11-20-24 DCS School Board Meeting

001meeting of November 20th 2024 you could all join me for the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to theu it stands nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all um as many of you probably saw the CHS uh student report being rescheduled so that is not going to be an agenda item for tonight we are on to public comments um before we get started there's obviously a lot of new faces here welcome thank you so much for coming to school meeting tonight I did just want to review briefly some parts of the public comment policy in case people aren't aware um every commenter has three minutes there are two different slots for public comments so you can speak for three minutes at

002both the first and the second slot if you'd like um this is an opportunity to provide comments to the board it's unfortunately not a question and answer session and it's not a back and forth discussion each speaker must identify themselves for the record and for minutes um speaker should not include names of students or staff in their comments defamatory statements foul language and raised voices will not be tolerated all comments should be directed to the chair and any meeting disruptions may result in ejection from the meeting after two warnings I trust we'll all act like adults I'm not worried about it but I let them up the first uh public speaker yes back oh so hi I'm Bobby Andy I'm from five Brown Road um I know that all of you received the email that

003I sent on November 14th at approximately 7:14 a.m. um I cced miss wiy and a teacher in concerns to to a topic about softcore pornography books being lent to my son from his teachers's personal Library I hope that you include my original email may maybe black out the teacher's name she gets hippy um and include the photos that were sent in the meeting minutes please my son just turned 12 in September it's extremely inappropriate that an adult who is trusted to educate children with a set curriculum would give a minor a book of this nature I do have them here um so I'm going to give them to you because I don't honestly want them back in the back in the library um I am extremely open um with concerns to sexuality my kids know

004they can come to me with anything um it's not the fact that he's looking at these books it's that a teacher that we trust gave them to him um it's really um disturbing that an adult gave my son a book for for example in the book there's a boyish character um and he does look like a boy and the adult woman says to grope her all over and then she sticks his her sticks his face in her chest breast area and says now we can make babies and there's lots of pretty pictures you can look at in there um kids are curious I totally get it and like with internet and everything I'm not saying he doesn't look at that stuff or whatever um you know for example I used to sell adult home Novelties

005if I was to sell to a minor even if it was softcore even if it was a coupon book for whatever XYZ I could be fired I could get a fine and I could be arrested so I'm just saying it doesn't matter if it's softcore if it's a minor I don't want it messing around with my kid um with this content um when I did email all I received back was it was an accident and sorry actually didn't even say sorry it was just said it was an accident accidents like this should not happen it's not an option in a public school you approve the curriculum that's not in the curriculum so I don't want an adult giving any student not just my son but like this is a shared elementary and middle school if

006that were to get in the hands of even younger student it it could really mess them up it I I don't think that should should be here um I am friends with a lot of Paras in other districts and one of them one of the Paras said I can't believe that happened I have to go through my teachers like her her main room that she's in she does travel but the main room she's in she goes through the books I'm gonna finish my comment I'm I'm gonna finish this so she goes through a Pera she is assigned to go through the books twice a year and then she has to catalog all the books that are in the private library of the teacher I don't know why that's not being done here yet because the

007Paras are a great resource we could use if they have time I know they're assigned to certain students um I don't understand why this was dubbed an accident look at this cover that's an accident that that was in the in the library and I after posting this on our our Deerfield group to be like hey just a heads up is even happening in Deerfield like take a take a look out um two different families came to me when they asked their high schooler did you see anything like that they're like oh yeah all the kids talk about it go to that classroom and you can get other books too not just this one so if high schoolers that means that these books have been in that class not just this one but other ones like

008it have been in that classroom for over three years three groups of students how is that an accident that's an accident so um there's a lot of weirdness going on I I just hope that there's a you your policies need to be reviewed I hope that there are responsible people in your school that are you know designated to doing this and I think that we need to do better as as Deerfield and as a United States and we need to do better and let the kids just be kids I don't think adults should be involved in their sexuality thank you thank you Greg North Road start out with something positive here so looking at the uh current High School enrollment for the 8th grade class 31 have chosen Co Brown 23 conquered High School one

009Penbrook Academy it's clear school choice is working the desire for Choice was there and people are taking advantage of it excellent moving on to other things I fully support Bobby an's concerns record uh regarding this book I mean the cover alone never should have made a pass an adult it's it's ridiculous that it did um I teach 18year olds and I cannot imagine having this book in my classroom and a kid walking up to my bookshelf and pulling it up say Mr Whitmore what is this book what do you what what is going on here I would be mortified personally teaching legal adults all right so I don't know how this got by but this can't happen again um I think the school board should put out a formal statement to parents and I won't

010assurance that something like this is not going to happen again uh another topic there was a recent nhpr interview uh reing a quote from one of our school board members and I quote it is incredibly hard just getting people to agree that special education is important not even so much that we are mandated to provide it but that as a community this should be a priority I mean you don't want to talk about offensive um does the entire School Board agree with this statement because if you don't this is being reflected on the rest of you all right it's offensive it makes it look like this town is hostile towards special ed we need to do better than this right special ed is clearly M funding is clearly mandated by law there's no wiggle room

011around it so why this would even be put out there I can't imagine but please do better in the future uh last thing I you build a comparison of the unified arts classes for SAU 53 and five other towns and if uh I I I apologize for sending multiple emails but information came in uh strangely enough I was waiting for SAU 53 information to come in and it finally did this afternoon um if you look at the comparisons DCS is the only school with two PE two art and two music teachers every other school has one teacher in these positions or even part-time with the exception being Auburn who has a 1.5 art 1.5 art features um if we Tak in student population comparisons DCS I had a number of 485 I assume it's relatively

012close at this point onam 52 Auburn 687 and they're getting by with one of each of these um I'd really like you to take a look I mean we're we're desperate for for space right um we want to get kids out of the Portables and into the buildings can we condense these things uh really take a look at what other towns are doing the information was that that was provided to you not only tells you the number of individuals in these PHS but how they're actually running these specials how often they are offered and what the kids are actually getting out of it right it's a lot of good stuff I'd love to see a discussion about it in the near future thank you thank you m harby road um yeah I just want to

013make sure that I touch on the quote that our school board chair made to nhpr um it's you started off by saying you recalled how difficult it was to pass the budget last year due to the $1.2 million increase in the special education costs we in fact supported a $777,000 um overage on the default budget last year um which was higher than our um proposed budget it completely misrepresent presented Our Town um I'm not sure how we can build trust between our town and this school district if we continue on like this this was um a publication that didn't need to happen uh we're politically motivated at this point um to standing behind the state not giving us enough funds um your business administrator gave you a breakdown in tonight's budget packet that shows that

014in three different areas from our state sources we are going to have an increase estimated uh you are reducing state covid related funds um these are funds that would have dried up anyways and that we need to adequately prepare for um I would suggest that adding more money to our special education trust fund be done um as it should every single year uh to help cover these cost but saying that the town does not support these special education um funds um is just blatantly not true uh your federal program grants are are diminishing um and again that is due to co funds diminishing uh we're no longer in a state of emergency uh gaps in learning we should have caught up already we have to be able to address that now thank you oh I

015should also note the inappropriate content found in the seventh grade classroom Not only was the school obligated to maybe notify parents um nothing was sent out nothing was sent out to say that this incident occurred how we are going to handle the incident moving forward if any policy changes are coming about um so I'd like to hear that discussion take place thanks thank you K Vergo mcaren road we should always be protecting minors from age inappropriate material and that is not that is not Banning it's being responsible adults um that whole thing is just horrifying the reason I'm here tonight is to ask the chair of the Deerfield School Board to step down and if she refuses to step down as chair then I'm going to ask that the board call a boat of no

016confidence and elect a new chair to your board chair of the Deerfield School board made false statements New Hampshire Public Radio in characterizing our budget process last year every year we have a lot of discussion around budgets last year the big fight was over a school bus for high school students right it the board the majority of the board tried to remove funding for one high school bus and the people of Deerfield wanted it in and so they passed the default budget which was larger than the the proposed budget and the the numbers that it passed by passed by more than 12 point more than 12 point spread it was like 56 to to to 44 there was no difficulty passing that budget that default budget flew through which gives you your requested budget because

017it's a bottom line budget so you got more money so you can't say w the money was in in lines we didn't like because you have the freedom to move that and then the chair went on to disparage the citizens of Deerfield stating that that we have trouble getting people to agree that high quality education high quality special education is important in Deerfield I so I'm not aware of everything but I have never I have never heard anybody make remarks that that even approaches what the chair was quoted saying to New Hampshire public re right that that is that is just such a mischaracterization of the people that you're elected to represent and for that reason there this board should have no confidence in their chair and if the chair doesn't voluntarily step down then

018the board the board should have a vote of no confidence and elect a new chair the public trust is is of critical importance and of all the public trusts that there are there is none that is not more critically important than public education this is where people are sending their children for 180 days a year and they want to know that the people that are running that school the executive board because that's essentially what a school board is the executive board of this school district that they they are they are speaking truthfully they're speaking factually they're representing the community in in a true and correct way and so for that I would ask you to step down his chair not to not to leave the board but to step down his chair and if she

019doesn't do it then you should should elect a new chair thank you thank you next com good evening Stacey Marti Meeting House Hill Road in Deerfield um I'm here tonight to talk about parents rights um at the October 16th school board meeting I came here and requested that you change your vote on New Hampshire School Board Association proposed resolution 24 which is a policy to Lobby the New Hampshire State legis ISL to oppose any laws that would require teachers report to parents conversations they have with a student regarding the student status as a member of any protected class among which is gender identity this is a direct response to parents demanding to be informed if their child is interested in changing their name pronouns or gender identity while at school the rationale given for opposition

020to parents rights legislation mandatory reporting of non-criminal issues is an affront to professional ethics among other things I I ask you today what role did professional ethics play in having a pornographic book in a seventh grade classroom professional ethics did not stop a teacher from Distributing the book one which is tan amount to child corn as it includes images of naked 12-year-old kids I would also note that you have a student conduct policy that requests students display exemplary personal standards of courtesy decency honesty and wholesome attitudes tell me how that book could be called wholesome how are you going to demand less of your teachers than you do of your students I will say it again it's toxic to allow adults to keep secrets with students from their parents it is not professional it is

021not ethical and it is an affront to parents and their inherent rights to guide and teach their children rights which supersede those of Any teacher it is the first step in grooming Behavior a professional ethics code will not prevent unethical teachers from using the opportunity to keep secrets with a student from harassing or sexually abusing students this is not just about gender identity issues it's about setting a precedent where you allow opportunities for abuse of children for example this week a teacher in Manchester was arrested for enticing a minor into a sex trafficking ring just yesterday John Van Patton was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a student well employed as a special ed teacher at conquered Academy on August 31st former Bedford substitute teacher Jonathan Harrison was arrested

022in charge with possession of child sex abuse images in February former conquered teacher Joshua Harwood was charged with sex crimes in January of last last year Mr Shane 32 a former par professional and JB baseball coach was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault and fonia sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl and I could go on and on and on and I know you've seen these reports in the news this is not in any way an indictment of the teaching profession you have amazing teacher and professionals who are in here every day doing fabulous work with kids however you have to acknowledge that a code of conduct is not going to stop any adult from abusing a minor and that includes teachers it is wrong a policy that allows them to keep secrets from parents

023is one that is right for abuse you have to acknowledge that parents have the right to be kept apprised of what is happening with their kids in the 40 hours that they sit in this building with other adults I ask you to disavow your vote on the proposed School Board resolution and instead to vow to support legislation which requires mandatory reporting on matters regarding children in protected classes and to please keep pornographic books out of a school thank you thank you other public comments uh did you CP 19 candy Road and um I want to just address a few things one uh I didn't see the cover of the book so thank you for bringing the book um I am not here to defend I think everybody can agree when we look at the book

024we might go um and I but immediately when I had heard what happened because I stay away from social media um I then went to try to find out and I felt like the um I understood what happened classroom teachers have hundreds of books that they are trying to keep in a classroom library to encourage kids with hundreds of different interests to read I'm not saying that this book was the one that was there what I'm saying is the teacher I thought in my mind this teacher probably read three graphic novels in this series then she went and read the reviews about the series then she said I'm going to order that series because those reviews are there and I'm not saying it's an appropriate practice but I'm saying I understood how it happened and

025if any one of us had made a mistake if I make a mistake at work when I make a mistake what I would hope is that I wouldn't want to be I if I worked for a company the first place I think I don't know that I would like run to the CEO of the company and simultaneously post a letter on Facebook to disparage the work that I've done because I made a mistake I made a mistake I made a mistake you're attacking a member of the town right now she's attacking a town it's okay I would have got fired in my other job I think that I could you add some time please because because I I'd like to go a little further and just go on to say that I also um read

026the article in the NPR I looked at the comments that the school board chair made and I did not take those comments in fact as a former School Board member as the assistant principal in this town prior I have had hundreds of conversations with people that have not understood the importance of special education I didn't disparage them I didn't think it was just simply they didn't understand how the process worked they didn't understand that there were state regulations they didn't understand I spoke with a woman in the cards T night that I gave a ride home who's a member of this town who said to me I had no idea that is how it worked and I had no idea that how it was funded hundreds of conversations and at the end of the article

027even the um Commissioner of Education alluded to the fact that he did not believe that special education was important because he said that when kids leave the public school system and use their vouchers they don't no long they no longer need special education so I didn't understand that but what I really want to get to and this is going to be hard for me is what the underlying underlies all of this this is where I want to get to and I'm GNA face I look all right I broke the protocol but what I do want to say to everybody everybody is I don't know how we got here I don't understand how we got here I don't understand what it seems like to me is that there is just the desire to want to say

028gotcha and have lack of trust and I am not asking a rhetorical question I honestly honestly want to understand I have been in town for 37 years and I have never ever felt like I feel in the town now because I never felt like I was going to be judged as a human being because of a value system that I have about how I think maybe education should happen or politics that's never been the case and I would love I I'll go for tea I'll buy the tea I'll buy buy the coffee I'll buy a beer I'll go out with whoever wants to go and please someone help me understand not only how did we get here so that we cannot trust each other in this town constantly that we walk down our streets looking

029at people thinking oh whose side are they on what flag are they find what sign is in their yard how did we get here and the more important question is and it's not rhetorical I want someone to help me how do we get out of this because living like this is this how we want to live is this it is this the way we want to go on for ad infinitum is this it I don't know I don't think so it's not how I want to go and what's really sad to me is it is an awful example for our children it's awful and I'm open to anybody that can help me understand thank you thank you other P comments okay we will move on um I will not be stepping down so unless someone

030wants to make a motion I will continue on with the agenda um agenda review [Music] um review of Correspondence I don't think we actually have until the next business meeting y so that's an error we are not reviewing correspondence we didn't put any in the drive that's typically done at the first business meeting of the month which is December 4 um okay then we will be going through the cap Improvement projects the budget any ideas for Dra B article space needs um we do need a non-public session this evening um and that is it any informational items okay oh I have um something just hand out from okay great do you want to do that information all right great so we'll move on to the capital Improvement project project CH is with us um we

031did a little gra or for you um to review his uh Capital Improvement plan for the next eight years nine years um and then there are some question marks on here and some input from the board that Chris will need regarding um which years you want to fund things how much you want to put away each year um and he'll go over the bottom one is a pretty costly item that we are looking report and to so if you have questions to start Chris will walk through please thank you for Jo ex are done oh what exhaust fans are done aren yes 2024 exhaust fans are done stack Replacements done what else did they accomplished last year uh fire alarm fire alarm we're still in the process of the final request from DF fire department

032which will take place over the summer we're obtaining pricing from RB rwis for approval from the school board on that and then after July one um we do have one replacement that's going to come sooner than later the evaporator coil on the freezer in the kitchen is leaking and the evaporator is basically like a um what the coolant runs through in your car as all the little Wafers and copper tubing you can't just go in there and start digging around you're going to cause more damage and waste more money so I'm currently getting three bids for that replacement estimated cost right now is at $7,000 to have that replaced and that's just the the coil not the full freezer that is correct that is correct um all indications say it's an original piece of equipment

033so we to the school yeah so it's 30 plus years we got our our life out of it it's one of those things that you you don't want to just say hey let's replace this for replacing it so you kind of how large is this freezer what's that how large is it the freezer is probably 6x4 one of two we have two freezers and one Walkin refrigerator it's a walking so replacing the coil we wouldn't expect to have to do anything for quite a while I'm not saying that not saying that at all we have chased quite a bit of leaks in the line that go between the evaporator in the cool in the freezer in the condenser outside um all indications as of right now it's good once again it's just one of those

034things we hope fail in the summer not during the school season but the kitchen's working really hard to do everything they need to make accommodations to keep everything the way it should so yeah we're looking we're looking at an old building old equipment already plus years old so and are we routinely checking the temperature of the Freez the kitchen yes they do daily I think they're required three times a day by the health department to check it it's not working at all though it's completely out yeah it's it's dead right now and so all of their stuff has been moved into the second freeer which is packed yeah so once just so you know once we get the three quotes Chris is gonna move ahead with the repair so anytime there's an emergency like this

035and something is shut down we don't wait for board meetings and we don't you know it's we want to make sure you know that that's a very expensive item but we we have to have our Freer back in place and they and packing and packing and packing and every time we're delivering comes it's a it's a huge issue so but as soon as we can get the quotes and get someone scheduled if it doesn't happen to all on a board meeting we we'll probably just move with that okay for this summer um another big item in the school is the air unit ventilators which if you see outside the building we have little grates on the exterior those are what bring in the fresh air uh into the building whether it's for just air circulation

036or cooling as much as it can cool um 30 years old again the only thing we've updated on those were the software package so nothing really major um right now we're currently running into with the air handler units of miswiring of the actuators which allow the hot and cold water to be released whether it's calling for hot or cold louvers which control the airf flow and um the motherboard or the main board in there the units are just so old that they don't make those boards anymore so some some units run have been running constantly for who knows how long um so it's just time to update them into a more energy efficient unit so this year I'd like to put out or sooner than later I'd like to put out an RFP to solicit

037Engineers to look at our building come up with their pricing for creating a scope of Works which would include the entire process what equipment we're going to be looking at how it's going to be installed um pre-bid meetings aing and a mid mid project site V visit so that um 750,000 is just a rough guess at this point to install them in the summer of 2026 yes it is I think we put it on so that for this year we could at least move ahead with having the RP out and get some information and then at that point we talked last week when we meeting about how we would fund this and that that's probably not a conversation for right now but that we at least we kep the pricing and then make a plan

038for what year we would this and I've been thinking more since um the administration as we sat down a couple weeks ago um is it possible to the RFP will go out within the next couple weeks people will respond January February um so what um I lost my excuse me so I'm I'm anticipating at least three bids to come in from engineers and at that time I'll present that information to you and then to lock in that engineer we might have to pay a fee to get the ball rolling for him to develop the scope of works and everything like that to get that out and then for the summer of 2026 yeah 26 July 26 we'll get that roll so can we put into some of that money for this year into a trust

039into the trust corre right so we can do a warrant article um requesting that we put money into whatever trust would be appropriate for that type of work if assuming there that be school building repair expend trust several that I can never remember the difference so can we add 15,000 I was gonna say how much do you think would about 15 yeah I'm thinking there yeah there might also be funds in there I don't remember I have no concept of how much is in there at this point anticipating 750 we might want to start planning for that this definitely this talking that's the old scho name so we've been hearing a lot about oh the school needs a whole bunch of H back is that separate nope we can combine it we'll um basically what

040I'm anticipating is to bring up to date up to speed with the latest and greatest not goldplated but what our schools requiring today or what a school's renovating today to bring into their school to make it a little more accommodating in August June so yep you're not talking about the window AC units these are the not the not the window AC the other like thees on the outside of the building yeah so and then doing this would I mean if you do this is it then someone later on is going to say in the inside we want to do this but we didn't need what's done on the outside but should done together not making any sense am you just said all right so you said this work is for the greates that are on

041the outside right right but there's work that needs to be done on the units on the inside so I just want to make sure that whatever is done on the outside matches with what's going to have to be done on the inside so we don't have to redo anything the outside the outside is only the greates I'm sure they're going to be able to stick within that great parameter um the units actually might be smaller than what we have now the ones in the classroom are just monsters um so it might be freeing up some space everything can you clarify what the classroom units do do they heat they don't cool right they will bring in if the ambient temperature of the outside exceeds inside it will bring in whatever the air temperature is to

042try to cool the room but there's you know what side of the building are you on in the sun all day um are the dampers working correctly are they mixing the air when they shouldn't be so yes we're looking at that problem right now okay the new more energy efficient Ones Will you know we be able to see what's going on you'll be able to feel what's going on and they're correctly working so and and they would control or they would help with the temperatures in the yes okay heating cooling okay more efficient I don't know anything about this admittedly okay is it similar like are the new units we're talking about like similar to like a mini split yes okay I have that okay I get that okay yes that's what we're calling them

043these days and they're called classroom UV so what we were calling HVAC would now be called UV is that what you're saying yes they're the same okay this is going to heat and cool what it's going to heat and cool yes well 50,000 I don't know how much cool this is going to be a decision for you guys to make How much cooling we want because AC is expensive right so it's you know it's one of those we can we can get gold standard we can have it just you know lower the temperature down to a comfortable 68 and August September you know it's but what you're looking at is you're saying three bids you want you're wanting three bids minimum minimum three bids and so these bids might have different no that's that's why

044we want the engineer to develop the scope of works and he will specify what type of units we're working so there's no like I want apples to apples I don't want apples pears and grapes because right I can tell you and talk about heating ventilation and air conditioning but I don't know a train unit from a lenux unit from you know so he's going to give us a clear shot of exactly what everybody needs to supply so we're not having to figure everything out okay so when there's going to be a discussion about what the board wants to move forward with that at the time of the engineering discussion before the bidding goes out correct yes I think maybe maybe this is partly what is asking at least if not I'm curious about but I

045think what you're saying is correct me if I'm wrong is that replacing the system will for the next say 5 10 years be able to allow the school and students to function at a cooler temperature than would have been for the last 5 or 10 years I would assume so yes however that's still going to be let's say on hot days maybe 75 degrees not 68 degrees because we're not including air conditioning because that's going to be a lot more expensive and so we can include we can include AC but it all depends on what the price I'm trying to click what I'm that's all right so then I think what I'm understanding is that what this proposal is is going to to be for the next 10 years able to get us to a

046somewhat comfortable temperature of let's say 75 degrees in the building so students can focus but not to 68 degrees because that's going to be way more expensive and that would include air conditioning and considering climate change and warming temperatures and all that stuff we it may actually not in 10 years cool it that much right and so perhaps correct me if I'm wrong but maybe as we're thinking about a 10year or a CIP plan here maybe we should consider air conditioning if we want our kids in 10 years we're still in this building to be able to focus if we can't cool below 80 degrees with this system that we're putting in now or you're proposing then maybe we should be considering air conditioning as a future long-term sort of idea I'd also like to

047add that it's not just August and September it's May and June and even when I was working here we had days when it went up into the 90s in the classrooms so I it's more and that's happening more and more yes a lot of teachers heads and if there is some sort of a structural change happening we're going to be proposing in the next couple years would that create problems with this project that we're talking about or is this the kind of conversation where we should be thinking strategically 10 years maybe we should start to wrap these things together in some way to try to maybe that's a much bigger idea I I think that'll be more of a question for an engineer to see what the path forward from this unit um okay the

048migration I just want to make sure at this point that you're not trying to sort of steer us in a particular direction considering the bigger other options that we may I don't want to just close us into something that's going to last five maybe 10 years and yes we always buy something and then the next next month there's a latest and greatest that comes out but I want like our fire alarm system we've got expansion on that till years down the road years additions down the road so I wanted to be able to expand with the school or the needs of the school or at least be flexible enough to address changes as they come or adapt to changes as they come in 10 years but maybe yeah are are you like thinking about Renovations

049or we started talking at the last meeting about something in maybe a five year plan do we still come back to this idea of of a of a change to our our space here in the building and that's for a different board in five years but we start thinking about it now it's something we brought up last week got it cool okay and then 2526 will be the big year for the installation of the units um then going on to 26 7,000 uh 20 uh oh uh replacement of C base tile throughout the first and second floor believe that's 10 years old maybe little old prob over it's not original right no okay so it's old it's taped with wax it's seen better days it's starting to peel off of drying up on up the

050wall um so that's a cosmetic upgrade just to make the school look more presentable um parking lot lighting estimating that at 25,000 installation is um is there a reason that we would wait until 2627 to do that other than just cost uh no we can move that over to 24 25 have it done this summer yeah I mean I I know that was a big concern for people is par the parking lot lights that I know you know when we paved um the parking lot it was a big concern for us at the time and I think we had sort prepped the parking lot for lights so I think we as a board should should consider doing it if we have the funds in a trust or I don't know if we can do this

051for the parking lot um I mean no that was but I think getting the ideas out that Chris has is great and then when we do the war article and have the conversations funding trust we may want to move things that's just a safety thing yeah really I especially this time of year where it's it's dark right or you know a few weeks ago where it was dark when people were coming to school yep I can move that into for the summer project yeah I think we should discuss it and if it's feasible um I just didn't know if there was like a particular reason that we needed to push it or it required a lot of Permitting or something that relatively simple project okay great thank you welcome and then uh cafeteria 4 again

05210 years old showing wear and tear um cracks in the FL on the expansion of the concrete um my high school kids did a good job patching it but it's just one of those things wear and tear Ely repair again cosmetic because the Flo is in good shape it'll just freshen it up then we have window replacement uh we have no schedule time for that classroom countertops or the elevator replacement but those are probably the next big things that you should consider tackling um the elevator replacement is that is the elevator original to the school yes okay and it comes down to we've never had it's not a high use elevator it's just age and the difficulty finding parts for it got it something goes wrong I assume we have to get it inspected we

053get it we get it quarterly inspected and then once a year with the elevator company and RB R for the recall that was installed last summer I assume it will be a a pretty big cost so probably good um if we set a date you even if it's nine years from now to start putting money away or what generally gets moved in that elevator students um sometimes um books paper heavy items nothing major um sometimes Furniture during the summer if someone's coming up or down equipment our auto scrubber great anyone have questions or thoughts Sol project um we we did get response from our attorney um and he checked in with someone else in the firm and they did they requested on their um our contact with um is it yeah is going to reach

054out the only way our attorney would feel comfortable with his suggestion is if the USDA said that we could proceed and that that would not violate the conditions of the grant so he was going to reach out to the USDA and say this is what we were thinking we could do tell us that we'd be okay if we did this and no hopefully fingers crossed that they will accept our solution any other discussion about the capital project thanks for coming [Music] I only two extra budget packets for NBC members I wasn't I didn't know there would be more than two here so if anyone on the NBC wants to steal a packet I only have two I'm [Music] sorry sor oh thank you p ammer included her summary a lot of this was just notes

055um so the changes in your packet there's a new operating budget default budget Food Service budget um and High School tuition which I will tell you we do have um I'll give you the most up to-date numbers because they've been tripling in past day unfortunately um but we still have time to update those and time to take your vote but they're pretty close at the moment um we have the district assessment for you and then you have your estimated revenue revenue and estimated tax um so the increase to the from the changes since the last meeting for the operating budget are 93572 and the default increased by 7281 um the changes I'll just go through stop me if you if you want to stop um but I'll just give you a quick summary you have

056this in your drive I think um the page four regular program the line 12 there's an increase of 69,500 estimated tuition budgeted um prior went up a little bit we got the actual rate from Co Brown which is great we were able to make that change um and that will be the rate for next year and to be clear that's that's the increase from our last meeting yes not the increase of the line total correct yes this changes since you last meeting we got the actual Pro and then we got some more updated student numbers so those both things were updated um and then special education on pages six and seven um those were just notes um that were added for you and then line 48 there was an increase of 16652 um and that

057was in special placements and that was because of that tuition rate increase in Co Brown and the special ed based tuition also went up so just made that adjustment based on the number of students we anticipate going and what their new on specialed rate is um page 10 instructional services that was um no monetary changes um um just added a note about collective bargaining um line 90 same thing added the collective bargaining note um page 18 maintenance and operations again no monetary changes um but the board did have a question about what was um spent in 2324 so Amber addon for you on on the budget summary um no monetary changes line 47 she checked to make sure Citywide was spent under this line in 23 24 and reported that a total $73,700 was spent

058um for this lead of 2324 that was a question someone had the last meeting um on line 155 health insurance um there's a $162,000 361 decrease in that line and that's because we um had advice from the insurance company we were hearing at least 10% increases so Amber had budgeted 12 and deero came in as one of the lowest which was only 5.1 um so that's great so we were able to lower her predicted amount on that mes 165 and 166 um we have a placeholder we haven't had this conversation yet um we'll do that in nonpublic but she put an overall placeholder of a 3% increase um for staff that are not covered by col bargaining agreements in the budget and then in the end similarly um the Food Service budget there's um a

0593% increase placeholder for food service staff until you can actually take action on that um and then they also had the change um to the health rate so that was lowered a little bit um and then she had a little graph for you I think she saw in your past presentations that the graphs were popular um to show the breakdown in the um there's a budget increase right now of $1.3 million so she did a graph to show the percentage that could be attributed to tuition special ed benefits and service and then building operations and overhead what would the benefits be for that 18% because that's not Health that must be something else it's probably all the fringes so there's a whole section on fringes so Health dental um retirement um bu all that stuff

060that's usually what she refers to in in high school tuition yeah so she had I know originally told us she estimated that Co Brown based on pass she had put told us like a 2 point something is what she originally I don't remember that she was right but it ended up forget what she said estimated the last the last presentation I believe she used the rate from last year she didn't estimate all right an increase so there was a 4.5 or 4.4% increase for COD on tuition is there an increase in both PA and hker um we don't have either one of those numbers yet okay she's working on the a tuition now for p Academy so when she's done with that we'll have that exact number and we have't receiv so right now the

06127% increase in tuition is strictly from program right and then number students oh could be a number of students too that's yeah so I I have increase over the other budget so from the other budget yeah and then the special ed would that include the special ed from C yes the special increase was I think that was the only change was the special tuition from Cam that just adusted um and then if you want for your notes the we have updated I think we're waiting for two students right for the for the high school numbers they were do on November 15th we have um for freshman next year we'll have 33 so far at coob Brown 24 at pord and two for p c we're waiting on two more and am will update as we

062go so we have those final numbers I think we have even had a few changes come in since she updated this so you'll get another update so changes because students are changing where they want to go yeah there's we had she had just put an estimate of how many kids we going to pick which school for the eth graders and then as the numbers come in we update to the actual yeah so I this being my first time through a budget I'm learning a lot and trying to understand a lot and there's been some things I've been thinking about and I just kind of want to say them because it might be things other people have thought about that are new to this too but I me we've all seen taxes go up in Deerfield

063and none of us like it um from our last tax bill to now we all saw an increase be great to be able to come up with a way to bring it down but some things I got thinking about our first big increase and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe some of that had to do with the million dollars being returned to the town from Co money that was I wasn't on the board at that time you may have been on the board at that time but the selectman returned like a million dollars and then the next year there wasn't the million dollars to return so that was part of our first big tax increase I think correct me if I'm wrong but just things I've been trying to think about like how

064did we get to where we are um I I encourage people to look at the special ed presentation um even after working here for 38 years I did not understand all the funding of special ed until I went when I became on school board and went and spent time with Jess at the SAU to have her explain things to me I did not know how the state popped into funding um or even realized how much it cost and special it has gone up a lot not just in Deerfield but Statewide National I wish someone would do a S study to try to find out why we're seeing such an increase in it after teaching as long as I did I have some theories and thoughts on things I'm sure there's more scientific ways um we're

065not just looking at a child struggling in Reading we're looking at emotional behavioral medical it's very different than when I went to school what the special ed population was and yes we want all students everywhere to get the education they deserve but I think this will help people to understand and I think that's the part is people don't always understand I did not understand the difference in cost of transportation that it can be $100 a day to transport a student so there's a lot to understand and the state even controls different things from what I like where kids can go for placements and stuff don't have the say in that and we also in an article I was just reading it looks like we will be receiving Less in special ed like there Cas yeah

066so there is some that we will be getting Less in but I encourage people to look at that presentation that Kendra and Jess put together because it really explains a lot and I found helpful I also sometimes I'm having a hard time understanding when I hear we need to spend less yet the budget last year was less than the default but the budget was voted down so I I trying to understand where we're going to cut any kind of spending um and high school choice has impacted the budget there's no doubt about it um and I was frustrated when I hear well it was advisory you could have main changes I wasn't at the on the board at that time but I was here at every single meeting listening and I heard people saying it's

067advisory you could have been making changes to it well I wonder what conversations we'd be having with families right now had we decided to change it and not go by How It Was Written if the board had said let's stick with conquer because financially that's a better deal or if we had gone with top off agreements families that might might not have been able to do that so I think people need to know that is part of the increase my whole concern about all of this and it was I'll come right out say it's why I ran through Schoolboard DCS should not have to step backwards because of cost we can't control either with tuition or with with not having Surplus because of what happened or because of High School tuition costs all through the

068high school choice I kept hearing people say you spend this much on DCS kids why don't you want to spend the same on your high school kids okay now we're spending this much on our high school kids we shouldn't back up on DCS kids and yes I would love to see a way to save some money my taxes go up too just like everybody else in this room but the population of DCs students which is more than our high school population they shouldn't be the ones taking want so I think as we look at budget as the community looks at budget I think those are things that we need to think about thank you thank you um um so we went over the differences between the budget from last meeting and this meeting what do

069people want to talk about I'm sure there's plenty of conversations to have tonight um and this is not a hard and fast rule but you know this is sort of the main budget discussion meeting so next meeting we are reviewing the budget still but we do need to get the budget to the NBC immediately after the next meeting so if we're going to be proposing a lot of changes if we're going to be having sort of robust discussion we should do it tonight um because otherwise there will be a delay in us getting the budget to the NBC and as the person who has to go to the NBC meetings I would prefer if we didn't do that to me um because they will be cranky about it which is fair they are also on

070a time you know a tight time schedule so you know we do need to sort of be mindful that we have to firm up the budget next week or next meeting um so if there are things that people want to discuss would love to hear them you had you as to person things this song so if you want to hear from them I to do that as well yeah so I you know did I took the liberty of um emailing a few questions over to Patty and Kristen about some budget things so I think one thing that we talked about in a meeting in July June um was about kindergarten So currently our budget still I think has four kindergarten teachers on the roster we currently only have three kindergarten teachers um so there's cost

071savings this year but it wasn't removed from the budget so I think the board has to decide are we continuing with three teachers and removing a roster position or are we sticking with for and I would love to hear from Principal liy how it's going with three obviously we are you know we changed our ratios last year student fure ratios last year and we are currently at the max amount that we recommended so I think we had recommended a range of 15 to 18 kids per kindergarten and we are at 18 kids for all the kindergartens um so we just love to hear sort of the thoughts on that so that we can sort of make a decision on what to do uh kindergarten is the hardest to predict for right um we there was

072some concern because the F the year prior to this school year we had an anomaly of a class class of 40 or 41 students in four classes that was 10 or 11 kids per class uh that class has gone on to be in three first grades um and had we known uh at the time then maybe we would have consider doing three kindergartens that particular year um you can you there is no say in how many kindergardeners you will get from year to year the average has been about 50 to 55 students um we know we have 21 preschoolers from DCS that are going to be rising to our kindergarten program some of them do end up moving some of them stay most of them stay uh we do know that we have approximately eight

073students in special education that uh will need support services all the things that come with that we knew going into this school year that we had 12 I tried to fight really hard knowing that those 12 students also came with some one-on-one par Educators a shared par educator to kindergarten classroom AIDS there was going to be a lot of adults that were going to be stuffed into three classrooms when we decided to go down to three um our administration's prediction is we're in this field we're doing this work kids are not coming prepared for kindergarten like they have been over the last several years covid the pandemic has done a number on our children we will be feeling the effects of this for many years to me having 10 or 11 or 12 kindergarteners to

074start their school year on school life on a positive note like that is so much more important than stuffing 18 kids in a Kindergarten class you there you can't move in some of our kind two of our kindergarten classes two of them are you know large enough but it is you go in there and it is packed and kids are it would have it would have been a much smoother year I believe if we had stayed before kindergartens there's no doubt about it like I said it's hard to predict what's going to come next year we don't know but I do know that kids are not coming as prepared for kindergarten as as they have in the past I do know that there are several mental health issues that are coming with our kids I

075do know that they're social emotional things I do know that there's learning issues I do we know these things and keeping our kindergartens as small as we can is going to be is our objective now going into first grade they will be 18 going into first grade as well um the difference in our kindergarten last year in in going into first grade this year it I I know they're just little but there is some um growth that happens from kindergarten to first grade they get school they get how to sit on a carpet they get all the things they're starting to be readers they're writers they're mathematicians they're scientists like they get it they're like oh this is school we get it and it's been a they it's having those four kindergartens last year was

076helpful in in laying the foundation there there were an we were spent a lot of time in kinderg last year and um it we're seeing the effects of that support this year in first grade um I don't I don't know how else to put it in the sense that it is hard to say we we I I can't imagine that we'll have another year of 40 kids for several years I I imagine that the numbers will be upwards of 50 and 55 which is what it has been over the last my last eight years here uh sometimes kids move in over the summer some kid some sometimes kids move out um that's that's that's thank you that's very helpful I mean I have a kindergarten but she doesn't give me that level of detail um

077so what do we want to do do so you're talking about the extra support in the kindergarten classroom does each kindergarten classroom have a full-time adult in there like all the or are they going between that you mean pars and yeah pars and everything uh there is a one onone in one classroom there's two one on ones in another classroom and then um we have a shared parah in the three rooms all three rooms have an adult a full-time adult another an additional full-time adult we have one there are four special education par Educators assigned to kindergarten and one classroom Aid historically we've often had multiple classroom AIDS in kindergarten we made the decision because there were so many special education support Personnel to move some of that classroom made support to first grade um

078recognizing that um you know there were secondary adults available however they many them are assigned to specific stud that's so the secondary adult is assigned to a child specific student or students right so is not available to make copies take a student to the nurse for a walk for a all the things that was just um I mean I you know at the meeting where we decided to go to only three kindergarteners was pretty vocally against it at the time um you know it's hard because you know obviously we want to try to make responsible decisions but our responsible decisions also have to be looking at the children and their development I mean I think some children might be fine um I hope my kindergarten will be fine but not every child is going to

079be fine because they were in a big class and that is very unfortunate and I you know would hate to just continue this practice of let's do max amount of students to save a dollar amount when I think the fundamentals learned in K through three especially are the most important learning fundamentals that you can have um so I would be for keeping the roster as it currently is and hiring another kindergarten teacher um whenever it's appropriate to do that and I guess that something to consider is that um you know there if it's not going to be four kindergartens and we end up with a small kindergarten we could have four first grades and make the first grade classes a little bit smaller to offer that that FTE um and I think something else to

080consider um you know let's say we we make a great budget this year and it's approved that's going to be our default budget for you know in the event we don't pass another budget again for five years so if we if we take out a position from the roster that is now the default budget going forward we have to remember and getting an added position is very hard um so I don't want to be wasteful but I do think um you know just sort of anecdotally what I've been hearing about kindergarten I think everyone's trying really hard I do think they're a little bit um a little feral um and I'm I'm sure they could benefit from smaller classes absolutely could I say keep it at three would you like to make a motion to

081remove the position let me I speak before yeah I understand that's what we want to do I'm okay with keeping the position but I do want to like really re-evaluate the numbers before we actually make a decision and hire somebody I think that's how I feel strongly about that the other thing I want to mention is you said how the CLS are so incredibly crowded and this is maybe just hear so but I've heard from people that there's so much stuff in some of those rooms that they're taking up a lot of space that they shouldn't take up so maybe that needs to be looked at that as well how much and I don't care if they use it for teaching like take take it home when you need it bring it back I mean

082like teachers are we are pack racks pack racks right I mean anyone who's taught knows it you see oh I might use that box of straws some days so I'll keep it but I just think that what I've heard is that a few one or two of the classrooms are just so pack full of stuff they're taking up a lot of room that could be space for kids so I'm just throw that out there and it's a good point like we don't have to decide tonight what we're doing about kindergarten next year what would what a motion would have to be tonight is to remove a roster position so that I would like to do that just because we don't know what the numers be in fut and they may all of a sudden get

083bigger but I do want to have a conversation before a decision is made to hire some and I think we always have those discussions especially when it comes to contract renewal time um and what things are looking like as we learn for kindergarten just keep in mind that the you know March April is hiring time and when you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait you you end up with um somebody that you you know I'm not saying you don't end up with great people because we have ended up with great people um but just H the prime hiring time is between March and may I wonder to has any thought been given to that class that's 41 kids has any thought been given to turning that into two classrooms instead of three

084that group of 41 that's going to move through as they get older that's really not that much to ask a third grade teacher a fourth grade teacher of 20 or 21 kids in a class it's not unheard of or unusual and I was fortunate most years I had below 20 but there were years that I had 22 or 23 I mean I know it was middle school but there were times when I had 22 23 kids but can I just clarify you on when you said that's what I would like to do not sure if what you'd like to do is remove it or keep it in oh I was I was thinking keeping it in for now because once you remove it from the budget you remove it and that concerns me in case

085need unless the budget fails get the def right the def there anyway yeah yeah I mean we we can always you know make hiring and and um you know sort of allocation decisions later but we do need to decide on the number of ftvs that we're including in the budget so if no if the move if you would like to reduce it would be to make a motion um otherwise it's already in there so we wouldn't have to do anything I motion to remove one FTE from teacher salary okay is there a second G to Second it because I'd like to hear sure I have a discussion discussion about it yeah so I'll second it but I want to hear another side of it because I'm you know I'm mainly thinking again of the the

086space that we have in the school and the fact that I don't think that taxpayers are going want to go ahead and make another expansion in anytime soon so I'm thinking that we have to combine what we have and like you said there's a lot of stuff a lot of stuff being stored maybe need to be going through and and like you said may take things home back and forth things like that um I think a lot of the space issues need to be looked at very carefully so I'm thinking that's one way to start getting kids back in school as modu is back into the school so you're thinking if we had one less kind of forcing grade then maybe one class could come in from the modular we've already we've already done that

087no I understand but for another year but it wouldn't get rid of one of the modules it still have to be well if we kept if we if we reduce the one FTE then we'd have what we have now right right so it wouldn't matter we're not going to be bringing somebody right that's what yeah but if we go we four kindergarten classrooms again we don't change any of the other grades and we might have to put another class out what is the it was intended to be a fourth kindergarten classroom no it's not what is that space being used for it's a second gr class it's a second gr class that it was the mod and now we have reading the math specialist and the math andant out there in the in the modular

088y okay so there is a motion on the table um all in favor of uh reducing the FTE for teachers by one all opposed that has failed other discussions it's good to have the discussion absolutely come up again so it will certainly come up in NBC so also come up in the NBC the bus question oh the bus great great point that now absolutely we should go to the bus um okay you're going to have to remind me of the numbers so we currently have budgeted for I don't know where the buses seven buses at DCS seven bus at DCS and how many do we have we have six okay and we've budgeted three high school buses and we have two in our current budget year which is still a default budget from six years

089ago I don't know how many I bet this is my seventh year and I've only had one year of a past budget so it's been the same budget for for the same buses that we've been budgeting for years even though for a number of years we've not been able to even find staffing to run those two I would say pre-co we had all seven I don't know if we had all high school buses but we definitely had seven DCS buses and then once the pandemic hit we have not been able to we had the double runs and we have um so this time last year we were debating do we cut one of those buses from the anticipated number and we did as a board last year decide to reduce that number of budgeting because

090we haven't been able to sta this for seven years um and then it was put back in at MBC and then taken out again so there's actually two buses that we don't use so so we budget for two buses that we don't use yes so we could theoretically remove 4,000 May yeah it's about 70 or 80 per I contacted Kelly too I was email I forgot to print it um so she asked when the survey or the um choices were finished if we could send her the names of the students and the addresses and she would look at that and look at the GRS and see um if there would be a cost impact because I told you that was part of the conversation when students are making their choices is there a point at

091which we say okay one bused conquer one bu to C and would there be a cost impact um that so she's going to look into that for me as soon as she has all the names in the addresses which I will send her and just let her know what was got home so I you know regardless I think of what we're doing with the high school buses we have to decide how many buses want to budget for um you know for several years now we have budgeted for buses that we have not been able to use um so I mean I would be in favor of of cutting actually I think she only included two buses in our operating budget maybe not the two buses that we have that go to conquer is two in

092the morning in the and that is that because they're full and need nether is totally full it's um because they wouldn't both put on one bus right there's enough students that are at least reserving that they could not all fit on one okay and I think the bigger issue I mean besides some not all fitting but it if you did you know one bus for conquered one bus for Co Brown if you were doing doorstop pickups the kids would be on the bus for two and a half hours driving around Deerfield picking up kids all over town that's another possibility to have a place where yeah but that discussion of whether we're going to have a bus to conquered and a USS to co ground is sort of separate and apart from are we are

093we putting in the budget two buses or three buses I mean we we can certainly discuss what we want to do with buses and where we would like them to go tonight but we really don't on the number of buses that we including the budget it's not con it's also we yeah that's ask we need we we still have several parents who do Drive 80 cars a day 100 that's funny so cute yeah so cute I would say we're 140 140 cars say 130 to 140 yes I participated for the first time the other day it was very overwhelming um but like okay so so even if we got the seventh bus for DCM do we think that number would decrease do we think people would put their kid on the bus or they're so

094used to coming and doing drop off that the seventh bus wouldn't really pick up those additional kids it would just make the already bus riders have shorter bus potentially hard buers would more kids be on the bus right is that a question yeah I mean we put out the AL call several times like begging parents that there's any way we literally don't have busing and that has been since Co and we've never recovered the to the number of buses that we had so we haven't done any updated survey we just never had the buses to offer yeah so I would have no guess I don't think any of us would say hey there's another bus I'm not do this anymore or that out there as a survey you're getting their H up and then we

095may not get a drive and surveys are not they're just not I guess I would say that seven buses would alleviate some of the routs you know kids kids are getting picked up pretty early oh yeah we're on the bus at 652 sometimes a few minutes early but we have a great bus driver um so yeah I mean I think it's hard I I think I would say that we should do seven in the budget for DCS because I if we got another bus I would love um to put it in motion to alleviate some of that hourong bus rides um for kids in the morning and so after just spending the week with my grandchildren because their parents were away my granddaughter gets on the she's high school but she's on the bus at

0966:25 yeah and she was I mean really her house in comparison to her school is I mean five over it would be like 50 minutes so she gets on and Mason remember his school starts later but he's still so I get it the early rides and I hate it for kids but that's not just Deerfield either that's that's everywhere and I think even back to when I was in school I was in a Cooperative school district and I know my friends that came from BR in Kensington and Kingston and stuff are on the buses very early in the morning and everyone's having hard drivers that's just that's a national problem so if we were to keep the seven buses because it would make it better possibility it's in the default budget anyway I think the

097next question unless somebody wants to talk about no I will say it's in the default budget because it's a contract less though because it's a default more because it's our yeah the if I'm looking at the numbers for conquer high is going to have about 13 students next year and Co have 74 but half of conquered is upper class that's true something that changes that's true you look at the numbers of Co Brown you're going to have you said 33 so it might be like 57 nth and 10th graders at Co Brown so that's quite a lot right for freshman in sophomore and then you're also paid by the mile right we have a we have contracted amount for the bus so I think Kelly's just trying to figure that's why she wanted the addresses

098to get to like the general manager to say okay look at this if we took this group of kids and went in a different direction does that impact the cost of of the bus I think with high school there's no reason why you can't have a couple places around town where that's where they go for the bus we would just have to find those places yeah right DCS would work in the well DCS they used the gas station that used to be one of the places um what's that still is okay like across from the pine where 43 comes to meet 107 right the edge of the river I me well they're old enough to be able to get home from wherever they are to get there and hopefully one concern we had back when

099I forget when this was 108 years ago but there was this there was this Arrangement where there was like a DCS bus that would drive out to mount Del and then like pick up the kids from the high school there were parental concerns about the snowbanks in the winter and not enough room for the kids to stand without being in the road in the dark in the cold on the ice and there was some safety issues at that point in terms of where they were yeah standing they'd have to come up with some good spots that are safe for them yeah I mean I just feel like we're doing so much because we don't even have to provide high school well that's right we don't have to provide anything to high school um techic even

100though don't even and I could be wrong but I remember looking it up Elementary that's within like a two radius of the school you don't have to provide for them either which I you know I mean to me I'd rather get our high school kids because if they can't get the elementary get we don't want them dropping out of school so I'd like to see them get to school but it's like I I would say from an equity perspective able to if we're have an option in conquered we should make that available to students I would say conquer and not count on oh absolutely I don't yeah I don't yeah I'm not saying get I mean I think I just want to remind people so if you're not picking them up right at their door

101I mean we are doing more than we need to do yeah I mean I think we have as a board made representations that if we are sending kids to conquer we there will be a bus um bus yes we for busing ours right could we consider that but then who's managing that no I I no I get it I want kids to get there and everything but we it was one bus and paid and if you didn't reserve a spot in time it was too bad you might not have a spot and I don't say and I agree with it it's just has happened in the past we old there well every choice that we make to do more for students we have to remember that that's going to increases so I just want to

102make sure that that's all out there and people realize it that we didn't necessarily pay for before I think that Co number getting a high method if we could give them a bus we should especially so do you want to have three buses in the budget I keep you want to add a there's only two in there right now oh there is I thought oh we've only had two so we just put no we never put two in because that's all we've been able to get I thought that we had in the default seven for this and three for school in the default yeah yes but the proposed operating next then I would add one yes I would move that we would add a third bus into the budget for if we get a driver

103but that right so we can't add it we get a driver we're I'm adding it to the budget I'm just saying we add it to the budget we may not be able to provide it understand but I think it should be in the budget is the cost for a high school bus or a DCS bus the same why do we need to break them out into three two and seven could just say n they're different lines aren't they you got school cost the DCS the board can choose I mean if you if you have nine buses in the budget you can decide at a point where you want to go we the total be nine right now the total is nine currently then if we get this Bud pass then we could decide where be

104six and yes alen would like to have 10 buses I I'm I thinke you made said she made a motion I I move that we add an additional bus to the budget so that there will be 10 buses further discussion um I just have some information from CHS bus driver that there are currently uh 20 to 25 students on one CHS bus and 30 to 35 on the second bus that's this year that's this year right so a total of 60 students at least or whatever students ose you'll lose capacity is 70 isn't it on a 7777 I'm just so 20 to 25 on one bus and 30 to 35 on the second bus so0 kue um with the busing remains that I don't anticipate that we're going to get a third bus even if

105we budget for it and so it just it feels wasteful to me to include it in the budget when we have not gotten a third bus driver um and this is now multi- years that this is this exact issue has come up and you know not that we have like an extreme amount of wiggle room but if there were you know suddenly a bus driver available and it was for deerfields um could we find money other places in the budget for a third bus well you have if you have nine nine you currently have six and two you could decide where you want that so we could decide not to put it at DCS and put the seven bus right so we already have one bus wiggle room one bus that we can't find a

106driver for so I just I would be opposed to adding a second bus that we don't have a driver for I guess and if what part of our job put together budget that we think will pass we still need all the voters in town to be on board with this and they haven't been for six years and so I do think that I mean it didn't work last year but I think a lower number would make but it hasn't in the past a lower number has not made we had a fight over it last year we had a fight over the year before so I think this is something that the public has asked for we haven't been able to do it because we can't get bus drivers but they had repeatedly asked for another

107bus so I guess that's kind of where I feel it's only 70,000 added to the budget but I I do think it's a different discussion than we had last year because last year we were saying only busing to concer this year we're at least saying we will we will consider a bus to co one of one of the two buses that we have to go to co Brown so to me it's a different discussion because it's we're not saying no to to cob busing so so the how much one well 77 but that's three to a seat you obviously wouldn't have three high schoolers and they have like baned equipment they have sports equipment things of that nature okay so the right now the concerete bus does that just pick up kids at certain places

108in town like why do we have two buses I think it's just because of your town one starts on this side of town one on this side of town they sort of meet in the [Music] middle one goes out one goes through okay different but do they stop at a lot of different places or do they just stop at a couple a bunch of places so if you were to reduce the conquered bus to just stopping at a few places within town you could fit all the k bu right current number but we don't know if it's going to be that number and the right now we only have 23 kids going in we're going to lose obviously a bunch of those kids if they're become Juniors maybe not but has have you seen the

109change Ryan like the numbers of buses I just Emil but the number that the students in coner take in buses like I wonder how much they how many kids they lose and how many kids they gain just kind of wondering I think it's fair to say it's like by Junior and Senior year most kids are not taking right so you're GNA lose the the sophomore class right now that's on the bus and you're gaining the freshman class right which will be smaller I was just thinking my numbers might fit fine on 70 but but you would have to do the stops like I know my kids when they went there were just a few stops they would turn around and go right yeah so anyway that's just the thought I guess I guess if you

110do that if you were to change the way we did the Comfort bus then I'd be okay with not having the bus I going and round yeah I think the only issue with that is um like we have not given parents notice of that so did they choose conquered because they thought the GLS was going to stop at their house and that's what worked for their family well do they ever stop at anybody's house yeah this year it goes out at South Road or Middle Road and I think it does and stops people's houses versus it also stops Mike or whatever it's called now and that's a collective place where people have to drive for a couple minutes to get there by 550 in the morning but if so did so Amy uh just text

111me we uh did there's no stopping at houses no it's all Collective all groups locations for the for the high school for all for both buses it could be that one is like next to the residential might be like this road yeah yeah I mean I'm just envisioning the types of um concerns that we will get for a parent who's working you know beyond 3:30 or whatever time the bus comes back to Deerfield and their kid is now dropped off a mile from their house and they picked conquered because they you know we had historically had a bus up next to their house so I just worry about that when we were a kid we walked two miles uphill both way HRA may I also just add there potentially could be a cost savings if

112a bus goes to cown because we are legally responsible to transport our special education students who have selected cown as their high school choice so right now we are paying separately for that Transportation but many of those students certainly could be Riders on tradition um if that became an option so there could potentially be a cost Savings in special education should the board decide to send a traditional school bus to can I can't speak specifically to can we require them to ride a ride a regular bus like if if their bus route was going to be an hour and a half around town can we require them to do that versus whatever they're doing now it would be their transportation yes got it would that bus have to go to their house or could it

113be a local spot for the major no most of those kids would just hop on the bus the only students that would stay on special education Transportation are students that would have needed it even to get to PCS for whatever reason which would be a comparatively small number okay thank you that's awful so I guess the question still is do we want a budget for one extra bus or do you have to offer it to P kids if you're offering it to to all well I'm just asking I'm just putting this out there I mean we the whole thing that Co around we said well there's not enough there's not a number there's not the number that makes sense to send the bus so if we ever got to a point where that many kids

114all right oh because you went there's a second okay all in favor of any more discussion you can no I'm just I'm trying to make sure is trying to force her motion through moving it along um all in favor of it's to add a bus to add a bus a 10th bus to the bu all opposed two three two I imagine this is not the end of this discussion um but we will see what happens you know it would be interesting if we could get the information about how much money we might save with the special kids going on the bus to that would be interesting I'd like to if we if there's any way we could get that information because then we can compare 70,000 with how much we might save yeah what other

115fun topics do we have I emailed you about several things school oh um the topic of preschool comes up every so often um especially I think because when we're reviewing the SAU budget the SAU has a preschool um that's in Allenstown currently um and so the discussion always comes up you know why do we have our own and should we be having our own should we join the sa pres school I don't know if any has ever actually come out and suggested that but they okay several times um but I asked for some info about you know is there a cost savings to us for having the preschool inous and just is there a benefit to students do we think having the preschool here yeah would you like to come up sure um do you

116have specific questions I mean the the largest expense for having our in-house preschool is personnel as with any school budget right it's always the Personnel that costs the most um we have two certified staff that support our preschool here they are 50% from the special education budget 50% from the right regular education budget they dual certified in both areas so we have two full-time certified staff and we have two full-time non-certified par Educators that support the program so that's probably the biggest expense of our preschool program um they are supported then by the related service providers the occupational therapists the speech pathologists the physical therapists that support students with those identified needs so those are kind of the biggest expenses I mean materials supplies um is minimal you know they get the same classroom Supply

117budget that any classroom teacher gets so that's a minimal expense um and we do have an additional Transportation cost because we have students that come midday right so we have our morning classes and our afternoon classes so you know kind of trying to put some numbers together for tonight just thinking about I know what our special education bus costs and if you divide that into thirds you know one of those pieces is um sort of that midday run that we we already have the bus it's just we pay a little bit extra because they do that extra run in the middle of the day but we would have to do that if they went to enson it would be more correct so and thinking about what our students um be able to attend um the

118as a you preschool at a more cost effective way um I would say no and I will say why um because we would most like they don't have space to take the number of students that we have um and talking with Jess bigford you know I don't know all the details of that program but you know they're they run at capacity often um so adding are currently identified special education students and I'm not talking about our typical peers only our students who are required to attend preschool would maximize them out they would have to hire additional teachers in order to support the addition of our students which would for increase the overall cost of that program um yet alone then us having to transport students to that program I I would imagine the cost would

119increase compared to our current um transportation costs and then as far as related service providers similarly you know they contract for their related service providers or use SAU um employees to provide the speech the you know the occupational therapy um it would not be the case that we could asked our occupational therapist who is a deerfi employee to drive to Allenstown to provide those services so we are able to utilize like our occupational therapist who sees all of the children at DCS preschool through 8th grade she is a full-time employee so that's a cost savings there because she is able to meet the needs of the entire School versus having to contract for an occupational therapist which will be at a much greater hourly rate you know and then if we were to send our

120Personnel again we would be reimbursing them for mileage um but programmatically I think there's a huge advantage to having our preschool in our building um because those kids get acclimated to our school we become familiar with them as Learners um they become our kindergarteners they are with their peer group that they will go on to kindergarten with um they get to come to the library and see Miss m you know so there are a lot of advantages um we have our family connections their siblings are here they see their Big Brother and big sister in the hallway so programmatically I think um there are lots of reasons why I would prefer that our preschool remain here and I do think it's also a fiscally responsible decision because I think by the time we considered adding

121our populace to the Allenstown the SE program um they would have to expand the program which would drive up their costs as well that makes sense one question that comes up when this topic comes up is what is required and correct if I'm wrong but preschool is not a state requirement for schools to provide um so when a student turns the age of three if they have been found eligible to receive special special education Services they are the responsibility of the district so um on that third birthday or at any time between their third birthday and starting kindergarten if they are identified as a student needing special education we are required to provide those services and any related Services speech OT Physical Therapy whatever that service might be um and transportation to get them here

122to get those services so um we have a model that is um an early childhood model where we also invite um typically developing peers to be part of our preschool program because that is the least restrictive environment for our students to participate in they are in a class with other friends that um are there attending our program as well and so ours is a model that is a it is really a preschool within a school where our students are receiving their special education services and regular students also pay tuition they do pay tuition yeah and really I mean it's not a lot but right and many many many families in our community are able to take advantage of that program as and I would suspect that many of those children Kristen talked earlier about our

123kindergarteners coming to school less prepared for kindergarten um many of our families if the option for a typical placement weren't available in a Pres school would probably be kiddos that would just stay at home with families like we don't have a lot of families in our preschool program who attend other dayc carees you know different days of the week um so the majority are local families sending kids to a local preschool option it just happens to be here at school I sorry no no and the one thing with having it here you said our own providers because I was back in the days of when we didn't have it here and so you had your OT who had to drive to maybe out of Deerfield I mean we were fortunate that we had Mount the

124light for many years and that's not far away but if you if a child was in books it because of that's where they were the OT had to drive to hooks it provide services and then drive back so that time that they're on the road they couldn't provide services to kids here in school and you're talking about hooks that being in the daycare we because we are legally obligated that's a different type of Service delivery it would be like an Outreach model where you know if a student is in a Head Start program and conquered um but a Deerfield resident we would still be legally obligated to provide that student with Services um and however the district decided to make that work right um we would have to um and just to be clear about

125the SAU preschool so I was very confused about this the first time I attended an SAU budget meeting because if you just look at the sa budget it seems very confusing and you're like why would Deerfield be paying for this we don't use the presol we don't pay for it right um so the cost for the preschool is all contained in one of the funds and then it's divided by the districts who send students there so if we um if we were to join that preschool we would then be paying for that fund as well our portion based on our student enrollment right um so you know it would one line a few lines in the budget might go down here but then our district share um would definitely go up and I just want

126to reiterate something that you said I mean you talked about all the reasons why it's important to have it here and one of the big things I think of is a lot of times um with special at kids social issues can be difficult so to be with peers that they they going to go on the kindergarten is wonderful whereas they wouldn't have that if they and and the collaboration amongst the service providers too you know being all in the same space a lot of work you know happens in the hallways conversations as one professional speaks to another professional about a student need or whatever it might be so being all here um is helpful sure okay great thank you so much uh any other areas that people want to talk about I mean I know

127I brought up the building um not building ground maintenance um and I know Amber provided some information and I just I want to look at it just to make sure that we need the amount that we have put in the operating budget if the actual spend was so much wor that Mak sense that's line 45 so we spent last year 22395 and the proposed budget is 63,500 I think there was an exib so I guess I should line 145 on page packet page 17 it's at the very bottom oh yeah sorry I'm I'm using the old packet that's where my highlighting is I can't I can't do anything different3 yeah but the actual was only 223 so that's a difference of you know $40 doz and so I guess I just want to make sure

128that like it's well she so in this um little memo yeah so it says we it just says what the spend was last year last year right it's not saying why it's gone up so much yes we'll have to look at the appendix did yeah oh number six ground maintenance page 26 okay so there are several things added okay yeah program atic field maintenance that's pretty good playr maintenance parking maintenance I can talk to Chris but likely due to our Frozen budget last year he just St yeah he probably just did the lawn care and that's it everything else did we plan for to do these other maintenance things and he was told no or is it not needed yeah Athletic Field I mean the athletic field Chris attempted to do it himself but it

129was so such a huge project you could not you just couldn't do it because that was post new septic system and Etc yeah and I mean I'm not I'm not questioning the need but if we aren't going to use it um that would be helpful to you the second to last Lineum 20,000 sorry that last you talking about replacing furniture and fixtures yeah that was to replace um classroom countertops which he also put into his CIP I believe so it's a matter of the bo deciding do you want the that to be in a trust fund or do you want that to be budgeted but yes I think mate what you're referring to is it was in two lines is that what you're talking about no I I thought oh gotcha okay gotcha yeah I

130that's I'm glad you brought that up I forgotten about that that is a conversation too for the board if you want the counter talks on his CIP plan he had them for 20,000 but he's ALS we also put them in the budget in yeah I mean I would I would personally prefer that they go on the CIP plan versus in the budget um especially you know I think the timeline we have we looked at all recently how big our what is our currenc fing amount no CIP was separ from yeah he went over the CIP sheet with us but then we have the trust fund balances and the one articles to figure out where we're gonna I I mean what the capital fee the capital we collect we have you know we did the gy

131so that reminds me I meant to email the planning board um because they are in the process of talking about their master plan or whatever it's called and I think my memory which is foggy at this point is that the impact fees are somewhat related to the master plan or right it's somehow linked so I think timing wise it is the case that it will be coming up the impact fees will be coming up at some point for the next few years year years I don't know they don't expire for something like eight years they are acred and collected and I think they're held by the town in some way and then after if we're not using them over years they go think it's six years because we have the spreadsheet from the town and

132I don't know if the town has sent that or updated that because it had by year what they collected and then it showed the year that that would drop off and that's why we end up with such a big because we hadn't used any over an exted period of Time start I was I don't think we've used any the building been going on I suspect there that I'll make a note for Amber to reach out she I don't I haven't seen any updates from the town on that I anything but we haven't used any of them since the gym floor was done which which predates my joining the board so at least a few years um so like you know I won if some of the like beautification things like the Cove Base if that's

133what it's called or like the the countertops like that kind of stuff we could improve with impact fees oh so the the impact fees need to be used for the the purpose of an impact fee is for the developer to put give money to the school does it the impact his development has had on the school so you have to tie it back to in the need for this is the you have more kids because of the development so it's not and you can't argue that counters artification I typical wearing isn't like if a a counter cabinet is gonna be outdated no matter if you had the extra kids from development of the street addition it for increase usage wear on the floor there's more kids it wears the floor faster yes you just have

134feels a little B you tie it back to the impact of having like and I think they tied it into like the parks and wreck department and also having like pickle ball right there alone uh we're ruining that yes extra waxing is that pickle ball what about the cafeteria just well again the community uses that room dances for different things but even uses that that I don't knowbly you can do the gym FL you should be a to do another well it's worth looking yes for sure I made a note to get the updated they were sending it to us and I don't I haven't seen one but I think the first step was to get those projects into the C so that we use the to work right so it does together but should

135they be in the CIP if we can't actually use impact P for them the CIP is what does the facility we need to do right and so some of those things we can use the impact for those still need to do good point we might want to when we do it like make a note star or something these are things that okay so now the question is do we want to leave the 20,000 in the budget or take it out take it out you want to make a motion I'll move I'll move to move the 20,000 take it out of this and then I guess seate motion yeah we want to this year yeah let's do that one I'll move to remove do you want to what do you know what line [Music] or 262

136737 what is the account 26737 line 145 26341 I just want to make sure that that that you're removing it from replacement furniture and fixtures that's all you need for a thousand of that was for the walk off 20,000 okay um did you have a second the motion I I will second your motion uh any discussion I'm sorry but what line did you say that was in budget it's 14 well I'm looking at different that's why 21 for something that's why I was getting confused I was like I for the map I can't imagine that furniture tonight's budget is line 142 yes the account code is 2620 737 okay and it's for 215 but it's that's correct right because down here it says the ma okay I will second I did or not you guys

137are off rails everyone breathing getting late okay all in favor of the motion by saying I hi any opposed all right um let me see does anyone have any other discussion they want to have about rosters staff benefits I we can't really do that much about benefits um any other discussion that people want to have yeah I just I just want to um the numbers I just want to say like you know um we had a a Community member who brought up stuff about schools and the numbers of different classes and stuff and I really didn't get a chance to look at that and I've done some of the research on that and I know that some of the schools that are on there have way smaller populations than we do so I just I

138would like a little time to talk about that and then maybe bring that up next week okay yes right that's next week is we have to well I mean next meeting but that needs to be the end like I don't it's not a time to have a I guess we can all right well I just feel like um they have the conversation now I looked I looked at the data but I just I went through the State website and I looked at all schools that had close populations that we have and I only found four schools that are k through eight that have populations that are close to us and out of those four schools um there were two well we we were one of them so we were one of four so three other

139school two of them had the two art and two music and two of them did so I just wanted to the issue with waiting is if you when you get to the next meeting if you all decide to start cutting stop it won't be ready for NBC I'm not saying don't do it I'm not saying it's not a good idea but it's just awareness it because Amber would have to go back and cut the salaries and the benefits and the fringes all associated that position so we would be able to votee on a number that night right that's what you want do and you just have to know that I thought somewhere along the way we said something about the PE requir yes yeah 90 minutes 90 minutes in a week and health there's also

140Health requ heal but health is just for the older six seven and eight correct but it was Al included in the yeah chart so yeah no I just I tried to look at the chart and make the comparisons and read what other schools did and it got confusing but so if it's 90 minutes now that 90 minutes can be doesn't have to it's equivalent to the whole year so you can do 30 days of PE and then not have PE for the rest of the year but then your block of time for PE for that would be really long yeah you have PE every day for like say 30 school days and then the rest of the year you would go to art for 30 days and then music for 30 days or what you

141know divide itap not div a third of thism which I imagine would say like if we decided music was every once a tri one trimester I imagine we couldn't like have B you would not have ban or course you would decimate the entire program and the curriculum we have a c a very rigorous curriculum in place that has been approved by the board so the only reason that I brought it up at all was because a Community member did bring it forward and wanted us to have a discussion about it and so for me personally I don't want to see any Chang changes made in what we offer for our IAS and the amount of time we offer them at least for this this coming year if it's a discussion we want to have be

142planning for to have you know a year from now or before you know yeah I me but I don't want to make any I'm just bringing it up because it was brought up and I figured it has to be addressed so for me personally I don't want to see us make any changes in that I think what we're providing for our students is appropriate and again I don't feel DCS students should have to be taking a step backwards in what they're offered and even looking at that chart there's other things that the other schools offer that Deerfield doesn't offer so yeah we may have two art two PE two music teachers but then they have foreign language they have stem they have this they have that so I'm just putting it out there because it

143was brought up and I mean we those of us that have been around the block um for many years has arts and performance have been really important to the community it's always Wellness PE all of it has been very important and that's something this community has always supported and does absolutely change and I agree with you yes not not advising them what to do but I would say that those things have been historically very important you have an art store in your little town yeah I mean I I get that other schools do it I would I don't know it seems crazy to me to not have like PE for two-thirds of the year like I don't you know you don't get unlimited recess you don't get unlimited time to like move your body throughout

144the week um so I I feel like it would be doing such a disservice for especially for kids who are more interested in one IA than others right like if if my kid only loved music but I was like for two-thirds of the year you actually don't get to doing music I feel like she would be very upset by that and and there's a lot of research that shows that art music are really good for the brain I mean it's not like they're there by themselves not just lots of links to other other subjects yeah and speaking from experience my sons went here and they had this situation now they're in that situation I was speaking speaking of and they despise it they hate their IIA schedules they they don't have it and when they

145have it they have art my one guy loves art he has it now he won't have it for two-thirds of the year and he does not look forward to like that's his motivation is Art so you're miss taking that away from a student again showing my age of how long I was here I do remember a period of time where we had art like half the year and then the second half I think we had PE all year but we had art like one half of the year and then music the other half of the year but in order to get the amount of art you had it like for an hour block or more and it was like the impact that had on my classroom as far as my instructional time too you know

146to get what they were getting so you know it and then we didn't have it for the whole rest of the year so it was like the kids we were trying to do art projects related to curriculum so they still would have those experiences am I am I correct too does do the art music teachers sometimes also try to integrate what they're doing what the kids are learning in class right so it's also just not a separate subject they're being integrated I know I think last year maybe we talked about maybe this is our discussion about teacher ratios but I think we had this a similar discussion during budget season last year like it we don't want to make sort of a rash decision in the name of the budget and I I remember in

147January I think or February we specifically talked about student ratios and I think IAS again and how the board sort of felt about going forward um and I think it's always a great discussion and I think it's something we should continually evaluate but I would caution against making decisions because of you know a public comment or you know a chart when you know we haven't had a full chance to evaluate or decide or hear from other community members about the impact of of changing this for their students um and just in the name of the budget anything else what do people want to talk about um I think you know one one question that always comes up at the NBC so this is sort of selfish why I want to have this discussion now um

148because I so for those who haven't been to the NBC I would very much encourage you to come they're very fun do we have date for the first time you're going to look at the school budget yes it's the Tuesday after the fourth December the 10th um but essentially you know the MBC we give them our budget we say this is what the school board um has approved we give them our budget they can make changes they can add things they can take things away um you know all my role is to represent what the board discussed and what the board wanted to do um so it behooves me to get the board's opinion about things um in advance because otherwise I'm just assuming what the board wants to do um but I know one

149thing that comes up at the um NBC every year is the math Specialists the math interventionists the reading Specialists the reading interventionists and I can't ever remember the difference um and I would love to know you know how many students they are working with um and sort of what help they're providing and whether or not um you know their instruction could be covered otherwise by teachers or you know I don't really know much about the about the program I would like to say too that when I was looking at these other schools um I'll put I'll typ this set somehow to give it to people but like I looked at Chester Academy Paul School Nottingham um they I was looking at that too reading and writing Specialists and interventionists and they all had the same

150amount we did so just thought that was important for people to see they also some of them had things that we didn't have like Behavior interventions we don't have that withoute I think upon um you know for you don't know what you don't know right and so you think oh reading specialist they just work with kids on helping them learn how to read um as you can see I have um I mean it's backtack pages of what a reading our reading Specialists our reading interventionists and our math specialist our math intervention do at this building um we are fortunate to have um a reading specialist at the K3 level and a reading intervention is at the K to3 level uh during Co during the Esser Grant we were um we did hire a tutor a

151reading tutor to provide some Services uh we were never able to hire anyone the position was available it wasn't never filled we filled it with at the time um an in a UNH intern that was working on her um and was we were able to um fit her in for some tutoring sessions so we were able to spend some of that money but not a ton um our our um reading Specialists and reading interventionist really the job description for both math and math specialist IM specialist could be um they both they both are equally as important in terms of the job description um most I a lot of the things I changed reading to math and math to reading so you can see that it's broken up very very um according to their primary responsibilities

152student support teacher support um curriculum program development as well as uh family and Community engagement and then the key qualities and skills that they provide that they that they bring to the table um our our Specialists and our interventionists are really our instructional leaders in the building they are the ones that work directly with the teachers and the staff in the building they do a lot of the professional development they support uh plc's which are professional learning communities they um work with the teachers to create the agenda they go through the uh the agenda with teachers and oftentimes provide professional development during plc's uh they are U helping teachers plan for what I need win groups for GR grades k through eight um and uh they are so if we're in a win cycle with

153for math at the K to3 level our reading specialist will always take some kids to um to support for reading uh they help with um our Nidia students as well as our students you know that tier two level student that is maybe isn't necessarily receiving special education services that our math specialist our reading Specialists are working with them targeting the skills that they need to have targeted um so can yeah of course go ahead one of them and I'm always get it wrong is is licensed right both they so reading specialist has a reading specialist uh certification certification uh reading interventionist I believe does as well they're both certified teachers you can choose an expertise area of certification but you can also be a third grade teacher and be a specialist in teacher reading okay

154so that I think that's why CH there got it okay math specialist how does have a spe you know is focus on math you math interventionist you do not need to have um a math certification I there was one math intervention correct okay other thing I remember as as a teacher they didn't always just work with my struggling kids they would sometimes take my higher kids correct and work on things with them that maybe I didn't feel qualified to do and then I would do you know it gave them a challenge it gave my higher kids challenges too in both reading and in math it wasn't always the that they provided challenges for the other kids too which they deserve absolutely but they work with data they keep the data spreadsheets up so is there

155somebody else that could do that work sure yeah as well as myself right teachers would like they take that piece off of a teacher's plate and they they enter the data teachers also do enter the data but they um you know they really keep those data sheets up up to date especially when once we've done I we do that three times a year they'll enter all of that uh data into the spreadsheet update it from year to year update folders from year to year I mean it's just the job is I it's it really is I don't know what we would do without our reading Specialists and our interventionists I really don't I they're so valuable to the functioning of this school um that which is why every scho yeah both of them got it

156thank you this is very helpful good I will put it in my NBC F so I can forget this time awesome [Music] um thank you what else what other burning questions or discussions you guys want to have that any other motions that people want to make okay we can move on are we say that are try to have no more we can but if we have any motion changes next meeting I think if it's a straightforward cut it's easier for me do the MTH right here I just just if it's a position there's lotss of other Associated costs that I would not know and it wouldn't be the right to the accurate number I think that we would have to be prepared to have emergency school board meeting yeah to get the update because I

157I honestly don't know that getting the budget to the NBC super late is going to be acceptable I think we only have four meetings or something to review this school budget for the NBC so okay and I really would like to get it in their hands as quickly as I can after your meeting so if we came to the next meeting and it was close to being done then we ship it right off to them to start at prior to their meeting on the so I would say if people want to make changes to Staffing we will then probably have to do an emergency meeting on Friday um okay lost my agenda draft hor articles yes so um Ashley a couple of weeks ago did draft up War articles this there's no data in here

158it's just what war articles you have waren articles you typically look at funding um there's cou that are not on the draft there's three of them that aren't even on here I think might these last year's um just as a template so Amber did update the trust fund balances for you so that you can see what what um the balances are in all of those um so looking at the warant Articles she put them in the drive the warrant articles she had the special ed trust fund where you um last year you were going to put some from Surplus and raise some from taxation you have $484,000 in your special trust fund now which I think cover anything that you would need so um you don't have to make those decisions tonight your bant articles

159aren't due to the NVC right away but any conversations and decisions you make now obviously helps along um the next was your school building repair trust fund and currently has um 386 292 in it um and if you're looking I don't know if you're looking at the warrant articles too the draft on the drive that was number five and it has a zero in it right now um you haven't been is that um School building repair trust fund is that the one that we the H right yes so if we were to try to get it up to 750,000 wanted to put in some Surplus money or you could decide to raise something and then we have a playground fund that we have needed you have um $3,200 left in your Paving um trust fund

160with that count we have to because I know you have to seal your I would think that the crackers and all that stuff would count for yeah um have currently $22,000 in your technology trust fund um if you want to continue to use that as an emergency fund I think that's fine if you want to start using it for other things you like if we were going to do like replacement Cycles yeah instead of putting it in the bu um building Renovations and site Improvement that was the trust fund that was new to you guys has $102,000 in it right now how's that I don't remember yes yes repairs versus Ren because I think the thought wasn't I'm trying to remember um because Jeff Kelly did the started this and I'm trying to remember what

161he said but it was more okay if we're not going to do the expansion let's start a trust fund specifically for the things we're going to work on because we're not doing this expansion so they were talking about electrical and that was going to be like $100,000 and the things we couldn't get get to because we didn't get the addition and then we already had that other trust F but they wanted to distinguish the two and I remember in that discussion we talked a lot about like a stem lab which was a building renovation but not a repair okay that's what I making renovations to the building because we didn't get a new building but not his Focus was but not like countertops is a not a renovation some are kind of gr there are

162times you either one very interchangeable by would say um then you have the school edition capital reserve and that has $149,000 left and that would be where you would turn if you wanted to get the Architects back in here to have more conversation or start thinking about plans that would be pleased you could draw that those through sorry thank you um and then you have school facilities equipment and that has 190 3,000 and it did occur to me today looking at this that would be a place if you had money in there that if your freezer had to be replace trust right $193 does that include repairs or is it just for new Replacements it's usually a piece of equipment it doesn't I don't know we'd have to look at the sometimes the trust is

163like very specific you have to go back and look and seei can can we do that because I think it might I mean I think it would be worth um putting some money in there for equipment yeah if it didn't specifically say like purchasing new equipment then there's probably more flexibility I can look back we a grid of when all the trust funds were voted in I think that one came along with the Kil the infamous year of the Kil yeah and we didn't have trust fund to pull that from so we did use the budget and um that's I'm pretty sure that's the right one sounds right that's great timing I'll up the original which then still leads me to question is it only purchasing versus repent it usually is but you have to

164look see if there was a purpose established articles worth looking the freeze is being repaired but that would fit under the school building repair is not considered the building there was there was a lot of conversation around that this is where my 20 years probably um when we did the septic we just did failed that was probably 15 years ago we had a lot of conversation about whether that was part of the building um oh and Improvement I remember it was added because the site is different than the build it's really if it's not specified in the when you create the want article the board has the discretion to make the determination whether they think it's appropriate um the parking lot light probably go into the building renovation impr it is it probably is a

165site Improvement but not a potentially not a building repair okay maybe Jeff Kelly was on to [Laughter] something okay yes there is a lot of flexibility unless there's something specified in when it's cre so then if we go back to the Warren articles and we look at them I be saying the special education trust fund's probably fine right now there it is I personally think it's fine I don't think we need to add more money to special ed trust it's fine is it more than should we cut $100,000 bu $100,000 from the TR it's still you could have something come up as 350,000 my years it hasn't happened know but it has happened in it did happen last year you just we were able to cover thank you very much but we managed we didn't

166have to go into our emergency fund we didn't have to go into our special ed fund because weze theze the Define manage we have a dead field I would prefer to keep it where it is yeah I'd be nervous about taking money yeah and I feel like we either last year the year before sort of looked around at what other schools had for their special and my recollection was it was most schools have between three and 500,000 special trust I don't think I've ever seen one I remember um so just just a question if we were to remove it from the trust fun that have to be an award we have to no we would have to have a public hearing to expend money from the trust and put it into something else well we

167would have to present we would have to say these are our expenses this is what we're removing from the trust to pay for those expenses so we would just be using it for our ordinary expenses so be like at the end of the year the bud such we need this money going to take it out all right so that's another so that would be putting nothing for two and three yeah I mean this would just be not including at all do we so the parking lot lighting come out of that if we didn't I think we did talk about that like we didn't have that in the budget but we did talk about doing that this year Li right and you already have trust funds yeah I would love to do it this year so

168if we plan on doing it this year and taking money out of that trust fund put building [Applause] improv the Kelly is how I will think has text me multiple times don't forget have not forgotten thank you it is horrible out there it's dark it's very dark so what like normally what kind of balance do we like to keep in that site Improvement 25 oh it's new it's I mean that's why Chris prepares that established it two years to think ahead about what project he's looking at and then think about when you want to do it and back plan like okay we want to get to 750,000 in the next three years do we want to do $1,000 each year for that how do you how are you going to fund it and what year

169are you to fund it the 750,000 would come from the school building repair yes okay okay so we can just go down and look at what he has the um replace the base hallway that's only 7,000 that could just replace windows that's huge that's why he just sort of that out there because that is huge yeah 21,000 on oh no I see thing CA so that's not until 27 28 when does he think he the windows have to he no he he just put that out there as something we talked about with the new building was how bad the windows are and they're not energy efficient at all um so that would to put it on your radar but building yeah do we open the windows more because there are children you're not to window

170trust me no I it sounds like we're going to would like to sounds like the sense the board is that want to put one together for the building repair extendable trust it's for whether it's window whatever yeah just just to get some money in there so we keep getting it up a little bit so we don't have how much you question is how much and then come from [Music] Surplus so basically that's the only War article we're going to have right well also can have non-monetary War yeah those don't have to go to the NBC they're due to the NBC probably by the end of by mid December I think maybe they start bothering better the more you give them happened here they can't change no they just put their recommendations on on the monary

171I'm gonna throw out 150,000 I was gonna say I would like to see it closer to 500 um I don't know no no no the total so 125 you want to remember that you want to probably next correct try so if we don't have any other monetary warrant articles why not go with 2 we're trying to get to 750 in the next two years why not go with 250 I mean it's not even 750 because there this window situation so it's gonna be have to get like a million and a half in there or something I don't know what the windows going be aens so I would try to make it bigger but we still want it to pass so that's the question what what from Surplus I think from Surplus we have a better

172chance of getting yeah well we have that much Surplus but I guess you fund up to whatever you have in Surplus and if that's your primary concern you put that first only one it doesn't matter but them all right I I think we've been talking about the building for how many years now know the building they they graciously approved a million dollar to years ago I mean I think that they're still I get the feel I don't know if they're if they're going to vote down the budget at least they still been approving building improvements trust fund additions I would say like 250 or 300 I think 250 personally 250 what just take whatever's there or make up the difference in taxation if there's less I think you have to you would have to give

173them you can say we did that one year were we I think you did both some out of one and some out of the other I don't think you can say and if there's any left put it here um last year we obviously um had the high school tuition Expendable trust fund s did not it's I think that personally from things I heard after the election a comment was made at one of the meetings that people said it didn't pass because the voters wanted tuition paid for through the budget I think there was a misunderstanding as to what this particular one was I don't think people looked at it as it's an emergency fund just like the special ed one is it's okay we get six kids that move to Deerfield high school kids that

174we didn't know about the money's not in the budget where do we pay for it from so I would like to see us try to put something in that again better explain it and and Hope better explain it to people because I do remember not long after at a meeting someone said that one didn't pass because people want it paid for through the budget and it's like well that wasn't it those are pretty common for schools that have Tu yeah I me we have kids move into DCS we can absorb them had kids moved in for high school it's tuition that goes I do think I mean I think last year was a much bigger concern because we didn't know if there was going to be upper classmen who were moving and people moving into

175town for that particular purpose um I would be in favor of doing it I don't think we need to put as much money as we had planned last year if we're going to do remember it would be good to get it established we were trying to do start thinking like seven kids more well the other thing you get a special student but you can also could use got another fund that I think it's worth trying and just do it from Surplus if that happens to be Surplus and try to maybe better explain it to the community do we that for the building or after building first my opinion I don't know what so if they if we voted yes but we didn't have any money left it's still established but not funded oh okay it

176doesn't get established yes unless you had two separate War articles oh yeah you couldbe like I don't know that confuses people though people get confused they don't know you don't know what you're voting for I might lean towards a smaller amount just to get it established right right 20,000 or 25,000 to start and then because last year was the big question I think more than this year I a little I mean because currently with the budget we just rounded up by three kids in each school right so we have to we still are putting in the composable budget until we have this established then we maybe not do that and I think did 40,000 that's like two kids number yes sure not official yeah and we want to do it from Surplus we want surus

177we do it Sur plusus first and then the whatever 250 because we do the 250 first good possibility won't have 40,000 I think I say we do the smaller one first because then it gets established and and it's Ved down and the or the remainder goes into the building all right so the high school will be the first one I now that's my opinion but everybody else I will do it that way and then when you vote on them next time about it and so none in building renovation and site Improvement and none in the others technology addition equipment is there a need for um facilities equipment it's only $193 that that one does make me nervous like if the freezer goes and it's 100,000 I don't know Freez industrial free $7,000 be a lot

178more that was I so should we put in that one to get some money yeah I don't think there's going to be Surplus to cover all of these things so but you could if you did 40 well if you did 40,000 for high school 10,000 for equipment and then you're building 100,000 all it but even even if youve got the majority of50 with left right it'll get as much you have sounds reason we do have a couple of freezers so you know they're like a wash and a dryer once one goes the next one goes so yeah and our fridge has given us trouble too so we've patched that over the last couple of years and basic items monetary yeah do we want to LEAP into that discussion have a nonmonetary one I was thinking

179it might be interesting I have lots of ideas but I'd love to hear from you uh so there's been obviously a lot of conversation around the school um the high school tuition situation and um and clearly when I was involved in negotiating and all that I was in favor of the contract I'm glad this the town has and our students and our school choice now that's fantastic but it clearly comes with the cost and so um I still think back to a couple years and I'm not you know I yes the the elector voted the way they did but now that it's clear what the cost is and the amount of talking on Facebook and whever else about the cost is it something that that is there any sort of regret if we put it

180to the voters and this isn't something that we'd have to do like right now it would be the sequence of events we thought ahead a couple years I'm on my way off the board here so this is for you all to decide how to do this but we could put a warrant article on the on the warrant like we did about five or six years ago before the end of the concrete contract to ask something like if a high school a one school contract would result in the savings of a million dollars to the school budget or however we were it would you be in favor of that um whole I have I have multiple thoughts about this but I don't want to I don't want to be Monday morning quarterbacking the old worn articles

181however if we're putting something as a worn article what I found problematic about about the questions the first time is that there was a logical fallacy in one of them which was would you support this with no additional cost and people said yes but that was not a possibility so I what I wouldn't want is for a bunch of people to vote for something that is not possible to happen um we didn't have a lawyer on the team last time well it's easy for me to say in retrospect like this was like we should have worded differently um but I wouldn't want to word it such that we're saying it saves a million dollars because it may not I mean it it could butti but a million dollars for what frame of time every single

182year we're saving a million dollars probably not and how would we prove that so I I would want to be very cautious about how we ask the question because I don't want to be a situation where people are pointing to something saying say see they voted for this but it was not a possibility um when when do we have to start talking to the schools I'm sorry no I the the contracts were only three years so with an extension with an extension so there's there's a similar time crunch but not as extreme because there is one and twoe extensions built in but next year correct so I think the question is do we ask so what what I have always been uncomfortable with which was very evident last year when we had this whole debate

183about this was that the voters never voted on the money they never voted on the money we signed away what's now 1.2 million correct over two years um which way would like to do right was our responsibility correct but and it was the fear of if you waited for the voters to vote on it in March and it didn't pass then you have students that have no idea where they're going I still I still think we were justified in doing but I've always been uncomfortable with the fact that it was not voter signed so do we do we word it should we renew these contracts or should we word it should the school would pursue a single longer term contract if there is a cost savings to the town you saying have one or the

184other oh you I don't think you could have both because again I don't want it to be like no don't R these but also know single it's sort of to your point you don't know that it's gonna be a savings you go with one like you're still leaving people with you know hey we like us to go to one school again and we can save you money but you haven't negotiated anything correct so you have no idea that's a true statement I'm just no I try to help it's true um which is which is why I'm somewhat would lean toward do you want the school board to renew these contracts at the end of whatever year that they're negotiated until vot to that for what reason would anybody vote savings I don't know I don't

185know I don't know like I think you say we don't have to have warrant articles until January the the Noe no but I'm just because I think it is something wor thinking about but I don't think tonight we're come up with the wording of how to only one I was say theoretically we don't have to deal with this at all this year right um but I am mindful of how quickly it comes up and how much people are stressed because they have middle school kids and they don't know what the outcome is going to be and it's like incredibly stressful for everybody the town just fights about it for years I think it should be a priority for you after this budget is done because you're going to need to agree as a board on

186what you're even if you're asking anything what are you asking and then whether you're gonna actually start talking to the other school yes because you need to be we do have contracts right like I mean ideally I think you would present actual contracts next March so that there there isn't this like so then we know what we're actually voting next this March or next we could have an inquiry this year and then contracts either renewals yeah which and we I mean obviously there would be a lot to discuss about renewals do we do them for longer term because it's not just the board deciding do we put them on for 10 years or five years or whatever but but put those either singular or plural onto the warrant and I'm not saying that I'm in

187favor of it but I'll throw it out there because it's what we hear from people there is that option of top off agreement right now I mean that top off agreement is $2,000 a student but unless the population un go with which is going I mean it but that's what you can do is to do it from your lowest school I mean that was the whole talk about it when it was going to be just when it seemed like it was just going to be conquer and Co Brown it was like you take conquer's tuition which is lower and you make people pay the difference so if we have three schools because what why would you pick the middle school because then what are you going to do for the kids that go to PA

188give them money back but people were looking people were looking at the contract great at conquer and we kept saying they won't give us the contracted rate if we don't BR all our kids there so that's where that change happens if it was the contracted rate and it would have been different but there might be a way to put in continued Choice with top off agreements because didn't the legislature even though they always said it was legal didn't they pass recently passed legislation to I mean I think as I mean we could add that as a warn ticle next year when we're approving right cont I think you're not I think that for this budget not you're not anyway right yeah I mean I like what Nate's thinking but maybe not for this year I

189don't know I think we may have to do an inquiry this year I don't know all right I just like I don't know how we would move on to potentially having contracts for the next year if we don't know what we're pursuing so think about those and if you want to put something forward next meeting any other War article discussions okay you um informational items so we can talk about this in more depth at the um business meeting on the 4th kids will have report outs for high school um the high school committee but you're welcome to pass out now are those confidential documents confidential documents so here the presentation is what's going to be talked about and presented or shared at the next meeting this is just so I went to the co bround

190they have a spring meeting and a fall meeting and they talk about how everything is this is Deerfield students this is confidential because we um have a there's information in here about kids with IEPs and the numbers are so low that people could perhaps figure out who they are and that makes it confidential so the actual presentation though that they gave us which was for all the schools is now on the drive so people can see that but I'm just passing this to you guys um and I think Jess mentioned that once you have more kids going here then this will be a public di it won't say oh you had one kid take the AP exam and the score was this well we can't announce that to the I think that's your numbers are

191really low right now but one good thing that um it's a very small amount of students this is isn't specially but with the um the SAT and the New Hampshire science testing the deer kids scored higher than the c-round average and the state average in everything that's pretty cool just a few kids awesome thank you okay we have circled all the way back to public comments for information oh sorry we're not there I don't know if this is the proper place to but I guess I'm just I'd like to know about we a lot of people we we're talking about it in non okay and then to the extent we want to have a public like we as a board have not been able to discuss it so we will discuss it in on public

192and if there's anything we want to say after on public we can say all right we are back to public comments question that I have discussing the parkor uh the discussion on lighting the parking lot if you have the opportunity for funds available and it's a safety issue I'm wondering why you have to wait till the summer it's not a 3mon project to put parking lot lights in my fing you could probably do it during a school vacation just draw that out there as an idea if you have funds available that doesn't require you to wait till after March to see what you're doing if it's a safety issue or fix it and then ask for additional you know funds in your warrant article you feel need to do just I'm not one that parking

193out there right now at night but that sounds pretty scary especially when you've got ice involved in the future um the other question I had uh and I apologize I met a dayve Dreamed a little bit um there was there's some funds left with the architect but I don't know if it's specific to the addition but um we have talked um about reviewing space needs um and the the building out there to shed that's actually two-story shed so it's really not it's a two-story building that's used for story um I went to the building department I got the plans there's no information on there b how it's framed how it's nailed kind of plywood there is the kind of things that you normally put on a building plan and file for a permit none of

194that's on plans I went there so before an engineer could even review it they would have to as buil it um I don't know if that's something you could ask out of that architect's fund or that's not even something that could be done um but I'm just saying it would be my in my opinion it would not be good money but you know hypothetically if you've got an architect sitting there on a pool of money it might be worth money you know but I don't know that it's worth it to ask the taxers personally um but that's just my opinion I was hoping to see right on the plans that it said this building was designed for storage this is the load it was designed for none of that information was there it was just

195it's a building that looks like this and it has the resps really really um which is a bit surprising to me but maybe you shouldn't have been surprised and guess that's I felt like I had another thing but the lights came became a safety issue thank you great thank you ja Road thanks everybody for being here I just have a small public comment and that is um around the busing line item and I just wanted to point out because I feel like heard somebody mention it in public comment and we've refer to it um we refer to it on the board that the budget last year didn't pass because the third bus wasn't in it we don't know that I I just want to have everybody remember that like that that is an assumption that

196people make but there's no we didn't pull the voters like we don't actually know that it could have also been just as likely that people were voting no down the list and I'm not saying I'm for or against more buses like of course I think more buses would be amazing for our students bothin high school and in DCS but I just wanted to to say that out loud that we can make assumptions all we want um but we really don't know for sure which is why things like advisory warrant articles are great so just wanted to add that thank you uh T 19 Ro uh first of all I just wanted to apologize to the board for my impassion uh Speech prior I've been um care deeply obviously about the town and the school and

197been holding a lot of grief and I guess more than I knew uh so my apologies I I do hope um we as a community uh all of us come together more in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation to work with you it seems oftentimes as there's a spirit of working against and I know how that can feel so I'm hoping if there's anything I can do that Fosters that um I will um you're our friends you're our neighbors you are our children's former teachers um and um somehow I think we've gotten to a state of Affair we've just forgotten um the humanity in the volunteer roles that you have put yourselves in as our elected officials I also um worry about the teachers and I talk to the administration but if there's anything the

198board can do as well um because I think the types of remarks sometimes that circulate uh on social media um particularly things like about grooming um are just so inflammatory I can imagine how the teachers must feel when those types of things come up um I know that those statements um just can be so harmful types of statements I pick that particular one and I hope if there's anything that you can do to try to Shield or support the teachers or do something because like I know they probably then take on that feel like they're working under Jess it takes away their creativity it takes away you their enthusiasm and I I I would hate to see that because I know for so long um the school has just been like a beacon of our

199community uh and I I hope that that whatever we can do to help you Shield the teachers or support them um will happen and then the last thing I wanted to publicly apologize if I made uh anyone in the audience U and with my prior statements feel tired with so thank you thank you Bobby Andi Brown Road um I hope that you do I I I'm going to reiterate a little bit of what I said I feel like nobody listens to anything anybody says anymore if people would read original posts or read I'm not speaking for other people I'm saying for me in particular the email obviously take out names but all it says is please review your policies to make sure that this doesn't occur again there's no grooming uh quotes there's no um

200lynching like obviously people are going to tuck and say what they want but there are parents that just care about the kids and just want to help you do your job so that's why when I spoke before I did say other parents take care of this in classrooms I feel like some people attack people that are trying to help um anyway I also feel like the board you are all have your right to your opinions obviously um a particular board member continues to say they don't want DCS money to go to high school but um you're the school board for Deerfield not just DCs so when the town votes and a majority votes to say yes we want high school choice they're voting to use their money to do that so I think that past

201uh opinions you might need to look at how much work that your high school um you had a high school um committee they did an amazing job they they worked like they worked so much to get that done in the amount of time they did and I I give them props for doing all the work they did um moving forward your town already voted for high school choice and you just started giving it to the kids and you do see that more majority of the eth graders are choosing a school that they didn't have before so I just want to make sure that you're not setting yourself up for for rius chaos like if you were to remove that although you're going to put it to vote but I just seeing the backlash that everybody's

202getting these days just careful what you careful what you're saying they're gonna they're going to yell at you anyway but I'm just saying we already voted for high school choice to try to remove it might might cause a lot of conflict in the community so thank you for all your time thank you oh and those I I don't want those ending up back in the back in that classroom like do you want them okay um other public comments oh man you have to talk yeah I'm not really prepared to there might be anybody over there to support Educators no I'm just sitting oh we wanted you to talk I am ready I'm I'm sorry a long time oh I think we're over okay they just said any other public comments want to sit at the

203table you can say something you're you're welcome and welcome to the meeting would you like to make a comment um just yeah I'm Julia suland sorry I hustled um and I just wanted to voice my support for the Educators in Deerfield I'm very grateful uh my son just started here a couple weeks ago I'm just really grateful for the teachers and their support and I hope that um that we can continue to have a supportful community that's able to help our kids and not let weird politics get in with um because our kids don't deserve that um I love this town I moved here intentionally we we selected Deerfield um long before having kids and um I am familiar with the school uh because my sister works here um so I have attended School functions

204prior to even having kids but knowing that someday my kids would go here and would hopefully be able to put on a play and have that weird emotional woman in the in the audience start crying at some kids singing in the middle of it and I think that um I am optimistic that both of my children will have very successful um School careers here time here and I am grateful for the the people that I've got to meet but I've had the opportunity to meet within the school and I hope to keep the good teachers that we have and continue to grow the programs that we have thank you so much any other public comments U my name's Bob davit I'm 44 Old Center Road and a long time ago I was also a teacher

205I taught uh seventh and eighth grade science nth grade health and 10th grade biology and I was also responsible for sex education in those grades and um I've always said that I think everyone at some point in their life probably after they graduate from school should have to teach for one year to see what it's like because um I've taught uh during my years of teaching it required more nervous energy than any other job I've ever done and um I mean you everyone thinks you have vacations you sleep half vacation try to recover from from the school um situation we used to have to have um an adult teacher in the boy's bathroom otherwise at lunchtime fights would break out they weren't there and um teachers make mistakes um I made mistakes in those days

206I I was teaching in Indianapolis Indiana um they used to send films in mail that were free and some of them were good I was teaching a section on genetics and um one of them was about uh genetics menal you know he U discovered that certain genes are dominant and some are recessive he used PE Plants to discover this and the oil companies used to send these films they were free there was no inter that okay and um I was showing this film I didn't preview it and near the end they showed uh statuettes of humans in different sexual positions and of course I should have previewed film I didn't uh the principal of course said you should preview it and I didn't uh you know he kind kind of laughed and I had uh

207you know there were people that were upset and I apologized and um I had a choice when the film was going uh do I turn it off or do we just finish it I decided to finish it because I did teach sexual education too and I thought it would be uh inappropriate to just turn it off and so so people make mistakes and we all need to understand that um things aren't done on purpose and you learn from your mistakes so um I have kudos for all the teaching and teachers here and everywhere and U thanks for your time thank you anyone else last call all right I will make a motion to go into nonpublic session to nhrs say 91 column 3 section two small letter A and C