001e e e that's good evening everybody uh thanks for uh coming out this evening I think we're all uh little surprised by you know the forecast was oh just a little bit of coding and sleep was a bit more than that so thank you for coming out really appreciate it um if we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please 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 all right uh just want to thank everybody for coming uh we have a pretty full agenda tonight um big part of it being the first reading of the budget so not going to say much else right now um we're going to move uh forward
002and and move through the agenda best as we can so if I can have uh approval of minutes I move to approve the minutes as written all right we have a second second second by Jamie any discussion about the minutes all right all in favor okay um are there any adjustments to the agenda today yeah we just won't have 7.2 just because we told the students not to come and then um we also were going to recognize some of our swimmers here tonight and also uh track uh indoor track state champions but we also told them to stay home as well so y um that's it we'll do that another time all right um so 6.0 this is a public session and I think we may have some people who want to speak tonight so
003I just want to go over a few things just as a reminder um we appreciate you being here appreciate you wanting to speak um just so you know here's the F just a few rules um if please when you get up uh give us your name give us the town you're from and uh direct any comments uh to the board and we'd like them to be succinct you know like about three minutes the most please and it should be directed to a specific agenda item so something that's on the agenda tonight that you're concerned about or for against whatever it is that's fine uh and it's an opportunity for us to listen and the part I really want to make clear because sometimes when people speak and the board is silent they think we're not
004listening we are listening the public um portion is not a discussion it's really a chance for us to hear where you are and what you are concerned about and we certainly are open to meeting with you if you think it it you know amounts to that concern um we're always available via email and we can make arrangements to meet uh if that's something folks need to do so I don't want you to think we're not listening just because it doesn't turn into a discussion we just really want to hear where you are and that's how that works um we welcome you know constructive comments criticism of uh policy um you know no no attacks to individuals please uh and just you know uh just a uh basic rules of decorum obviously apply in a public
005meeting but we welcome uh your thoughts and concern conerns so with that if anyone would like to come up and speak there's a microphone right here come right up give us your name and what town you're from if you'd like to speak yes sir welcome good evening uh my name is Alan sarenas I live in Topson with my wife and two sons um I'm also here speaking with for parents rights in education Maine uh we're a 51 C3 nonpartisan nonprofit that help parents uh inform parents of their rights and then Empower them and train them to speak speak for themselves uh the last uh four or five months I've been working with uh one parent uh but then a few more about the school policy I mean school choice policy in the district um it
006was unfortunate that I tried to make the policy committee meeting U but that's at 8 o'clock I believe 8 o'clock in the morning I tried to find a zoom link couldn't find the zoom link so I had a real hard time directing the parents I was talking to to come to the policy meeting to find out what the discussion was about um there was a petition circulating uh but myself I didn't want to come down myself and start pushing for signatures until really wanted to get uh the The Urge um or the solution from parents in the district uh so but I don't have any information for them like I said because I don't have any access to the policy committee um so I'm hoping that the discussion that policy committee was aligned with so
007much other petition and wasn't handed in yet uh wasn't processed fully but the point is is that there are inter the the district has an inter School dist the district has an inter school choice District policy and there seems to be students being accepted by the superintendent outside the district before the inter School District applications are processed um if that if that makes sense and for one and in regarding the uh policy meeting um I figured this one would be good for policy kcb working with community members in in regards of policy um so I urge the board uh to prioritize taxpayers in rc1 when it comes to Choice uh inter school choice um and then lastly those who are not paying taxes um and if there is could go back to policy committee so
008there's a little more input from the committee uh from the district um it'll it'll help parents that are concerned about this this issue thank you thank you very much anyone else like to speak okay um yeah that will you uh if you've seen the agenda we are going to address that it's a first reading so it's not uh so there's still time for discussion between this meeting certainly and next meeting so it's just the first reading of the policy as it's been um uh redone I guess or uh re written somewhat so we'll look at that and certainly uh there'll be opportunities for discussion and that we'll have I think the board will explain a little bit um so that's where that is so thank you all right um seven we're at 7.0 uh Patrick
009yeah uh Selena Reid is here tonight she's a music teacher at fipb and at Dy new and we're very fortunate to have her in our district and she is going to make a brief present presentation to you and again we appreciate you staying through today to do this uh on student Le impro improvisational music and a little bit of her current research that she's done um with I think mostly second graders okay thank you for being here thank you so much for having me thank you for your time uh yeah my name is Selena Reed I'm the Elementary music school teacher at uh Dy n school and pipsburgh Elementary and I just wanted to show you a little bit of what's going on in rs1 Elementary music schools uh in our school and um a
010lot of it is early childhood informal musicing or music making and what I mean by uh informal music making if we can move to the next slide is uh student Le music making and improvisational music making so impr improvising being the students are making up their music on the spot I have a picture up of a bulletin board I have at Dy n that says there are no wrong notes and many times I ask students to step into a space where there are no wrong notes and to see what they create it's actually something really incredible um this next video you will see a small improvisational activity it's like two minutes and it's all focused on Rhythm what you'll hear me ask the students first is to be the same as me so some students
011might be coming in with a musical toolbox full of things to share that day and some might not so when I ask them to be the same as me I'm giving them a few Tools in their toolbox if they would like something to share then I ask them to be different than me and to make up a rhythm that is different than me on a neutral syllable something really low stakes and that's where the magic happens where students are creating something um from their own brain and then you'll hear me ask them uh if anyone wants to do the teacher job to raise their hand and that's where they can share their creations with their classmates my mother your mother live across the way every night they have a chat and this is what they
012the same as [Music] me mother mother every night they have a chat and this is what they say be different than me now mother mother acoss the every [Music] [Laughter] time if you would like to do the teacher job and give us some bump bumps to be different then raise your hand as we March I'll look around for teachers ready here we go my mother mother every night have a chat and this is what they say be different than [Music] Cohen be different than James I don't know that's okay you can make up anything you want there are no wrong bum bums [Music] be different than [Music] aelia looking around for teachers mother so what's actually happening in that video is something incredible rhythmically speaking so looking at the next slide on the left side
013um I have rhythms that curriculum wise these are rhythms that our first graders can read write create and perform in on the I'm so sorry on the left side on the right side are The rhythms that you heard students creating and if we look at the second the the middle Rhythm on the right side we're not even seeing that in high school curriculum Rhythm wise and this is what students are creating when I'm just asking them to be different than me which is so so cool so moving to the next slide we can improve students musical fluency with informal music making um bring them independent musicianship opportunities the ability to create in a small group uh in a 2016 Lucy Green study she found that 90% of her students preferred informal music making activities to
014formal or teacher-led music making activities and those informal activities increased engagement and motivation but all of this research is on students secondary level and above so last year I wondered what my second grade students were experiencing during informal music making activities and formal music making activities um so I performed and published research on this I gave students I led a few formal teacher-led music activities and I had students interview each other I wanted to avoid that teacher student power Dynamic I had students interview each other on what their experience was like during those music making activities those formal ones and then I created the most informal music activity possible I asked second graders to pick the instrument they wanted to play pick the people they wanted to play it with and make the music that
015they wanted to make and I stepped back for 30 minutes uh which was terrifying but it was incredible to to see what they came up with and students interviewed each other on their experiences and we'll see that data in the next slide these two charts are very similar for both formal and informal music making students reported mostly Pleasant experiences then of course students are experiencing something unpleasant as well maybe they both wanted to play the xylophone and only one of them could play um then we're affected by outside elements maybe we're hungry worried about soccer practice after school um some students reported a neutral experience uh my favorite was one student said that it was mid uh and there is only one data point that was unique to the informal music making activities versus the
016formal and that is this awareness of the self within the music making activity calling the music my music um describing the music as something that they can be proud of and this awareness of expression um so you know what I'll let the students uh tell you about it in this next slide what were you feeling what you were you feeling in what I was feeling well [Music] basically combination of between anger and like like um no not anger like I was feeling like like I'm expressing a lot music what what you were thinking about I was thinking about doing a good job when when I was playing the xylophone why well because I liked my music why really what thinking about what everybody was going to use when when we were playing our instruments I
017wondered if anybody was going to change their instruments why I don't know why did your feelings change to excited no so they stayed that happy yes were you feeling good and proud of yourself yes me too so second grade students self-reporting feeling proud of themselves feeling like the music belonged to them feeling like they could express a lot through the music and that was second graders talking to their own peers about their music making experience with informal music making you feel so so what does this look like when we get to Performance spaces uh my last video is a clip from the Winter concert at pipsburgh elementary school you'll see uh fourth graders up here on stage now we only had at this point I think 11 fourth graders at fipb elementary school all of
018the other people on stage are community members I had the pleasure of coming up to the microphone and inviting community members from our audience to come play drums with us because we were entering the world of no wrong notes and whether they felt like they were good musicians or not they could come up and play and be part of our music making Community I'm right there in the center and you might be able to hear right at the very beginning I my only instruction is one two make something new and everyone begins to create music at the same time and you'll see some fourth graders hop in and begin to facilitate that improvisational music making so all of the higher level creative choic that they are making in that moment on stage is absolutely incredible
019you can hear what they come up with he [Music] Hy h yeah I'm [Music] [Applause] so this is what students are creating when I just ask them to make something new and that's music that can never be created the same way again because it wasn't written down it wasn't told to the students it belonged to them and it belonged to us as a community so that is what is happening in rs1 Elementary music classrooms right now I have a few references at the end if you would like to look at um the research right now on informal music making I have that um that I can send to you as well but thank you so much for your time that's great thank you so much that's great very exciting any other comments no thank you
020for that it's fantastic all right um we've got uh committee reports finance committee I think we can wait till we wait till the because that's what it's all about so yeah you're gonna move on um to the student board rep report folks all right we don't have too much today um but we do want to start off with a congratulations to Morse drama they just put on a wonderful show um Puffs which is a two-hour comedy play kind of based on Harry Potter um it was an artistic feat with countless props beautiful set design and over 500 costume pieces that were managed by just two students um they put on three shows one on Friday and two on Saturday and spring sports are starting next week so we're looking forward to that if we're not
021snowed in s all right um and then also we recently just had our annual freshman awareness um couple of days um this consisted of two days between Hyde school and Bowden where our Freshman Class went to these schools and um saw seminars and guest speakers talk about self-esteem um drug awareness and um mental health that uh usually is a good time for the students um heard very positive things and then another thing is that um just recently this past weekend Morse has uh participated in an annual volleyball tournament for the second year running um and Charlie Bingham and Andrew peler um right here have played critical roles in making that happen as well as um a potential effort to make it an official sanction sport in the following year that Morse really is looking forward
022to uh hopefully participate in great that's great thank you very much all right uh let's see superintendent's report uh first thing I'll say is Bath Tech went to skills USA competition in Bangor uh March 14th and I just want to list off the students that received and placed in that competition so in criminal justice we had Olivia Warick who won a bronze medal and advertising design we had Madison terance win a bronze medal early childhood education we had Kylie bushard win a silver medal the cabinet making Henry putam won a bronze medal in prepared speech Everett Hunter won a silver medal and for the quiz Bowl we had EJ hunt uh Lyla Neptune Benner Nathan Tharp Alyssa kigga and they won a bronze medal as a team in an action skills uh Shakira cyprien won
023a silver met and silver medal and Carter colom Tacoma gold medal so it's a great experience for our kids and uh to have 11 students Place uh was very impressive this year couple other items just busy with you start in the reports but with elementary schools visiting Maine Maritime Museum patent Free Library Kinder concert which I think happened today with our schools but also other schools that were here here at Morse and uh chanki been visiting our schools to do animal presentations and also kelt has been here doing the salty program which stands for SE animal for tomorrow's youth uh read Across America was in March we had a lot of guest readers come into our schools which is great and also we have many of our swim lessons that are taking place for our
024third grade students at various schools uh Charlie mentioned U no I'm sorry Aurora mentioned the play um Morse Fine Arts night was another one that happened a couple weeks before that and it's just great to see the students artistic ability here as well as the coral and the rock band uh which which uh they're loud but they're good uh and then uh for Puffs I was able to come Saturday night and just a thank you to Sarah Coleman because and for the students I mean I think it's three months that they've been working on this play and it's a lot of time effort and for me the best part is at the end of that play to see the 40 to 50 to 60 students come out on stage and it's just 40 or 50
025students that could be might be sitting home doing nothing even if they have a part on stage crew or whatever their part is it's very important it's pivotal to make that work so again like the thank her because that's a long three months and the parents that have their students their children come out every single night uh it's it's neat to see and that's it and I would say too pass on one other thing I was in an English class today and there was a student from theater and she shared with her whole classmates as well as with Eric and Katie and I that um she was writing a piece on how theater in general has really provided her with self-confidence support and just something she'll never never forget and her her time that's wonderful
026thank you um Deb we've got the financial report okay um we're looking tonight at the end of February 8th month in 66% um so we've spent almost $26 million about 59% so things are going well spending is on track with our projections um as far as Revenue goes the same situation down there is that we've brought in almost well a little over 29 million and um so we're on track with that keeping an eye on all the grants making sure that we're spending those down as um we should be so um and then working on the budget and that's it any questions questions Jen um I really appreciate the grants being put on here because it really reminds me how much grant money that we see we spent a lot of time seeking that isn't
027you know is really helps keep our budget right in line I I it's really good for me to constantly be looking at that and I thank everyone who take the time to apply for that money um I was just wondering enrollment have the enrollment numbers changed anything dramatically and I wouldn't think anything dramatically I think the last report that I looked at was like 2090 so it was close okay thank you great thank you okay where we at um so now 11.0 old business so this is a second reading of board policies these are action items so we have um I'm just going to read them for the record here you have uh FB uh 11.1 well a what is it a FB facilities planning FF naming of facilities FFA memorials and ikb graduation exercises
028you saw this on the last last month so this one is action unless anyone has any questions issues yes can I make a motion yes by all means I move that we accept them all together yes and I move the approval okay second and the second from Jamie any other discussion or questions all right all in favor okay those pass and now we move on to 12.0 uh new business and Katie you are up thank you um I have three quick items I wanted to mention um in looking over the board goals um we haven't talked about um any of the initiatives under number two the safe and support of schools goal so I'm going to share an update on those to help Jen out with her um and so I know this was mentioned
029in a couple of the principal reports but we have had after our pilot last spring with just sixth grade second graders fourth graders and sixth graders now this year doing the leads program um with the bath police and the sagak um Sheriff's Office um both to help um with substance use issues as well as building positive relationships and making good choices essentially are the themes across all the different grades um and it's gone um wonderfully in our schools um and not sure if in Connor's report um for bath Middle School um you know the sixth grade in particular which we know can be a tricky time for when students start making different choices um you know they've already seen some um positive impacts of the kinds of behavior that seem different than in years past
030which is excellent um and also just students building relationships with law enforcement in a different and really positive way um and so I just wanted to let you know that it's going very well we plan to continue it um and we're so thankful for um the time that they've been giving us um because you know it takes multiple officers coming in weekly um to do these lessons for our students and so we're really really appreciative of that so obviously that's helping with that goal um also you know we had um Dustin Ward who was running our Dei committee last year um I took that over this year um and I just wanted to let you know that that group has still been meeting monthly um and our current plan is really exciting is taking um
031the vision and Mission and plan he helped us create um and working to um provide a template that all of our schools will go through um next year to really have them be thoughtful proactive around um the theme of all or welcome here are we really doing what we say we're doing what how does that look in our practices for all different kinds of um staff and students and families um and one of the ways we're sort of tackling adjusting that plan for our schools is having different groups of um students and staff in so this past week we had um some of our ml high school students come in with some of their staff and talk to us about what's been really helpful for them what are some adjustments we can make um or
032things they've experienced here that we can try to problem solve around um and our next meeting we'll have the high school's um safe group with um lgbtq plus um students and staff and um so we have sort of various goals where um and groups where trying to meet and speak with to help build sort of cultural um and climate safety um here and then the final one is you know part of this goal is building um social emotional well-being and competence in students and um our GT staff for the first time um at Woolwich this year it was for everyone in the district but it took place um through the student leadership group led their first um talent show and it had 15 student acts um 25 students grade four through eth grade it was
033completely student run um they uh made almost $500 and it was just a really great way of um sort of showcasing all the different ways we trying to build um mental positive mental health through different experiences like the play and sports and other leadership opportunities for students and so I'm just really proud of that group and wanted to share that too um and that that was my update I still don't have the title numbers from from the feds yet um for all those grants but as soon as I have them I will shoot an email if it's sooner than our next meeting great any questions for yeah go ahead um so Katie I think I remember that we did um the uh program with our sixth grade boys for a long time in witch and
034it was with the SAG Hawk sheriffs and I think it was called the D program back then I'm kind of dating myself here but is the is the program it's essentially the newer um newer researched version that's supposed to have um an even more positive impact they sort of moved away from Dare for different reasons but it's essentially this very similar idea yes thank any other questions for Katie yeah Katie I'm really glad that um we're circling back to this all our welcome concept of training because I know we'll have new staff and it's really nice that we can find a way to keep those previous trainings alive and active for them so thank you for that yeah and one thing actually that's a great point that I should mention is even though Dustin's not
035working with us full-time um we Patrick and I did have him come and do the training everybody got last this past August for new staff and we'll he's agreed to continue to do that every August so everyone um on their first day with us will um get that messaging and understand the importance of that here um in rsu1 which I I think we can be really proud of great thank you anybody else okay um so now 12.2 uh this is an easy item um first reading of the fiscal year 2026 proposed school budget and the reason the entire ad team is uh admin team is here and we appreciate you all being here tonight and so you want it I'm going to hand it over to Patrick and uh we'll go from there thank you
036somebody that has a budget workbook might have my cheat sheet with you so please don't share that with anybody but I I'm referring to it now but I can't find my hard copy anywhere so if you have it you have the answers to everything um I just want to let people know the finance committee met on March 3D and 133 and for those people that don't know the process our administrators come in principles and directors and they go through a cost center review so it's goals that they go over it's Staffing it's student enrollment and they also talk about needs uh future anticipated needs that they have and we also allow staff the board wants to see what our staff feels they need for themselves to teach as well as for our students in the
037classro so every year we've done this that first working document or if you want to call it a first draft of our budget is always high so to speak and then we look to the finance committee and to you know board members that might be at that meeting to give us a direction and so this year uh that first reading of the budget or first draft of the budget I guess I would say was was was very high um and so after that work session the finance committee agreed that we need to to reduce this significantly to get to a first reading so before I go into a little bit of detail um you know the main drivers of this budget include salary and benefits and part of that benefits is the main Paid Family
038Medical Leave loss of tuition and that is just um we have less students from West bath and Georgetown coming in just because they have less numbers of of students in general High Cost of supplies equipment and contracted Services which I don't think surprises anybody uh special education tuition and multilingual Services you've heard that all year the board has about our numbers increasing and we have to meet those needs so the ad administrative team went back and reduce non- labor by 1.2 million and that is basically bringing all cost centers I would say not all I would say the majority down to a flat increase or between a flat and a 3% increase there's again it might be one that um like ml where we we couldn't um reduce in that area um and we gave
039you the backup tonight there's four pages so that's why I have the administrative team here tonight if you had questions about that non- labor and what that's causing them to do without or if you have a specific question with the labor piece the team explored ways to achieve this you break it so not buying another so with the labor the team explored ways to achieve this by not filling certain positions that are vacated by retirements or resignations and we've also taken a close look at class siiz numbers across the system and there may be some shifting of positions as well within the district uh we also Deb did a salary adjustment I would call it for we had again the retirements resignations and and again shifting and and um making that more I guess I
040if realistic is the right word more accurate uh however you know there will be some staff that will be affected by this whether they're shifted or unfortunately um depending on the direction that we go in that could be affected as far as um not having employment with rsu1 so tonight for the labor part we're not going to go into detail about the the labor components this evening just because it's about timing we haven't had a chance to speak to the staff that um and again we're not talking about a lot we're just talking about I I I don't know the best way to say this but we're just we need time this week to talk to a handful of people to just talk about maybe some shifts or maybe uh how it's impacting them as
041far as um you know their their position in the district and so we just don't feel it's fair to to talk to you tonight and put that out there when we haven't had the opportunity to speak to somebody face to face we have another meeting with the association tomorrow we've already had one with them so we're just trying to do this as tactfully and as thoughtfully as as possible so um we will be able to share I mean we have a public forum next Monday the 31st and that's when we will be able to get into detail about where we're at with the labor and talk about non-labor further if you'd like to so the first draft for this evening the local contribution is an increase of 6.04% and on total expenses is an increase
042of 3.87% and your numbers might be off just a little bit um you know we we did it's it doesn't matter much but percentage by towns um we have aousc at minus 3.37 we have bath at 6.04% fipb at 5.22% and Woolwich at 8.04% on that front cover sheet for those of you that have it the second row of boxes I think is important for you just to take a look at I'm not going to walk through the whole thing but it shows you in that first box the average subsidized pupils and it shows you like for a rousk it was 40 students K to 12 in 2425 now they have 36.5 students and then you versus wowit 393.7 42.5 it's almost nine nine more students and then you look at the total per pupil
043cost in the next column how much subsidy they bring in and then over on the right hand side you see the town assessment which is the difference between those two numbers and then down below the local appropriation we've always kept this on here we go back to five years and so you can see the average for each one of our towns over the past five years for a local appropriation so I'll stop there and see if Lou do you want to add anything from the finance committee perspective um not a lot I just uh oh God I'm sorry I wasn't as specific as I should be about this but we the budget that the that the board has in front of them and those of you that are hear from the public is that it
044was approximately I'm going to use the term approximately 1.2 million for non- labor and about 1 million for labor so it's a $2.2 million reduction from again from that first rough draft where we had everything in in the budget and Deb do you want to add anything else no I think it might be good to point out that page eight that breaks down the percentage of so basically on the last page of this green document it just breaks down by category you know salaries or up 1.1 million 4.93% benefits supplies and that kind of thing it just kind of makes it um so that you can see more the drivers of what's in this budget and then of course Pages 1 through seven um is a breakdown by cost center and that's how the whole
045budget has to be reported and you know basically voted on at our um May 27th meeting we have to break it down by the cost centers and that's required by Doe so there's a detail of that okay great thanks stb so as you're looking at it um and just so public understands but when we go through with those couple meetings hearing from everybody and you know and we had the first setup which was obviously 2.22 million more that's when we realized how high that was and and that I still think the process is great in in terms of we want to see what everyone wants what would be ideal and in some years we can accommodate some of that or more of that but with the especially the health care cost looking like they're going
046to go up almost 177% possibly um for all staff that's something we have no control over there's a lot we don't have control over and so in looking all that we want to maintain uh the Integrity of as much as possible uh going into the next year and so I just want to thank uh all the administrators uh and and Patrick and Dev and you know for going through all this uh to be thoughtful to look at all of the different cost centers to really say what can we do where we're not stripping everything but we're still saving so we can maintain so we can go to the towns with what you know will be hopefully you know reasonable uh percentages in as far as an increase to say this is what we really need
047to function as well as we can uh we certainly would all like to to be doing more but I just wanted to say thank you and appreciate all the hard work I know this isn't easy this isn't fun I thought after last year oh this budget will be easy compared to last year it's not and you know that's just how it is so um again uh very just you know just very proud to be part of a board a board that has such a great team of people people who are working on this and care very much about their schools the students the staff and um how that ultimately interacts with the community so thank you for that uh is there as you all are looking at it do you have some while the admin
048folks are here do you have questions or concerns about some of the stuff you're looking at that you'd like to ask I know Jen does you want to start and then others will jump in go ahead so on the first page um Patrick the state subsidy there's an increase in that which is wonderful to see but how I know that we've got a continuing budget at the state level and I know that that was I understand that that secured some funding for that for education but is the U increase in state subsidy is that locked in at this point yeah I reached out to Robbie fineberg from Main School management last week and he felt um pretty confident that that vote that they had last week was that step one I know there's another vote
049coming up but he felt like that that um pretty much locked in our state subsidy okay thank you um still on page one I'm just gonna say that I'm kind of sad to see that W which has the greatest percentage increase again from Bath fburg and wo which arous six numbers are a little hard to gauge because they don't because of the amount of students are very different than their increase um as a former math person I always don't like to see the word average because it takes outliers in I think mean is a much better gauge there but um I guess it's a it does kind of show Trends and I do I know that wch has more students um but what I was trying to find and I went back in the last
05010 years I tried to look through emails and and I couldn't find some hard copies but I was wondering is there a way to get um not in a whole 10year but you know several years of trending to see the um Town assessment the total cuple cost less of subsidy that last box for wool wi let's say over the last five or years or something like that is that a really hard thing to get to I think we it should be because it's like on a front page of this and I moved recently so I couldn't find all my front pages but I I'm trying to track to see how that cost has been increasing every year so that would be a question I mean I have it since we became an IR great I'll
051I'll come to your desk and get that thank you um and then to the last page um this is just something I'm trying to Noodle through but is there any way where we could look at the additions that we've had in the past if they were all um Grant funded or how what the funding was for that I was thinking about how programs start as grant funding and don't cost us anything and then end up as permanent cost in the budget and um it's great because we test those programs out relatively no cost to us and we find they're really great programs and then we want to incorporate them but I was I was kind of wondering if that is a trend in increasing some of those thing our cost our budget costs by starting
052out for free and then increasing that so in the in the last two budget years is there any way of looking at those additions and finding out if those were covid money grant money free money or if they were out of if they were programs that started within our budget okay uh and that's that and then I guess the reductions um I like things as cost centers because I can look at them clear but I just quickly went through this and I was wondering I see a lot of AC reductions to academic programs um I don't see that many reductions to Athletics and I was wondering if the total athletic reduction maybe not as dollar amounts because I'm sure their budget smaller but as we're reducing all other areas if we're seeing that same percentage
053reduction in in athletic so we're all sharing that throughout is that something that would be there's a there's a couple of items within Mo within BMS for athletics yeah very like and then also the labor okay just trying to see see if we're cutting across the board if everybody is taking a equal percentage of of these rollbacks thank you and again I don't know that I don't know that any year it's you know equal percentage of whatever term you just use roll backs or um savings because it's just a difficult um every year is a little different um and I think we do talk as an ad team about every cost center um you know was like participating isn't the right word contributing contributing to this um effort and so we do keep that in
054mind and you will see um some different things you know as as we go into next week as well any other Kurt were yeah some of it is uh cost shifts um with the Staffing that we have now versus the Staffing we have next year and that's not a perfect science because we haven't hired some of the people and know what what step they'll come in at but there was some adjustments that that we felt we could make with that so I I would say that um we mentioned this at Finance is that we have the capital Improvement fund and we haven't we've been contributing to that and we haven't we've been fortunate we haven't used that so big projects like the the paving at pipsburgh the HVAC controls at Woolwich and what am I
055forgetting bathrooms at bathroom renovation at BMS those were we pulled those out because we feel like we can take those and still have a a healthy balance in that um in that fund so that was that was helpful to do anything else Kurt go ahead uh just wanted to clarify I see the reveal math which I was so excited about but we're still getting still getting it yeah we're going to be able to use um some grant funding and other um sources for that so and I negotiated the contract with different years and whatnot so we don't have to worry yeah so you'll still get supplies just not through this correct do you have other avenues correct yep did you have other no oh okay um anybody else [Music] um is there I don't know
056I guess it's more a general question of I mean when when all of you were looking at this and you were cutting different things for your your centers is that this is what you were you've felt feel you can live with if you need to for this next year I assume is that how kind how you went about it it was just what can we live with and what's essential you're keeping is there I just was I'm hoping there's nothing that you feel is essential that you absolutely had to cut I mean are we feeling that way or are we feeling it's it's it's hard but we can do it for the non- labor is that kind of just trying to get a feel for I know no one wants to cut I don't want
057to cut either but I'm just I'm just trying to get it I just want to make sure that there's because as you know she said I know we can look for Grants or we can look for alternative funding sources or things if we have to for something if as as this as we progress with the budget that we feel oh we really can't you know it's a big mistake to leave you know something out I hope we continue to have those discussions um because uh you know so a lot of this stuff's important and if we can you know do without it for possibly a year and find alternative activities for the kids or things they can do that you know still work that's great but I am I'm still somewhat concerned and I know
058that um I think Dub's going to work on possibly for next week but soon if we we start to have some numbers because it's one thing to talk percentages but if if you can really look at a budget and say oh if we increase it this percent an average house of x amount is going to have to pay this much more then it becomes oh it's 2,000 more a year or it's $50 more a year those kind of numbers are very important because percentages can be misleading sometimes and I don't know what it is maybe it is very high maybe it's not as bad as we thought I don't know but that that can help inform how we proceed uh going forward so I know we'll have those numbers at some point uh so we
059can continue with that discussion as well and I I appreciate you looking into that Deb um because that will help uh clarify some things as well um as as uh as Rue who's sitting over there could tell you as the city looks at uh for bath anyway and they're what what they're going to go up with and I we haven't heard yet about the county so it's like all this stuff together but at least we can look at from our budget how much that um may increase in individuals you know depending on what town you're from uh property tax and I think that that will help inform just inform uh so we can make good decisions that's all yeah right right how how the mill rate so you really know you know it might be
060wow this is outrageous in one town maybe not as bad in another town or maybe you know what what does it look like I don't know uh but I'd like to so so I think that's important and uh yeah so was there anything else regarding the budget um so we can let all these folks go home quietly and say yeah go ahead yeah go ahead maybe so I just want to make sure I understand is that um page eight top first um expense the salary line um that means that this the $1,102 th000 increase is from last year the difference between what our labor is this year versus last year total labor what we had budgeted okay I we may have budgeted different staff obviously last year because we were budgeting you know back in
061the January of the year before right so this is based upon all salaries um that have been NE negotiated and approved then so that's where that comes from so is this our first year at the new contract with the new contract salaries yes y okay first year in the budget right yes 2425 that we're in right now we're paying those salaries but last year we didn't know what th those were going to be so right first year bu this is the first year of what we truly know okay thank you okay anything else all right well thank you all and uh for the admin team you may all go home Drive slowly and um be safe and thank you thank you thank you for being here this is immense amount of work I know it's
062just the beginning but thank you so much appreciate it very much all right okay um all right so 12.3 is the first reading of board policies this is no action so it's a first reading regarding uh these policies and they are uh gab job descriptions gbec drug free workplace jfbb school choice jlc administration of medication in schools and I think Jen were you going to comment on a couple things before and again not an not an action item tonight but if people have questions thank you sure so I'm going to speak to the school choice policy um in terms of uh what we looked at at this policy um so before it even came to the board we've the policy committee has met twice on it in terms of we really wanted to make sure
063because we had got some communication and requests about this policy wanted to make sure that we were looking deeply at the policy and considering those requests um we went through uh the policy and the process with Patrick about how this policy actually works we found um that uh any changes that we were or questions we had about the policy were really just very non-technical questions that we were very comfortable with Patrick's explanation of it's a very fluid process is that this is because it has to do with balancing the needs of the school buildings and the classrooms and the needs of the students coming in the timing of how each request is made is very sequential and so we have to balance all of that as we get ready for the school year and um
064Patrick's explanation of that very fluid balancing process and taking into considerations all the needs for students and the schools that we as a policy committee felt very good about the current policy and about how it's being implemented so um it's um it's a Rubik's Cube to fit all these things together but we do think that it's every request is taken um with deep consideration and we thought the process worked very well so only very as we say in the routine very just routine kinds of semantic changes that we made for any wording at all great so that's that's that and we'll address it next time any questions in the meantime let us know uh 12.4 is overnight field trip requests we have uh Morse High to East Orland moris going to Camp uh is it
065wavis Jefferson Morse High to I'm not even going to pronounce it um in waren New Hampshire and uh then wo Wich Central School going to DC because it's that time of year again right uh to get that sub so can we take this one you have a question okay um so I uh I really appreciated that the woit central request um was able to fill in the funding source I didn't see the funding source on the other three requests and I also look they look like they're two different forms and I know one's a van request form and the other one is not requesting a van um but I I don't know if that having a van or not having a van makes it different and I was just trying to you know um like
066like one form has pre-planning activities the other one doesn't have pre-planning activities I really appreciate it on all the forms that we uh indicated the main learning results guiding principles so how it hits the main learning results it's really helpful to see that this is what why we're doing these things um and it's good to have that backup uh but I was just wondering about the funding sources for the mors high school ones I mean I know can speak the Outing club it's that's funded like it has been in the past but there's one the camp wavis is different but yeah yeah the um's that the two outing club ones are are funded um through our co-curricular funds that we have we put forward for the the um Outing club which is also it's a
067lot of that is Grant reimbursed um through teens to Trails okay um and and the question about the forms is that is one one's a smaller group so we're going with a van and so it just the the van request is slightly different than the just purely field trip permission when we're taking a bus um and we can be more cognizant on the um putting those those numbers in for the accounts I like the fact that it's Grant or non-grant I think that would be great to see um just as we're looking at all non-labor costs it's nice to see that this is Grant funded so this not um I think that that really helps um so yeah the funding sources adding in there would be great and then um yeah I think that was
068my I love that the um I noticed that there was a pre-planning activities on the wowi form that's on that form that isn't on this form and I I don't know if that need that or not I just different that's thank you yeah all right um and then what is it the other one is the safe Club is that what it what's yeah what's the camp wavis one I'm sorry that's an annual trip that our safe Club goes on for students who elect and you know parent permission and whatnot to go to a program that camp wavis runs um called Rainbow Ball oh okay for students in in safe clubs uh Statewide excellent that okay great thank you thanks for the clarification um it's good to having the record uh all right so can we
069take that as one may I have a motion Megan seconds all right all in favor thank you all very much and now we move to Personnel items 13.0 yeah we have a few resignations uh just like to recognize these people Amy Henderson Goldberg Goldenberg is grade three teacher at pipsburgh and thank her for two years of service we have Katie Walker secretary Dyke Newell thank her for I think we have her down as five and a half years of service but we'll call it six and Sarah Rand our special ed director thank her for three years of service or all be done at the end of this school year uh retirements Jee mcgan who's an ed Tech at mors high school but has been in a variety of schools throughout the district uh thank her
070for 30 years in the district and Kim Kendall who's a special ed secretary for the district around IEPs and she's located in central office now uh for 39 years in the system and then 13.1 c um maybe I should have left um chuong um on the agenda for last time but there was confusion about whether she was going to be able to join us so I didn't have and she end up starting on March 10th so it's more of an FYI for you uh I did give you her credentials in her you know in the backup um so we're we're pleased to have her and um so anyway that's it um okay uh board goals Jen thank you Katie for helping us uh reach uh our goal number two safe and supportive schools and I
071would even venture to say that we' both we've also met the goal three prek programming and uh goal four facility goals because they are part of our budget process so I think we've hit three of those goals um okay so what's going to happen now is uh we're going to go into executive session um and when we come back it's just a couple announcements so there's no reason you know people don't have to stick around um so this is uh executive session pursuant to Economic Development 1 MRSA 4056 C and we need what we have to motion to go in so moved second all in favor I'm sorry go culinary okay yep all right guys we're gonna go to culinary I love that music demonstration oh my God e e e are we all here
072can I have a um motion to come out of executive session so moved second okay all in favor and then the last two items are simply uh that we're meeting next Monday and that's also at 6 yes and here here at 6 um and that uh then it's uh end of a what is it April 20 8 is our next uh boardless the board after Monday night if you feel like we should have another public forum then we talk okay yeah if we need to do that beforehand okay great uh adjourn and yes yes all in favor thank you e