001just go ahead and get started and we'll >> hold on. We're going to get started and just as sort of information point of view for anything that requires a vote because we don't have a quorum yet. We're just going to hold off. So, we're going to hold off in the budget discussion just so you're aware of that. you don't have to stand up the whole time. Um and uh and approval of the minutes and some other things. But let's uh let's begin the meeting with um rising for the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So, first we're just going to do introductions. So, I'm Patrick OD
002from Exit, the chair of the joint board. Oh, this way, Chris. >> Good evening. Christopher Andrew, superintendent of schools. >> Bobby Pace, student representative from Exit High School. >> Bill Gothier, Exit Cooperative School Board, uh, Exit. >> Tammy Gunst, Exit Cooperative School Board, Stratum. >> Uh, Jennifer Scrapford, Stratum Chair. Uh Cameron or Stratum School Board. >> Sophie Sulten Stall stratum. >> Uh Kathleen Peek, Stratum. >> Allison Higgins, Brentwood. Uh >> Dan Abear, Brentwood. >> Kirstston Sokco, East Kingston. >> Jane Walsh, Newfields. >> Bobby Kelly, New Fields Chair. Brian Blinger, Newfield. >> Cheryl Mcdana, Kensington. >> Steph Schmidt, Kensington, chair. >> Wendy Larson, Kensington. >> Heather Ike, exit chair. >> Beth York, exit. Tim Reed, exit. >> Kate Pratt, exit. >> Neil Blake, ex co-op board exit. >> Eric Miller, uh, a co-op board from Kensington.
003>> Erin Garcia de Prades, co-op board, Stratum. >> Don Bolan's co-op board exit. >> Melissa Lions, co-op board, East Kingston. >> And those other folks other than the superintendent that are here from the SA 16 administration, if you can introduce yourself, please. >> Uh, Molly O'Keefe, director of finance. >> I'm Heather Murray. I'm the chief human resource officer. Renee Bennett, one of the assistant superintendents. >> Allison Bryant, the other assistant superintendent. >> And good evening, Ellen Risa, assistant officer for student services. >> Jill Lizier, chief academic officer. >> Michelle Larson, assistant finance officer. >> Jason Hills, director of technology. >> Arlland Petta, chief equity officer. Okay. So, thank you for that. Next on the agenda, we have an opportunity for public input. Is there anyone from the public that would like to provide public input?
004Okay. I don't see anyone right now. Um, right now it's 10 6 over the next half an hour. Certainly, if someone comes in and you happen to notice someone from the public that wants to give public input, we still have an opportunity to do that. We can rearrange things in the schedule as needed. Okay. So next, we do have a quorum at this point, so we can proceed with ne what's next on the agenda, which is approval of the minutes. We were last here on September 15th, and we have the public meeting minutes in the packet that was shared with the board. If folks had a chance to look at them, would someone like to either make a motion to approve them or suggest a revision to the minutes? >> Before you go into our
005meeting, do you want to do before we go into the meeting. Okay. Actually, I'm going to I'm going to change I apologize. I'm going to actually change that. We're going to um we're going to we're going to have the public hearing on the budget. I apologize before we um we we were suspending the public hearing on the budget because we didn't have a quorum, but since we do, we should really start that before we get into the meat of the meeting. So, um so let's go back to Molly, you can stand up again now. Thank you. um to the public hearing on the budget because that was actually scheduled to precede the meeting. >> Okay. So, tonight is the public hearing on the SA16 proposed FY27 budget. So, the last since the last time we
006met, we received the health and dental insurance rate increases. In the SAU office, we were at the 15.5%. However, I did put all plans up here so that you will see it now. You are going to be starting to do your district budgets. And so, these are all of the increases that Health Trust gave us for next year. >> So, when we left the meeting last time, we were waiting on the health and dental increases, and they were really high. I thought I was conservative at 9%. It was higher. So we went back and we took a look at a few things and we decreased the supplies and equipment a little bit and we also decreased the provision for retirement. Now by decreasing that provision for retirement, it's not decreasing the liability. We do have
007some flexibility in the year that we can pay that. So um the liability does is still out there. Would just be decreasing it for the next year to get down to a 0% increase. We felt very strongly about getting down to a 0% increase because you are going to see some pretty large increases in your district budgets related to health insurance. And Dr. Anderski, I don't know if you wanted to add anything at this point in time. >> Um, nope. I think you're doing a great job. Keep going on. >> So, this is the exact same slide that uh we showed last month. The only changes are those three changes that I mentioned on the previous slide. Everything else is the exact same. This pie chart shows how much of the budget is related to
008people and it uh the employee compensation and benefits. So just in case you're questioning what I put in employee compensation and benefits, I did list it all here for you and it makes up 95% of the budget. So the SAU does not have its own tax rate. It is embedded in each of your district budgets and it's based off of 50% average daily membership or ADM and 50% equalized valuation or EV. Here I put the definitions for you of what ADM is and EV and the links to where you can find those reports from the Department of Revenue and Department of Ed. And um we will be posting this after the meeting. So this will all be publicly available. So while the overall increase remains zero, it is going to fluctuate between districts as your
009ADM and EV fluctuate in relation to each other. So you'll see at the bottom the total assessment change is zero. However, between the districts, it will go up and down based off of how those figures changed. So in previous years I would always add money for grants but we are not doing that this year because we are appropriating the grants in your district budgets we've which we've talked about in several meetings now. So when we vote tonight it would be for the pres uh budget as presented for $3,425,176. And I did put a line by line in front of each of your seats. It is the exact same document that was also provided in your board pack. So that concludes the public hearing. Can >> I just ask a question? >> Is that allowed? >>
010Yes. >> Um, if this is voted down, it reverts to the same budget. >> Nope. So we come out with a number tonight. >> No. All right. Sorry. If we pass it, but then it's voted down by the by the towns. >> Nope. So, this does not go in front of the town. So, we vote on it here at the joint board. This gets embedded in each of your districts. Okay. >> And it is a mandatory item that will appear in both the default and the proposed budget for SB2 towns. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um I'm looking at um administrative salaries and it went down by about 15 grand. Can you explain why? Um, yes. So, the prior budget was made before the superintendent announced retirement last year. >> And so, if you look
011on the major changes slide, um, that does say it next to the major changes as well. >> I just have a quick question. Uh, what's the like primary driver and the difference between like the districts? Obviously, I'm looking at the stratum one, and I'm just curious about like what's the I know it's like the average attendance, but what what varies between the distance like the districts that one would go up so much versus others? >> So, you mean the assessments? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, it's weighted 50% ADM and 50% utilized valuation. So, if your town had a re-evaluation or um you had a large family move into town. >> Okay. Other questions about the budget? >> Yeah, I guess has a lot of questions tonight, but um the the 30 grand from retirement, I
012know you're kind of betting that healthcare won't be as expensive next year. Is there a c is there a certain year that that has to be paid or how does that >> has to be paid in the year that the employee chooses to retire or it could be paid depending on when the employee gives their notice it can be paid the subsequent year in July one. >> So you're just kind of betting that not as many people retire next year. >> I wouldn't say betting. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I would say talking and >> um >> bribing. No, I'm just kidding. um talking talking to to people as to when they >> It's an educated guess. Yeah. >> A very educated guess. >> Do other questions people have? >> So then we need to take
013a motion, right, to approve the budget as proposed. >> I think you do that in the regular meeting. Okay. So, this is just for the hearing. Yep. Correct. >> Okay. Is there any other comments? There's any public comments about that also? Okay. Can I >> I'm sorry. Can I ask a question? >> So, I'm looking at the line for conferences and it says it's $35,000. Is that part of the CBAs or is that part of the um leadership team? Is that what's allotted for the leadership team? >> So, we do not have a CBA. We are not unionized in our office. So each of us have individual contracts and >> and that equal equates to $35,000 for going for professional learning. >> It's not specifically stated in the contract, but that's for at least one
014annual conference. Okay. Or some some of them are some some contracts do have it. >> Okay. >> And so that we pay each district pays for their own individ in their own CBA for their own professional learning for their teachers >> for the teachers in their district. And then this $35,000 for professional learning is just for leadership team depending on it's like a bank account like you ask. >> It's for any of the 19 people in our budget. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Are other questions that people have? I mean, now's the, you know, the best time to do it, but we certainly can take a few more minutes if anyone else has a question or something they're trying to figure out. I'm looking at Stratam. Any other questions? >> Bobby? >> Yes. Bobby, go
015ahead. >> I'm sure you said this before, but it's been a couple of cycles. Can you remind me or us what the uh contracted service uh line is for this particular year? >> Uh, which line is it? So, there's two sections. There's um the administrative section and then the business office section. >> And my friend Michelle has the notes behind me. >> Okay. >> The 112320321. >> Oh, uh that's the gil foil that's showing up. The gil foil uh public relations. >> Thank you. I need you. Thank you. And just for those of us who who can never remember how this works, the the two parts that go into the town, how much a town pays, one is number of students, and the other is your town's assessment. So the higher your town assessment is,
016the lower your amount is or or is it vice versa? So the higher your equalized valuation is, the higher portion you get and the more students you have, the more you get. >> So if so, if a town like recently re-evaluated and all the property values went up, then you would expect that number to go up. >> As long as no one else reevaluated, but if others also re-evaluated, it would move in relation. >> Yeah. And it is equalized. It's not just valuation. So >> I don't know what that means. >> Um, so that's all so that's all done by the department of revenue. And so here in this link I actually put uh where all of that information can be found. It is it is a function that is performed by the department of
017revenue. It is not to performed by our office here. >> Right. Right. Any other questions? Okay. I don't I don't see any. I think we've we've paused a couple times to make sure people have had their voice heard. So >> So I think that concludes the public hearing then, right? >> Mhm. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. So we sort of mingled the start of the meeting with this because we concerned about a quorum. So, we've already opened our meeting obviously. Um, and I am going to say that just to be careful that we're going to sort of restart start the clock, so to speak, in terms of public input. Right now, it's 6:22. So, we'll be careful that we have save at least a half an hour from now in case someone were
018to come forward and have public input. Now that we've had the hearing, I just want to check in one more time. Does anyone have public input that they wanted to provide? I don't see any. So, okay. Just want to be careful about that that we're not uh silencing anyone. So, okay. Then we're going to move back to the agenda. We've already done the pledge of allegiance and introductions. Next thing on here was the uh the minutes and we started to say that we would either take a motion to approve the minutes or if someone wanted to suggest changes to the minutes to raise that. Now, go ahead. >> Said a quick change. I know Dr. Andriski's name is spelled wrong many times through it. So, just a suggestion to fix that. >> Okay. other changes
019that people noticed that are needed. All right, then. So then would someone like to make a motion to accept the minutes with that correction? >> I can make a motion to accept the minutes as amended. >> Okay, we have a second. >> Second. >> Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion about the minutes? All right, then let's take a vote. All those in favor, just raise your hand, please, so that we can get a count. >> And actually, if you weren't here, one thing to be careful about, if you weren't here for that meeting, then you should abstain. >> 24 didn't count. One, two, three, 23 now. Okay. >> All right. Put your hands out. Is there any opposed and any abstensions? Three. >> Okay. Great. Thanks. All right.
020So, next up we move on to the SEU budget discussion. So, we just had the public hearing. We asked a lot of questions. Um, is there any discussion that folks would like to have about the budget prior to taking a a vote to approve the budget? >> I would just say thank you for making those adjustments. >> 17% healthcare is >> absurd and I think certainly frontwood appreciates that you made the adjustments. >> Any other comments or thoughts about the budget? All right. Then we would take a vote on the budget. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the budget as presented? >> Allison. Okay. Do you have a second? >> Second by Melissa. Okay. Any discussion on the motion? All right. Then take another vote. So raise your hands again if you
021approve the budget. Approve the motion. >> Okay. Got it. >> Okay. Any opposed? and any abstensions. Okay, then that passes. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, so I'm going to turn things over to you, Chris, in terms of the SEU 16 administrative updates. >> Yeah. So, I'm going to have Molly talk a little about our audit findings for the SAU. And again, she highlighted we did move grants out of what used to be in the SAU. So, you see it in your budgets, and there's a big reason that that had been in there for three years, and we talked about what's the right time to do it. So, we felt, you know, there there is no right time to do it, but we did it this year. but I'll I'll have her
022give some of the highlights from the audit um and and some of those other actions. So, thank you, Molly. >> Sure. So, um most of our districts except for one are audited by um Plaza and Sanderson and all the audit reports have been posted online on our website for quite some time now, but we thought it would be really important to recap the 24 audit. So, the 25 audits are happening now. So, the most recently completed audit is your 24 audits. Um so we thought it would be helpful to go over the findings from the FY24 SAU audit. So there's six. Um first is grants are tracked through the SAU and they recommend that we move them to the districts and then that's exactly what we're trying to do now. Um in the 2023 audit,
023they had asked us to do approvals at the end uh the year with grants. We didn't typically do that before because it's not like your district budget. It doesn't impact the tax rate. So we did do them but we now have to do the revenue side of the acral. So it was just a recommendation to do both sides. Um employees who get paid with grant funds need to perform semiannual certifications and due to office turnover uh some were not completed in 2024. So uh we're working with uh our new grants person to ensure those are completed. Um each year we have to do a maintenance of effort worksheet for grants and audit noted some errors in the 2024 um file and so we've provided training since then to the employees that complete that. Uh we
024have to maintain copies of contracts with vendors to ensure vendors are eligible to participate in federal programs. Um and they noted two contracts were un two signed contracts were unable to be located. So those used to be housed at the individual school. who are now housing those in the SAU office to ensure we have copies. Um, and lastly, SA because we were housing the grants in the SAU, we all adopted policy DAFF last year, a year before, um, but the SAU did not because they don't have grants, but since we're flowing the grants through, since SAU didn't have policy DAFF, it was found as a founding. So, those are all of the findings from the audit. Did anyone have any questions? the main was was the first one and we wanted to highlight that that's
025exactly why we're moving the grants this year. Thank you Molly and thank you Allison for doing all that clean up. We appreciate it. Um next on the agenda is the school information system. So our school information system which we refer to as Alma. That's who is our our our um warehouse for our school information system contract is up in June. So um knowing that over the summer we had created a school information committee to look at other vendors um and this is typical u of what you do. So we uh asked three vendors uh the larger vendors to look at what they could provide to us. So that um Mr. Hills created committee um it was led a lot by u Miss Sergeant from Cooperative Middle School and we had representation from all of our
026schools administrators teachers uh administrative assistants different perspectives to look at the systems. They met with three vendors as well as comparing it to our current vendor of Alma of what would be the best fit knowing some of the troubles that we've had with our current SIS system uh since its implementation six years ago. Uh and then also knowing the cost factor with with Alma. So they spent um uh end of August uh September and into Octo October meeting with the different vendors asking different questions. They did a great job of compiling questions to ask you know how does it you know um give reports how it does mass communications? How does it uh provide internal reports that we're looking for? Certain things that we couldn't pull out of our current system. Um how does it
027uh provide a transcript for us? Because that's still something that we've had uh six years of providing transcripts at this school. Um so after doing some uh much neededed research and and meeting with the vendors and going through uh the team created a rubric and they rated the rubric and they had made a recommendation to um make this switch to Infinite Campus. Uh, Infinite Campus is a larger system with a greater support um and can do a lot of the things and it was overwhelmingly uh supported. Um, if we do make the switch um the biggest thing is how do we train staff uh because it's a switch. If we if it's approved here to change and make the recommendation, we'd be able to start training staff in November. So start with our administrative assistants,
028start with our administrators, and then we would tailor it so that we continue to work through to get our teachers the training um and the changes with the SIS system. Um and then what we did is you'll see in next year's budget, we've already been preparing for that change because there is a little bit of a cost. Um when we talked with Infinite Campus, um there's a huge implementation fee that we didn't fully budget for. Um but we were able to to pull most of that out of our budget from this year. And then they were they were fantastic to work with so that we could um work to have that payment over the next 3 years. And in year two of that payment, it actually is a smaller payment with the implementation fee in
029it than it would have been if we continue with Alma. So next year will be a larger fee than you'll see a reduction in your SIS contracts moving forward. So that's the major highlight. Jason, I invite you up to to cover anything that I missed because you were at those meetings and you were able to go through the conversation um and provide the board with any other information that that I uh neglected to say. >> Sorry, I'm short. Thank you, Dr. Indiski. Um I think you you did cover well uh again some of the the issues that we had were with uh report cards, grading, uh transcripts, uh as well as uh data auditing. Um, so this platform is going to offer us a lot more customization and it's built off of a database that
030that's standardized and really gives us that flexibility. >> Any questions from the board through either Jason or myself? >> Yeah, Bobby. >> Um, first that report was awesome. Like I loved personally seeing the process that you guys went through, hearing that there was a rubric with the comparison. Like I don't love personally having to learn a whole new system. I can't imagine the teachers having to do it themselves, much less the students. But this was pretty for me powerful to see that it was well thought out. So, thank you. Um the only question that I have is or request um is when it comes time to roll out the training, other folks that need to be trained on it is also the parents. So, we can um have a video or something that would be
031relatively easy to access because I finally just got Alma myself. So, you know, now knowing it's moving on, that's fine. But I think that would be an important piece. Thank you. >> Thank you for that recommendation. >> Um, just to build on that, I totally agree. It's very clear report. I just I was curious, I know there's a stakeholder group of surrounding districts that are going to kind of inform the build of our adoption of this. But I was curious, would there be user groups like parents who might go through it and offer you feedback on how well it how they're navigating it? I'm just curious like how customized it is and like if that kind of feedback is part of the process in terms of what we build and and the user experience of
032it >> from a parents perspective. >> Well, from I guess different stakeholder perspectives, but including parents. Um, >> so they do offer a statewide user group um in Portsmouth actually. They've been using uh the product for over 20 years. Um I I do know that that that's more of a user base that's using it regularly. I use it as a parent in my district and it is really easy to use. I think um you know putting out training videos and really working to make sure that that parents understand and can navigate it. it it's a really easy platform to navigate and it's and it's um so hopefully that we we can get parents up to speed since they are using Alma now. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? I think those are great two
033suggestions and we can definitely make that happen. Um it is very intuitive. I've used infinite campus as well. And the one thing that we I also like is that they they make you assign a power user to each school and we also for next year um Miss Sergeant her major role will be to implementation of our SIS system. So we'll be able to use her leverage of knowing that system. But each school will have a power user that is kind of the person that you go to in your school district if a problem does arise. So they get a little bit more training in that capacity. It doesn't have to be a school administrator. Oftentimes they tell you not to have a school administrator uh so that they can support. And so we'll do a
034lot more in-house training and I think training uh parents as quickly as possible would be would be huge. Thank you. >> Is that is that something Chris that we need to take a vote on? >> I would love love the recommendation that you're you would give us the authority to sign that contract and move forward so we could start the training process. >> So the motion you're looking for is to have a motion to for the board to recommend approval >> to support the approval of changing SIS systems to Infinite Campus. >> Okay. >> Can I ask a question before that? Um, so like almost still not I think fully working at CMS, right? Um, and so does that mean it's just not going to get fixed this year because it's going away or >>
035That does not mean that. That means that the emails I continue to pester them with, I'm getting progress on that as Miss Lizzier can can attest to. So we've gotten to a point we're we're about threequarters of the way there. I I would anticipate by November 1st I have a full fix with with uh with Alma um because I am now emailing every Friday to ask when I will have what we asked for eight months ago being done. And this you can hear the sarcasm and frustration in my voice >> and that is another reason why >> it's crazy because like I get grades for one kid in one thing and not grades for the other kid in the same thing. So it's yeah I can imagine how frustrating. >> So you should get an
036update about Alma uh through for the middle school because of grading >> on Friday. Thank you, Jill. They can see it in the and then we'll there is going to still be a glitch in that and you'll you'll see it. So, please reach out with questions and then that final fix should happen two weeks after that is what we've been told. >> Do also like that your name got put on those messages going forward. >> I'll make a motion. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Okay. So, you made the motion that was proposed before. We have a second for the motion. >> Bobby is the second. Okay. So, now do we have further discussion? some discussion to further discussion. >> Yeah. >> Is that a question, Pat? Um, apologies for being late. Um, >> should I
037abstain from any just because I wasn't here to hear what we talked >> about? No, you're here. >> Yeah. Is that was that the question? >> No, no, no, no. Once you're once you're here, you're here. You're here as a official part of the meeting. Did you have any questions about anything you might have missed that you want to make sure we cover? Because we we certainly can cover it. >> Go ahead. And is are there any like budget considerations we should be taking? I know you said it was going to be cheaper overall with all >> Yep. So no, we've >> we're not mating the budget. >> No. So when we've been building our building, we've been building that this would be approved because of everything that we've been going through. So we built
038it into our budgets with the increase of the implementation that we built out over three years. So you won't see it until you get to your budget. the payment that we have to make for this year starting for uh November 1st. Jason went through his budget and we were able to identify technology um spending that we didn't have to do so that we could use it for this year. So we we've got you covered and built in the budgets for for this year and the life of the contract which would be three years. >> Nice job. Find that money. >> Any other discussion regarding the motion? Okay, let's take a vote. All those in favor of the motion, raise your hand, please. Got it. Got it. Okay. Any opposed? Are any abstensions? Okay. And that
039passes. Thank you very much. And the last one, uh Allison, would you like to just give us uh some legislative updates? I know you did a great job at the last meeting. I don't think there's a ton, but uh I know you always have stuff coming up for the >> Sure. Thank you. Uh it is no secret that this is a busy time for legislation and public education. Probably our most significant update this evening is uh there was a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling I believe today um that or recently Friday that um ruled that a uh a resident district does need to pay the tuition 80% of the tuition to uh to the receiving school for a student who is requesting to go to a school that is operating under the open enrollment using
040uh with open enrollment. And so, um, that's a little bit different from what our understanding has been and certainly we have some work to do. We're pretty connected with the legislative group in the state and we anticipate being able to bring updates to school boards in November. >> Do you want to can you say just do you want to say more just about that uh legislation when that goes into effect and how that's working? >> The the specific case >> regarding Yeah. regarding open enrollment. >> Sure. So, there's there's been a lot of discussion about the um a districts need to be uh need whether or not districts need to be sending schools um meaning that they will pay the 80% tuition to any district if a student chooses to enroll in a different district.
041Um and a district can choose to be a receiving school as well, meaning that we can we can choose to accept students from other districts who choose to who would like to attend our schools. And there's been a lot of discussion, a lot of questions, uh a lot of unclarity as as we're trying to seek clarity. This ruling came out. So, uh more discussion and more trying to figure out exactly what it means for for all of our districts. explain voting but >> I was on a call last week with Nicole Himark who was talking about this bill and what she explained to this group was that it's a the sending schools >> um it's a minimum of 80% tuition that the receiving schools set the tuition >> is that your understanding okay >> so
042we had a president legislator come to the Brentwood meeting a couple weeks ago or two months ago. >> Yeah. >> And she differentiated the open enrollment from intra in her. >> Yeah. So I just want to clarify which one you're talking about because it was my understanding that so one of them in tur district is what you're talking about. >> Yeah. >> And that is just amongst us. >> It's throughout the state >> all. All right. And so that's the one that got approved. Yes. That night she said it was the other one that got approved. >> Dr. Bennett, would you like to join me at the microphone? >> So, this this is where it's really confusing. The open enrollment books, the legislation has been on the books since 2009 in New Hampshire. Um, they
043have tweaked it through non- germanine amendments as well as um quick bills that have come through. what that um legislator was talking about. There was intra they clarified the definition in the last legislation around intra and intra districts which she was talking about. There was still a perceived understanding before the Supreme Court New Hampshire ruled on Friday that districts had local control and school boards were allowed to create policies determining whether or not they were going to be a sending or a receiving district. And if so, if they were going to be a receiving district for open enrollment in New Hampshire, they would have the authority to set their class size and capacity. What happened was Pittsfield filed a complaint to New Hampshire Department of Education saying that they are not going to pay Mount
044Prospect's tuition because they their board did not rule that they wanted to be a sending district for open enrollment. What the Supreme Court did on Friday was uphold the New Hampshire Commission, the Education Commission's hearing officers that said the legislators were very clear. They want open enrollment in the state of New Hampshire between all public school districts and that public school boards really don't have the authority to decide if they're ascending or receiving district. If you have a child in your district that decides to go to another district and that other district accepts them, you are going to get a bill for minimum of 80% of that district's pupil rate that is set by the department of ed on top of we have not even talked about or gotten into the weeds of special education
045because the legislature has not been very clear or helpful with that. So when we talk about charter schools, so we are still really unclear on what we can and cannot do, but we know what the sup Supreme Court said on Friday was that local districts don't get a say. If you get a bill, you have to pay it. >> Just one, thank you. That was a lot. >> Sorry clarifying. Um I I heard from both of you. So I just want to be can a school deny a student and on what basis? If they're not if you're if they're doing away with the overall approval of being ascending and receiving school, you can deny them a pure per pupil basis whether or not to accept or not. >> There there is still some about that.
046So our understanding has been that yes, we can set parameters around whether or not we receive and that's the kind of information that we'll be digging into and bringing you more information as soon as we have it >> at the local level like the boards would have that >> well in theory before the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled on Friday, theory was that you had local control to decide if you were going to receive or or be ascending district. What the question that we've talked about today at the SAU was who's going to determine your capacity if the New Hampshire Supreme Court said that legislators were very clear and they had the authority to do that. So that's what we don't know is it 306 is going to determine class
047size where local boards have in the past determined your own policy for class size. So we really just these are all great questions. We just >> we don't have clarity and we might not have clarity until another case goes to the New Hampshire Supreme Court around this actually or the next legislative session. >> Do you know um about transportation >> if that would be included or anything about >> transportation? Um it depend if the that's a not a black and white. So it's if if you can get your student so for example I live say I I I live in Eping and I've decided that I really want my kiddo to go to Kensington and I send them there. Kensington's billing Eping. If I can get my kiddo to our Kensington bus stop they can
048get on the Kensington bus. If I can't then I can drop them off. So that's also that's a rippling effect when you think about what if your our buses are packed or I mean there's a shortage of bus drivers. We don't have a lot of open buses. So if you can get to a bus stop in that district, you can get on that bus and go to that that school. Were there other legislative updates or that that's >> a big one for tonight? >> That's a that's a big one already. >> Is there anything else you can say? How does that fit with like manifest educational hardship hearings? Do do those still occur or do those >> So those still occur? That's that's a separate separate law. >> But someone wouldn't have to go through
049that process if they wanted to just enroll elsewhere, >> right? >> Because I don't understand the purpose of it anymore. Then >> there could be some transition with that. I mean that could be part of the >> Yeah. >> fallout from this too, >> right? >> Question. >> Yeah. >> So, so if there's a special needs student from let's say Eping who wants to go to Kensington and there's a big bill. So, it would be 80% I mean that's a different calculation than another type of student. So, it would be 80% of what the total bill would be for the special need students if they needed um you know remediate remedial um people assistance and things like that. Our understanding is that this the cost for special education and correct me if I'm wrong. >>
050No pressure um is um that that's that lies with the sending district. >> Okay. >> But the receiving district determines what the special education cost because you're billing for your students. So you're billing for your staffs. You're you're billing we're billing Eping for the hours and the perdeium rate of our staffing Kesington and and Eping's paying what we say the tuition costs are for special education but there's noou determining that. So it gets really tricky >> because the receiving town may have to hire special ed teachers or staff for one student. >> Yep. It would just be it's the same area that we're navigating with public charter schools in local districts being what is called the LEA for the special educators and determining how do I give Paul a FAPE in Kensington as Eping being
051the LEA? Do I want to send my own staff there to to be the PAR professional? Do I want special educators? Do I want Kensington to bill me? Do we have the hours? We might not even have the hours. say we don't have a we don't have the needs the services available in the building that your kiddo requires. How do they figure that out? It's really convoluted. >> Can I ask you a quick question about So are you saying that based on that Supreme Court decision there's no ability to choose basically a district cannot say that they're not going to be a receiving district anymore. they based on the the ruling a district can't decide to not be a sending district. >> So is there a scenario in which you can choose to not receive
052students from other districts? >> We uh we >> that's unclear. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So can I ask a question? So that was inter. So that's that's within the state, right? So intra like would be within our own district right here. So if I East Kingston wanted to send to Stratam would it still be under the 80% rule? >> They're different districts. >> Different districts. So So East Kingston Stratam or Brenwood would bill East Kingston and we they would have to pay. So it's still the 80% rule. >> Right. I think I think it I think the the in if I see if I had this right that was in the intra part would be places like Manchester that have two different high schools right >> that are part of the same district.
053So whether or not that you went to one high school or a different high school or Portsmith which has three different elementary schools but it's all part of the same district. >> Right. >> So that's that's that scenario that's a little different than what we >> we're not considered separate. You're different district K5 district. >> The fact that we happen for the at the elementary school level the fact that we happen to be in the same SAU doesn't matter. It's it's treated the same as if you're >> going how far across the state. >> Yeah. This is not related to this, but I'm like really rapid. So, we had a legislator come to a meeting >> and it would appear that she flat out lied to us. >> Seriously, like it would appear that she
054flat out her exact words were there was no appetite for that at the state level. And so I guess I'm just putting that out there as like sort of a warning for other towns >> that if that h I mean I'm like just really because I left that meeting like awesome like we're we're kind of in the clear intra got supported in didn't get supported like this is going away. So just I guess I'm just saying as an FYI should your legislators come and talk very open confident that like I guess I don't I don't even have words for this. >> Is there certain criteria for say a parent wants to send their kid to it like the there are certain boxes have to be checked like reasons why or can they just say they
055want their kid to go to >> for open enrollment? There's no Yeah. Uh, can I ask one more a different legislative question? I saw that the state was considering modifying or eliminating SAU districts and potentially consolidating them. Are you guys aware of that or do you have any information about it? >> I don't have a lot of information about it. There are some groups that are getting together to look at that, study that, see what the implications are. So again, that's something that we can provide boards some more information about in our November meetings if that would be helpful. Unless I don't know, Dr. Anderski, if you have >> No, I mean that's about where it's at. There's about 130 LSRs that are could affect education. So again, you know, you see why this position
056is so important. 130, you know, so you think the the seven we review at a board meeting, think about 130 over the course of the year. And they're thrown together quickly. They're thrown together without thought. And sometimes they're thrown together with malice. And so I think there's impacts that when these happen and the budgetary impacts are are not going to be known for a couple years yet, we have to put into our budget this this next year, right? So that's why we're we're trying to be a part of every group. So the SAU group we are a part of, we're hearing how other SEOs and what they're hearing. We have a meeting coming up next Monday for our legislative groups where we're going to hear uh from other um SAUs of what they're hearing and
057how they're going to battle this so that we can give you more updated reports at all of our board meetings. So that's why I think it's important we get legislative updates here but you know frequently not just on policies we're looking to pass but things that we're hearing again I think I shared with the Stratam board that you know one of the LSRs I was really happy about is that there was they were going to form a committee to study open enrollment and that is going to be taken away where this law has come in unless they can modify it some way to try to find the the financial implications. There's also another LSR that is out there and if it doesn't get supported it is to study essay use. So again, uh I think
058some decisions are being made without studies happening and they're being put together and then they're being supported and then we're having to figure it out um in in our budgets and and how we can support what we can do. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Okay. It sounds like more to come in November. >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? No, I I just didn't know for the January meeting it's usually we do a state and we usually do a report. Would the this board prefer a written report and a presentation from from our administrators? We've gone different ways. Um I think sometimes it's great to hear from all the members in in the uh SAU that the amazing things that they're working on. Um so I just wanted
059to get a taste of how you want to do that and and uh I'm looking that possibly our our joint board meeting would be at Julia's in January. Um because I'm working on something but I can't give that up quite yet. So just be prepared that that meeting would might be at Julius for January. But wanted to see what the board um wanted if they a written report would be suffice or if you want written and a quick minute presentation from each one of the roles to to dig in to hear what they're working on. >> Does anyone want to offer their thoughts? >> I I would say the the presentation because I think that invites more interactive conversation than just a presentation. I think if we get a presentation, we'll all read it and
060then just accept that. But I think if there is some more interaction that leads to a better discussion. >> I would agree without the like without the feeling you have to re ree what was in the presentation but just pulling out you know as you've done so beautifully like some things you want us to think about. >> Yeah. It's not really helpful to have someone come and just read their report. that's that's not needed, but picking a couple of things to highlight it sounds like. >> And I think that the superintendent evaluation committee had I think that we had decided that we really wanted the goals update as a presentation to everybody. >> Sure. At that meeting >> at that >> Okay. All right. So, that brings us to the end of our agenda and
061we are keeping public input open until 6:52. It is now 6:55. So we have uh met that responsibility and uh we don't have anything further. So we take a motion to adjourn the meeting. Would someone like to make that motion? >> I'll make that motion. >> Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor your hand. I >> think that's unanimous. >> It is. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Great. We're Thank you.