001go ahead and call the schoolboard meeting to order. Let the record reflect that all schoolboard members are here and the mayor will be here shortly. He's just stuck in traffic and we will switch places when he does get here. So, would you please join us for the pledge of allegiance? Okay, first item on the agenda is the approval of the school board minutes dated September 14th, 2022. Is there a motion? Mr. Board Chair. Yes. Um I move we approve the board meeting minutes dated September 14th, 2022. Second. Motion made by Jen Prebble, seconded by Arthur Argie. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Roll call vote. Chair. Kevin. Mr. Leforin. I'm like I'm always used to saying Mr. mayor. So, um I think um my only my only regret about this I mean the the notes are as
002good as they can be because of the lack of um audibility I guess from the folks that were speaking in uh the audience. Um so some of that I think is missing just from like the questions and stuff like that. I just wanted to mention that part, but that's nothing that anybody can do about. Yeah. So, it was challenging. I did listen to all three plus hours and if you turned it up really really loud, you could faintly hear some people, but it wasn't Yeah. It wasn't enough to be able to probably take notes, too. Yeah. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call vote. School member Archie. Yes. Schoolboard member Prebble. Yes. School board member Richard. Yes. I vote yes. School board member Gail. Yes. School board member Truman. Yes. And school board member Johnston. Oops.
003Yes. Motion passes 70. That brings us to adjustments to the agenda. I don't believe we have any adjustments this evening. And that brings us to correspondence. There's no correspondence that were in the packet. We haven't received any. Okay. And then that will bring us to the public session. If anyone wishes to address the school board, please come to the podium. state your name and address and address the school board. Okay, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public session and move on to the superintendent report. Okay, good evening. A little earlier in the night this time that we get to the superintendent's report than last meeting. Um, just a few things. Um, as you know, teachers uh and staff have been doing an excellent job uh welcoming our new neighbors to the schools and
004learning many different things about uh different cultures and students and how we work with families. Uh so a big thank you uh to everybody who's working so hard. Um at the last meeting we did have a discussion about how the hotel was posit pausing um new registrations uh and those are starting back up again tomorrow. Uh and so we're anticipating that the last two rounds of moveins I think are be done over the next couple of weeks. Uh so we'll be able to have a better idea of what finalized kind of student populations will look like. Um the Young School auxiliary building um is in use uh and the construction uh as far as the main part of the building is done. We're now working on some of those smaller items like intercoms, phones, those
005types of installations, but we are in the building and it's uh a really great space. Uh the school department through the DOE were provided the opportunity to select some mobile learning carts uh to support uh computer science and Meg has worked with the principles and that each school um will receive one cart that I believe is valued at about $5,000 each. So um some some exciting pieces coming for our kiddos. Um I don't have the date right off hand and maybe one of the principles has that here. Uh but we have um worked on arranging some flu can clinics for our staff and for some of our students to be available. Um and you should look in your the principal's newsletter for information on that. We also have uh a family fun night coming up
006at Fairfield School on October 6 from 5 to 7. We have family fun night at Young School from 5 to 7 on this Friday, October 30th. And then tomorrow at Burn School is our exercise Aathon uh during the day and um they're halfway to their $5,000 fundraising goal. So u good job with that piece. Um and then a lot of activity in our schools. Please let us know anytime you want to stop by and help out. He'll always use an extra hand. Any questions for the superintendent? Okay, that moves us on to the chair's report. Um, and the item that I have, I think I'm actually going to lean on Jeremy a little bit as as I go through it. So, um, as I mentioned at the last meeting, Jeremy and I were due to
007meet with Thorn Academy this past week, um, to discuss a number of topics that were listed in the, um, in the note in the agenda from, uh, that was previously put out. And so I have taken some notes sort of extemporaneously after the meeting um that I've shared with the board and I was going to go through at a high level some of the things that that we covered and um because I mean we did cover quite a bit of ground. So, on the first item, which was the hot lunch program, um this was something that came to us by way of um some inquiries from some parents who were just curious about whether or not the universal free lunch free lunch was something that we could uh bring into um bring into the uh
008the food service program at Thorn Academy. And the long and the short of it is that it's a fairly complicated undertaking to do that. They utilize contractors. they have more than just the lunch program. They have students on campus. So, it it's ultimately an extremely complicated thing to do um at this time. Um I we did talk at length about that. I think it was probably the topic we talked the most about. Um but they that isn't to say that there is no program available. they do have a a needsbased program um that they do administer and they do a job, you know, at their own um identification um of students that may be in need of that. And I know at this time one of the things that was brought up was that the
009board of trustees is actually examining the um the income limit to uh see if there's a way to expand the program. it won't be universal. Um, but it is um it is something that they do take seriously and that's kind of where we landed on that. The second item um was the CTE funding that is related to um a bill at the state which has to do with funding of students that also attend a CTE program. Um the the end result of that um is that at this point in time we don't really have any change any um intention to change the way that things are funded. But I'm sure it's something that we can bring up, you know, when we when we get to contract discussion at some point in the future because that
010is going to be an ongoing an ongoing item. Um the third topic um is was superintendent agreements and um this one had a lot of energy around it and I think it's you know an understatement to say that there might be some some differing opinions on on how those are um to be handled. There's probably going to be followup on that because there is definitely some desire to have more open conversations um on both sides about how those um are handled. Um and uh you know so there'll probably be more to come on that. Um it was definitely something that there's a lot of energy around and both Thorn Academy and you know our school department um in particular our superintendent whose signature ends up on those agreements um have some some clear interests in
011how those are going to be taken care of. So that that'll probably come back again. The remaining items really were more of um sort of status items. So we discussed main care billing, rental bus times, student data sharing um and then a couple of things that had been um brought up recently around registration of students from sweeter and um newcomer transportation specifically around um afterchool activities which all take place and and end after the last bus goes. So those are all areas where we had um a lot of common ground and you know in particular around the transportation piece. There's there's probably some going to be some discussions to see if there's a way to perhaps stipen someone to help with that um on our side. So that that is essentially all of the topics
012that we discussed. I don't know if if any of the board members have any specific questions around those. School member Gail, just a quick follow up on this the the lunch issue. So, are we um I guess is is there is that further conversation or or uh is there any way that we can help them to roll that out to to students in the future as we look at that? I didn't get the impression that it was something that would be easy to fold in and that there was not there w there didn't appear to be a way for there to be pass through money like we provide, you know, our portion of of some federal, you know, free lunch money that would cover those students. There didn't seem to be an easy way to
013do that. I mean, some of the things that were brought up that were challenging is not only do not only do food services at Thorn Academy provide multiple meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the on-ampus students, there's also the fact that that's done by a contractor. So, it's not even Thorn Academy that's doing it. And the contractor manages all of their supply chain. So, plugging in I I got the impression that plugging into the federal program with all of its own requirements meant that that had to ripple out through all of that supply chain which was not didn't seem like it was something that was going to be easy for them to do and that they you know they were really adamant about how they're doing you know their own job at that with the
014needsbased program that they have. But to the original question that came in through email of why, you know, why universal lunch doesn't apply, it's I mean the end result answer is that, you know, they don't participate in the federal program, so it doesn't apply. They provide their own. So it's it's it's fairly challenging. I know I know this is a a um a topic that's very near and dear to Jeremy's heart and it's one that we I would love for there to be a solution, but I'm you know I'm not sure if there's much that much that we can can do to help move that along and we kind of do have to rely on on the academy to to do the right thing. That's just my opinion. School board member Johnston. Sorry, I was
015actually going to ask a question um about number four, but since we are on the topic of the school lunch and the situation there, um I would say that my own personal history with this when my youngest child was at Thornton Academy, um was was it was a shock when we went from Sako Middle School with free andor reduced lunch and hit Thornton Academy and there was very very little safety net for I think most children. Um I suspect from what you're saying today that the situation there is improved but I would agree um with Will that if there's anything that we can do to try and you know keep kids from falling through the cracks and I don't know what that answer is but I would say it would be worth exploring this a
016bit more with them or even with our own brainstorming and I'm sure that Sumurell would have maybe an idea or two but um thank you on the other to me that the the situation had improved and even though I'm somewhat removed from from the school lunch program my kids went through not that long ago and I have somewhat the opposite experience and that they were very happy with the food service going up to Thornon from the the regular public school system but then again I I also was not participating in that program. They the one of the things that that they were adamant about um in the conversation that we had was that there is no differentiation between students when it comes to providing assistance through the lunch program. It's not like a separate line.
017It's not separate food. It's you know you you get lunch you know when you're when you're in you know participating in that program. So that that gave me the impression that it actually has improved from even what I recall when I was you know when I was in high school. follow-up question for that. They have a the same application, well, not the same application, but they have an application for them to fill out um because I know now that I have a child that's at Thornton, they do send home a form for people to fill out that they can participate. And I think uh if I remember correctly because I read this last night that they have um they do support the needy students and um that they were going to raise the threshold, right?
018So there there is an application process just like like we would have um and the question of universal lunch is well what happens to students who don't fill out the paperwork. And so they have done a they do their own identification of students by way of teachers, guidance counselors, other staff members who who notice things or hear of things. And so that outreach is intended to catch a lot of the students that wouldn't fill that out or haven't filled that out. So that's that's the safety net from what I understand at this point um is staff identification. Um but there the the discussion around or or at least the the topic being raised around exploring whether the income threshold could be raised was aimed at making it possible to include more students under that umbrella.
019I've got a question. Do we know what the income asset limit for that program is at TA right now? Do we have any numbers or anything? No, I don't think I was just curious. I don't know the answer to that. I have to I can ask and I'll find out. Any other questions, Mr. Chair? Um my other question I I broached with you before the meeting, but just because I'm not sure I've entirely wrapped my mind around this and you suggested that Mr. Superintendent might be able to help, but it was the question of main care building. Okay, I'll do my best. What would what would that question be? Um Kevin was trying was explaining to me the question about who would be billing. I guess it relates to who would be billing for main
020care when it came to Thornton Academy students. I just wasn't understanding that process. So my my what brought that question on is my recollection was that we had a discussion about there being potentially some interest in us billing but one of the primary challenges was the same challenge that we have which is hiring people that we would bill for. Correct. So the conversation uh started around the ability to bill for eligible students if if there were any. Uh and certainly hiring uh is always a challenge, but looking at who uh actually was the employee based off the responsibility for the billing because a lot of that would have to work back through our social workingers, through our billing process, through our consult services. And so the discussion centered around that if there was an open
021position that possibly that could be a SACO school department employee that would be responsible for providing that service and doing the billing versus currently now uh an edtech may be a Thornton Academy employee and that this would sit on the school department side. Thank you. Greetings and welcome. Any uh last questions on the chair report? Um the only thing is just to um ask Jeremy for just whether I missed anything or if there was something that um I did mention, but that I omitted something that was really pertinent to the to the items that we discussed. I think I covered everything, but just want to make sure. I think you nailed it, Kevin. other than it was raining really hard when we went in that day and parking was [Music] challenging. Okay, moving on to
022staff reports. There's several staff reports under agenda item nine. Uh there's links to those staff reports. Superintendent Ray, are we going to have the staff come up and present any information or is it just for information for the school board to digest and ask any questions if necessary? Information purposes. Thank you. Uh any questions from the school board members regarding any of the staff reports that are linked into the schoolboard agenda. Seeing no questions. Moving on. Uh item 10, there's a board subcommittee meeting minutes. Uh for strategic committee meeting minutes of 9:14, 2022. Next meeting for the strategic committee is October 12th, 2022 at 5:30m. Finance committee has a next meeting scheduled for today and happened at 4 p.m. today. And there's no meeting scheduled at this time for infrastructure and negotiations with SEA will
023begin uh later this year for the personnel committee. Any questions on the subcommittee meeting minutes? Any updates, amendments? Moving on from item 10 to item 11. There is no old business on the agenda this evening. Uh that brings us to new business. New business item A is new hires. Uh in your packet there is a memorandum and I believe we are required or it is requiring some schoolboard action. Is there a motion from a school board member? No motion. There are no action items on this memorandum. Are there any questions on this memorandum for the superintendent? I'm just happy that we found some more ed texts. Moving on to item 12B, which is a stipen memo from Superintendent Ray. Any question regarding the stipen memo? Mr. Mayor, school board member Trum, I move we approve
024the nomination of those listed in the stipen memo and issue a contract for the 2022 2023 school year. Second. Motion's been made by school board member Truman, second by school board member Richard. Any discussion? Roll call vote. School board member Archie. Yes. School board member Prebble. Yes. School board member Richard. Yes. School board member LeFortune. Yes. School board member Gail. Yes. School board member Truman. Yes. School board member Johnston. Yes. Motion passes. 70. Brings us to item C. Uh there was no link in item C on the agenda. Superintendent R. Is there any memorandum on this item? There are no resignations. That's that's beautiful. That's perfect. When there's no link, we're in a good we're having a good day. That's right. Moving on to item 12D, enrollment update. Superintendent Ray, trying to get the link
025to work. All right. Okay. Attached to the memo is just an outline of where we are. based off last week's uh enrollment numbers. Uh as you can see we are slightly up from last year at this time but it's also important to recognize that we have approximately 50 plus uh new newcomers in our system um right now and that we have uh an enrollment tomorrow which Meg I believe we are expecting anywhere from 10 to 15 students uh that will be added and then a second enrollment the week after. Um, and I don't think at this time we would be prepared to guess what would be the in the next enrollment piece. So, it's safe to say that we'll add another probably 20 to 30 students um by the next time we have a board
026meeting on those pieces. Our student count at Thornton Academy as of last week is 868 and that includes our newcomer students. Um, so any questions about enrollment? any school board member Leforge and then school board member Truman, school board member Leforge. Um just a a quick question on the anticipated enrollments this coming week as to whether we have a handle yet on where those will land. Uh so Meg has a spreadsheet of of where they're where they're at, but again the information that we get versus the verification when we're there in in person sometimes can differ a little bit. Um some of those students have selected uh to remain in their school of origin. Um but again when they're during the registeration process that can change from time to time. So again while we think
027that there may be 10 more students this week it could be up to 15 students. School board member Drummond. Uh, I just wanted to note too that during the school construction meetings that we've had, um, there's been a lot of discussion about how the population has been declining in Maine, but obviously looking at the trends here in SACO, southern Maine in general, the population's been growing a lot. So, I mean, it's almost a hundred students more than five years ago. So I I would Sarah just caution you that when you look at 2017 that did not include prek students in 2017. So just you know be cautious that that 100 students um you do have that prek number going into that which sometimes can be a bit misleading there. Um I think when you look
028at um your 9 through 12 enrollments and you can see what those have done already over over the time that is an indicator that you're just tending to have I mean your class sizes here are are in that 200 range. That 180 to 200 range is where you're going to be. Yeah. Um I forgot about the prek piece too. So I was like that that makes a lot more sense because like in this you know in this scenario you're 118 kids from that piece which would actually put us you know at about 1750ish um compared to 2017. Schoolboard member Archie, you set me up perfect for that one. My question was um on the 118 I noticed that was last year and this year is that um the max building capacity? Yeah, for program capacity
029size, we're right there. Okay, any further questions on enrollment. That brings us to item 12F, a transportation memo in your in your packet. Uh, Superintendent Ray. Okay, this was an item that we moved very very quickly on at last meeting that would have anticipated uh spending a little bit more time on. And and as we know, uh we talked about earlier this year that as we started to program for our buses, uh at the middle school and high school level, uh it became apparent that some runs just based off where kids lived and the population based off prior routes were just too high for uh meeting capacity levels. And we talked at the last meeting about looking at kind of the second grid um that was on the page of how we would rearrange a
030few of those runs, move some kids around. Um look at how we are transporting students from the hotel and how we are transporting u the students that go to Thornton Academy from Arundle. uh in making a recommendation to kind of alter some bus routes to make sure that we weren't over capacity um which is something that is a fairly easy fix for us to make. The other piece of our real challenge that we have is we have three buses that do prek runs only and all they serve is prek students. And on those three buses, when you look at some of the timing, and I believe we have some school committee members who would be part of that, you have a four-year-old sitting on a bus for an hour and a half. That to me
031does not make a whole lot of sense that we would put a four-year-old on a bus for an hour and a half. Um, and as I said last time, I didn't like to take a vehicle ride with my child when they were four for an hour and a half. could be quite difficult. I just can't imagine the bathroom break type situation um that occurs. And so we did provide a solution where some of our regular buses that house our kindergarten through fifth grade students could accept. And we're looking at one, four, there's five, six, seven, 11 students that if we could move 11 preK students onto the bus run with their buckles and harnesses onto regular buses, we could drastically decrease the transportation time for all kids. Um, and I think that this is a
032solution that we should look at because there's there's nothing good about having a prek kid on the bus for an hour and a half. Um, as we look at the possibility of a new school uh in the future, if we had a model where we our elementary schools are on the same site, you would be using a model that would be prek through five on a bus because you're just going to be able to decrease ride times for all students. Um, and I think that's one of the challenges that we have is that, you know, some of our part of our system is even when you look at what happens at our elementary schools that are doing a tremendous job of getting students out of their buildings quickly. um Wendy, April, and Jeff and their
033staffs, we are moving kids quickly and as efficiently as we can, but we still have buses that as you look at like the Noraco piece of things are still getting kind of a little bit late at the middle school. And our goal as we started the school year was to have a situation where transportation operated in a fashion that every day buses lined up at a in the same spot in the same location that we tried to improve so that dismissal at the middle school didn't drag for 20 minutes. Um, and when I talked to Marie and Mike, we're in a much better situation uh than we've been. We're moving kids pretty fast. But if we had the ability in the future to use three more bus runs for all kiddos, um we could be
034in a situation where I think we could be much more effective as a community. But this switch, we've kind of made this switch for the high school and middle school kiddos, but this next switch is would be about not having kiddos on a bus for so long. So take any questions. I have some questions. Um, first question, I'm sorry if I jumped in and beat anybody. Um, I would like to know, is it just the 11 preK kids or are you talking all three buses merging? That's my first question. It would be moving 11 kids right now. Okay. Second question. Now, I just happen to know from experience cuz my kiddos, the first kid picked up on Jenkins Road at 6:30 in the morning, 6:50 somewhere in there. So my question is, are bus aids
035going to be on those buses supporting the bus drivers with the harnesses and the buckles and things because that is something that prek children encounter? And are those buses that the 11 kiddos are going on, are they going to include harnesses or not? They would include harnesses and we would have to work with families to get on and buckle kiddos in. Um because again you would be looking at adding one two three four different bus aids and I'm not sure that's something that we could possibly do right now. Um what we would continue to do is to look at which buses could serve and if there are aids that we could switch on to buses over time. But again, I think at I think what we are trying to accomplish is not having a kid
036get on a bus at 6:30 in the morning. That is that just does not seem like good programming to me. Okay. Um what about the existing bus aids on those buses? Would they be shifting to do you're saying driving then? Is that my understanding? No. Nope. Where would they be go? I guess I'm trying to understand the vision. existing bus aids would stay on those routes that you would still have bus 760 with 29 kids. You'd have bus 761 which would go from 27 to um 14 kids and bus 31 would stay with the 31 kids. So essentially you're just moving kids off that 761 because it's such a long drive for that bus to get around that we would start working at refining that that bus run. Okay. So like that existing bus aid
037for like the first pre-k bus, let's say on Jenkins Road, that bus aid would then get shifted to another bus with those kiddos. Correct. You'd be looking at you there there are four buses that it would impact with one bus picking up one prek kid, another bus picking up four prek kids, second bus uh 752 picking up two prek kiddos, and 703 picking up four prek kiddos. So you'd have a very small number on there and we would hopefully be decreasing their ride time significantly. Okay. Thank you. School board member Archie. Uh so we're talking about 11 students um without actually seeing the projected routes. It's kind of hard for me to picture this, but um would it be possible with more maneuvering around that we could get those 11 onto one other bus? So
038then we could put an aid on that bus with that driver. Well, so if if you if you're if you do that, you're actually will be taking the other situations and actually making it worse for our elementary runs because we would now have more overloaded elementary bus runs and high school bus runs. That that's part of the challenge is that those drivers for the prek only drive the prek runs because the timing takes them out of the mix for everything else. And so unless you had an additional driver, which we know that's uh not the easiest thing to find. Um it takes more of our pop it takes more of our pool and focus them just on those those runs. So, are are we proposing a drop off location, a bus switch, or are all
039four of those buses going to be going to prek? Uh, I think that was in the memo. Believe they'll be going to prek and dropping them there, but I would need to clarify that for you. We're not afraid that would cause more time issues. Well, again, you have certain situations where you have when they looked at those buses at the spinaround time as Stacy and um Jeie were stud were studying this piece was looking at a scenario to make sure that they were being placed on runs that are quicker to get back to the middle school. And so I don't think that they see that being a big problem. Yeah, I was just thinking like it kind of seems like a waste of time to have the bus go over just for one student, but
040like I said, I haven't seen the projected routes and I have a logistic background. I can kind of wrap my head around it, but it would be a little easier. Um, I am very uncomfortable with the students being on the K through five myself. Um, and I also don't think it's safe to have parents on and off the bus. um you know even if it is just one or two students I I I just don't think that that's a good idea. Thank you. Any further discussion on this item? School board member Gail? Just a quick um question on the um the bus uh the bus write the software. Mhm. Um would would the implementation of that occur um with a potential new roll out of these routes so that um families when they change buses
041or whatever they'll be able to to use that and track them or is that later in the fall? I mean, I think again the change in these bus routes is what is part of the reason that we're slower doing those pieces because I don't want to give people access to several different buses and then have their kiddos switch and now you're, you know, watching three buses on your phone, etc. Um, but it could be a situation where our plan was to roll out one to two buses at a time when we're ready to turn it on so that the transportation office doesn't get flooded on day one with everybody calling like let's get bus 751 out of the way and understanding that piece. You know, certainly in those situations, you know, we could target whatever
042bus we want to have be first in that roll out. And then just one other clarifying thing. So the the 11 students it looks like would be out of the bus 671 route. Correct. Okay. And that's that Jenkins Flag Pond bus that starts so early in the morning. Any other questions on this memorandum? Had a quick question. Um Board Member Richard, then school board member Art. There's a a number of other communities listed in the memo that um you know just gives example of uh transportation. So you know in the five communities that have prek that that are riding with the fifth graders are there bus aids on those buses or in some of them yes as you can see and some of them no. Um we put that column in there. Um I know
043that in some of our situations um and it's a little different because we do in Bford and we is while we have a bus aid not required we do have a lot of bus aids on most of those buses because we operate a half-day program and then the half-day program there we kind of program kids by segment of town like saying okay this side of town gets like the AM session and this side gets the PM sess session so when you're so it doesn't require ire us to have eight or nine different bus aids because we're doing sections of town. So, we're able to, you know, work within what we have. Um, in this scenario, this would require if you wanted an aid sitting on those bus, you're looking at, you know, four different aids.
044And as you look into the future of how you would do prek transportation if it was rolling into the new school and we're going to, you know, one location, um, you would need to make that decision of whether you're going to put bus aids on every single one of those buses or not. M um and I think that putting a bus aid on every single one would be while being an ideal situation could present uh a lot of other challenges, you know, from the hiring standpoint. Yeah. I I just think of like say the one bus where there was one prek student, you know, on a bus with mixed with, you know, kids much older than he or she, you know, is that I just wonder how that situation would be. Well, I think that
045you also have to look at the fact too is that if you're a family that has, you know, several young elementary students, so you have a pre-k student and you also have someone going to young a kiddo going to young school uh or a Fairfield school. Now your kids are all on one bus versus having two different bus pickup times or drop times. you know, that can change things in in a morning routine quite significantly if you are, you know, not waiting at 6:30 or 6:45 and then, you know, when your next one comes around at 7:10, um that for some parents, I'm sure that this decision will be a difficult one. For others, it may be welcomed um if you're out there with the rest of your family at the same time. Uh, and
046then also thinking about your drop off routine at the end of the day that all of your kiddos could be coming at one time versus a staggered approach. And one one more thing, um, we filed for two emergency buses. Is that something any idea when we'd find out about that or is there not a very good chance that it would happen or I mean, we've put in for it whether it will happen or not. And then again that was it's an opportunity for us to get state subsidy for buses. It doesn't necessarily mean that they will come with a driver which is much harder. It's harder probably to find a driver than to get funding for a bus. So actually one last thing. So the the other option was changing the routes. Um so in
047doing that it would bring us to 100% capacity. um is that you know that's that's good that it would bring us down to where like exactly where we needed to be but I mean with any sort of upcoming influx it would put us back over again. So yeah I think it's I think it's hard to change routes at at this point as from a wholesale situation. I think that looking at the solutions that they did um with this model of changing, you know, 11 students off one and again with the big goal of saying we're just not going to stand behind an hour and a half bus rides that this would give us an opportunity to see how it went and then have those discussions during budget process next year of what would the transportation
048look like if all students students um that were prek rode buses, you know, rode the regular buses. What would that drop off look like over at prek center? Would it be a combined situation? What not? The location of the and the ability to bring a lot of buses into prek is not exactly easy. um which is a struggle. But when you look at having, you know, 15% of your driver pool only dedicated to that school, it makes it extremely challenging um to run everybody else. Um because you're looking at when you look at a capacity of 31, 27, and 29 students on those buses. If those kiddos were spread out, what it would do for transportation throughout the entire district would be only raising a couple of, you know, handful of kids, which we have
049capacity for, but you'd be bringing three more buses into the mix. That would buffer us some of that time of instead of having to race across the city to get back to the middle school on time, um, we just be able to handle more capacity. Um, I just think it's very challenging to think that in this day and age we're going to be able to grow our transportation fleet by a couple of extra drivers because that's just not the trend any school in America seems to be seeing right now. And so just looking at how we allocate our resources. One last thing, how how are the students going to be chosen? I mean, is it possible to get volunteers or Well, again, the the 11 students that would be pulling apart one of those runs
050so that we could just decrease ride time. It would all be about looking to decrease the ride time on that bus 761. So, taking 11 from there, 11 from 161. Mhm. School board member Archie. So, these are numbers. They're not exactly people yet or students yet. Oh, they would be. Yes, they are definitely students from that. We have already figured out who we would pull. We know who they would would pull. We'd need to communicate with families on this. And again, we don't have to do anything with this piece of it, but I then cannot, you know, I don't have a solution for a family who calls me and says, "My prek kid is on a bus for 1 hour and 30 minutes." There's there's that's what we have now. This is the solution to
051address that situation. I completely understand where you're coming from and I also understand, you know, we we can't put aids on all the buses. I I already know that, you know, it's plus the more we have, you know, if one of them calls out, then we're in a bind. And I completely get that. Uh I'm just kind of wondering if maybe we could do a collaboration of the two and maybe take 11 or 12 students and narrow it down to two buses on say three streets. Now, if we did that, then you would have the students in multiple schools on the same bus, being dropped off at the same places. The students would feel more comfortable being on that bus because they will be with their neighbors and their older relatives, which I I agree
052with you. But if we're able to take one of our aids that we already have and put them onto one of the other buses and say we split it like 65. So now we have to find one aid for the other bus. I'm wondering if maybe if we did did a collaboration of these two options that we could get the end result with people being happier. I don't know. I'd have to ask Jeannie that piece because it's again it just comes down to time time miles and where it is and you know in these situations you're looking at moving like I said one kid to one bus and that's because that kid is sitting at that section of town. I mean, when you think about um one of those students, think about it this way.
053We're moving all of the kids off Jenkins, Flag Pond, Heath, and Spring Hill. That bus, this is also a bus that serves Franklin, Bradley, Spring, and Lincoln. And so that bus is going from Jenkins Road with preK kids on it all the way over to Lincoln Boom Road, that area. So, you're having one kiddo jump on that Boom Road Lincoln Street bus um to get to school, which I my guess is, you know, we could look at a stop, but there's probably for that family, they may be looking at as much as a 30 minute different morning time when their kiddo is getting on the bus. um could be quite a change for some families and some kiddos that, you know, aren't waiting to get on a prek bus at 6:30 in the morning. I
054I I really feel for the amount of work that they have put into this. I know it's not easy. Um I I just I don't feel that we should be splitting the kids up that many ways is what I'm trying to say. Of the 118 students in the prek uh program, do you know how many use the public transportation and how many get dropped off by the families? Right now we have 29, 27, and 31 on the bus. So you're looking at 87 students are technically signed up to ride the bus. Now, that may not necessarily mean that they ride the bus every single day. That may be some days. That may be on the way home, but that is holding a slot for that kiddo. Their family has expressed that they need bus service.
055Thank you, school board member Truman. I'm just noticing I've noted this last time too when we talked about this, but out of all the schools that are listed on this memo that offer prek, um only one of them has a dedicated prek bus and they have bus aids, but there's three drop off and pickup locations where parents have to go and meet the bus. They're not Everybody else has their prek kids on the bus. Most of them don't even have AIDS. So, I think even if we're looking forward from now, like even to the new school, at some point these kids are going to be all integrated onto the same bus as everybody else is the way I'm envisioning it because they're all going to be going to the same building. Am I wrong? I
056Yes, I you I I think that you would be doing that piece. Yeah. Because again, it comes down to it's a it's a it's it's a choice decision for a board, right? And the choice is either to have kiddos riding on a the K through five bus, right? typically with maybe their siblings and neighbors or have separate buses and knowing the the the routes and the distances in SACO, long bus rides, right? And I just I just I just found that peculiar that like we're the only ones that offer dedicated pre-k bus, but we're going door todoor whereas the only other place that has a dedicated pre-k bus, all the parents have to drive to this particular place, load all the kids onto those buses and then drive them to the school, which I think
057alleviates a lot of their logistical nightmares. I think that again I'm as I also go through that list with my eyeballs and I won't say that I'm 100% accurate with this but also look at those other schools and say okay so correct me if I'm wrong Meg but Kennabunk's prek programs are at all of their elementary schools that's not in a separate location in Kennabunk correct okay scar bro there's No prek in Baford. They're at JFK at the other school in Yarmouth that they just added. I know they're at their schools. Westbrooks is at their schools. So the other But they don't even offer transportation at Westport whatsoever. The fact that we're even offering all these things is is great, but like we our biggest challenge is that our prek is separate from our other
058buildings. It's a big challenge for us. When you think of it from a logistical busing standpoint, it makes it just harder. And I can understand why the choice is made because you're you're over in a different part of town. They're definitely swinging. You know, we could not swing 15 buses through the yard at total in effectively. So even if we do something, we're going to have to think about, you know, if you were put putting kids on one bus over the next couple of years before a new building, you're going to have to look at some sort of transfer system somewhere, some place, whatever that is. Um, but we have to think about what will happen in the new building. We have to think about the resources. And I think what you know one of
059the other challenging pieces that comes from this scenario is that so as we go through the wintertime as we lack subs for the prek run we're basically pulling somebody from another run if we have somebody or letting the prek run not happen. Like that's the other piece that is very difficult with this is now we have to combine other runs. And one of the conversations we had last week as we transition into a new software and how you communicate with parents is that if bus 753 is the run that my kids would would be on or or se sorry 714 I think it is. Um, so if 714 is canled to today, it would be combined with another run. And I was thinking about like just the communication system like I don't need to the
060last thing I need to do is to send out the 714 is canceled to every single parent via voicemail or phone call because then we know that hysteria will will come for the next day. But how do we effectively communicate with just bus 714 parents that doesn't require Genie to make 65 phone calls, right? Um and then how do we easily combine that run for the next day? What does that look like? Wouldn't it be easier just to put them all on the the K through five buses? Long-term, yes. But but because they're on a different in the building, two different locations because you can't fit all 15 buses. Like I I'm with you. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, and I I I was looking at that graph at the other schools, and
061that's exactly where my mind went was, well, these schools are all in prek through five versus, you know, the different different locations. And and again, you don't have to do anything today if you don't want to. It was our job to put together the work and show what it would take to start solving one of the complaint problems that we have of kids that are on the bus for an hour, an hour and a half. Here's an option to fix that one. We don't have to fix that one. It works right now. Not saying it's the best, but if we're going to do something for next year and that you're going to say, "Okay, next summer, Genie, build the system where all prek kids are riding on a school bus. We need to figure out
062transfer places, stops, and that's not a decision we can make June before we head home and then be up and running. So there's there's stages of decisions that need to happen and we can provide you the information of what it would take to do that. But I certainly, you know, again, we know we needed to address overcrowding. We know that 15% of our our transportation staff is locked in on the prek situation. We know that drivers are a shortage. And we know that I got phone calls about why why is my kid on a bus for an hour and a half? And to solve that problem of the hour and a half phone calls, this would be the shortterm fix without disrupting everybody's bus run in October. And I'm not sure that's a direction that
063we want to go. School board member Gail, I guess just kind of following up on that. I mean obviously it makes sense five years from now to combine everything and as we move forward but right now to your point of um if we don't have to do anything tonight I mean I guess if if it's impacting 11 11 students um have we done any and we've identified who those students are can we reach out and and just gauge from them what their level of comfort is on this because they they were enrolled and they expected one thing and um you know just to totally change everything on them at the last minute. Um not last minute I I didn't mean that to change things like this. Um, I guess I think I I just would
064want to hear maybe how they how those families in general are would feel and and to your point, I mean, if it cuts down on a on a child being in the bus for an hour and a half, all for that. Uh, and I'm sure if that's the the tradeoff, you know, personally, I I would do that. But um just in terms of that outreach to those families, I wonder if we could do that and then maybe at the next next meeting we can take action or Yeah, certainly we can we can reach out to those families and see like what their preference would be. What it then would creates a little bit for us is that before we'd make that decision, we would need to figure out how they go from young school to
065prek and what that transfer process or if it's one bus or or what that looks like and how that impacts our middle school times. And again, I think parents are going to probably be in very different places. Some people will say no, but if I, you know, if it was my child and I had the ability to cut my ride from 1 hour and a half to 45 minutes, I'm probably making that choice. But that's me and everyone will feel. So, we can reach out to those 11 families and just get a little feedback and talk about it next meeting. School board member Archie. Uh, one thing to remember though, Will, is that it's only this year. Next year it's going to be a whole different group of kids and in all different locations and
066it could be a different whole different chaos next year. So just because it works with these 11 families this year doesn't mean it would necessarily work next year. I think one of the pieces that you have to anticipate and again this is not just particular to SACO. This is what every school department is operating with one or two bus runs less than they had three years ago is that if you have a situation here that you have one or two less drivers say next fall or the fall after that and you're not able to fill those slots, the data of the number of ridership probably will not change significantly. So, you'll need to look at a policy decision on walking distances or how you h manage your prek bus situation because that may give you
067some of that capacity back into the fold. Um because at the end of the day, even though a bus with young kids will sit uh will will fit 72 to 81 kiddos, that's three in a seat, and that's the capacity, but that's not ideally what you probably want for your kiddo. Superintendent Ray, are you asking for a vote of the board tonight? No. Well, I think that it's it's easy based off this conversation to I have no problem. Again, we don't need to do anything tonight uh on this situation. Let's reach out to the 11 families and see what the difference would be and what our solution would be to solving that problem. I was going to say I'd be more comfortable with that option as well. More information is always helpful. So, um looking
068forward to hearing that feedback and and seeing what we can do. Thank you. Moving on to item 12G, construction update. Superintendent Ray. Okay. We spent a lot of time at the last meeting talking about site selection and had a lot of different comments about certain pieces. Rob in Oak Point did a fantastic job kind of explaining some of the items that were before us and tried to get to a point where taking some of the concerns that were out there or comments about future development and others and put them into a one-page chart that we tried to capture. I know that at the end of the two or three hours that we had the other night, probably people had some questions about either site. Uh, and certainly we started to talk about cost and acreage
069and some of those other pieces. So, this was in your packet here tonight that to help get some conversation going, give the board an opportunity um to ask questions. Rob is here. If anyone wants to ask Rob questions about either site and looking for a situation where we can come to next meeting and make a decision on providing direction on which way the superintendent's office in Oakpoint is going to proceed if we want to move the building project forward. We need to we need to go in one direction because there's too much work to be done if we want to have any shot of making a vote by the next November. Thank you. Any questions from the board regarding the memorandum in the packet or any questions of Oak Point? School board member Leforge. Um
070it it may actually be um both. So the the additional land needs have we reached out to either or or both of the related parties? We have been reaching out to uh the CLAR piece. Uh we have had a reach out to them. We have not had a face-to-face meeting at all. Um, and we will be reaching out to the other party about if that site's available. School board member Gail, it's just two questions. Um, one on the the access road to the CLA parcel. Um, I'm just curious on that the 1.5 million. Um I guess is is that just being a ultra conservative there because that road would be very expensive for a mile of it just in terms of like comparison. So um I'm just curious kind of how how we what's driving
071that 1.5 million for the quarter of a mile. So excuse me. Um, so a driveway is a lot easier to build than than a than a road. So we had we had estimated how long it would how far the road would be um to to come into the site. It would definitely being conservative, but um but that's what we had figured out as far as excuse me the actual actual numbers figure per square foot per linear foot was was a little bit less than a million. But we just don't know what we're going to bump into. Just like the other one, we don't know. We Yeah, we know a lot about what we're going to bump into, but we don't know everything. So, so that 1.5 is like the very high estimate of what Yes.
072what you're coming in. Okay. And then um again on the CLA column, the the walking and the bike access for students, it says possible future access through the Eastern Trail, right? um as a part of this project, can't we make can we make that just access through the eastern trail in terms of Sure. The the intention is that we can get to the Eastern Trail. the the the gist of that question was um we we're really looking we're trying to find pros and cons of of both sites and one of the pros of the middle school site was that there were neighborhoods right next door and those kids can walk to school or ride their bikes to school. It according to some of the people we've talked to was also detriment because they do do
073they want buses going through their their neighborhoods. Um but that but then we looked at the um the the the CLA site and the idea was to we can get to the eastern trail comfortably. We can make sure it's a safer route than than there is now. We can get there through the uh the subdiv through the industrial park. But whether people would start using that as a means to get to school was a question mark. But all the neighborhoods to the south that that the eastern trail goes near could certainly ride their bikes to school there. School board member Archie. So hypothetically speaking on the clear project if if we could not gain access to that other land we can still build there. Yes. On our partial. Yes. But how how different would the
074building construction be itself? Like are we talking one small building, one grade now or? No, I I think if we had the clear the clear parcel and we were unable to negotiate um the purchase of the other land. We we've actually look take a look at could we fit the whole project on. We're not sure as far as both buildings, but we could certainly even fit um the the state funded project, the one through five on the site comfortably. Um we actually drew it with both buildings. It was really snug. Without more information, we we wouldn't be prepared to show that. But uh the idea is that if we didn't get that other piece of land, the prekk could go in young on the young school site. Not sure. You could put it on the
075Fairfield the Fairfield school site too, but the young school would be a much much better site because of the some of the building constraints at the Fairfield site. Any further questions on school construction update or questions for Oak Point? School board member Lefortune. I have a a followup related to the the access road length. So that that 1.5 um on the CLA site is that an estimate of what would be required above what might be included in the project and is that the part that no that so the the the amount we have there is a conservative estimate. So if we were just doing the one school um and it's a state funed school that the state would pay for that. Is that the entire length from Route One to the easement that's off of
076Spring Hill or is it portion. It's it's a a portion of the of how far we would go into the site. We haven't we haven't designed the building, so we're trying to think an estimate of of how far it would be and we just felt that the civil engineers on staff took took a stab at how much it might cost to come in. But it would be a normal it would be a normal cost associated with it. So, as if it was anywhere. Um that answers your question. Um, but yes, we you would have to bring a a road into pretty much any site you go into and and that would be a little bit longer than say what you have on on Young School now, but it would take care of what we needed
077to do. And then um one other question related to any studies that need to be done. Is that something that we're moving on now or are we ultimately going to wait final decision on which one of these we land on? We are getting pricing on a lot of studies. Um we're going to run out of time as far as pulling the trigger on something. We need to have I can't remember what the actual date was. Um um but we in order to do the traffic study which has already been has been approved to move forward with we need to have it done by I think November. So it's something that had we had to do right away. Um the environmental piece was a little bit more than we thought it was going to be. The
078the new uh phase one site assessments are more comprehensive than they were just five years ago. So we do have a price to do the any environmental work there. Um, and some of the work was already done. Is it the same for both sides or is it does it vary based on No, it's it's pretty much the same for for both sides. It's it's more of a matter of how much there it might be a little bit more on the clear site honestly because there was more stuff in the in the neighborhood. I mean there was it's on Route One. So I'm sure the price was a little bit more expensive but not an an unduly amount. Any further questions? So, Superintendent Ray, you're going to put this on the agenda for the next school
079board meeting to discuss uh you know which how to proceed forward. So, the ne next school committee meeting this gives two weeks for people in the public to chew on this issue. who will have a site selection uh site inventory committee between now and then uh to talk about these pieces and next meeting we need to have some direction so that we know which way we can move forward so that we can have our eye on that next November ballot. We also after that piece would then be scheduling this draw pole on the site so that we can get in front of the state board and this the state really would like to meet with us the DOE on a project but there until we know what site it's going to be we're kind of
080at a stalemate. Thank you very much. Thank you. Question next meeting we're going to be deciding which one we want to go with and then the straw poll. Correct. So, not tonight. Correct. I want to make sure that everybody has plenty of time in the community to chew on these two options and come back to the next meeting so that we have any feedback or comments from the community about their preference and then we can make a decision and then work on that straw pole piece. Um, this will also give us another time to have a a site inventory committee meeting uh in the next two weeks to discuss u any of the land pieces that come up. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Uh, that brings us to item 12H, a first reading of policies. There
081are four policies for first reading. BCC nepotism, BIA, new board member orientation, BDE, board standing committees, and BDE-R standing committee operating procedures. Is there a motion for the first reading? School board member Johnston. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move we approve the first reading of policies BCC, B I A, BDE, and BD E-R. Second. Motion's been made by school board member Johnston, second by school board member Truman. Any discussion on the first reading of policies? Seeing nobody seeking recognition, moving forward, roll call vote. School board member Archie, yes. School board member Prebble, yes. School board member Richard, yes. School board member Leforin? Yes. School board member Gail? Yes. School board member Truman? Yes. School board member Johnston? Yes. First reading of policies passes 70. That brings us to item 13. Other information. There's nothing noted
082in the agenda. Does anybody have anything? Moving forward. There's no executive session tonight. Brings us to item 15. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. School board member TR. Is there a second? Second by school board member Prebble. Any discussion on adjourning? Roll call to adjurnn. School board member Archie, yes. School board member Prebble, yes. School board member Richard, yes. School board member Lefortune, yes. School board member Gail, yes. School board member Truman, yes. And school board member Johnston, yes. Motion passes 70 at 6:12. Have a great evening, everyone.