001e e e okay first item on the agenda is approval of the Schoolboard minutes from May 25th 2022 is there a motion Mr chair I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated May 25th second motion made by Beth Johnson seconded by Sarah Truman okay any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes schoolb member Tran yes and Schoolboard member Johnson yes a motion passes 70 okay next item is adjustments and I don't believe we have any adjustments this evening okay that brings us to correspondents um I do have two correspondents um I won't read them in their entirety but I will um mention them and then I'll hand them off to um to Jen so that she
002can get them recorded into the into the minutes um but these both come from the main School uh superintendent Association and um they are both uh recognitions for superintendent Ray uh the first one is a recognition to announce that he is receiving the organization's outstanding leadership award for 2021 um which is a tremendous honor and the second is to let us know that he's been elected to serve as the aasa governing uh to serve on the aasa governing board um for the organization as well um so congratulations to superintendent Ray and I will get these to Jen so that they can um be put into the record in their entirety uh next item on the agenda is the public session anyone wishing to address the school board please come to the podium state your name
003um and address and address the school board go ahead forgive me oops sorry about that this is all new to be so be patient my name is Paul Foley I have worked for the city of Sao as a school bus driver for 22 years I would like to inform the board of an ongoing issue that Mr Ray has created first off Mr Ray has done a great job in balancing the budget and keeping the schools open however the cost of doing so has fallen on those that make the least myself and my fellow co-workers have been covering many vacant positions and have made many sacrifices all year for the students of the great city of s in November of last year the superintendent made a decision to the very best of my knowledge to honor
004our contract which was R ratified by the members say stating that it was years not steps not only did he not honor our collective bargaining agreement he made an attempt to have his administrative assistant make an unauthorized change to the contract to further to not pay his staff the proper wage Mr Ray however has awarded I believe his bord drivers A Higher Living wage his response to that was the case that s's Union should have negotiated harder the mea from what I've been told advised Mr Ray to honor the original contract that was ratified by the members that he agreed to do so in closing I'm asking you people to look at the situation I'm not here to be a judge a jury or anything else I'm a bus driver you people took an oath
005you took an oath to do the right thing I'm asking you people as an elected body to investigate is that asking too much am I asking you people who took a oath to look at what's going on is that wrong am I wrong in trying to correct what I honestly believe and a lot of other people believe this there's something wrong if it was just me I'd say I'm guilty but what about the other people what about the other 13 people I have been trying my very best since last July when I got my first paycheck it was supposed to be $24.75 I look at it and it's $24 so I ask some questions you think I could get an honest answer I'm asking you people not to play judge and jury I'm asking you
006people to accept the over office that you took and to do the right thing I took care of your kids making sure that they were got into school safe and sound and the one thing that I told my kids every day you are beautiful people you have a beautiful heart you have a beautiful soul you have a beautiful mind use it as best as you can never give up good evening sunu Meer Wildwood Drive District 4 all Departments of the city know that 100 families will be arriving this summer and living at the Rada Inn in Sako and the number of children is unknown on the final day at thoron Academy the staff was told that there will be 20 to 40 students impacting their population I would like to know what your plans are
007are to accommodate these children who are arriving and if you have any idea what the prek through grade8 population impact will be thank you anyone else wishing to speak this evening okay seeing none I'll go ahead and close the public session and that brings us to the superintendent's report okay good evening so just to answer that question there's a memo in the agenda that outlines all of the um data that we have received to this point um were no I think there's there's there's one there's some back there um but there is a memo um in there and I don't know that there's a full packet but we'll be discussing that piece with what all of those numbers look like um as a superintendent report we have the school uh Board calendar is in the
008memo and just wanted to have a little bit of a update on the building project piece we met again with the site selection committee on Monday as we begin to move forward and look at traffic studies um that are being done in July at the July meeting we will have drum woodsom come in and present like all of the facts about the funding of a state construction project there's a lot to that um certainly not everything will be a state cost there will be some local costs um we discussed that we need to go out and place advertisements for Appraisal Services because some of the next pieces that we do um will be about getting the appraisals done um that's a big that's a big piece the last couple weeks of school have been very
009busy last night we had eighth grade promotion uh at TA which went very well um and it's just great to see uh how our middle school kids who' probably had one of the tougher Middle School uh experiences of all time going from closure to every other day to a year that started with mass but we got to finish up up um on a good step and they were really resilient uh through that process and so that's great to see um our students have had stepup days throughout the district that went very well this year um just a big shout out to admin and staff as they plan those one of the events that sako's had for a while is they've had a wellness Fair uh that was held at CK Burns this year uh where
010we had 70 different vendors and over 225 staff attending um things from massages acupuncture uh dietitians financial planners there for our staff um and also uh at a little contest and a nice breakfast was served to I believe the CK burn staff uh for a number of participations and as a board we are able to make sure that uh you know sometimes Wellness isn't all healthy food and we did have an ice cream truck there for everybody to enjoy that way because sometimes you just have to have a little bit of a treat um the other day we had our 100th Year celebration at CK Burns School uh and thank you to April uh for the job well done for you and your staff we've had a naturalization ceremony at CK Burn School in the
011last couple of weeks uh so a lot going on here uh in the community summer meal schedule posted online um and then again today was our last day and uh we've got a lot of work ahead of us this summer as we talked about we do have um some to talk about with our the refugee resettlement occurring here in Sako and what that will look like um and what information we can share today because that information is not solid by any stretch of the imagination because as families who are planning to arrive here in Sako find permanent housing that means that shifts that family out and someone else will replace that so you could have a family with no kids find permanent housing and replace with three kids or have a family with five kids
012that is replaced with no kids and so we've done a lot of work and I'll provide you that during the update okay any questions for the superintendent okay moving on to the next item which is chair's report and I don't have anything additional this evening uh there are no staff reports this evening um there is only one subcommittee meeting minutes which is in your packet there is no old business and that brings us to new business and item a is new hires ter of Fortune yes I move we approve the nomination of Danielle Brown Fairfield school teacher and issue a contract for the 2022 2023 school year second motion made by Sarah Truman seconded by Beth johon okay any discussion okay roll call vote School Board member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member
013Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes okay motion passes 70 that brings us to the next item which is resignations CH of Fortune yes I move we accept the resignation of Alan little Sak Middle School Coast teacher Michaela Lamar Sako middle school science teacher teacher and Patricia tach Sak Middle School Humanities teacher effective at the end of the 2021 2022 school year second motion made by Sarah Truman second and by Jeff Richard okay any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes a motion passes 70 that brings us to item C which is co can I just I
014just want to make a a motion as we talk about hiring that us as a community you know the economy is one piece that is difficult and as we see definitely a lot more conversation of you know when gas is $5 um when gas is $5 and people are traveling and there is a teacher shortage out there that begins to get people to think about movement and to compound that the cost of Liv living for housing in our community for apartments is skyrocketing we are starting to see and hear more from staff members who are having troubles finding a place to live that is Affordable on a beginning teacher salary this is something that we need to continue to discuss with City councils and others because it's a huge negative draw for us um and
015this isn't just this isn't I'm not saying this is not just a Sako problem this is a southern main problem you can find teaching positions if you live in a community that's 30 minutes away people have openings and they're not going to make that drive with the cost of gas at $5 a gallon um so whether it's us as we talk with msma when we talk about means affordable housing is something that we need to think about in this community because it's going to be very very difficult for us to continue to attract employees um because they can't afford it and we're seeing [Music] that thank you for that um item C is the co update so I'm hoping that this is the last Co update that we're going to have to give as as
016we enter into the new year um as we know the SOP is ending on June 30th for schools um and so the plan is coming back into the fall there will be no sop there will be no tracking there will be none of that monitoring piece um but we've gone with these for a year and we will con continue with our last Co update um you know it's it's much harder now just because there's so many at home tests that there's not tracking system um when they ended pool testing it kind of ended everything so it's here for you we continued with the process for the year but I'm not sure that's something we'll see in the future is there going to be or do we have any plans um to either continue passing out
017testing kits at school or is that something that there's been a discussion either during the summer or or for the upcoming school year so again any of our summer school families that would need those um we have a lot left still uh for testing kits if people reach out to the school department we'll happily give those away because at some point they just expire um we will have a nurse around during summer school so if anyone at home is watching or anything we can certainly help out families no need to spend $20 when ours will expire on the shelves quick followup question do do you know how close we are on the expiries for some of those I'm I'm assuming we have an inventory that keeps track of that so they sent those in just
018pallets and boxes to us the first batch that we got uh came from York County Emergency Management and those were ones that had a quick expiration date because they were trying to unload those and say just give them out at schools um I don't know off the top of my head Kevin but we can look at that piece but there there's a lot of them I know that in Dayton I had probably enough to the whole town could have come and got a test if they wanted to somehow they got as much as we did okay sorry just want so just to clarify if if there's a family that needs a testing kit they should get in touch with the school nurse yeah we can put something we can put something on Facebook or send
019home a a notice that we can have a supply with our summer school nurse during summer school hours they can pop in and get those okay thanks all right okay next item is the nomination of a Fairfield principal CH of Fortune uh I move we approve the nomination of w blank Fairfield School principal and issue a contract for the 2022 2023 school year second okay motion made by Sarah Truman seconded by Jeff Richard any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Arie yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 70 welcome aboard [Applause] thank you I'm Wendy leblan and I am so thrilled I brought my family because I'm very excited um I thank you
020for the opportunity and look forward to joining the school department thank you thank you welcome okay that brings us to item e resettlement of refugee students well okay so in the last several weeks there has been infro coming to us kind of in drops and sometimes we'll get a little bit more um but I I want to again caution everybody that the information that we receive is not like it's coming from a standardized situation we have had a spreadsheet shared with us about students that sometimes the ages of a student in the notes column doesn't necessarily line up with the birth date in that column situations where it will say for students but no names um Stacy and Meg has done their best uh to comb through the data and also search what we have
021the ability through um the state system to try to search where students currently are registered so what we do know is that the comfort in all 100 rooms will be available for Refugee resettlement throughout the next year this will come in three waves which they are planning to do 40% of the population in July another 40% in August with the final 20% in September we have begged them not to take that approach if they're doing this because we need to wrap our arms around the fact that please send us all the kids first is what we asked today send us any F so that we can start the process of registration and having an understanding of what the kids needs would be where their weeder scores are for their English proficiency level grade levels just
022straight up grade levels knowing that information now the money for the lease of the hotel is is a relationship between and Chris we were on this day between the state of Maine and the hotel owner so there's that relationship at the same time there is a relationship between the city of Portland and Catholic Charities which will be the lead agencies for any of the families there they have been given funding to hire 11 Staffing positions to help the families and at this time we know that the duration of the agreement is one year as we look at this information like I said we have ages of students we believe we have correct grade levels but again some of that is a guesstimate between what we could search in the state system for a kid's identification
023number versus what they had listed as a possible birth date which sometimes didn't match up because like I said it would give a birth date and then say that's was an eight-year-old kid but the notes would say nine-year-old kid on the side the other piece of this challenge is that throughout this process any family that finds permanent housing may go to permanent housing but there is a contract for available room rooms which we asked today you're probably not just going to leave rooms open in the answer was well no so we could con see continue to see this coming and going throughout the year which could bring different grade levels and our uh number of students Meg and I went over to the hotel the other day uh and one of our kind of major
024concerns is around food there doesn't seem to be uh in these rooms these are are Standard Hotel room um so understanding there won't be any hot plates or anything available for people to use in those rooms and there seems to be like there's a lack of kitchen food prep areas which is fairly problematic su su moral food service we spoke the other day and we were able to contact the State to turn during the summertime the Comfort end once families arrive into a summer food service site so that we could provide breakfast and lunch through the summer program right there at the hotel the other piece that is going to be a big challenge for us and again there are there are many different Avenues where we have problems to solve but if you think
025of just some of these social pieces um no playground no recreation equipment over there and so you could have a situation where there are five or six members of a family in a hotel room living for a year we've got to solve that problem uh and so we're starting to think about some of the ways that we can support them we've also had uh dialogue with ta about some of the things that we'll need to do together about as we start to think about registration of students and how we are there on site helping with that piece with interpreters XY and Z how we begin to think about in the summertime is that a welcome a welcoming night at school that looks a little different how are we going to make sure that kiddos and
026families have transportation you know I'm going to Young School what does Young School look like um those types of pieces now as you can see in in on the spreadsheet um these are our best estimates of what placement would look like and again this will change a million different times throughout the process our problem area is grade one this is our big challenge because there are 19 new students the other piece that is a bit challenging for us is that while we don't know the accuracy of this parents and families for any of us have kids here you've received Who Your Home Room teacher is going to be so we've instructed principles that throughout the summertime as students come and go um that we won't be giving out if someone new moves into the system
027right now we're not going to be assigning a teacher immediately because we need to see how we program for kiddos throughout this population because you are not going to have a situation where all kids go into one class classroom um and so this is going to be a balance for us uh throughout the summertime to try to adjust and figure out what Staffing levels we need what we know we need already is going to be additional elll staff we're going to need support for additional elll teachers which we've put an advertisement out for that as anticipated knowing that that's number one now in some situations like the Middle School we have the capacity for kiddos to float through and we've put some average class sizes on the side we won't be able to you know
028we'll have to monitor enrollments All Summer Long in this situation now young schools a little bit fortunate that we have some rooms being constructed there so like okay worked out perfectly in that scenario burn school is the most challenging situation for us because there's just not extra rooms there unless we look at uas on a card or something like that which we've tried to avoid um but right today if things worked out we probably would be okay and then certainly middle school and high school kids have more options to funnel into different classrooms now there's costs involved with us and we are trying to and trust me every conversation that I have an opportunity to have with the doe I mentioned the need for funding that this is a little bit more unique of a
029situation here because we pay tuition payments for our 9 through 12 students than a a school district that is prek through 12 in one system so for any of those estimated 40 students that would be attending Thorton Academy we need to spend we need to come up with that rate of approximately $113,000 per student to pay towards flon Academy we will definitely need to have one to one and a half elll teachers more there and then there could be a situation where there are additional special services that are needed now many of these students have not been in they've only been registered in a main school since it looked like late March early April and so there could be special service situations that we don't know about or are in the process when we look
030at what we may need and again until we have solid data and enrollments you can look at a situation where we probably will need an additional classroom teacher at Young School we will need several elll teachers throughout the district professional development and training for our staff mbers supplies Furniture there could be costs there additional special service B budget and looking at possibly an additional bus run because when we look at 130 students or 126 they believe the number is today we're going to have a situation where a bus pulls up to the Comfort in and it is loaded prek through five immediately one stop all in one and then the same thing will happen at the high school level now certainly we are very aware of the Optics of that and what that could do
031for our community and we will need to pay attention to that and think about other pieces but as you see the spreadsheet there this is not an insignificant amount of money to complicate matters further we have a passed budget by law the superint attendant cannot overspend that budget so as a group here we will need to work with City Council on some form of budget amendment and Direction because I I doubt this will be the answer but someone could say I'm sorry you have a budget there's nothing more coming well we still have to pay a bill for students at Thorton Academy which means that other budget adjustments would have to be made in order to stay within those means now I'm not sure that that's going to happen we will continue to talk this
032situation through with the state to make it clear to them the additional costs that are here that may be different than other School departments now there is a half a million dollars that is available but that for all schools in Maine half a million dollars is not going to go very far and that will be based off your October 1 enrollments once kiddos are here so we have a lot to do over the course of the summertime here to try to figure this out the other piece that is another factor that comes into this is that any student student in this scenario will also qualify for homeless status so they would have the ability for their family to choose to remain in the district that they're currently in those four districts that are set to
033come here would be Auburn Portland Freeport and Yarmouth our responsibility in that situation would now be half of the transportation which you know that can complicate a factor too of sending four vehicles whatever those are to four different sites if the families elect that piece they have that right if that was a need for a licensed bus driver we know how difficult that could be so then you might be looking at Vans or min buses which necessarily you don't maybe own enough of we have some challenges in front of us we have some opportunities to look at to diversify and to welcome students here into our community but there's not super great information that we can Bank on to say I need three teachers here they are this is what the grade level is and
034to think that it's perfect uh today and then it will be complicated by the fact that 20% of these family well again 40% in July 40% in August and 20% in September definitely puts us at a disadvantage to make this go smoothly any questions do you have a question no I was going to ask but it's so loaded at this point because there's so many variables so um and I think that's that's going to be the difficult part between this is that you know one day I may give you one answer and then three days later if four families find permanent housing the whole scenario could change again um it's going to be all I can all I can say is um Good Luck to them for find if they are able to secure housing
035because like we like we were talking about before the housing situation is abysmal at best um right now for everyone so it's a tough position for everybody to be in right now so throughout the summertime we're going to need to have um some meetings with City city council to keep them AB breast of what the situation is and the situation of what this is going to cost now while there will be some upfront costs there will also be some money that while it won't come this year will impact our 279 for next year and Jason and I will do our best to try to project something but not knowing how much money the state's going to put in or what the mill rate would be I can certainly change valuation I'm not sure that we're
036going to get a great number that comes from that that gives us anything solid to say well yeah we're spending X now and we will get X more in subsidy because there are so many variables in that you might be able to come up and say okay we think it will be this but as we know that with our valuation rapidly increasing in Southern Maine that's going to minimize some of that I question about meeting with city council are you uh anticipating that we would be going to one of one or multiple of their meetings or would we try to schedule something off the normal calendar to so I I think the suggestion would be is that probably this might be something that's off a normal at some point haven't spoken with Brian about this
037because because you know we're kind of treading water until we I hate I hate to just go and say this is what I think but everything in this memo now is what we think today I'd like to have a little bit more solid and again part of that would be is one whole as we were told today one of the you know the the group moving from an Auburn Hotel there's a fairly there's some indication that there may be permanent housing for that group which will take one quarter of the work that we've done and say replace this with something different whatever that may be have you provided this memo to city council or is that something you're going to do sooner than later just to put the bug in their ear so that they
038know that so I've had conversations with Brian um and this was again for you guys first tonight to then pass on we'll pass on to Brian because you know obviously it's public document um we've had members of the city staff on some of our calls we have a week a weekly 8: a.m. on Thursday mornings um kind of there was like 20 of us today Chris on that call um with different support organizations throughout the area city of Portland doe um we've had code's Fire Department police chief um Ryan's looped in with Recreation so each week we're trying to get the best information that we can and and Catholic Charities is there in addition we will also need to have a meeting because these are prek through 12 costs there also will be a cost
039at some point for adult education services because now you're going to have families that will have the ability to access adult education services which we'll need to figure that piece out as well um but that's kind of on tap for the next discussion School Gale so um guess a couple of questions so so the K through two right now the 36 that's all based so that is the Assumption that's all going to be at young school or is that so right now those would be those students would be on the side of town Serv d by Young School I would I think that would make some sense to do that but at the same time we'll be looking at because you know when we did the reopening plan we also knew that 35 38 House
040housing permits were sitting on this side so I don't think that would stop us as we look at this process to say okay class sizes at Fairfield School are a little bit low what is the process that we want to use I would think that there may be several options of one there might be some young school families that going to Fairfield School actually would work for daycare so we we may want to have it be a little more open than just saying hey you're going from the hotel and and any overflow goes there we also will know that it will be important to keep families together and so you know if you have a kindergarten student and a and a and a first grade student we wouldn't necessarily say oh there's a bump in
041first grade we'd want to keep our families as much together so it's hard not having any information other than our our best guest off this data until we get to that point um and certainly knowing that families not all families are registered for kindergarten they've done they do a great job trying to pull those in and then there's just the regular movein that happen and move viets that occur every summer so I do think that a lot of this work on fine-tuning of that will be August type decisions as we know more or we program at Young School for the first 80% and think about the last 20% being the possibility that comes to Fairfield and leaving some of that buffer if we have it in certain places to say okay we're locking this in
042go there there the ability to hire elll staff will also Drive some of those decisions of um that's a tough that's a tough hire ell staff can be a tough certificate to find for some for someone so um and then if 40% are coming in July which is when like when in July do we know because that's like in two two weeks but the um in terms of transportation from that location I mean I that's really isolated for anybody and I just looking at you know the the age age groups here and that's it's a tough location to be if you're in any of these age groups or grade levels because there's absolutely nothing out there is there any potential because I know that there is a a bus line that stops out there have
043we reached out or is that a potential just at least over for the summer to talk to Chad the executive director there to help with getting them from there to the young school playgrounds or anything like or even to so I haven't we haven't had those discussions yet I know that part of the reason that uh comfort in was the choice was because of the bus line situation um that can be a next stop on our on our list I think that we're really hoping that once we see the situation that we can work out some of our Community Partners and provide some stuff on site um at the hotel because again not having any sort of outside Recreation for kiddos um throughout this piece I've also been in touch you know again this is
044you know we're only talking about prek through 12 here there's still a whole group of kiddos that won't be school eligible and I've had some conversations with headart about what three-year-old possibilities are out there what can we do you so there's you know there's there's more to this than the prek 12 piece that we have to be considerate of I think the the prek is already filled up too so that's something that but just one on the last thing in terms of that the $500,000 that the state's going to provide funding throughout the state which is just like a joke looking at what we have for unbudgeted costs is there anything you recommend for us as a board to do to reach out to elected officials or write a letter or be more vocal about
045the need for additional funding because that's again like a joke I think that any time you can call your locally elected officials and ask them to look into this issue meet with me any of those pieces we're knocking on those doors we're talking to those people but with the more they hear it the better um because this is not only a situation here this is a situation that Portland has South Portland this year had 480 students come through their doors um at approximately $1.5 million um those are all unbudgeted costs School B Archie uh can can we get a little bit of clarification because I'm hearing the remata I'm hearing the comfort in comfort in so on Industrial Park yep right there right there uh right on the corner right yeah right on the corner
046behind the uh bford oako bford savings kind of Technology Building any other questions okay that brings us to item F which which is second reading of policies Mr chair um I move we approve the second reading of policies JL Wellness jl- R nutrition program guidelines JB d e superintendent job description second second motion made by Beth Johnson seconded by Sarah Truman okay any discussion okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnson yes okay motion pass to 70 that brings us to other information I don't believe we have any other than um we're tentatively looking at a joint meeting with the Council on the 27th that's the date that was floated um
047most recently and I know there was an email that went out about that so that that may be the first opportunity to really discuss the item that we just left off with and just remembering that night is Meg and I are both at the superintendent's conference with the commissioner that night um so it's not the it's not the best meeting for that but you guys can be there and talk about those pieces but we are both at that um we both have that commitment okay there's no executive session this evening so motion to adjourn second okay motion made by Sarah Truman second it by Jen preville okay any discussion okay roll call vote School Board member Arie oh just just a quick um just wanted to congratulate superintendent Ray again on those two Awards that's
048a that's a big deal and as noted in the letter to be nominated by your peers is is a great accomplishment so congratulations Jeremy and congratulations to all the kiddos um principals teachers staff uh on a great great year although it was trying but um everybody got through it and congratulations to to all the kiddos and look forward to a good summer okay roll call vote Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes I vote Yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes okay motion passes 70 okay we are adjourned at 548 e