Saco School Board Meeting 12-8-21

001e e e good evening I'd like to call this meeting of the Saka School Board to order for December 8th 20121 at 700 p.m. let the record reflect that all these school board members are present at this time I'd like to invite you all to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Al United States of America to the stands Nation indivisible and justice for all thank you very much item three is approval of a Schoolboard meeting minutes dated for November 23rd 2021 is there a motion to approve the minutes Mr Mayor School Board member L Fortune I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated November 23rd 2021 is there second second second by School Board member Johnston discussion on the Schoolboard minut meeting minutes any objection to uh Schoolboard member Archie or

002Schoolboard member Gail participating in the vote no objection roll call vote School Board member Archie yes Schoolboard member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion pass 70 brings us to item four any adjustments to the agenda no adjustments to the agenda this evening brings us to item five any correspondents all I can say is I think I speak on behalf of the entire school board when I say thank you to the Sako PR for the wonderful wreath that's been placed in front of the uh in front of the dis here tonight so thank you to the Sako prek with that that is brings us to item six which is public session uh first

003up for public session is Holly trotier again for those folks coming to the mic please speak directly into the microphone state your name and address for the record and feel free to take your mask off while you're speaking into the microphone uh Holly trer I do not live in Sako but I am representing the Sako Education Association so we the members of the Sako Education Association want to share information with the Sako School Board to take into consideration as your thinking about your current relationship with interim superintendent Ry the sea strongly believes beles that all stakeholders should have an opportunity to have input in the decision-making process that includes staff parents and community members we're all Partners in educating our students at the October 27th Schoolboard meeting you discussed either accepting the current relationship or

004going forward with a superintendent search it is the Sako education association's belief that the process of holding a search allow ows for input from all stakeholders our neighboring communities such as Scarboro and msad number six buckton they are holding superintendent searches and they are asking for input from stakeholders through surveys and committee meetings as elected Schoolboard officials you're accountable to your constituents and we request that you gather information from them to inform your decision the Sako education associate has the results of a survey titled qualities for our next superintendent which we sent out to all Sako school department staff the 25 questions included a rating scale from 1 to five with one being not that important and five being very important there were 171 staff members who participated in the survey which is literally according

005to my calculations exactly 50% of teachers edtec administrative assistance and admin rators if you'd like a PDF of the survey results we'd be happy to provide that with you to you at your request so going through the survey we found that there were four items that 80% or more of the surveyed staff rated as very important those qualities include um Quality number one on the survey which was is willing to consider different perspectives before making decisions quality number number six on the survey demonstrates ability to work cooperatively with the S Sako Education Association and keep Educators and School Employees informed quality number 11 on the survey was is committed to including staff concerns in all decisions and quality number 20 on the survey was promotes a positive School climate to ensure a safe learning environment

006these four areas have a common denominator the ability for a leader to work collaboratively with committees and staff members to make decisions the Sako Education Association has requested five important committees to begin holding meetings and at this time none of those committees have been scheduled we've also voiced a concern that professional development should be provided to our educational technicians teachers and other staff during our abbreviated Wednesday time to equal 3 hours a month and to date that time hasn't been scheduled either staff were also given an opportunity to provide additional comments on the survey in response to other qualities that are important not listed in this survey and a couple of the comments that were repeated several times are summarized here uh the staff would like a superintendent who's focused on Sako as a distinct

007Community 19 people wrote in something to that effect staff would like a superintendent that listens to and works with staff members to solve problems and make decisions who will talk with staff staff members about their concerns and educational interests 35 individual respondents wrote something like that staff would like a superintendent who is transparent 13 people wrote that in staff would like a superintendent who understands various special education intervention and specialist positions and strategies and staff believe that putting education in the needs of students and staff should be the top priority again the Sako Education Association strongly believes that all stakeholders should have an opportunity to have input into the decision-making process we've taken the time to provide you with some staff input there are still parents community members and other stakeholders who should be partners

008in your decision-making process thank you thank you uh up next is Noel Galant I don't need my time I think that she might have used it and we just wanted to make sure we had enough time thank you uh up next is Barbara Coleman school boards are there for the students teachers community at large when you took the oath of office you agreed to follow the policies of the operations of the schools so hopefully answering answers can be provided regarding the following first first mayor did I not sign in as required by the policy why is our superintendent still not following the policy that was provided at the last meeting that I spoke at and spoke to all of you he is still going into the buildings and choosing not to sign in I believe

009somebody needs to speak to him because it is a safety issue now I follow dear mayor school chair and board did anyone know notice on the minutes approved tonight um it would have been last meeting indicates the meeting was November 11th versus November 10th so I would ask somebody to please check what is out on the website to make sure that those minutes have been corrected update on superintendent Search interesting the comments was an agenda item for October 27th 2021 School Board what does not appear since that meeting in any is any further updates why has a decision been made behind closed doors already as to who is going to be hired or truly is a search going to be occurring public documents why is one required to request to men the minutes of the

010school board meeting the October 27th 2021 minutes are locked and permission is required for access that goes against public policy as school board members you should have all received training on public access public meetings documentation the ability but and the ability to release certain documents by for request Etc by the main State Statute the mayor has been provided a link of frequently asked questions you can obain that from him as a side note as of October 18th 2021 there are additional individuals in the schools that require training that has been passed along to other individuals as well I've been advised by several sources that a fire occurred at Sak Middle School was this appropriate official were the appropriate officials of the incident advised Fire Chiefs mayor other emergency responders was the scene cleared were parents

011teachers inform if not why or have I not been told the truth by several individuals that reached out to me similar situation involving assaults on teachers at Sako middle school as referenced above were the appropriate individuals contacted including the parent of the student and addressed this should not be happening in our schools how many employees work out of the Beach Street location a number of Staff have been moved to bitterford who remains there how much is be is it costing for a few individuals that been informed that are at that location if there's only a few why not remove the rest to the other side or actually bring them back to S where they belong they are employees of Sako and we are liable for them under our municipality which is two entities the city

012and the school thank you thank you up next is Enga Brown hi good evening I'm Anga Brown I live at 161 Simpson Road in Ward 1 I actually have a handout for the members I may I approach and give a hand out thank you thank you um so um I have a daughter in sixth grade at SMS she's having a wonderful year um I have a son who graduated last year from ta um and I a teacher at Thorton Academy in the English Department um I just wanted to say thank you um to all staff to school leadership um and to our parents who are working so very hard this year um it is a without words to describe how difficult the challenges are um and I want to thank everyone for that I also

013want to uh say congratulations to my w one school board representative Mr Arthur Archie and also congratulations to uh William Gail um and so thank you for all your continued efforts um In This Very thankless Endeavor um so I was um hesitant to give you the handout ahead of time as a teacher myself I know sometimes my students pay don't pay attention if I give them the handout ahead of time but I thought it might help to um organize um what I'm trying to present this evening um some of you were at the council meeting on Monday night uh where I spoke and so uh I'm very concerned about contract zones in our community um we have um too many contract zones you might know that last month the council voted 5 to2 on a

014moratorium on new contract zones that had that vote was suspended for procedural reasons but I am hoping that um it'll be on the agenda again um I think it's important for uh the board members to understand there is a very unique contract Zone in Sako that pertains to Sako schools um so in 2016 a contract Zone was signed with the ecology school and on page one of your packet I simply photocopied for you the page from the contract Zone that pertains to the ecology school and its relationship to Sako schools um each year the ecology School must uh provide $40,000 in value of programming to our Sak students and if they um can't do that for whatever reason um they must make a $20,000 cash payment to the city of Sako um contract zones as

015you know are legal agreements and when the ecology School purchased the property at 184 Simpson Road as a nonprofit the school doesn't pay property tax and therefore the city decided that this contract Zone should include this payment in Le of taxes if you will every January the school leadership team receives a report from the ecology School uh to substantiate and document um the value of programming um if you turn to page five and six I have simply included past reports from the ecology school um on page five you have the 2019 report and I believe on page six you have a copy of the 20 8 report um if you could just look at the report for a moment the um line items are um classroom programs uh field trips overnight programs curriculum consultation um

016and on the 2018 report they actually had to make a cash payment to Sako for about $8,000 I had brought this issue forward to council uh several times I find that this report could use more information um a building principal cannot recognize him or herself in this report um there are no CL uh schools are not identified in the report which grades benefited from the programming um certainly we can't identify individual classrooms I think for furpa reasons but we can certainly provide greater information on um the benefits of the programming in full disclosure I live on Simpson Road I am not a direct AB butter to the ecology school I am a diagonal abutter um since 2016 I have attended all Council meetings um planning board meetings site plan meetings and I'm very concerned about

017contract zones and making sure the city follows compliance as a teacher I want to be very clear with you I value the programming of the ecology school I know very well that how important it is for enrichment programs for getting our students outside for Hands-On learning um so I support the partnership very much I'm just interested in transparency this is a payment in Le of taxes um the city has lost between 14 and $177,000 every year in taxes on the property and therefore I feel that the values in the in the um reports that are submitted every year should be more clear and that Sako taxpayers are entitled to a bit more um transparency um on the services that are being delivered um by the ecology school um on at November at the November 22nd

018council meeting uh the ecology school did present um to council and in that presentation they did summarize uh for 2021 many of the services and programs that they have provided to um the school system so they are capable of very detail I don't have that in the the packet forgive me but if you do turn to page three there is a section in the Middle with bulleted items and I just wanted to show this to you because oftentimes the ecology school is very um clear in identifying that programs um this bulleted list by the way are programs they wanted to do in 2020 but co uh prevented them from doing it which is understandable but young and Fairfield School are identified um which grades are identified there was a field trip plan for Camp Ellis

019for fourth graders um there was going to be a 5-day residential program for seventh graders so we see the detail we see exactly which students were going to benefit so I'd like um to ask the school leadership team maybe to proactively um discuss with ecology school when they present their report probably next month in January um that they can provide greater detail um if that makes sense and um I'll stop there um I hope to maybe speak again on this issue for any further clarifications thank you thank you that is it for those that have signed up for public comment if there's any member of the public who would wish to speak to the school board please come forward and be heard hi my name is Jessica Morris I live at 17 Elm Street I

020have a first grade son at Fairfield and a third grader at Burns school I'm just here to ask you all to consider keeping the direction we're going at minimum for one more year with leadership we have a school construction process going and you know it's going it's going in the way it should and to you know stop that right now and get get somebody brand new in a district that already we were having a lot of issues and I hope people don't forget that last year um so the school construction is a really big deal and we should keep that to help us get to a bond also you know some good things are we I haven't seen as good communication from the district until now everything I get is something that if we didn't

021get I would say why weren't we told about this like the snow closures I have no questions now how I will be told about that you know everything we get is great I have approached the assistant superintendent before and she's answered me so quickly and took the time to have a phone call and talk to me like a real person she's she's great the principal at Burn School took the time to speak to me on the phone and it was like talking to a regular person things are going great as a parent and I hope that you can keep you can see that it picking a superintendent is one of your major jobs that is something that you should consider I have a son who is almost at first grade reading level now and he

022started not even knowing his letter sounds in first grade that wouldn't happen if we were still two days a week and I know people can say oh well we would get there but we didn't you know we had the space all along it just took the right people so please remember that thank you thank you any further comments moving on from public comment brings us to item seven superintendent's report superintendent Ray okay good evening um first and foremost uh tonight I was hoping to have something for um Tony and Chuck uh for their service on the school committee but like everything else sometimes things get a little bit delayed uh and I'm hoping that uh Charles and Tony will be able to join us at the next meeting so that we can show uh our

023appreciation for stepping up to the plate over a short amount of time um to fill in on the board seats and uh know Charles thank you for being here tonight I know I I didn't get a text message to you as soon as I would have liked to have but thank you um to those two for uh working with us as a board um this is just more of a you know hopefully people are watching this at home uh and we talk about covid cases and while we are beat down and we are tired and we want for this to end we need to ask our community to use proper measures to prevent this our cases in the state of Maine are higher than they've ever been what we do know is that in our

024schools when we're wearing masks and we're washing our hands and we're worrying about about distance transmission is extremely low our nurses are working day and night weekends when every all the time contract chasing from a lot of it from is the community exposure being brought in and we know it's very difficult um but as a community we need to stay vigilant because we have another set of holidays our kids need to be in school we we know that being home is not where they need to be um and we need everybody to take all of the precautions that they can uh so that we can safely be in school principes uh are working on their budgets that will come my way uh in a couple of weeks and I will give a budget timeline like

025I did to the city council uh the other night as we talk about storm days we got our first flues today and so it won't be long where we will be thinking about what morning calls will look like uh we sent out a letter to families staff Community kind of on that process and one of the pieces that the quickest way to find out in the morning time if we're going to have school is going to be to look at Twitter and Facebook because that will be the first place that it's posted um just that process in the morning is a lot of phone calls a lot of text messages uh the process to get it into the messenger system take some time and then there's also the process of reporting to the television station

026but the quickest and easiest thing to do first is to post on social media so uh follow along get on those sites and you'll know uh bright and early of what we're uh thinking in the morning time we also sent a letter this week talking about Transportation challenges and there's really a couple of different ways um couple of different parts of that message that uh tend to work out it's important for families to know that there's no real change to the schedule but because of the lack of of substitute bus drivers or bus drivers in general if bus 714 doesn't have a driver that morning as we start to experience more and more staff members um you know who get into the winter season who can become ill uh just your random colds and we

027also want people who show any you know the random cold has the same symptoms as covid and you need to have people stay home um that without substitute drivers uh is an extreme Challenge so if say bus um can't run on on a morning we'll be sending out a message to parents that that first run may not occur and that it may occur later in the day uh and we're hopeful that parents will be able to help us out with get kids in school I've asked the principles to you know begin to work on a plan about how early could someone drop off their kid uh that just for the bus that let's say cancelled um obviously we can't do all kids but if a parent knew that hey I could drop my kid off

028at say 7:20 that morning because my bus is canceled and still make it to work our goal is to make sure our kids are in work the second part of a of a message like that is we had some we've had a couple of situations in the community where people who have a bus driver's license or has some Transportation experience has reached out to us to say hey is there another way that we can help assist you guys in solving this problem uh another piece uh we like to mention is that if there's any families out there that need winter coats or gear uh we have tons of it uh that's available for families so please contract whether it's your school counselors or the office or the principals um and need some help in that

029direction that we have uh plenty of that in Supply um also as Chris has emailed uh with Kevin and Beth this uh summer we worked with main school boards Association to come up with a policy review and to audit all of our policies and we received sections a through D back uh last week with a response and we have a lot of work to do uh just to update a through D and then there will be a whole other section that will be coming back so we're going to start picking away looking at what are the required policies that we do not have on the books uh and starting that section and then begin to review all of those but there is a hefty amount of work just with those first four sections uh for

030us to do so any questions through the board uh from the board through the mayor I had a couple questions sure um so just to be clear going back to the transportation issue um should it occur is that going to a I thought I heard you say if I heard correctly that um it would not impact the hours of the school day schedule or it is going to change schu so it won't change the overall schedule it could change the schedule for that particular bus run okay so if 714 is one that you can't get in that morning that would have to be a second run okay we have to think about the end of the day that gives us a little bit of time to work with families uh and again our principles are

031working on are there any solutions that there could be some earlier drop off just for that particular run of the day but the message that's out there is bus drivers and transportation staff are in tough demand and we need to make sure that we have a a solid a solid bench um a lot of that is many of our subs and part- times are retired folks that may not winter here uh and so we lose them for four or five months out of the school year so need to continue to have anybody out there who's listening if you have a bus driver's license you want to get in or need training or want to be part of that service we can gladly support that and I have a second question sure um just for my

032curiosity what are we are we doing anything specifically in the district for children that are in need for the holidays at all besides just winter coats and things yes so uh not only do we work on gear but several of our uh Partnerships with the rotary club we have uh the Angels at Young School I can't remember is it the Christmas tree angels I know I talked with Tina today um but there are a lot of different programs and again from that program to what our rotary clubs are doing in the area there's been several families who have been adopted okay wonderful thank you any further questions for superintendent R Schoolboard member Truman uh just a quick clarification about the school cancellations correct for snow you said the check social media they still going to

033make the phone calls too right yeah okay still make the phone calls but the very quickest and easiest place is 30 second message there and then you go into all the other pieces perfect thanks any further questions comments Schoolboard member Johnston so this is a question I think and maybe it's a wild card question but um this is probably both for the superintendent and also for you Mr Mayor I'm wondering with the amount of shortages that we have with bus drivers if there any other employees of the city who have the proper licensing who could on a pinch you know uh take a bus route for instance um it just a question I know there are other other um employees in the city who do have the license the CDL so I don't know I

034mean I know we're talking unions and I don't know how that works but it seems unfortunate if we could not utilize some of the other employees in the city who are qualified to run of us um at some point in time when we're fairly in need of it I mean we are trying really hard obviously the superintendent is trying very hard to accommodate the situation for kids and parents so I'm just going to throw that out as a question and it doesn't need to be answered right now but a suggestion question I guess School Board member Johnson I can happily report that school board chair and I spoke about that last week about the possib of a volunteer program with Public Works folks that have access to driving but without panicking uh public work staff

035and so forth it's clearly uh just at the beginning and superintendent Ray does have an email that he received asking for uh the city to look into the possibility of voluntarily uh allowing folks to cross unions cross employers if they would like to help out with busing but it's a very complicated matter and I don't want to upset the apple cart by putting it out there but it kind of already has uh as we discussed it here so uh with that again it it is being looked at as a totally voluntarily program uh and we'll report back as soon as we can thank you very much any further questions superintendent Ray anything further of your report no I just when you talk about that Transportation issue the other pieces that might uh my gity and

036Genie are also just kind of you know when you look at all those runs you try to figure out if there's a way to say well and again I'm just throwing numbers if 713 and 715 can cover for 714 and get a few kids on that route something they're looking at but with so many different possibilities um of how that would work that's comes quite a challenge also with spacing on the buses so again they're working really hard to try to figure that those pieces out um but we need to hope that people are very healthy this winter thank you uh moving on from the superintendent's report to item eight chair's report Cher of Fortune Mr Mayor School Board member Johnston point of order I'm I'm not sure that I might not have missed it

037um but I'm not sure that we actually closed the public hearing and this is an awkward time to mention it but I didn't want to interrupt the superintendent's report there was no public hearing School Board member Johnson there was a public the closing of the public um public comment I'm sorry we we don't close public comment it's just open to folks to come before us unless it was a public hearing on a certain matter then you would open the public hearing and then you would close the public hearing but normally under public comment public session we don't open that enclose that uh haven't in the two years that I've been standing here at the podium I I'm sorry I really am not just hearing well can you just repeat that so item six of the

038agenda is public session we normally don't open or close that it's just open to folks to come before us and speak it's different than a public hearing on a certain matter where you would open it discuss the certain issue and then close the matter all right well that's not necessarily everything that I remember from the past but I accept that I just wanted to clarify thank you moving on to item eight chair's Le for Cher of Fortune sure I just have a something very quick but to go back to that um question that you had I think typically what we've done is we've had the public session open until we essentially exhaust the list of people who have either signed up or raised their hand to speak you know impromptu and then we move on

039and that's happened that way as long as I can remember but the uh the only thing that I have as an update is that there is no update um the question was raised during public comment as to whether or not any kind of decision has been made regarding the superintendent we have not had a discussion of that at school board level this is the only place that that kind of decision gets made and I want to be clear that if there's an assumption out in the public that because I didn't hear somebody make a decision that a decision got made it didn't happen there's only decisions that are made here and so with that at this point what has occurred is that we have had a brief meeting um with some representatives from the biord

040school board to just kind of talk through and this I had mentioned last time uh that we met to talk through the current status of where we are at and what uh each board is sort of feeling just from a temperature standpoint um this past week mayor Doyle mayor cassant myself and Jeremy met just to get a sort of follow-up indication of whether or not all of the elected officials in both communities are on board with this idea should we should we move forward with it um and that's one thing to to make sure that people understand is that that is pretty much the price of admission before we even get anywhere is if there is not Universal interest from both the school board in Sak the school board in bitterford and Dayton as well

041as the councils and Mayors then it probably is not going to go forward bitterford will not chase us if we aren't going to signal that we're interested in continuing um and that is kind of where we are at at this point the next step in the process is likely for uh us to make a decision here as to we're going to do uh moving forward but until that has occurred and bitterford has come back and said you know we'll you know we're waiting in the wings for you to tell us what you want to do no decision has been made so that is that's the status of of the superintendent search at this point in time thank you chair of Fortune any questions for the chair seeing no questions moving on to item nine there

042are no staff reports this evening uh that brings us to item 10 which is there's no board subcommittee meeting minutes and item 11 there's no old business for this evening which brings us to item 12 which is new business item a is new hires there's no board vote required you do have in your packet a list of staff resignations and new hires superintendent Ray anything on new hires nothing [Music] any questions for superintendent Ray on new hires item a no question moving on to Item B resignations again no board vote needed however there was a memo in your packet uh with staff resignations superintendent Ray any further on staff resignations not at this time not at this time any questions for superintendent Ray School Board member Fortune just a quick follow-up question um as it

043relates to um the one administrator that's on the list correct have we posted the position have not posted it yet okay and when you say administrator that is the HR director position correct thank you any questions on resignations Item B School Board member Truman when is that uh resignation effective is there a date on that one they've asked for the 31st but we can extend that longer okay any further questions moving on to item C which is a CO up excuse me which is a CO update superintendent Ray yes so uh each week we talk with our with our nurses who are just as I said before they are the backbone of this and the amount of work effort extra hours that our nurses are putting into trying to keep uh strong Communications with families

044and testing and it's it's unbelievable what they go through whether it be from after hours to on the weekends just totally impressed with everything that they'll do and uh at the next meeting we're going to actually have our nurses come here to the meeting um to recognize them um last week was a tough week for us uh and we started to see um the cases rise after the holidays and so far this week we're at uh 12 CA uh 12 cases um pool pool testing pool testing is doing what it should it is catching cases uh and allowing our schools to have communication with families allowing us to keep kids in school um from contracts in the sense that they're in pool testing and we know that they're negative uh and so as we start

045to lead into the next holiday season and as I said beforehand as a community just practicing all of the good measures that we do and again it's not just in schools this is a community uh piece that we all have to think about but as we also come back from vacation um we're going to experience a lot of Youth in our community who will now be fully vaccin V inated after the 14 days which will again help the quarantine U situation even more to say that um as a state do I certainly worry yes because I think the cases are going up we know our hospitals are full um but what we can feel good about is that at least in our schools the in school transmission is low what we need to be concerned

046and and again just stay vigilant on as a community is the out out side of school stuff we have to pay attention to um and so we'll be keeping a close eye over the next couple of [Music] weeks any questions from the school board on the co report School Board member Gail just a a quick question you uh on the vaccination clinics is there one schedule that's going to be coming up or when is the next clinic in our area so we have uh we offered it five different clinics in the area the second shot for uh in Dayton tomorrow night and at JFK school on Friday night uh we've had the two clinics here for the second shots are done in Sako um and so we were able to vaccinate over 730 youth in

047the area uh plus all the outside facilities so we got a couple left um but those are only for people who've had their will be getting their second shots we cannot do first shots at those ones and this this is on the website correct superintendent Ray this this document yes yes it's all on the thank you any any further questions for superintendent Ray School Board member Preble um couple questions are we planning on having another clinic for any other children that may have missed the clinics that just happened and my other question just so you can roll it all into one is is there a clear written policy now that we have children's vaccinated where parents can get to it easy instead of having to ask the poor nurses 5,000 questions about how do I

048quarantine what do I do with this is there like a written document sorry somewhere on the website that parents can get to and find so they can get a clear answer so if the nurse says this this this that they have a document to reference also we've sent out the SOP a ton of different times they've been in the nurses updates they're on the nurses page in our in our piece challenge with the SOP is you got like seven or eight pages there of a lot of different information that changes uh you know from every month and then we're told that to expect a another change to the SOP after the holidays um um what that change will be we've gotten zero information on okay um I suspect it will be around vaccination status as

049far as other at this time we don't have additional vaccination clinics planned on the School site it's working with the hospital uh your pediatrician or again some of the quickest places is just to hit your local pharmacies okay thank you any further questions from the school board Mr Mayor School Board member so just for clarification are those being vaccinated still in pool testing so that would be a parents option on the pool testing piece um once you're vaccinated you as a parent they would obviously have that choice not to be uh in pool testing we hope that some of them continue to be in pool testing um as the pool testing thing is just a great way to keep your family safe and your kids fit and your and your kids safe and your class

050weats and you know quite frankly as a parent myself I like the Peace of Mind once a week like I love that piece of coming home and saying yeah this clear I'm I'm negative I'm my kids are good to go or the weekend's coming up or you know you're going to visit your parents or grandparents or whatever and you have that piece but those are individual family decisions and we are comfortable with that decision at the moment that that we would allow them out uh again I think that's uh that all the way along the SOP and the you know vaccinations and pool testing on that piece have been a family decision except for uh last month when we talked about Athletics um because again there's so much close contacts in athletics there's no there's

051no way to post up in a basketball game without having a little bit of contact um and I think that's something that you have to worry about and again not all of our kids in our schools are participating in pool testing can I just add that my kids my two youngest just got their final shots today and I'm going to keep them in the pool testing just because the number of times that they've in close contacts with classmates has been enough to have me on edge and even my older one who's been vaccinated since June I had her I've had her in pool testing the whole time so it just gives you a little bit of peace of mind and again like with the the little chart the nurse sends out to everybody it tells

052you clearly like if your kid's quar if your kid is vaccinated then they don't have the quarantine if they aren't then this is what happens and if they are in pool testing that this is happen it's a pretty straightforward breakdown um on how that works so and I'm well versed in it because it's happened multiple times being close contacts so thank you any further questions from the board that a quick quick question for those who might still be interested in joining pool testing are they is it still available to whoever might want to you know yes we send that information out every week and certainly encourage any participation that we can um because that you you kind of have a some growth that can occur it's pretty easy to add one to one pool one

053to the other uh and again um I think there's a strong belief that that testing component really keeps our school safe anything further on the co update moving on from the co update to item D which is a budget timeline superintendent Ray okay so just wanted to talk about uh budget timeline I know you guys were all with us uh the other night at city council meeting uh when we talked about the budget but as we look at the Timeline um to begin we have teachers who and principes who are currently working on budgets to prepare prior to we go home on the V uh at vacation time for the holidays getting those in our Direction so that um we can begin to review part of the pieces uh that will be different in this

054budget this year is that as school committee members you will get a document that my guess is going to be about 600 Pages uh 300 front and back that will be detailed for every single item um that we're looking to order big purpose of that is when someone someone says Hey cut $100,000 you have to then go and Target what that $100,000 will be and you know that there are items whether that be staff um supplies utilities Etc that you got to draw the line through uh so that you'll get to see um things like what are our staff costs what are our insurance costs what are Supply requests what are software requests what are your maintenance and utilities so you'll get a very detailed package and Jason uh has been working on his end

055him and the business office on just updating the Staffing piece first and then you take all those requests from principes and directors and you pull that all into a budget um so that we have a detailed budget by School uh of all of the things that we purchased you'll have a district level component you'll have a transportation component um special education is mixed in with the schools and then you can begin to look at those 11 cost centers as we look at the Timeline um of beginning in the reviews in January by the superintendent business manager in each building principal we'll begin to go through that piece and begin to whittle down what that expenditure side looks like um as we start to bring the finance committee along in that piece one of the major

056pieces you know which is the other side of the coin is that while there's expenditures there's also revenues uh and those go hand inand and so we can expect to see revenues um typically uh in the second year of the bium which we're in uh usually the Ed 279s is a little bit faster coming our way because they've already set the budget and put an amount in certainly legislature has the ability to go in and add more which sometimes we hope that they do um but you'll start seeing uh things out in the public probably late January February as we start to get both sides of the coins so that we're when we're talking about the issue we are talking about the whole package uh I think that's a really important piece in the budget

057processes that you don't have different pieces at the same time let's get the picture out there let's have the conversation so that we know exactly what we're dealing with in March we need to give an initial presentation to the SOS uh city council and then in March and April you'll continue to revise that budget have budget uh conversations and typically by the first weekish in April last week in March you tend to get your health insurance rates uh this year we have 10% uh built into the budget on health insurance rates because I think there is some concern about um you know what will the covid impact be on the insurance policy piece if you're looking at 10% uh Jason off the top of my head I'm going to say 10% is probably going to

058be right around $350,000 and increase health insurance costs as a district um but we'll have that information about like knowing what every 1% is in that piece uh in May the city council will need to vote and then in June we will have uh the budget referendum now some of the things that we worry about in the FY 23 budget I think all municipalities um you know in School departments are a little bit lucky because we have a a lot of federal funds floating around um but as I've shared with you several times we need to be very concerned about that overall Cliffs that can come by having federal funds if you use federal funds to fund positions eventually it comes due on the local side and so that's something that we've been able to

059avoid and hopefully we can continue to avoid um and we look at how some of those federal funds can maybe offset some of those other types of costs over years over the years from equipment supplies that may give us a little bit of of relief as we start to bit uh think about um Capital costs that we have Capital costs or situation where um we really need to be thinking about the projects that we do meaning that as you look at electrical situations like if you look at electrical supplies uh right now and wire you know that that's something that's it's like really high uh just like this spring when Lumber was off the charts I think that we will want to prioritize any of our Capital upgrades based off what pricing and things will

060do in addition we need to be concerned not so much this year but I even I believe FY 24 will be more difficult as we look at Rising property values in Southern Maine and how those exceed State average if we follow along the trend that 17 to 18% is what people have been talking about house uh price increases and value increases if that fire out seeds everything in the state of Maine you're going to see a massive drop in state subsidy because your valuation goes up and so as a as a group of elected officials and we work with our state officials we're going to need to make sure that information gets to them over the next couple of Cycles because you're going to see York Cumberland County and along the coast of Maine have

061huge um increases in valuation which will then push State revenues out to your more uh rural areas so that is something that's um a major concern for us in additionally we need to look at the impacts of learning on our students uh in special ed and regular Ed and also some of the um um social emotional impacts that's had on students that will factor into the puzzle we also just have to just look at the simple things as a box of crayons is going to cost more box of crayons is going to cost more because of shipping because of production and we're going to have to realize that all of those items that we have in our home that cost more impacts the school food for lunches costs more gasoline costs more diesel costs more

062our electric we're not immune to electrical bills I think that we're going to need to be looking at anywhere as around 20% on many of our utilities because there's so much um kind of just understanding what power rates are going to look like now there's been some good news in the last couple of weeks that uh natural gas prices have come down uh which hopefully will not drive our electrical rates as much but there's all of those issues that we have to be careful about when we put out that budget now from the backside of things which is good news is that we carried over approximately $280 $250,000 um which can be additional Revenue we have been able to through this budget cycle uh we owed the city about almost a million do which through

063the use of how we used our subsidy this year we'll be able to pay that back so that we at the end of the year we've got zero on that end of things um certainly we know that tuition is a big piece for us and a big factor that we need to plan on and we don't have those um numbers yet um but that's kind of an outline of the timeline of where we're at where we'll be going and how we can uh put together something pretty clear for the community that that says this is the picture and this is the total picture and uh this is how we move forward thank you superintendent Ray any questions for superintendent Ray I know that this is the second time uh many of you are hearing the

064information so any questions no questions okay moving on to item e which is curriculum design team superintendent Ray I'd ask mck Parkers to please come up on that thank you I wanted to provide a brief update this this evening on some of the major goals of each of the Core Curriculum content area teams that will be working in prek-8 teams this year those teams were on hold last year following covid and um in order to give staff time to focus on instruction so to begin with English language arts as has already been mentioned as we've discuss some of the federal funds the focus for that will be in looking at a phonics and word study progam programming and ensuring that we have that scope and sequence aligned for prek through 8 moving on to math

065we have one teacher per grade level in our K5 program piloting Eureka squared which is the next version of our current programming of Eureka Math so the K5 group will really be understanding the effectiveness of that and making a decision about whether we need to move to full implementation with our 68 team taking a look at ensuring that we have consistent resources 68 and doing a fullscale look at all those resources that are available and selecting one which we would then uh recommend to the board for adoption our science team is looking to solidify what those offerings are with the ecology school as was mentioned we have a very fruitful partnership with the ecology school and just ironing out exactly which grade levels are offering what and ensuring that there's Equity across schools and across

066grade levels and that the scope and sequence of what's being offered is in alignment with the curriculum and lastly our social studies team will be working to articulate the units of study for social studies with a special eye to LD 1664 which includes the study of African American studies and genocide within the curriculum we are certainly confident that there are points throughout the scope and sequence where that's touched upon but with that legislation we want to be sure that we are hitting those marks in line moving forward uh not mentioned on this document but we did have our Wellness committee meeting this week and we that team meets three times a year and talks about programming for staff and for students and educating the community we are a let's go partnership and um that has

067been fruitful in helping both our staff and students be healthy and well and you can look for more information on that if you would like I'm happy to take any questions thank you assistant superintendent parkur any questions from the board School Board member Gail uh thank you for the the memo it's it's really well outlined I think um is is this information available online in terms of the timeline and kind of what the process will be like throughout the rest of the year so this memo is available online as of right now we have not published or posted our curriculum team agendas or minutes but we can certainly discuss the possibility of making that more publicly available and then just following up on that too on the last sentence notes that any members of the

068public that have questions to direct them them um to you yes that's correct feel free to reach out and I'm happy to explain in more detail great what any team is working on great thank you thank you any further questions no more questions thank you very much thank you with that brings us to item f a school construction update and FAQ superintendent Ray okay again sorry this is information that you guys heard the other night but uh again we cannot talk about the school construction project probably enough in public um as you know we have a great opportunity here in Sako where we have uh an approval for a new school building and part of that process is as a community going through all of the different options all of the different pieces uh that

069build this puzzle in conjunction with some pretty interesting rules that will come from the state and a lot of different qualifying factors that we need to to figure out one of the charges that we've looked at is as a a group that's had uh since August we've had three different committees going had over a dozen different meetings um we are have a building committee which is kind of what we report back to you to the board we have a site inventory committee which is out there looking at all pieces of land throughout the city to say hey this might be a place where we could have a school and then we have a programs committee um that is really out there focused on what would be the appropriate grade levels to put into a building

070and then at the same time we have conversations um with the Department of Education and over the last uh couple of months the program committee started with a list of about 13 to 14 different possibilities of how you could configure schools and one of the pieces that's you know challenging uh for us is that no matter what decision we probably make as a community there is going to be existing problems and challenges that remain and one of the pieces that you know we talk about from time to time is well how do you bring equity across the city because certainly you have two pre you have two case two schools you have burn schools that's we're in the 100th year anniversary um and so as you begin to look at some of those challenges people

071certainly have a lot of different ideas and uh we were able to have a meeting with oako and the school construction team the other day and it becomes pretty clear that they're just not going to solve solve every problem for Sako um and that we're going to have to make some choices along the way of what we think is going to be best for us um and so the program committee has really looked at and narrowed down to we we have they're class one through four but some of them have some sub options so we have about six options left um that we're exploring and those range from a prek through three building on a new site and looking at four to five staying at Burn School uh knowing that burn school has some capacity

072issues um that's in place right now we also have a situation where we've looked at we'll be looking at a prek through two school on a new site and leaving Burn School um as is we've looked at an option of a prek and a school we've looked in building a new one through five school we have an option of a prek in K school on a new site versus renovating Fairfield um and an option of a two through five school and then there's an option of A prek through five school now does that mean that any of the other options that we put on the list are off the table certainly not that just means that those are kind of Fallen to the back a little bit and that the program committee was interested in

073talking about these options first and foremost with the committee now what oako will do uh during this time is they'll begin to study all of the costs that are associated for these both Statewide and locally they'll look at the conditions of the buildings they'll look at the sites of the buildings um one of the things that we look for in new construction that you can see in the frequently asked questions that are on here is that the state is going to require on a new site to have at least 20 acres and then one acre per 100 students and so if you're looking at uh 800 person School you've got to have 28 buildable Acres which is not exactly the easiest thing to find just immediately in the perfect location in the city now the

074state what they'll do is in this process they will purchase they are willing to purchase land for you if you don't own it um and if you do uh purchase land they take a you know they take two estimates of the price and they you know they work it out with you of what they're going to pay if you need to buy something bigger or you want to buy something bigger than what they will pay for that would be a City cost and again cities are encouraged and towns to think about the future and expansion and making sure you're having plenty of uh build able ground so we are at the steps now where the site inventory committee will be coming back uh together next week and to start to think about what might be

075the best places or pieces of land throughout the city um so that we can start getting from a list of you know 22 or three pieces of property down to a much more manageable uh list that we would need to evaluate um and then from that point trying to match them with all of the different possibilities that you want any of this work what's important to to remember is that this is a process that is voted on by the community so as a community whatever gets put on the ballot is something that the school committee will make the decision of with all of that information looking at the evaluations from oako looking at the traffic studies looking at the impact of what's left looking at the local costs that could come into this piece so

076that there's a very clear picture of whatever decision you make that you have left and certainly as uh community members we probably all have an opinion of what we think is best for the future of Education of Sako and that will be an opportunity that we'll all get weighed out uh in public and having a couple of meetings where you have to have a couple of drw Pooles to move things forward uh before you hit um before you hit the official vote at the ballot type situation so hopefully we can be in a position where next November we are voting on where what the direction of Sako schools will go one of the things that we have to be very cautious of and concerned about here is that as we all know construction costs are

077rising in every facet of life so the construction of new school costs are rising as well which is impacted in the way that the state of Maine only has they have a debt limit for school construction and so we're the next two schools us and Windom are the the the two that are working right now we have to be careful that that doesn't play out too long either and that that debt limit gets reached and you're placed on hold a little bit more um I believe that debt limits at a hundred million or something that they pay for each of those time each of those years and you know that's a factor as as the cost of school construction Rises all of those projects cost a lot more I would be happy to answer any

078questions that I can thank you superintendent Ray any questions from the board School Board member Gail just uh couple of quick questions is the membership for these committees is that still open if an individual member of the public would like to be a part of that or is that that closed so that's those committees are set by the school committee but I mean again our goal is to have people who are there who are interested because just bring it together at the beginning um you know certainly anybody can come in and sit in on a meeting they're usually here um because this seems to be the biggest space um but yeah I mean you get get the voices there because you're going to be dealing with us at the you know through the other pieces

079and certainly everybody has different ideas now we certainly need to have a manageable group of individuals that we can advance things forward but certainly the meetings themselves um have typically been up here and are open to the public uh that's both the curriculum um programming meeting um programming committee meeting as well as the site selection committee meeting the list that's in the packet that is the configuration of the building committee which was set by the school board as well as the um the way that the two subcommittees were put together as the process moves along there will likely be additional subcommittees that will come along once once we get farther down the the path of actually having a site selected and a you know a basically a preliminary design um on a building and then

080we'll start to get into all sorts of committees related to um you know libraries and you know different spaces and so there definitely will be additional opt opportunities for many other people to be involved um I would anticipate that there you know if we had additional committees that will have you know four or five other columns like you have on that sheet right there with perhaps lots of names that aren't even listed there it's basically just going to be how the process goes along that will dictate that when once you get into the school the design phase after you've passed the referendum piece that's where a lot of uh different committees will come in from furniture to color uh colors to design to playgrounds to um you know some of the uh Landscaping those types

081of things artwork uh signage all of those pieces any further questions Schoolboard member prebble um superintendent Ray can you please clarify for me when the next public meeting that's I know we have like the committee meetings open to the public but when's the a next informational session where the public can come in and have more updates yeah so that'll be sometime in January there's there's a there's some work that we need to have done by Oak Point first before we get to that piece um obviously uh some big pieces that need to be done is we have contracts with the doe around the reviews of each of our buildings so they can produce that number of you know what's the extra estimated repair cost what's you know if you do this then you get this

082what's the work that needs to be done we also have to have a population uh study done so a school en study that needs to be done because right now we're just basing things on to to move the work on the 200 per classroom figure um but we will have much more I don't want to say hard numbers because anything's a projection but you get a study done uh on your population which will then impact based after the doe looks at that study accepts that report then that's how they will calculate square footage of what you'll be allotted so if they say that grades 3 through five will have 571 students and that's what you decided to build for a reason you their square footage and their estimates would be based off that whether that

083be for CAF cafeteria classroom gymnasium size etc etc and then as a community you might say hey we want to have a little bit something a little bit bigger or we want to put this ad on and that's where local cost can come in awesome thank you one other item to to note with that since we're bringing up specific spaces the numbers that the state has put in place for how big things can be assumed separate UA spaces for each indivisual you know art has a room band has a room there there's there's no like shared spaces that are built into the the numbers that they have so it's it's a much different you know much different experience than I think many of us are used to here School Board member Archie uh do we

084have a time frame on the inspection of the buildings and the population numbers I think that we will have the inspection piece uh they've been working on you'll you'll get that information by January I'm sure those are kind of the next big steps that uh when we spoke the other day that Oak Point needed to focus on um and then there's very few companies that do um the work of the the kind of the census work and so you know you're in the queue um that will be a little bit longer any further questions just a fortune a followup on on on uh the question around around sizes so these these numbers that we have are a generalized 200 per grade level um how close to what we currently have for grade level is that

085number so that's a little bit higher than um what we'd have uh and this is assuming that we would be Universal prek as well at this point in time uh those numbers would be a little bit lower what was interesting and I don't remember the I don't off the top of my head I don't remember the numbers but we looked at what our student population was based off the report that you had five years ago and we're like they were like right on the money uh of what they expected for the population to be when you started the work on young school you know five or six years ago um the other piece that we're doing Kevin just as I as we talk about that piece is Meg has been working with several members of

086the community to try to establish a school construction timeline of our buildings so that we can kind of put that rate out there it's like this is when Sako did this and this is when they started this and this is when young school started and this is when this other conversations occurs or committee so that um people can understand all the work that's been done in the past and where we are today in regards to that last piece that you were just discussing is this going to be like the library fundraiser kind of thing where you get to watch it or I don't I don't Vision it going up I see it more of it going this way um but mag will let us know how she puts that together and we'll review that and

087uh we hope to have something out again after the holidays uh for the again we see that as a big piece in that public meeting so that people can understand that you know the last time you did something was here um as this has been an ongoing conversation for a long time and now we're presented with this opportunity and we've got to get it right the way you described it I was just envisioning a giant board um and then one more question to the um I think someone already asked it but with the upcoming dates that'll be on the website yeah for all the other committees well and and then just like we did in December we sent out a couple of special notifications it was in the superintendent's uh more I think in the

088principles more as well um because those are important ones I I think you'll start to gain a little bit more interest once you start to refine things and talk about sites because sites will be a big one because that will have everybody's interest when they start thinking about traffic bus times like when you start doing the math on okay I might have to sit through this this light this light this road or my kids's going to be on a bus from 10 minutes to 40 minutes whatever whatever that location that you're going to start getting people involved a lot that way and then the other past when you start talking about grade level configurations uh I know that uh on some of the commit on a couple of the Committees Nathan and I have the

089two were the ones had the two youngest kids on that committee and we're talking about building a school you know that neither of our kids will be in um and I've got a second grader it's just it takes so long that it's probably not going to impact them um and so that's a tough thing for in these processes for communities to deal with because if you said to Jeremy right now hey your school is going to be here in this grade level I get a reaction thinking about my own personal situation and then I remember like I'm not ever going to experience that um and so that those pieces will come out and then the the other really important information that we will be searching for and O point we working on is as you

090start to lay out where some of these properties are and remember you're thinking about properties that have typically a lot of access to public utilities because you're going to need those things but we also have to think about where the future growth in the city is uh because where your population is today may not be where your population is tomorrow and the neighborhood that has a ton of kids in it today in 20 years might be a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of kids in it um and so those are some things that you have to project and think about and think about where's the best location for this uh and then once narrowing that down begin to think about the operational impacts of this because wherever that's located in the city there's going

091to be a transportation there's going to be a transportation output for that which may mean different start times May mean different bus routes how long does it take to go from A to B and do that twice those types of things so that's when all the fun work starts to come in to play any further questions seeing no further questions moving on to item G support for students at SMS superintendent Ray could mear Chris please come up so just to introduce this piece um we've been doing some work and working uh closely with uh principal Hawkins on just how some of our Middle School school students are struggling a little bit and what can be some of our responses that again there are many different ways to work with situations and we feel that uh

092a supportive approach is the best way and I'll turn it over to uh Chris and Meg for this one yes good evening uh I'd refer you to ref refer the board and the public uh to the memo that's inside your packet um but I think it goes without saying that nobody relishes suspending student students and that behaviors that manifest in our schools are often related to a school-based event or made worse by the avoidance of school as often as possible we want our kids in school we want them there to learn to be fed to be cared for uh nevertheless there are times certainly when building leaders have an obligation to remove children from school who pose uh a danger to themselves or a danger to others or uh the risk of a significant disruption

093to the operation of the school uh this year at suckle Middle School 19 students have been suspended and a third of those suspensions have been directly attributable to a violation of policy JC which is about the use possession uh or paraphernalia of prohibited substances this uh policy's adoption predates the membership of anybody uh on this board or the mayor or the president superintendent uh and Ne nevertheless nevertheless I think it's noteworthy that um disciplinary action is more prominent in the policy than intervention and that I think that says something um the policy compels schools to quote Aid students in obtaining assistance from appropriate Community organizations close quote if the schools aren't able to provide the kind of counseling support and intervention that students need inside the building so as we've worked with Ken um at

094SOC Middle School Megan I have started talking about what are some of the ways that we could get some more direct expert support to students who struggle with substance abuse issues so that instead of just suspending and hoping that parents are able to effectively intervene that we can offer expert services to get kids kind of on the right track and hopefully um open some doors to more healthy choices in the future and we basically have two options number one we could ask this board and the community to sponsor a six-figure salary and clinical supervision and insurances and all that sort of thing for a full-time professional to come work in the school the second option which most schools in York County um most middle schools in York County have have gone with is to hire

095an outside agency and the way that that becomes a much more cost effective um and operationally effective proposition for the school department is that those outside agencies are able to Bill insurances and Main care in a way that the school department isn't so that we could have between say a three4 time person and a full-time person from a program uh for a small Pro kind of prat a share of the actual cost because of their ability to Bill or because and or because they're nonprofits and they are often Grant funded and so we're coming before this board today to propose to you that the board immediately uh not waiting until the next fiscal year allocate uh about half of A5 to $220,000 what would be an annual commitment uh to engage in a contract with

096day one Services a well-known provider of substance abuse counseling in Southern Maine to deploy between a three quter and full-time person at SOC Middle School the obligation of our school would simply to be to provide privacy space an internet connection and access to a telephone and in exchange day one Services would come in survey the staff meet with students meet with with Ken and give us their opinion about what the best fit would be as far as personnel and how much time this person could be in the school this would help us uh support students in a really really cost-effective way and this is an arrangement that could start as early as January the cost that I've laid out in your memo would be for a full year of service not half of a year

097of service and it's also kind of a worst case scenario in other words day one says whenever possible we're going to bill out to main care or we're going to bill out to private insurances but in the event that there's an ABS um kind of a a shortfall in their funding they're asking us to sort of earmark a fund to make up that difference so the the question before us is a does this board support the position and and B does it make sense that we engage an outside uh agency at one six 17th of the cost um especially one that works with so many schools uh already and is kind of hous right here in our backyard I don't know if I thank you very much any questions at this time from the board

098School Board member Le forun yeah I have a a quick question just around the funding so the allocation of uh if it were a full year you know up to 20,000 that that isn't something that we are paying out for services when they occur they the process from day one is that they would this is essentially like a back stop for them and that they would as a first option bill that out and then if it you know there was some Gap in the funding that came from that that that's when this would be drawn upon so that would be part of theou Kevin so that they weren't stuck holding the bill at the end of the year would be that we obligate those funds and sort of set them aside they have tears of

099mitigation against loss so for example if they deployed someone in our school 5 days a week and it turns out that the need was actually only four days a week that they would immediately utilize that person to do um work uh individual work at day one and so they would mitigate that loss through some of that direct billing but that in the event that there was any sort of Gap that kind of a worst case scenario so that $15,000 numers for about a three4 time person the higher is 20,000 and again that would be for a full year if we were able to um make effective kind of a January start we'd be looking at about A6 to 7,000 cost um I think when you look at that and the impact that it can make

100for some of our kids and how it can support Ken and his counseling staff uh to focus on other needs in the building I think that this is a simple reasonable responsible uh ask of this board Mr Endor will you'll be bringing a contract forward for the school board to look at or anou for the school board to look at uh for them to actually take action on or are you asking them to take action based upon this memo we certainly can it doesn't reach the threshold of a contract where we would have to have a vote the the the dollar amount simply isn't isn't going to be high enough for this year bill it would be in subsequent years because it's over that $155,000 threshold but I'd defer to the board chair and the

101superintendent on the best way to to proceed with that it's fairly boilerplate language it's eminently copy and pastable you know winds looks the same Nobles looks the same we're not going to deviate significantly or sort of negotiate language Ken's already said that he can provision the space and the the phone and the privacy and all that sort of thing but sorry go ahead thank you superintendent Ray are you asking for a vote this evening yes I'm asking for a vote this evening because I believe that sport is 100% needed for our students we've spoke with Ken several times and our current process of not having the support there for kids uh who are struggling and families who are struggling is something that is needed we have Savings in our budget from in several areas in

102some of our special education cost and in our tuition pieces to cover those $20,000 the other piece is that once you engage in one of these relationships for a number of years they have a pretty good expectation of what that dollar amount would be uh in year number two if this was to continue uh this would be something that would be in your budget uh as a line item um so that you know what those costs are and again I think as a community when we look at these numbers we look at the information that our kids are sharing with us on surveys and the data that we have uh we have an obligation to provide this type of support and I highly encourage you guys to um to approve this piece thank you School

103Board member Gail two questions based on the memo uh you had mentioned that for whatever reason SMS did not participate in a biannual survey it looks like it's uh the next administration of it if it is going to be administered will be in 2021 will SMS participate in that or is that survey still going on or um yes SMS did participate this fall and we double checked that as soon as is we saw that it hadn't been administered in Prior years and then um as it relates to to this position will this person only be doing uh substance abuse and drug counseling or will they have flexibility to intervene in any other type of kind of Behavioral issues my understanding is that based on how they code for insurance and for main care that they're

104really kind of driving in a narrow Lane and again if they come in and assess hey we think you could benefit from a three quter person and it ends up being less than that then they might scale that position back but but again they'll mitigate their loss you know when I spoke with the director last week or the week before she said we have plenty of work for these folks they're not going to go you know sitting in a room waiting for the next person to come in uh there is no minimum buy you know so if if if we say if the board says a year from now we only want a halftime person there because that's all we feel we can afford or for whatever reason they're not going to turn us away

105and say sorry we need at least three qus time or fulltime because again most of their folks are fairly itinerant you know their home office is is a touchstone but they're really out in the community and travel frequently one commitment we did ask if they could make is a consistent schedule so if hypothetically we went with a halftime position that person would be there every single day for half the day rather than just Monday through Wednesday at noon time and that's really important for kids with substance abuse issues because they're often also absent from school and so if a child's absent Monday Tuesday and Wednesday and would like to access a service on Thursday and that person is in the building that's a real challenge as far as you know from a clinical standpoint so

106we feel like they have a really solid model in place and they've been doing this for 25 years any further questions School Board member Archie so since you're asking for a a vote today I I I do like this idea but what I'm not seeing is how it's going to change the punishment do we have a breakdown of how that's going to change and what our our kids can expect so I think your part your question is a good one and I think it's best answered in two ways uh first superintendent Ray referred earlier to the comprehensive policy review that we have underway with the help of main School management to look at whether or not the policy as it reads is appropriate if it's a little too Draconian if it relies too heavily on

107punishment and not enough on prevention I think that's kind of part one to your question and then the second is a review of the handbook and the practices at Sak middle school and across the district so not to get too in the weeds with you but I think part of the issue that we have interrogating the data is that it hasn't always been coded the same way you know the principle before Ken or the principal at Burn School may have interpreted a behavior infraction in a different way and coded it differently in power school so that when we try to look at multi-year data and say what's our trend line here like is substance abuse up is it flat is it declining we're comparing apples and oranges we're really not in an Apples to Apples

108comparison which is why we really wanted that main integrated youth Health Service because that's really a reliable tool been around I think it's from the University of Michigan for 30 years it's Anonymous kids are remarkably candid and they tell you yeah I'm sneaking this I'm doing this at school I'm doing this with my parents and that data is really helpful too but again unfortunately we don't have the 2019 or 2017 data so it's a little bit empirical at this point we're relying on the professionals at s middle to say you know what we could really benefit from this support I think we' be in a better position to let data inform the policy make revisions to both the policy and the handbook moving forward so in other words it would be more of a case

109by casee situation yeah I think that's how I'm perceiving it I think that's true I mean there are some students who violate this policy who for their safety or the safety of others ought probably be suspended from school there are a lot of students who violate this policy who aren't being malicious who are who are injuring themselves and we're going to try and help them make better decisions so that they can continue to be engaged with school and have kind of a healthier Outlook we don't want the deao position to be how long can I suspend this kid for we want the deao question to become what can we do to support this kid okay thank you School Board member Le Fortune I have a a question just regarding the theou so the amount that

110we're talking about right now within this budget you know under normal circumstances we probably wouldn't even discuss here because it is a small amount but we are also talking about something that's going to be in place for probably hopefully Forever This is a fantastic idea um that's probably long overdue um if we are unlikely to to see the start of this in until January um I would feel more comfortable if we could at least see theou at the next meeting and then make the decision then because I think we have one not next week but the week after ises that sound right yeah we have one we have one the week after um and again this I know for us we've worked with day one for several years um certainly we can bring thatou but

111I would at least like to have a an opportunity to move forward meaning work with day one try to get somebody in place these things take time and I think that as a I think as a community the things that we feel bad about is that we are suspending kids or or Ken's working with kids because there is that offense and we've got nothing to back stop when you know when a kid comes back from suspension we need to have something there for them and for the family to be working with so I think that's that's kind like our like Rush on this is that we want that support into place for kids and it's it's long overdue here and we can you know we can talk about that mou at the nest but we'd

112like to be able to have the ability to try to move forward so that we can have something in place when kids come back yeah more to your point Kevin I I'm Sayang when that that they would come in and begin that assessment and Survey the staff absent anou if I just say to them listen this is pending board approval but if I can take the temperature of the board tonight and I was sensing that folks weren't generally opposed I'm sure they have that willingness so that you guys could inspect that language more more thoroughly at the next board meeting is there a school board member that would like to make the motion to approve the process outlined in superintendent Ray's memo to the board subject to a review of the excuse me review of

113an Mo MOA at a subsequent meeting uh on the 22nd so moved I'm trying to paraphrase what you which you just stated I was going to do the same thing to be honest I was going to say I'll second that so I I move that we um move forward with the the recommendation to engage with day one um pending review of theou second motion's been made by school board member Fortune second by School Board member Johnston uh to move forward subject to the approval of an MOA orou in the future any discussion I think this is a great idea I just wanted to add to Echo that too when um superintendent Ry brought it up um several weeks ago I was very much on board and now seeing with the memo um that was provided

114to us earlier that was the fee is nominal compared to you know what some kids are up against and especially given what we've been through in the past almost two years now I think kids can use whatever support they can get and I think it is long overdue to have something like this in place at the middle school so thank you for that thank you Ro School Board member Archie I I apologize for the delayed question that just came to me so we are talking about billing the state and individual insurances how are we going to get that how would they how are they going to get that information now so the um the school department does not do any of the billing day one manages the billing and they have an age and I

115don't remember what it is it's 13 or 14 um by which uh the law requires that they notify parents that they're offering services and at that age they can request that they bill Insurance uh before the child reaches that age if the service is rendered in confidentiality they build main care or they eat the cost through a grant that they have but the school department doesn't get involved in Billing at all which is one of the advantages right I misworded that roll call vote School Board member Archie yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 thank you folks that brings us to item 13 other information there is

116not there's no other information in the packet there isn't any in the packet but I do have other information of Fortune um since we have ultimately come through an election and as of a day or two ago we've now have two new school board members we're now at the point where we have um that the next meeting would ultimately be our administrative meeting and so just just letting people know that at that meeting we will be selecting a chair selecting a vice chair and in theory putting the committee structures back together um the current um layout of the Committees is is basically populated with the four existing Schoolboard members prior to the election and so to spread um that around and provide opportunities not only for the new the two new Schoolboard members to be

117part of those committees but also give existing Schoolboard members opportunities to maybe change committees if they want to uh move to something else I'd ask that the school board members think um between now and then um whether they would like to remain on the Committees that they're on if there's interest in other committees they'd like to be on and then maybe at some point um let me know um for the new members the Committees that we have are the Strategic committee which is primarily around the policy um development which has not um been scheduled based on the uh the assessment that's being done by msma there's the finance committee that does meet regularly that's pretty much once a month um and the one thing to note with that is that that is usually the collection

118of people that are responsible for signing the warrants that make sure all the bills get paid so that's a consideration to make that something that has to typically be done during the day uh infrastructure and and Technology um periodically meets I don't recall the last time that that has met since there haven't been any issues issues that have come up and the last one is personnel which typically only meets when there are um development of job descriptions and things like that so those are the the four main committees negotiations only really gets created when we have an act an actual negotiation with a collecting colle bargaining group um but just between now and the next meeting please give some thought to those four committees and whether you want to stay on them whether you would

119like to move over and uh and get back to me thank you any other information okay moving forward to item 14 is there a motion to enter executive session so moved uh no we have to actually State the uh School Board member Truman if you could read the the one MSA just so we satisfy uh sorry it wasn't on my confidentials thank you um I move that we move into executive session per 1 MSR subsection 4056 F discussion or review of confidential records motion's been made by school board member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member prebble any discussion roll call vote and School Board member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member

120Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 to enter executive session at 8:4 43 p.m. executive session will be downstairs in the conference room e e e we're back at 98 is there a motion to exe exit executive session some moved SCH board member Truman is there a second second second by Schoolboard member Johnston uh any discussion on exiting executive session roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member of Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 at 9:18 brings us to item 15 I'll entertain a motion to adjourn Mr Mayor we adjourn School Board member L Fortune Sarah second second School Board member prebble discussion on adjournment roll

121call vote to adjourn Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member trumman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion to adjourn passes 70 at 9919 have a great evening everyone