001e e e greetings and welcome to the Saka school board meeting for Wednesday November 30th 2022 call this meeting to order at 5:00 pm let the record reflect that all the school board members are present and with that I'd like to invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you very much up next is the approval of the school board meeting minutes dated November 9th 2022 is there a motion to approve the minutes Mr Mayor School Board member Truman I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated November 9th 2022 second motions been made by school board member Truman second by School Board member Preble any discussion on the minutes see no discussion roll call vote School Board member Archie yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richard yes
002School Board member L Fortune abstained since I was not present at the meeting School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes the motion passes 60 with one abstention uh that brings us to item four there are no adjust Ms to the agenda this evening brings us on to item five there are no correspondents in the packet for this evening that brings us to item six which is public comment or public session if there's a member of the public who would like to address the school board please come forward and be heard with nobody seeking recognition moving on from the public comments section to section seven the superintendent's report superintendent Ray good evening everybody um have a couple of items to talk about uh tonight and just to to
003recap a couple of things that we just discussed in the finance committee meeting is that um we have the ability to purchase um a mini bus that will help us provide flexibility uh and that we're hoping that we will be able to lock that in in the next week or so uh as we look at uh all the homeless and U other needs that we have for transportation um as we've examined our current budget reports uh we'll be able to start looking at the next round of improvements at Sako middle school for furniture and for painting um specifically around kind of that next level of furniture uh for the library and for rooms whether that be bookcases shelves those types of things uh and to begin the process of bidding out um the next round
004of painting that can occur additionally um principal Susi and uh sual have started to look at new uh cafeteria kind of tables and layout there uh as that's a space that we're looking to improve uh and we're able to use some of the fun from um hot lunch to support the furniture in that space uh really hoping that we can make that space much improved painted numbers now is kind of taking the next step uh how we can create a unique um a unique eating space for our students that maybe not be the traditional cafeteria set up 100% um so those things are are on the table next and um from budget um our budget process has begun uh staff has turned that their budgets into principles uh principles are now working on finalizing those
005budgets that will then come our way um right before the holidays um one of the things I think that we always have a a watchful eye on is just like we do in our households schools will experience some of the other larger increases around utilities fuel supply costs where inflation has hit us at home those still hit us at school so um that will be something that we will need to prepare for um in our budget process I'm still waiting to hear from the Department of Education of how we can apply for the um there's some additional funding that was going to be made available for municipalities and School departments that saw the large increase in elll homeless um we're told there will be a half a million dollars that we'll be able to apply
006for somehow but we don't know what that how looks like yet um hoping to get that information in the next couple of weeks um on a couple of student sides of things uh this weekend the Twin City uh theater group um which has run through our wreck department that has a lot of our our Middle School kiddos has their production of elf on the second and third um so if you want to go see a good student performance you can head out to that just a reminder to parents that you know while today we're lucky that it's a lot of rain pretty soon that will be white stuff um and that to make sure that we have all of our information in power school so that we can send out those alerts in the morning
007time uh just again those usually start with start with Facebook post being the very first thing that we can do because that's quick and easy to put out takes a little bit more time to go through the phone system uh pieces um also for those of you um that are between the communities uh when we use those systems they're two very different systems that we have in place uh in both communities which some is a little bit more responsive than others so it's not that anyone is slower or quicker it's just systems are different and we need to think about bringing those into line um we are piloting the bus routing software now that we've made some changes to hopefully um be set for the school year uh so I I expect that after the
008holidays we'll be able to roll that out in a more robust fashion um but monitoring those buses and being able to see that route of where the bus is is very easy on your cell phone uh and then a couple of weeks ago uh many of our communities and around the state had some very tough days based off uh false reports of uh you know School intrusions um and while certainly that was a tough day for everybody it did give us more of a real life opportunity to look at the procedures that we have in place whether that be from communication to lockdowns and school safeties and while um very proud of the group of individuals that we worked with here about how we shared communication and did things clearly it is an opportunity for
009us to reflect and to improve upon things the next time and we'll be coming together uh as a group um to really talk about those things and talk about what needs to be put into place what can happen what can't happen um and additionally Meg and I have been and kind of researching um some software that might improve that process I think one of the things that become became very difficult that day um is managing the spread of misinformation um and how schools react to that piece because um very quickly there was whether that be misinformation or just people reacting to the information that they had heard um that becomes a very challenging thing for School departments to Wade through um and it does take us time to make sure that we have correct information
010the right information and our Focus first and foremost is on the students and making sure that they're safe and accounted for um in those so um we'll be doing a lot of reflection on on school safety and how we just again continue to improve each and every time and find places where we need to get better thank you any questions thank you questions for the superintendent school board member Gail guess just a quick question following up on that um is is the Sako Police Department going to be a part of those discussions and overall was there any um additional collaboration or areas that you think need to be strengthened with that no um certainly as we looked at software we've already been in cont I've been already in contact with Chief Clemens about that um
011I would have to say that our our work that and communication that we had that day with the Sako Police Department uh and any of the agencies was outstanding um Jack and I were able to be on the phone probably you know we talked four or five times in the first 15 minutes of that piece um but I think that since that Jack and I have also talked about what maybe some of the things that we would do different um when there's a situation of you know pretty quickly both of us um learned the challenges of a vibrating phone that just wouldn't stop um and how we communicate with each other um and again um nothing but kudos for uh Jack and his team of the response of having um law enforcement at our schools
012even though we weren't in danger I think it brings a sense to help us bring some of that just order um I think the other piece that was great is that yor York County Superintendent were able to uh spend some time with Mr Nelson and Sanford to talk about some of the lessons that he learned um that day and some of the things that went well or not as well that you just wouldn't expect um but know uh Jack and I have been in in contact and um his contact that day was outstanding with us any further questions Schoolboard member Truman have you uh priced out how much it would be to update our system for closures yeah so we use a prod product called apog um that we're looking at and what AP does
013is it hits all of those social media networks at one time so it's a very different process um when I'm cancelling school for bitterer than Dayton than here where using the AP product that we use there whatever I type in I record my voice from the computer I translated it into how many languages are in there Chris 20 plus languages all in a click of a button and it's out the door and I and and it hits all of those spaces at that one time which is you know when you think about all that happens in a morning time to cancel school whereas Meg is is you get Meg's voice in Sako that comes in and Meg and I are talking to each other making this decision and starting the process from the same starting
014point um and that process takes significantly longer um and that was like one of the pieces that when we talked about sending out information the speed of the system impacted how people got things even though they were all going at the same time I remember that from last year so is this something that'd be pretty is it within our budget to do an upgrade with that and is it a pretty seamless they use that word Loosely yes to move everything over into that system from Sako into to what you guys already have so it has to communicate with it's it's a process yeah um and it's not a process that happens quickly because and something that would need to be worked on over the summertime um we also have um a little bit of the
015out added challenge that our 9 through 12 students are in a diff in a different platform so how we pull that in um so we got some work to do as we look through the next you know you will see a line in the next budget cycle to address address some of those needs one more winter for Meg any further questions moving on to item eight chair's report cherer Fortune hi there I have just a couple of things tonight one is an email came earlier from Terry Gorman about a joint meeting request for the 12 the uh 19th of this coming month so that would be December 19th so Monday at 6:30 here um all would have gotten the email but just in case you hadn't seen it them I'm going to bring that up
016the other thing is that on the 14th our next regular meeting that's our administrative meeting that we have um annually to nominate uh board officers and um You Know cover that stuff so as we had discussed last year um I definitely would be open um and would encourage the uh the passing of the Baton so to speak um to give someone else the opportunity to to grow as a board member and and chair the board um as well as you know Vice chair would be open at that point so just think about that for um for our next meeting and uh plan to come with nominations thank you thank you that moves us on to item nine staff reports or no staff reports I had one question uh in regards to the chair's report um
017for the next meeting are we just picking the board chair and co-chair and then do we do the uh subcommittee assignments the following meeting how does that so typically works yeah so typically the way that that that works um is with a change in board officers that would probably most logically happen the meeting after that okay um we've done it you know and I've done it in the past where we try to do all of that at the same time and it's it's not smooth let's put it that way so it's probably better to to do it the following go around rather than you know put someone who you know may be fresh to the to the role in the you know on the spot to pick those things right out of the gate perfect
018thank you any other questions there are no staff reports moving on to item 10 board subcommittee meeting minutes the policy and Personnel committee meeting minutes next meeting is 12:14 at 5:30 so December 14th uh before the school board meeting finance and infrastructure committee their next meeting was uh earlier this afternoon at 4M and there was a little bit of a report out in the superintendent report of what finance committee talked about and then the curriculum commit committee has no meeting scheduled at this time brings us to item 11 old business there is no old business on the agenda so that brings us to item 12 new business item a is a new higher memorandum in your packet that originally had no action but uh has been since updated and requires action of the board is
019there uh anything to report further from your memorandum superintendent Ray I think it's the resignations theate has the update thank you any update on the new hires any questions on the new hires from the board brings us to resignations any any update superintendent Ray on the resignations other than what's been provided just that we're adding that that one name okay questions from the board um no questions but I do have the motion if SCH board member Fortune I move we accept the resignation of Carrie Leon CK Burns teacher effective January 7th 2023 second motion's been made by Schoolboard member L Fortune second by Schoolboard member Preble any discussion on accepting the resignation no discussion roll call vote School Board member Archie yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richard yes School Board member
020Le Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member TR rman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 uh brings us to item C of new business and that is a curriculum update from assistant superintendent parkur thank you so you'll see in your backup A Brief Review of the work that our curriculum design teams have and will be focusing on this year so I'll just spare you reading the memo and try to run through some of those highlights for English language arts we have word study Pilots underway in our K through five classrooms in kindergarten and second grade as a reminder we were looking at two different programs and working with those pilot teachers to identify the strengths and weaknesses and align the one that will best meet our students needs for
021selection in next school year our third through fifth grade classrooms elected to have all teachers piloting the same program and are working with uh key teachers in those classrooms to kind of act as leads to Pilot that with Fidelity so that we can ensure really smooth full roll out for next school year and we're also looking at revising and aligning the language arts portion of the Elementary report card this year to ensure that it's in alignment with whatever word study resources we select and to just do a review view of the standards that are there and ensure that they're reflective of what we expect from students at each grade level and in alignment with the main learning results for math we have new programming fully underway in K through 8 classrooms with Eureka math squared
022occurring for K5 and upgrade of our prior resource of Eureka Math and then reveal mathematics which is published by mcgrawhill for our 6 through eight teach fees so that's quite a big change our Focus there is really looking at supporting that implementation this year additionally revising the report card standards at the elementary level to be sure that they align with those new resources and our expectations and then at the middle school level ensuring that we have both a clear placement process for advanced mathematics courses at the middle school level as well as transparency for families and students about how that placement takes place so that we have options for students to participate in those accelerated programs when they are ready and also have some fluidity so that if students you know don't make the cff
023scores they do have an option to continue to work towards those advanced classes in future years rather than um a more traditional model of kind of getting stuck if you don't make the cut off off in the initial year for science We are continuing to frame our ongoing work with the ecology school and also in in conjunction with that looking at field trips K through 8 to be sure that our field trips align with particularly science and social studies curriculum and looking at consistency so that all first graders have at least uh a consistent experience and then building towards that consistency over a number of years one of the things that we're pretty excited about in our ecology school and field trip discussions is looking at a model where we would pair sixth graders with
024first graders for a field trip then seventh grade with second grade eighth grade with third grade which would keep those students working together potentially over the course of three years to kind of um develop some of those mentoring relationships with younger students our social studies team is continuing to work on articulating common resources we have a a really strong group of teachers that have been kind of creating units over time and then through covid uh the focus was primarily on math and literacy and so we're really looking to ensure that we have common resources and clear expectations for teachers about what social studies content and units will look like so we look forward to kind of having something to bring to the school board in that subject area by the close of this school year
025and that's all I have any questions for assistant superintendent parkur on the curriculum update School Board member Gail just a quick question on the social studies will those updates go through the the uh the new curriculum uh committee and then be coming up yep so the um curriculum design team is kind of the internal teacher and administrator group and then what the recommendations of that team are and updates from that team will then be provided to the curriculum committee subcommittee of the school board any other questions thank you very much thank you that brings us to item D the October finan statements it is in your packet there's a link to the October financials in your packet we'll be superintendent Ray will we be hearing from you or will we be hearing from Finance director
026dado you'll just for me and again this is just more information of what we discussed in finance committee of knowing where we stand uh currently uh in the next month you'll start to see the encumbrances of all staff uh in the November so that we can look at where some of those available balances are for the end of the year but this is informational in nature any questions on the October financials no questions moving on to item e the pre-audit financials superintendent R yes Jason as he was getting prepared um for the audit that occurs every year I just wanted to kind of give a highlight to where we were um at the end of last year um at the end of last year and there is more detailed information in the finance committee Budget
027on this but we close the year with 1.96 four million uh in a positive balance a lot of that was planned based off the fact that we received additional School subsidy uh at the end of the school year it allowed us to pay off uh fully pay off the $995,000 that we are in the deficit with the city so that that account is back to zero we Ed $275,000 as carryover um in the budget for this year as a increased revenue and so as we ended the year we ended the year with a positive balance uh still remaining of $693,000 um that will be part of our discussions during the upcoming budget year to see how we start the year um knowing that we do have to to fill $275,000 as a whole but as
028we can look at that other money to anticipate any one-time expenses that may or may not hit the hit our budget we know we have a lot of capital that we have to focus on um and then I think it's also important just to remember like I said before that in all of our homes we see utilities costes increases and I suspect we will have great conversation as a city and school department about the same things that we are seeing here so we may strategically want to look at you know is this a one-time piece how can we invest to lower some cost Etc thank you any questions for superintendent Ray moving on to item F the seag training comprehensive School threat assessment guidelines and we will hear from assistant superintendent parkur do you see
029how quick that came up on the screen so just want to give everyone an overview of some training that we are working on with a tri District partnership around comprehensive school threat assessment guidelines just a little background about what that is who we have participating why we're doing it and some of our next steps so essentially it is a training that is being supported by the main School Safety Center but it is a national evidence-based program it is not just adopted or created in Maine though they are kind of financially supporting the training at the state level and it's a problemsolving approach which is intended to prevent violence in order to assess and intervene with students who have threatened violence in some way it's not only recommended by the US Department of Education but Secret
030Service and the FBI and what it does is trains a multidisciplinary team in every school to be able to identify behaviors of concern assess the actual level of risk and then provide appropriate interventions so there are two levels of training that we are currently in the level one training section of it's a six-hour training though uh some of us have found it takes quite a bit longer than that to complete depending on how far you dig into some of the related resources that's an online self-paced training that all individuals participating will have about a month month and a half to complete and the level two training is a 4our training that is online but it's completed with interdisciplinary teams attending together on their sites generally our threat assessment teams in each School include administrators school
031counselors social workers nurses resiliency coordinators and or the school resource officer so we have a combination of different stakeholders involved in that process and as I shared before it's being provided free by the main School Safety Center last year we did have some Administration trained across three District three districts and multiple other pockets of Staff what we did not have was a cohesive system to ensure that we had a team at every single school that could be called upon to come into action in these situations I'm excited to report that across all districts we have will have 92 staff members trained by the end of this calendar year 44 in bord six in Dayton 35 in Sako and then seven across the central office team so a little bit more information about what it is
032and what the evidence-based outcomes are those that are in a violent pathway though it may seem that it just kind of happened out of the blue the Research indicates that that's not generally the truth that there are warnings signs that are present we just need to be aware of what those are so that we can intervene and not only help stop that behavior but get to the root of the problem and help the student down a better pathway so that those threats do not repeat a behavioral threat assessment is a fact-based non-punitive method of identification so it's really intended to inter intervene with the behavior to problem solve to ensure that that behavior does not incur occur again and that the the root cause is addressed that collaborative multidisciplinary team is really important so that
033it's not just one person making a decision but a team of people that are trained using tools to kind of identify ways in which they might intervene there are documented decreases in use of suspension counseling is often used more when students receive a threat assessment students and staff both report a more positive School climate in schools where this is implemented and students report less bullying and more willingness to seek help from adults so those are all really key factors that we feel are critical for our schools that we believe this training will help us achieve as has been proven in other areas so by the end of December we will have our school teams completed with level one and level two training there's an online platform that the state is offering for free to districts
034that we will get information about this spring that allows access to some of those tools and checklists that syncs with our student information system but keeps it separate so that those threat assessments don't necessarily become punitive records unless it's deemed by the threat assessment team that they should but we still have an ongoing record of those and then we will continue to review procedures that we have in buildings to be sure that they align with the learning that we acquire through seag so that we're kind of cohesive across the board looking at the data as we begin to conduct behavioral threat assessments with teams to identify Trends or patterns that we would be able to mitigate or head off a little bit earlier and then of course look at our school practices and preventative measures
035in response to uh that data to be sure that we're continually making growth for our students I'm happy to take any questions any questions from the board School Board member Gail so just to confirm so the by December 2022 every school will have have a a group C group yep so we um began that level one training just I think a week into November and have until December 13th which is the date of the level two training to complete that online portion so yes and then how is it I guess the group comes together to determine whether or not it's a punitive intervention or like I guess how is that determined because it seems like it would be a pretty fine line so the the threat assessment is actually separate from the decision for something
036to be punitive or non-punitive the purpose of the behavioral threat assessment is purely a safety decision and what interventions should take place to ensure that this threat is not carried out Andor that this student has the supports that they need to not take the next steps with this the threat that they've made or they understand the severity of it it's a purely problem-solving approach and it's intended to be separate from what the punitive piece is so yes you might have like the administrator that's participating could be part of both of those teams but it's really about separating what the punishment is and how can we solve the problem and ensure that students are safe and that the student who may be making a threat gets the help that they need rather than just getting a
037punishment which isn't to say that there's never a punishment warranted so then for for every threat then is the idea then that there would be a separate threat assessment on the other end of that too so that there's the punitive side if the case but then also this kind of more supportive holistic approach yes yeah and and part part of the threat threat assessment can certainly inform what level of punishment may be appropriate but they are separate any other questions Schoolboard member Johnston um excuse me so I'm trying to sort of I think like will trying to put together how this process will work so if I am a teacher for instance and I it comes to my attention that there's some what might be perceived as a threat however it might be I would
038then bring that forward to who would be the next step so for from a teacher standpoint it would follow the same kind of procedures they would let an administrator know or refer it to a guidance counselor or the office all of those folks would kind of know now that it it would eventually get filtered down to somebody who's on that team and depending on the sever of it it's it doesn't you know based on the training and I don't want to get too far into it it's not like we're convening a team to have a three-hour meeting anytime there's a referral that sounds like it may be a threat but every team member that has been trained then has some checklist items clear questions and understanding of how to make a determination about the level
039of severity sometimes that means the team is going to come back and have a really big conversation based on the information that they gather and sometimes just because a member of the team has been trained and they've gone down through a couple lines of questioning and understood the situation better they can act you know as a single actor without convening the whole team so from a teacher's perspective the referral would still look the same but it's the people responding to that referral that now have a cohesive response and a team to work with when needed to respond to that referral okay thank you very much yeah any other questions from the board no questions thank you very much thank you that brings us to item 13 on the agenda which is other information there's no
040other information noted at this time unless anybody has anything that brings us to item 14 there's no executive session this evening so that brings us to item 15 I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second Schoolboard member Truman second by School Board member prebel any discussion roll call vote to adjourn Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member prebble yes Schoolboard member Richard yes School Board member La Fortune yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 at 5:37 p.m. have a wonderful evening everyone for