6-4-25 DCS School Board Meeting

001Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. So we have a public hearing tonight in regards to the purchase of the modular using general funds. Anyone like to come forward and share their thoughts verbar road. So I I have to admit I I don't I don't know uh very much about this to be be quite frank. I know this topic's been kicked around by previous boards and has always been panned by both uh both the boards after consideration as well as the the general public and and I've been trying to wrap my my head around this. I I understand the fiscal reasoning for it. I thank you. I agree. Um no, you don't have to

002be. Um I I had a bit of an epiphany um this afternoon kicking this kicking this around. And if you buy those modulars, what we're saying is that the space needs of DCS are going to remain as they are for 10 to 20 years. Right? That's that's going to that's going to be the policy from purchasing them because once you own them, you can't replace them, right? Can't even upgrade them. So once you own them, that's going to be the thing. And and I'm against that. I I don't I don't think that that's the correct course for the Deerfield School District. So I'm against purchasing even though fiscally I understand it makes sense. My preference, my preference would be to dump them, get rid of them, and do the hard work that you were elected

003to do and figure out how to manage the space needs and get all of our kids into this building. I know it's a very unpopular opinion amongst the administration and I I assume a majority of the current school board, but we're investing a lot of money and a lot of resources on optional programs at the expense of the three, sometimes four classrooms that are outside this building. Preschool is not mandated. kindergarten is not mandated. We have heard that we adopted those programs so that we could defay the cost of providing services to the kids in those age groups that are deserving of services because you you have to provide the surface services for those children. And the idea is by bringing in a house, the district saves money. That's what we've always heard. And I

004I don't know how many times I've come here and said, "Nobody has ever shown the numbers. Nobody's ever run the numbers to say if we did it out of house, this is what it would cost, and this is what the program costs." And we say, "Well, we expanded the program to tuition in kids to help defay the cost." But my understanding is the tuition rate that we're charging doesn't cover the cost of the program. It does, excluding the kids that need services, right? So, so we're we're providing subsidized preschool and subsidized kindergarten at the cost of having three classrooms outside the building in in trails. How old are those trailers? I think we are roughly 30 years, right? 2001, I think. in 2004. So they're they're 25 year old trailers and 21 25 and 21

005year old trailers that we're going to buy. That's going to become that it's that that's essentially onboarding it. In my opinion, it's onboarding it and making it permanent. I I guarantee I'll be back 10 years from now saying I told you so. And yeah, it'll save money over the rent, but it doesn't. What it does is it kicks the space needs issue down the road. That's all it does. It says, "Well, you know what? We don't know what to do. We don't know how to do it. And even if we think we know what to do, we don't think we can do it for whatever reason, right? Voters won't approve it or time's not whatever whatever the reason is. And so you're going to end up you're gonna end up with those trailers for for

00610 years, maybe maybe 20 years. And I I think that's bad policy. The other thing I'll say is if you keep them, if you buy them, if you buy them, then you should find a way to get administrative staff out in those trailers. Let the administrative staff live out there and let our students learn in the school that was built and intended for their for their education. The only other thing I'll say is this is this is a serious question. This is a big question. Um it's worth asking, right? If you don't ask the question, you know, then you either assume you know the answer or you don't know the answer. This this question should be a ballot question. It really should. We should be asking the the voters of Deerfield what their preference is,

007right? Do we do we buy them? Do we rent them? Do we dump them? What What should be What should be the priority? I How much money are we gonna spend? [Music] 94. Yeah. 94. Yeah. 95. So $100,000 to to buy two 2025y old trailers. And it's it's interesting, right? Because A few months ago, we had wailing and nashing of teeth. As we went through our budget talks for the last several years, we've had whailing and nashing of teeth. It would be lucky to keep the district afloat because we're on default budgets, although the default budgets um really are a distinction without a difference between the proposed budgets, dollar amounts for the most part. And and now here we are at the end of June. We got a hundred grand burning a hole in our

008pockets that we want to buy trailers. And so is that is that the best investment of that $100,000 for the education of Deerfield students? IMOoney says no. It is it is not that it's that's not good policy. It's not not good use of the money unless unless you agree that we're going to kick it down the road and just leave space needs the way they are and use those those trailers for classrooms, you know, into the next decade or two. So, my my recommendation is don't take a vote tonight. It doesn't have to be voted tonight. Um, you you should you should think about this before you make a final decision. There hasn't been a lot of information given. What's the condition of the trailers? Chris, do you want to speak to that? Um, conditions

009are the in the trailers are fair. Um, they are 30 years old. I think it was back in 2019 2018 new roofs were installed. um our the company that I use for our heating and HVAC came in, looked at all four heating units to each mod. Um they're aged, but they're running in good shape. Um if anything does happen with them, like I told the board, we're we're going to be it's going to be cheaper to just replace them than to have to withdraw the gas. Um, it's R13, which is pretty much illegal nowadays to use because of environmental concerns. So, we'd just be purchasing new units. But other than that, structural report. Is there a structural report on those structures? Structural integrity. Structural integrity. Is there a structural integrity report on those units? I

010don't have one. So, what was your determination though that there that any kind of jacking or anything that it's been determined that it doesn't need any of that? It's not showing that it they're nothing is showing to my eye. But if we do go through with um if we do go through with the purchasing or even considering purchasing the the mods, the trailers, I would like to request that Skavi, the rental company that owns them, comes in and just gives us their honest opinion if anything needs to be done. So, with with all due respect, with all due respect, if I'd have known that, I'd have brought my two old lawnmowers to the school district for sale at a really hot price because they they were good mowers. If you want to buy something, you

011don't even you haven't even had a third party structural engineer group look to make sure that those things even have more than a couple of years life. Because if you buy them, then you got to crush them up, throw them in a dumpster, and get rid of them. What's it what's the disposal cost on that? If I if I had to haul that off, their their cost was around 17 grand. I estimated if we're going to have an extra one here, put it in dumpsters be 20 grand tops. So, I I can't see how we would buy something when we don't know the structural the actual struct structural integrity of the asset from a third reliable third party. It's not an asset, right? It's a it it it's depreciates faster than anything else. It's a

012trailer, right? So, it's literally So, you're you're arguing based on like you said, you don't care about the fiscal part of it. It's that's literally it. If they last us two, three years, we save money. That's it. We know they're going to last at least two to three years based on their condition right now. Nobody thinks they're going to fall apart in two to three years. So, if we save that money, we could they could last us through next year and we'd still save money if we had to throw them away at the end of next year. What are we paying for rent? $77,000 totally. We're going to buy them for 95. So, that's a $18,000 difference in year one. Year one. So, 100,000 on a 20 plus million budget. So, it's an asset though.

013You're buying it, right? You buy it, you own it. to buy something for a 100 grand of taxpayer money and not know what you're getting before you buy it. That's that's that's bad mojo. I that that almost boggles the mind that that would be the order of operation. So, typically you you'd have it inspected by a third party. So, you have a reliable third party report. So, we're not no offense, but you know, you're not replying you're not relying on on employees of of the district, right? Because he's your employee. You want to buy it. you know, it's easy to skew his perception because he's your he's your employee. He he answers to you guys, right? So, so there's there's a conflict of interest there. So, you need a third party to look at that

014and tell you what it is you're buying. Have we had an appraisal done on those? Do we know do we know what the the actual street value is other than what the the vendor wants to unload it for? Because the vendor's got you over barrel. The vendor knows they have you over barrel. They do. June 30th, we renew the lease. So June 30th, I mean, we don't make a decision on it tonight, then we buy them again for another or rent them again for another $77,000 for next year. And then yeah, you want to put it on the ballot in March, that's fine. If if you do those things, right, if you if you don't if you don't decide and you don't do it by the 30th, if you don't rush into a decision, it

015allows you to have the assets inspected to see what their what their actual condition is by independent third party. It allows the community to be able to see that and and and form an opinion, right? It allows the school board better information. It allows you to get a much broader selection of public input than the handful of people that have showed up tonight. It it just it just comes up really really really fast. And uh I I don't know. My my my money says uh says don't buy them this year. Push it off. If for all the years we 20 20 20 25 years we've been renting them, one more year to do it right is is money well spent versus rushing into it. My my opinion. If you if you buy them, you're saying

016we're not going to touch base needs uh until those things caved in from uh from a snowstorm. Anyway, that's that's all I have. Thank you. Hi, Bobby and Dossi. Five Brown Road. Miss you guys. Um so, I don't think you need to get an appraisal. We know kind of where they're at. And like I think that you can't put admin out there either because there's safety concerns. The reason why admin is inside is to like let people in the building. And then what's hard is with the preschool and kindergarten, we're not required, but we are required for special ed students. So it's a good service to have in the community. I don't think we should get rid of that either. But what you're going to run into, and I know you all know this, is

017that if you buy them, people will think that we're done worrying about this, but they don't know that. They might not know. They might or they might not know. There's no facilities out there. It's a really a safety concern to keep to keep them. I I love the fact that you're trying to save money, but in the long run, it might make the community even more outraged because I think waiting at least until March, you're putting it out on all on the ballot, I know that you give opportunities for people to watch this and you kind you don't really post it much on online anymore, but um on like Facebook and But I do agree that waiting just at least until March and getting all your ducks in a row so that you can say

018to the voter by buying these, it's not it's not that we're never going to spend money on needs again because some people will be like, "Okay, that's done. We never have to look at that again." These are they're slowly becoming obsolete. They're not even up to code. they're like grandfathered in. So, with all the big um you know the big presentations about the space needs and what we can do, I think we shot for the stars and we realize, okay, the community can't afford that, but maybe there's a middle ground. So, I love that you're trying to save money just for the year, but then the consumer is going to think we don't have to worry about that ever again, even though that's not really it's not the best. like it's especially because now that's

019where we everybody um picks up and drops off and then it's really a safety concern. So it's it's a hard job what you're doing and I I commend you for trying to save money, but I think that the majority of people just seeing from what's happened in the past of years in this community, they're going to think, "Okay, that's done." And they're they're never going to want to pay you to to fix like that situation. So before you buy them, just know that like what's your what's your end goal? You know, what's your fiveyear? What are you what are you looking at? Because if you buy them, your community is going to push back in five years and say, "We already bought those. Why are you trying to get a new one?" And then you

020have to explain to them, "No, we were saving money and blah blah." Like it's going to be a headache. So, um, thank you for everything you do and just consider the, you know, the no restroom situation and I definitely wouldn't put admin out there. Plus, Miss Wy and and Mr. G, they need to be in here. There's a lot going on. Um, yeah, there there's got to be a way. There's got to be a way, but you got this. Candy Davit 44 Old Center Road. I want to give the school board kudos for pulling this out of the air as a short-term resolution. I will say as a taxpayer who just got my tax bill to even start discussing a physical expansion of this plant is a nogo for people that are within my age

021group and are retiring in this comm community. Uh, if you were to do as Mr. Verbal suggests and say no kindergarten, I'm not going to talk about the preschool, but no kindergarten to get two extra rooms so we can get rid of the modulars. You would have an uproar. I know you would. Um, now I am going to take a step out and say and watch. There'll be one or two that will have children that will disagree, say, "We don't like them." But the kids love being out there. It is their own little campus. They have gardens. They have picnic tables. They have air conditioning. The upkeep, uh the roof, the carpeting. It's been uh they're clean. Um if you can save money this year, if that's what you've determined, uh kudos for you. That

022does not mean that we don't keep discussing an expansion on this building and a need for it, but we're going to have to talk about how do you create revenue in the state of New Hampshire, which I know Mr. Verville has tried to do in the past and he and I are in agreement on some of those things. But you can't just keep cutting, cutting, cutting, and uh you've got to come up with a resolution. This is a brave resolution. It is a um cost-saving resolution. And if these are here for five years, I've sat on this school board and I've seen them disappear one leave and it never you guys come and go and lots of good brains sit here and they can't figure it out. And like I said, with the tax bills

023that have just come out, you guys have to be really creative. And uh this was one way to do it. Thank you. I have one quick question. Sorry. If you don't spend this money that you have excess of, does it go back to the to the voters this year if because you have a lump sum that so we have the lump sum fund balance and then there's also retention funds. So the reason for the public hearing was to talk about whether we were going to expend fund the some of the retention funds, but bottom line the board needs to vote to see if they're going to keep more retention funds. What's left goes back to offset taxes. So, it ends up being sort of being the same pot of money. Okay. But they but but

024it does go back to the it um the board has retention funds and they vote each year on how much they want to keep in that pot. So, if they keep money in that pot, it comes from the fund balance at the end. Okay. So there's almost three. I don't want my understanding that with that retained fund it can either we can choose how much stays in that account what we're going to spend which is like if we were to do the modulars out of that and then or retain none of it and that what or whatever that balance is could go back to taxpayers. So there's potentially So there is spending, retaining, or returning. Really, it's kind of three options. Okay. So there's you could just keep it all or you could give it

025back to the tax the taxpayers. Well, you can't keep it all. There's a cap that you're allowed to keep. Okay. There's a formula. So we can keep up to $384,000. Is that just this particular school year? Yep. Yeah. Each year there's a formula. Y Okay. think about Kevin Farwell McCarron Road. So now I'm confused. My understanding and maybe it was wrong is that retained funds in the one-year revolving fund were for emergency use only. It used to be the reg the regulation changed in the past few years. It used to be you had to spend expend all of your funds before you could touch them. And there was a point in time where you needed to get permission from the Department of Education, but that that RSA changed a few years ago. So it doesn't

026have to be an emergency, but you have to have a public hearing before you can access those funds. So the board could they have enough of fund balance that they it's kind of one of the, you know, so so I don't want to I don't want to spoil it for for for later discussions, but what what is our fund balance looking like for this year? Um, it is later on the agenda. Are you okay if I still go over that next? Um, so the it's 424 right now and there are 260,000 in warrant articles. So if the warrant articles were all funded, it would leave 164,000 424 plus warrant articles that passed that are not funded yet because you you got to get to the end of the year because they were unbalanced funded. And

027so those those total X and then I'm sorry, what was the the last number? 164. 164. Okay. Thank you. Robert Po 112 South Road. Um first of all, I'd like to thank you for all your hard work. I know you guys have to make a lot of hard decisions here for the school. Um, I just want to point out, I was doing some research earlier today and I found that in a 2005 school district annual meeting, the school board members at the time voted that stated that they were renting the modulars for three years because at the time, right, they did not feel that the life expectancy of the modulars, right, was worth buying the modulars, right? So, I'm just going to point out that here we are in 2025, right? 20 years later, right?

028Thinking about purchasing the same modulars, right, that were people back then were saying were not worthy of purchasing. So, I'd ask you guys to reconsider that and I would also ask you along with along the lines of what other people have said, right? that if you're going to go ahead with this that you did take the time to do the research, check what the whether the conditions are worthy of this and also you put it to the boat at town. Thank you. I just wanted to know I thought kindergarten was mandated and understand we have to have kindergarten then yeah so it's not a choice kindergarten is not a choice it's mandate we have to have I just wanted to clear I missed something that's what I thought was something was said about getting her

029to kindergarten. Did you want to clarify that? Didn't it become mandated? I thought it was mandated. I know there was there was funding issues and for a while we got a one-time grant. Um so it was part of adequacy. So maybe I made the leap that it was required because it became part of adequacy. So I I don't know. Uh my understanding is is no district is mandated to offer kindergarten. Um the funding for kindergarten was from a Frankenstein bill, right? So they wanted Kino. They also wanted kindergarten and neither had the the votes to pass in one or the other body. And so they they married the two together that Kino funds would help fund kindergarten and that's how that's how state adequacy got keyed into kindergarten. But to to my understanding public schools

030are not mandated to offer kindergarten. You have to offer um one through one through 12 to the age of 21 22 somewhere in there. Um but I I to the best of my knowledge kindergarten is is not a is not a mandate and and I I I get it right there are people are availing of that. My point is when we implemented the programs and as we've grown them we've always sold it as this cost-saving exercise. But nobody's ever shown any numbers to show if if if if we discontinued the program, what would it cost to provide services to the students that have a right to those services versus what is the cost of of of having the program we have in house? And the reason I suspect it's not money saving is because nobody's

031ever produced the numbers, right? Because if it's money saving, so you think somebody would run off run those numbers and say, "No, Verbel's Verbell's out of his mind again and it saves us, you know, even if it saves 10 cents a year, it saves money." But nobody's ever shown those nobody's ever shown those numbers. So So while we say it saves money, we don't we don't know that it does. And we know we have an obligation for the for the grades that are in the trailer, right? They they are certainly within the obligation window. So, you know, it's it's hard decisions. I get it. It's it's not it's not easy. But we're we're implementing new programs. We're expanding those programs even as we're we're complaining that we don't have the space needs uh for for

032for all these kids and and so you got to balance it. I mean, if if that if you guys want to be brave and strong and say we believe that the space needs issue is, you know, intractable in Deerfield for the foreseeable future, and we're going to buy the modules and and we're just going to keep using them until until we can't to to bridge the gap. If somebody's got the courage to say that that that that that's that's really the policy we're going to p pursue, you know, I would applaud that. I mean, that's got cander and honesty and, you know, is is is taking responsibility. But to say we're going to buy them so we save a little money and we'll see how long we have them. It if we buy them, if

033we buy them, we're we are going to we're going to milk them till till they fall over. It's it it's hard to imagine any other possible outcome. As far as gardens and benches, you know, last I looked, the school year runs September through June. And most of that is late fall, winter, and early spring. And I imagine kids do sit on benches in the the dead of winter. Kids do all kinds of things. I sit on benches in the winter sometimes, but that the gardens the gardens are probably a little inaccessible when they're frozen solid under snow. But I I digress. Um, I looked up the kindergarten thing. This is by Citizens County and I have a chance to go to New Hampshire regs because they would take forever. But it says all school districts

034in New Hampshire are required to offer at least part-time kindergarten. So it's a half day full day. Yeah. Issue. It says also that it's not mandatory for parents. Yeah. They don't have to write. They don't have to come. But it is but it is mandatory for us to provide. I since everyone or most everyone's gotten up and said a second thing, I'm going to say something. A second thing that I'm very uncomfortable in saying when we talk about implementing new programs, we've implemented high school choice. That's a new program that has raised our taxes. And I want kids to go where they need to go and what fits them best. I don't want to deny them that. So kindergarten is not a new program. Preschool is not a new program, new implementation in this building.

035It's been in this community. And if we were to present a warrant article next year and say in order to remove these trailers, we are removing kindergarten or just doing half days so we can give you a couple more classrooms. The community, I am 95% sure, would not support that. So, I would say again, I would encourage you not to waste any more money. Let's hope that those up at the state house, the governor can think of ways to create revenue for our small towns. We're not Bo, we are not Newington where we have power plants. Um, businesses aren't going to come to Deerfield like they have gone to Salem. we all moved to a rural area because that's what we wanted was most of us or the houses were cheap. It depends who you

036who you are. So, um it's really a debate on creating revenue for our public school systems if we can do that. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, I figured we would have a discussion after so if there's no one else then we will have a board discussion. So there's a lot lot there right with um the like Kevin was talking about fiscal versus policy you know I I really feel that um I understand the point that um if we purchase them then we own them but I don't I think that a lot of the problem is that there's a a lot of lack of foresight that happens um not just this board, but um it I think that we can do something like this to save money and not have it be, you know, something that

037is going to last 10 to 20 years. I don't want that. Um I think the point is to save money and we can't just we can't just cut it off. We can't just, you know, eliminate them today. uh we either have to rent them again or we buy them for short money beyond that. So I don't think that institutionalizing them is, you know, our goal at all. I think that I can only speak for myself, but I think that we are still committed to getting rid of them eventually. Um getting kids in the building. Um, I think that for me it just makes way too much sense moneywise to not do it. And uh to the point that about them a 2005 board not being not deeming them worthy of purchase. Uh so they were

038what three and one year old and they determined that they weren't worthy of purchase. Um, I think that they pro that's why we're in this spot is because they decided not to purchase them and so we've been renting them for that many years. We could have paid for them however many times over at this point. So I think that that's I definitely don't agree with that. Can I I just want to add some numbers to kind of go with what you said. So ultimately it will cost us $18,000 to purchase it because we wouldn't be paying the $77,000. So, it's $18,000 to purchase it over four years. That's $38,000 that we will save four years. That's a lot. I do I do like the idea though. Is there any possibility we could get a third

039party person out there to check them and see, you know, structurally how sound they are? Yeah, I'm sure we could, but I mean that's going to cost us what, 2500 bucks that goes into our I mean, to your point, it we're not spending $95,000. We're spending 18 because that other money is already spent in rent. So, we're spending $18,000. We're not spending 95. The other thing I wanted to say, too, is I the study that came out from the um was it Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission? I think they said that they expect enrollment is going to either stay the same or go down in Deerfield. Correct. So hopefully if we can get by for a few years and if enrollment does go down, I mean, we have to think about that as well that

040there that may lessen up some of the space needs in our in our school. Like if we could go from three classrooms to two classrooms in some of them, that's going to free up a classroom. This gives us a little more time to see if that plays out, right? I I I don't I mean again I'm only speaking for myself but I don't think any of us view this as a longterm you know let's only for another 10 to 20 years but to think that it would save that much money in four years and yes maybe then we have to pay 20,000 to get rid of them it's still it's a substantial amount of money that we saved. Yeah. And that's, you know, I just wrote down some notes and I just had just about

041short-term versus long-term. You know, kind of what Bobby was talking about. And I think that that's, you know, that's a great point to consider is that we we need to start having these conversations about like what is our five-year plan to address space needs, you know, and I, you know, I'm still new on this board and, you know, my the first time I brought this up, it was, you know, expressed that this is a perennial issue and but we haven't got anywhere. So um to me this is this is a step towards things that I said that I wanted to do which is saving money and I think you know people are crying out for that um to save money. So, I think to weigh those, you know, save money. And I I I hear

042what, you know, Bobby and uh Kevin are saying about not making it something that uh you know, people are going to think that they already solve the space needs problem. And I I think we should be clear that this does not solve those issues. No, this is, you know, this is literally to me it's literally just a a cost savings. And when you look at it as we're spending $18,000, not 95. The only thing that we're losing is the maintenance on those buildings. But again, the biggest fear on those buildings was the heating and AC units, and those would cost us equivalent to one year of rental to replace all four units. And that's a worst case scenario that they all fail at the same time. Also want to address um someone said about moving

043the administrative staff like that really wouldn't work for one. I mean you guys need to be here in the building. That's really important. But then if you said well we're going to put all the specialists out there. Well, there's only one classroom specialist occupied, right? All the rest are little tiny closet spaces. So that wouldn't give us any solution either. So I just want to mention that. That would just be one classroom. You did that. Well, I never thought that putting admin out there would be the answer. I think they should stay in the school. And I did think that specials could go out there. It's easier if you're moving one one child at a time. I'm assuming. Yeah, you could do that. But it's it's just one classroom that gets freed up. It's one

044the one by the cafeteria. the only classroom that has special kind I think there are others building over there so there's no perfect answer for any of this no I I think that we do need to have conversations though about the uses of you know the uses of our spaces right not just you know that we need more But I think, you know, we kind of grouped the whole music and art going out there together and think it was determined that, you know, art's definitely not feasible. Um, but, you know, if we got specials out there, that's one classroom that that frees up in the building. And then if we got um music out there and they have their their own modular just music That's two. So now we have three classrooms. So which what

045are you what special are you thinking of moving out there other than that one? That one classroom that is uh the shared right. That's reading my Oh, I see. So if you put if you put specialists out in one classroom and then you put music in the other two, right? So music has their own mod. Then you have a fourth classroom, right? which yeah it's too bad the um the world not the world language what's it called now but that classroom's too small it was a really unless it was used as a classroom yeah I know but when I did the space it's really t I can't remember how many that was used though for second grade one what we determined was that two of the second grades had higher enrollment we had 18 kids

046had like 13 in that room. I have to look at the map. I don't remember how many kids can go in there. I know it's not many. You considered that for this year because it's a smaller second grade, but it really would be only for one year because then we go back to the big, right? Yeah. But I I know that one year, you know, the second grade team made the decision that two of us would be okay with having like 20 kids. Yeah. 21. Yeah. and then Sue had a smaller group so that we could do that. That's an interesting idea. Yeah. So, I I didn't want I didn't mean to derail or away from from usage to uh purchas it, but um if you if you have purchased them and you feel like

047you can make some switches like that like we're talking about to help free up some of the space, right? Right. to a certain degree. I don't think it's safe to keep like all day long coming back and forth. I don't think that's safe. The traffic the fact they have to be in and out keys. I mean, we go over this. No, there's no place. So, I I think it does make sense to possibly use it maybe. Um, but it it gets you going at least going in the four directions that everybody is saying. Can't fix it. We can't do it unless we have an expansion. There's got to be some give and take. There's got to be some things. Yeah. I just I don't think nobody's voting for an expansion anytime soon. So, all the

048taxes luckily. I hear this a lot. people are scared of that that we're going to go for the expansion again and I don't speak about things like that and the transfer station we talk about the weather and where should you put your garbage. Yeah. So, I think we just need to be clear about our direction in this in that the purchase is literally to save money and that we're going to work towards right to do something and I am not against having a day kindergarten because it's half a day, right? But we need we need to, you know, collectively get together on things that affect that, right? Like when we vote in for a fourth um kindergarten classroom, that's not only a teacher's salary, that's another classroom. So that's going directly against our space needs

049goal. So those things have to be considered. I'm just going to throw out there, it just made me think about this. We used to have like um like one full-time and then part-time. So there would be an offering of full-time, but then there was also part time for parents that could do that. is not working, right? Be able to send their kids to a half day kindergarten, but there was a half day kindergarten. Yes. It was a choice. So, and I'm not trying to jerk, but when I hear that, it's like I get it. Parents definitely have to look. I get that. I understand that completely. But that is that the reason we offer full days? I think I'm gonna talk for Kristen here. You can back me up. But I think the reason we

050offer full day kindergarten is so that we can really support the kids and get their learning going. And they're finding more and more the kids are coming totally unprepared for school. So by having a full day, it really supports their academic levels later on in the school year. So if the school can provide that, it helps with the kids later on. You want to add to that? I mean, I think that's Yeah. Most programs now that we use in kindergarten are meant for a full day program, not for a half day program. And most of the competencies I always talk about when my daughter went to kindergarten, I was just glad she knew how to write her name and came up with these letters. And now kids coming out of kindergarten need 51 segments to

051be competent. So it's it's kindergarten is not um you can't do that in Yeah, sure. I understand that for I get that. But then again, you say that some kids come to kindergarten to me. those opinions are not to say well again I I don't want to let's let's get back to modular so um if there's any other comments directly related to why we should or should not purchase them share the legal so um the board asked at the last meeting that I speak with our legal counsel um regarding the board's authority to make this decision or not um initially the advice that I received um the advice was based on the premise that there was a warrant article at some point about the acquisition of the modulars and we've done a ton of research.

052We I think we finally found all of the years of warrant articles and there was no warrant article. Um it was in put in the budget. So, if the board makes a motion tonight to move forward, it should be our legal advice was that it should be based on further legal review because more review needs to be done to determine whether or not putting them in the budget, noticing the vote, you know, there was a note in the budget. We finally found the old budgets that said this amount of money is in here. It's a modular and the setup fees and that, you know, so is that enough that the that the voters voted on that budget that had them in it? It needs to be reviewed before So, if you decided to move forward,

053it would need to be contingent on further legal review that would allow you to encumber the funds, but potentially if you don't have the authority to do it, then that wouldn't happen. It's a wrinkle. So, so knowing that, what do you guys think? Do we do we uh table this and we um put it on a warrant article for next year? Well, if I understand you correctly, Patty, if we were to vote to do this, then legal would have to look at it and determine whether we need to do a warrant article. And then if we have to do a warrant article, then that would table the purchase. Correct. If they say it's okay, then we can go ahead with the purchase. So I would recommend that we maybe vote on it tonight and depending

054on what we say, you know, a move thing. But if we do vote to purchase it, then we would have to wait discussing and the funds need to be in covered. So yes, we have to do that against Yes. You're very very tight, right? Yeah, I I don't really like the idea of like kind of going around the specific warrant article like it was voted into a budget. Um I think a lot of people are probably unaware of the details of those budgets compared to when there's a specific warrant article. Um so I kind of feel like that's like going around the voters a little bit as much as I think it makes sense. I mean, I've been pretty clear about that, but I also don't want to, you know, kind of bypass the voter

055on that and make and, you know, do it legally but not, you know, probably the way people would appreciate. Guys, think about that. It's hard because we keep hearing got to find ways to save us money. Find ways to save money. Find ways and then find a way that can save you some money and people don't want that either. So it it's challenging. And if we were to wait and put it as a war article and it was voted down, then I guess we would know how people felt. So we wouldn't be able to do the same thing come. If they voted as a warn article, then it is what it is. Like they decided that that's not where they want to save. Correct. But yeah, but so we would not be able to have

056the same conversation in June. That would get people upset if they voted. No. No. Exactly. That we continue to pay whatever the rental fee is. So we wouldn't save any money. Say something. Yeah. Um, yeah, I understand what no issue that means and I hear I hear the people all of us saying, "Well, how long are they going to last?" Blah, blah, blah. I mean, did we do we have a contract that ended at a certain amount of time with this company? The leases are year to year. Yeah, they used to sign multi-year leases, but um the board has not been we've been doing year to year. before has chosen to do that. Yeah. More recently. Okay. Yeah. So, we could just keep paying for them full price till we get a time. Now, I

057do have some of these here and I do notice that the monthly rate has gone up. Yeah, they've they've held the monthly rate um for a while. Our business administer, yes, has has talked to them and they've been agreeable to holding holding the rate for a while. Okay. Isn't it planned to go up though with new carpets because new carpets If you chose to change the carpeting. Yes. It was $300 a month if you chose to replace the carpeting. Yeah. Yeah. So, what I'm looking at here for one I don't know what you have in front of you. What's the amount? Oh, total monthly 1,2. So if you continue to spend that money and spend that money and spend that money spending Yeah. It just I mean fortunately um again this is like something that

058gets keeps getting kicked down the road and for whatever reason it's hasn't been put on the ballot as a warrant article. That's my biggest thing is like how how it, you know, it gets talked about every year. How come it hasn't gone on the ballot? I don't, you know, I don't get that, but I wasn't here for that. So, I mean, we don't put on the ballot everything that we do. I mean, we do maintenance, fire systems, things like that. I mean, they're not on the ballot. Yeah, the the legal review is to to find out if you have the authority for the acquisition of those buildings, and he just wants to make sure that you don't do something that shouldn't be done, right? Keeping you out of trouble, right? And I'm just saying I

059would like to hear that if that's legally we're okay with doing that. I don't see that that's any different than putting paving a new parking lot and putting on a new roof. It's all different things for the I guess it is different because it's buying it as opposed to maintaining it. No, I just hate, you know, you said why didn't we buy it way back when? It's like we're in this position again, you know, where we're going to decide not to buy it again and then people five years from now are going to say, why didn't they buy it five years ago? you know, I just feel like we're going in this circle and we have an opportunity to get off this merrygoround. Yeah, I agree. That's why I I support it. I just, you

060know, finding that out today like kind of, you know, I mean, the worst case with that because I I don't want to like, you know, kind of do do the workound. But I guess I didn't think about it that way is that like there's other projects that you could spend money on without you do have authority to to run things, right? And that's why that's and to me it was like, you know, the conversation was brought up about the the parking lot lights and stuff like that. That's not a cheap project. We're going to spend less money on this when we do the Hback. So, right. So, it's not um and it, you know, if you choose to move forward with the motion, it it's you know, adding the language pending a legal review would

061make sure that you didn't go around anything or do something you weren't supposed to. It just if you want to do it, then I would suggest you add that language. If you don't want to do it, then we don't do any further legal review. Any other discussion? Just want to say one other thing. If we do purchase them, I mean, even if we have to get rid of them in a year or two, we still have safe money. Exactly. You know, that's what I mean there. I don't think I mean, Chris is confident that these things are going to last us more than three years, right? I mean, I would say so. Yeah. So to me from a cost-saving standpoint which is what at the end of the day that's what people want you know

062people are you know so I got my mind made up is uh is there any other discussion all right I make a motion to purchase the modulars using retain general funds pending legal Sorry. Um, take a vote. All in favor say I. I. I. All right. Next order minutes from March. I'm going to move that we approve the March 19th minutes. And thank you very much for making those changes. Look good. Second. Sorry. It's up to the board. You can. And that was the motion was to do one Okay. I did that just because I have comments on one of them. So, okay. All right. Um, we'll take a vote to approve the March 19 minutes. All in favor say I. I. I. [Music] I'll be honest. I didn't get a chance to review the

06321st. Um I I'm good with the 7th. So why don't we make a make a motion to approve the minutes of May 7th? I'll second that. So no one in Can all in favor approve the May 7th minute say I. I. I I'm also going to make a motion to approve May 21st. Okay. I make a motion to approve May 21st minutes. Go ahead, Miss I was looking at usually have discussion. So, I just wanted to I wanted to add to the solar because it talked about the rate going up, but I wanted to have in the minutes that the solar will still save us 14,83 annually. Yeah. I I wrote it already cuz I think that's important. Is that going to get added or it's I might have missed the two in there. Okay.

064So, did you make it did you want to edit them or did you want to approve them? Yeah. Well, I made the motion because usually then we have a discussion. Okay. So, I was just in the discussion. I was making a change. I I just wanted that it had the rate, you know, it went up from how.7.9 or whatever. And I just wanted in there that it still saves 14,000 something 183 a year. That's the expected savings. So just wanted people to know it's still going to be saving. We're not be paying for it. Y all in favorit all in favor as edited say I. I public comments. Kevin Marble and Karen R. Well, congratulations on on making a decision. It's not an easy decision. Um, you know, you can't make everybody happy all all

065the time. It was interesting, Mr. Donald, to hear your your comments about um Southern New Hampshire planning or whoever came up with the numbers because uh in a fairly recent previous school board, you know, we had people advocating very hard for a $45 million expansion in renovation because the prediction was that student enrollment would continue to climb in in in Deerfield. And there certainly that certainly is not a unanimous opinion. crystal ball is kind of kind of foggy on that, but I but I I appreciate you taking a a look at other other sources because I I agree we're more likely to stay flat than than anything. The parking lot's not the same, right? So, um I happen to be digging through warrants uh recently for various reasons and there has been a lot of

066warrant articles on the school side put money away to pay that that parking lot, right? That parking lot got paved because money was put away for the purpose. It's a little bit different than a roof, right? You have money to maintain the building. You have to maintain the building. You don't you don't have to pave a parking lot. So, the the district worked at at putting money away specifically for that purpose. So, that's something the district um decided was a priority and and and we did it. So, it's it's not it's not really the same as far as as far as school choice because, you know, this is this is this is going to be another perennial favorite because it's a three-year contract with with the schools we have today and and as of the

067school year that we are in Brown Northwood Academy and Penrooka and Conquered High School. at Conquered High School are almost at parody for tuition rates. And while it is true that the unprecedented 13-year unilateral contract with Conquered High School that failed at the ballot box did have a first year teaser rate, which would have saved the district money. After the first year, the tuition rate reverted to a formula. And if you don't have the 13-year proposed contract, don't worry. Just look at the uh memorandum of understanding because that three-year contract has the same formula that the 13-year contract had after the first year. So, while we would have saved some money in the first year, the second year it would have been exactly what we'll be paying next year because the formula is exactly the

068same. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. But if you graph out tuition rate over time for CO Brown and for Conquered High School, they are both increasing. Conquer is increasing more rapidly than CO Brown. And I would be surprised if Concret High School's tuition rate is not higher than Cob Brown in the next school year. Right. That'll start July 1st technically. So all all this talk about school choice cost us a fortune. It it it didn't. that right now in our existing school choice model, the only thing that can save us money is if children Dearfield choose go to the high school within our SAU, Penrook Academy, because the Pemrook Academy tuition going off memory, and I'm sure the superintendent will correct me if I'm wrong, is about 20% less expensive than CO

069Brown or Conquer, right? Because that was actually one of the discussions. If you want to save money on on high school tuition, then force all the Deerfield kids to go to PA and then you get an instant instant windfall. I I don't know what their increases look like over time. I have to confess I didn't track that. Um and school choice is something that went to the voters. We asked the voters if that's if that's what they want to do and that's that's what they that's what they wanted to do. Uh my my gut tells me they're going to continue to want to do that because I think in short order there'll be more Deerfield kids attending Co Brown than than conquered. But I think the conquered number will always be significant. Um it it

070would be interesting who who goes to the executive board meetings. is the executive. It would be interesting if at the executive board meeting it was made known what more broadly because I I don't know how broadly it's known that Deerfield has expanded school choice with respect to high schools that PA is an option and it would be in in the SAU not maybe not the SAU but certainly the Penrook School District's best interest to do some research to to find out you know why why is it that Deerfield kids tend not to select PA, right? Because PA could do some very easy research with local customers to figure out what is it what is it about PA that makes it less desirable than conquered high and co brown because if you know that then you

071know what to build on and improve which is which is my segue. you know, we look at test scores for math, English, language arts, and science, and uh you know, I guess they'd be best characterized as flat since we've gone to New Hampshire SAS, but yet we have other schools that are consistently very high very high performance. And I' I've suggested it to this board in the past, and I I'll suggest it again. We should be talking to the highest performing schools in the state. We should be asking them what they are doing that's making them so successful and we should strive to onboard andor mimic the things that they are doing that's making their districts more successful academically than others so that we can improve our district. I I've been begging school boards to

072make this a priority. Once a year we get assessment for results review and and and that's that's about it. Curriculum review board that was set up in response to to a little less than half the population not liking the demonstrabably failed Common Core State Standards. But that's if we want to improve Deerfield, the easiest way is to look at New Hampshire schools that are high performing, figure out what they're doing that we're not doing and and on board that and and mimic it. I'm begging this board to starting tonight make academic performance improvement the top priority of the school board in Deerfield. Open discussions really instead of just onboarding whatever the experts are telling you because they've been wrong, right? We've been doing that for decades and and we're flat at best. Um let's let's

073go back to what what we know works. Thank you. Andy Davat 44 Old Center Road. I feel like I'm a dog chasing my tail. So, I'm going to at some point um ask Mr. Verville to just have a conversation with me because I voted for school choice several years ago and then I voted as long as it didn't raise my taxes. and school choice passed unanimously, but it said please don't increase my taxes. If and now he is saying co brown and conquered are pretty much equal in tuition. But if the school board had gone to CO Brown or had gone just to conquer and said we're sending everybody, what would our tuition be? We might be talking differently. And I believe from my perspective that that didn't happen. Um, and so I just want

074people to realize that's why our taxes are going up. We have to own it. And if that's how the community is going, then we own it. But it's not kindergarten. It's not preschool. It is because we went this direction. And um, it wasn't the warrant article that I had voted for. Thank you. Fabian DSI, Five Brown Road. Um just to kind of speak on the last speaker's comments. Um Mr. Verville, sorry, no names. Um the first person the first person explained it very clearly that when we voted on school choice, we were only given one sum from Conquered High. But if you looked deeper, it was for one year of tuition from Conquered High and then the rates go up. So although the community may not have seen, we wouldn't have been saving as much

075money as you may have thought because conquered was only giving you this pretty little bow for one year and after that the it would escalate as as it has. So we we might have saved money for one year of going to conquered high but the school choice in general over the timeline it might save us more if again kids were to choose Pemrook Academy. We would save a lot of money because Pemrook Academy is cheaper than Conquered High. So school choice has the potential to save us even more money than we were saving before um because Conquered High's tuition was going to go up. they just the school board at the time didn't give us that information because we didn't have it. It was an equation. Um something I also want to retract back um

076I'm glad you made a decision. That's a really hard decision for the modulars. Um but in the future you the board tends to go over budget every year for legal advisory. every year you go over budget for for contacting your legal advisory. Um Patty Sherman gave you good information saying you're going to have to go back. I got this information from them. He's saying there was no or she they said there was no warrant article. So you may spend more money going back you voted. You're going to go back to legal and make sure you don't need to do a warrant article. But then he they might turn around and say you need to do a war. So just you might just have been spending more money than you had to. Um but yeah, thank

077you so much for your time. Anyone else? All right. to the board discussion regarding public comments. This is the first time we're going to do this. Um I have a few things I want. Yeah. Okay. Um the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission study came out well after when we were trying to do the uh addition. It came out what like three years Patty after the condition. It was that was later. And then there was also the other um I can't remember the organization that we participated in now. Yeah. Newampshire something housing housing or something. So I'm just so you can't really say oh the numbers aren't the same. This is new information that came out pretty recently. Um legal advisory. The reason we go over the budget is because there's been a default budget for

078so many years. We keep trying to increase the legal amount and it would keep going back to the default budget and that's why we're over every can I can I speak in the ghost of gender. So the intention for putting board discussion regarding public comments was not to respond and have a conversation. Her intention from a training that she attended was was there anything that you heard during public comments that the board would like to put on a future agenda like I would really like to talk about that. Um or did the board ask or did um the public ask a really simple question that I could answer or the chair could answer? that was the intention and you know board can do as they wish but I just feel like okay let you for

079doing that um yeah so to that point I I mean um she did introduce that but I I think that people I mean if you guys watch board of selected meetings it's literally a back and forth conversation and I don't see any harm to that um you know not saying that that's the way that we should operate But I think people are looking for this to not I don't know. I think it lose a lot of its luster if we table this for two weeks and then say, you know, we're going to take in the month of July off. So I just think you can you can make a motion to wave your policy, too, if you didn't know that. So your public comment policy that it's not a conversation, the board can wave that

080policy if you wanted to have the conversation. Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to wave that policy. I I don't think that all of us are fully uh in the know of that policy anyhow. So um I'd make a motion to wave that policy for this meeting at least. Did you miss and so that I I guess I want to I'm not understanding now. I thought I So that would allow us to continue how Ellen was yes talking. It doesn't allow us for conversation. That would be up to the board, you know. So, if you wanted to wave the policy before public comments to have conversation, you can do that. You can wave the public comment policy now and and have discussion about what was said. I I do agree that at times things

081come up and we can't say anything or you know the way it is. My one concern with getting the conversation going is most nights there aren't a lot of people, but there could be evenings. And I'm not saying those conversations aren't important, but there could be times that we could be spending an hour of the meeting just with public comments. Yeah. And so in order to move forward with other things, but again, that's not saying I don't appreciate the comments. That's something that I have always thought we need to get more information, but that would be my one concern with changing it completely. Yeah. No, I understand that. And I I think there are things on our typical agenda where we could save time. But um but we'll we're going to talk about some of

082that stuff later anyway. But um so we'll take a vote then to have Right. I made a motion. We'll take a vote to um have an open discussion. All in favor say I. I post you. Allergies are killing me. All right. So, did you want to continue? Did you Oh, I just just one other thing about the conquered tuition. I mean that and maybe Patty you can speak to this a little bit. that was there was a base amount and then yes, you might add some money for it for a year, but it was a base that started at like 16,000 and so maybe you'd add a little bit, but there's no way you could compare that with 20,000. It's not like it went from 16,000 up to 20,000 and then they were the same.

083So it was over a long period of time. So it was still quite a bit less because it was a it was a base amount for a period of time, right? I'm not even going to pretend that I remember the formula um from that proposal, but it it it was a formula and a calculation. Whether it mirrored the I don't remember, but it is it was based on their actual numbers and calculation and the exchange between the business administrators of the end ofear forms were what the calculations are based on. Started at 4,000 less. I mean, you're not going to all of a sudden have a $4,000 increase. So you and I learned something in our meeting with Maddie the other day about that variable rate where it's just something that you know we're really

084getting you know bad now we're getting right so but it's a variable rate from it's either three or three and a half to three 3% or the actual calculations are somewhere in between. Right. Right. And so we're giving the previous contract that we had the long-term contract started with a base amount that was way way less. It's not like after so many years it whipping up there. We're in we're at a point right now because conquer said, "Well, you're not sending all our kids." So, we're moving it up to like 19,000 as opposed to 16,000. And then they with that calculation, it's gone up now that it's pretty close to it's like $300 less than Go Brown. Wasn't there another um fee that Conquer didn't charge us capital fee when all our kids used to

085be per per pupil capital fee and then negotiate a contract to eliminate that. Right. So now that's in there. Yeah. I would think it must for us but but the town voted on that. So, you're kind of like beating a dead horse at this point and and you're factually incorrect on how those contracts work. You need to reread them. I think it was also it's a three-year contract versus the Oh, it is now long. I'm talking about the long-term contract. The three-year contract, you can't even compare that to what the longterm contract was. Mhm. I thought that Kevin had said that the um that that formula was the same. It might be, but if you're starting at 16,000 and you're adding so much, it's going to take an awful lot long time to get to

08620,00 works. Okay. But it'll just table it because I don't have that information. Um, I like to make a comment on the first commenter's suggestion about asking the most successful students how they do it and that I think that's a good idea. Yeah, I was I wrote made a note of that too. So Kevin, you must know they probably have a is okay if I talk to Kevin? I'm sorry. There must be um the the department of environmental well they're not called that anymore but anyway they must have a website that has all the SAS scores and you just look for schools that are similar to our schools like you know K to8 or whatever. So that it depends on what you want to do. So the disagregated data going back probably close to 20

087years is is available. The problem with that is it went from uh knee kneecap to best back smarter balance then to New Hampshire SAS. So at this point I'd focus on New Hampshire SAS. What most of the most of the spreadsheets now um have sort headings and so you can you can pick what you want to look at it at the grade level. It's a it's a little more difficult because you're you're testing what four through eight and and I don't I don't know that there's an aggregate for middle school. Um, so the graphs like so the graphs that I made for the high schools I sorted on high schools and then I selected English language arts then math then science and and because there's so many you can't have the name of all of

088them. I picked the names of the schools that I was interested in versus the the state average. And when you when you do that you see where that is. And and then if you do that over multiple years, you know, you see this this S-curve, sideways S-curve, and the the top 10% are very consistent. The bottom 10% are very consistent. The only thing that's interesting is you can have a school that's like top 10% in English language arts that's not quite so good in in anything else. Um, more often than not, they do really well at at two, but not three. Um, but those, you know, those high-erforming schools, that that's where you want to go. My opinion is to say, well, they're wealthy towns and they just they're they're just better than us and,

089you know, there's nothing we could do to mimic what they do. I I've always found that to be a bit of a a bit of a copout. Um, so it it the only way I know how to do it is is brute force. download the spreadsheets, you know, callull your own data and and sift through it and decide who you think it's worth talking to. You know, the problem with with size or financial cohorts is that you start to you you're you're artificially called, right? Really, all you want to know is who who's the highest academic groups, who's who's doing the best, and then try to figure out what is it that they're that they're doing. um to to be the best. Okay, that would be my recommendation. And and if I can, you got

090to read both contracts. The 13-year contract had had a a a value for the first year and then the second year and on it has the same formula that the three-year contract does. So the first year right and that was the known number or close to right the most the only number that would be estimated but year two and on were not based on the first year we're based on the same formula we're working off of and so in the second year we would have set to exactly where we are on tuition because that formula is looking at um conquer's actual spend per student basically right what it what it costs educ educated kid, they've got a formula to calculate that and they're basically saying that's that's what you're going to that's what you're going

091to pay. The formulas are are identical. So the the the loss of kids didn't have anything to do with it. The only thing that that makes that made the conquered contract look so good was that first year teaser rate which was calculated in a completely different manner than year two and on and year two and on are not tied to the first year. They're they're they're the same formula that we're on today. Thank you. Any other comments about discussion? Am I allowed to say one more thing? Sure. Sorry. Um Bobby and Dosy5 Road. um for the getting to know local like New Hampshire schools that you want to take pick and choose from. Um SAS is hard because there some kids just don't take good test like they don't do testing well. So it's hard

092because when for example when we were looking at high schools we looked at culture we like the culture of the school. We looked at cleanliness of the school. We looked at are there even bathrooms you can get to like so maybe talk to your you've been teachers for a while uh and retired. So maybe talk to people that you have friends friends and family and neighbors and say hey what's a school that that you would recommend because sometimes SAS it's just a big long test so there might be it as a starting point Bobby. Yeah starting point. Yeah, definitely. And I'm not telling you as far as testing. So, yeah, I was just saying maybe look at the culture of the school and all that jazz. Yeah. To that point, I I I we had

093talked briefly, maybe it was actually maybe it was actually when I was running and stuff, was thinking just about ideas of engagement with people and like what they really care about, you know, all the time and get in the climate of the community is, you know, just having, you know, even informal polls, you know, stuff like that. And that would be something we could ask them is, you know, what schools, you know, what she just asked you about or what other schools would parents, you know, aspire our school to look like. All right. Um, gender, I have one thing to add. Yeah. Um, so I would like to have a conversation about hiring over the summer under immediate business certificate. And then I have a couple of additional when we get there. Um,formational items for

094you. And then um, a high school transportation update is underformational item and Mrs. Kron is here. So I don't know if you wanted to move that up so that she doesn't have to speak. Which one was that? It's under number 13. It's a bullet point. So if you, you know, want to consider moving it up. Yeah, we can put that at the top. That's fine. All right. So, so I had responded to Superintendent Sherman regarding um a bus for Cobra. Um, we do have drivers that tell Kelly and Tom at Dale that they are coming back. Um, things change over the summer. Kelly's a big believer of not counting her chickens before they hatch. Um, there are two drivers that are Deerfield drivers that are questionable upon returning. Um, I've had conversations with Tom and

095Kelly about both of these drivers. Um, again, it's not always public information and communication gets missed because we are short drivers and both Kelly and Tom are driving and training and busy. Um, so we'll have a better answer for you guys in August regarding if the possibility is there for a co-ound bus depending on what happens with two of our drivers um returning in August. So for now we have to table the co brown bus um situation. So is there anything else? I spoke with or emailed with you today um about um conquered high school summer orientation. You approved um budget money. So we'll be doing providing a bus to conquer high for the summer orientation. the kids already been assigned to their um weeks and we'll I'll get the roots together for Kelly to

096send out um to Lisa Lena conquered. So, as of right now, we only need one more driver to be able to add that possibly two. There are two drivers that are questionable to keep six buses running at Deerfield, two buses to conquer and then a bus possibly to Code Brown. Because as it stands now, the other driver and I will probably maintain our concrete high roots and then we'll just be tentative on the two drivers here at Deerfield. So, and I based on what our numbers were at the beginning of this school year, I'm not sure we would be able to double up at the beginning of the year because I think I told you guys we were over the 51 capacity at the beginning of the school year. Um, so me driving a double

097route would probably not be an option at the beginning of the school year. So can we plan to have you back um with that update the first? Right. So that that was another question I had for super tur was are you guys meeting that first Wednesday in August? Like is that when you want to have the information by? Yeah, because co- brown starts earlier than correct. Yeah, they start the middle of August and Congress starts towards the end closer to when Deerfield starts. So yeah, I can absolutely come back and um Kelly and I will probably be here together. We'll have the roots ready for you guys to approve and have information um on co-ground route if we could do a co-ound bus and I will probably provide the same route or something similar that

098I gave you guys when we were looking at it December through March time frame I had given you guys in that packet a similar route again based on student ridership. Sounds good. Okay. Any other questions? All right. 2025 update year in spending. So we um I gave you a spoiler alert earlier. Um, so your fund balance is at 424,000 u minus the warrant articles being funded for 260,000 leaves a balance of 164,000. Um, and then there were a couple of outstanding items and Mr. Kos is here to talk about the fence. Um, he has more information to share and probably a better understanding of what the bins look for than I did. Evening In your package, you'll have the fence breakdown of all the contractors that responded to our bids to my RFP. I did

099not send out an RFP for this basically based on the amount of the what we rent cost. I did did four vendors and got six vendors and got responses from the only thing I had was the from the circle. I don't have any new there's nothing to copy. I didn't have any new information. just the just the part that was added to the surplus document from last time. Did you get additional info when you're talking about the la the info that we reviewed last meeting? Um I guess I'm re I'm talking about the information last meeting that I was you didn't add anything to that one. Um no the only thing I did show up was the number from American Council. So it was the in the back of that surplus document last time. [Music]

100Thank you. Okay. Um yeah, all the contractors are going with the um same commercial grade fencing rails, top rails, no bottom rails. All the post will be cemented in concrete. Um 6 ft high black lattice privacy slats and a 12T swing gate. I have a spreadsheet here that shared you want me to print that. Did you have an updated number on one of them? You said American fence. You said American fencing their final price was $7,10. So that would have been the option two. Yeah. Right.$7,000. Yes. Commercial grade. this. So, this has changed because I think the one we had had a 10 foot wide double drive door 12T. Now, did you have a recommendation, Chris, for the board over when you looked at these? Reliable fence came in at $5,764. AQ fence came in

101at 500 5,000 $915 um with a price difference of $151. Um Reliable Fence is asking for a I'm I'm only going to present the top two. Um the other ones kind of go a little higher and I don't think I'm sure their quality is good, but I just don't think what we need is justifies their pricing. um two to three week two to five week lead time roughly on both reliable and AQ. Reliable fencing has a $50 50% deposit and AQ AQ fencing is requiring no deposit with only a $151 difference in between the two. I would suggest either or. Um, AQ Fencing is a local contractor where reliable fencing reliable fencing is New England wide. So, an end um, I'd give it to AQ Fencing local contractor. I think that's the right decision with

102only $150 difference. for AQ. What was the amount for AQ? 5,000 $5,915. Yeah, that's why he's recommending us to accept American. Okay. So, I make a motion that we approve the purchase of the fence from AQ for $5,915. Second discussion. I agree. I mean, for 151 difference, it would be nice to give it to a local vendor. Hey, what was the total number? 5,915. Um, I also agree that I would prefer to give it to a cute fence, um, especially for only $150 difference, but I don't know. I just with all this uh spending duck I feel like I don't know how much it really uh how much value it really provides to us being it's kind of just a facade of safety. It's not because that that gate just ends right there and somebody

103could just walk right around. You know I just I think I don't think the conversation was about like fencing in. It was more concerned that the I don't know what you call those comb things um were not the best deterrent for cars that there have been a couple of times when people were like ready to just drive through that and whereas the gates and a fence would give the like yeah don't be coming in this area and then at the beginning and the end Mr. Ree I think if I'm right during um drop off and pick up he would open the gates allow the cars and then they get shut immediately to stop and deter So it's certainly your call but that was I think that was more the conver I'd like to add one

104thing that I have reached out to the fire department and the police department on two separate occasions asking them for comment regarding the installation of the fence. I have not received a response from either um department. Yeah, that was something that we had definitely requested. So, I appreciate you doing that, but I don't know that we want to go installing something without their go. I agree. So, then come back and tell us to take it down. So, I I would make a motion to table this until we get We have a motion already. So, we say no. Vote no. Yeah. So, unless there's any other discussion. All right. Um, all in favor of purchasing the fence say I. All oppose. I All right. So, I make a motion to table this until we get that

105answer. So, I will reach out again to you're past surplus funding now, so it's going to have to be a later on project. I would still try to get an answer, but if you don't do it tonight, you're not going to make the year end. Yeah, I don't think that we can install concrete in the ground, you know, without them. Yeah, the building inspector as well or worried about emergency vehicles being able to get to the school at all times. Chris, thank you for that. was a lot of work to get those quotes and get short meetings and fail. It was just zero. It was Yeah. So, it failed. Yeah. And then I believe at the last meeting there was questions about the landscaping the price comparison. Oh, yeah. We were just comparing uh I

106know there were no other bids, but we were just curious how that compared to this year's price. Actually, it came up for the spreadsheet. I think that was in the drive. This guy has been our landscaper for the last two years. They do a good job. Very responsive. If I don't see something I like, they're quick and make corrections. They actually go out of the Yeah. out of their way. Um, they do all the mowing on the weekend. Before that, we were having contractors here during the middle of the week, which was a real disruption, especially during the spring were outside. They were trying to cut more than Sean here is kind of going out of his way to make sure everybody is satisfied. So, if you look at the pricing for 2024, 2025, and

107then I did a quick spreadsheet. This is a three-year contract that we're offering them through 2025 through 2028. I gave you the change in the per price cleanup for each line item. Yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable. Yeah. for three year for staying flat for three of them years at that new rate. I think yeah. So I mean you can't expect you could expect more but I don't think you can expect much less from someone trying to run a business with four or five guys that are running around here on the weekend. So yeah. No, I think it's agrees. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, I have I I slipped and I told him that he had the contract so I can go Yeah, they voted last time. Okay. We We just We just wanted to

108see cuz it was like, "Well, here's the one bid. We had nothing to compare it to." Oh, sure. Sure. I should have been here for that one. You have anything else, Chris? um working with our electrician to um make sure we can pull power from the two locations that we're looking at for the light pole in the park light in the parking lot. And I'm reaching out to Phoenix Precast and Shay Concrete for bids for the wards. I have an appointment next week with our landscaper to go over excavating which I didn't know conduit only needs to be 18 in below grade. So excavating that earlier, putting safety barric safety post and caution tape around that doesn't pose an OSHA violation for open trench because it'll be a very narrow trench. also. So, we're looking

109good and probably you're going to have to vote on all the final pricing and everything. So, I'm hoping at the next meeting in August that we'll be I'll present all that information to you and I think it'll be a very speedy um installation. I have one more thing we almost forgot the solar we got the best news today. Oh, yeah. the final piece, the study, the engine, the contractor for the the engineer that was contracting for and um the electric company got it done and got it back to us. And we were thinking the project might not happen. They weren't going to get to it till July. So um they were they were fantastic and they got it he got it today. So he's now going to draw the construction um calendar. So that was

110really good news. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Great. Should I have any questions? Um I've got 15 local kids coming back to work for me this summer. Wow. Yeah. It's probably I probably have my probably have kids coming back for their third and fourth year. Oh wow. Um a good handful of freshman. Um eighth grade is graduating going to be freshman. So yeah, I think that's great having all those kids back. I need to help the other ones to get it done. I just give the directions. So, and popsicles. You give them popsicles, too. And pizza party and popsicles. So, but yeah, we're ready for the summer. Do you have any any summer projects specifically planned or um solar? I'll be looking at um we have the rest of the fire alarm panel. That's not the

111fire alarm panel. This Another three deal finishing that up in we'll be starting that July 1st in the gymnasium. Um so at that um plenty of other things that need to be done. Hoping to do a lot with the baseball field this summer. We bought a sprinkler system so it won't be brown grass come soccer season. Hoping to make it look real nice. Um and whatever other projects, small ones, day ones, you know, day one projects and then the parking lot lights in August. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Great. All right. So, 2025 fund balance retention. So, I did put the sheet in your um packet a time before, so I'm not sure if you have it again. Um but the number in the middle is your maximum amount that you can retain and that

112is 384,32293. Um so the board the as I shared with you last time the amount that you set aside um for retention comes back. This is a vote every single year. So whatever up you can retain that amount you can choose to keep it the same. You can choose to a lower amount and turn more back. um it's at the board's discretion, but the max you can retain is 384. And if you don't have up to the amount that you retain, it stops. It will just retain up to that amount. So, if you said 250,000 and you didn't have that, then I mean, you're pretty much guaranteed to have 250 because it's going to come back into the pot. So, I I wouldn't anticipate any expenses coming in now that would be that drastic. So,

113You need to have an amount. You can discuss it first if you want. So you're on the same page with the amount. And we'll be we'll be taking the 95,000 out of this. Yes. Okay. So you have you have the estimated 164. The 250 comes back into that minus the 5,000 and then that 164 is again an estimate. Typically um more money gets released right at the end. Um we try to have all the expenses as up to date as we can but you know things always come in at the last minute. So if we don't um spend the surplus on that or that automatic that's an automatic. Yeah. You you already did your decisions on whether you're going to spend any of the retention funds that's done. So that's part of we're um we

114at the last one didn't we table about the chairs like we were going to hear more about the chairs. Aren't there still a few expenses that we um I I don't know has information on the chairs. Uh, no. I did not have the opportunity to do an inventory on the chairs. So, okay. Cuz there were a few things that we said. Wasn't it just the chair? Yeah, we voted in so I think so last week. So, if we take out the 95,000 from that, we have 289,322. You'll have the two 250 minus we'll call it 100. So it's easier. So you'd have 150 left and the 164 estimated not a set in stone number but Oh, so not the the 384. That's just if you have that's the most you could book to retain, but

115that doesn't mean that you're going to have that correct. There's a maximum amount that you can retain using that formula. And can that um can those retain funds be used for emergency or budget or something? you retain funds if you got into trouble could be um with a public hearing you could use those funds and you also have trust funds if there was an emergency too several different areas well I I you know we're voting to spend that uh 95 I would I would like to return as much back to the taxpayers that we Well, the I think we're going to work off of the 250 number because and then minus um so 155 to kind of work out of sorry and the 164 oh plus the 164 surplus. Well, so we could So that's

116that's sort of what you I guess it doesn't really matter about that 164 that's 319,000. The 155 and 164 is 319,000. So that's where we have to decide how much we want to bring to the account. Right. Right. So the 164, you know, is automatically going back because we're not spending that. We would add to it comes it comes in back. It's a part of that pool. So this 250 comes in, the 164 comes in. It could be more, it could be less. And then that's where you got your total of 319 when you took out the months. So now you could retain up to any amount. The 319 is an estimate. So you might return the balance, you might not. You might have more to return. You won't know that until I propose the

117books. So we have to decide how much we want to retain. Correct. But we would have had to already spend like the surplus money out, right? We would have already had other than things that are need. That's what I meant by that 164 or whatever it ends up as is automatically unless you as well. Oh, I thought that was okay. I got it. So um in the past how much has been the amount we usually retain like you have 250 but I I feel like it was more around 200 past but I don't have the historical figures in front of me and we do that in case there's an emergency and we need money so all of a sudden that's something that's not in the budget that we didn't plan that is typically the board

118hasn't touched that and has been that's what the board has intended to have it for. And yeah, to that point, I feel like just staying uh in the same cycle is not necessarily what um I think people are looking for. So, um and if we haven't used it, we haven't got to that. I'd like to decrease the amount that we retain. Would that money I know we have the trust fund like special ed, but if for some reason would this be something that could cover an unexpected special ed or also if we had five more high school kids moved to town or potentially under the new statute I I would want to get guidance from Amber because I don't have it in front of me but My understanding from her is that it requires a

119public hearing and then you're able to access the funds in special ed. I mean, you could easily have a student move in and has to go to a different school and you're paying 250,000. That's what happened like two years ago. That's why you keep balance that you do in the special ed. Great. So, we have that separately. I just feel like we need to What do you think? Um, so that's 319 and then we're going to subtract out the No, we already 319 is 319 and then like said might be a little less more but basically Yeah. So I mean it's drastically different but if we retained you know somewhere between 100 and 150 instead of the 200 that we've done in the past. Yeah I was thinking 150 just to not go crazy like

120in case we need it because the next year then we can see if we don't use it again know following year we can think about it too. missing 150. Yeah. 319 retain. So kind of 200. Last year was 15. Yeah, it was 250 last year. But I was going to say cut it in half. So if that's about around 150 Yeah, I'm good with that. So, I will make a motion to retain $150,000 um or is it retained? Then your from your unassigned fund balance from the unassigned fund balance. I'll second it. All in favor to approve say I. I. I. No, I'm so official. So, um, one thing when I joined the board and decided to get on the board is I feel like we still are missing a lot of information from the

121public. Um, and and not saying voters aren't educated, but there's just being on the board, I know how much I've learned about things. And we did the special ed presentation last year. We did a space needs presentation. And I guess my thought, it could be crazy, I'm just gonna throw it out there, is to have one of our early meetings before we even start budget. Because once you start budget, it's hard to really discuss the budget with the community, but to have like an information night that breaks it down into sections. So like maybe review special ed cost, maybe review high school cost, review all the different costs, you know, transportation, things like that to kind of put it out there because we do hear that the board spends spend spends and personally I haven't

122figured out quite where we spend spend spend to the extent that We hear it and I know that even this board, you know, when they talk about the expansion, no one on this board, no one was on this board when that expansion came up and our discussions actually have been, no, we don't see something, you know. So, I guess I'm looking to see how people feel about having an information night where we can kind of break down sections and even I'm not sure how we could do this, but I want to put it out there is to to hear from people like I hear again they spend spend spend where are people feeling that we're spending like I hear recently I heard that we have all this extra administration and it's like we have three

123administrators in the building I believe to and Lisa so it's like who are people feeling are other administr I guess I would love to hear more from people what they feel we can do but also for us maybe because again there were areas that joining the board that I have seen like man I wish we could cut something here, but we can't, you know, like under special ed cost or whatever. So, I guess I'm just wondering how people would feel about having kind of an in a budget information like if we could put it together. And here I'm saying if we could put it together. Well, yeah, I'm terrible with putting charts together. I know Kendra's good at putting charts together. Others might be good. Kendra already has a lot of the budget stuff together.

124And when we met last week, we talked to Jess about doing another presentation. Maybe the new person or Jess on the special ed cost because things have changed. States aren't giving as much money now as they used to. So that's kind of two areas. I like the idea of transportation. You have to put something together on that, right? Um I guess and I know it's our job as the board to look for areas to cut. I get it. But I guess when I keep hearing we spend spend spend I think the other the other thing that would be nice too is to have like the state charts that say this is what it costs to educate a child and this is what we're paying to educate a child. Right. I think from what the feedback

125that I'm getting is that we're you know among you know the higher end of school district what we pay our teachers that's one thing the number of teachers in the building um that's that's the feedback that I'm getting about and those are major savings right um every time we hire somebody like we just had several hirings But what did like we didn't even discuss what rate did they get hired at, right? Did they just get the same? That's set. Did they get the same? That's a set thing. It's a step level for teachers depending on how many years experience you have. So that's nothing that we really even negotiate. That's the contractual. Yeah. Okay. So if they came in, it doesn't matter where they came from. If they came in with three years of experience,

126they go to step four. and their educational background is part of it too. So it's sort of stuff. So but at some point we vote on that contract. Correct. It's when it's due for negotiation. Right. Right. Yeah. But I'm just saying there's Yeah. So I think that's the feedback that I'm getting on where we can cut and and you know I just making hard hard you know plays like that I've brought up a couple times and I know it's not popular about you know one art class and one music teacher you know those are that's that frees up space that frees up salaries you know that's those are those are the moves that people are looking for to save money. And so that's good information to have. I also wonder though if providing them with

127some information too because I think that's our job as well. So again, transportation costs, special ed cost, you know, all those kind of of things. I just feel there's a way that we need to have more contact with the community that isn't just our citizens comments. Yeah. That we could find. I mean, I'm just throwing it out there. No, I I agree with you. I think it's just important for us to not just present it like, well, here are the costs. Where do you want us to save? Right. Like like you brought up like we need to have ideas for each thing. like each topic that we present it's like well here's some ideas that we're thinking about and then they can comment on you know how do you feel about those things right um

128but again it's it is really challenging because you know even over this past week with the whole purchase of the modulars people rely on Facebook to uh try to have these conversations and you know this this room doesn't represent our community, you know, completely. So, it's just it's really hard to try to figure out what it is that people want and weighing those, right? And even if we offer something, we may still have the same five people show up, you know, but it can be out there on for them to watch at another time, you know, ask questions. And and I mean, that's the other thing. It's like I and maybe you hear from people, but it's like since being on school board, I have yet to have anyone in the community reach out and

129ask anything. And it's like I, you know, and then I'll read something and it's like, but we didn't say that. We didn't do that. So, it's like if you have questions, please ask, too, you know. So, I don't know. Just putting it out there to for something to think about. Trying to find a way to reach out to the community to inform them as much as we can. Yeah. How can you say, you know, what do you where do you think we could cut this and that? They need it's very extremely involved and not everybody wants to know all of that information. I understand. Some people really do want to know it. Some people get the information. I definitely have to be as transparent as possible and the people can make informed decisions. That goes

130for any type of [Music] voting. So, it's not an easy job, but we can try. I think it's a good idea. So I I know Kendra and I are kind of the what is it one of the committees that we communicate communication. So maybe I can you know chat with Kendra and see what she's thinking and then obviously would bring it up here again before it ever went out there. But just just again trying to get the information out there. It's like I'm still learning it and I'm on the board. So yeah, we can maybe we can each take a topic or something and make a slide or something for that. So pilot make sure. Are we allowed to via email? No, you um you can't conduct board business. If you if you share a

131document, it becomes public information. So you would really that's why you don't need two communications people to work on things. You could send them something say hey could you guys incorporate this but you can't a discussion and work together okay on this and then if we Kendra may tell me I'm crazy to not want anything to do with it but um if you know if we did we can share it with them like at a meeting or something to get approval of it. And I mean, and I guess I'm thinking it's something that would be done relatively early because once we start in budget, so am I to understand that we're not meeting in July? Okay. working. Yeah. Well, I'll I'll I'll talk to Kendra and see, you know, and everything. But I guess I

132just wondered what people thought and we could try to put something together and it may be like, no, this isn't going to work. But it just seems like here if you if you're making if we're making ourselves as a board available to answer questions of the public and to help them understand, I think that's step in the right direction. Yeah, definitely addressing budget concerns is is important. I feel like that's also something a lot is like we need to be discussing business like that like regularly, right? So yeah, I think it's a good idea. We need we're just gonna it's just something I wanted to ask. Yeah. And then I'll talk with Kendra. We can She's a very good slide person. Thank you. All right, PTO update. Hi. Um, so I don't have a whole

133lot because we've kind of wrapped up the year. Um, but we usually take the summer off, but we're going to work this summer on recruiting because we did a lot this year with a very small group of people. So, we're really hoping to have some fresh, energetic kindergarten parents that want to join us so we can keep up um a lot of the things we've been doing and we've all attended a PTO expo recently. So, we have so many great ideas and so many great things like educational assemblies and a lot of great things we want to do for the kids. So, hopefully we can get a few more people over the summer so we can keep doing all the cool things that we've been doing. And it's great to meet you. This is the

134first meeting I've made it to that you've been here. So, I'm really happy that Thank you. I appreciate that. I recognize you're you have a child that's a freshman, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I remember you um my son Joseph's a freshman, so see you at some meetings. Great. Thank you. Thanks. [Music] Executive Board update. Um, we have a meeting coming up, but at our last meeting really the only thing was the hiring of the nurse for the preschool. That was meeting on the meeting on the 24th. [Music] So, principal's report. Thank you. Um, this principal report covers May 8th, uh, June 4th. today. June uh May 8th and 9th, excuse me, May 8th and 9th rounded out our teacher appreciation week. Thank you always to our PTO and to the families in Deerfield for

135always making that special week for our staff. Uh it also rounded out Tricky Trey and our book fair. Um as well as the skateboarding unit in PE. That skateboarding unit continued through some of May, but um it was a busy month. Saturday, May 10th, our Southeast District was the Southeast District Music Festival at Dover High School. So, a big thank you to our amazing music teachers um and to the students who participated. We had three students participate from the middle school and band and three in chorus. Mave L played the trumpet, Helen G played the baritone horn, and Elizabeth H played the flute. And in chorus, E, Leah C, and and Scarlet M performed in the uh the music festival's chorus. Tuesday, May 13th, we uh our second graders took a trip to Portsouth Music

136Hall to see a play. Wednesday, more May 14th, our sixth graders left for Maro Vista and returned on May 16th. That was a a sleepover science camp that they went to. Um they had a blast, came home nice and tired. Our fifth graders started their 10-day visit to Starbase. Uh we have two teams going each week, uh two days a week per week over the course of five weeks. And as you know, the transportation was paid for. Um, so we greatly appreciate the organization that did that. Um, and in addition on Wednesday, we had our spring concert for grades one through four. If you were fortunate enough to experience that. Um, it was a wonderful performance by our first through fourth graders. Friday, May 16th, our fifth graders took their field trip to Boston. This

137is the trip that they raise money for through their calendars each year. Um, they uh uh take the a bus, a school bus to the um to exit. They load the train in Exit and take the train into Boston. They're there for the entire day and don't return until later that evening, it's like 7ish. They then take the train back to exit and then take a bus um back to the school. So that was their Boston trip on May 16th. It's been an annual event for many, many years. Um outside of CO um Saturday, May 17th, our they used to sleep over at the Museum of Science, but I slept by the I slept by the uh dinosaur. Uh they haven't done that in four hours. Really? Saturday, May 17th, uh was another band festival.

138The on fifth and sixth grade honors band festival was at Wear Middle School. And again, thank you to our to Mrs. Davis and congratulations to Jackson C, Sam L. Lucas B, Sam P, Rebecca S. Colton B, Autumn D, Liam P, Sophia G. and we had quite a um showing at the m this music festival for our fifth and sixth graders. Tuesday, May 20th, our kindergarteners enjoyed an in-house field trip with Wildlife Encounters. We've done that for the past couple of years and um the kids just love it. Uh we also had our spring concert for grades 5 through eight. Again, another treat. If you were there, you would have been amazed by our fifth and sixth, seventh, and eighth grade chorus and band students. Thursday, May 22nd, our fourth graders took their annual field trip

139to the New Hampshire State House and the New Hampshire Historical Society. They were going out to have a picnic in the park, but that was the day of the alleged nor raintorm Easter that we had. So, um they came home on the bus to have lunch. Uh Friday, May 23rd, our middle school band performed the national anthem at the Fisher Cats game. That is also an annual event for our middle school band. Thursday, May 29th, our first graders took a field trip to Portsouth Music Hall and they saw Charlotte's Web after a um a readaloud. They read the book um and then saw it on stage. So, it was a wonderful experience for them. Friday, May 30th, still going, Canon, nice job trying to miss out on report. Still going. I'd have time. Friday, May

14030th, we welcomed our newest dragons. We had our kindergarten kickoff where families came in with their kindergarteners and during kindergarten kickoff the uh kindergarten teachers do a little intro and then they go off with the teachers um and spend the morning with them and administration and several other staff members introduce themselves to the to the parents and guardians. Uh we have it in the cafeteria. Um every the reading specialists are there, the math specialist is there, Lisa McConnell is there, our case manager is there, our food service director, our um office staff, and we just give them little bits of information about you know our school. Um I have a slide deck that I will share out with the with them as well uh with all the families, especially families who are not able to

141make it. Um and then the afternoon is at 11:00 Mr. Griev and Mrs. McCall and I give a tour to the families. Um I bring them right through the middle school. Mr. debrief avoids the entire middle school. I didn't know that until this year that he that um so uh and then at 11:30 they um they take a bus back to the town hall. There was um a bus that picked them up as well. So we get a big picture of all the kids. So it's a great uh event. And then the kindergarten team spends the afternoon reviewing the students, the work that they the things that they observed and then start placement for our kindergarteners or rising kindergarteners. um several of which come from our preschool program. Um and then now we're in June,

142so our baseball team will be in the finals tomorrow. They're playing they just won their playoff game and they will be playing the ever ever so wonderful mecca of Barington. Uh Tuesday, June 10th, our seventh and eighth graders will participate in the ch state championship for track. a select group of students. We have several representing this year. So, um it's been a it's been wonderful to see when they can have meets and baseball games and softball games. As you know, May May was very rainy. Um Friday, we will have our monthly all school meeting. The first and second graders are hosting and they've decided that they want to play red light. They wanted to play red light, green light. I I I convinced them to pray red light, yellow light so that there would be

143no running. So, uh that that's what they wanted to play. Awfully cute. So, first and second graders will host. Um, and then upcoming will be all things June with several field field trips. Um, which I wouldn't be able to report on because the next June meeting um I don't have a principal report. So, our third graders will be going to Pakaway. Our fifth graders are going to be wrapping up their Starbase trip. Seventh graders um will be going to Canoby as well as Wall Wallis. They have two end ofear trips. Uh we have field day on Friday the 13th. And for just to remind you, the sixth seventh grade seventh grade's on their field trip. Eighth grade's in New York. So, sixth grade helps the PE uh team do all of the games. They spend

144the last month or so learning the field day games and they're the ones that um run the show basically. Um and then our second graders will be going to VZ Park. Our sixth graders will be going on a whale watch. Our third graders will be taking a field trip over to Filbert James Library to learn about their summer program. And um our preschool will have their party in the park. And our fourth graders will also being a take be taking a field trip to VZ Park um in the month of June before school gets out. Uh all things eighth grade uh our eighth graders will have their semi on Monday, this Monday, June 9th. Uh on Wednesday, June 11th, they leave for their New York City trip, which will uh they'll be coming back on

145Friday, June 15th. Bless you. And then Monday, June 16th, is our eighth grade graduation. And then the last day I thought it was Tuesday. Wednesday, June 18th. So yeah, Monday. Monday's graduation. Okay. Okay. I don't know why Tuesday written down. Okay. And that's all. What time does graduation start? 6 o' Was there a number from kindergarten? Do you um I think we're at 48. Um I can have a number for you. Yeah. and we had a few students show up at um at the kickoff that had not registered. So, we're in the process of getting them registered to add to the um number. And um we've since had I think two two families reach out regarding registration, making sure that they get um information. So, we're probably going to be upwards of 50 any minute

146now. [Music] current review board. Uh we don't meet again. So these are third readings and majority of them AC aca they really just need contact information. So, they're all fine. I don't see a problem with them. JIC, again, we uh are accepting a new one from the uh New Hampshire School Board Association, which looks fine. So, I would recommend you to Nancy that we would approve those, but I do have a question about JIC. So, so what do we do? So, all but JIC. All but J. So, I guess I'll make a motion that we approve the new policies other than JIC. Do I need to list all the policies? They're on the agenda, so I think Chris, you have them. You can list them out. Yeah, they're Yeah. Yes. All in favor to approve

147all of the policies other than JIC, say I. I. I. J, I see. Did you have questions? Yes, I have questions. Um, are you looking at the admin edited version? Okay. Yes. Make sure we're looking at the same one. Yes. So, in the admin edited version, um, I'm not sure what the maybe I should know this, but I don't know what the green highlighting is as opposed to the yellow highlighting. So instead of code of conduct, we we reference the student handbook and the discipline policy code. So it's called So it's discipline policy code and getting rid of everything that's in yellow. Yes. Correct. No. And we just because we don't label it code of conduct. Okay. And then on the um the three tiered support, we're calling it MTSS as opposed to MTSSB, right?

148two different we don't have there. They reference MTSSB because they have use the B is behavior but ours is just an all-encompassing MTSS. Okay. All right. And it includes behavior and academic. Yes. Don't call it MTSSB. Okay. All right. And then I guess the other thing I wanted to ask was um number one with the discipline policy code says a graduating age appropriate system of supports and intervention strategies such as I'm just thinking like I don't know that we do all this like peer mediation instruction conflict resolution anger you do that parent counseling and training uh maybe not that particular part but I mean Heather and Greg might do some work with that but okay so you're comfortable with having all those things in there because I just I just worry about it being in

149our policy and says, "Well, I never got." Well, I think I think that's why it says such as because with the new with the new discipline um regulations, it was clear that they have to be graduated and they decided to put right in the policy because that was the question everyone was asking what are graduated, you know, so that's why they gave like such as and they could give you some examples. Yeah. And just for the just to note, I Mr. Mr. Griev and I went through this thoroughly both of us and I we have copied and pasted the information that we will include in the updated parent handbook so that the or um the student handbook in the fall. So we have that copied and pasted so it's right in our handbook. Okay. And

150we can we can go into a little more detail about what some of those things mean. And I mean I've got no problem with the way you have it. I just wasn't sure if yellow was being got rid of and green was um and then I Yeah, we've never done this before. Yeah. So I didn't know I didn't want to delete something and like just be like wow we just deleted a whole delete a whole thing. Yeah in the handbook it is called discipline policy or discipline code without we don't call it the code. So okay then I mean I guess I'm fine with it then the way you've got it. I just uh and I guess you're not going to do the thing with the state and federal grants and that's why you get

151rid of that, right? got toward the last page. It says, "The superintendent should also designate personnel to explore the availability and pursue any state or federal grants, technical assistance, and professional development opportunities available to facilitate the implementation of MTS. We used um our ESER funds and that's how we developed MTSS um a lot of ESRE funds to have a huge contract. Um so anytime there's grant fund, if there were additional grant funding, we would definitely Okay. So you don't feel that that needs to be in there though. Did you highlight that? I think it's highlighted from the schoolboard association. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was going to say I don't think we did that. Yeah, that's the that's the NH maybe that was one of the sample policies like question like you know do you want

152to include this for your particular board. Um so would that or not include it? I think it's fine because we always encourage um people to go out for grants. I don't know that you need it. It's up to it's up to you if you want to put it in or not. We do it anyway. From the time we hear about grants, we That's fine. If you do it anyway, keep it in. I just because I saw yellow. I was assuming that was I would probably And then you want to take the Yeah. Take the B. So you want to change that to But but it does MTSS our MTSS system does include schoolwide approaches, targeted supports. So we would keep that language if we needed to. Yeah. If it was different language, I would we

153would have changed it out. But that gets our pol our work, too. Okay. All right. Well, I'm fine with it. I don't know if you guys want to vote to approve it or I don't know. Yeah. What was that? You added Yeah, the edited version was in there. I think the clarification was some is yellow and some is green. What does that mean? So the instead of like Brian said, instead of he didn't want to delete anything, he wanted you to be able to see what was there and then they add their Yeah. No, it's just a letter B. So it's MTSS-B, but we just call it MTSS. So there just the dashb is the only thing we took. So that would just have to be changed in that last one. That's yellow. Yeah. Otherwise,

154I'm fine with it. So it might have to be changed in the third paragraph, too. I'm just reading with this objective. The board endorses adoption multi-tered support for behavioral health and wellness as the framework for the code of conduct. I we we missed that one. Okay. Okay. Um I can as long as with all of these I'm okay I'm okay with making changes. I think it's got we just it got it got passed on for reading but I really felt like administration really that we didn't know they did. Thank you. All right. So Ellen made Yes. I'll make a motion that we approve JIC student conduct. I'll second it. [Music] All in favor JC say I I thought okay 2024 25 monthly expenditure report. Yes. So these are justformational items. Um we Amber did publish

155um the monthly expenditure report. So that was in the drive for you to look at and post it online for public to look at. Um there's the CDNAformational packet that some of you received when you went to the co brown board meeting. Um gave that to Lexi. She copied that and put that in the board drive and it was also in the published packet for public. Um and then you heard the high school transportation update and the two things that I wanted to add. Oh, I added the L landscape price change was in there, but Chris, I'm over with that. And then um I some of you may have seen the posting for treasurer. We thought we had solved our problem. Um so just as a refresher or to let people know um your treasurer

156declined the position. So Eric Gross um graciously um sort of resigned as moderator so that he can keep going as treasurer. So when it comes time for him to be the moderator, he's going to have to stop just being the treasurer and be nominated as moderator. So, um, we thought that we Dwight was going to do it and then, um, there was a conflict. He's he's on the board of trustees for CO Brown. Um, so on their end, they said that was a conflict. So, and he wanted to stand on their board. So, we have it advertised and anyone who knows anyone, it's a really important position. We can't release payroll, we can't pay bills um, without a treasurer reviewing the manifest um, before the checks are cut. So, you know, anyone um and Amber

157will provide training and it's you know how to balance a checkbook and it's not I know she was Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. Just curious. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that we put that on the listing. I can ask Amber though. It's a good That's a good point. Yeah, I didn't know that. I don't think it's a ton of time, but I don't know what the exact Yeah. Yeah. I mean, once you're once you're sort of in the groove, you you know and you recognize like, oh yeah, that's the same payroll that we basically cut every two weeks and the amounts are generally the same and then reconciling books at the end of the month. But I'll I'll get that estimate for you. Um, did you want to talk about the CPA

158packet or No, no. Okay. You just wanted it posted. I just wanted to make sure it's posted so the information was out there so people could see it. Yeah. And I guess the only thing that I would say about that is um because somebody had mentioned during public comments about um if we were to send all of our kids to CBNA because that was part of the packet was how do they determine um their tuition? So, um, somebody brought up about if we sent all of our kids to go around, it'd be the same. Yeah. It wouldn't change the price. Yeah. Just whatever the price is. Yeah. Because all Sunday schools the same. Everybody pays the same price. Yep. Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that cuz I did hear that and I meant to say something.

159Yeah. Okay. Um, public comments. Kevin Ver Karen Road. talking about spending and people being upset. It's it's hard to see. It's it's small, but this is this is basically a like a 16-year tracking of the Deerfield School District proposed budget, default budget, and then approved budget. And what's interesting is unless you zoom way in, um it appears to be one line, right? So the difference between the default budget and the proposed budget for the last 16 years is essentially a distinction without a a difference. In fact, sometimes the default budget was bigger than the proposed budget. Um if we look at this chart, the red is the Deerfield School District. That makes up approximately 80% of your tax bill. The blue line below it is the the municipal budget, the town budget, uh which makes

160up approximately 20% of your tax bill. And then there's a couple of percent that's the the county, but you know that's in the in the in the in the weeds. So there's one more graph. So that's the red is the the town proposed budget. The lower is the uh default budget, which is also the uh improved bud approved budget, right? And and so you can see that towns asking for money not getting it because they're proposed and they're they're default are are going in two different directions. Take the last 10 years, the school district budget has increased by about 60%. If you take the last 10 years on the town budget, it's increased about 20%. So the town is averaging 2% increase a year in spending and the town is uh an average of 6%.

161So then well you know what do you what do you benchmark that against? So that that's always a tricky one. So I I like the Minneapolis Federal Reserve uh CPI index. It's a highly reliable number. You have to keep going back because they uh they revise numbers. They they look back at data and revise it. I didn't do hard math. So, you gotta ver trust but verify this number. The last 10 years, if you average the CPI based on Minneapolis Federal Reserve, uh the interest rates, uh the interest CPI, the inflation rate has been 3.75%. Right? So, so the town budget is growing slower than than inflation. The school budget continues to to grow much faster. The other challenge is the last couple of years we've had some spikes, right? because we increased a lot

162of spending based on COVID money, I guess, and all this other stuff. And then when that money went away, a lot of that stuff got folded into the into the budget. I don't have the graph here. I I apologize. But if you you sub you subtract out high school tuition from the district spend, you still have this spike in the last two years. So to say that that last two years spike is a result of of school choice and it's school choice that that's put us in the spine that that high school tuition's been going up. No doubt about that. But that is not the sole driver and I would say it's not the the major driver of this. So part of the part of the perception that I think a lot of people have

163is that they don't have a choice on the school side. If A equals B and your selection is A or B, then they don't have a choice, right? It doesn't matter which one you you choose because the difference the difference is a fraction of a percent between the two two numbers on the town side. U you know that that's not true. It's usually uh several percentage points different. And so when people see these numbers, right, that gives them the the perception that g whiz, we have this rapidly increasing cost. And I get, you know, everybody wants to to say it's school choice. It's not. You're right about how co Brown sets their their tuition and and what's funny is is conquered essentially um has come to the same sort of position. they they now have

164a formula of actual cost versus number of students and they do some division and that's where they come up with the they come up with the number and that's part of the driver conquered struggles conquered struggles with declining enrollment school districts state have significantly declining student population is more or less flat we're we're actually an outlier in the state so so you have you have a lot of fixed costs and when you have less and less students, you know, the cost per student goes up, your tuition goes up. That was one of the things that scared people about an unprecedented 13 year. Why did they ask for 13 years? Lock us in 13 when historically we were doing 10 first thing that you know flashes on the radar. What's changing here? And and if you

165look at if you look at conquered student population and you look at their tuition rate, right, they're they're they're going they're going across each other because their population drops. So the per pupil cost goes goes up. There's also a decline in CO Brown for sure, but it's it's a percentage- wise it's the same amount, but the the absolute number of students is is less. So the curve looks flatter, but the if you proportionalize it, it's it's similar. But this is some of the data that's some of the data that's driving it, right? Is when you when you look at the trends year-over-year. Gez, 80% of my tax bill has gone up 60% um in 10 years. That's, you know, that's a big that's a big bite. I I would contend that's not sustainable, right? There

166has to be some way to get that under control. And the reason the default look I think the reason the default and the proposed are always so similar on the school side is because default budget have to adjust for contractual obligations and that's a huge spend for a school district right teachers are a contractual obligation are a contractual obligation I believe your administrators even though they're individual contracts right they're contracted employees it's contract contractual obligations there. Um, and then if you assume that whatever your bid price is for utilities, right, oil, gas, electricity, um, is what you put in the default because that's what it's going to cost you. Now, now all of a sudden almost all your costs are fixed costs and it's only things like classroom supplies and things like that that become

167discretionary, but they're small they're small line items. So part of that part of that curve is is because we've had in my opinion we've passed very generous contracts in the last several years and and so that is a huge driver because it's not you know everyone looks at it well it's just the salary but it's not just the salary it's the salary it's the benefits it's the retirement right all of that gets gets added in and and so that's that's that's a challenge for the district because we can't we can't keep having a a hockey stick. So that that's that's where I think a lot of that public perception comes from. Thank you. Else we do under small letter B for hiring. Did you say B? B. to go into second. All in favor say

168I. Yes. Yes. Yes.