001e e e greetings and welcome to the Saka school board meeting for Wednesday April 5th 2023 call this meeting to order at 7 p.m let the record reflect that all school board members are present with the exception of school board member Richard who is excused with that like to invite you all to join us on the Pledge of Allegiance thank you very much moving on to item three of the agenda is approval of the Schoolboard meeting minutes dated March 22nd 2023 is there a motion to approve the minutes Mr Mayor School Board member Truman I move we approve the school board meeting minutes dated March 22nd 2023 motion's been made is there a second second second by School Board member Archie any discussion on the minutes for March 22nd see no discussion roll call vote
002School Board member Archie yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Le forun yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 brings us to item four there are no adjustments this evening to the agenda brings us to item five there's no correspondence in the packet uh so that brings us to item six public comment if there's any member of the public who would like to address the school board please come forward and be heard with nobody seeking recognition moving on to item seven of the agenda and that is a superintendent's report superintendent Ray all right good evening everybody uh a couple of things to uh inform you about this week just reminder to everybody watching at home that school vacation week is next
003week and uh our last day is Wednesday and for anybody who is staying local if you look at the weather next week you're looking at mid 70s throughout the week next year here in s Maine so uh hopefully those Lawns will dry up and people can get outside and uh do all those fun things which also means that with that warm weather we can start to think about turning the heat off in the buildings because our buildings hold plenty of heat and we know that CK burns doesn't like to have it very hot there on this so you know warm weather and money savings all the way around Mr Meers uh good things um most of you have informed you but uh we did uh knowing that our snow days had gone into uh June
00420th and we'd put forward a request to the commissioner uh for an alternative method to make up days that was approved and we have sent out notice to our parents of how we can extend hours to make up one of those uh snow days so that we don't have to come back on a Tuesday after a weekend I can't imagine attendance would have been very strong on that day uh for students uh we'll spend some time tonight talking about the budget and the good news about additional funding and how hopefully tonight we can approve a budget so that it can be put forth to the city council for their deliberation uh the timing allowed us to kind of foreshadow what we were going to talk about tonight with the city council on Monday uh and
005so they've seen uh much of those things as positions and and retirements occur or people move on to different positions or we look at some of the unfilled positions that we had this year that we are hopefully going to be able to rehire for next year we have placed ads to start that hiring process so that we can um be aggressive uh in recruiting and hiring um as certainly that is a challenge for schools uh and then finally just um one piece is that between the three School departments that we that I serve the week after uh April vacation we're going to our administrators here will be participating in a countywide uh with a lot of County agencies a safety kind of tabletop exercise and one of the pieces that we're interested in kind of
006focusing on our side is that if an emergency in one of our School departments um happened or similar to what happened in the fall in Sanford that had a great effect on um the communications and the operations in each and every school so really focusing on that piece of if an emergency happen in one of our communities how do we all respond how do we communicate with each other how do we share information and so that will be a pretty intense day for administrators uh throughout the three districts to make sure that we are focused on um all the pieces that you know and curve balls that can be thrown at you um with a bad situation and you know if one of our schools has a has a tough day anywhere in the state
007of Maine it will impact us all here locally and how we communicate and uh work with Community families and all the organizations involved thank you thank you very much any questions for superintendent Ray no questions moving on to item eight chair report chair prebble I don't have anything new to report this evening but thank you thank you that brings us to item nine staff reports there are no staff reports in the agenda so therefore we will move on to item 10 board subcommittee meeting minutes there was a policy and Personnel committee meeting today uh at 5:30 uh the finance and infrastructure minutes from 3:30 were in the packet their next meeting is 4:26 April 26th at 4m. and the curriculum committee minutes from the 3:27 meeting uh were in the agenda and their next meeting
008is April 24th at 4:30 brings us to item 11 which is old business there's no old business this evening brings us to item 12 new business item a is new hires there was a memorandum in your packet is there a motion there's none needed no motion is needed so memorandum is Just for information only any questions on the memorandum for new hires that was in your packet with no questions moving on to Item B resignations again memorandum in your packet uh does not look like it requires motion uh any questions on the resignation memorandum in your packet with no questions moving on to item C the second reading of the 2023 2024 school calendar is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Truman I move we approve the second reading of the 2023 2024
009School C calendar second motion's been made and seconded by School Board member Johnston any discussion on the calendar roll Calla vote on the calendar Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member prebble yes School Board member L Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 60 the second reading of the 2023 24 school calendar brings us to item d a construction update superintendent Ray all right just an update for um members of the committee and for the public Monday night was an exciting night for the school department in the project as the city council um was able to dedicate property towards the project while also uh entering uh an option agreement for the additional property that we need for what is called the Clare parcels and
010the new um building that would be located along Route one that is a major milestone for this for the school department and for the city in this project moving forward as that is one of the pieces that is needed for us to move towards um the site application piece as we look at the site application piece it is looking more and more likely like the June not the May agenda for the state board but the June agenda for the State Board uh based off really we need to have a do scoping meeting that is being scheduled but obviously working between multiple state agencies um and vacation schedules can lead to some delays um but that is expected at the end of April is Our Hope one of the exciting pieces that will be coming before
011you um very soon is an updated space allocation and this is significant as part of the process of working with the doe and the square footage is looking at using a building that will be based off the ability to house 1100 students has been agreed upon which will allow for um plenty of space for our students throughout the building but will allow for more of that project to um be covered without local expense um that's a big deal on the space allocation and I would say that probably within a couple of meetings you'll start to see more of like how many classrooms how many gym fed teachers etc etc throughout um because there's an allocation of you know how much space is dedicated to a principal's office um but that is really coming together nicely
012um what Meg has been working on the last couple of days is trying to come up with a couple of meeting dates this spring for public session meetings um and one of the things that we're trying to schedule around is getting the little league softball and baseball schedules because we know that's where parents can sometimes be in the springtime in Lacrosse and looking at those schedules to say okay is there a night or a time where we may know that not only can we have a meeting at SMS to talk about the building committee but it would be at the time when we think that four teams of little league softball might be playing out back and we can hope to cral them into the meeting so that the public can learn more about the
013process uh and where we're starting so a lot of uh exciting things with the um construction project that we keep moving with that eye on November thank you very much any questions for superintendent Ray surrounding the construction update moving on to item e we have the sixth grade project based update assistant superintendent parkur thank you principal sus and I have been working together and provided a brief update to the curriculum committee last week two weeks ago and um wanted to just highlight some of the upper level pieces that are included in your memo first I will introduce a little bit about what Project based learning is generally speaking and then principal Susi will take on some of the details regarding how we are planning to approach our project-based learning in the coming years so project-based
014learning is essentially taking the learning standards and the objectives that we know that students need to achieve in the state of Maine and then backwards planning instruction around a student centered student-led real life application project so that that learning isn't just existing on a page but that we're building that into something that can apply to an impact having Greater Community influence than going through the chapters in a workbook for example so that you would still have some of that direct instruction it's not just all Hands-On all the time but that that direct instruction in adding and subtracting decimals for example would then lead to helping with some kind of accounting project in the real world so that you're not just learning the concept to prove your proficiency but actually utilizing that learning in a real
015life situation I'll turn it over to principal Susi to speak a little bit about the background of Project based learning and the current status and then talk a little bit about uh some information we got from the main curriculum leaders Association that was a really great opportunity that we saw to shift the way that we look at Project based for our sixth graders thank you so to provide you some with with provide you with some background in about 2015 s b Sako Middle School implemented Project based learning on the seventh and eth grade level so there's there was a team implemented in seventh grade a three person team and an eighth grade team of three people as well several years later we decided um to include a sixth grade team so the goal in the
016seventh and eighth grade team was to provide a community centered learning opportunity in which as assistant uh superintendent Parkers mentioned um there's auth authentic learning around problem solving um staff at the time engaged in professional text visits to other Project based schools in the area and some training through the buck Institute for Project based learning so with Project based learning you basically start with a problem or an opportunity and students are presented with this problem or opportunity some projects in the past that have been conducted was one specifically where we had an opportunity right behind the school to utilize our trail system um in behind the fields including the Vernal pool study and outdoor classrooms so the team in of students at the time and have continued since have worked on redeveloping and expanding those
017um spaces and have implemented an outdoor classroom in that area another project that was done you may have seen it was um in the news at the time but there was an erosion study at Camp Ellis in collaboration with Public public works so at the time that was a real problem that our community was facing so with Project based learning you are bringing in the community as much as you can and currently this year we have a problem at Sak Middle School that was in investigated by our sixth grade team which was the lack um of composting so students began by investigating how much trash was used or created on a day week month you know uh spread that over the course of a year they came up with a plan to begin composting they
018did um some advertising around school taught other students in the school how to compost difference between the two compostable and not compostable and we're current that's currently in Project progress so that is again a real life application that's going to improve your community so currently as I mentioned we have a sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade team these teams are made up of three teachers so instead of a Math Science Social Studies language arts we combine language arts and social studies into a Humanities class so then we have the threers team the pro the teams Loop so with sixth grade this year they'll stay as a project-based team Loop into seventh grade grade and loop into e8th grade um we have not seen the level of application and quantity of interdisciplinary projects in the
019sixth grade as much as the seventh and eighth grade and additionally in the past we used a survey for teachers once we got once we got to know the students to figure out where how to place them on the team currently we've asked teachers in at the fifth grade level to provide us some input so as we know there's quite a bit of transition that happens between Elementary School and middle school so what we'd like to do moving forward is sort of twofold one is to continue offering more opportunities throughout the school as we know that this is um best practice and a great way for students uh to gain those skills that they need in the real world um and also to solidify a better process for placing students on those teams when they
020get into seventh and eighth grade um so we have some professional development as Meg mentioned coming up we are going to across sixth grade ask teachers to have at least one Project based unit that they are exposing students to that type of learning so all students coming in will have that opportunity after we've gotten to know the students they've had this experience then we will have a better handle or idea of which students would belong on the more focused Project based teams for 7th and eighth grade so our sixth grade teachers have an opportunity to engage in some professional development over the summer through the Humane um project and then we are also going to do some more intensive training with the seventh and eth some seventh and eighth grade teachers um at the buck
021Institute and these teachers will all bring this professional development back to the school in order to move Project based learning as a school I'm going to pass it back over to you so I just wanted to provide a little bit more background on the institute for Humane education which is essentially project-based learning that is focused on students identifying an idea in human rights environmental pre preservation or animal protection that they really want to solve and then working through the course of a unit that's a little bit more structured than a a truly open-ended project for students so that we can work our sixth grade students at the whole entire grade level through the learning that those teachers will engage in summer so that they can Implement that unit with students it will provide a an
022opportunity for all sixth grade students to experience that model be a little bit more structured opportunity so that our instruction is consistent for all sixth graders in terms of what that project-based approach looks like and see provide the Middle School a really good way to kind of determine which students are a great fit for that in the seventh and eth grade looping scenario scario I know for my own children I have one who would really struggle with open-ended problems and loves to complete assignments and and do it that way end a unit start a unit pre-test post test and another one who really does not enjoy that and so it's it's certainly an approach that is good for all students to experience but is not necessarily a full model that works for all kids we're
023happy to answer any questions that you might have thank you very much any questions Mr Mayor Schoolboard member Johnson first of all thank you for a great presentation and I really appreciate being on the curriculum committee I really appreciate you bringing that to the whole board um my question is in the seventh and eighth grade is there going to be an opportunity for seventh and eighth graders who are not in the regular project-based Community to maybe have as you mentioned in sixth grade at least one opportunity to experience that type of learning yeah I think um Marie being in those classrooms on a regular basis can certainly expand on that there are certainly projects that occur in all seventh and eth grade classrooms even if they're not on the project based team and I think
024after we have this more Universal project-based approach for a unit in sixth grade we can certainly evaluate how effective that is and determine how we might want to shift or not what that nonpr based seventh and eth grade team experience looks like okay thank you any other questions thank you very much thank you that brings us to item F of the agenda and that is a budget update and there was a state subsidy update memorandum in your pack which again we all kind of talked about and um pre- shadowed on Monday night uh during the joint meeting with the city counil uh which results in $839,000 more in state subsidy 887 887 excuse me so even more uh superintendent Ray so you have all listen to the same thing twice in the last seven days
025so probably will lighten up the uh commentary on this one but for the public at home the great news is is that oh you know n eight days ago we were notified by the doe that a mistake in in the funding formula was put out to schools and they found the mistake which the end result pushed $887,000 worth of additional subsidy towards us and we were looking at at at that point in time a kind of an impact to the taxpayers of around $2.2 million long story short that brings us a long ways to a goal of reducing the overall tax load if we can remember from our budget uh discussions that our budget consisted of salaries and benefits and utility increases and that we weren't asking for a whole lot more um and what
026we've done is that last week and I have some you know same enrollment projections that we looked at La last week and at the council meeting but we came up with some reductions to say how do we put forward a budget that we think will meet the needs of our students um meet the needs of our community and allow us to put something uh in the hands of the city council that we felt was more workable uh based off some feedback that they received and knowing that you know kind of the state of Theon e omy Etc and so last week and on Monday we talked about a budget reduction sheet and that there were some costs that we had to add to the budget uh around uh increased fuel cost casual uh cyber Casualty
027Insurance and uh the addition of one additional approved bus lease uh as the state of Maine has provided us was six um an opportunity to purchase six buses with uh full subsidy reimbursement in this cycle additionally we were able to look at budget reductions of moving one of our teachers because the more Title One funding is coming in to be paid for out of federal funds instead of local funds which saves $88,000 we are able to decrease Capital uh improvements by $50,000 uh and still have a half a million dollars plus in our budget we also received good news that the maximum health insurance increase with would be 6% and it was just a little bit we get that today a little over 5% uh so we can reduce $110,000 our workers comp rates have
028decreased so we were able to save $43,000 when looking at class sizes moving up to the sixth grade uh we had an unfilled position at the middle school as a classroom position from someone that moved from SMS to Burns and equalizing class sizes across the district will allow us to convert one of those classroom positions into an art position as we have 600 students at the middle school and currently one art teacher uh and this is an opportunity for us to provide more art experiences for our kids um and at the same time we were able to decrease our legal expenditures for next year by $5,000 making a total reduction recommendation of $246,000 to the board now if the board accepts those uh recommendations that will put us into um a revenue sheet SL taxation
029situation to pass forward to um the city council which we talked about this and they have seen this number where our total expenditures from year to year are up 3.84% or 1.8 Mill million do now I think things that are going up 3.8% in this climate is while sometimes more than what we want is fairly reasonable when we look at the overall pictures of what other costs whether it be from fuel to supplies has gone up now when you take the $1.8 million and then you bring in the additional $887,000 worth of subsidy Plus plus some other changes in adult education we're able to put forward to the city council a budget that is an increase of 1. one21 million or 3.85% for consideration um and I think that at this point in the year
030of it still being early April and being able to come in with this kind of figures knowing your health insurance and not having to to cut any existing staff um we can put something forward that allows us to have greater conversation this spring uh and hopefully fine-tune that will work not only for the school department but work for the city council and for the taxpayers uh in a reasonable fashion so I put forth that budget to you guys uh hopefully looking for an approval so that we can move the process forward any questions on the budget uh presented by the superintendent Schoolboard member Gail um I apologize if we discussed this in a prior meeting but I was just um uh can you explain the the contingency and the increase there and um what what
031that's for and if that can roll over into next year if it's not used so can we are in the middle of staff negotiations and so that's where funds for negotiations may be any other questions is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Truman um I move we approve the proposed 2023 2024 school budget based on the updated Revenue sheet second motion's been made by Schoolboard member Truman second by Schoolboard member Preble any discussion Schoolboard member Truman I just want to say that considering where we started and with all the numbers that we really didn't have any control over where it's salaries and benefits and at the mercy of those numbers uh coming in I think we're in a really as good a shape as we can be in and I'm thanks for uh
032pushing the state on the that subsidy on the Ed 279 so that's great work on that part thank you any further discussion roll call vote School Board member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member L Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 to approve the budget presented that brings us to item G which is a second reading of policies policy EB environmental health health and safety program/ riskmanagement policy ebaa chemical hazards policy eae AA drug and alcohol testing of school bus drivers and ebca comprehensive health and safety and Emergency Management plan is there a motion Mr Mayor School Board member Johnston I move we approve the second reading of policies EB EB AA e EA EAA and ebca second motion's been made by
033school board member Johnston second by School Board member Truman any discussion on these second rating of policies School Board member trumman uh I just I think on the uh eaaa drug and alcohol testing of school bus drivers we just made a slight amendment to that one just adding in a paragraph at the very end um just to clarify one little piece just just in case anybody missed it in their packet thank you any other discussion on the second reading of policies no further discussion roll call vote School Board member Archie yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member La Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 bring item 13 there is no other information in tonight's packet item 14 there is no executive session this
034evening so with that uh item 15 I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved School Board member prebble is there a second second second by School Board member Truman any discussion on adjourning roll call to adjourn Schoolboard member Archie yes Schoolboard member prebble yes Schoolboard member L Fortune yes School Board member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes School Board member Johnston yes yes motion passes 60 to adjourn at 7:32 have a great evening everyone