001I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Public comments. Okay. So, there'll be no board discussion of public comments. Um, so if the uh you're gonna have a English language arts presentation. Yes. [Laughter] It's all yours. I'm gonna get out of your ways. I always And do you want to do that? Sure. [Music] All right. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Awesome. So, yeah. Just All right. Um, I'll introduce you. Okay. Sure. All right. Because some of the board members might not know, Andrea Clinch has been with us. This is her second year as a reading specialist, grades four through eight. Um, she's been a wonderful addition to our staff. Amanda Prisbilski is,
002um, many of you have known her in different positions. She was a second grade teacher. Um special education case manager for K1 K1 for two years. Yes. Um and then we had a our K to3 reading specialist leave last school year. She had been in a program um to be a reading specialist. Um and has just a small amount one class left to do. Um so uh we have her in the role as a reading interventionist. And uh she and um Andrea have worked really hard on this presentation. um they have uh worked all year long with the ELA committee as they're preparing the curriculum to be presented to the school board next school year. It was due this year, but being so new both of them. Um and I also want to make sure
003I introduce Julianne Bourgeoa. Uh Julianne is also a reading interventionist at our K to3 level and has been with us seven years because I've been here for seven years. I believe that was your first year. So Julianne and Amanda and Andrea work very closely together. Um Julianne is a notetaker extraordinaire at all PLC's. Um thank goodness. Um and uh really captures what happens at our meetings and um it's a pleasure to have all three of them here to present to you the ELA um curriculum and or ELA information and data. Awesome. Go ahead and hit the curtain, girls. Yeah. Wow. This is fancy. All right. Um, so we've been introduced. Um, but we're here to talk to you about literacy in general at DCS across the grades K to 8. Um, we have a bit
004of an outline for you. It's got a lot of details in it. And this will be shared with you. So, if you wanted to go back at some point and look at something in particular, you might want to read this in detail. But in summary, we're going to talk about um, writing at DCS. We're going to talk a little bit about reading and then um two pieces at the end. One is a conventions competency for the middle school which we're going to present to you tonight for your approval. Um and the other is um our next steps goal and if you have any questions. That being said, you can ask questions at any time. Okay. So um we've had a lot of time to digest some of this information, but we've had a lot of
005time to do it. So, um, feel free to ask any questions that you have. What we're going to present to you first is just a theoretical model for, um, the science of writing. I think you've heard of the science of reading. I know we're also going to share that information with you, but we opted to start with writing because we're going to talk about the program that we've adopted. So, we have two things for you here. One is the simple view of writing and it's composition times transcription equals skilled writing. And the importance of this formula is that you have to have both in order to be a skilled writer. You can't have one without the other. So if you don't have composition and you can't generate and organize ideas that times trans transcription is
006still nothing. So both of those pieces are really important. Um the second thing is this over here which is the writing rope and it is from Joan Sadita. Um she is um a person who has written quite a bit extensively but um she has written the keys to comprehension um book that we use here at school. Um, but this is her model for all the different strands of writing instruction that are important that need to be woven together um, in order for someone to be a skilled writer. Um, so the program that we chose and started this summer, past summer, um, and actually implemented um, more specifically this fall, um, is called Simplify Writing. and we wanted to tell you why we chose it. Um, a few of the reasons are the alignment that it
007has. It does align with the science of writing model. It does align with the standards, um, common core standards and with the science of reading. It's a program that runs K through eight, which is nice because we are a K to8 school, so we get alignment across all of the grade levels. Um, it's has builtin teacher training modules. There are eight of them and each of them have different components within them and we've used them to introduce staff to um how to use this program um as best they can. We've gotten through most of the modules. We have a few more to do, but it's nice because you can go back and look at them as many times as you need to um to get the information that you need. This program was used by
008some staff during COVID. And um when I first started last year, I pulled together grade level teams and met with them and talked to them about writing and what they were doing and and um how it was going. And this program came up a number of times. And we were able to talk about it. We were able to look at it a little bit. Um, we started looking mostly at the grammar component, um, which some teachers tried a little bit of and liked. And so, um, I was able to share it with slowly fourth through 8ighth grade. And, um, teachers had a chance to look at it, talk about it, ask questions, and then it kind of spread down to third grade and then to second and then to first and then to K with
009teachers having a chance to look at it first before um, committing to do it. And by the end of um the school year last year, everyone was on board, all grade levels, K to 8 by choice. By choice. Yeah. And so uh Kristen had I think Esser money. Um and so we were able to purchase um licenses. It's individual licensing per teacher and the license is good for three years and um I think it was like $250 per person. Teacher moves, they can transfer to a different grade. the licenses are our schools and they can be assigned to anyone. So, um there's there was a lot of excitement about something that could be uniform across the school. We did a survey of literacy at our school. Um we sent it out to 37 teachers and
010case managers and we had 25 people respond. One of the questions we asked was um how satisfied are you with the program? one being the least, five being the most. Um, most people over 87 people rated it either a three, four, or five. 87%. Yes. Thank you. So, a lot of um a lot of good um feedback about that out of the 25. I was wondering about grade level. Was there any difference in grade level as to what the scores were? Like, did you find certain grades rated at higher than others? Oh, I don't think we noticed that. I don't think that we did. No. Um, we probably could figure it out if you wanted us to. I you don't need to get back to me about that, but I was just thinking that would
011be interesting to see if it was a middle school among all grade levels. Yeah, I think some when I share some of the individual testimonials and some of the feedback that will help to explain um which grade levels were how people were feeling at different grade levels. But um these comments are directly from them as far as uh and these were um common themes that we found in the comments that people felt were strengths of this program. Um because it is so organized and simple, um it's really helpful for teachers that are newer or even content teachers at our at a middle school level that maybe only teach science or or math as their main subject, but they're also social studies teachers, right? So that was one thing that people liked. Another is that the
012lessons are focused, they're simple, and they're sequential. Um the third thing was there was a lot of um there are a lot of graphic organizers, editing and revision checklists and those are consistent across grade levels. They do shift and change developmentally for kids, but once kids by the time they get to third or fourth grade see what it looks like for the um introduction and there's always a checklist on the top of it. It's pretty similar across grade levels and so you don't have that constant reteing um that's needed. Um, all of the lessons are pre-made and there's a digital component to them and they can be posted to Google Classroom. So, teachers at Teach Middle School really like that component because they can send out assignments. Um, all teachers can post anything onto their
013smart TV for students to see models of writing or the lesson, whatever it is that they're doing. So, that's a nice component. Um, the slideshows that are sent out to students or that you use in your classroom are interactive. Uh, there are grammar lessons for grades K through eight. And when you purchase the program, like as a third through 8th grade teacher, you get all the grammar for all grades 3 through 8. So you can look for um the skills that are specific to your grade level, but also other skills if you have students that need to work on other things. And they're so nice. You click on it, it says, you know, parts of speech, and there's seven days worth of lessons. They're all done. They're sequenced. They're organized. Um you can choose maybe
014intermediate or beginner or basic or advanced. And um it's really nice to have that at your fingertips. Great for differentiation. Yeah. Yeah. There's also an intervention library which is set up um based on different types of areas where students may need some more support like um how to focus um a focus within a writing piece or sentence writing, paragraph writing, organization, essay writing um those kinds of things. And there are lessons that are already done for that as well that you can easily pull and um give to a large group, your whole group. It could be just a small group. Um and our case managers have this program as well. They each have their own license and they were part of the training so that they're able to um access that library and we get
015that cross um coverage between the classroom and um what the special educators are doing with students. Question. Yeah. So on the intervention library, say that um you guys know as a science teacher, say I decide to do a persuasive essay in my class, I can go to that it so everybody's writing persuasive essays the same way. Does it have that kind of thing or Well, I actually um yeah, there actually would be um there are 10 units and in the upper grades I think there's four that are they're called argumentative. One is science, one's social studies, one's analysis, and then there's a more generic one. But that's all laid out in a pretty substantial lesson plan, part of the curriculum. Yeah. But you could use it for like whatever you happen to be teaching at
016the time, the content. You can use that. You can within the intervention lessons as well. Yes. Absolutely. Yep. Great resource. There's also one um it's a it's considered an ELLL resource, but it's really related a lot to language. And so if you have students with um any student working on on language skills that is helpful as well. Do we know why um a third of the teachers and case managers didn't respond? No. Um we don't and we haven't presented this to them yet in its entirety. Um we of course see them every six days for PLC's and I know I've at least talked to one group who said, "Oh yeah, I forgot to do that." So you know Yeah. Just that's a significant number. Yeah. Yep. We did get an we sent numerous emails. I'm
017just saying mention appeal. That being said, all the ELA teachers at sixth, seventh, and eth most all of the fifth, fourth, third grade teachers responded. Second did as well. I think all of the elementary K one, two, three. I think I got all of the elementary. And I got all four and five and a case manager. Um, and we got a couple science teachers at the upper levels. So, you know, it's not terrible. Maybe maybe more when you're saying out of 37 teachers that that includes all the teachers in the school. All the teachers in the school professional teaches math and say, "I don't really need to do this." Well, that's true, too. Like the music teachers didn't respond. Right. Okay. Right. All right. So, that would make sense why there did not. respond. Exactly.
018Okay. Yeah. So, what is a PLC? Professional learning community. Yes. Yeah. It's where we hold our meetings with our teams. Is it Did you say is that once a week? Every six days. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so, we have a chance to meet with the entire teaching team for that grade level as well as the case manager. Um, usually Kristen is there or Brian or Lisa um as an administrator and we have an agenda that we work towards. um each week and um that's how we kind of move things forward in lots of many ways in regards to what we're doing, right? Um with the curriculum. Good question. And data and data. Look at a lot of data. Yeah. Okay. So, here's some specific teacher feedback to let you know what teachers were not completely
019satisfied with. And we looked at as these are our next steps, right? So now we know we've gone through our first year and everybody has had a chance to use it. This is what we need to do next. So one of the first was that it's so well scaffolded for support that it's hard to know what kids are really doing independently. And so we know that we need to build in more opportunities for independent writing as well as a more consistent pre and post assessment um system. When we first bought Simplify Writing, there was no pre- or post assessment. There was a general preassessment to look at foundational skills that kids had, but that was it. Um, in April, they came out with all the pre and post assessments for every grade um for every
020type of writing. So, now that we have that, we that will be a little bit um easier, I think, to implement. So, that's our plan. Some people were concerned that the mentor texts are too complicated. Um those are the texts that are come with each writing unit that show the students what um the writing should look like and sometimes they can be complex. Some teachers felt um so we'll remind them they can use um the text leveler and AI to change it to make it a little simpler. Um some teachers are providing their own um using AI or just creating their own. So, there are some ways around that. Um, one comment was around student choice and voice. Um, and I'll work with that grade level team to create different options for students so that
021they can do more of that. Um, some said that it was hard to use the slides because they're meant to to be edit editable. Um, which allows a teacher to take the framework and make it specific to her or him. And the reason we haven't been able to do it is because we're not all using Microsoft. It's on PowerPoint. So that's just a tech issue. Yeah. That we need to get solved and give training. Um and the last one is the need for foundational skills in the upper grades. So as students um hit beyond fourth and fifth grade, they may not be really good spellers. They may not be really good at um forming sentences and writing and organizing their thoughts. And so we're gonna um continue to work with case managers and specialists and
022the intervention library to build foundational skills. So these are some of the testimonials. You can see what teachers liked. Um the there's uh two primary teachers in that first box. Um they did like that it gave students um some direction but it encourages productive struggle in the use of creativity. um student engagement has been really good. Um on the bottom, the two primary teachers that it's um much more appropriate and and realistic than what they've been using before for writing. Um and it's also more developmentally appropriate for um kindergarteners. Yeah, there's a big big program in the kindergarten that really like how how do kids hold their pencils and how do they form their letters and there's a lot of work to build those very very early skills. Um and teachers do lots of observation
023and checklists to work on those skills, which is something they absolutely love. Yeah. Um an upper elementary uh teacher said the students are showing visible growth. And a middle school teacher said the students appreciate the resources, the color coding, and the writing in bite-sized pieces. So little smattering from across. Um, this is an informational writing post assessment for fifth grade. And I just wanted you just to look at it. I'm not going to read it, but I wanted you to see um what our fifth grade has been doing. Um, they chose to teach both umformational writing for science andformational writing for social studies. When they were finished with that, they presented kids with um some topics to write about and expected them to write independently. I think they gave the kids two or three days.
024um they had all the same resources um to use. So they had the planning pages, they have the drafting pages, they had the checklist for revising and editing and this is what students created. Um that first one is about axelottals and this one is about the colonists of Rowan Oak and they're both um been they were both scored as a level um three which is proficient. This is the rubric that students can use. It's um in studentfriendly language. Um, the teachers have one that's just a little fancier, but it's the same set of skills. Um, they also have a revision checklist which includes these items to make sure as they finish up their writing that they've included the things that are required of them. So, and those rubrics are for every type of writing for
025every grade level. Um, I had built this before I knew that the the pre and post assessments from simplify writing had come in. Um, but this was a a sample of what I was attempting to do with some of the data from fifth grade was to break it apart um by type of writing and area. So the first two slides are the um focus um area on the rubric and students um did uh receive a score of one through four and then they took the social studies one and the hope was that there was some improvement because that was six to eight weeks later. um Simplify Writing has come out with something almost very similar um to let you um keep track of really what's going to be a massive amount of data because if
026you have five areas in at least three kinds of writing that's a lot of data. So um we will be introducing that to the teachers uh next year. Okay. So if I'm reading that correctly say the first one on the left Uhuh. There would there were only three students who did better on the social studies than they did on the science. You got two twos that went to three and a three that went to a four, right? Yep. And then you had two students who did worse. Yep. Okay. And the zero might just be they didn't do the I believe they didn't do the assignment. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Um writing is a very very complex skill and it takes a lot of time to develop. Yeah. And it depends on what you're writing on and
027if you like it, the topic and all that. Yeah, I get that. A lot of different pieces. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we're hoping to look at data over multiple years to hopefully see some growth. So that's cool though. I really like so much work. This is some of the K through three data collection. Yeah. So initially um like Andrea said we started with a lot of observational um data. So you can see up top um handwriting foundations um paper positioning, writing posture, print concepts, and then letter formation. So this was what our data sheet looked like for the grade levels K to two. Um and it was observational. So they the teacher teachers would go around a lot of them asked for like each trimester they wanted to have a repeat of that you
028know data or that data sheet so that they could say okay this trimester they got it this they're still working on these things and next trimester to show that growth. Um and then we started to begin to talk about all right let's come up with a data collection sheet that's going to be because they were looking for um that not only the foundational skills but also data from their narrative writing from their opinion writing and from their umformational writing. So we started to design something and then of course you know we found out that simplify came out with these beautiful data sheets and so we will be introducing them but this is a sample of how it could potentially look. Um so we'll be playing around with those and talking to the teachers um and
029coming up with the best way for our school. Um and this here is just a grade one rubric. So you can see the format is very similar. This is the teacher version, not the student friendly. Our first graders, that wouldn't be the best checklist for them, but um it's just to show you that, you know, it's very similar across the grade level. So, they'll be familiar with this format going through eighth grade. Um this is linked, but we don't actually even have to really show it. We just we put the link to the SAS scores because our hope is that this presentation will also either in this form or slightly modified get shared with staff and eventually as we continue to update it, we'll be able to show updated SAS scores. Um and so that's
030another place where we're going to see writing. That's the really the one place other than what we do where writing is tested. We also use the I Ready um platform for um testing, but it does not include writing. So SAS is really the only assessment for writing outside of what we do in school. So that's why that's there. So that kind of is like the wrap up to science of writing, simplify writing, and where we're at with it. Um does anybody have any questions before we switch to the science of reading? You know, I just wanted to ask another question. So, say that um are the lessons so prescribed that they're telling the kids what to write about or is it because I because I like integrated units where you can pick a theme and
031you're kind of doing it and all of those things. It does it allow you to do that? It does. I mean, they're definitely set up to have a specific um mentor text and all the lessons that go with it using that mentor text, but let's say it's in science. In fourth grade, it was um um natural disasters, I think it was. Um but that was it actually fit with what they were doing. Yeah. Um I'm trying to think of a better um in sixth grade um they write um anformational essay about ancient Egypt but that's not theformational essay topic in simplify writing but it is completely um manageable to shift it about it. You can change the topic. Absolutely you can change it. That's the one thing I always have concern about boxed programs, you
032know, like it doesn't allow you to integrate among the other subjects which is better for the kids and they plus they love it. Yes. Right. Yeah. Um that was really a key part of of this program fitting well with Deerfield because um it does integrate the science and the social studies. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. So the science of reading um this um is um more known I guess and as we started to write the curriculum this became a very big part of it and it has slowed us down a little bit and I think it's okay because we're learning more and more about um the science of reading and how that's going to impact our curriculum. So we wanted to share a little bit with you about what that is. So, um, the
033science has anybody heard of the science of reading a little bit maybe. Okay, it's okay that you haven't. I hadn't for a long time, but um, some people say, "Oh, we're going to do the science of reading program." Um, and so that's not really what the science of reading is. So, we want to define it for you. Um, this definition came from, um, the reading league. uh it says the science of reading is a vast interdisciplinary body of scientifically based research about reading and the issues related to reading and writing. The research has been conducted around the world over the last 50 years. I know it includes includes many many metaanalyses of data. Um thousands of studies have been done in multiple languages. It's culminated in a prepundonderance of evidence to inform how proficient reading
034and writing develop why some have difficulty and how we can most effectively assess and teach and therefore improve student outcomes through prevention of an intervention for reading difficulties. So that is um a basic definition. The next page goes over what it is and what it is not. Um this is from the National Center on Literacy and what it is is a collection of research. It's teaching based on five big ideas um which are um phmic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. So as we're putting together a reading program, those are the parts that are included. Um and it's ever evolving. There's always new research and more being added. What it is not is a specific program or a specific intervention. You can't just buy the science of reading and do it in your school. Um
035I guess it'd be nice if you could. I know. Um it's not just a phonics based program that drills phonics skills. It's phonics is definitely an integral part of the program, but it's just one of the five big ideas um that are covered and it's not complete. More studying needs to be done. Um this is uh two models of the science of reading which mirrors the science of writing models. The first one is the simple view of reading and it is um word recognition times language comprehension equals reading comprehension. And so again, word recognition um if students aren't able to decode words um then uh but maybe have good language comprehension, they are not going to have good reading comprehension. It's it's really the sum the product of those two two um skills, not the
036the sum of them to really have students um become proficient. This rope is Scarboro's reading rope. Um, and it um mirrors that. There's language comprehension strands and word recognition strands and um the language comprehension pieces. Kids um become more strategic in using their comprehension skills, their language, their reasoning. Um and their word recognition is the funological awareness, the decoding, the site words. And as they become more automatic, those two weave together to create skilled reading, which is kids being able to fluently um read, recognize um words, and to comprehend. That was perfect. Good job. Thanks, Scarboro. She's talking. Thanks, Mr. Scarboro. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, what we wanted to do is look at what are we doing already in Deerfield that does align with the science of reading. And so, we took the two ropes
037uh This is the language comprehension rope. The next slide is going to be word recognition. And on the left hand side, you can see the five different areas. And then we said, well, what are we doing already? Right? So, um, one of the main um, areas under language comprehension is background knowledge. And I want to talk just briefly about that because it's not just the experiences that kids come to school with. um those are important as well, but it's also just the knowledge that they learn as they learn um as they read and they're exposed to different um concepts and facts. And so in thinking about the science of reading, a goal is to create um depth of concepts across a school. So we're doing that now through readalouds um and content building in science
038and social studies. Um, another is vocabulary knowledge. Again, content um through science and social studies and picture books. Um, our upper grades, six um seven use a program called growing your vocabulary. Um, the eighth grade teacher has created one based on um the same types of words um and good morphology instruction. And then I mentioned Joan Sadita before. She um had written keys to comprehension which is a routine for comprehension. She's also written keys to vocabulary. I took the training over actually in October. Um and it's a the kind of program that has a routine more than a set of things you should work on and so it'll fit really well with your field. So um like to do the training for the staff in regards to vocabulary instruction um language structures which is grammar,
039syntax and semantics. um that is through simplify writing and the grammar program and listening and speaking components of our um competencies. Um verbal reasoning um how kids make inferences, how they understand um language that's not literal like metaphors and lots of strategy and skill instruction. um the graphic organizers from keys to comprehension and we're going to do some ongoing uh PD for keys to comprehension. One of our survey questions was how many of you have taken the training for keys to comprehension and 11 people said I have and then then we said what else do you need and nine of them said a refresher course. So um we know that we need to do that. Um I I like yeah yeah many teachers are using um quite a few of the components um but still
040said they'd like a refresher. So that is um in the works and then the f the final one is literacy knowledge. So just um different kinds of genres and print concepts. A lot of that happens through um classrooms, the library um different readalouds. Um this is the word recognition strand with the three areas of phological awareness, decoding, spelling and site words. Um we have some programs um in in place for those areas as well. The younger grades have been using the Hagerty program which is a K through2 program for manipulating sounds like say sunset now say sunset but don't say sun set. Um and it gets more and more refined with um individual letters being split out rather than just words. Um they are using foundations program for phonics and for spelling at the younger
041grades. Decodable readers so the kids are getting to read um text that matches the skill they've learned. Um and then the foundations program also has a siteword uh program built into it. um the older kids in many ways is it's more foundational literacy for them. Um especially as they get into sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. If there if they don't have those skills, then we need kind of above and beyond what um we can't use foundations from third grade for an eighth grader. So, we have some other options. We have I have a quite a few um different remediation programs for decoding um multi-elabic words and commonly misspelled words and um that kind of thing. Um there's also um words their way which is being used in four fifth grade. Um fourth grade this year
042used foundations to continue finishing the program from third grade. So that's shifting a little bit in the upper grades, but we do have a lot of options. Oh, can you go back one second? This is really important. Amanda included [Music] this pieces lead um to fluency and comprehension. So, our professional um development needs based on the staff survey um are um listed there on the left hand side. Um letters is a program that's free through the state. Many of our teachers in K through five have taken it um or are taking it. It's a two-year program. It's pretty extensive, but it's based on the science of reading and it covers all the areas in regards to reading. An administrator, too, taking it. Lisa is taking Lisa's taking the administrative course and I tried, but I
043failed. But you promised that you would do it with me. Yes, I did. I promised. You never promised. I'm not going to let you out of that. I know you're I appreciate that. Um so we need to do the updated keys to comprehension um PD um introduce keys to vocabulary which I suspect will be the following year. Um we need to do ongoing um PD for simplify writing. There's a few modules that we haven't covered yet. Um and share with the staff what the science of reading and the science of writing are and the instructional practices that are aligned to them. Specifically for simplify writing um teachers would like these pieces. Um, one of them is more strategies to support struggling writers, which is actually the module that we didn't do yet. It's very specific
044about how to differentiate instruction. Um, tools to assess and give feedback. Now, we have the pre and post assessments. And there's also another module we didn't get to, which was conferencing with students. Um, how to integrate grammar and conventions instruction, which was something that we did talk about, but I think it takes practice. It's in one of the modules. And I think creating some lessons with integrated grammar instruction will will help teachers to make that next step. Uh we're going to talk about how to pace and uh schedule that will be an ongoing conversation. Um they wanted time to collaborate and prepare their lessons and they wanted more student exemplars and model texts. So I'm thinking they do they do provide quite a few exemplars. So maybe people hadn't found them, but if they did,
045then um we can also use the SAS um exemplars. You're also I mean as you're doing the program going to have students with the true exactly. Yeah, they do provide a a level one, two, three, and four exemplar for every type of writing for every grade level. So So we're hoping to respond to that. So that kind of ends the part about the science of reading and what we're hoping to do and where we're at now. Do you have any questions about that? So those programs that you had mentioned, those are kind of used to back up like the science of reading. They're not that's not the actual program, right? The science of reading is not an actual program. So those other ones that were listed out, those are what you're using to support that.
046Okay. All right. Yes. I'm curious about the cost of the programs. Some of these free, some like Well, we actually already own all of them except for maybe um keys to comprehension and keys to vocabulary, but many of the teachers have taken it. Yeah. Right. And the foundations program is something that we've had for years um that follows it nicely. Um, and he is newer. That came just this year. And I I did not order that. I I don't know. I think it was here last year. Last year. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. And we spent we used a lot of our extra money to purchase the readers and then the decodables are new. Yeah. And we started at one grade level and then they liked it. So, we built we we've slowly built that
047library. So, as far as the future, it sounds like you don't have many costs in the future. I mean, you've got at at the end of three years, you're gonna have to renew the the writing one if you the licenses for that. Yes. Otherwise, um I think that many of the teachers have the keys to comprehension book and Amanda and I have both taken the course and so we feel like we can um share that training with people. Um I've taken the keys to vocabulary course. I think it was $400 or something to take the course. Um and I I'm not sure that you've taken it yet. And we haven't determined the keys to vocabulary. Oh, no. The one I took is four through eight. So, we do have to do a little more exploring
048um for the younger grades. So, it might be cost for you guys to get trained, but then you can train the teachers. And that's the cost of the books. The books. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the foundations program, too. I mean, everything's updating. So, in time, you know, new teacher manuals will have to happen. Some of the teacher manuals are old. But that's what I was going to ask. So, that you had mentioned the update with the pre and post um assessments. Is that is that update part of the part of the license? It's all part of it. They just keep sending us stuff. They're like, "Now here's the spelling program. Now here's the preassessments and we've purchased those online stuff." No. Right. Yep. I think there's some consumables for foundations and there are some
049consumables for Wilson, which is a more individualized or small group intervention program, but they're not significant. Um, so are the are the students do the students have any actual books for any of these programs or is it all online stuff? Um, well, simplify writing is online, but it it can be printed out and for most of the younger grades, that's what's happening. They're getting things on paper um because we printed them. Um, Heerty is a listen and respond. um foundations is um a program that has like some qards and the kids have whiteboards and letter tiles and manipulatives to use. So um and then all the decodables are all books books that go along with the skills that are being taught. Most teachers have for the kids. They put all that stuff in a writing
050folder access to it. Sorry, Amanda. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're working on trying to get a few more decodables over time for everyone. the vocabulary. There's a there is a a workbook that comes with the growing your vocabulary. Correct. There is. Okay. And what we found though is that um because it's so expensive, um the sixth grade books are have only been um they've used lessons 1 through 10 and so they're going to pass it on to seventh grade and they're going to use 11 through 20. Um which is fine because it's teaching different prefixes, suffixes, roots, and bases. And it doesn't matter necessarily that they learn them all because they're learning them at in in depth. So that book will um be moved on. The eighth grade teacher has her own
051supplies and we'll purchase new books for the sixth graders. So that's a real cost savings as well. I think those books are like 11 or 12 each. Usually buy 50 of them. A lot better than textbooks that were like what 50 bucks each. Yeah. Back when I taught way more now. Oh yeah. the hundreds. Yeah. And 100. Yeah. All right. Uh you want me to go to the competencies? Sure. So, um right now the middle school has seven competencies and in regards to conventions, it was built into um the writing competencies and they felt that they needed something separate. They wanted to have a con a way to grade just conventions. And so we had a lot of discussion and um finally I met with the ELA teachers at sixth, seventh and eighth grade. We
052looked at the standards and the common core for conventions and using that they made decisions about how to write it and put it into our framework. And so that's what's in front of you. Um it's uh sixth grade then seventh grade then eighth grade. They all start the same with demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar usage when writing and speaking. And then underneath it, they all have specific grammar skills related to that grade level that connect to the competencies that are aligned with the lessons in the simplified writing for grammar. So they have the that material there for teaching. And then it's a specific um punctuation type of skill depending on which grade level. and then they all have spelled correctly. Um, so once the teachers made a decision,
053I typed this all up so they could look at it. I made sure that this is the standard that um, it's aligned to. Um, and then we presented it to all the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade middle school teachers and case managers. So, science teachers, social studies teachers, etc. And everyone had a chance to look at it because they use it for grading if they're grading a social studies paper or a science paper. and everyone agreed that um it was acceptable to them. I sent it over to Amy Parkinson who looked at it and said, "Yes, this is this seems um just fine." Kristen took a look at it and said, "Okay, this looks great." And so the last step is for you guys to see it and um digest it and see what you
054think. And your curriculum is coming up. Yeah, we're going to present it next year. Hopefully earlier next year. Supposed to be this year, but pushed it off a year and I we talked about it as an administrative team and I think it makes sense to start using that and then just bring it with your curriculum next year. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. So, we can let Amy know that she can get it put into Alma. Okay. I think you have a spelling mistake in seventh grade though. In seventh grade, a spelling Dan Dangling misplaced Dan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there it is. Dan Dangling. Thank you for finding that. should be and yeah, thank you. Wow, that was I'm pretty quick, but that was for a science teacher. Not bad. Not bad. I'm an avid
055reader. Uhhuh. Okay. I went to my son's um medical assistant graduation last night and on the board and big big letters was written celebration C E L A and I I kind of walked by the board to see if I could find a expo and I was going to go tell the instructor and I was just like just just don't look at it. So anyways, thank you for that. Um the last thing that we have for you is um kind of a next step. Our goal almost there. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, um our goal is to continue to promote student success and literacy using evidence-based instructional practices. And we feel the best way to do this is to create a literacy planning team um which Kristen is on board with and it will involve all
056stakeholders across the school um to have input into developing this plan. Um there's a protocol for it, there's a format for it, there's guidance for it. Um it comes in stages. The first is to evaluate what we're currently doing in about six or seven different areas. um then to develop some improvement goals and an action plan. Um prioritizing those areas and then starting to implement and the goal would be one to probably more likely three years. You try to pick one or two of those main areas um to uh affect change it and the areas are core instruction um intervention assessment and data use and professional development. It came from your work with Joan Cida Jones Cadita. Yeah. Yeah. The keys to literacy is Yeah. Yeah. She does a lot of presenting um like I
057think she works extensively in Ohio and you can find all sorts of information from her and videos and so um this was something that I'd come across. The letters book also um that teachers are using for the letters training also has some information about literacy planning teams that's more geared towards the younger grades. So we may end up combining those. I'm not sure. What I think Kristen's hope is that we can um find some people interested uh before school ends so that we can get some work started over the summer. So, how is this different than what you've done in the past? I mean, I don't know because I wasn't here. Oh. So, I mean, was it only like the like the literacy curriculum committee? Was it was that the only thing that was done
058or I mean like how because you obviously we've always been looking at the data and checking it out. I'm just curious. This sounds like a great idea, but I'm just wondering how different. This is going to be really like how often are you going to meet? Is this Yeah, I think that um I think that a lot of those decisions are going to be made when we pull ourselves together and look at what's expected of us in front of us. Um I think the goal is to be able to incorporate the best evidence-based instructional practices from the science of reading and writing, right? And so we have some things in place, but there's always room for growth. And we know that as we started to write the curriculum that there were pieces that we knew
059we needed to build in. But you can't just build it in and then say here, right? Right. There has to be some kind of um a systematic way to approach a change like that. Um so that's the the goal. Yeah. So it sounds like the curriculum committee was more at like this is what's going on, everything's good, but this is more at really looking at changes and then if there changes in the you know the status of literacy or new ways of teaching then you're thinking about how can you implement it into the school and I think our curriculum more proactive I would say. Well, yeah, and I think our curriculum will reflect what we believe are the best instructional practices, but you can't without instructing people and offering PD for folks, you can't really
060expect them to do that, right? So, it's aligning some of our practices and, you know, K through eight and just taking a look at filling some of those gaps that might be out there that need to be filled. It also will support the work that's being done at the with our MTSS tier one team. We're doing a lot of there was a lot of um from a survey we did a couple years ago, there was a lot of people that wanted some more PD around literacy and um so that's something we've been working towards as well. So it just kind of all came together. Um and our next steps is to figure out how do we put this in place and we've got some enthusiastic literacy folks. So, thank you for letting us come and
061share information with you. I want to say I love that you're using a writing program that goes from K to so important that the kids learn things and you're doing it the same way. So, I can't wait till the fall when the kids get their new the teachers get their new kids and the kids are like, "Oh, yeah. Yeah." And the teacher can confidently say, "Yes, you did see this." Right. Right. right? When they say, "No, I didn't see this." "No, you did see us." Because they often forget. So, thank you. But, um Kristen's going to share this with you, but feel free to reach out to Amanda if you have any further questions. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you. Is this your water? Is this your water? Oh, it is. Thank you very much. I heard
062back from Amber, so I'll fill you in when we get there. So, the next thing we have is the agenda review. I have one. Yeah, I have one under um 8A. We need to add a conversation about solar um about some email correspondents that I received about our solar project. That's all I had. And the next is review of correspondence. I don't believe we had any media business facilities update. Do you want me to talk about what was there? Um, so Chris forwarded a landscaping contract and typically we wouldn't put bids and quotes in the drive for public, but we only got one, so that's why it's in there. Um, he did reach out reach out to several companies and they didn't either didn't respond or didn't have a quote for him. So, um, but
063our current vendor is the one that, um, that gave us the quote and the contract, which is good news because we have, um, we've had them for quite a while and they're doing a great job. So, um, and I think it's a three-year proposal, I remember correctly, right? Yeah. So, Chris would be looking for you to approve um, our landscape company for the next three years. Do we know um, how that number compares to because I know it's the same company, the same scope, I assume. So, it is I didn't get any. I know he didn't pass that on to me and I don't know off the top of my head. Okay. Curious. Uh yeah, I can I can look though at what we budgeted and see the difference. Um is it something that we
064need to approve tonight without that number? Um I mean it's the only one we got, so that's true. I don't think we have a lot of and they've been really good to us. So, I wouldn't anticipate that it was a big change, but I don't think Chris included that. I'm assuming that nobody else bid on it. I assume it's because the number that it's being contracted for is it could be because they usually check that, right? Not a lot. Yeah. So, yeah, we're probably getting a good deal. Yeah. Is there reason why there doesn't have I don't know that no 28 you said I think it's because it's actually it's actually maybe a two-year contract because it's like I think it's half year then full year then half year like if you look at it
065summer so they're figuring the summer work doesn't count because Right. July, right? So that that must be in the prior contract. And so it's actually a two-year contract spread over, you know, three years, but yeah. Two years worth of a full right season or whatever. Yeah. That's why the 2026 27 weekly turf maintenance is 24 m because it's like doubled over there, right? That's that's like the full year. Yeah. I think that makes sense. So, I move that we accept the landscaping contract. Yeah, I'll second. All in favor say I. I. I. Everyone. Great. Thank you. Um, so I have some modular updates for you as promised. Um, they so the, um, Amber did talk to Skiavi and she indicated that then from the numbers they got back to replace carpets, it would increase the
066lease price by $300 a month. So I know the board last time was thinking if it went up, the lease went up, you'd probably wait to replace the flooring. Um, so if that is still the consensus, um, we do need a motion to renew the lease for one year. It expires in July, June 30th, I think. Um, should we wait until we check on that other We can. Yeah. Um, so Canon asked me, so everyone knows, um, if I would check with attorney Edgar to make sure that we would need to put that on a warrant article and that the board, you know, because he was, like he was saying, it's a trailer and can be towed away. So, does that make that make it different? Um, so I'm going to check qualify as property,
067you know, or a building if it's can be wheeled away. We just want We don't need a warrant article and then we don't have Yes. Yeah. We have surplus and it's something that's going to Yeah. And there's time. It doesn't expire till June 30th. So, um yeah, I can do that and I'll let Amber know um that I'm checking with him and I made a note to do that. So, and then we'll just add that to the next Yep. Sure. meeting. Yep. Sounds good. All right. Um there was also um rough numbers um in the drive for the um four units that um I think Shannon, you had asked Chris to check on that just to see what it would be so that we sort of had an idea if we did end up buying
068them and those had to be replaced, what type of a cost would we be looking at? Um and just having that information to try to make sense of whether it's a good idea to buy modulars. So, was it 79 something? Yes. 79,250 for four for four. Yes. And that doesn't include electrical controls, balancing it system. So, there's more than it'll cost more than that. Yeah. And we would obviously if we if the time comes, we wouldn't be able to hold him to these prices, but at least we sort of know a general idea because it's not something currently that has to be correct. It's just Yeah. Yeah. So, we know in the future, but the units are old and they've just been um having parts put thrown at them. Whereas they're they're suggesting that if
069it were granted states that if it were on them, you know, they they make the recommendation to stop putting parts and just replace them. So, and I think that helps inform your decision on whether you would you might want to put some money aside in the the repair trust, too, that you could plan ahead, like if these failed, we want to make sure we've got enough money to replace those in our trust fund. Do we have an idea how much that extra stuff that's not included would cost? No, I don't think so. I think they gave us any firm numbers. Electrical gets a little pricey. Yeah. Yeah, the um refrigerant. Yeah, because they have to accidentally you know me, I would never do that. It was a joke and then I realized it's a very
070poor joke. Yeah, I'm surprised there's quite a few exclusions there. Yeah, there's an awful lot. I wonder is it because they can't give us prices on that? Maybe on the electrical portion, but balancing of the system. I assume that's they would do that. I mean, they're going to replace one in a big hole. Probably. That's probably pretty that part, right? Yeah. Or he'll hire that out. Yeah. infection control desk partitions temporary walls. We'd be probably doing this in the summer. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't, you know, Chris isn't here so there he may have asked them in terms of trying to save money to say, "Hey, I'll put up the dust partitions and Yeah. to try to save money. He'll do that stuff himself cuz fire alarm wiring." But it was a good one. You're
071punchy tonight. I am. Yeah. Um, okay. Missy, do you know how much it costs if somebody comes in with an air conditioner? Does depend on size to the transfer station to No, it doesn't depend on size. And this is all not my doing, but it's $10 for an AC to come in, a refrigerator, freezer, AC, um, a water cooler or a dehumidifier. All those have free on the Huh? So, that's not expensive at all. Those are commercial. Oh, no. But this No, the select board um should probably say this, but they need to update their pricing. Yeah. I doubt they're going to take a commercial for commercial for 40 bucks. Yeah. For TV, too. Everything is outdated. The pricing is outdated. Yeah. Because, you know, it cost more to get rid of. So, Okay. Let's
072not mix the two boards. [Music] Yeah, it was um I had it in the last in the last one. It was I was going to say, wasn't it like 38 39? Yeah, it was a total of less than 80. Yeah. Yeah. It's around 80. And then you figure one year of having them that's a savings of maybe 70,000, right? So, because I think we were at like 33 for each. So 66. So that's 14 grand. Yes. More in one year. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it's just, you know, the only thing to weigh is stuff like that. I mean, an $80,000 repair on those. I mean, given they're not all going to go out at once either, right? So that's place all of them. This is only for one quote, right, from one
073company. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's that might be something that we could look at to another quote. Yeah. Yeah. if we were actually going to move forward, do an RFP, right? But yeah, those are just budgetary numbers. And like I said, I don't think, you know, they're not all four going to go at once and we're not going to replace them until we need to. Um, unless we, I guess, budgeted to do one per year or something like that. Okay, I think that was it. all that I had for modulars or I'll let Chris add too. Yeah, part of that I think that was the biggest the biggest potential cost for maintenance or repairs that we would be facing, right? Oh, did you add the solar in there, too? We're going to talk about Oh,
074yeah. Thank you. I just forgot. Um, so we I received an email from our solar company. Um, as you know, that's been dragging on um for quite some time for one reason after another. Um, the latest what we thought was potentially going to be an issue was um the electric company uses an outside vendor to do the the system impact study. And when Chris or when the solar company called to schedule that, they said we were looking at July. and our solar company said, "We have to order your equipment around or close to the end of May to have it and get it going and have it done when kids aren't in school or it's going to delay a year." So, the solar company asked if um I would contact the vice president at the
075co-op and you know, sort of we wrote a very nice letter like, "Please help. We're core school. We have children here. You know, could you do anything?" um and they talked to their vendor and um shared the letter with them and they said that they were willing to make us a priority. So they think they're going to be able to get it done um by the end of May to get it to the electric company that so that their engineers can review it and then um pass it on to the solar company. So that is very very very good news. Um the not so great news was after um the grant amount came in there's less funding available and now that we're looking further down the road prices have gone up. So he is and
076what I needed to talk to you about tonight is he um his company met and their board decided that they were going to have to um increase the help me with the wording Ellen purchase for kilowatt. Is that what it is? Yeah. um they're still their increase is still less than our next bid because that was one of my concerns is we had people bid on this and I wanted to see so Amber looked it up and that even with their increase it's still less than the next bid was so unless I'm sure the other companies would have to change when they knew the grant was less correct correct yes so um they did he did ask me if I would be willing to bring this before the board for action and offered if you
077had any questions or you wanted him to come and speak with you um that he would be willing to do that. So, I mean, like Kendra said, I'm glad that there's still money available. Yeah, the the funding was a huge issue. Yes. And I think the only reason we were um guaranteed was that even though there was a freeze on federal funding and grants, if you had already received um approval, that money wasn't taken away. and we had already our grant had just been approved. So that was really lucky um that we were able to secure that and even in securing it there's less and less now for um solar projects and um all that stuff. So yeah, so it's going from 0.079 um to 0095 still 14,000. I mean I think the other savings
078was 23,000 a year. Yeah. So he's Yeah. He looked at new projections and all of our numbers and it's still over $14,000 of savings. Yeah. So the board the other part I like about it too is your school and then you can educate kids about Absolutely. So I mean it's even more than just saving money. It's it's a good educational opportunity. Um because I forget now we we do have you solar panels. You have to have a bank of batteries. Is that correct? That goes through the solar to the big batteries and then it turns into your electricity in your house. I can't remember. It goes through transformers which yeah changes the voltage down but I don't think it has batteries. Cool. I'm not I'm not positive. I think that would have been mentioned somewhere
079along Yeah. It just goes through transport. The thing is when you don't have enough when you're not making enough power, we're still tied to the grid. So, we're getting our electricity from the co-op. So, it's not like it shuts one off or the other. Okay. If you have a power outage, then it automatically shuts off. And that's because you don't want any back electricity going back into the grid, right? Yeah. Okay. So, what what is the cost to us on this? I know there's grant money, but none. None. None. No, it's just what we're going to save really. And then in the end, if we decide we want to purchase it, that would be a vote that our purchase agreement where after I think it's six years, we can purchase it if we want. And
080what they do is they figure out how much it's worth at that point and that then that we would just be getting a better we would get all the savings more savings, but you're also opening yourself up to the headaches. Then it's our responsibility to take care, do the maintenance, do all that stuff. right now. They'll do all of that. So, we do need board action um on because this would be a contract change order. Well, I move that um we what we say we would change the contract to 095 energy purchase. We accept that. I say that. Okay. Yeah, you could just Yeah, accept the change order that increases the kilowatt per hour to 0.095. [Music] I'll second it. All right. All in favor? I I Thanks for reminding me, Missy. I almost went
081right by that. All right. All right. So, 2025 update, end of year spending. Yes. So, I um Kristen and Brian put together a document. Um and then I added at the top what your estimated balance was so that it was all on the same page. So, at the top, um your estimated fund balance is right now 466,000. Uh Amber did make a disclaimer that at the very end of the fiscal year, you do have to reconcile health and dental and special ed transportation. So it's it's pretty up to date, but there is a reconciliation. So that number will change a little bit there. Um and then if anything last minute comes in and also keep in mind that your warrant articles um are 250,000 for building repair and 10,000 for equipment. So that leaves a
082balance of estimated um $26,000. We still have to take care of the health and dental and the special ID. Yes. Yeah. Any reconciliations? Yeah. Have to wait for that and then we decide if how much if we want to return to the tax. Yes. So the there is a request for um spending that. So we froze purchase orders May 15thish. Um and then when we start getting an idea of where we stand, typically the administration will come back and say, you know, if you could approve further spending, it has to be all the purchase orders have to be in by June 6th in order to get it done to close the books. So these are the requests from the administration. Um there so our Eureka quote came in higher. Um so the total for the
083purchase is 10,732. There is some money in the budget next year that part of that could be offset or we could just purchase it all from uh the fund balance. Is that a new it will be and it's we tried to get it in increase the math line but because we ended in a default budget we they went right back to what what they have this year which I think is about 11,000 but they had requested quite a bit more money to um pay for the Eureka. So, how much how much is Eureka alto together? Are you asking for $10,700 to offset what? No, no, that would be how much we would need to to u purchase what we need for next year. Um is $10,700. So, that's kind of like what it would be
084approximately. Yeah. So, so Eureka wasn't in the budget before. It has been in the budget, but we have a default budget. We end up yeah we end up in a default budget every single year. So when we transitioned from Eureka to Eureka squared there was a cost in purchasing materials for Eureka squared which includes workbooks for students and the digital platform for teachers. Um and so every year there'll be cost for the workbooks. Um and every year there'll be a cost to keep the digital portion out. Um and the same thing with big ideas at the middle school. There is a cost for the digital package. I think the digital package is two years at the middle school. So um the math team did put in budget for next year and an increased amount to
085offset the cost of Eureka. That would be um if we didn't pay for some of this out of surplus this year, our entire math line would be completely spent on Eureka the needs of Pure for Eureka next year. So when you end up with a default budget, we end up back at this year's instead of what they need for next year. So this 10,732 is literally the the upgrade to the squared. That's all it it is all all the materials that we need from for grade. So if you look you see grade K um you know they we need um this is the uh digital bundle and then grade one includes the uh includes the books in the digital bundle that they need. Uh the quantity we need 48 because we have approximately 48. It
086will might go up a little bit but we have some books from this year that we might be able to. So, they're reusing everything they can. Um Jamie and Danielle went around and asked everybody like, "What do you have that we can use this year for next year? Like, we know we have about 54 students coming up to whatever grade. You've got three books left over. Okay, so now we need to order 51 for you because you've got three books left over." So, they did all of that work. And then um this is actually less that they they Jamie did a nice job negotiating with the sales rep who was like, "All right, tell me what your bottom line is for your budget." She's like, "Well, we're school." So there you go. And in the
087past, um Canon, we use er money to to pay for a lot of this a lot of the stuff that we a lot of the materials we needed for our Eureka program. We used ESR money last year to even put Eureka into our youth square into our school. So, and that money is gone. Now, we don't have Eureka um money. So, Eureka is not in the budget at all. Uh it is to a smaller amount um but not to to $10,000. I I I So, so yeah. So, I guess is um trying to figure out how much of Eureka is already in there because do we need 10,000 or we need the difference between that and what's in there? You Yes, you could. They could use some of the money in next year's budget. So,
088do you know what the offset is? Okay, that would be great. Thank you. Do you want to move to the next thing so we can go through explain everything? Okay. Um the next thing are the ripple journals that um have been used in the health and wellness class. He's using them this year and loves them for the students. Um so if we can get those for him for next year, the total would be um 2,815 to to get all the students um the journals. So, our health and wellness budget is usually about $200 to $250. And that's how much our wellness teacher has to spend on supplies for um six, seventh, and eighth grade. Every year, we've tried to increase that amount for him so he can purchase more things. Um we found these ripple
089journals at the end of last year. Um and and I we actually were looking to purchase them perhaps for our advisory for our middle school advisory. And once uh the staff the teachers looked at them, they're like, you know, this would be really good for for our for Russell Young, our health and wellness teacher. So I showed them to him and he's like, "Yeah, let's do it." I had Esther money I used money to purchase the initial purchase of these. Um he's used them all year long to work with the students. Um and um I reached out and said, "Hey, if you want them again next year and he's so I had originally put them in the budget, we end up in a default." So, I lost all of that money was lost out of
090the default budget. So, he's back to $250. So, he has no money to spend on anything. So, so what are these journals? Um, so there there's a each journal, the sixth grade has explore and share. So, um, it kind of follows a continuum from the very beginning of the year to the end of the year. And there's units that he's using that supports so the kids can write in them. Um, there's pro like maybe a journal prompt question that they would answer. I I should I could they're down in my office. I could have I should have brought them up. I can run down and get them for you so you can see what they look like, but they're just um just kind of guides the discussion with students. Uh it helps um support what
091he's trying to teach them in in health and wellness. Um and things like that and um magnet and pass and they're great. They have it's their own thing. They can becomes their own. Yep. How often do they I'm sorry. How often do they have health enrollments class? Uh they have it once every three is once every three days. I think it's a six day rotation. So they use them twice in a Yeah. Do they have a textbook for that or or any kind of So that's the only kind of guiding resource he has. um most of the things that he would do with the kids would be like a packet. He would, you know, copy whatever he's teaching, he would find some materials online, copy it, and the kids would have a packet. So, this
092has helped um with that piece in terms of cut down on some of the printing costs. Um and um the kids can work right in it's like a it's like a wellness journal basically is what it's turned into. Okay. Um, next was a request for some furniture. We had three people with um, horrible chairs that asked if they could get new desk chairs. Um, and then Melissa has been looking for a percussion cabinet and they're extremely expensive. $3,000 I think is was the cost. Um, and she is does not give up easily. So, she decided she found a cobalt toolbox that looked very much like a profession cabinet um that she could fancy up and would work for her. So, um the total for that would be $738 instead of like several thousand. So, that's
093her request. Um and then we've talked about the fencing. Um and then I think Chris and Brian got two different quotes. Um, tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. The third quote, what the name of the company is. Yeah. I don't know if anybody was thinking about looking local. I think there's something called AQ Fence in town. Yeah. AQ Fence. And there's great great East or something fence. I know Chris has placed a lot of phone calls. Some people can't do the work by this is because it's coming out of circles has to be done by a certain period of time. So he knew that going into it. I can talk in terms but I do know the number and these two are the ones that he has. Um are we going to vote on all individually or that's
094up to the board. Yeah. If you want if you want to you certainly can. Some items might be supported and some might not be. So, it's not bad to separate them. And I think between the fencing, didn't Brian say one had sort of a coating on it, like a black coating? Yeah. And one was just I think the first the first quote was um option one and option two. One was hot dipped. The option two was hot dip hot dipped. And then the um option one is a mesh like high chambering things, you know. Was that the the fencing was the last part? Um, did Brian send you with anything for the last minute? Last minute ch. Yes, we have um in our middle school um there was a request to do it. Originally the
095request was um to purchase um a classroom set of of desks because there's a teacher that has tables that wanted to get rid of the tables and use desks. The tables were actually the classroom we were in u for ELA that she was helping to move her um desk to chair her tables to desks. Um, and since then, um, we have another teacher who is like, "Oh, I'll take your tables. You can have my desks, but in the meantime, we would like to replace some of these their classroom chairs. They're splitting in the back and, um, it's they're not in very good condition. They they they take a beating in the middle school. So, um, it is quite expensive though. Chairs are not cheap and the the cheapest thing you can find on is on
096Amazon. Um, a set of four classroom chairs costs $34160. And there's nothing in the shed. No, we Well, there might be some things, but not enough to fill a class. And most of the chairs have been giving up. I don't think there's Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's if we did Brian does have a um a furniture line budget, a budget line that he uses uh at the end of every school year. He'll he is about $10,000 and he'll say, you know, let me know what kinds of things you need for next year, what kinds of things you want for next year. The need is always takes precedence. Um, and you know, so teachers will say, "Well, I need, you know, a couple of extra stools or I need a couple he's bought science tables. He's
097bought like there's lots of things that he's purchased over the years and really does a nice job. I think he has like $60 off in his furniture line this year. He's really tries to spend it all the way down. Um, but the problem is is that if we did a class set of chairs, that's almost it's over $2,000 just for one class set of chairs. So, if we did that for two classes, that would be a little over $4,000. And that would nobody could it would give them no money to work with for the rest of the school. So, and there's two classes that want replaced. Two classes that want, you know, chairs replaced. Like all the chairs have to get replaced. decide. Um, that's a fair question. I don't I don't know. I have
098I personally did not take a look. Um, but I think that they were hoping to Yes. replace all the chairs if if the board would wanted to approve just one class set, we might be able to piece them piece meal it together. Teachers like to have Nancy and Ellen, they like to have their like you you want all your chairs kind of looking the same. You don't want to have three of these chairs or four of those chairs. So if we had surplus that we could use to purchase it, we would I don't I don't really care about stuff like that, but that's me. But so 20 chairs would be around 1,700 based on what you said for the four chairs. So, I'm assuming 20 chairs is a classroom, right? Um, you don't really have
09920 kids. Usually, but in case, is that correct? Is that what I based it off of um 24 like six groups of 24? Because I mean, I think I think we're mostly 18 in each class. Thinking back to what you had for classroom sizes, right? I mean, I know you like to have extra chairs because you like to set up a little spot here and you have another spot here. So, it's not like you need exactly what kids are, but you need to know this tonight. The purchase orders have to be in by June 6th. So, you have one more meeting. Um, that would be cutting it really close for Trish to have to enter all these things. Yeah, I'm just thinking I mean I agree with Canon. It' be nice to go through and
100make sure like how many are really really bad shape and need to be replaced and how similar are the chairs we have to similar you know to what you would buy. They might be very similar. You might not even notice the difference. Yeah. I I think we should, you know, get an inventory of what, you know, what we what we need, you know, not want and have Chris check out just to make absolutely sure there aren't any out in the shed that are shares. Yes. because there's a lot of stuff in that shed. Would that be okay? I I at our next board meeting the purchase are due by June 6. So, well, we can't we can't keep getting you know last minute stuff that we're voting on being fire drill everything. Yep. So, what
101what goes on in the room, the classroom that's at the corner near the cafeteria? The one you used to have, you said it was a loud room. That's a specialist. So, is there any like extra chairs in those types of rooms? No, they they everything they have they use. They they small for their small rooms. Kids go in there and they don't have a lot of room. So, I don't think they want a lot of extra furniture. like four people in there. Plus, they probably have the smaller size. Oh, down in that particular room. Yeah. They're more the younger kid room. Okay. They probably have the small. So, I just I I I mean, if you want to take the chairs off, we can take the chairs off. That was an addition that was added
102to it. This is yeah the Eureka is something that we've have talked about in terms of we will not have the money next year to purchase this and the fence I think is been talked about over the course of the last couple of months of putting the fence out there for the between the modulars for safety reasons. So those are two things I know that we have talked about as potential use of surplus money which I don't know if it was ever defined as surplus but that's I think the only way we'll be able to pay for them right now. uh next year, Eureka, they had budgeted $16,000 to be able to purchase Eureka um and Big Ideas and then an additional uh $2,000 that they would use for um they buy materials. They buy
103materials for family for family math night um out of that line. They um replace manipulatives using that line. they get supplies for for teachers and kids out of that out of that $2,000. So So what's the balance that you're This was 16,000 and they have 11,000 to spend next year. So you're talking about $5,000, right? What? So we had 16 plus two. Is that right? 16 for Eureka and then you had two for expendable. No, 16,000 was the total budget proposal for next year. Oh. Which included all the Eureka, what we needed to purchase big ideas and then um what they needed for an additional amount of money to purchase supplies. And so they needed 16,000, they got 11. So you need 5,000 more. Yes. which means that we would which means that we would
104only be able to purchase a certain amount of surplus and then a certain amount from our Well, so you only need 5,000 from surplus. Yes. So we don't need 10 732. We need five. If you if you want the whole to get everything we need for next year, it's $10,000. Yes. But you have it in the budget. Some of it is in the budget. Well, so we only need 5,000 surplus and then you've got budget money to get the rest of it. Is that right for for next year? There's that. Um I mean it would dip it would definitely dip into that. Yes. So it would take all of the budget money. So you're saying there'd be no other money in the math line for other math stuff. So you need the 2,000 as well.
105So do you need 7,000? You want to move on to the next one while doing that? Yeah. Um, let's do you want to just start doing each one line by line? I think so. Let's do that. So, uh, the riffal journals were next. Okay. Yeah. So, um, I guess we'll just vote on each one individually. So, I I would suggest to the chairs that we maybe get one. I do know that when those chairs break, they are very uncomfortable. You're always getting your clothes stuck on them. They pinch your legs. Yeah. Right. They really aren't good. But I think probably if we got one classroom set, they'd be able to get enough for the two classrooms between the chairs that are still fine and the chairs that are bad. That would be my recommendations. Just
106Yeah. I I mean I think that if that's the only thing that we give them to that they have to purchase like within two days or something. I don't think that that's a huge ask. Like I think we could get because if we're we're going to vote on everything else and if that's the one thing that we give them to be like, you know, I think we should inventory it all because if they need two full sets, then they need two full sets, right? But and we just give them one then. But let let's figure out what we need. My guess is they aren't all broken, right? That's what I mean. I think when she originally proposed it, it was there's a few broken chairs and they're in. So, in other words, you want to
107wait until we I'd like to vote on that at the next one. Yeah. Yeah. That that Yeah, I agree. It's okay. The We already have the quotes and Yeah, that would be just entering one purchase order. So, I think that's fair. All right. All right. So, we'll go to the Ripple journals. I I just know being teacher having something like that is such a great resource and I do know that students really do like having their own journal something they see at the end of the year they be very proud of it thanks they're writing I to me I think that that's reasonable to ask for this and he doesn't have any other budget so this would be all he's getting do you want to make a motion yes I move that we um allow
108the purchase of the ripple journals for health and wellness 2815. I'll second for discussion. You second it. Yeah. For discussion discussion. Yeah. Discuss now. Yeah. I I like the fact that they're, you know, like a hard copy printed, you know, they're they're writing in them by hand. I I think it's kind of old school and I like that. And I think it's Yeah. And I think it's um you know the fact that he only has a $250 budget and he doesn't have any other resource and he wouldn't be printing because believe me that's what I was thinking too is there's got to be some offset here too, right? Like that it's saving us on printing. I um and they're wellreceived. The kids like them and they use them. It's like you're really using good. All
109right. Yeah. And I I guess just, you know, I know that it's would be tedious to do that type of thing, but you know, if if there was an option for us next time to be like, you know, we think that we spend, you know, $500 on printing for the entire year. I can tell you last year I've purchased paper 23.99 a case. I'm now paying 52.99. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I mean. So to mere right I agree. So, but to to the same point about the Eureka, right? It's like, okay, we think we're spending 500 on printing these materials for these classrooms. So, now we're asking for 2315. We're not asking for 28. You know, there's because now we're we're spending money. There's savings on the other end. Um, so I think just,
110you know, those numbers when they're presented, I would appreciate if there was, you know, the the offset cost of what, you know, what we're spending on the printing part instead of just purchasing it outright because I I would be hard to come up with. I I hear what you're saying. I get it. But because it's also the cost of the ink, so you got to think No, I know. I'm saying it's kind of hard to offset it, but we would even if it's, you know, two boxes at $52 a box of of paper, you know, it's not But do we want to vote on it? The other thing that you don't take into consideration, printing, it's not just printing for the kids, it's printing for you as a teacher. Like you come up with a
111lesson plan and you're like, "Oh, I like this." you know, and you print it out and then you might think, "Oh, I just found this. I like this even better." And then you print that out. You know what I mean? It's more than just printing for what you give the students. If he has a book that he follows along and he does it, it kind of takes care of all of that. No, I agree. All right. So, do we need another motion to vote on it or No, just you can just take the vote. Okay. Yep. Yep. Um, so all in favor to purchase the Ripple journals, say I. I. I. All right. Next is the furniture, the um three office chairs and a percussion cabinet. Um, do do we want to discuss this at
112all or All right. Motion somebody discuss. Okay. I move that we um purchase the furniture items that are listed chairs. Second for discussion. Yeah, I think the three office chairs definitely I would approve. Um, I don't know about cabinet, but you know, no, she has a cabinet right now, but it's falling apart. Falling. And so she looked to see um to replace that cabinet, what it would cost, and it's thousands of dollars, and it it's falling apart because it's made of wood. Um, and so then she started scouring around and found this at um, the surplus, some sort of surplus store, and I went in and pretended to purchase it so I could get the shipping for you because I knew that thing was going to cost a lot of money on ship. So, um,
113so she would just replace the furniture that's falling apart, which particular piece would which metal might rust, but it won't fall apart necessarily. Okay. So, like how large is this cabinet? I have a picture of it. You didn't It didn't print. Oh, it didn't print. But if you can just tell me like how do you think I look at it for it? I did go shopping for you. The other one will be thrown away, right? Okay. I say it's just something she really sounds like it's something she needs. The other one is falling apart. And I love the fact that she took the initiative to find I mean I think that should be encouraged. So, is this one Oh, so this is brand new from Harbor Freight. Yes. Okay. Brand new. Yeah, it looks pretty
114good size. Does it have dimensions right there at the top? Right next to 40 in by 22 in 22. I need two new bookcases. The drums going to properly fit in the That's what I was saying. In terms of a percussion, it might not be all it might not be all drums though. It might be other things. Yeah. I Yeah, I think I don't know exactly what she It might be like the symbols and the sticks and probably not the actual drum. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that would never I wouldn't fly. As long as the other one is getting thrown away. I I'd be for it. I just I think that there's a lot of stuff in some of these classrooms. So, as long as we're getting rid of the other
115one for it. That's a good question. So, all right. Um, all in favor of purchasing the three desk chairs and percussion cabinet say I. I. I. Um, next is the fence. Still have to wait for the third quote. Right. If it came So, the quotes that we have are between $4,000 and $10,000. If the next quote came more than $10,000, then it would just it wouldn't even be considered. So, I don't know if you want to have a if you want to give a top amount of, you know, not to spend more then or I'm interested to know if he contacted the other ones we discussed, Great East or AQ, because they're local to Fairfield. I like I said, I know we called a lot of people. I know that he it's hard to get
116people even to come to school to give quotes. So, um yeah. Well, it looks after reading the American fence one, they didn't even come out. This is, you know, they said a site visit would be necessary to provide a firm price. So, they didn't even come out. But, um I guess I'm just wondering what the I mean, that's a huge difference between the two quotes. Um, American Fence gave two options. Quote 2 only has one option, but it's almost double, right? So, um, so I would throw that one out. I'm very familiar with American Fence. I I purchase stuff from them all the time. So um do you do you have difference between the option one and the option two? I mean the difference is what one is governed. Yeah I mean one's commercial grade.
117I think if uh I think if we decide to do it I think the $1,000 would probably be better for a commercial grade uh agree with that. So could we approve option two from quote one contingent on it another quote that the third quote is less or something I mean how would you deal with that they would need to know probably would they Chris is getting it tomorrow I think we do something through email like we each look at it and say, "Well, we're okay." No. Um Trish, do you know how involved this would be? Like are there lots of different pieces to this or like in terms of entering POS? Okay. So if if we had to wait until July June 3rd, is it third? Fourth, that would be okay. Okay. You want to
118wait for that third quote? companies in those vendors. So I can ask each of them to send a W9 just to be fair. Well, it sounds like you're is it the quote two you're getting rid of, right? Or you're assuming. Yeah. And then so it's really going to depend. And we So we like option two, the commercial. So we would just want to compare that one to whatever the other company. So could we approve that one tonight contingent on the other bid doesn't come in lower want to consider just rough. Yeah. Yeah. But there I mean they do this all the time and measurements. I don't imagine it's going to be that much difference. Right. Well, he's just he just told them, you know, linear feet what they need, right? But it's not like that
119terrain. Uh have you ever dug anything in Deerfield? Why not? It's all wrong. Good point. But um yeah, so you're not going to be able to approve 5,950 because you don't really know that that's the amount, right? Yeah. So we need a we need a that would be like Yeah. Approving option two not to exceed or something. Yeah. So why don't I mean do is this something that we I know we've discussed it you know is this something that we want to do for you know say it was $6,000 is something that we want to spend $6,000 on. So the idea here is for safety right to keep people away from the modulars to give them more protection. that I think that was the intention was to put the something across so that trip cars
120would come in this way and people have the delineators for the other section. Um we put the delinators out there as well and then the fence in between the modular and the building that was the and the gates and the gates if if you he did say that he was going to ask if the price would drop you remove the gate. I if you don't want to remove the gate there. Where would the gate be? Is that between the building and the modular or is that the gate is for to actually drive through, right? Um yeah, because he would he would have to open it and close it, pick up and drop a door that would swing open. So, you know, you got the fence and then there's a door kind of in the middle.
121You can think that's Oh, there's like a man door through it. I don't know. I thought one of the things was Oh, cuz I was thinking that that was a like a standing. Yeah. Over at the um there you drive through, right? When you certainly Yeah, they certainly would have drop off or whatever and whatever. Yeah. So, it's a 10 foot wide. Yeah, that's actually that's actually different. So, the first one has a 10 foot wide, but the second one has a 1 foot wide gate and a 112 foot wide double gate. Right. So it has two path and two gates. So he was going to ask for the price reduction if we remove the 4 foot gate between the building and the mod. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't think we need that there. I
122mean that that's we don't really use that right to cut through. I mean I mean I'm sure people do. Yeah, they do now because it's open, right? You know, kids come, but the idea is closed it off really new normal. Chris said that he Sorry, sorry, that is reliable fencing is coming tomorrow and that he did call the Deerfield. I believe they were no. There's two Deerfield companies, Break East and AQ. Well, yeah. I mean, I guess three types I think [Applause] is it is what it is, but Okay. So, yeah, I guess that's that's the difference though with that quote, too, is that it's a 12 foot wide gate instead of a 10. I thought that they were bidding the same thing. I guess I didn't really realize that they're bidding different things. Yeah.
12312 foot and a 12 foot. I mean, yeah, I guess we should just table this until the next and we can Could you just make sure Chris comes to the next meeting, Kristen? Yeah. If he I It'd be um a lot better if if they were quoting the same thing, too. Yeah. Yeah. 10 foot gate or a 12oot gate. What does he think is um necessary? I would think that the like because wasn't this supposed to get run by the fire department, too? and they came and they said 10 foot's fine. Uh I don't know if we had specifics. Yeah, but that's a good question. Is 10 okay with them or is 12 what they want? Chris them. Yeah, I think we need Chris here at the next meeting with information. Yeah, I think there's
124I mean with the two quotes should be of the same thing. All right. Yeah, we'll table that one. If that's all right, anybody else we need to vote on that? No. No, cuz there was no motion. So, you're good. I'm just going to wait. All right. So, we're going to wait on the fence and then Are we back at Eureka? And chairs. So, the See if you can follow my math here. I'm I I'm proficient up to fourth, maybe fifth grade. Um the big ideas for next year will cost approximately $3,600 and that's middle school. And that's for middle school and algebra and uh also an accelerated license for grade seven. So we get grade six, we get a grade seven, we get a grade seven accelerated, a grade eight, and then algebra. Um, and
125that's all included in the 3,600. And that's about $3,600. Yeah. For the digital licenses, we already have the textbooks. Um, and digital licenses cost anywhere from $1,000 to $400 depending on how many we get. Um, so the accelerated uh for so for example, the algees is about $437. Um, and then uh that plus the $2,000 that they have for supplies would come to uh $5,583. If we subtract that from the default budget of $11,552, that leaves us with $5,969 to spend on Eureka next year. And then if I take the 10 732 minus I started to do that math minus um so I've got 5,952000. So you need you basically need 6,000 offset [Music] yes. So what we would do is we probably purchase, you know, upward and kind as many kindergarten, first grade, second
126grade, third grade. We probably could get through most of third grade of third grade. Then um we could purchase fourth and fifth grade out of next year or kindergarten first grade. Yeah, whatever you want to do. Just if whatever you can get up to 6,000 and then the rest or order after July 1st. So this is the 5,952 is the amount that's needed. So what did you mean by get um get the rest? Because you can't the rest is in the budget. So you can't order that till July 1. Order the stuff now. If you're giving her Yeah. If you're giving her 6,000 now, she can order out of this year some of it. Got it. Got it. Yeah. But that covers it. Okay. So, it's okay. I'll make a motion. Right. So, I move
127that we um give the school 6,000 from the fun balance to go toward Eureka materials. I'll second it. Yeah, she did barely. This has been like three weeks. A lot of stuff out there right now, too. It's awful. Okay. Any discussion? So I from my sorry go ahead I would just so between the 6,000 for the Eureka the 2815 for the ripple journals,00ish for furniture that's comes to 9,853ish plus or minus so 9853 is what that adds up to and then the fence we will get a better feel for the fence and the chairs. If you want to get a better sense of that, they have to They're waiting to vote on this motion, though. Okay. They got one more motion to vote. Yep. So, all in favor of approving $6,000 for um the addition
128the Eureka, say I. I. I. Awesome. Okay, we'll get the rest for next time and ask Chris to come. Right. Next is your um you need to take action on retaining funds from this year. Um so there's a formula. There was a warrant article years ago when um the law passed allowing schools to retain funds, but the Department of Revenue sets the formula on how much how how you figure out how much you can retain. So, this is their worksheet that they send out for business administrators um to plug our numbers in. So, you retained last year $250,000. the board did um this year the maximum amount you can retain is 199,698. So what happens is you have to take action each year on retainage because it's only for one year. So you didn't spend
129any retainage this year. So that $250,000 comes back into the pot for whatever to offset taxes. Um you so you have to vote all over again. So basically that comes back automatically. So if you want any retainage set aside, you have to vote on how much you want set aside. I don't want to confuse you, but you want me to keep going because I got an answer to your question. Yeah. Yeah. No, you Yeah. So you you explained it to me before, but one of the one of the questions that Canon asked was can when we bring that money back in, can we spend it or does it have to go um to to offset? So, I had asked Amber to contact DRRA um because the law changed. It used to be you had to
130spend all of your budget and it had to be only if you were like gonna go in deficit could you use that. The law changed several years ago that um what she got from DRRA to confirm was you have to have a public hearing before you spend it. So, it's not like a trust fund. If you want to spend it, you have to have a public hearing and have the people, you know, give the people an opportunity to weigh in on you spending that money before you do it. Um, that's the only way. Yeah. What I was wondering is if we could allocate it towards like a bigger project. Mhm. Um, and then it's only one year. So that means that project has to happen like immediately and you're pretty much almost out of time
131to you have to po post a public hearing in the paper for seven days. Um, so it would be really really difficult. And if you were thinking about it ne for next year, you could have a public hearing early on because you'll know how much is in your retainage. Um, I was thinking about like the next really big project like the um Yeah. Yeah. So, I didn't know if we could like, you know, put it in a trust fund just for that or or add it to our building repair. No, right. Yeah, I explained that for a year. Yeah, that's it. That's it. So the action now is whether you want to retain um funds and how much you want to retain up to the 199,698 and that comes out of the surplus. Um no,
132it's coming you've already got retained. So that comes back in and you can keep 199 or Okay. none. I don't understand it. Where's that 250? Where's it been? It's nowhere. It's in it's carried it's it's not in your budget. It's not in a trust fund. It's set aside. So the town is able to set aside funds and carry them over. The school was never allowed to do that. So now you're allowed to do it one year at a time. You can carry money over. So we carried money over from last year. Yes, that is correct. We were sending money back to Yep. whatever is left. So if you you're going to you would still theoretically if you if you've said yes we want to keep all we can. So we'll call it 100 call it
133200,000. Um that means there's 50,000 left left that's going to come back in and then whatever's left in your surplus will come back in and that offsets taxes. It's magical. Well, it's people the perception from people is there's money coming and going, but that's not that's not really what happens, right? We get our allocations from the from the town that we need, but then whatever ex whatever revenue we have, it all it's just all gets figured in to how much has to be raised from taxation and then we offset whatever we have left um for those taxes. But the retainage money could be used if we were in need of money next year, you're saying? Yes, that's right. If you had an an you know overage in special education a really and you didn't have
134enough in your trust fund or you wanted to use this instead of the trust fund you post the public hearing allow people to it wouldn't have I'm just it wouldn't for next year because we won't own them but like if we owned the modulars and we had to replace those that $79,000 repair could that be used it be used to buy the modulars We didn't get a really spec we didn't ask specific questions. She just asked the DRA, can the board use that money? And the answer was you just have to have a public hearing before you can use any money. So, I didn't there it didn't seem like there were that could be a way out for us. Yeah, that would be cool. If we had that if we did that right away and
135got that done before we renew. You won't have time to do it this year, though. Oh. because you'd have you have to post a public hearing in the paper for seven days and then um then you can spend the money. I don't I don't know that you'd pull that off by June 30th in order to get it done right away and have our next meeting. I don't know. Well, first week of June. Yeah. I don't know when stuff is due to the paper. It's got to be in the paper for seven days. So, I'd have to find out that because you'd have to have the public hearing before you take any action week to get it in for our next meeting. It's due like Yeah, it's due in the paper like the Wednesday before and
136then it gets in for seven days. What paper does it go in? I think it just has to go into a newspaper. I don't remember where she send yours if it's I know Penrooks we send to the Conquer Monitor. I don't know where yours goes or monitor. Yeah, I think so. That'd be great. use that money to buy it by the end of June. 250,000 floating around in the Ethernet if we could get this in the paper and call for call for a public hearing to see if the the people allow us to use that money to purchase these right before the contract is up for these. Correct. Before it starts another year. Yeah, I think it's June 30th is the saying this is school. You do have money in your budget though next year.
137Putting pressure on like you're making me work here at the end. I I don't mind work I don't mind working. I have to go back and tell Amber what you're trying to do. That's what I'm worried about. Oh, it's it's your retainage. Um I think I think we should try that. Daddy's gonna be really ready for retirement. Daddy, we're trying. We're trying to make I It's not anything on me. It's not anything on me. It's just the timelines and making sure Amber has time to do all this and close the books. Yeah, that's all. So, I need to find out some information. Um, and the problem is you don't you won't know the answer to some of these questions before your next meeting. And if you're going to do it, you have to have a
138public hearing at your next meeting. You have to publish it. So you could potentially publish the public hearing and it's not going to work. Well, the thing is is that we're going to end up with a significant surplus. So which you know is going to be pretty close to this number, a little bit less once we spend that other money for the school. So my thought is that we have the intention to we like tonight because we have to vote on this tonight. We Oh, you don't have to. Oh, okay. I thought you said we had to do this tonight. Okay. Oh, then I guess you need to take action, but you could wait till I would say even if we had noticeable public hearing and it doesn't work out, we could just say we
139were hoping to do this, but it didn't work out. I mean, you could you could No, you could cancel it. It has to be in the paper, but once it's in, you could you could post that the public hearing is canceled. I think it's worth worth trying especially since I mean how many of our public hearings have we actually even had anybody hearing? Well, this would be a bigger Yeah, it's a bigger deal. Yeah. And I think baseball season has uh slowed people down. Everybody I know my schedule is insane just because of baseball. It's four days a week instead of two. Yeah. All the other sports it's only one or two days a week, but baseball's so long. Yeah. Okay. So, you said we have to take action and not tonight. Okay. Okay. We
140can wait till the next meeting. Your next meeting is going to be fun. You'll have to help me with the agenda to make sure I don't forget any of this. I think I've got notes on everything. Okay. That'd be really cool if you could do that. Okay. We'll see. I will check on all of that. All right. Next. high school planning. Um, so timelines, what was that? We were talking about when Yeah. So, next in next week, next week, right? I think, yes, Tuesday, I'll be meeting with um Ellen and Canon, sort of review what that process was that we went through to get to to the school choice. Um, look at the threeus. um see if there are any issues with them when they you know I guess what you're going to have to
141explore next is if you're um content with the way things are and you want to just go take advantage of the extensions in those. Do you see issues in them that you would like to like reopen and renegotiate? Do you only want two schools instead of there's lots of options that you'll that you'll discuss and need to make decisions on. Um, so I think that was the consideration was starting that clock because those are going to come due. Um, and you want to be prepared with what your plans are to move forward. So we'll start the last year of that. One, two, three. Yes. So, we'll um I'll go over things with you next week and then if you I mean you can if you wanted to start having conversations now to see if there's
142any consensus or if you just want to wait until after our meeting and you two being the high school reps bring suggestions to the board. You do either way. I I think my big question is I mean Co Brown is a done deal. It is what it is. Pe I'm hoping would stay the same. There's we have no one but I don't the board would be happy to continue I'm sure but I think conference is a big issue because looking at what price increases have been every year they've been more substantial than we thought they were going to be. So I think to me that's the big conflict that we need to look at. Yeah I agree. I think that uh like you said go brown's charging everybody the same price across the board. It's
143very straightforward and it looks like it's going to be either equal or less. They're they were within like $400 or $500 for next year with conquered and Penrook's significantly less. So I think we keep that option open no matter what because that's that's an option for us to save if people want to go there. Have students going there. Yeah. So so yeah. So my mind is the conquered one and then looking at the history then we can bring it back to the board and say what direction do you want us to take with the conquered contract and then we can work on that. Y what did you I didn't catch what you said about Penrook. Did you say we didn't have anybody going there? We had a couple of students I know next year I
144think there were two. Did they both change their mind Kristen? Oh they did. Really? Oh, bummer. Well, the transportation was when Yeah, the transportation. Oh, program. So, now I don't know if there is none, will they switch back? So, we the kids have they can still they're still making they're still switching. I've had two um applications just it's a onepage form um in the past two weeks of people that want to switch their kids um from conquered to CO Brown. So, there will be movement right up until the end until the fall. We we won't really know where things settle and And um Patty and I had talked about asking um Dale to to come to the next meeting. Oh, that's right. Yep. Um to see if there's any updates with um with busing. So,
145as of right now, we don't have any eighth graders that want to go to Penrook next year. Not to my knowledge. Unless some they unless those two switch back if they think there's no bus. Okay. No. Yeah, I'm just afraid school kids choose it especially since so many people when they talked about choice they their complaints about conquer was that it was a big school was in a city you know and Pemrick is like the perfect alternative it's a smaller school it's more rural I was wondering if it was like about the commute like are people working like heading to conquered or heading in the other direction I don't know but do they is CRTC offered there the kids from it's included Yeah, it's included in the cost. So, I mean, there's really no there's
146really no downside. And we looked at it and when we had the they had we had presentations all through schools and the honestly I thought the best was so good. The kids that were there were so enthusiastic and they were great. Y you know, but I I think it's I think we're in that transition period too where like well, you know, a lot of kids going to conference are going to continue to go to conference. There's always been families who wanted co so they're going to co siblings they're just not thinking about the change yeah with like you said with older siblings conquered and you kind of want your slings to all go to the same place you know I was excited that we had two we'll see substantially cheaper like $4,000 cheaper yeah could
147be I mean I don't know how many how big sports is for a lot of them. But certainly epic sports is probably the same if not better than so. Right. But I think a lot of the athletes would go to conquer eventually. Yeah. They're division one for everything. I think so. But that's also a bad thing because you kids may not play. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll put that on for next time again and I will invite Dale to see if they have any updates for us. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'm just afraid that um we're not going to get if we wait until because if we don't have a meeting in July, if there's any updates on busing, I don't want to wait till uh August, let people know. If especially if there's flip-flopping right
148now based on transportation, give people an opportunity. All right. uh committee work. We kind of talked about that. That was Yep. same thing. All right. Informational items. I don't have any. Um I just I am just going to mention the meeting so people know that um Canon and I did go to the joint board meeting and there is information that we will put in the packet for the next meeting. People can read it, but it was basically on how they determine um their finances and how they determine their tuition. That's really the main thing that we have. Yeah. All right. Public comments here for that. Uh, do we need a nonpublic session? Mhm. And we need to add small letter C. So, you'll just need to need a motion and you can read all the
149Oh. to go into non public. I'll make a motion to go into non-public. And you want me to read it? Read this. Do you want me to do it? Sure. Under New Hampshire uh RSA 91A colon 3 Roman numeral 2 small letters A and C. A roll call. Yeah. Yes. Yes. All right. You're all set, Trish. I got you. Thank you.