001e e [Applause] good evening everyone and welcome to the Sak Schoolboard committee meeting for uh Wednesday January 8th at 7 pm would you please uh join me for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you everyone okay so that moves us to item number three this evening and that is the approval of the school board minutes dated December 11th 2024 is there a motion Madame mayor Schoolboard members trumman I move we approve the Schoolboard meeting minutes dated December 11th 2024 right thank you is there a second second second by Schoolboard member Johnston any discussion on the minutes okay roll call vote School Board waroff yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes Schoolboard member ker yes School Board member Truman yes and School Board member Johnston yes motion on
002the minutes passes 70 he that now moves us to item number four and that is adjustments to the agenda is there a motion uh I'd like to move section 14 the executive session to item four on the agenda and enter into executive session for labor contract negotiations pursuant to 1 Mr RSA subsection 4056 D motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman is there a second second second by School Board member Johnston roll call vote Schoolboard member waroff yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member K yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion to move the item two item four and enter into executive session passes 70 so we will be downstairs in the conference room at 7:02 e e e thank
003you everyone and welcome back is there a motion to exit executive session Madame mayor board member Truman I move we exit executive session motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman second by School Board member prebble roll call vote Schoolboard member waroff yes School Board member prebble yes School Board member Richards yes School Board member roach yes School Board member kter yes School Board member Truman yes and school SCH board member Johnston yes motion passes 70 to exit executive session is there a report no report thank you okay that now moves us on to item number five and that is correspondence this evening there are no correspondents item number six is public session if you wish to address the school board please step forward state your name and address for the record and you will
004have three minutes to um speak hey not seeing anyone seeking any recognition moves us on to item number eight where we item number eight and that is the superintendent report okay good evening uh everyone um first is a kind of a big congratulations to Sako middle school for being named one of six mainstate finalists among 3,000 uh schools Nationwide for the 15 annual Samsung uh Sol for tomorrow competition you might remember that from last year that we're back again um this one uh is actually one that is really interesting to me because um the eighth grade group project is to create a prototype Lobster buoy that monitors temperatures for climate change pH levels and pollutants um Lindsay Gerard and the eighth grade students received uh $2500 Prize Package and will now advance to the state
005finals uh last year uh Saka was named main State winner um in this contest for the 100% bio degradable refillable markers um but boy I love this Lobster we W I'm interested and I hope they have some prototypes because I know who they can go fishing with uh we'll do that um just I I think I said this last time but I just wanted to thank uh bitford sakur Rotary Club uh in businesses throughout the area uh who supported 177 families and students throughout the communities um during the holidays for gifts um when you kind of walked through central office those days um I was a little worried because the pathway was getting so small um but it was really amazing to see what people in our community do to make sure that others have
006um I will also on a budget note we've started the budget process um I hope to be starting reviews with uh building leaders and principles next week but I did talk with uh Paul at Bano who's on the state board and the director at The Vocational Center and they did announc today that the mill rate expectation so if you're thinking page four of the two 279 where it says how much how many mills you had to raise this year at 6.62 that is dropping to 6.1 in the next budget that's a really good thing if that happens for us because communities that have higher valuation as that mill rate drops and more money is put into the formula kind of shifts it to those communities that have more of a mill rate so between that
007um piece in the fact that I've been working with Marshall um that we have we will have a bill in uh around homeless weight on page two at 0 five and we also have been working with representative cluer who is sponsoring a bill for economically disadvantaged at 0.25 weight that could be really beneficial uh to us um during the budget season some important numbers that you definitely need to know about um is when we presented to you the number of el students on October 1 it was 243 we have gained 40 students since October one in the elll category at that time we were talking about twoed teexs and right now Meg and I are kind of working on a plan that we'll talk about either uh at the next meeting is that I don't
008know that twoed Tex is going to do it uh for the year we may because we're having trouble finding Ed tecs um that we may need to look at uh teachers in those positions um I think that's something that we need to watch because this has grown so rapidly for us we're going to need to have some budget requests for additional staffs um for those students uh in our budget uh when we come for when we bring that forward also um just so that you guys know is that continuing to monitor class sizes uh especially at burn school has been where we've really seen some increases I'd say most classrooms are around 23 students um 23 students is outside the range that I would ideally want we're building a new school based off 20 students
009in a classroom um and as you know space is very limited at burn school so we're just going to do some homework about what other options so that in case things continue to rise that we're not we don't want to have the problem with no solution during the budget process we would like to have some solutions and options for you guys um to think about but I did um speak with uh talked with Jen in the office and just so that you know is that I will be sending um letters to All Families who have students who uh superintendence agreements in to explain to them that for next year um those may not be renewed based off the fact of space we need to make sure that we um are serving Sako kids best interest
010first in these scenarios and certainly there's some tough sometimes some tough things around um child care and other factors but 23 to 25 kids is not what we want um and so we're we're going to continue to do some work and monitor those pieces we also know that um the population at Young School seems to have grown just started to be a little bit more unbalanced than from Fairfield school and I think through the budget process as we kind of hone in on those numbers and learn more about kindergarten we're going to have to have some conversations um around do lines need to have to change no one wants to do that but we certainly don't want to have 24 kids sitting in a classroom if we had 18 let's say in another school we
011just got to make sure there's balance got to have greater conversations about those um as we come through the process this spring so just wanted to put those on your radar screen um because those would could be some very um heavy issues for us to talk about great thank you very much any questions or comments for superintendent Ray I would like to just add to your comments um regarding the legislative Bills going in um we actually just had a meeting with a bunch the Mayors and uh Senator Rondo and one of the rep uh representatives from the Appropriations Committee when those bills come forward we're keeping sharp eye on them and there will be opportunity for public hearing and so anyone we have great lobbyist um that back those bills for us but as a
012collective group it certainly is beneficial for them to hear from the representatives of the school so between Jeremy and I we can keep you informed of one of those public hearings you don't always have to go to Augusta there is an online option um to voice your support um for those bills so once those come forward hopefully um we'll have a great opportunity to get our voices in behind them yeah and one of the um the great things that Meg does for um the York County Superintendent Association is megaz on the legislative committee and they meet um every week to go over what's coming up what's the stance on it has the updated language and she's able you know it's great because she can disseminate that to us I've also um we had conversations with
013uh building leaders yesterday about the importance of building leaders making sure they're available for Testimony uh and certainly when these come up I would welcome you guys and and while it is great on zoom and it is great for a letter nothing is more important than the in person testimony that you can give and one of our goals as administrators is to make sure that everybody on the administrative team gets an opportunity to testify in person on a bill that they uh are passionate about and I think that the experiences that our principles have had with the increase in disadvantaged students and the homelessness is something that they could be very passionate about um because classrooms are different when half of the students come from a disadvantaged background or if four or five kids are
014not living at home it's a different scenario absolutely thank you okay so that moves us on to item eight and that is the chair's report chair prebble um I don't have anything new to report this evening but thank you great thank you item number nine is Staff reports and we have no staff reports this evening item number 10 is the board subcommittee minutes item a is the policy and Personnel committee agenda is attached in a memo the next meeting is February 12th at 5:30 Item B is the finance and infrastructure committee next meeting is January 22nd at 4:30 item number c is the curriculum committee and the next meeting is January 27th at 4:30 okay taking us to item 11 that is there is no old business this evening item number 12 is new business
015and there is a memo in your packet for new hires but there is no motion needed this evening Item B is resignations is there a motion for resignations Madame mayor School Board member Truman I move we accept the resignation of shayen daure District bcba effective at the end of the 2024 25 school year motion has been made by Schoolboard member Truman is there a second second second by schoolb member Johnston any discussion on the item okay roll call vote School Board member waroff yes School Board member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes School Board member kter yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 70 okay the next item is item C and that is a bar presentation thank you I'm going to get us started
016before I pass this off to principal Susi um upon reflecting on this before we shared we did share the bar presentation with our curriculum committee and the curriculum committee felt like it would be important to get an overview and update for the full board on some of this work however I want to kind of back up just a little bit and explain the larger umbrella under which bar is bar is a social emotional curriculum and network of supports for students which Marie will dive into a little bit and it's working in conjunction with some of the academic work that we're doing around curriculum where our Focus this year at Sako Middle School in particular is to really work on creating revising collaborating with teams of teachers and our 68 vertical teams to have outwardly facing
017external curriculum documents so that there's more clarity for parents and community members around exactly what the academic scope and sequence looks like for students in each content area that work has been done in a lot of different ways internally over the years but with all of those variations over time we don't necessarily have real Clarity in what a good outward-facing parent-friendly student friendly version of that work looks like I also want to um commend Marie and the teachers at Sako middle school because implementing bar is a heavy lift it required quite a bit of professional development time over the summer it requires working with a coach pretty regularly which she'll get into it requires shifting changing what you're doing doing some things that you maybe have never done before doing things out of advisory that
018you used to just do an advisory so that students who maybe don't connect with their advisory teacher have an opportunity to connect with a social studies teacher or a science teacher or an Ela teacher that might not be their advisor and so there have been quite a lot of shifts and changes that have required um flexibility on the part of staff and I'm I'm hopeful that we continue to move in a Direction Where We shift and adjust in order to make sure that our students feel seen heard understood and connected to one another and as a final point I just want to say even though I've kind of put these in two columns these are not mutually exclusive items it is not social emotional learning or curriculum or academic curriculum they really are kind of
019a yin and yang with one another because if students aren't connected to the teachers that they're working with then we can't ask them to do hard things or present them with challenging topics or understand what they're really passionate about to dive into academically and vice versa if we don't spend time really getting to know students then academics don't really mean as much to them in the long run so I'm going to pass it off to Marie now who's going to really give you a little bit more of an indepth though not as long as curriculum committee uh overview of what bar means and what that looks like in the course of a student and teacher day good evening and thank you for having me Marie Susi principal at Sako Middle School so I'm going to
020give you some information about bar and then um tell you how it kind of looks and feels at s middle school so bar stands for building assets reducing risk and there are two pillars to the bar model they are relationships and data and I think we all know educators are inherently good at building relationships with students then we always have these like data available to us what this does is really help us capitalize on our relationships with students use the data figure out what do students need and then provide those interventions for them so we were fortunate enough last spring to be accepted into a grant program through the main Department of Education um to allow us to bring the bar model to our school there are at this point over 100 Main schools now
021imple implementing it through the main Grant and bar fits nicely with the main Doe's vision of um uh educating the whole child so the nice thing about this is a flexible approach it is it's not a program it's a model where you can tailor it to the assets and needs of your particular School Community it can be customized for any grade level or any different school or class there's Elementary models and middle and high school models as well so the grant provides us with a three-year implementation process and as part of that there is a coach that comes with this to help us through the process there are a few links there it'll um to videos if you have time and are interested that'll bring you to some information on some main schools that are
022implementing it and as well just a longer explanation more in depth about the bar model so there are eight interlocking strategies to this model that are here focusing on the whole student as I mentioned professional development we did over the course of the summer and then in to the Fall have almost half of our uh teachers trained on this model um there's itime curriculum which I'll get into cohorts of students regular teacher meetings conducting risk review meetings engaging families in student learning and engaging administrators and I have this quote and I know you're not supposed to read from slides but I am going to because I feel like it's powerful from a bar educator who says grades are a good indicator of how a student is doing but if you just look at grades you
023miss a lot of things social changes friendship changes attendance Health all of a sudden a student is getting too skinny it's like a puzzle and everybody holds a piece to the puzzle so when we are together we can see the whole kid and I think as teachers it's easy to get into a Groove you're you know working on your lessons and you're providing curriculum and teaching and and then you miss these little things but coming together as a group of teachers and talking about kids and talking about their strengths and um what we see we really can focus in on what each particular student needs so bar it's really important to note that is an evidence-based program everything that they do is based on evidence that they've collected has a substantial impact on teacher attitudes
024so you can see student uh the view of students actual Behavior teachers use of data self-efficacy and collaboration and view of colleagues the nice thing about bar is that it's about relationships it's about building relationships with your students but it's also staff and staff relationship so it helps us build relationships with our colleagues has a sizable impact on students experience and engagement so engagement expectations and rigor and support relationships and academic income outcomes I'm sorry as Meg pointed out relationships social emotional pieces are very interconnected with the curriculum and the better relationships that we have with students the better the curriculum or academic outcomes are so bar has shown to significant significantly reduce course failure failures um all students of course but then um students of and students in poverty mostly show some great improvements
025it's really early on for us at this point um to say that what kind of impact is had but we are happy to report that we have been tracking student attendance and since the beginning of school there the number of students who are missing 10% of days in school has reduced from 16% to 9% in in the sixth grade population so that there is one piece there it's like okay we can see improvements small but significant impact on Nea scores so the key components of the bar model is the ongoing professional development as I said we our teachers are all trained and we're going to continue with that training in the in the upcoming years we are provided a bar coach who has taught before and has used the model and now she works for
026bar as a coach in our school our guidance counselor Ela preventure is our bar coordinator so she coordinates the bar implementation efforts and she mostly meets with the bar coach so the coach actually flies out to us four times a year sits in on our team meetings and then provides us with written feedback from what she sees and how we can improve our efforts she also has weekly calls with both the bar coordinator and myself the cohorts are our teams and then we have block meetings which are um we're going to refer to them as small meetings small block and big block and then we have Community connect meetings which I'll get into so the block meeting system the really great thing about middle school and our structure is that we had a lot of
027stuff in place so our teachers have the time to meet together as a team so small block meetings are weekly team meetings in which you look at student data and I'm just going to show you this spreadsheet that's used I probably sorry I thought that was just gonna pop right up okay this because I feel like it's really powerful tool and the visual will help you see each team has a spreadsheet like this one which has every student on their team listed and as you can imagine when we we get together as teachers we're mostly focused on students who are struggling right and we talking about the same students over and over again this model forces us to touch upon every single student that we see so the students are lifted listed over here on
028the on the left and we always start with student strengths so building assets so the first thing we do is fill in what are these student strengths and what are their connections to school so if we know this student is in choir is in choir has some great friends connects well um with Mrs Noble we're going to put that down there L stem class then when with the students starting to have trouble we're going to go back to those strengths and we're going to go back to the connections to school and say hey Mrs Noble we really need you to help Jane Doe because she's struggling right now so starting with the strengths and the connections is the important pie here then we're going to list the date we talk about these students the level
029of concerns looking at their grades we're looking at their attendance so we have all this data in front of us to now Drive our conversations so we're not just spinning our Wheels having those same conversations over and over again so during these meetings the team teachers sit down and we're bringing all the people to the table that see these students so then thank you that worked well um when students need more support we bring them to what we call our big big block meeting and that's when we bring in additional support then we also have our community connect meeting that includes more specialized staff it includes Administration social workers the nurse all the people so then when people re when students really need some extra support they're going to go to the community connect meeting
030we have implementation phases right now in which not all of our teams are going through the structured block meetings we do have one team per grade level who has offered volunteered to do that so for this year the the meeting system is just um a pilot in each grade per se and then um we're going to get into every team doing that next year what we do all do right now is the eye time curriculum and so Meg mentioned our advisory classes so for those of you who are unaware we have advisory once a week this is the small group of students at each teacher is assigned to 10 to 12 students that they see every day both in the morning and afternoon home rooms but there was one dedicated advisory period for these students
031and it is built into the schedule for building relationships so when we took on the bar model we already add that in place um so we currently have been using that advisory time for the curriculum and the nice thing is everyone in the school is using the same curriculum we have this spreadsheet that our coordinator El lame preventure created so teachers just have to look here's the date um the topic so starts with building communities at the beginning of the year then they go into like setting goals for students this past week students had a lesson on communication and the difference between positive negative and neutral communication and when you have an interaction with someone else how can you make it positive negative or um neutral so then teachers all they have to do click
032on this and there's a whole lesson plan included for every week for this advisory time and the eye time this is the really important piece for when teachers are getting to know their student students the stuff that you learn in the eye time about your students is what is then going you're going to take into your meetings and say well I remember that Johnny shared with me that you know this is happening right now at home and so that's probably why his grades are you know failing so that's really important information as Meg mentioned um part of the bar model is not only providing this curriculum in The Advisory time but also in the core classes so that I as a math teacher get to see all the students on my team in a different
033light I get to build relationships in a different way than just providing math curriculum and then the students get to build relationships with me in a different way and so now we're we're moving into a phase where we're cycling through they're getting the eye time curriculum and the relationship building with their core classroom teachers um and that's essentially where we're at right now like I said it's a three-year implementation process the time curriculum um is the focus this year and really engaging students and teachers in those advisory lessons and building the relationships great thank you any questions or comments for principal Susi Schoolboard member waroff do you do the students keep the same Advisory Group through six seven and eight they do not so they keep in they that's a good question they change in
034seventh grade so they also change teams so there's different te team groups grings and they may not be with all the same kids um on a team so then when they get into seventh grade there's a new team and a new Advisory Group thank you anyone else Schoolboard member roach you said you said the block system is is uh beta testing right right yes right now but the ey the eye time is definitely every student is participating every student yes and and right now every student in the building is getting the same lesson so it's all done on Monday every student is getting the same lesson you said it was like 10 to 12 students in a group so how do you how is that divided you know so those are there advisory groups are
035already naturally um divided up that way into Home Room so every morning students go to their home room they have a Home Room teacher and those are small groups so most teachers in the building have a home room and an advisory there's very few that do not but is a home room like 20 kids in a home room or is it just the 10 to 12 okay all right okay anyone else great thank you go ahead I just want to say thank you for this and also just speaking personally from someone had two kids go through Middle School their tough years since 2012 um you're I know there's going to be problems but you're doing a great job so please keep up this path and and you know any hurdles or you know please bring
036up through Jeremy or whatever this this is great stuff thank you very much thank you great thank you we appreciate that update he next item on the agenda this evening is item D and that is the TA tuition mat fiscal year 26 projections okay well Marie gets the exciting stuff uh now we're going to talk a little money uh so just wanted to um in December um you know each year a community who pays maximum allowable tuition to a private school that number comes out what you're going to pay um and the increase this year uh last year was 5.6% the increase this year is 5.87% um so you went um from paying 133 per student to 1480 per student in addition uh we send 98566 or 7% for insured value Factor um we knew
037that we had uh planned for 890 students which has been we've planned for that for several years in a row and then we saw a large increase this year um and so the top kind of reddish pink section is what we had in the budget of 15972 the purplest SE section is based off the increase um of the number of students and the and the tuition cost um also factoring in special education what we get for a bill on that because we have to estimate a little bit of where we're going to be um and we're going to be at 15931 so we're going to have a little bit of wiggle room we're okay but we got a little bit of wiggle room there what I then wanted to make sure um that you guys
038looked at because as we'll be starting off the budget process um is if we look at you know I don't know that I'd feel comfortable going back to 890 students next year and you know 9:20 might be um a little bit too short of a we might have have to estimate a little bit more leaving our special education of what we have currently in the budget knowing that we have ML and then I will be making some recommendations on how we spread additional resources for ML and I think this is one area based off the numbers we may need to add a little bit of Staff um forth Orton Academy at um that you would see a new number of 172 um so as we kind of start the budget process based off the 9
039through 12 side um you're looking at almost a $1.3 million increase um in those numbers alone so I just wanted to get that information out to you now that it was finalized and this was our first meeting since the finalization of that um so that we can be prepared for Budget season okay great thank you any questions or comments okay moving on to item e and that is a building update a is the playground feedback and design little happier note well you know this is my Ed 279 because I get really excited about this Jer gets really excited about um we I don't know if you want to give other building updates before I jump into this or if you want me to give any go ahead Meg okay let you let you share the
040positive stuff I'm I'm going to jump in with the playground stuff and then I'll backtrack to some of the other stuff that we've been working on so um as I've shared Jeremy and I shared with the board a little while ago we had an opportunity to um meet with the Landscape Architects and CK Burns students and get their feedback about the playground so it's a really cool opportunity for students to have some input and I wanted to just share with you today the result of that work um in the top right corner you kind of see the elementary building which will have two playgrounds and then our Primary School will have some as well so our all of our fifth graders were able to participate in a live presentation with the Landscape Architects kind of
041presenting the project and some of the options for equipment and play spaces third and fourth graders then had access to a recorded presentation because we didn't have the capacity to provide that live presentation for the whole school we had 267 students respond via survey to provide feedback on the playground structures and design and that's a little photo of cramming three classes into the library space which really emphasized our choices around presentation spaces in the new building because we will have space to do an audiovisual present presentation for an entire grade in those new buildings so the first question we asked students was to take a look at climbing structures and the winner was the jungle Dome model I do want to point out that the pictures are helping to inspire the design and the elements
042that we finally land on so we're not definitely purchasing this exact Dome we still have a lot of budgeting to do but it gives uh The Architects some direction in terms of what should go where next we had the swings and I I've actually had an opportunity to see the one that was voted highest it's in Camden Rockport play area which is a viking swing that has a big rope in the center and you can fit multiple kids on it at the same time to kind of go back and forth uh the top five current playground activities as rated by students were soccer Spinners swings basketball and the slide and the most requested items fit into kind of two broad categories one was motion equipment typo there but Ziplines Spinners and tire swings and then
043Sports areas including larger soccer fields than are currently at CK Burns basketball court areas and a Gaga pit which is kind of a gentler variation on Dodgeball play um with a kind of balls below the knees in a little pit that's outside game in looking at larger structures which will go on one of the playgrounds the favorite of the three large play structures with 56% of the vote was this one that you see on the left there which fits in nicely with some of the themes that our group discussed today and then the favorite spinning element um received 44% of the vote that was a little bit closer in the vote but that element there allows multiple kids to get on the same equipment and also has kind of an offset spinning so another exciting
044component of this is that we have more than just the playgrounds when we're looking at outdoor spaces we have one enclosed Courtyard in the elementary school as well as an outdoor rooftop classroom and in the primary school we have two Courtyards one of which will be enclosed and one of which will be open to the elementary school in the top left corner of this you'll see the two Courtyards that will be part of the primary school the one on the right is the one that is next to the elementary school and that will be more of like an outdoor eating hardscaped type area and the one on the left will be more of an enclosed space where if you need some adaptive equipment for students stents or um some outdoor OT PT type activities that
045can happen there and in the very top left you'll see some kind of raised bed plantings that will be in that courtyard below that you'll see the um design for the primary playground and we'll get a little bit closer in terms of each of those so in the elementary school there's a forest playground that's the one that's kind of located on that top right side that will then eventually have that trail that connects down through the Eastern Trail there will be a Hills slide feature on this playground as well as four square some basketball hoops that are not in a traditional basketball court setting but an ability to kind of shoot around with friends this is where we'll have that larger climbing structure for students a tire swing and some other that kind of Viking
046swing element will be there as well as the uh Gaga pit we'll also be able to later further kind of expand this with potentially some areas that are more wooded or some outdoor classrooms that you can get to from this play Space the meadow playground is a little bit more of a traditional playground that's in the front of the school and ab buts by distinction of a fence the parking lot in the front there's a large soccer field on the far left that's not pictured in this picture that will be a full U10 soccer field so it will be like kind of the regulation soccer field that these kids are playing on which will be something that they don't have access to currently at CK Burns two full basketball courts and then a multi-purpose field
047as well as a whole slew of swings and then that like larger structure with some two different types of access to Spinners on that playground the primary playground is kind of divided into two different areas though we opted to put a fence around the entire thing rather than two separate fenced areas and those two areas are then kind of connected on that outside component with a trike bike track because that's one of the favorite activities between scooters and trikes of our pre students to get some of that gross motor activity outside I won't go through all all of the different elements here but the elements on the primary playground are of course much smaller in nature and less kind of larger structures that are interconnected but more kind of Standalone components things where kids can
048practice balance climbing under over and we also talked about the um balance between staff being able to see all students but also kind of creating cozy Nook areas where where kids can play in smaller groups more pretend and imaginative play at this level um some of the other things that have been going on and then I'll let Jeremy add if he has other information off-site improvements are a big one that we've had some pretty regular meetings on a lot of that is over my head but I am learning quite a bit about relocation of telephone poles and lighting structures and curb cuts and all of that work is proceeding pretty nicely with the help of goral Palmer and just kind of keeping us posted on conversations with CMP and when different permits can be pulled
049for some of those off-site improvements and then the other component that's really exciting that I hope to be able to present in a little bit more final format in the future is our theme team that has met on three different occasions today was our last meeting and that group was a pretty diverse group of Sako residents that kind of helped us determine what elements of Sako should help Inspire the design and without giving away all of the finer details which I can share at a later point the the team really focused on highlighting the natural elements and also highlighting the diversity of environments that exist in Sako from the ocean and the beachfront to the Sako River to an industrial downtown to Meadows farmlands fields and how we can kind of play out those different
050components in the design in a way that kind of shows the graduation of those different components in Sako and the way that they play off of one another anything else to add superintendent Ray well I'm going to now talk about interest in bond structure um so yes I actually am going to talk about that um one of the things that you guys are going to see um in this upcoming budget is that based off um as you know we are in the initial piece where you take out a band or a bond anticipation note but you have to start paying interest on that piece that in the next budget we will have an interest payment of about I think it's like $1.1 million um that starts on that piece but we will be getting money
051from the state on that okay so one of the things that I want to caution you guys about uh and people in the public is that when the Ed 279 comes out and you're going to see hopefully this extra million and a half million so dollars that comes in in subsidy and people will say to you oh oh Sako did so well you got all this extra money we need to remind people that there's an expenditure that's equal to that piece so a lot of time the next year you'll be doing a principal and an interest payment and so that number is going to jump up into like the $4.5 million range so what happens is a lot of times at schools people will go through the spread sheet of the increases and decreases on
052279 and they'll say well why did Sako get $4.5 million more than the next city did not knowing that this is all around State construction funding so just I want to make sure people are prepared for that piece because you also from an expenditure side of things we'll have people in the public that will see the budget number going up and say well why is this going up so much you were only at this level last year and it's important for us to to talk more about yes the the it the construction project and the payments and the money coming back from the state is starting in the next year's budget in this process so um I think that's an important piece for you and for the and for the city council to understand um
053because because inevitably in a couple of years when you're receiving that payment you know is at $4 to5 million and you're receiving that from the state someone's going to say what happened with spending when your budget was $52 million and now in two years time it's at $58 million and just making sure that we're clear about yes we're also getting more subsidy because we have a state uh project when we put this won't happen this time around uh in this budget and in the other time around but when you are looking at your budgets you will see a principal payment and an interest payment for the state funded portion which you'll see a revenue that comes for but then you'll also see a line that has a principle in interest payment for the local portion
054so there'll be two pieces in your budget that you pay for so that people understand this is the local piece of it this is the state piece of it and there's this much revenue that comes in take any questions on that piece great any questions for superintendent Reich comments you're trying to scare people aren't you you're trying to scare the the new school board members too right that 279 spreadsheet is is epic so love it just can't can't wait for it so just it's again it's my Super Bowl it's my Super Bowl okay great anyone else okay thanks B okay item number f is the Social Security Fairness Act superintendent Ray you got an update on that yeah so um over vacation uh or or around the holidays it was uh I I had sent
055some emails and you'd seen um a lot of uh probably press around this where there were 13 states uh where public employees that were on the teaching side of things could not access their full social security benefit um and Susan Collins was actually a real Champion for this uh at the federal level uh and our Educators and our staff um need to be thankful for that piece because we had employees who had worked in Social Security but was taking a 40% reduction on their benefit on retirement because they were a member of mainstate retirement even though they paid into it and while that necessarily you say okay so how does that you know impact us as a school department Department that has major impacts on us from a hiring standpoint we know that hiring can
056be challenging and if you were somebody who worked 20 years in a career that paid into Social Security and then said you know what I want to go teach that pathway really wasn't there because you might have put enough time into main State retirement that now you would get a reduction from what you had on the Social Security end additionally teachers who lived in other states uh and it was interesting as this was going along I was following a couple of Facebook pages from different organizations that were you know teachers groups that would and you know stories of people who I moved to the Northeast not understanding that I came from a state and I have just enough time in retirement that now I get this uh elimination and so it's really um an important
057piece and I'm thankful that we were able to do this uh for main Educators because this certainly changes you know a couple hundred dollars a month in retirement more is a big difference uh for people I think what my advice would be and we continue to send out information throughout the school department but I definitely would encourage um all staff members to log into you know Social Security might not have been in their minds to log in make sure uh that you you know if you log into the Social Security you can pull up how many quarters you have and there maybe people who worked um a lot as a a teenager or a young adult and then was in teaching and hasn't worked a lot in Social Security you may say hey look I'm
058only three or four quarters away from getting some sort of benefit um or knowing what your benefit is and so we will continue to push out things to staff but want to encourage them because this is um this was a big win for main Educators um and very thankful uh to Susan Collins and Senator Senator King uh for all the work that they did on this great thank you any questions or comments I have a question just for clarification on that too um correct me if I'm wrong I believe that it also benefits the fact of survivor benefits is another the larger piece correct that is if you have a pension earning spouse and your spouse passes away you normally were not allowed their social correct and and yes it it benefits that piece as
059well okay moving on to item G and that is the second reading of policies is there a motion Schoolboard member Johnston thank you Madame mayor I move we approve the second reading of policy jke expulsion of students second motion has been made by Schoolboard member Johnston second by Schoolboard member Truman any discussion on the policy okay we B call vote School Board War School Board member waroff Excuse me yes School Board member Preble yes Schoolboard member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member ker yes Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 7-0 okay that now takes to item 13 and there is no other information this evening item 14 we moved executive session prior to the agenda and item 15 is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn so moved
060second motion made by school board member Truman second by Schoolboard member prebble roll call vote Schoolboard member waroff yes Schoolboard member Preble yes School Board member Richards yes Schoolboard member roach yes Schoolboard member K yes and Schoolboard member Johnston what what about me did I say Truman I'm sorry Schoolboard member Truman yes and Schoolboard member Johnston yes motion passes 70 to adjourn at 8:33 thank you everyone and have a great night