001Call to order the June 11th regular meeting of the Great Salt Bay CSD Bo. The roll call. Sam Belnner here. That's all here. Annie Cobb here. Amy Gil here. Matthew Hanley here. David Oer is a known absence. Christa Thor here. Meredith Bernie. My name and I am here. Please stand alisible. We'll note that there were some password issues logging into YouTube. Uh so we will not be able to live stream this meeting but it will be recorded and posted tonight or tomorrow. Tonight or tomorrow morning. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? I would just ask to move the civil rights team request up um either before or after the prek presentation so that they're not required to stay others. Um sure. So, we start started off with that. All right, we'll move that up
002to um basic down. Any other adjustments? All right, seeing none, we would love to do a presentation from the civil rights team. Okay. Well, I'm going to start us off. I'm Jennifer Wright and I'm the enrichment specialist here at GSB. Um I am also the civil rights team leader here and I wanted to give you a little bit of um background and what civil rights team is um so that everybody's aware of what we do here at school. Um I'm reading about the history and philosophy of the civil rights team project which is a unique product in the state of Maine. a project in the state of Maine. And I'm just going to read what it says on the our state of Maine website. The foundation of a civil rights team project is the main
003civil rights act, which protects people from threats, property damage, and violence when motivated by bias. Early enforcement efforts of the Main Civil Rights Act revealed that many violations involve young people and happen in our schools. In an effort to reduce the frequency of these behaviors and their impact on young people in our school communities, the main office of the attorney general created the civil rights team project. The CRTP launched as a pilot project in 18 schools in 1996. Initial efforts focused on education about civil rights law and increasing communication and collaboration between schools and law enforcement. The civil rights team project has grown since grown in focus and participation to prevent bias-based behaviors including violations of main civil rights act. We believe it is important to engage our school communities in thinking and talking about
004issues related to race and skin color, national origin and ancestry, religion, disabilities, gender, including gender identity and expression and sexual orientation. Youth are central to this process. Real change in our schools must respect and include student voices. Hundreds of main schools at all age levels, public and private, rural and urban, in all 16 counties have participated in the civil rights te project. More than 200 schools are currently participating. So we are lucky to be one of those schools. Um and so our mission is to um create a team of students. We had limited it to seventh and eighth graders this year. Um and most of them were eighth graders. So they have come back to represent even though they had technically done. Um but they um basically I facilitate their um their wishes and their
005what they feel is necessary at our school. And so for a couple of years they have been asking if we could have a rainbow crosswalk. And we had now have a beautiful crosswalk right in front of our building. and they would like to as a team um create that pro turn that crosswalk into a rainbow crosswalk. And so they are going to tell you why they think the system so much. Introduce yourself. Hello, I am Laney Holmes. I graduated Monday, June 9th, 2025. Um, I believe that we should make this crosswalk to for one, help people that are going into our school and that know our school around the community know that we accept everyone that they will not be judged by who they are or who they will become. Um, it could change some
006other people's perspectives on how they believe everyone is. It's like it could change how you think of someone by just realizing you're doing the wrong thing, by seeing people put in effort to make something. It'd be representation of respect for the community because it'd be helping many others that are suffering with the bullying and etc. in this vicinity. Um could prevent bullying in the future. It could make the new generation see that we have made this and try to explain how LGBTQ and others that are different from normal people or how they externally theirelves and themselves like being selves and not basically just being themselves. And um it could just prevent like in 8 years if everyone just like this is just imaginable, but everyone were to in the next 8 years just be kinder
007and more respectable because of the effort we put into the crosswalk, it could prevent less bullying in the future than is what going on in the school at the moment. Thank you. Okay. Hello. My name is River. I am a I'm going into ninth grade next year. Rising freshman at Lincoln Academy. I was a member of the GSB civil rights team for since sixth grade. So two and a half years about that's when I came to here as well. Um you know I think the rainbow crosswalk is really important. I think it send a message to the world that we do accept everyone and that everybody does matter no matter if you who you choose to love, who you identify as. Um any anything regarding LGBTQ the allies that support it, you know. Um, I
008think it's also just a wonderful opportunity. It's not something that not every school has. I think it's a great opportunity to make our school unique and it's um, yeah, I I think it just I think it'd be a really great asset to have at our school. That's all I need to say. Thank you. You formerly Milo. I just graduated from GSP, but was a member of the civil rights team this past year. and continue to seeking school board approval to paint the crosswalk that the parking lot to the school's main entrance with flag. Um allowing it to be built will allow people to see our school is an inclusive place sending a clear message that school where everyone can exist and learn in peace but inspire students at the school. send a clear message of
009inclusion and allow everyone to see that they're welcome here at GSP and it might also spark interest in our um growing uh civil rights team should be responsible for convening the project. Our school needs to send a message to the community and for that river rights and tell people what we stand for the message our school is a safe space. Thank you. You do have in your packets the letter from the civil rights team and the map of what they proposed. So you can see them. [Music] They're probably back further in the packet because the packet didn't get undone. Is an action item or Okay. Um, just a question. Um, are we talking about the crosswalk on Main Street or the crosswalk here on the property here? That's cool. The one when at the main
010entrance when you open it up, there's like a speed bump thing right at the front. There's where the buses go and there's a crosswalk right there. That's where we're coming directly into the front door. Can I ask a clarifying question as well? The map presented has more than just a rainbow. So, but multiple of you just said the rainbow prop. Can you give a of a more definite picture to the board of what the request is, please? Hold on. I'm going to let you talk about that first in a second, but um there were a lot of ideas about design. Um and I think that we wanted to get the idea of the rainbow out there and then if we added any more elements of the design, we could talk about that further. Um it's
011a complicated design. Um thank you. And I'm not sure it's feasible with paint. Um but um there are we are sort of still um talking about the design process, but the rainbow and skin tone um base is what we're looking for is the request today. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah. And how many students are on the civil rights team? Let's see. There's a fluctuating number. It's appropriately fluid. I say about Eddie. Okay. 12 13 on a good day. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, we sort of didn't want to, um, we didn't want to like make some super cool design and then come here and then like try to get permission and then not get permission. That would be a lot of wasted effort. So, um, we just sort of came here with the idea of
012rainbow crosswalk in mind and sort of used the term rainbow crosswalk to encompass all sorts of different types. Like um there are all sorts of rainbow crosswalks out there. Like there's ones that include skin tones. There's ones where it's like an actual pride flag as the crosswalk. Um and there's just the rainbow. Um so we just use the term rainbow crosswalk to encompass all the possible design ideas, but the um depiction there is what we're planning to do. It's just the rainbow, um the overall pride flag, the ally flag, and then possibly some like little quotes inspiring like LGBTQIA inclusion quotes in the white spaces and the best submission. Um, so I I would also I would also like to say that if our design does a bit too complicated, it doesn't work with code,
013I'm sure we'd all be willing to redesign it and make a more similar way simple rainbow that's just sort of the ideal design. I have a this is a great presentation and I want to thank you guys for coming. I have a couple like just practical questions. If it's do we have policies about student groups making permanent like is it a a proposal for a permanent and do we have policies about permanent student groups making permanent um changes to not off the top of my head any current policies on that? I would say in default or in lack of a policy, it's to come to the board for the approval. They came to me first and I felt it was appropriate to bring it here. So, they followed the proper channels of that request. We
014do we have student groups that have done similar things like paint the bathroom stalls, right? Isn't that true or am I making that? Yes. Yeah. Yes. We put this motion of further debate. Um so seeing a motion to approve uh the civil rights team request for a rainbow crosswalk. Second. Thank you Christo. Thank you S. All right. So we can continue discussion on this now. I just have one safety thing. That is my only concern about the added design. I would say um I love the added sign by the way. I think it's very very exciting. But the only safety concern I have is I do think the rainbow crosswalk even with the um the skin tones is a fairly well-known symbol of a crosswalk at this point. So I don't think that takes away
015from it being a crosswalk for safety. I do worry about adding all these extra designs only because I think maybe it might take away from the crosswalk aspect. Interesting. Yeah. But I would love to do something. Yeah. Because I love the idea and I love the presentation. That was my thought as well. Amy conversation with Mark around are there requirements that we have to have in place? Does it have to actually look like it could? I think I kind I love the rainbow mark here. Yeah. lucky. As far as rules and regulations, I think we'd have to dig into it. Yeah. Okay. So, you could modify it to pending meeting any require any regulations. Yeah. As Yeah. meets. Yes. Thank you. Correct. Regulations. Um, I also saw that there's a proposal to get another June
016meeting on the books this year. I mean, we could even if it's a couple weeks to get some information and bring that agenda item back to make sure we're making the informed decision and removing something that can actually happen. That seems that seems like a good idea. Um, any other thoughts? I yeah I had a question whether the team had talked about fundraising for the paint itself whether you have some budget. Um so ear early ear early ear early earlier this year we actually did um during one of the school dances we did make uh this is one of our major projects we did we brought in snacks and drinks and food and popcorn and we didn't we made a decision to sell a ton of products and a fair amount of money and that
017was where we were planning to spend our funds on the rainbow cross if if that well done well done I just one thought um just in the spirit of inclusivity and our school community, I think it'd be nice to put this out to other students. You know, I think it's a great idea, but there's so many other students in, you know, fifth, the sixth, seventh, eighth grade might have um thoughts on this, too. And I think that if it if they weren't on board, I think that's again like something for us to know. We need to work harder on inclusivity and um just I think education and modeling it and I think it'd be good to kind of test the waters. So that's just my my personal thought. I think the rainbow crosswalk is nice.
018I think that that passes my prek and my kids would be like, "Oh, oh, rainbows and unicorns. I love rainbows." You know, they but these flags and these symbols, I'm not sure my my two younger children definitely wouldn't understand. It's just really not it's it's not in their conscious yet. So, while we do have elementary school and a middle school here, this isn't just a junior high school. I think personally I would like to kind of test the waters with other students to see how they feel. That's just my thought. Okay. any other debate. So I would I think the the right move would be to table this until the potentially next meeting this month which uh hopefully will be June 30th and we can discuss that. Um, if I may, Mark, does that give
019you enough time to dig in a little bit? Okay. Um, what as far as greater school thoughts on that? How do we feel about how that will look or if we want to I mean with school being out tomorrow it's not really have much time are there has there been discussion I know a lot of the process hasn't been planned but on timeline and whether next year whether we'd wait for next year's civil rights team to implement or um we could we could just we would be Yes, I mean we would be willing to do that. I think with a you know potential roll out for like a new anti-bullying policy and like procedure that goes along with that it might also kind of pave the way for that kind of um talk of us
020bigger groups in the school you know just and you guys well I mean maybe you guys come back and present it type of thing you know you did a great job. I just want to say one thing in response to what you had said if I'm understanding you correctly and talking about littles and how they are starting to grasp let's say I think the American flag or what flags are this is a perfect opportunity to teach them about inclusion and by saying that putting in flags may be too much or too overwhelming if that's what you're saying act if I can finish actually to me counters everything we're talking about. So I just want to be clear that in this moment what they're trying to do is create the seeds of inclusion and diversity and
021you do that at a very young age. No, I I completely I respect that. I'm I'm not ready to talk to my little kids about LGBTQ. And but you don't that's the thing. You don't we cannot Yeah, this isn't a debate right now. Um, I would say that we'll table this until the June 30th meeting when we have a bit more information on the uh requirements for kind of a crosswalk in general and can continue the conversation on that and I think entertaining ideas and how we collect feedback from wider school population. Can I ask a question about that? Yes. Um so the purpose of collecting the feedback is is what it is to find out if the majority of students want a rainbow cross or if there are people who are against the what
022is what's or both. I think I mean my thought was that it would be more to make it a community action. So if it was something that everyone was like yes then it's something that the school community does as a group not you know smaller group within the community says this is what I want it gets approved it becomes more of a community thing that's unfortun I think that that kind of would lay the groundwork for a little risk I if next year the civil rights community like team wanted to hang a flag for Pride Month Are we going to put that to a student vote and if students say no, not do it? I guess like I mean those are pretty common like as advocate we want to be welcoming to everybody and if
023some kid is getting driven here by their parents who are listening to Raven radio and they're not feeling welcome. That's another consideration. You know we want everyone to feel welcome. And I wasn't hearing a vote necessarily so much as like the community the presentation um and kind of co-designing with you know maybe the school board if the school board provides permission I think there's a lot of support here um then there being some just planned you know around like how that process unfold that that includes some engagement even if it's like we're going to do this and here's three designs and help us you know or um putting it out to the broader student body to have me put on designs of things. All right. Yeah. Okay. There was somebody that had this a board
024meeting, right? Held in public or not a public meeting, right? They can speak during public comment if they so choose because it is an agenda item. Correct. which which has not happened yet. Got it. Right. It's coming right after preK. So we will now move on to the presentation from uh prek by mundi. I have the presentation here. No, the uh no cancel that one of those buttons. One of those screen share. Screen. Yeah, screen share. Bottom right. Read that from here. See if I can get Thank you. That should Yeah, that is Good job. Thanks. You want to start super fun. Uh, I'm the prek teacher. Thank you for hiring me. Super excited about this program. Um, and Lindsay had reached out and said because it's brand new, love to have you come and
025share what we've been doing, what the program's all about. Um, how it's benefiting the school. Um, and we've been busy. They've been busy little bees this year. Uh guess like the top down approach, but um the the pride of my year was today. They had their step up day and those kindergarten teachers, they the kid had come back in the room and they had just been with those kindergarten teachers and they looked at me and they said, "Oh man, we're all set." And I was like, nailed it. Because they they finished their time with those teachers and they all sat down nicely on the rug and they looked at the teachers and they said, "Thank you. Bye." And the teachers left and they're like, "Manners and following directions of these guys is unbelievable. Well done."
026So hopefully we have a nice little seed moving into our kindergarten program for next year of kiddos that are so ready um because of what we've got to do this year. So, uh, there they are. This is my prek class, um, with a couple texts helping. Um, we've had quite the year. This is a picture from our color days, which the whole school participated in, which was really fun. I just thought I was the best. You've got those. Um, so the biggest thing that has made me successful as a teacher this year has been the support staff that I've had. Um, Ann man is my full-time classroom assistant. Um, but also Heather Scriber, who is our agriculture teacher, has really, she's our partner teacher for our classroom. Um, and she's really made a point of
027stepping in for morning meetings when she's available. She also takes them to do agriculture time twice a week. Um, we went to swim lessons. She was there with us when she could be for that. Um, and the other woman I couldn't do this without is uh Liz Ferraro. She came to us as a special ed at Tech this year. She's supporting one of the students in my class. Um, but she also supports my whole class when she's a part of our group. Um, they have made it a team where I really feel pretty invincible as a group. Um, because they are really strong in what they do and they really support me in what I do. Um, so we've really become quite a welloiled machine this year. has been great. Uh so our curriculum, we're
028using the PreK for me curriculum, which is a statemandated curriculum for prek. Um well, preK is really about fun and playing. This is about functional play. Um and so the curriculum is already set up for us to be successful. So by using it with fidelity, um so prek for me is play-based instruction. um that doesn't mean that we are a daycare center and the children are only playing. Everything we're doing is with intention. So we're using um literature to fuel everything that we're doing. So we do a read aloud and then that's what gives us the theme or the ideas that we're then putting into our play. It's also where we build on our vocabulary literacy skills. Um and the program fully integrates science and social studies into that program. So, sort of to piggyback
029on the civil rights piece, like we're talking in a very age appropriate way about inclusivity, that we are all part of a community. We're learning about community helpers. We spend time learning about our friends, each other's families. We talk about how things can be different, how things can be the same, again, in a really age appropriate, developmentally appropriate way. Um, and all of that comes from these texts that are curated through this program. um where what they do. The research based approach for whole child curriculum meets the requirements of chapter 124 the public preschool program standards. It's development to appropriate for four-year-old children adapted from the Boston public schools focus on the K1 curriculum. PreK for me is intended to support any preschool teacher in enriching providing a rich play-based intentional curriculum that is aligned
030with Maine's early learning and development standards as well as the head start early learning outcomes framework. Um so when implemented with fidelity it builds on social emotional executive functioning language literacy math and vocabulary skills. In addition students conceptual knowledge around the variety of topics is an enhanced important component for school success. So there's six main units to the curriculum. The first one is about family. So it really starts from the kids learning. I exist and I matter and I'm part of this classroom. It moves on to I can build friendships and I can be a good friend and what that looks like. And then we get into some deeper stuff with wind and water which when I looked at that initially I was like um we ended up adding swim lessons thanks to PTO support.
031So they added six weeks of swim lessons which was wonderful. Um, they also learned about physics and other stuff that like you wouldn't necessarily think, little pre-kid kids, but the stuff these kids come up with and the vocabulary that they're using after doing this and reading these stories and then playing um I had a kid playing with a boat and water and he was like, "Wow, watch the force of my breath as he blew his, you know, I mean, look at the force of your breath. That's amazing. You're so strong." Another kid said, "Well, I can make wind if I move my hand. That's how I can make wind move." They're really just sponges, and when you're giving them these tools, they really take off. Um, then we do shadows and reflections. I think, um,
032Mrs. Pasley was able to come and enjoy um, shadow dancing with us once. Um, the bottom line, we're always having fun in preK. Um, and the last unit is things that grow. Not just plants and animals, but also looking at ourselves and reflecting that we were pretty little when we got here and now we are pretty big kids and we can do a lot of big stuff. So, we start our day with a morning meeting responsive classroom style, which is an expectation for the entire school. So, again, we're really laying the groundwork. When they're in kindergarten, they already know what to do. They the meeting is really deliberate. It follows a plan every day that is exactly the same. So it's very um routine based. They know how to do it. They know how to
033participate in it. Um a lot of routines, but it's a routine that the rest of the school is also doing. So it really builds on that. Um so the reader aloud is the is the biggest piece of instruction I would say that I'm doing. Each of the core texts that come with the curriculum, you read them four times and you're sort of alternating through books as you go two or three books at a time. The first read is a straight read. The second read is all about vocabulary. The third read, they're retelling the story, which is a huge piece for new readers. And the fourth piece, they act out, which is their absolute favorite. Play is often talked about as if they were released from serious learning, but for children, play is serious learning. play
034is really the work of childhood. One of my favorite quotes from grandfathers uh centers. So here's where we get to sort of our meat and potatoes. It's a solid hour every day dedicated to using these skills that we've been talking about. So, um, on the top left you'll see kids using puzzles and games, using math manipulatives, counting, easel, writing, blocks, um, a creation station table, uh, dramatic play, and discovery, which is usually some sort of a science-based activity. Um, one of my favorite parts of the program is something called thinking and feedback. So, at the end of that playtime, I'll take an artifact, something that somebody did or a picture of somebody's work and put it up on a display screen and then we sit down. The person who we're talking about, so the little
035guy in the yellow was presenting. He's holding up something that he would worked on that day. And there's a routine set of questions that we go through. First, we look at it. Then, we listen to the presenter tell us about what they made. Then, we tell what we notice about it and using vocabulary like I see. I noticed that. So, they're really starting to build that language. Um, next they wonder. So, they ask questions. I wonder why this happened. I wonder how you put that together. What were you thinking when you did this? Um, and then it gives them an opportunity to give suggestions. Um, that's the piece that I think is the most critical. I've worked with older grades and what I've noticed is it's really hard for kids to take feedback. And this
036is giving that groundwork for being able to take positive feedback from your peers and also how to give positive feedback of your peers. So we're doing a lot of modeling of the language of how to say that friendly, kind, and constructively. And they beg every day, please can I make my um the other main component that is super important to me is outdoor learning. So this is a time where we are outside and not on the playground. Playground equipment is incredible and it's super important. It's also super important to know how to play without playground. We at GB have amazing grounds that we're able to use. So, we walk in the woods. There's a huge wood space with um tables up there. Pet has been amazing getting us things and Liz getting us things like
037rakes and wagons. So, in the fall they've ra leaves. Doing purposeful play outside but also playing together without the aid of typical toys has made them be really creative. They built cool stuff. They look super imaginative. Um, and where I know even my own kids sometimes after five minutes outside are like, I'm glory. Not these guys. These guys are in it to win it and they are really working together as a team. So, here's our year sort of a timeline. Um, we've done a lot of field trips thanks to GSC having really incredible funding for field trips and our buses. Um, we started the year going to the apple orchard. uh fire safety came and they were able to do the smoke trailer just like all the other big kids. Um we were able to
038take a trip to the farms and did some cooking. I'm hoping to be able to do that more than just once next year. Um in December uh we did a whole unit on gingerbread men. So we read some gingerbread stories and they went on a gingerbread hunt through the school. That was another incredible time where the big kids in our school really took it on. Um, I gave them gingerbread crumbs and they had to go find the gingerbread. So, our kitchen staff agreed to bake the gingerbread. Teachers all through this school helped Mrs. Allen helped let me destroy this library with crumbs and papers as though a little gingerbread man had destroyed things until it finally led us back to our classroom where gingerbread cookies were waiting for them to decorate. And their faces when
039they saw those cookies like awesome. Um, so much fun. Parents came in uh in January. Miss Liz. Um, again, I can't stress enough what a gift this woman is. Um, she has animals that are she ran her own preschool for a long time. Um, she's brought in chickens for us to explore and look at and fold. Um, it's actually a rooster. I'm a little girl with a pig shirt and his name is Charles and our class would like to adopt him as a pet. February our color days. And then in March is when we started our swim lessons. Yeah, it was six weeks with sort of in swim instructors from the Wisconsin wreck. In April, um we had Liz and and one of her colleagues come in and do a puppet show for us, like
040a real puppet show, which is a dying art. Um and we went to the main maritime museum and learn about lobstering. Uh the end of May, we were able to go to um the botanical gardens. We also went to Liz's home where she used to run her preschool and she took us on a walk with our goats. We were reading a book about community stew. We were able to make community stew on her property. She had, you know, a fire for them to use and it was really incredible. Um, we went to the town of the gardens and they locked their little legs off. We just enjoyed a day at Pebblewood Beach. My life goal is to still be here when they are in eighth grade so I could take that picture again. And then
041we our last u non-traditional unit was ice cream and dinosaurs and we were able to go to Brown again. Thank you to uh the PTO for funding that for us. We also hope you're still here when they're in grade. And these are just shots for cuteness purposes. They're on that greenhouse all the time. Um Ha was able to get a grant so they all have rainuits. They're like little when they walk through the school know it's the cutest stinking thing. Um but it's also made it so we go outside no matter what. They've got their boots. I don't care. Like as long as it is warm enough that we are safe, we're going outside. We zip them up. They wear those suits. um their game opera, I'm game ener, uh they had their cougar dance
042party. They also made this courtyard into a space that we can use. Um unfortunately, it's too small for my entire group this year. Um but we've been able to have some time where we can split the group and have somebody come out and use it. It's also a great alternative to the big playground sometimes. Um so, thank you. It's been an absolute privilege and I look forward to doing this hopefully for many more years. Thank you. Be fun to watch these kids go through each grade and see the difference with the passion they have. Questions appreciation. Thank you. Thank you. First one is a playoff game. All right. Well, this brings us to the public comment section of the agenda. Um, thank you. We ask that any public comment is germanine to the agenda of
043the night. Comments are respectful. Are there any public comments? River signed up. But is that from the presentation, River, or did you want to speak again? I was going to speak on a later topic. Sure. on on bullying. Yeah, please. So, hello again. I um as I said, I came to GSP in sixth grade, halfway through. Um I switched school. I came here. I mean, sixth grade went pretty well for me. Like I I I talked to some people. I knew some people. I I didn't have like any really good friends, but I was able to like, you know, I was able to fit in and get to know some people. Um, you know, sixth year ended, uh, I, uh, summer passed and I was back at school again here in seventh grade. The seventh
044grade went well the same. But um uh I I I came up here to talk about the topic of bullying because for me 7th grade was very very it was rough to say the least. Um uh you know there were rumors thrown around. I felt like I had very little friends at many times and um uh it it was it was tough. So, um, seventh seventh grade went by, I fortunately at the end of seven, uh, midway through seventh grade, I was able to make some pretty close friends. I get to know Chicago really well. Um, and then, you know, summer happened again. I came to 8th grade. Um, it was a bit of the same stuff, but it was better. I'd say it was way better. Uh, it wasn't such a it wasn't so
045bad for me. I um I had I had really good friending by this point. I the bullying had come down a little bit. It wasn't like completely stopped yet though. Um and I guess I'm just here to say I think that there needs to be some very big changes to how this the school handles bullying. Um for me whenever I I went to the office for to to administration to report a serious case of bullying or harassment usually would happen is they would bring in the student they have a talk but in my opinion there was very I think there needs to be it's opportunity for the both parties to sit down and for the administrator sit down with them and to work it out themselves and not just have I guess like a a
046punishment. Just leave it at that and nothing else. They'll get have a conversation on. I think there needs to be opportunity for them to sit down to discuss what happened to explain what was okay, what went well, what didn't go well, and what needs to go better in the future, what needs to stop. Um, and I think it needs to be more like oneonone like personal between the two parties and for them to work it out and not just have a punishment thrown out and say, "Yeah, it's all good. Go back to class and no further action." Um, that's just how I perceived it. I don't know how it was for other people. That was just how that is how I perceive this uh situation that went on. And um I think that there should
047be some change to how the school handles bullying, you know. Um yeah, that's that's what I would say. So um Ben Hopkin. Hey folks, uh Ben Hopkin from South Bristol here, parent, proud parent of a graduating uh eighth grader. Um, I just want to speak in favor of the new bullying policy, which I hope will address some of the concerns uh, River and other uh, students and parents uh, brought to the board uh, a couple months ago. Um, I I just want to say I'm I'm just super impressed. Uh, when that uh when when folks came forward uh, seemed like the board really took it seriously and acted uh, swiftly. uh to to address the issue. Um rewriting the policy uh which uh I was done in a collaborative way that I was really happy
048to be a part of. Um I I think it sets new uh community uh definitions that are really understandable that everyone can work from. It's a a foundation um that set besides giving a clear definition of bullying, I think just kind of sets sets a tone, a new modern up-to-date tone of what that was drawn from the community of what was will be acceptable, what's not acceptable, and how uh bullying works and should not work. Um because I think you know uh I think one of the issues is you know no matter how some we have a very uh people come from a lot of backgrounds to schools there's a lot of different variety of standards and I think no matter kind of how someone might talk or be be treated somewhere else at school
049we're going to we need to have a a clear definition of what is acceptable and I I think this new policy is a step in the right direction um and it'll be up to the new administration to kind of take the reigns and breathe life into it. I'm really looking forward to seeing uh what happens there. Um I I just think it's a great example of u community working together to solve a problem and u I'm just uh good job guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Really appreciate it. um there is hard work to do when when the rubber hits the road and just as as River was discussing the mechanics of what happens when there's an issue and the person goes here and there uh and there's a lot of examples out there there's
050um as as you know I I research things and I thought I'm sorry if I'm running over time don't I haven't thought anyone would be maybe I'll wrap it up real quickly um I found that there was a story at Scaddumpa about 15 years ago where they had a bullying issue where uh kids were being let unsupervised and they were intimidating other kids in the stacks. There was drug use, there was people glaring and they were sort of at wits end. They reached to a a university professor who was a who was a son of uh some folks the Kennedys who contributed and worked with the library to get some advice. And what they did was they they got the kids together and put together a panel of the parents, the teachers, the librarians, uh
051people from the sheriff's office, law law enforcement, and said, "You're welcome here. We want you here, but there are certain ways to be, and this is not the way to be, and you want to be like that. You're you're not going to be uh accepted here, and we're going to be paying closer attention to to you." So I think that kind of powerful getting away from like punishment doing out and making people aware that there's community standards beyond just the power dynamic of one administrator or one librarian. I think that you know that looking forward past this the edge of this policy that is maybe something to look forward to. So anyway long-winded thank you again um looking forward to seeing your cheer cheering on your your good works and uh happy to help more
052excellent. Thank you. Um Ona Brwell, mine's really brief. Um if you want an example of a rainbow crosswalk, there's one in Brunswick right at the campus on Main Street. Yeah. DOT requirements and it's perfect. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Jessica, hi. Hi. I two things. Uh one in regards to the rainbow sidewalk. I think it's a fabulous idea. I love the representation of inclusion. My only fear is that by excluding the people that might have uh concerns or another idea is that's a form of exclusion. So I would hope that there would be more talk about having more of the student body included rather than just one club. But your presentation was perfect for all employees and I think we're going to grasp it just fine. But again, I think
053everybody should have something to say about it. Not because it's everybody's school. It's not one group who non groups of school. Um, in regards to the bullying issue, which is why I started coming here anyway. Um, thank you for taking it seriously. Thank you for reooking at it and redoing the policies. I again am just offering as a community member and as a parent any assistance that I could offer. I I'm reaching out to the administration at this point to kind of try to be a community hub. Um PTO, then there's the school board, and then there's the parents, and then there's the teachers. And my ability with my job, I'm currently working right now. Um I'm out in the community a lot and I can help put those pieces together and help with information
054drawn from the parents and bringing it forward. Um not everybody can be here. there's a baseball game going on. Um, not everybody is public speaking. God knows I'm not. Um, so I just again want to put that out there that I am willing and even even if it's I'm not the person selected, I think there should be somebody in the community that is like the the goeteen. They can help find the information that they had that where is the information that they brought forward. uh some of the ideas of the PTO the other day came out and I think I could be a great asset to those kind of things as in reaching out to the community for some of these projects rather than the PTO funding them uh getting a discount from certain stores
055on certain projects and stuff because as a business owner and some of you can relate there are opportunities for a business to write off for tax purposes for community donations. Thank you. All right. And that brings us to the end of the public comment. Thank you to all who commented. Uh we'll move on to the action on the minutes. Seeking an action to approve the minutes for the regular meeting on May 26 and the district May 6th and the district budget meeting on May 6. Chris second. Thank you, Amy. Uh, were there any issues with the minutes? I think the um the community meeting where we voted on the budget should include that Lindsay gave a brief presentation at the beginning. Okay. And she set the stage for I think that should be there. Oh,
056right. Those addition that addition any other changes or is errors. All right. Uh we'll do a vote. Do we need to vote on that change? Okay. You will vote on the minutes. Uh show hands. I I'll abstain. That was one, two, three, four, five, six, and two extensions and one passes. All right, this brings us to the chair support paperwork here. So, um, before we move forward with any more of tonight's agenda, I would just like to take a moment to recognize and thank Principal Kim Sha for her service to um, our school community. The role of principal requires long hours, thoughtful attention to many moving parts, and an ability to navigate a wide range of needs across the school. We appreciate the time and energy she has devoted to that work over the course
057of her tenure. Principal Sha has shown a deep commitment to the work of supporting the students, staff, and families. Um, we acknowledge the many hours and personal investment she has dedicated to the role and on behalf of the board, I want to express our appreciation for her contri contributions and service. We wish her all the best in the next chapter of her career. So, thank you, Miss Chef. All right. Second is um a request to add uh a second meeting for this month. The visa gang was coordinate. Yes, we have the Jammer Scott and Newcastle votes where last night Breamman doesn't vote until the 28th 26 whatever the Saturday is right there. 28th. Thank you. Um, and if we could hold a second meeting on June 30th, we could do the um, assessment of tax
058based off that budget being approved and get it to the towns before they're supposed to pay us in July, which would be nice. And you can also um, give me an authorization to issue an intent to hire over the summer if we have any staff positions we need to hire while we have that gap. So, it'd be a nice way to close out our budget season and be able to get documents to the towns approved and signed by all of you actually on time. Our new theme for RC48, accurate and on time. So, that's and that's it' be a brief meeting. Tell me Zoom. Was that easier or you have a policy that allows you to do a Zoom meeting? So you are allowed to do that. What I can make participation by zoom as
059well. I cannot attempt but there's forum and that works for others. I'm a question. It's the only day between the end of the agreement meeting and the year. It is the fiscal year end. I I am returning from the north woods of Maine at some point. I may or may not be in reception even for a Zoom meeting. You have you can one, two, I think. So, threeish, four. I'm scheduled to work. I could change it. We need five. Mhm. I mean, as long as flights are okay. Okay. I feel like it's an up oriental in theory. Should we schedule it and cancel it because David not knowing presuming maybe he can we would still have a live forum and I guess so if it's really short I probably should wait short. So all right
060so we will add the second meeting will be June 30th at 6 pm. Um, all right. The first regular meeting of RSU 48 board will be Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 6 p.m. Uh, meetings are in the library here. Um, and we have in the packet the new I don't know uh wide scope calendar for the year that um Lindsay and I worked on. Uh so this doesn't have all the nitty-gritty but but it does have kind of the the larger themes of what we'll be working on kind of the cycles of the school budget. um hiring and whatnot um including you know potential negotiations and we'll be doing some negotiations next year. So this has um you know should hopefully clarify kind of the larger picture schedule for the year. Um you do intend
061to post this on the website for the public to see. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. This will will be um public for for everyone to see hopefully. um clarify kind of our activities. Um Lindsay, will you send out invites, calendar invites for the radio board news? Yes. Thank you. Um and you will send them to your new RSU 48 email addresses. I will have KJ give you welcome emails that tell you how to access that. Thank you. You're welcome. Because after June 30th, you will not have an AOS93 email anymore. It will be the same first initial last name at rs248.org. for and so this this calendar does have our regular meetings on the second Wednesday of the month, you know, and these these dates should be accurate. Yeah. As well. So feel free to dig into
062that. It does have our budget workshop scheduled as well already for longer session. Yeah, just anything we know is on there. And there are a few just as a a note, there are a few uh items in there as workshops or um miscellaneous items. Those are mostly um the MSMA kind of bigger conferences um and whatnot just to have a million hours as we look towards the fall and whatnot. Um what anything else? Okay. Uh moving into the committee reports. Uh the facilities and transportation committee we met uh last week I believe it was um to all of our usual things. Mark is working along getting things wrapped up for the end of the year. Um the biggest thing that we're kind of looking at is uh which we'll discuss a little bit later on
063the agenda is middle level playground options. Um, we also talked, uh, Jessica was with us and we discussed kind of, um, the hope for maybe some reinvig reinvigorated community um, involvement on some workb type activities, spring and fall cleanup, things like that. and uh what we can do and what tasks might be appropriate for the community involvement. So um there was also some bus talked about um and the disposable bus which again will be coming up. So that is all I have to say regarding the facilities and transportation meeting. Um the next meeting I would say will be to be determined likely in August. Facilities and transportation. Yeah. Yeah. Before the year starts. We hope so. Yeah. Uh finance committee. You did not. I sent out information by email. So I think I know you
064received it because you were blind. Both of you received it as well. I gave the secondary um finance status towards the end of the year so that we know where we're ending. Um, we do have with the IVF and the tuition increase that was unexpected. Breeman is going to go in the negative a slight amount. Newcastle is going to be fine and Derma Scott is going to squeak in in the black. Um, but I have a meeting set with Fred Brewer tomorrow to make sure that we have our process outlined properly to address the agreement issue which I think as we look at the audits from the last few years, the funds are there. We'll be a fun balance transfer to cover that. Yes. I just want to make sure we do it appropriately for
065our audits. So meeting with him tomorrow. Um Bradley and I are meeting with him um to go over that and GSB looks in good shape as well. What was the scope of it for Britney? The total right now it's about 10,000. Okay. Yeah. Not I mean not not 100,000. Yeah. Thank you. And again it is directly from the IVF unexpected and tuition increase that we did not know about at the state level. It completely in that category. that um so the next meeting would be in August as well. Yeah. Um policy committee. Yes, we met sometime and I don't remember the day. Um but it was a it was a great meeting and we um as Ben mentioned earlier in his public comment um we we had a collaborative work um on the main model
066policy. So our the current GSB policy we decided as a community and as a school and as a board that it was just way too vague. And so um so the main model policy was the next was was a much better um model to look at. But even within that policy, there were still a lot of things that we we didn't like about it and wanted to change. So, um, so Ben and I worked together on taking the main model policy and we tweaked it a lot and changed the language and, you know, cut it way down to make it very clear and using language that, um, that we thought was a good fit for the GSB community. Uh we made it a lot more precise so that everyone would know what is considered bullying
067and an unaccepted behavior and everybody you know teachers and students and staff and parents could look at that policy and say these are the behaviors that are unacceptable. That's what bullying is. Don't do those things. So, um, so that's where we're at. And, um, that's what we did at the last meeting and the last few months. And, um, the policy committee at the last meeting helped us sort of find some typos and move a couple things around here and there. Um, and we brought the the finished product to second read today and um, are I believe later on in the meeting are looking forward approval. Wonderful. All right. Um, strategic planning committee. Uh, we did not meet. Did not meet. Great. An item later. Yes. There is no there was no GSB board workshop. Um,
068and I will add uh there is a foreign language committee that uh has met twice I think since our last um regular board meeting. Um, and we are on our way. Um we've got some great ideas. Um currently there's a Spanish language club for um third and fourth grade. The idea is to expand the club um to have two uh meetings with first I think it will be first through third grade and fourth through sixth grade. Um and then we will also are looking to try to figure out how um next year hopefully potentially um piloting an inschool uh option option for um middle schoolers, seventh and eighth graders. So we are uh we've got the ball rolling and have some some really good excitement surrounding that. So I just have a clarifying question. Is
069so is that um a board subcommittee or is that yeah it's an official uh ad hoc committee an official official just it's in the minutes. Um and that is all that I have to say on that. So the floor is yours for the superintendent report. Okay. Um I'll try to keep it brief. I will start by introducing Darcy Dacon who is here, our incoming principal. We thank her for driving down today to be here. Um, she met with Cammy and I, did some employment paperwork today and wanted to be here to meet all of you. So, I'm sure you'll take a minute to say hello to her as the meeting wraps up. Um, and we're looking forward very much having her join our team. Um, I had the pleasure of attending adult ed graduation last
070night. I give out diplomas to the students, so that is one of my most fun nights of the year. and we had seven students graduate last night which is a really great number and it is definitely one of the best ceremonies you can go to. It is so personal and so um celebratory of everything they've accomplished. So um that was my great adult ed news. Also David Watts has secured grant funding to upgrade the student workstations for students that are processing their highet. He's getting new computers, new monitors, new webcams, new mouses, new stands, new docking stations, five new Chromebooks along with the three Dells that he's getting. So, that's a really exciting development for Delad to modernize all their equipment and allow students to have reliable technology. Um, unfortunately, David is also leaving Adele
071Dad. So, he has been offered a dream job that he can work from home and also do some advocacy in Augusta. and um due to the drive and cold weather and nighttime type things, he is going to take that position. He is staying with us through um the end of the summer. So, we have some time to work on that. The adult advisory board is meeting Monday to plan our next steps and we are also connecting with some of our neighbors on um their part-time positions and if we want to look at any combinations um and collaborations there. So, Adulta to be moving forward with that direction. Um, I do want to announce for the public that there is an public comment period, an open period for the use of title one funds and also
072for the um, information in our comprehensive needs assessment. That public comment period is open until June 30th. If you have thoughts on how we should um, spend that money or questions um, about it, then you can email me or the school office, which the email comes to me as well, or call and be happy to take that comment. um and into our consideration as we move forward with our grant funding applications. Um I'm also excited to announce that we are applying for a grant for prek partnership with Postal Kids. Um one of the pieces that we are looking at is as you see our program is phenomenal. So is theirs. We're not looking to detract from each other's programs. We want to work together and make sure that there are lots of community spots for
073our kids. So um we're looking at a partnership where we would receive some grant funding. Students would enroll through us, but certain students would be placed at Coastal Kids. They would follow our requirements such as using the same curriculum. We would provide meals and transportation like we do for students here. Um, and some of our funding that comes through the ED79 would then go to them to help fund those aspects. So, it would be a collaboration that allows us to open up more spots without having to do an entire second classroom at once without us needing a new space. that helps them because most of their um business owners the three four year olds as well and so we're not we're not looking to detract we're looking to work together and build that. So we've
074submitted that application um Kelly Stokes and Jen Karen the director of Coastal Kids and myself um both wrote the application together and are waiting to hear back on that. So we're very excited to continue our preK expansion. Our SU48 development is going great. Our new website is slated to go up on Friday to be live. We are ready in almost every state system. I'm going back and forth between AOS93 and RSU48. I'm looking forward to when one of them disappears and I can just live in one world. Um, we've been working heavily with MSMA to make sure all of our benefits, our trusts are up and running and active, that all the legal paperwork is set. And we, uh, Bradley and I are at a point where we're, we're so far along in the process
075that we are actually sitting down and going through our employees one by one to make sure every single person's job category, designation, pay, step, salary, deductions, pay election choices is correct for next year. So, we are in really good shape right now for starting this. Um, and all of our employees received their contracts and reasonable assurances and salary notifications for next year electronically. It was swift. It was great. Um, I uploaded the templates. I mailed merged everything. They got it. They signed it. It's in electronic files. No chasing down people. And there have been two errors and they were mine typed. So um we've been really really happy with our modernization as we move into RSU 48. Um yes and just for um professional development Betsy and I attended a webinar on from Drummond Woodson
076on policies um development and management so that we both had up-to-date information on accurate pieces there and I am going to the commissioner's conference for superintendence in June later in June in Bar Harbor and looking forward to spending two days there with my colleagues and seeing what's new so we can bring it back for our 48. Great. Well, thank you, Lindsay, and thank you for all your hard work getting us and launching us into the next phase with great success. Um, the principal report is in your packet, I think, and for time sake, we can peruse it if there's any questions. All right, moving on to unfinished business. Um the job descriptions seeking an action to approve RSU 48 job descriptions for edteex custodian bus driver administrative assistance and food service. So moved second if
077I can just speak to this. Um I have been working hard to as you know move through the job descriptions. This this includes all of the support staff categories. Uh, Natalie, thank you to Natalie and Janet who reviewed them with me, gave suggestions, took them out to staff members that are in these positions and asked them for feedback as well. And, um, we're here with some nice current ones for you to batch approve. Uh, any questions? Uh, Marbs made. All right. Uh, we will do a vote, a show of hand. All in favor is unanimous in one absence. All this brings us to the board self evaluation reviews. Steve waiting patiently. So as you will know we had these first to my memory. Congratulations on your impending retirement. welld deserved like next week, right? 30th.
078All right, one last harrah. Um so we took the self-evaluation and um Steve Bailey from MSNA MSMA has kindly um offered to kind of do a debrief for us. Um, as this is kind of the first one for I think any of us, I thought it would be helpful to have someone lead the conversation and um, help us kind of work through this. So, I will uh, yours. Would you mind if I brought the chair? No, please do. I see that you have what I had prepared already for you. Okay, that's good. Okay. Um, let me give you uh, two other things first before we start. You can pass those around Kristen. And here's one other document as well. So yes, Steve Bailey, I'm the executive director of M School Boards Association as well as
079the May School Management Association. Um, know some of you uh have to say that it's very uh comfortable to be back here this evening. Um, it was eight years ago June I think the last time I was here uh sitting in Lindsay's chair at the time. Um, but it's been been really nice to have been working with you and many of you probably have received uh things from me either from through MSBA or through MSMA in terms of and hopefully everybody's getting their email directly from us. It'll be important that um we get those addresses changed to RSU48, you know. So, we're making sure, matter of fact, uh there is an email going out, I think, from Angie probably tomorrow, uh that will make sure the elections we get an update right after we do
080all all of the updates. So, uh August, uh really asked me to come and just do a little bit of a debrief, lead you through a conversation. That's really what I hope to be able to do tonight is just kind of lead you through a I'm not going to do much talking other than to be asking questions and try to engage you in conversation. But the first thing I want to do is I was on your website earlier and it it didn't appear as if uh you had uh policy BBA although you have jumped ahead and really identified that it's a really good thing for you to be doing a self a board self-evaluation right off the bat. So, I'm really proud of you in terms of thinking about, you know, can you get a
081foundational level of how you're functioning and then thinking about, okay, where can you go as a board to be able to think, you know, uh, working together a nine nine member board to be able from the three towns to be able to, you know, work work together to be able to support the students, support the schools. So, that's that's really really neat. I want you to know that the questions that you answered on the survey that you completed uh did come from um the schoolboard self-evaluation the model policy that uh sample policy that MSMA has that I did pass out and that on the second page of that has um criteria A through M that identify what are the roles and responsibilities of board members. what what is it that you do from a policy
082point of view uh that uh board should be thinking about in terms of your your behavior, your actions and your functions as a board. And then uh the next page uh beyond that is the one through 29 questions that were answered. And I to make sense of the document you have in front of you with all the graphs on them, you can see that there are coded letters on the right hand side of of that uh form that has the questions on them. And if you look at the bottom of the second page of that uh long form, you'll see that the AP/ A means academic performance and accountability. Uh L is for leadership. BR is board responsibilities and and those types of things. So when you take a look at your um graphs that
083you have in front of you, you'll see those have been um separated by each of the uh areas on this on the self-evaluation. So the very first page as you can see is leadership, you know, SL leadership data, second page being board effectiveness data and so forth, you know, throughout each of the areas of the self-evaluation. So that all makes sense and also help you would lead later on if you were to adapt the policy and that you would have your policy in combination with a self-evaluation tool to be able to use uh in an ongoing manner if that continues to make sense. So, the the idea was uh to be able to craft the questions and be able to have you just respond to each other with in a conversation about what you think
084about this first round of a self-evaluation that you've done as a board. And you're you're probably one of about maybe 25 or 30 that I know of that is utilizing this type of a process. And again, it's it's a a situation, a kind of a process where you're looking at each other as as as the the evaluation as the board and not as individual people, you know, within the board. So, it's how is the board functioning and that really is it wants to be our conversation tonight. So, there really is no intent or opportunity uh to point fingers. Um it's really how are we growing as a group? You know, what what are our goals want to be as a group? where do we need to where do we think we need to be going?
085So that that first question that I have that I passed around for you um as you look through each schoolboard area of responsibility, what general observations do you have? Um and we'll look through each of the each of the six areas. So maybe if you haven't had the chance already, if you could take a a look through each of the six areas, uh do a little bit of a study, maybe five minutes or less um to be able to you think about uh are there some things you want to talk about? Are there some things you want to uh point out with questions? I would say the most lowest scoring area uh would be academic performance and accountability regarding uh structure and process performing effective active oversight of politically normal instruction and assessment develops. Yeah,
086that was my I think that I mean to me that tracks with where a lot of our focus has been as a board but also represents an opportunity for deepening engagement as you step into the new RSU. And I would say not only those issues but the climate issues we've never I never I know there've been lots of climate surveys done over the years and I've never seen another board member it's important that we see those things right access to the data it's a subgroup that [Music] other thoughts beyond um number two on page three the academic performance and accountability. I think on page one the the question to the the board establishes annual goals and objectives. That one just stands out to me as sort of sometimes the reactive nature versus the proactive nature.
087Um, and I think we we're making some steps as a whole community to be more proactive with things like the strategic plan and things like that. But I I think it is that I think this shows that we are identifying we need to work on being more proactive rather than putting the band-aids on the things that are already broken. Let's prevent the broken from happening instead. preventative here I I'd circle that one as well Amy um I think and I I had also made note of the comprehensive orientation and and sportsmanship develop personship development. So um I think that both of those to me are again opportunities for us to bolster our skill set and lean in. Yeah, I would agree uh wholeheartedly with that. Um especially, you know, the the annual goals and objectives.
088I think there's there's room for really concretely setting some some tasks and and hopes for for the coming year. Hoping to to spur that along with that calendar so that we have kind of a better idea of how things are moving through through the year. Um and then also with a with a kind of you know just board education and and whatnot. I do think um that you know for for new members there there isn't really an orientation. I think there could be some sort of a improvement for that or implementation of of orientation and then in generally you know encouraging us all to um take advantage of the MSMA meetings and workshops that they host in the fall. I've done a few of them. I definitely know that there's a few areas that I
089would like to work on in regards to um kind of infra and whatnot. So, um I would definitely agree that that is an area where we could definitely allows it's hard time time commitments about think the other one that I started when I looked through it earlier was under the community engagement about um engaging parents, businesses and communities. I think that that's another theme that we hear. Absolutely. I circled both of those mostly because I also I had a challenging time answering those questions because I'm like what is what is the board's role in doing that? Like the board isn't necessarily the public facing figure responsible for communication. But I think it does raise the question how do we work in conjunction with the superintendent and the administration to do that? And maybe that's a
090mischaracterization of the role that I see the board playing. But from my perspective, I think that's a very astute uh kind of observation because boards do have a difficult time necessarily interacting, you know, as the board with the public because the only one time you really have that opportunity is here. you're at a board meeting with public comment and public comment is set up so that it's in many ways one way and not you know two ways in terms of being interactive but your suggestion about how to do that you know through the superintendent you know through the uh building administrators to be able to identify how is it and what is it that we want to be communicating you know with our publics and are there times where you want to seek information through
091some forums or some other workshops that you would schedule to be able to seek you know that kind of input in you're from the community. So, you know, those are all different, you know, ways of being able to think about that. I think to that last point, Steve, the the work of the strategic planning committee and engaging the wider community, there is a good model of how that has been successful in the past. If I could a couple that I noted uh that um I just kind of circled. One was on the first page and it goes along with number two, but it's number three. The board uses data in reports to evaluate progress toward goals and identify areas of of concern. Obviously, you want to have goals and objectives first to be able to
092identify, you know, what's the data you need to be able to report to that. But there's another one also that does uh speak to the use of data and I think that was on each um board seeks provide sufficient information to make informed decisions. Oh, it's under again it's under community engagement advocacy data. The board makes use of data from the district to provide information to students, parents and public, you know. So, what does that data look like? How is it collected? um you know how is it organized to be shared with folks um you know those are kinds of things to be able to identify you know what's the state of the school what's the state of the district uh how can that be that's another form of communication engagement you know with the
093community as well yeah I think to Matthew's point that is something that we have struggled with in the past in not having access to and I think more intentionality and being thoughtful about what we can be requesting and to help us make decisions go a long way there. So, question three and and I'm kind of hearing it as you speak and I also noted that as you started this means you went right for the yellows, you went right for the greens. But I think it's important to note that uh of the blues and the reds that you have in terms of the responses from folks, most everybody uh answered a question. So there were 10 responses, you know, all the way around. Uh there were a couple questions where only nine nine people answered nine
094of us. So we're kind of wondering where the 10th person came from. I think someone when I was kind of chasing the the last few people, we got to nine and then there was one person who thought that maybe they hadn't actually done it and I think they did it uh again. So, I was tracking it and the two the folks that said they hadn't done it and then they did it, we got to nine and then it was good. I thought Lindsay R. I don't believe I didn't have the name. You had me criticated. He chased me down. But there, you know, but but it's okay. But maybe one of us started it once, didn't finish in one of responses. So, so my point was that as an early lore, I mean, an early
095developing board, I mean, you already function at a high level at least how you think you're you're you're performing, you know, with one another. And so that question three really was uh does your view of reality in terms of how you scored on the on the survey uh match with the overall perception of others and you know with the exception of a few questions. It really seemed like it did. I mean you were there was some unonymity you know in terms of some of the answers at least on a you know four or five or two or three basis. Is that does that match your own perceptions? And I was very heartened to see the 100% always strongly agree on the board superintendent relationships because while I get that sense in how we interact, you're
096never served. You're like, okay, everyone else that it's really nice to see. Number four really kind of goes try to give that a little deeper though. If there were areas where you didn't think that it was consistent with others, um can you speak to what you think is important for the board to function more efficiently or effectively or to follow that up? What question or what area? what would be your suggestion or recommendation to that? We've talked about some of those already, but um you know to try to dig a little bit deeper to be able to help identify you know for that last question are there goals or areas where you want to work on uh what would it be that you'd identify that is important for you as a board right now? I
097think that question on um under community engagement number four, the board engages parents business and the community at large in support of the schools um is just worth us asking a question about what does that yeah I have already brought that up. But um what does that look like and what do we mean in support of the schools because I think where the often and agree it um feels feels very accurate and always you know the blues and reds still mostly dominate but I think it's in terms of budget or kind of information at these meetings. Um, so I guess it would be exploring different areas um and trying to tease out like the curriculum um the information that we could be engaging the community on um apart from budget feels personally like we do
098really well with budget and that's very much our role. So I think as a board kind of asking those questions of well what else is there um and having that as a conversation with the administrators um that we could do in support of the school board. Others on that area I don't have on that area. I just think to be more efficient I think generally this board functions fairly efficiently which I think is pretty evident by the scores being well first of all I was heartened to see that there were scores that were low. I hate to look at a survey. It's like everything perfect like because that doesn't show a growth mindset in any sort of way, right? That doesn't show that we're looking we're able to look at things that we're not doing
099well at and that we are motivated to fix those. So, I was heartening to see that there were some, but I was heartening to see that pretty consistent. I will just say I think often I think when we are having an ineffective moment, I think it is going back to sort of the education and really just we we get a lot of new board members. We don't have a large audience. often we don't have a lot of people on boards. So that education piece um helps us to to function more efficiently when it comes to just business matters. So being on board can be complicated. There's a lot of rules. Yeah. I always like to learn the rules before I do the thing wrong. Learning it learning the rules by doing the thing wrong is
100never the best way. No. Again, back to the proactive preventiveness approach. If I may, one thing that stood out for me, back to the uh the question number two on page five around structure and process for performing effective oversight of curriculum, blah blah blah blah blah. To me, I'm really curious in what effective oversight looks like, where we see good examples of that in other boards as a way to help us model because I I I don't know what that means, what effective oversight means, what what is too much oversight, what is too much involvement, what is the appropriate level of oversight and engagement. Yeah. I mean really what it's like for managing the administration and the teachers versus keeping tabs on things to allow us to make some of these bigger strategic decisions. The
101data to be able questions. Yeah. So that's a really good question to explore. It's a good question to be able to have a conversation both together with your superintendent as well as your principles as well as to be thinking about what goes back to a data question in terms of what is the curriculum and the results of the curriculum being used showing you with regard to reports out from teachers and from principles looking at how is the school performing. Um and then also as you consider new curriculum identifying you know what your role is going to be in the adoption of new curriculum that might be introduced you know for use you know within the school because you you don't want to be um you have one employee and that's the superintendent um and she
102has the responsibility of supervising you know the principal administrative staff as well as other other workers you know within the within the district. So you don't want to get in the situation of micromanage and yet at the same time one of the responsibilities within the duties of schoolboard members within the statute is overview of curriculum and so how do you do that you know without being in the classrooms? How do you do that without you know seeing every textbook? I mean you don't want to be doing it. And to expand upon that point just a little bit Stephen back to your point Amy about seeing like some not positive responses. I think setting the expectation that we don't want to see just the good news in the in the principal's report and things like that.
103We want to be able to dig in and have those conversations like where is the that room for improvement. We want that growth mindset to be part of the entire school culture. So that's true and it's a real opportunity. I'm glad you mentioned we have one employee um because that raises a question on page nine for me that a third of the board um doesn't necessarily believe that we evaluate our one employee on defined performance criteria. Um, so I think there's an opportunity for us. Um, and maybe that's because we have a new I think the AOS, right? We talked about it last year and then because it had shifted and then Lindsay was this is only the first year. this I believe it's in the calendar of of an official evaluation checkins I think
104three times it was beginning middle beginning then it'll end but it's not by the school year because that you want to have it wrapped up by December so you can decide on my next contract so so I can see why it might seem that we you know sometimes or it's not particularly clear but I think absolutely it's it's not totally visible either. I think it's Well, I say that like for this year, like I was answering for this past year and we deferred very intentionally because we want to give our new superintendent a chance to settle into her new role. So, you know, just again I it's not a criticism, just like an honest answer. I for me like just to say where I was at at the moment and the goals I had were
105more than three months. Yes. I don't have any doubt that we're going to establish that going forward. Honestly, I assume you'd have ongoing conversations about that anyway. I assume. Yes. Yes. And if you don't have it, uh there are matter of fact u you probably had it from before Lindsay, but u there were um from MSSAE and MSBA. There's the guide book that was developed as well as you know some other samples that can be used to be able to identify and create criteria that you certainly want to be looking at. I heard just now uh which I was glad to hear uh kind of three to four month check-ins um and I strongly encourage those uh not from an evaluative point of view but from a supervisory point of view in terms of how
106are things going um you know so that you end up with a superintendent being able to ask you so how are things going and this is an executive session this is not you know an open session and for the board also to ask because you want to be there supportive of your superintendent because you want her to stay around a long time. You know, the question needs to be so how are things still going? Why are we what can we do as a board to be able to support you in this position? And I think the first thing you did to support that was to create one district. Yes. And that's why we deferred the evaluation because we didn't want to evaluate her on serving five schools. We we have established that's an impossible job,
107right? Yeah. Yeah. You did well in that. She did. She did. I want to evaluate her. Yeah. Much nicer now. Yeah. That was that was question four kind of um just real quickly here just so you can and what I'll do is I'll take my notes, but I I see you taking some notes as well. Anything that I've taken I'll I'll write back Dr. August and Lindsay in terms of your highlights or thoughts. Uh but that that number five are there goals the board wants to set to work toward during this next year and I know that one of them is the strategic plan and once you have that this kind of conversation and if you do this kind of thing annually it also should tie together with the strategic plan in terms of you
108know what is the strategic plan for the district but how do the how does the work of the board how do you work to be able to help uh the district accomplish the goals that you set forth in the strategic plan. You don't want to be at odds with that. You want to be, you know, kind of be both the foundation for it as well as be able to help, you know, uh provide the support for it behind it. Um, so are there goals you can think of as as we've had this, you know, 15minute conversation that you want to begin focusing on? I think we can just take the one that had the most mixed or room for growth and make a goal to establish and implement structure and process for performing effective oversight
109of curriculum instruction and assessment results. So just making that a goal for next year. And then of course you want to flesh that out in terms of as a goal. What does that look like and what what does that mean? What would we see if we were able to have that as a goal? What will be the action steps, you know, for that? Yeah. Um, are there others? I mean, and again, I would say no more than three as as a board, you know, not not to be mired in if you have five or six or 10, you don't have any. I mean, I think it connects to the acknowledgement that we had transitioning into the district of establishing those metrics of evaluating the superintendent. I think that's one that we've already kind of committed
110to. Um, and I'm a big fan of having at least one goal you've already made progress on and have the shared commitment on. So, I'm wondering what a community engagement related goal would look like in as as the first year of this RSU district. Yeah, I would. I mean, I've been thinking about how the board can be a little more public facing to a degree. I'm not sure. You know, we tend to operate kind of here because we have to um can't have the conversation in the back. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, working on at least kind of having more visibility of our meetings. Um, I know we're working on with the website of getting kind of our page more easily accessible and visible. Um, so I'm not sure how, you know, how it works
111for a goal, but I do know that often, you know, kind of the the big mystery of what a board does is is a common a common thing and I'm not sure, you know, the best way to do it, but an idea to throw out there. I agree with that. I think it the board could just appear more approachable. Not that not that we're not approachable we are but um just on the website which like the new website I thought was really great and I think that it can be you know I just think that's we could take that and run with it. But there's also something here that I thought was really, you know, like a nice concise piece of, you know, what what the board does, you know, just does and doesn't do,
112right? what it does it doesn't do like something doesn't breathe and I think here it kind of the areas the board okay so self valuation but it also relates directly to what we do do and it would be nice to have some of what we don't do like for example during public comment it's sometimes I think can come across really cold if we can't respond we're just like thank you for your feedback or thank you for your voicing our opinion but what we want to do is like engage in discussion but we can't and it looks I think it' be nice if it was out there like we can't we might want to you know just kind of sure we had the mail as they are is that going back on our website our new
113website it's going to on the website and it's next to the agendas and signin sheet when you walk in as well updated to be just us yes oh that's right you mentioned once maybe having that in on but to follow up I mean Having a document is one thing. Whether people engage with it or not is a separate question. Yeah. To merit to your point, I think there's opportunities for us as a board in the process of these meetings to make mention of that. Just as we go into this like just to remind you this isn't like unfortunately this is not a discussion and like those opportunities are in our workshops or in our um our subcommittee work. So just setting that expectation so it does come across as less kind of cold. Yeah. even
114if we don't need to be. And I think we had I had mentioned our August maybe about like in the welcome packet back to school like a little blurb from the board like welcome you're welcome to our meetings and our subcommittee meetings and like we want to hear from you kind of thing. Yeah, it's a great idea. I yeah the communications like maybe a specific goal for next year could just be around sounds like the web page is already such a new thing and so really kind of having full board input on um a public facing web page and setting a goal for like three full board letters to the community um over the year some some number but um thinking about the welcome at the beginning of the year and just remembering when we
115wrote a letter regarding incidents back to um Amy's point on the reactive um versus proactive. So, we wrote a letter and we all signed it and that went into the paper. Um, and that was just a good like reaching out to the community but but doing it in a more proactive way rather than red would be cool. The the question I have and it went back to one of the ones I think I asked earlier but I think it's one that um will serve you well over time and it also will in include uh school staff administrators and that is um what data is it you're looking for how will it be collected and you know what will it be used for? How can the board use that be able to help make decisions in
116terms of where you want to go and what you want to do? So there is a question there I think about data. What what data do you want to collect? You know for what purpose and how do you hope to use it? And when you you've done it well with financial data already you did it in the process of creating your district. What does that look like in terms of curriculum? What does it look like in terms of culture and climate? What does it look like in terms of other aspects of a school organizational structure? Yeah. So whether that's picked up or not as one of your your three Yeah. that that folks to decide, but I would urge that to be thought about. Anyway, anything I can else I can help with in terms
117of the conversation or you think you're pretty good for tonight? I think that that's Did this serve the purpose you? Yeah, I think it has. I think it's it's started the thought process um and kind of gotten us tuned into to a little more forward looking mentality meetings and and what we can do for the following year. So, the second piece I'm pleased about is not only did you take the survey, but you're also talking about what you're going to be doing with the survey results. So add that to your blue circles. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Great to be with you. Thank you. Well, thank you all for that. Yes, we do have on the calendar August meetings to review district rules. That could be changed to set I think. Yeah, I think we
118should have the meeting in August. you can kind of yeah solidify and make some actionable goals. All right. Uh powering through on new business. Um staff nominations seeking an action to approve a two-year contract for Shannon Seagull, school psychologist, as recommended by the superintendent. some of that was Shannon. Thank you. We're very pleased to have Shannon wanting to join us. Um she has been a school psychologist for AOS93. Um not coaching, didn't didn't recruit, but she um loved the school and the opportunity to be more effective in a smaller size um environment as well. And I will say like with Kelly Stokes, the staff who has been working with her for the last few years were enthusiastic about her staying, which is a huge compliment to anybody. So, we're very excited to welcome her to
119our our group as well. Great. Uh any questions? All right. Um I think I'm okay. Yes. All right. Uh do a show hands. All in favor? That is seven. All right, Mark. Um, so this brings us to the discussion on middle level playground options. Um so as I mentioned in the facilities and transportation community reports um there is a a lack of and engaging options uh at the playground for um for middle school middle school level students. So, we are trying to kind of come up with options. And Mark, if you want to do you want me to talk about what the kids Sure. Mark? Yeah. I asked him to take some pictures of the fabulous. Yeah, that's good. Playground just visualize. Oh, nice. You could have outside. Thank you sir. So what I did
120is I put together just a few pictures of some of the maintenance things that we need to do moving forward. Some of them we need to touch on similar rather than later. Um, we did have years ago a good community group that was always tackling the playground over time. Um, because of the wood, but we need some attention right now. I know that we budgeted $20,000 for playground slash looking for some handicap accessibility. Uh, but I do think that we're going to have to use money to do some of these activities right now. and then like to have a group of us so that we can look down the road where are we headed, you know, as August mentioned in our meetings, the junior high doesn't have anything to do. He may just hang out.
121We talked about a walking path and you'll see on the last couple of pictures there. I just highlighted in the area that possibility we put in like a walking path for them or just something to maybe get started. I do have some pictures and stuff or some if you wanted some workout areas for the older kids. says some things there's picture around in there that is less maintenancefree more prek but I do think there should be a small group of people that put something together that where we headed long term we know that we got a little money right now to get us safe so everything's safe I talked about uh brought in a company looking at the wood chips they put in four or five inches everywhere in the playground, they blow them right
122in. That's like $12,000. So when we can continue to do what we're doing now by buying our chips, the new hunts, what they do is they set up give us clean chips, let them know ahead of time, and then we use our tracker to put them in place. We kind of work together. But combination of that with the work with the community helps save a lot of money. The other thing is we want to put a poll up so that we can have a security camera with a little better view of what's going on there. If somebody got hurt on the weekends or something, we really need to know what what took place there or what's going on during the day. It helps us there. So, we have some wood chips there. We need to
123put a pole in first. The other one, as you'll see on the netting, um, we've kind of tied that together over time. We go up at a 45 degree up to build office tower up and through to the slide area. Well, that has been a challenge the whole time. Um, I do have a couple pipes that you can just look at I do have some concerns about the way some of that being used. It's just put your kids face through the net like they're putting it through like but it's just that that rope and stuff is getting old. Let's go. All right. Yeah. Good picture. So, is it your dog? Yeah. But a couple of children. Great. If you're going to use kids in a photo, and well, well, let me tell you those. I
124was printing up some of this other stuff and that just happened to come across on printer. I said, "Oh, perfect timing." Yeah, but I mean we haven't looked at it. You know, it's just we constantly got to look at that for safety wise and that's an example of you really got to keep things tight so we don't give in those pushes and that rope is weathered so that it's easy for them to fall down through. I think what I would recommend in that situation is take that rope down. We've had to deal with it a couple times and put something that's a decking but have like a climbing wall that they could actually go up over to get to the slide area nearby safer play. I really feel like we did have some input from
125the board and what you really want to do there. And I do feel like that's one the ropes. The ropes. Yeah. Y we did conduct a survey. Jill Davis, I'll give her credit for taking um initiative. She offered and and surveyed the kids on what they'd like. She gave some options, but also as you can see, a place to write their own ideas. You may notice the frequency with which tire swing appears on that list. The kids would really like a tire swing. Um it's been made clear to me that I also should tell you several years ago the most number of injuries happened when there was a tire swing. that it they would spin themselves until they got so dizzy they were going to pass out. They would fall off it and hurt themselves.
126Exactly. That's the point, right? Frequency of nurse visits from the tire swing is a factor when you consider their desire to have one and so I have I've done my diligence in passing that along. But you definitely something they want. So they had they had some other good ideas. Um, somebody with like an inside room they can hang out like a lounge area, which actually could be cool for some kids if we had supervision in multiple areas, which is always a thing. More shade, air conditioning outside is a big ask, but more shade is probably realistic. You know, something for shade. I understand that. And they do have those sales that they have. Yes. We know in Florida is taking pictures of playgrounds. Just looking at the different sales that they could be put up
127to give us some shade out there for that issue. Yeah, there were a few requests for track team to have facilities. I don't think we're going to put a whole track facility in, but the walking path that you're talking about is a great first step towards movement for that basketball. The kids have been asking for basketball. Yes. The actual basketball, a usable basketball, a usable. Yes. There is better basketball court with two hoops. But what you got to do though is where are you going to put it? You got to think about where are you going long term, not just stick something somewhere and then it doesn't figure you plan to do it, right? I don't think we have a I mean, not that I'm aware of. I don't feel like we have a grand
128planned what what we're going to do with like I don't know. I I know what you're saying cuz I I I agree. Like why put a whole lot of money into um a play structure and making it, you know, for all ages if we're going to eventually divide the school into different locations or shared locations. So it really is I don't know where to start with that question. Yeah. campus master plan. What is that? It's a human. I guess it kind of comes down to two two things that we need to consider right now, which is I guess what what do you need? What are you looking for from us for the immediate? Are do you do you need um our or you're just looking for our way in for the immediate items or Well,
129I think that's the first thing we want to do is schools out. We want to go out there and tackle that because we have people from away that come there so that no one's here. It's just going to be safer for dealing with that one piece right now and then figure out where what are we going to do? Maybe going to put a telephone pole up with better security, but getting rid of that rope that keeps breaking and ongoing safety issue that we don't have a climbing wall out there. No. No. I mean, there's a there's a big piece of rubber that they climb up, but I'm just thinking of something that, you know, handle foot go up there. It's usually the younger kids that are going on through there. Yeah. I mean, younger kids
130though are allowed on the play structure, right? Correct. Can they would you say only the younger kids are allowed on the play structure? So that's only the younger kids, right? Are the old the older are allowed? They are. Okay. Just on the swings. They don't have anything to do or the swings have to be every other. Is that related to the injuries? No. It says children 5 to 12 on the Yeah, that's why I was saying that because I screwed those plaques in there. I know what they say. So I was like the big kids don't go on that, do they? So, I guess I'm but just to bring us back to what we're talking about today. Are we talking about the money that we put in the budget for the middle school playground or
131are we talking about fix for middle school enhancements? I should say additions because that's what we put money in the budget for. And then also, didn't we put money to fix the Yes, current. The current. So, which one are we talking about? the middle school edition today or are we talking about first? I think right now by looking at the monies that we have right now, we can come up with the material and do it inhouse the fix that we need to do immediately right now. Then you have the $20,000 that was put in there for heating slash whatever we got to do moving forward as a board. And I think that there is some money in there in the ground right now. We've been looking at trying to what can we get done with
132monies that we have available right now to finish out we can get the money this year to go ahead and take care of our immediate needs. But I guess what I'm saying is moving forward we need to have more input of that what are we going to do? I do think we really need to prioritize still doing giving the the middle schoolers something to do because not to not to tie everything back to bullying, but what do you expect them to do if they anything to do like is the thing. So I do think is is one of the things that we're identifying as a reoccurring theme. If they don't have anything good to do out there, it's it's kind of hard to expect them to behave. You know what I mean? they don't have
133another, you know, so much so much opportunity to not behave if you have nothing else to do. Um, I guess would and again, not to bring everything back to bullying, but I do think we talked about that extensively about wanting to make sure we did an enhancement, but not wanting to commit exactly what that this is what I'm recalling and maybe I'm because it was a while ago. um but not wanting to commit specifically to what on the playground we wanted to do without hearing from the kids because we didn't want to say, "Hey, we want to do basketball hoops." And that's not what they wanted. It turns out we were right. We did a good job predicting what they wanted. But still, I think that's probably the the best way to move this forward
134would be to have to create a mad hog committee to get some stakeholders involved. Um, I don't even think you need that hot committee. Just run it through facilities. Yeah. Oh, how fabulous. I have an idea of who should that be. Um, yeah, we can do that. And um maybe Meredith, do you want to kind of spearhead that sort of a for for the middle school or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of a middle school playground focus. playground focused like ad hoc. Yeah. And we can just kind of report out through the through the facilities committee and Yep. probably ideally basically have, you know, a group of folks who would want to weigh in and kind of work on this. I know one right there. Perfect. First member. Um, Natalie. Yeah, Natalie. Natalie. Awesome. Oh,
135good. Okay. It's all coming together. Yeah, it all came out of the committee, right? Um, and so for I don't do we I don't think we want to wait for the meetings. I think have a more like go ahead and start having talk about it, plan it, figure it out, meet here whenever you want. We're open and school's letting out, but we're open. I work year round. Mark works year round. Okay. You know, we're here. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like using funding you're talking about within this budget like in the next couple weeks. Yeah. This like there's some opportunity whatever whatever you can right away maintain and fix stuff up. Um yeah and I think that the walking trail um seems to align with the survey as well. So you know work on numbers
136perfect. I think that's great. And I I think it'd be great to have again like a community day, even just like a series of community days during the summer. I mean, if it's five people that show up, whatever. If it's like 20 people that show up, right? Like that's just the kind of just do it attitude. Yep. Awesome. That was great. Thank you. Back back to the campus planning kind of side of the conversation and not to derail us and I apologize in advance even saying this. When we look at the campus footprint and we see an abuing property up to sale Yeah. right now I facilities did talk about that so you're not out of okay I just want to start a conversation like as we have a conversation you're not absolutely and I
137did um not mention that we we have been that is on our radar um we are trying to understand what an appropriate use for that property would be how it can be best presented to the public. It defend such a ask. Um so absolutely it has not gone unnoticed. So appreciate the foresight of the facilities tonight. And has there been any conversation of what you might consider a bargain sale where the seller sells it to us at a reduced price and gets taxed benefit? That had come up. Um, Stephen Huffaggel from Coastal Rivers, you may or may not know him, um, emails us with some suggestions as you know, someone familiar with acquiring property. So, right. So, we did have that conversation as part of our our meeting as well and figuring out if the
138property is viable for us and then approaching the owner about possibilities or considerations and and then figuring out community support if I mean, you get that All right. Great. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for this great picture. If you want to take it home, please raise. All right, moving on. Um, seeking a motion to authorize sale of the bus, equipment, and materials replaced by upgrades. That should say sale or disposal. Sale or disposal of a bus equipment and materials replaced by upgrades and employment policy DN school properties disposition. Sam second. Right now we do have a bus and several very older than me library books that we're that we're putting out. Um and then of course during the summer we acquire more things from classrooms that are ready to go. So we will follow the pro
139the policy you allow us to. Yeah. And this leaves us with still one spare bus plus the second plus the next one we'll be getting it will remain the same amount of numbers just moving along. Is the second bus still August. August. Okay. Uh any other questions? What show hands? All in favor? Yes. Right. Amy has successfully ducked her. Travis, you let Amy in. She's locked out. Oh, it's after 8:00. Doors are locked. Okay. U All right. Uh this brings us to the strategic planning committee. uh discussion with um allian just like we had before an update. Yeah, I mean you you had kind of discussed uh that the desire to keep this yes in you know an item that we discuss kind of evaluate and maybe would be an appropriate time to float ideas
140that might get put into you know larger board goals for next year. So I think um the committee have not met yet but we will meet in the uh at the beginning of the school year um so that we can include our new principles that be important um and um I think you know our goal for next year will be a to look at anything you know as just to bring us back to a refresher you know we've been talking about making a strategic plan for a very long time and you can keep talking about it and talking about it and talking about it and being afraid to put something out there that is maybe not in the final draft or we can put something out there that we know might need to be uh
141evaluated and tweaked because that's what you're supposed to actually do as strategic plans is evaluate them and tweak them as each year. Um so we we did that last year. Um I know that um Kim did make some efforts to give us updates on action planning um during points in her uh principles report. Um and I think next year going forward that'd be nice to do a little bit more of that every meeting. So more kind of uh uh monthly updates. But um our plan will be again to open up to new members. So this good time to say anybody that was interested when we were mid we did have people come to us when we were mid uh our work with our um consultant and her process was to once everybody was on boarded
142shall we say to the process not let people in. So we had some people that wanted to um join. So this will be a time that we will take new members um starting um in September. Um and even though this is a board committee, members of strategic planning can be from the community, from um parents, staff, they do not have to be board members. Um and we will um evaluate if we want to make any changes and then I think talk a little bit more about action planning. Now action planning is not our job as board. It's your job. I think mine your job and your job I work with. Yes. So my question is this is a huge list of things. Have we have we This is a huge list. Did you see the
143last one? But but have we talked about sort of timelines which are which happen in next year which happens two years from now so that we're not trying to do everything at once staging and prioritization. Yeah. And I just think that would seem like a reasonable thing to do. But so if we at the August meeting set the board goals and tie them into which of these that would be priority one and then we could stagger some as two or three for the next couple, right? I mean, we can't do every one of these bulleted issues every year thoroughly or in depth. I mean, that's crazy. So, oh yeah, I think there are a couple on here that I see that would align pretty well with the direction kind of we're heading from with our
144evaluation as well. You know, parent community engagement obviously the foreign language is working parented campus. Yeah. So, yeah. Right. Other things that Yeah. outdoor and experiential education. That's something I want to take on next year or in two years. Yeah, but we did just hire a principal with some really good experience. But that's over time. Yeah. Great. And that remind me um the Wii in this strategic priorities is um Yeah. Who's the Wii? the collective we the the board or the the principal the the school um well we is the whole community but again action planning is not yeah y so yeah I think it's good good that this for this to be and again this just comes like this comes from remember like surveys it comes from student feedback staff feedback uh at the
145end yeah yes jam boards um to identify what are the priorities, you know, what are our current priorities. Um that you know the next step would be I think to make more specific smart goals for some of these items. My operational excellence yellow belts there showing through my people would be proud. All right. So meeting to come in September. Perfect. Great. Thanks. All right. So, as I mentioned, um, Wednesday, I thought that it made more sense to have the, um, officers and committee assignments decided this meeting so that going through the summer break, we can kind of hit the ground running August, we uh, everything will be sorted moving into that office or that that meeting. Speaking of August, I nominate how we start intend chair second. So I actually dug into this process and
146discovered that it's not motion, seconds, and votes on everybody. What happens is all nominations are taken on the floor. So August or anybody else and then we take a vote and you each vote for the one person you want of the nominated accepted people. Um in abstentia, David Oer told me today he also nominates you. do that for not being here. It's a thought. But yes, so we'll take nominations and nominate August. This is going to be a quick vote. Any other nominations? Okay, nominations are closed. Take a vote. I'll do this part since you're not doing. We vote on our nomination of August for school board chair again. I will. I abstain. Yes. Okay. You accept. You accept. I do accept. Yes. Thank you all for your vote of confidence when this past year.
147Great. It has been a pleasure working with you all. Um, all right. Moving on to the the nomination and election of the school board of vice chair. Betsy is right now. I am right now. Is anyone interested in I nominate Betsy. I Okay. I don't seriously I would take a moment to just say while I appreciate Bets's willingness to do this, vice chair is also an opportunity for secession planning within the board which is a critical component of long-term board planning and boardsmanship. So if anyone is interested in playing the role of chair in the future, I know Bessie you expressed some I did and I still feel that way that I just I don't feel like chair is my goal. culture. Yeah. So, I I'm happy to be vice chair. I see I see
148great opportunities and skills around leadership sitting at this table. Um and would love to you love to explore kind of developing that skill set and that future leadership within the board. I am too. I would wait. I would nominate that. Christa, is that something that you would have interest? I'd be Yeah, I'd be I'd be interested. I've got I've got to pre and get another one a few years later. I guess I'll be around. Thank you. I nominate Christie. It's okay with you, too. Well, then we can fall asleep. M um any other nominations to a vote? Nominations are closed. Um a vote for Christa. All in favoring or voting for Betsy. Voting for Betsy. But thank you. I feel like I'm part of to Congratulations. Thank you for your Yes. Thank you. I'm and
149thank you for knowing what you want to do and what you've done. It's really important. I I am great. I was glad to be on it this year and and it's been lovely to work with August, but I I know that yet. I think we should nominate Betsy as the official interview or maybe we're not going to be that way. Like a second, but thank you for your service at all. All right. Nomination and election of school board treasurer. Currently Amy. Currently Amy. They nominate Amy. Amy's still willing. It's really not that. Well, any other nominations? Right. A favor will vote for Amy. I vote for myself. Thank you. Yes, you should all vote for yourself. I agree. Okay, that concludes the dullet. Oh, yeah. Sorry, never mind. So, um committee assignment. Um there has
150been no turnover in the board. Right now, we have a person from each um town on each board, which is nice. And I think we have three um organized functioning subcommittees right now with interests that line up with people. Yeah. I guess the question is anyone want to do different committee is anyone against keeping them as they are perfect. All right. Yeah, that's great. I forget um whether I was on the strategic planning, but I would I might have stepped back, but I'd rejoin that if I wasn't right. I just can't remember. You were No, it wasn't really. I was Yeah, you had a baby. Um do we need to vote for those assignments? No, those have generally been appointments. Uh no, we have to vote for them. Remember, we are there the policy that
151we put in place. You're right. I remember Jesse and I regretting that. I remember that too now that you say it. Um, okay. We can do a group vote or motion to keep the committee assignments the same as this 24. All right. Any debate on the motion to keep the committee assignments as the same in next year as they are this year? All right. Uh, all in favor? All right, this brings us to the final and definitely not least important moment of the night. Uh, seeking a motion to bring policy JK bullying into second reading amendment as noted earlier today or a language in the first line. Yeah. Changing to individuals, right? Oh, rather than community I think you said all individuals all community members either either would be fine with me though I just
152think community provide school community everybody must community members so to the school board to provide yes with all school community members equitable opportunity Do I need to reword that? Okay. Um, was there a motion move to approve? I Yeah, with that amendment and I was wondering whether we forgot to cross reference or need to put under cross reference J I C K R an R. I didn't um have an R yet. We don't have an R yet. R, but do we want to put it? Does it need to go as a cross reference if we're expecting to or does that get added later? I just we definitely need an R for this policy. We know that we don't have one yet, but since we're adopting it once, should we just September app? I happy to
153put it on there. So, we don't have to bring it. I can put in parentheses coming fall 2025 and then yeah I don't even think we need to have any explanation it cross reference to the policy the if the policy doesn't exist then it is like it has to exist. So it's it's a helpful reminder not that we forget that's slated. So with both amendments. Yes. Uh there was a second. Yes. Is there a second? Let's see. Great. Thank you. All right. So, let's see if you want to go over the revisions or we've all had a chance to look at this. Um, I'm happy to share. The really big one was that we took out like most of this the second half or the all of it um beyond second page because it was
154procedure. It felt much more procedural. So, if you read the main model policy, um this is really consistent with the language, but as Betsy explained, um it's more concise. It's better organized, but really consistent with the main model policy. We just felt that main model policy actually had a whole bunch of procedure that we just chopped off and we'll incorporate into our right as our draft, our policy immediately. We wanted to be sure that administration was in charge of that part of the policy, you know, or at least contributing greatly to that part of policy. They are, right? Um, and I would just say, you know, thank you to the community for bringing this to the board and thank you to the policy committee for for taking this up and really taking um a deep,
155thoughtful, concerned look at um what we have now. Um and as we we discussed when we brought it into you know the first read about how this is a foundation upon which the administration will have the ability to implement um procedures so that uh students feel safe in this in this environment. So thank you. I just wanted to add a special thanks to Ben Popkin who spent just so much time and energy and heart into this policy and just he did a lot of research, you know, of his own for a month before he even contacted us. And so he's just he really was a huge, you know, asset to this project. And so I'm just I'm very grateful to him for that. Yeah, it's a great example having a parent Yeah. augment Yeah. our
156work be there. We shouldn't forget that right particular expertise being asset to us. Absolutely. And I think that's a good point that if we want community involvement sometimes focusing on the things that the community sees. You know, I think we've done a really good job or you've done a really good job of as a policy committee bringing a lot of the policies that are just, you know, kind of needed to be updated updated. And now that we've kind of established that, this might be a good spot for community engagement if we pull what are the policies that they see that need revision because, you know, tell I was walking down the hall the other day and a bus driver told me we needed to redo the dress code policy or something, you know. So, like,
157you know, if if we if we're working on a policy that people are passionate about, they'll probably be more involved in right. Very good point. That was incredible. All right. Any other discussion on the policy? Any other discussion? Germaine or the business item? We're talking about policies. All right. Um, so we will put a vote. All in favor? The policy is adopted. You can eat. Without further objection, uh I will declare this meeting adjourned at 8:21. I