001e e e good evening everyone and welcome to the city of Sak Schoolboard meeting for November 12th 2024 at 6:32 would like to make recognition that all school board members are present with superintendent Ray would you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you um so tonight we have moved up so item number three is an executive session is there a motion Madame mayor School Board member Truman I move we enter executive session for the evaluation of employee pursuant to 1 MRSA subsection 405 6A motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman is there a second second second by Schoolboard member Fel roll call vote School Board uh School Board member waroff yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member Gail yes
002School Board member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion to enter executive session passes 70 at 6:33 and we will be downstairs in the conference room e e e executive session so moved motion made by school board member Truman second second by School Board member prebble roll call vote School Board member waroff yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yep and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion to exit executive session at 7:17 and there is no report okay it takes us to item number four and that's the approval of the Schoolboard meeting minutes dated October 23rd 2024 and November 6th of 2024 is there a motion Madame mayor School Board member Truman I move we approve the school
003board meeting minutes dated October 23rd 2024 and November 6 2024 motion has been made is there a second second SC uh motion by scoo m Johnson second any discussion on the minutes okay roll call vote Schoolboard member waroff yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach wasn't wasn't here for the 23rd so abstain Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 60 with one abstention okay item number five this evening there are no adjustments to the agenda there is no correspondence item number seven is public session if there is anyone wishing to speak to the school board members please uh step up to the podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes good
004evening my name is Kristen fulo I the military school liaison from the ports Naval Shipyard and P Air National Guard base um I am not a resident of Sako but I am here on behalf of a family I'm speaking to you today after being notified of a significant issue involving a military family and thoron Academy Aris uh arising in the month of October I was fortunately not brought into this discussion until the damage was done as this is is an issue involving a minor I will keep all information General and factual I would like to State now and for the record that myself and the family acknowledge that the superintendent of schools of uh in Sako Jeremy Ray and special education director Jessica Clark have been working diligently to support this student and we commend
005their efforts uh the incident in question happened on Friday October 4th in which a student was given a 10day suspension beginning on Monday October 7th the student in question has an IEP on day 10 of his suspension Thorton Academy held a manifestation determination meeting at that meeting it was determined that the incident was in fact a manifestation of the students disability during that same meeting it was revealed that there was an expulsion hearing on Monday October 21st which was the first that the parents have heard of this a review of documentation revealed that the school had scheduled the expulsion meeting on October 15th prior to EV prior to ever having the required manifestation determination during that meeting the team did not want to discuss next steps in supporting this student until after that meeting it
006was clear before they entered into the discussion that they had made up their minds to expel this student the parent did not receive this letter until October 19th via standard mail dad a non-native English speaker and member of our us milit AR was confused and dismayed at what was happening and why his concerns and the concerns brought forward by his son prior to and during this incident had not been addressed I wish to highlight violations to the students rights under Ida main unified special education regulation and Main compilation of school discipline laws and regulations and while I am not an attorney violations and contradictory language within the contract between Sako and thoron Academy according to the contract date 9 September 2013 contract for education of secondary pupils between Thorton Academy in the city of Sako
007under section four status is a private school the parties understand that the academy is and will remain a private school and shall maintain the right to determine its curriculum its educational and departmental standards its student body faculty staff and operations provided however that all such actions shall be in Conformity with the provisions of this this contract and applicable main law I did send you all a copy of this if I missed anybody in that email please let me know um article six special needs um Academy will comply with all of the state and federal special education legal requirements for Sako students enrolled in the academy to attempt to be brief um the student was denied his educational rights under fape for 45 days as of today not only has the student not had the ability
008to access his education he has not also not had the ability to access the services he needs under his IEP under manifestation determination uh it was determined that the incident was a manifestation of his disability therefore further support should have been put in place again this is a violation of the student right violation under written prior notice they were not given 7 days prior to any meeting the right to Due Process student was expelled from school denying him his fape as he should never have been ex expelled he was denied due process in this determination same thing under main compilation of school discipline laws at no time did Thorton Academy inform the superintendent of schools or the school board um as Thorton Academy is acting as a private school and per their contract they have
009the right to determine their student body they executed dis disciplinary um processes in a vacuum leaving Sako to pick up the pieces we are a minute and a half over if you just want to kind of I will try thank you sorry that's okay this is clearly a big issue um while Thorton Academy is acting as a private school Under the 64 6040 schools they are accepting roughly 80% of their funding from public funding sources which is about $17 million how can a school determine its student body when these students do not have a choice but to attend what's worse is the uncovering of so many other special education students that have met the same problem with Thorton Academy parents of special education children have been fighting their whole lives for their kids I was
010a special educator I was a special educator because my child has issues these families don't have any left in them and they are being forced to go to a school where their child's needs are not met in addition to and again you have all of this in writing I have a military family who struggles financially and is doing the best for their child who is paying for school lunch it's unacceptable it is a law in the state of Maine there are so many things wrong with this I am asking asking members of the Sako school board that it is time to abandon Blind Faith and demand transparency and accountability from Thorton Academy your students Futures do depend on it if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me I thank you
011for your extended time and the work that you're doing thank you if there is anyone else wishing to address the school board please step up okay not seeing anyone seeking recognition moving on to item eight tonight and that is the superintendent report superintendent Ray good evening everyone um few things uh to talk about tonight um one of those uh being that over the last several years um this I think really started probably during some of the covid time um bord and Sako schools and Dayton schools have worked together to provide um Thanksgiving baskets in the community uh we usually get together on a Saturday morning I believe our date is the 23rd this year uh where we'll pack uh a bunch of Thanksgiving boxes typically over a hundred um bitterford high school student council puts
012on uh a food drive for this um and I just want to get that out there that families need assistance uh reach out to resiliency coordinators and we'll line some things up for your family but also want to give a um special thank you to brown dog carriers who provide us with a frozen food truck uh to store turkeys and other types of pieces um also aid for Sako kids is accepting donations for this because we'll use some of our funds for aid for Sako kids for uh families in need um Sako Middle School Bobcat players on Thursday December 5th and Friday the 6 at 6:30 in the SMS CF um for a presentation of Brothers Grim spectacul Thon the fast-paced comedy attempts to combined 209 stories uh all at one time so that ought
013to be interesting in probably an hour and a half but uh be a great thing for our kiddos uh tickets are seven for adults and five for students um I want to thank CK Burns coaches Kelsey McVey and Tom partridge and our special education staff are implementing one of the first elementary schools unified fall sports teams in Maine um we had the unified soccer team uh this fall um and Old Orchard Beach and Soo players and partners had an end of the season soccer game uh in October and it was just great to see students excitement and to bring those together um we'll be starting our um Unified basketball for not only our Middle School uh kids but continuation at the elementary level um which is just great to see there's a lot that gets
014built out of that piece um today I had the opportunity um to go to main water uh because obviously main water feeds both Sako and bitterford with all of our fresh drinking water and to really start brainstorming about what could be some potential um programming for our students which is uh important I thought a unique uh thing that we could do here uh in our communities and then finally um I am I will send you guys when I get home tonight A a draft email but there's extremely important legislation that is sitting in front of the Senate right now in Washington and it is HR 82 and we say okay why we don't hear a lot about us advocating here at the federal level but this is a kind of a surprise bill that passed
015the house the other day and this means a lot to main teachers as you know right now main Educators um are not allowed to take Social Security and Main State retirement so if you worked in another job under Social Security and then went to main State retirement you lose that benefit if you retire and we're one of 13 states it's that way that surprisingly passed the house and Senator Collins is bringing that to the floor and I will send you guys a draft of an email that I sent today uh because that's important not only is it important for our Educators who have worked other jobs and in other states you can get that benefit but it's important for us when we think about hiring and people who may want to come into education out
016of another field uh while this doesn't directly impact Sako schools having a Vocational Center that we work with many of our instructions come out of the trades and and it's very very difficult for someone to say what do you mean I won't get my Social Security anymore so uh that's an important bill for us uh here and crossing over our fingers that in a week or so's time this could be a real game Cher for the state of Maine of how we attract uh teachers into the workforce and a benefit that they obviously have worked for in their life great thank you very much any questions or comments for superintendent Ry oh Madam mayor can I add one more thing yes I just reminder to everybody walking watching at home um one I say it
017every time this time of year please make sure we have the right information for snow day calls um because judged on the temperatures this morning we're not that far away um and then unless directed differently uh by the board I think you guys may have seen some things in the paper but you know my feelings about inperson versus remote days I am very much a believer that our kids need in-person instruction versus remote instruction we saw with our little ones that it was not uh the best during covid and so I will again be recommending um that we have regular snow days unless we get into a situation where okay now we're looking at the end of June or other complications but until we're at that point just so that people understand I'm looking at
018snow days kids should be kids we should have that enjoyment uh the only thing I wish is that all of our kids get to not get a phone call but could experience that listening to the radio like we used to do for the rundown that would be really exciting um but just so that everyone's aware of uh where I guess I am philosophically on that piece great thank you okay item number nine is the chair's report uh School Board chair PR I don't have any official reports but I want to take a minute to honor will it's your last meeting and I just wanted to take a moment to just say thank you for all of your service and time it's been a joy having you on Council um school board and asking questions and
019keeping us on our toes and we're really going to miss your energy we're really excited for April to come aboard to but we're really going to miss you I'm going to totally miss you so I just wanted to take a moment to really recognize your service and your time into our community and I want to thank you for that um and that's kind of where I'll leave it I don't have any other things to um report but I wanted to really say thank you for all of your hard work we're really going to miss you and hope hopefully someday you might change your mind and come back and join us some time thank you okay item number 10 there are no staff reports this evening item 11 is the board subcommittee uh first one is
020the policy and Personnel committee the next meeting is December 11th at 5:30 item number two is the finance and infrastructure committee next meeting is January 29th at 4:30 and item three is the curriculum committee and the next meeting is November 25th at 4:30 okay there is no old business this evening item number 13 is new business item a is the new hires there is a memo in your packet with the new hire information but there is no motion needed Item B is a stien memo there is the memo in your packet and is there a motion Madame mayor School Board member Truman I move we approve the nomination of those listed in the cpen memo and issue a stien contract for the 2024 25 school year motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman is
021there a second second School uh second by School Board member TR Johnston any discussion on that memo okay roll call vote Schoolboard member waroff yes Schoolboard member Preble yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member Johnston School Board member Truman sorry yes Schoolboard member Johnston yes my sheet got mixed up here okay motion passes 70 okay that now takes us to item C and that's resignations and there is another memo in your packet but there is no motion needed item D is a transportation supervisor memo Schoolboard member uh superintendent Ray thank you it's just loading up on my screen but I'll I guess I'll talk my way through it um without it loading up properly um one of the things that we had talked about is we
022had talked about the survey that we did on Transportation um and looking at some of the things to help support that office and while I've got a couple of vans on order that takes some time as we started to look at um the department as a whole and looking at how um we recently shifted um recently we have shifted the current Transportation dispatcher R to more of a kind of assistant uh the transportation supervisor with genie then we had um the the other position that Felicia was in uh and we really felt like that should be become like an assistant director position or I what's the the title Meg on that one Transportation supervisor because it's a situation where um you know they're in and out of the office they're working on things they're working
023with drivers if Genie is out we need to make sure that there's a you know somebody that is providing Direction um and these people work on the roads all the time they're in the office their back and uh recommending a change in um the title of that position in the job description uh to recognize what's needed in that office and the people that we have in the position great thank you any questions or comments are you looking for a motion to change the name of this or do you need that or I think it's important for us to recognize uh that there's a change in the structure over there so that makes makes it brings Clarity to everybody I'll give it a stab Schoolboard member Truman would you like to make a motion uh I
024move we approve the change in job title and description um for the transportation dispat dispatch position and make it the transportation supervisor position motion has been made by school board member Truman is there a second second second by Schoolboard member prel any discussion or comments okay roll call vote School Board member waroff yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 okay that now takes us to item e and that's a change in the Welcome Center Director job description okay this is more informative uh for us because uh bford is the uh Fiscal Agent for the wel Center position as we've been able to receive the grant money in order to
025fund this position when you look at and and I want to take you to page two of the memo one of the things that since my four years uh coming here is that when I first started we had an El population in Sak of about 45 students and that had gone up and down and we'll talk about the differences over time currently between bitterford Sako and Dayton and Dayton has like a couple of ell students as a leadership team we are working with the third largest elll population combined in the state and yet a department like South Portland in their Welcome Center elll office has I think Chris said 13 employees and we we have just our central office in addition we have um 235 homeless students between three communities that we also assist with
026um and so when we a few years 16 months ago when we put this together our numbers were even a lot different 16 months ago and so as we look at it today you know we thought the Welcome Center was going to be a little bit more about registration and helping with some transportation and it's developed into a whole lot more and I think what we are feeling is that um the person that we have in the position uh had a skill set but it may be the wrong skill set now that we've grown so much and that we need someone that has more of an academic background in um some of the professional development opportunities for our teachers with elll staff a regular classroom instruction and having that back background the department size is
027growing and some ability to evaluate higher and do some of those pieces and so the bitterford board um tonight approved the change in the job description so that we would be able to hire somebody with more of those expertise um we will continue to go out and seek as many grants as we possibly can um to make sure that this is funding that we can keep from Grant sources um but the data is there and it's pretty amazing the size and scope that we're dealing with and I just I think we're feeling like because we don't have all of those expertise that we're really letting people down by not making sure there's correct staff in in the right positions thank you any questions or comments for superintendent Ray Schoolboard member roach quick question first um
028um how many languages would the uh position need to speak it it says in the in the recommendations multilanguage preferred but preferred do you find that candidate or one would be great just you know just just having one other would be great um we service I think between the two districts May I'm correct we're in the 60 plus different languages um that are out there but it seems that recently Chris talked about portugueses is like has been the big change for us five years ago um it would have been an Arabic type piece um would have been the big one but it it it changes and that will be uh part of it it's just like the hard part especially for our schools and our secretaries which we've this is you know part of looking
029at this welcome center and and re envisioning it a little bit is that a registration in a school can take upwards of three hours for one child um and like again when we started this process when we put the first uh 16 months ago we were like yeah this is a person that really doesn't need to work in the summertime well boy did we M make a mistake on that um because the volume that's there plus the assistance that's needed in connecting resources es and then you put and that's the elll part of it and then 235 homeless families in the McKinny vento pieces um you know we have um we'll probably talk about it a little bit tomorrow night at The Summit in uh Sanford but you know we put in for a grant
030as a Consortium bitter for Dayton Old Orchard Sanford uh Massabesic Acton uh for a really large homeless Grant because there's so much coordination of children in those communities who are experiencing homelessness that we are struggling to keep up whether that be from a transportation or to the fact of what do you do on Friday night when there's a new family that doesn't have a place to doesn't have a place to live what do we do we put them up in hotels we work hard um and that is something that we can only do a better job if we have the resources in place and people in the right positions um you know focused on the work and so yeah it's it's interesting it's definitely been a big change of uh you know over 10 years
031being at you know even 12 year Dozen Years in in bitterford that we hovered around 100 to 200 and then that's doubled in the last two years and you guys have gone from you know 75 kids to 240 something in that time Schoolboard member Gil so just also um I guess what is the timeline on this and I just um as a comment I mean I think obviously as fast as we can to fill something like this I feel like is imperative given everything that's going on with the Trump Administration and all this discussion about deporting people and the ml folks I'm sure there's a lot of anxiety and a bunch of fake news so to speak on what what's going on so it' be helpful to have this Resource as to help mitigate to
032the greatest extent possible feelings of anxiety or or whatever because it's that I'm afraid it's only going to be getting worse over the next couple months and um it's just going to cause a lot of stress to students so with our approval tonight in bford we will advertise for the position contract for the prior individual ends on um the end of the the calendar year so our goal is to have somebody in place uh certainly um some of the rhetoric uh online in the news and public has definitely built the anxiety up in our students and we certainly have been um dealing with that and and responding to the anxiety that is felt U from several of our students um probably more so at the older level um that can read and hear things um
033but we also have families who are feeling the same way um and so yes this is these are important positions for us um take everything out of it our school staff are dealing with human beings right in front of us that we care for uh and kids that we care for and that's the piece that we have to manage that piece with everything out around us and it's hard to uh we're going to support every kid and every family that we can no matter what the situation is yep and just a followup I mean I think that that's you know it feels like we've been going through these cycles of additional stress that teachers need to to handle in the classrooms and this feels like another one of those additional issues that um is gonna
034going to be affecting those kiddos that are probably least able to to figure out stuff on their own so that's exciting to hear that it's moving quickly and yeah hope that it all works out well great thank you anyone else okay moving on to item F and that is the enrollment summary as of October 1st 2024 so each um you know every agenda item has every agenda in this current school year has been an update on enrollment and now we're at the final uh numbers for October one reports that drive our subsidy and so I broke this down a little bit differently um for you guys than I had in the other past because I felt like it was important for us to look at the data um a little bit more closely and looking
035at some of ours uh the subcategories that move along and you know just starting on page one this is uh your student counts for the year which as uh you would be able to see is we're we're basically up 59 students from last year in our community which in the grand scheme of things isn't the biggest deal in the world what I want to draw your attention to is the subcategories and well you kind of just hit on this is that when we look at our classrooms they're made up of many different subgroups of students and one of those being our students with special needs which in our elementary grade levels is pushing the 22 plus percent a little bit lower at the high school level but overall as a community 18% of our kids
036receive special services at the same time we're a community now has 8 and a half% of our students who are ML and a couple of years ago as superintendent in bford we were about at that number and now we're at like 18% and so our classrooms and the Dynamics are definitely changing for our Educators third column uh and you guys hear me talk about this a lot and I will continue to beat this drum every opportunity that we get our rate of economically disadvantage is increasing one year ago we talked about one in four kids and as you can see in our elementary schools that is one and three and that's the ones that report one of the things I did learn the other day is that the Department of Health and and human services
037will be working directly with um the doe that any child who is receiving main care will also be in this economically disadvantaged category so sometimes we don't find out everything in the schools and there will be some of that piece and that number could be even higher and we talk about uh we've talked several times about the importance of the free lunch in our schools and why our kids need that and we talk about thanks giving baskets and we talk about all the things that's because our community looks different than it did 5 years ago we are not the same and when I came here four years ago that number of free and reduced lunch was a little lower and it continues to go up and we know that the costs are going up and
038so I put this together so that not only you could see the current snapshot of where we are because at the end of the day the student counts as you know counts a lot towards the subsidy that we receive from the state and there would be some things that would change there that could probably bring us some more subsidy from the state but I've also talked to you about valuation and valuation drives Us in the other direction but I also just wanted to um give you a historical look over time just of some snapshots and I went back to 200 17 and I put a you know kind of a nice Grid at the bottom of the page that kind of looks at where we are and where we were um you know and over
039the last couple years when we look at the economic student count that number was in the 600 and something students in our community and now it's over 900 that's a big change in essence our student count CommunityWide hasn't really changed that much in the last several years we're started to this was kind of the highest we've been in a while but let's also remember that we're a community that through the new neighbors there's 80 some odd kids that have been placed into the school department that might not be there but our poverty rates are going up our El rates are going up and we just throughout the budget piece this is you know and I'll I'll send this to the council as well so they have a good understanding of the demographics but when we
040talk about things and our priorities in the budget we've got to make sure that we have a lens referring to who our student population is and that we provide Equitable resources across the board so just wanted to bring all of us to our attention so that it's in the Forefront as we think about um school budget great thank you very much Schoolboard member roach besides the um in the last few years the free lunch program um what particularly is the state or even the feds doing to address the economic disadvantage in in budgeting you know you mentioned maybe grants and we got housing issues but so I think what's what's really challenging is that let's let's talk about uh state federal and Grant p and Grant pieces for some of the UN house piece we've
041been very fortunate that there's been several different bills that have been put forth to provide additional funds to schools the challenge in and and again I'm going to give my opinion here as superintendent that work through these pieces is that many of these funds come in an amount or a distribution based off whatever for formula and we're forced to just basically continue putting Band-Aids on issues so when you send the Sako school department $28,000 to prevent homelessness is that about what the number was 30,000 is $30,000 doesn't do a lot to prevent homelessness it allows us to do some hotel stays it allows us to to keep some families that their electricity on we buy clothes we buy food we have gift cards if a family has a fire or something like that we can
042eat up a lot of funds but we continue down this cycle of a Band-Aid here or a support here when we think about the large grant that we applied to part of the piece that I had vocalized to main State housing uh about this is that they had received an allocation in the state budget and I said I'm not interested in just a piece of an allocation because I don't fix anything or I don't even attempt to I'm just Band-Aid on not interested in that interested in doing some work I think one of the things that you know as community members you'll hear tomorrow night is that I also serve on the board at York County um shelter program and the funds are drying up and so when you look at the homeless piece whether
043that be Community Based or the impacts that it has in schools uh you'll you'll see a stat tomorrow night that 20% of all homeless families in York County had at least one child in school and so there's all of those pieces that that come into that on the state side Kevin and you're going to hear me argue this year with elected officials and throughout the entire budget process and if you uh I was lucky enough I got interviewed by Ed week a couple of weeks ago about this Nationwide in the state of Maine state of Maine gives an additional weight of 0.15 on the formula or 15 cents on a dollar to a child who is economically disadvantaged plus we do the free lunch for our prek through 8 kids that's great that is so
044needed but when you boil that weight down through the formula you essentially look at an additional $1,200 for a student who is economically disadvantaged $1,200 does not cut it during covid we were at 20% in Most states are at least .25 and what I would argue is that not only do we deal with the challenges about economically disadvantaged kids in the homes and their social needs but they come to school with so many less opportunities than other children and I'm very fortunate but I do not believe that $11,200 makes the Gap up between some of our middle class families and our kids in in poverty we need more and classrooms begin to look different as a superintendent of schools we have two elementary schools that have two very different profiles one that we know is
045in the 20 plus range and one that's closer to the 50 plus range in percentage those classrooms look different and I argue all the time that when you look at some of the other communities that receive more State funding and you look at the fact that they have 3% of their population living in poverty boy that's a very different day than 33% in Sako and 64% in bitterford those classrooms look different and we need to fund them more equitably and that is a ethical conversation that our state needs to have during this cycle and you'll hear me talk about it tomorrow night again so uh we're going to be on board on this one is that we have to stop looking at a at a spreadsheet of winners and losers and start looking at what
046is right for kids and for families and we need more funding put behind kids who are impoverished and I'm not sure that we have the will sometimes politically to do that that's my that's where I'm scared is that we don't have the will to fund these programs appropriately sorry Kevin that's that was great um just a couple of points or maybe this a question too but um so I I just would Advocate to you know keep keep kids active and busy even the after school so whatever can be wred after school especially for kids of disadvantage that don't even have a home to go to in the worst case scenario is uh is get funds that way to to to engage kids it might involve the city parks and wreck of course and that um
047what do you the question another question is um with money flowing through save from the feds and not to get too political here but you know has been proposed to eliminate the Department of Education and and and maybe it's the money stays the same maybe block grants to state but but to to Really address these Statewide uh cross States uh income disparity uh income inequality that affects every issue in this country um where would you see the Department of Education staying as as helping this or or or maybe a block grant uh directing something specific for main help do do you do you see the feds involvement as a positive to to try to help here let's talk about just funding let's just take the easy one of funding let's to simplify too let's let's
048do the funding the money let's just say that stops simple stops we already know that idea required the federal government back in 1976 or 77 to be at 40% we're at like 10 and we talked about that in another couple meetings of how much more we would get if they were actually fully funded first and foremost if the federal funding goes away without management that is only hitting us in one way mill rate increase that simple because the money has to come from somewhere those programs are Title One programs that help disadvantaged kids in students who have math and reading needs at a young age that doesn't go away without fun that just doesn't does can't just make it disappear and so when we think about the amount of federal funds that come into a
049school department and let's say that between um local entitlement and federal funds Meg Jess just look at each other and me we're probably $2 million right between the two ish okay $2 million at 4 C 4 and a. half cents per $100,000 there's 80 to 85 cents right there that hits your mill rate if it were all to go away I'm not saying it's going to that's just an example think about Transportation programs have been funded for buses and for other things for some of the other safety pieces those are managed through the Department of Education there's also the resources that come too some of them good some of them bad but guidance comes that helps us do our jobs some of those we may disagree with them or some of them we may agree
050with but it's there it's a resource somebody has to do that work coordinated efforts I find when money tight is tight the more coordinated you are the better you can be and I'm not sure that less coordination is what we need right now now there's the whole other agendas that I feel you know that this wouldn't be the time to talk about those because I believe we're still in a wait and see approach but I think it's reasonable for boards to be weary about no Department of Education and handing that directly back to States um because I'm not sure as a state we are staffed up as a State Department of Education to handle those needs so we have to be thinking about the impact coming back to the state which already is pretty challenged
051based off some economic outputs I guess it would definitely Force Kevin a greater conversation about Taxation and property tax but you know those are my early thoughts and kind of a wait and see approach Schoolboard M Gil man wish there was I wish I had a better or more uplifting question but to pile on that um kind of potentially storm clouds on The Horizon looking at um just the first page of the memo what strikes me is almost like a um an anaconda with like a pig right and so looking at where we're at with each of these categories special education ml economically disadvantaged uh as that's moving down this chart or upgrade levels it seems like it's really going to impact in the next couple years Thorton Academy and I'm curious I know we're
052in the the negotiations discussion but especially as we look at special education um or or the ml population specifically and then even to a lesser degree but still there economically disadvantaged as we talked about some of the we're trying to do Middle School down and trying to alleviate some Financial burdens on folks in order to participate in extracurricular activities how are we going to ensure especially on the special education piece at Thorton Academy is providing um the required level of Education to folks um that it looks like is going to be coming year after year soon is that something that in the contract that we're addressing or or how what is your thoughts on on that piece of it so I think that contract negotiations should be negotiations that we in the board have discussed
053in executive session and some of those things what I want to go back to Will and again not trying to avoid your question um because but I do think negotiations are something I would rather talk about in that setting U because it's never good to negotiate in public but it goes back to understanding who we are as a changing Community we're not the same community in the same demographics as 10 years ago we're not the same demographics and community that we were in 2019 2020 before March 13th of 2020 I think that all communities as you change and grow has to look at what we offer for programming and who are the students that we need to serve and which are the students that we need to serve with the greatest programs they are and
054I hope that as a community we look at this and you know that's why I feel it's important to give to the city council is because last winter when we were having the budget talks and I used the number one and four everybody looked around and was shocked and I am nine months later saying one and three and am I here in 24 months now saying four out of 10 or one and two I think it's you know we talk about poverty and we talk about the fundamental the the the free lunch piece well the federal government's lunch guidelines is 130% of the poverty line which is like $40,000 for a family of four 230% is $78,000 and we know that in the state of Maine this statistic that came out that to make a
055family of four bare minimum is $999,000 at the bare minimal survival rate that's pretty hard in the city of Sako that's pretty hard in Southern Maine and that $999,000 is talking about all parts of Maine I think that's the challenge that we face with Rising costs Rising prices and then you go back to Kevin's conversation and say how does that impact local taxation that's what we have to you know sit around and talk about and when we come and I'm just going to jump ahead one piece is that when we talk tomorrow night at the elected officials Summit about homelessness and school funding and all of those pieces that it's our job here as a board and our city councils to make sure that we continue to meet regularly with our state elected officials so
056that they understand that LD whatever has this impact on not only the operations of schools but on costs and Staffing in all of those pieces and I think that that's the thing that I hope in this session that all of us locally can do to schedule more of those meetings and I need to do a better job as a superintendent making sure that I'm putting out a publication more frequent or I say I well the office sorry Meg that we are putting out and informing people that this bill no no judgment this is how we see it impacting our students and our families you guys are getting me fired up tonight I'm not going home to bed in that same vein uh I find it unfortunate that we don't have any of our local um
057officials that come into our Schoolboard meetings um that go up to the state and I don't know if you guys have more regular conversations with them or I think we have pretty good relationships of you know on the phone and talking with piece with pieces and you know obviously as you get to know people throughout time you know over my 12 years in bitterford I've been very close with Ryan fecto over time because he's been there and certainly have a relationship with Marshall and many of the others um I think it's our job again to hold special sessions that are hyper local that's not just about school issues because we really are City and school together because what we do affects over here and what happens over here affects over here um and so I
058know that for me one of the real goals and you know we put a lot of work uh the superintendent and York County we put a lot of work into till tomorrow night and really hope to build some momentum about having greater conversations and touch points because as elected officials in the GU they're busy and and and they get especially in the first session where there will be a million bills and a budget and all of those pieces we've just got to be able to find the right moments to make sure that um we can have more conversation and we can do a better job of providing information on bills and impacts um that's kind of a little bit of a goal of ours in the office usually just takes an invite yeah I was
059just going to say I don't know if we've ever extended that but it sounds like as you said you're publishing we're we're game planning yeah yeah perfect I was just I was curious like how would we like coordinate and well think that's something we could do on a joint correct Council Schoolboard meeting night and invite those same people that part of the agenda between the two and invite um our State Rep Senator Bailey you know whoever we all of them whoever's available I know that as the superintendent that has a Vocational Center in a brand new culinary program we're also very excited to maybe try to show that off as a collective group um because we have you know again surf students from multiple communities and try to put something together as well sorry I
060don't want to jump the gun if you've got plans in the making so okay anyone else okay moving on to item G that is the elementary school construction update um Meg I'm G to ask you to come up on some of these uh just because there's been a lot of work going on um we had a meeting with um some members of a group around themes that we held the other night to try to bring some people from the community in together to kind of look at what could be some of the themes in the meeting we've been working on playgrounds um we made a little bit of a change in our decision at Fairfield school we talked about the floors and they were going to do sections of floors and Wendy and I really
061don't want to live with sections of floors being in one classroom three different materials and so we're moving ahead with making sure that we can get um three different rooms done I think we're at three rooms right Wendy um with looking at those pieces uh Meg there's so much so I will just share because I know everyone was excited about the playground feedback we have 267 third fourth and fifth grade responses and we're going to be meeting tomorrow with the Architects to look over that response data and continue to fine-tune some of the Outdoor Learning spaces Courtyards as well as the playgrounds and I definitely want to extend a big thanks to our theme team that we tried to like really cast a wider net than just our regular families that we have communication with
062and really try to pull in families that have young kids that aren't in school yet folks that no longer have kids in school and just tried to kind of capture a wide variety and those folks have been very engaged in the interim of our meetings of like sharing a lot of information and content so we're excited about those opinions informing some of the design elements and some of the ways that we might bifurcate the building into kind of smaller areas and make it clear Where You Are by what you see around you rather than it just feeling like the large space that the square footage might indicate for students and then we're also continuing with those stakeholder groups of employees around the design of specific spaces so technology meetings have occurred we met with all
063of our interventionists and um eil English language teachers to talk about how those spaces and services will work and we certainly have a lot more work to do but it's very exciting to be able to kind of put a pin in some of the finer details and really continue to see the project move forward anything else to add no any questions or comments okay I will add one more thing that's less exciting to me personally but a lot of intersection improvement work has been going on and I've been following like which utility pools need to be relocated and whether the light is going to be a mass arm or the other name for the one that's fixed across the street so a lot of that offsite work is continuing to move forward as well though
064it's it's not as flashy as sinks and Flooring and Design and color and playground equipment but important very thank you Schoolboard member Truman I know at the theme team meeting we talked about maybe taking a walk through the property is that something that we've we have not scheduled that yet come on I want to go see the I'm just kidding it's fine I get it let's wait until the snow falls then we can go it'll be more fun we Snowshoe it it'll be Hallmark like be great okay uh next on the agenda item H as we have talked a little bit about already but November 14th the elected officials Summit AT Sanford High School just wanted to get another memo out to you guys this was purely informational uh about the summit tomorrow night okay
065item I and that is the after school activity survey results Trends and the next steps is there an update on that yes so uh and make will be able to come up too is that um Kevin you talked about this a little bit in your other piece about uh participation and one of the things I'll contribute to this one go ahead go uh so one of the things that we did is we put out a survey um to our middle school students we know that we've talked a lot about costs and opportunities here and making sure that kids aren't excluded based off um ability to pay but we also wanted to find out like okay so what are you interested in and what are some of the barriers um and so we put together a
066survey for us our students and 58% of our students at the middle level participated in this um and you look at some of the the key findings is that you know like 45% of those students Sports participation Arts music gaming special interest clubs but then we really started talking about barriers because if we want to increase after school we got to deal with some of the some of the issues and these were some of the issues that that came up we probably recognize that transportation and after school buses at 42% was a real barrier for kids and that can be kids that don't have transportation to kids that just don't their families are are still at work scheduling conflicts we know that kids are you know probably were over scheduling but you know there's a
067lot of activities that they're involved the next one I guess shocked or surprised me a little bit that one in three kids say that social anxiety or shyness prevents them from being involved and whether that's offering the right clubs can can be part of that equation limited program awareness that's just an us issue we can do a better job of making sure that kids uh know and then 20% of our kids Financial constraints and you know from the athletic side of things I get that because Youth Sports has an acade uh Youth Sports um you know we are in a bad place when it comes to the amount of funds that it costs to to participate in sports uh and so kids drop out and so one of the things that we looked at is
068what is the student voice behind these pieces and and where do they really want to kind of see things and you can see a great list from high demand for sixth grade Sports sixth graders don't have access to All Sports and they're there in the Middle School other types of clubs some of them that don't really wouldn't cost us much um really emphasized handson learning creative expression activities Technology based programs team building skill development um I guess we we I'm sorry we gave this to fifth graders as well um focus on introductory activities or sampling opportunities I see April at has been adding some uh stiens we've tried to secure money to try different things and trying to involve students who may not have the opportunities to do a lot of the other outside activities
069um Sports and clubs at the middle school being included in programs uh and it's funny because we gave this same survey the exact same question to our students uh in bitterford um 5 through 12 and it's surprising how similar a lot of the responses were whether that be around the social anxiety to Transportation always being the barrier to financial constraints and the kids want Hands-On stuff to do um and the other surprising one is that you see kids their preference is Fallen spring same preference in bitterford Fallen spring with the greatest barrier being Transportation which basically I interpret this as I will do something in the fall and spring even if transportation is a barrier because I'll walk or ride my bike somewhere but in the winter time I'm not so sure I can do
070that um so I think it was a pretty decent survey Meg do you want to chime in on any of this I think just some of the other things that we've discussed is how do we tap into those student interests whether it be teachers kind of recruiting or understanding what kids need or understanding a little bit deeper like what is the financial constraint a feeling that other students have participated in travel soccer and now you're in seventh grade and you just want to try soccer for the first time or is it that you don't have Shing guards and a mouth guard because those are two really different problems to solve and so kind of figuring out what some of those things are that could remove those barriers at the outset just to tell kids like
071we have shinguards mouth guards and you can request cleats if you need and we can find the money for through ask or other organizations and just putting that out there up front rather than flipping that to have folks need to ask for that if they need it that it there may be some other things that we can do so just kind of digging in and I think another piece is really looking at what can we offer in really small doses within the school day so that kids might know what they might be interested in and I know CK Burns and Sako Middle have had teachers that might pull a group of kids in during lunch or meet up with them during recess and kind of say oh are you interested in this so just figuring
072out how we might be able to tap into some of those during the school day thing so that students kind of understand the menu of options with a little bit more depth thanks so much our next steps will be taking this feedback having greater conversations about it getting some more feedback from students and then also looking at how this is a priority in the budget process to make sure we're allocating some funds and again my piece is that um one of the things I think we've done really good is uh as a board is that we were able to allocate some funds especially for CK burn school because you seem to have more and it has been you know a 100% flexible for April and to to say hey it's this club or it's this
073club and being able to Pivot really quickly based off interest I know that as I think as a parent I've received two emails about writing club that filled up super quick and it's like okay if they're a kids that are interested in a writing Club after school let's not stop at one if we can make two happen and then it's something else because um I think that what we did with cross country uh has been so successful just by saying hey it's free it's after school and you saw that kids gravitate and families gravitate for that stuff but I also think as a you know someone who lives in the community and has kids in the school it's just also kind of refreshing that there's just like this low keenness to it all and that
074there's no pressure there's no any of those pieces and that it's just great to see your kids having fun uh and being involved and I think that's what we got to get back to a little bit more um and so I think this is a good jumping off point for us you'll definitely see some things in the budget and you'll see some things continue to come your way throughout the school year as we just as opportunities come up it's our job to figure out how we navigate those and make those available for kids um and I I think that staff is starting uh doing a really good job understanding that pieces that we need to make things available that are no cost and eliminate as many barriers as we can thank you Schoolboard member Truman
075I think I've brought this up before and I don't know if there is one still anymore but Burns used to have a chorus group that they and they'd sing like they do like a holiday thing and then they do something later on and I don't they don't that's not happening anymore is it it will be because I know that that was one thing like I know my kids love to sing but they would never be caught dead singing in front of other people by themselves but there's something comforting about singing with I mean I did it and I was like don't look at me or I'll die Behind These bleachers um the shyness aspect of that sixth and seventh grade until I hit eighth grade I was like not doing any of these things so
076um I feel that like 100% in my soul despite how much talking I do now um but I'm I'm hoping that you guys do bring that back that course because it is no cost minus the stip in piece and so many kids love to just built it out so I think that would be a great one to see again so and I'm really excited about this I'm glad you guys did this survey Schoolboard member roach uh to uh further that uh shinness angle uh absolutely Sarah I was with you in sixth grade I was very very shy uh especially in Sports cuz I was the shortest kid in the whole school uh grade maybe school um but with that you only had 58% of the students participate so I would even say that the social
077anxiety might even be higher if you because 42% did not participate and they might have been too shy to to do it so so that's definitely whatever activity can address that um would be my my number one Focus I think for you guys uh on the sports though um sixth grade well first off sixth grade are they are the kids asking for competition with other schools because you need other schools to um or do they just want to play amongst their own cohorts um I I I don't know the survey didn't get that detailed but that's going to be an issue for sixth grade yeah I and certainly Marie's welcome to comp and and talk about some I I think some of the pieces that I see is that they do want competition I do
078think that it's a little awkward that we have and I feel the same way about the middle school and bford and others that you have kids in your school that don't necessarily have the opportunity as a group to participate in that and some of it you know you take basketball some of it comes down to gym space and the number of teams you know what is the number of interest can change year to year um what can you manage you know I do think our rec does a really nice job Sako soccer club does a really nice job Junior Trojans does a nice job um but I think our kids would probably stay busy um Marie do you get a sense that it's competitive or is it inter murals that they're looking for or just
079looking for something I mean if you can get enough sixth graders interest you could create multiple teams of course now the other barrier this happened during covid um the stien system for the for the teachers that there seems to be a barrier well there's an outright barrier for volunteers to come in and do this stuff and if there's more I would a point where there won't be enough teacher volunteers to do this or do you think there will be teachers you know stipended for these extra classes and activities well I think if we have the activities we have interest there definitely be a stien it doesn't mean that that stien has to be filled by a staff member it can be filled by every member of the public because they are open positions um many
080of our coaches don't necessarily work in the schools I know that we had a conversation we had opland applications but we definitely had to do some asking around some of our Sports this year at the middle school level it's like hey it's open we need people to apply um that's a challenge um because I think people are busy um but no I don't think we'll turn down volunteers from this I personally I go back to the best program that I've had so much reward doing was at burn school when they did the sunshine Club prior to co that was awesome um and I went in and did sports card collecting with my son and a bunch of the kids and it was 30 minutes once a week and other than picking up the bad habit
081of collecting cards again and going into Walmart and having to buy boxes myself like it was awesome um you know but I think that programs like that allow community members to find something they're interested in and you know for me it was something I was interest in a kid and I came back and I was able to share some of those pieces and I think that there are opportunities like that throughout our community I think that's part of writing the memo and having this conversation tonight is because I hope that somebody at home or somebody else has a conversation with this and will approach us about hey I'd be willing to do this as a group we're also working um with apex apex bike center in bitterford has been a good partner of ours over
082time and we've been able to free up some of our federal funds and Grant fronts to try to Institute more programming after school through the bike center uh with them coming into the school or also going over to their facility because there's definitely that need of Hands-On type pieces we just got to continue to build those Partnerships and um figure out how we can fund some things well comy as a volunteer the community voted a big pay raise for all of us so we can put more effort into the schools Jeff and I we're gonna volunteer to do a jam band uh instructional class so there you go but those are going to last like four hours though all right okay I was going to say how were are you getting like if we were
083looking for a particular uh volunteer to do one of these positions and you couldn't find it within the school is there a way that we're putting the word out that we're looking for it like is that like in the maybe the superintendent or the school newsletter be like hey we're well I think part of it is taking the feedback from this and then making concrete next steps I mean this is uh given the data out to you guys we haven't really had a great time to sit down as a team and talk about what those next steps would look like and certainly there are safety things and a lot of the processes we we'd go through but yeah I mean if we had people in our community who had a passion and interest that they
084had the time we want to be able to think outside the box and figure out how we provide offerings for students our buildings are heated the lights are on um and we know the barriers pretty much that we're facing biggest one is transportation that's the one we have to solve sometimes that can be the most difficult one he anyone else Schoolboard member Johnson this is great conversation and I have to say I'm really enthusiastic about the administration's dedication to making this flow along and and get greater involvement um and I love the idea of community members coming in who may have some sort of interest that they really have focused on for a long time that may not be something that kids normally would encounter in the regular school programs or even clubs after school
085um but I also wanted to just comment that I liked the idea that Meg brought up about sort of mini classes almost I would say or manyi groups getting together teachers getting students together who might just want to explore an interest potentially that they might then actually discover that they want to pursue because I think that's less um intimidating than saying yes I'm going to join Club a and I'm going to be here for however long and if my Transportation fails then I'm going to look not so good um but just to be able to explore something on sort of a part you know little just getting your feet wet or whatever um is a good way for kids to be exposed to certain things and not feel like they have to make a full
086commitment so I do like that idea thank you great thank you anyone else okay all right moving on now to item J and that is the second reading of policies is there a motion School Board member Johnson thank you madam mayor I move we approve the second reading of policies j i student Publications J IIA weapons violence and school safety JK student discipline jka AA use of physical restraint and seclusion jka a - R procedures on physical restraint seclusion and JKD suspension of students and also to strike policies J i-r student Publications procedures JJ A- E1 JJ a A- E2 jji a A- E3 and JJ a A- E4 and those four items are actually a series of applications that don't really belong in our policy book second thank you thank you very much motion
087has been made by Schoolboard member Johnston second by Schoolboard member Truman did I hear you any discussion on those policies Schoolboard member roach since it was brought up in public comment um one of these policies is suspension of students so um let me just ask uh superintendent Ray um or or the policy committee um members um has this has this policy stray too much from other communities or is it kind of a copy and paste this was from msma um review that they did a couple years ago we so there isn't like paragraph insertions just for Sako or anything no okay so then again not to get any to negotiation uh discussion um but I mean this seems pretty reasonable for any institution to follow um I I I don't know again I'm not going
088to get into the details of what was brought up but um you know I I don't think that this would be objectionable to any private institution receiving 60% of their funding from public schools seems pretty reasonable and and somewhat forgiving to even to the student so unless I'm reading it wrongly okay and these policies both follow um title 20a so basically what was based in those is just following what is written in that title and I don't think that anything changed in these I think in JKD nothing changed in that one um and then student discipline same thing with that one they just we just Struck One of the policies that we no longer have in the back of it otherwise it just follows within the law that answer your question anything else okay any
089other questions or comments okay roll call vote School Board member waroff yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 70 okay that now takes us to item 14 and that is other information um I myself I would like to wish the best of luck to Schoolboard member Gail whose last meeting is tonight um it's been an honor to work with you over the last few years and then also to congratulate all of the um elected officials for their next term and newcomer April K who will be replacing Schoolboard member Gail anyone else have any additional information they want to school board member waroff uh please Madame mayor I just wanted to say to the
090public thank you very much for electing me granted I was running un opposed but I do appreciate your vote vote just the same and I plan to work very hard for Ward one uh one of my biggest concerns is the transportation issue as well looks like it touches just about everything so um I look forward to uh making that better for all thank you sco member kale yeah just uh a quick thank you to everybody on the board uh over the last three years it's been really a great experience and the reason why was because of all the great discussions we've had and um patience you've all had with me with all the questions but um I've really really appreciated it I think we've done a lot of great things over the three years there's
091a lot more that we're doing so congratulations on the upcoming three years and to everybody and also thank you to the administrators who come and take time out of their busy evenings sit through this I really appreciate that it doesn't go unnoticed and and I know that your time is very valuable and your spending it here listening to us so that's very appreciated um and then lastly thank you mag and and Jeremy for all all you guys are doing and all you you do for Sako schools and our our kids and trying to put them first and their needs first it's it's really inspiring and U just really thank you thank you all bottom of my heart thank you madam mayor for everything you've you've done and and and helped me and discussions and things
092really appreciate it um so yep thank you and and good luck up ahead thank you anyone else okay moving on to item 15 that is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn so moved second motion made by Schoolboard member Johnson second by Schoolboard member Preble roll call vote Schoolboard School Board member waroff yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach music never stops but this meeting will yes Schoolboard member Gail yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion to adjourn at 840 passes 70 also I made that motion what I made the motion oh I'm Johnson motion made by school board member Truman thank you guys have a wonderful night