be a quick goal and a quick timeline to be not looking at this November's election but for the next November's election to go out to bond and that probably would be the absolutely quick possible date and we would need to make decisions on a timeline as a group work hard and do all of those pieces if we want that to happen um and that's you know you're looking at like 18 14 months 18 months um that's going to be quick that's going to be that's going to be hard to meet that but I think that if we have a group of um people who are committed to
050that uh building committee and there will be a lot of subcommittee work we can at least have that as a strong goal for us as a community um if we hit that timeline then you might be talking at probably about a four to five year total process minimum um it's it's not a quick process and really that state board and having them site approval concept approval and having the money come off you know the payment schedules is also the other piece that they look at uh so the more organized we can be the better um also when you when you look at your document uh here's the state recommendations on selecting a committee um and having a building committee and there are three different types and um it would be my recommendation that you have
051an ad hoc building committee uh most commonly used in main schools members selected by the school board powers and duties established by the school board cross-section of the conf of the community advis their advisory only so at the end of the day the school committee makes those decisions and once the task is completed which is a building project it's disbanded now in most communities people all want a seat at the table there's a lot of interest in that and my recommendation for us is to start with the list that we have tonight of people to be on that noticing that there are open slots and also knowing that while the building committee will make the recommendations to the school committee there are so many other ad hoc or subcommittees that have to occur with the
052very first two being site in grade level configuration which should probably be 10 to 12 member committees um with certainly some representation from your building committee on those and then once those PE those two things occur then you're going to have subcommittees for colors Arrangements uh furniture all of those pieces that um in many communities you're looking at typically hundreds of people being involved in some part of the process along the way uh but for us um just based off the information that I've had from people who um have shared things talking with the architect we need to get to site in in grade level sooner rather than later any questions for superintendent Ray School Board member La Fortune just a quick question it's an ey chart so there's not going to be much that
053you'll see now but I'm wondering if just for the sake of having everybody know how complicated this process is if we could put this guy on the on the website somewhere just to show where number four that you mentioned sits in this yeah this diagram I can put that on the website too and I think also it might be wise of us to print some of those uh on big poster boards like having one here in City Hall hopefully might be an opportunity or around town so that people understand that this is not yeah you're right Kevin this is not a uh quick process this is a this is a long haul process and quite frankly you're making the decision what's tough about it is you think about it you know even for me who's
054got a second grader and you'd be like oh we're getting a new school maybe they will see that realistically um that's not going to happen for for my child in Sako is because the timeline's out too far and so you're making the dec the school committee and and everybody involved is making the the decision for really the next 50 to 60 years of the city uh and for kids who um depending on the grade makeup may not even yet be here any further questions today superintendent Ray was there a notice put out asking for people to come forward and put their name on for the school construction committee I understand there's going to be a general School construction committee that's going to provide an overall report to the school board and then it's going to
055be the school board's final decision but was there ever anything put out to the public that said if you want to be on the school construction committee please let us know so at last meeting I mentioned that uh and got a couple of emails um but no nothing in writing and so how was the current selection of the current committee members made I had a conversation with the chair of the board and uh you know we looked at people who are interested people who have time people that I think were involved in the process was it three years years ago Kevin four years ago who had been part of that work that then kind of stalled um and talked to those individuals about you know did they have interest in continuing so my my experience
056is is similar in that I've also had lots of side conversations with people have reached out to me with in with um interest in being on the committee as well so that's essentially that's the origin of the list is we essentially put together the set of people that had come to either of us and said let's for a start as a starting point let's put these names on the list to get things moving um and knowing that um as the superintendent mentioned there's going to be lots of other committees there's also in the same memo that had all these names and it them mention that there's there is going to be opportunity for additional people to be included in this this is a starting point to get the Committees going to begin the process but
057these folks here that have already been named will have the final decision making that comes before the school board for a final vote that goes to the city council and then goes out to bond potentially final decision in what in the plan that goes to the school board no I don't agree with that this is to get the process started and ultimately when the process gets moving and the Committees that are the two subcommittees around site plan and GR configuration with a lot more people that are yet to be named because they haven't come forward that's when the decision making will be done that send something back to the school board that ultimately results in a bond and so on no I I understand that the site selection site land selection subcommittee and then grade
058level configuration subcommittee uh will be out there I get that and those will be 10 to 12 person committees as superintendent Ray said I understand that but the overall uh committee that will make the decision in the end to come and present a plan to the school board is made up of the 12 folks that are identified uh on this sheet prepared by the superintendent is that not the case that would be the final committee that would make a recommendation to the school committee um obviously notes in those those other meetings one they're all in public public session that people could approve um but our hope is is that subcommitte are doing the work pushing that up um and that the building committee is reviewing the work of the subcommittees um and moving that forward
059um you know as you take a let's take site land selection you're going to be asking your site land subcommittee to make a recommendation to the building committee that gets pushed up to final approval by the school committee so they'll be aware of the process throughout thank you that's all the questions I have any further questions if not is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Preble I move we accept the recommendation for the establishment of an ad hoc building committee as presented by the superintendent motion's been made by school board member prebble is there a second second second by School Board member Richard any discussion heing no disc discussion roll call vote School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes
060Schoolboard member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 brings us to item G school committee meeting calendar for 2021 2022 superintendent Ray would you like to say anything on that just a second please so in your calendar is the in your packet is a yearly calendar for uh school committee meetings uh as you can see that the second meeting every month would be at 5:30 I mean sorry 5 o'clock with the first meeting every month being on seven at 7 o'clock um we also have dates where finance committee and policy committee would fit into those that meeting schedule uh in addition I reached out to Brian today uh and trying to have some conversations we have some joint meetings with the city council that we'd like to you know try to get
061on the calendar and and denote which meetings those would be uh because I believe it's September December and then once a month during the budget process if I'm correct in that um and so trying to get those those at least for the first part of the Year nailed down and then when the budget comes we need know that that can be just a revolving door of meetings uh that we'd have so this would be a calendar for that um and then I think that uh mayor Doyle had said that um when you've changed times in the past you said the committee had vote voted on those so I'd be looking for some sort of approval tonight Mr superintendent I have a question yes um can you tell me where in this calendar we fit infrastructure
062committee well that's a good question uh and the reason for that is because the infrastructure committee number one probably be spending a whole lot of time just building uh working on a new school so those meetings are going to be throughout the time all the time uh and then you know again when you think about when I think about an infrastructure committee I also think about uh and I've had this conversation with Kevin about standing committees and looking at that is that typically anything that that happens with infrastructure usually involves Finance uh and so it seems a bit duplicative to me that you would have a possibly a building construction is we put some money into hopefully look at a roof and then the infrastructure we know that's going to happen and then the same
063a lot of the same faces are going to talk about it there and then talk about it in a finance committee meeting because you need money for a roof um and so I think those are some of the pieces that we need to look at throughout the process of just making sure that we line up and uh there's seven of you that put in a lot of time and my short time here I think there are some duplicated efforts uh that we have and we need to to look at that piece a little bit great thank you just a quick Schoolboard remember of for just a quick somewhat followup but is also somewhat off topic so earlier you had mentioned um MS M May reviews of existing policies and I know that the conversation that
064we had part of that involved looking at that particular policy around committees and noticing that it hasn't been updated in quite a while yep a couple years and it's also different than the configurations of a lot of other communities around the state that have a more recent version of that so that's probably part of the origin of how um Jeremy's laid out which committees fit where is ultimately resulting from you know that policy review may may result in some different committees or some committees that we have being named differently than they are now correct any further questions Schoolboard member Johnston so I I think what comes to mind for me is that often granted this is a more say structured calendar than we have sometimes had in the past um some committees have met more
065frequently than others anyway but what comes to mind for me is that the possibility of needing to reschedule some of these meetings due to anything from weather to you know some other priority it's just something I want to keep in mind that's all um because that certainly has happened in the past so just a thought to throw out yes certainly we'd be you know obviously a school committee meeting reschedule uh possibly on that depending on you know when we hit December that dates a little close to uh you know the vacation week and whatnot um but I think this is about allowing the school committee there have been some requests to really get a calendar out there look at those pieces look at your use of time um I think when I looked at some
066of the the meeting schedule when I first came here some of you guys were at a meeting four nights in a row uh on certain topics and trying to use our time a little bit more wisely and effectively and have greater participation from you know the ability for our principles and our staff not to be at four different things in a row and uh this will give us a start and again I suspect there will be a lot of dates filled in around this that have the subject of school construction on that um and we really need to focus on that task any further questions is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Preble I move we accept the school committee meeting calendar for 2021 2022 as presented motion's been made by Schoolboard member
067Purble is there a second second second by School Board member Truman any discussion roll call vote School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes School Board member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 there is no executive session for this evening brings us to item 14 is there a motion to adjourn what I didn't a was new hires superintendent Ray was there something missing out of new hires I don't think was okay we have to deal with it at the next meeting we did have a transfers don't have to be voted on it's a transfering position so it's an appointment we we will have it fixed at the next meeting we have Beyond item a we are now at
068adjournment is there a motion to adjourn so moved School Board memor of Fortune is there a second second by Schoolboard member Johnston any discussion roll call vote School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member tardiff yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 we are adjourned at 8:03 p.m thank you very much everyone have a great evening and be [Music] well for