001okay I'd like to call the meeting to order if we could all stand for Pledge of Allegiance justjust in the way of comments I wanted to note that we are going to be doing another board workshop on December 17th which is a next board meeting it'll probably be conducted in a similar fashion to the to the way we did our our first and only board or a workshop it at this point so we'll do a brief regular meeting and then go into the workshop we're gonna focus in this in this workshop we're going to focus on mental health issues mental health concerns and we'll work over the next couple of weeks to narrow that topic down and get information out to you and out to the public so that everyone who would like an opportunity
002to participate in that workshop does have that opportunity the meeting will be here at the at the middle school and I also just want to make sure everyone notes that the minutes and report of from the breakout groups of the last workshop is posted on our website on the irishman website okay just one a couple of other things put things in in our in the packet you you've got the reports from from the administrators and I just want to make sure that everyone had the opportunity to look at Justin particularly all the reports were great thank you to the principals and administrators who put those reports together but just take an extra look at Justin's report on on special education where he provides numbers and identifies the our special needs population by handicapping condition a
003couple of number just jump out at you about almost twenty percent of the current school population receives some special education service but that's about this on par with where we were last year it's a it's an impressive number for sure the other report I just want to point out is Lindsay's report on communications I am really impressed with with the the amount of material that we seem to get out in in the print media and I think that you know thanks to you Patrick for identifying that opportunity I think we we certainly are getting our fifty thousand dollars out of Wednesday up to this point it's it's been a good investment for us I think anyways and hopefully it just gets good news on the district out to the community okay sure since you brought
004it up I I really did like the communications report - it was wonderful to kind of see the things that are being worked on but I'd like to I think the district wide newsletter isn't the same thing as the school newsletters that are sent out I think that's a different topic and I was just wondering if we have the principal's in here if we could please ask them when they do their newsletters on the Friday before our school board meetings if they could just include a note that there will be an upcoming school board meeting I think it would really help remind the public that they get that newsletter on a Friday that you know Monday night is the meeting it might help them plan for childcare or something like that and it would I
005think just help having more people involved in our meetings thank you okay thank you okay item 4.0 we have minutes for the October 28th meeting do I have a motion to approve we have a motion by Bill's second by Lu take a look at the minutes any corrections changes to those minutes all in favor of approving the minutes any opposed okay thanks item 5.0 adjustment to agenda item 6.0 this is our first public session our first public comment period and it is to be used for comments that folks may have to address items that are on the agenda does anyone have a comment if not Thanks okay item 7.0 staff reports we have a presentation on our unified Sports Program and I think we've been doing this for what three years now I think Patrick
006so we just received some recognition being that's the reason for the presentation tonight but really to be recognized as a Special Olympics unified champions district in high school and just to give you a little bit of history we have the basketball team and this year we just started the volleyball team and so I'm gonna let Becky broke and Charlie Bingham and a few of our students speak to their efforts thank you for coming tonight what that means is that there are different steps to becoming a champion school there's emerging developing and then full implementation and as of this year we were granted the full implementation of the unified schools being a champion school and there are 56 across the state that are champion schools there are a hundred and six schools across the state that
007are actually working towards this so we are one of the 56:53 rather that are full implementation and what that means is that we have unified sports teams we have volleyball and basketball it means we have youth leadership and for us that is our phys ed class and then whole school engagement and it's just some programs that we have been doing at the high school to engage the entire population with the help of inclusion so we're just going to go through some of these slides this year it was the first year for our unified volleyball it was very successful the only downside was that there are only three teams that actually three schools rather that had teams so it was us Oxford Hills and Lisbon Lisbon couldn't get their act together as far as having enough
008athletes and so we didn't end up getting a game with them but we were able to get a doubleheader with Oxford Hills we traveled over to their place first and then they came to us I'm not sure if the highlight was the actual game or the pizza party and social afterwards but they had a great time going over to Oxford Hills and then we hosted them here as well we also to wrap up our season we had a game with a faculty and staff just kind of an extra opportunity to get us to play another game as well as that camaraderie in the building and making it aware of what we actually are all about to the faculty and staff so that was a lot of fun as well as you guys know we've done
009basketball for the last two years this will be our third season with basketball and that again is just a huge community builder not only within our school but also in the community we've had an opportunity to do some community outreach we played the Baths PD for a fundraiser game and that was a lot of fun everyone had you know smiles on their faces for that we also were able to during our winter carnival we played the faculty there as well so we had about how many would you say 300 kids and faculty all in the pit which is as you guys know is a great arena for something like that they're all they're cheering us on and got to watch the faculty the teachers actually play against us so that was a that was a
010big hit during one a carnival and we plan to continue continue with that like I said the second criteria for us to be full implementation is our youth leadership and I'm gonna have Charlie speak to this a little bit we have a couple students here from the phys ed class the unified phys ed class and that's right now that's where our youth leadership comes from so I'm gonna have them speak to that miss Rock also didn't tell you she won the first unified volleyball game in the state of Maine history and they were to an O this year so raishin 17 one thing and we actually present it for the Special Olympics Ian Frank who's the head of the Special Olympics in the state of Maine asked me to present to the UM to about
011unified phys-ed for the state of Maine phys ed teachers conference and we are the only school High School in the state of Maine that teaches a unified phys ed program so thank you to administration for letting let's do that and letting us start this so we we had to present in front of all that phys ed teachers in the state and I actually got an email last week from Brunswick their Department had asked him to come and observe our class and to get our notes for the class and see how things are run so and that's the third person that's coming up here of the unified class in the last three years so it's been really great one of the things we do is again what's great about the class it's a split 50-50 we
012have have special needs students and a half regular education students and they kind of partner up with each other and we give them a list of activity they get to choose some of the activities that they want to do and win a grant from the Davenport foundation a few years ago so we got to go kayaking on the new Meadows River but the help of sea spray kayaking and then one of the kids wanted to go fishing and so we went fishing down into Crossett and we actually had mr. coolers come down and give a demonstration of how to go do fishing and all this stuff and our kids did all this one thing that was great about this it's not just for the students it's for the helpers as well because some of our
013helpers they had never been fishing either one thing that was really interesting about that is mr. Pinkerton they're all principal goes you need a fishing license whoa forgot about that so we had to apply for a one day pass for everyone in the class to get the fishing license and it was really cool it came down gave up stickers to everybody was really great and a lot of fun and we had two kids that have gone fishing now since then the next one we did for a field trip is we went horseback riding which was pretty amazing this place down in southern Maine they have special harnesses and ramps to get people in wheelchairs up onto the horses and things like that it was a tremendous and five of our other students that had never
014been on a horse either so again in phys ed we put kids in places a lot of times where they're not comfortable so both them when their peers were uncomfortable together so they were going through this together going through some of the same anxiety and that's really what this class is about is doing this these things together and it's been a lot of fun I didn't know if any of you want to speak to these are three of our students that are in our phys ed class and I didn't know if you guys wanted to talk a little bit so my name is Alex maceió and I joined this class at the beginning of sophomore year bingo like reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be part of this and I thought
015it would be like a good opportunity you know to go in there and like learn some skills as well as like help kids out and also try some stuff about like stuff that I really haven't done before and we went to you up in Portland and I actually had a lot of fun and everybody and meeting new people and overall this has just been like really fun hi I'm Delaney pastuzo and I'm part of unified PE and unified volleyball which is fun but unified is like a good chance to help people out and I don't know it feels good knowing like you're making a difference and my name's Ben I live in Woolwich and I think it was a good program because it gives the students that aren't like really able to do stuff that
016we can a chance to do it like one thing that's really interesting and it didn't show there um we had one young lady in a wheelchair and she goes I wanted to show everybody how it feels to be in a wheelchair so we put a thing on Facebook and we brought wheelchairs in and we played basketball and everyone had a wheelchair and everybody was excited at the end of class she was mr. Bingham that didn't go the way I thought I thought people would be upset that he had to go in the wheelchairs but they really enjoyed it we actually I actually got in trouble because I was racing one of the young ladies down the hall one day in the wheelchair but I think we all have these perceptions of what people think and
017these when you go through the class and when you see these kids and experience the things they have you get a whole new light on what's going on on and art the lives of our students and I'll say this again this program what we've done what our school has done has changed my life and I know what's changed life says a lot of other kids do so thank you for letting us do that and hopefully we can continue it yeah so not to take up too much more time but the last section or last criteria is the whole school engagement and so last year with the civil rights group as well as shipbuilders committed we were able to put on spread the word to end the word campaign and so a bee-sh readin along with
018the civil rights club put this great video together it's only a couple minute video about spreading inclusion so I just wanted to show you guys that real quick so as we're waiting for that to work I'll move on a little bit I think it was Alex that was talking about the Youth Summit that we were able to go to we took about 30 kids down to this Youth Summit down at sable Oaks it was a Special Olympics inclusion revolution and our students were able to you know get to know I think there's over 350 other Maine students that were there at this summit and they talked about different opportunities that they were involved in these different schools as well as opportunities that we can now take back to Moore's high school and implement into the
019things that we do and so part of that whole school engagement is we're going to put a Youth Council together driven by the students and their ideas and excitement that they brought from that Youth Summit and bring them back to Morris so that's kind of exciting as well and here's the video [Music] or anyone a [Music] that's so crazy [Music] dictionary [Music] he's 19 [Music] flex ready looking out for the bully pledges just spreading by looking out for the isolated I pledge to spread inclusion by looking after each other and to looking after the bully choose to include spread the word to end the word okay so that that video was done but again I think I said a bee-sh readin she did a great job on that so from this youth summit they have
020been able to be exposed to some of these different activities such as this that we can bring it back to the high school so we're really looking forward to putting that Youth Leadership Council together another whole school engagement we were fortunate enough to host the Special Olympics track meet last spring where we had again we had a ton of involvement from the more students as well as we had the Baths PD they're handing out the ribbons for that day which was really special for the kiddos that were getting the ribbons so this is a picture from when we were down at that youth summit when we were down there the kids also had an opportunity to present their phys ed class and they did a circuit so they did some circuit training and the kids
021were able to go around to the different circuits and teach them how to perform the exercise and then they did a whole big dance as well which was a lot of fun it was just it was a great day for the kids to be leaders and to kind of stand out above the rest of the kids that were there and they did a great job and they rose to the occasion all right action plan moving forward like I talked about we want to develop this Youth Leadership Council and run some other campaigns like our choose to include campaign we also want to run an anti-bullying campaign as well as a youth athletics program which are kids from the high school would go down to the elementary schools and so maybe we'd go over to Woolwich
022and put on a little clinic for the students down over at Woolwich and then for Unified sports we'd like to expand that a little bit as well we want to an alumni game together we have a lot of current alum that will be back over the holidays in January when we start up with unified basketball and we'd like to bring them back in and do a little fundraiser game with them the MPA is also offering bocce this spot this spring so it's going to be NPA sanctioned sport so that's really exciting for the MPA they're also trying to get swim and track underway because right now what happens with swim and track they have this one Special Olympics event that they go to and so they want to build more opportunities for the athletes to
023be involved in an actual league where they get more opportunities to compete versus just that one big Special Olympics event or activity on that to is one thing that these kids that are now used to playing unified basketball unified sports we're trying to get them when they graduate because there's nothing really for them to do once they get out of here and so that's one of the things that the state is struggling with and the Special Olympics are struggling with like why isn't there a program at the YMCA or anything like that for adults with disabilities and so that we're trying to try to gather some information maybe work with all Marsten things like that to get some of those kids back in and so we can have programming for them as well [Music] any
024question I mean this is your your enthusiasm for this I mean really is is incredible and you're to be congratulated which might have been a year ago I would probably said the same thing but you've you've taken this program you've expanded it it's just fabulous the participation by by our regular instruction kids as well as the special needs kids who were in the program is just is really I mean for me it's what education is I do I have a one specific question before you did the unified model that Charlie you talked about that what how did you conduct your phys ed so it used to be years ago when I first took the job as a phys ed teacher we did a whole pull out and it was just those kids and because of
025the way things have gone we did those kids didn't need phys ed every year so it was a smaller group so there might be three or four kids in a class and you need a specialized certification for that so when we went to unified we don't need that certification anymore and so I can do it and I think it brings up great leadership qualities and the other skills and really is transformed our department and I think the state was of doing that so it's really great I Tina what's good night I know you guys are worried about education all that stuff but I think that picture right there is really important to me because we talked about our content and how great it is it's really about the relationships those two guys graduated together last
026year and without what we have done they would have never met and today that's that that's the beauty of what we do it's the relationships and those two will never forget that so when we when we talk about education it's the whole person that's what I mean we focus on the academic side of it but there's this whole other relationship in a relational aspect of it and a human it's about humanity really how do how do we teach teach our kids to to move on to the next step in society generally and it involves these kinds of relationships and skills that they develop through this program so any any questions from the board on this it's great now we know when the question comes up on on Jeopardy you know who what what phys ed
027instructor in the state of Maine won the first Unified volleyball championship we know we'll know who what the answer is congratulations self congratulation see you to the kids you brought here tonight to present to everyone who participates in this program thank you very much thanks [Applause] okay item 8.0 committee reports Patrick building project yeah the new high school as you drive by you can see a lot of yellow you can see a little bit of gray now as well on the front the brickwork will continue its on happening on the east and the south side right now but throughout the whole winter there will be tenting and heating of that building so that the masonry can continue the front lobby stairs and the theater stairs are now installed and some interior walls are started to
028go up in the school a lot of the under slab mechanical systems are being put in place and underground electrical an IT conduit is putting put in place and finally last Friday we had some weather that allowed us to Crooker to pave so if you go up there close to the building now there is paved all around the back entrance of the school as well and that's just a base layer they'll come back obviously right before we open the building and put another layer of pavement down and the geothermal well is a hundred percent complete which will again allow air conditioning in the whole school as well as heating of the school so everything is going as planned it's on budget it's on schedule and the next big step for us is to have a
029committee of staff and students that will be put together soon to help pick out the furniture desks chairs and all kinds of other things that goes into the school thanks any questions of Patrick on the building we're pretty much on schedule still ok that's an affirmative from Patrick I notice you're putting they started to put the supports in for the bridge entering which which is great eight-point-two curriculum assessment instruction update kt evening everyone so just one quick thing Brandon just let me know that at 6:30 there's gonna be an overhead announcement because of conferences and he apologizes for that because we will hear it so I'm very excited I have two people here from our library department across RSU want to talk about some of the great things that are happening in the program and
030they've actually put together I've just heard I didn't know this was happening something for you to watch as well it should be really interesting so Donley our morse librarian and abby Lukey's our Woolwich librarian will be coming up and I'm looking in the audience I also see Mike Parker here who's not presenting but one of our librarians and so am I missing anybody else no I think that's it so I'm gonna turn it over to all of you thank you for putting this together we're really excited all a few minutes though because I don't want to start it and then have the announcements go through it i'ma be Lukey's I'm the Woolwich librarian and this is Dawn remorse thank you so much for letting us come and share with you some of what we do
031dawn reminded me that the last time we did this was 2009 so it's nice to be back we figure between the two of us we can talk about the library experiences and programming for our youngest students in pre-k all the way up to our graduating seniors Don and I are both really passionate about libraries but like ad mentions we have a video that can mor invite you more into our our schools and share with you what is happening at least at Morse and Woolwich with our students in their libraries hi I'm John Denver I'm in the social studies department here at Morris and being a new teacher here at Morris this year I was very interested to see what the library could provide I know that a good library is really important to the health
032of a school community and so I was really pleased in in discovering that this is a fantastic place a great resource for for staff and for students and also every time I've come down here this is a very lively place a very welcoming place I see kids here learning socializing appropriately enjoying each other's company and enjoying being part of the Morris community and so I'm really pleased to see that this is not the kind of library that sees itself business or the guardians of the holy artifacts but really more as a living place and an active community evolving [Music] my school library has a lot of books here and I love I'm gonna try and read every single one time to time I'm in eighth grade [Music] the library has always provided me with a
033safe space to come and be myself it's really given me a way to improve myself not only as a student but as a person I always find myself wrapped up in most fascinating intellectual conversations with the librarians it's one of the most amazing places I can ever think of my school library goes far beyond a 40-minute class for our students our librarian provides opportunities outside of library class like battle of books and author visits we just participated in global read aloud and all of that comes from a collaboration with the librarian also we collaborate on curriculum interpreting research skills how to find resources and responsible digital behaviors [Music] I'm grateful for my library because they help me with capstone and research [Music] my school library is a place where I can come and feel comfortable
034where my students can come and find books that they are interested in reading where my librarian can get together with me and a group of students and have book talks and book groups after school where kids can play games where they can feel welcome and safe one of the things that I appreciate is the fruit bowls that they provide on produce Tuesdays it's fun to be able to go down and get a bold fruit bring it back have it in my room for the kids to enjoy so thank you Donna and Brenda from making that happen it seems like a little thing but it really is a big thing the library provides a home for our kids and that is so obvious and the relationships they build are strong so thank you again for making
035that happen [Music] my school library is extraordinary [Music] the library is a great place to study and hang out with friends [Music] my school library is key with my instructional practice one collaboration we do a lot of collaborating together research skills the big six turn into the small 32.4 fifth grade tech integrations and other key piece we're actually planning for podcasts in preparation for our argument and working together is way more beneficial for students I'm super appreciative [Music] one of the most important skills that we can teach our students today is how to be critical consumers of information from news articles to information that they're using for research projects to find out the truth and the evidence behind arguments in order to support them I find the library to be one of the most invaluable
036places to help teach kids those skills and to help me as a teacher my school wider is awesome [Music] questions any any questions yes we have a library and among us I like your video a lot thank you very much and like you said I saw a lot of Woolwich and Morse there so I was just wondering if you the librarians feel like there's anything you might need for the library's need to meet the students all of the students in our SU one school libraries actually this classroom that's pretty awesome we have a potential to see every staff member and every student but all of our schools need to have a certified school library media specialist to deliver those services at school library media specialist is not we're basically collaborators we're teachers first and we
037collaborate we form partnerships with teachers to provide research skills to provide critical thinking skills 21st century information literacy skills and we're also tech gurus and behind that together it's a pretty awesome place there's 55 years of data and study that show that there's a school library media specialist in a building that increases student achievement and that I find to be compelling we're linked to higher graduation rates we're linked to mastery of academic standards across all content areas whether it's math or reading or science as Charlie mentioned earlier that's all good but we also form this wonderful safe place for kids at Morris high school since 2008 we have run a full-fledged food pantry that has grown by leaps and bounds we also provide a whole host of services that bring social aspect to kids we're
038a safe space where a lot of students Harbor when they don't feel safe and I think that has paramount to any school library so but we need to have certified personnel on all of our buildings to be able to provide those services right now we do a great job but we could do a better job because there are some schools that don't have a certified school library media specialist and that's sad because they're not receiving the same services that which amorous because there's not the staff thank you thank you just that kind of you know segways and a question do you what what is your what support does patent-free library provide or can it provide to enhance the services that you provide in the schools I mean you ever you have a relationship there we
039actually do a lot of haunted house talking about building our relationships but we find that actually at on high school we that's where students go we've tried to do a lot of after-school programming and enhance that as enrichment but as far as resources go it's better in house because our kids are right there in terms of the collaborative relationship at Woolwich obviously the schools closed for the summer and so I always have the teen librarian come over introduce ourselves to the students so they know who their summer librarian will be and encourage students to use patent-free over the summer break for other other breaks and now there is a new there's a new children's librarian Katie so she's also been great and reached out and just sharing always sharing the programming that they're doing and
040encouraging our students to utilize that as another thanks.thanks I think one thing we've from from the discussion because I also served on the patent-free library board just the concern with the with the new high school being that much further away from you know from patent-free whether or not we can continue to build some of those afternoon programs that that you know the library has by with transformed you know supporting it with transportation if possible things like that relationships are very important yeah okay any other comments questions no okay thank you very much thanks okay 9.0 Tanner you're it student representative November is usually the first month of the year where students are fully in their the swing of things for lack of a better term where you settle down to the school and you're starting
041their get the hang of it so freshmen sophomores and juniors had pSATS this month which went well the 90th mo high bow was a success we had two female students in the senior class commit to d1 schools Olivia Harbor for swimming at the University of Tennessee and Dori coolest for softball at Merrimack College which is obviously a huge point of pride for the Moores community we had parent-teacher conferences tonight which will continue tomorrow and I know guidance has gone around and met with most juniors I believe in their English class to talk about next steps whether that be the SAT a CTE or college search as far as I'm concerned everything is going very well great great thanks very much Tanner ten point Oh Patrick superintendents report tanner is new i think i'ma have to
042check in with him because he took about two or three of my items so we'll check next time so i only have a couple things it's it's just nice to see this time of year our students taking the initiative to give back to other families into the community at a time when some for some families and community members you know food is tough to come by and another resources so the food drives that we have as well as inviting the community members into our schools is it's nice to see and then the only other piece i'll touch on is just that all of our schools are collaborating closely with you know fire departments and police departments just to update our crisis plans and evacuation plans and Bath PD as well as the Sheriff's Department were
043always very willing to give us advice and to consult with which we very much appreciate and that's all I have thanks any questions and Patrick could you um I just wanted to recognize the student makerfaire as well we had a really great student maker fair at diagnol school a week or so ago and it was just a great experience so I wanted to make sure that the PTA group got recognized for that and all the students that participated it was really awesome thanks Anita yeah i attended i bought raffle tickets i'm not sure you've done the raffle draw yet but not yet Oh better luck next year okay ten point to financial report tonight we're talking about the month of October and we have spent eight point nine million dollars out about thirty three million
044dollar budget this is twenty six percent it's a little bit higher than last year last year was twenty two percent and it's only because there were three pay periods in the month of October so the timing received 11 million dollars of our revenue and that one is right on line with what we've done in the past it shows this report shows amount remaining of twenty four million and and next month that you'll see a big switch between the encumbered and the amount remaining because I've encumbered the salary and benefits so you'll see that on the November report that's about sixteen million for the rest of the year this time of year I take a look at budget versus actual for a tuition revenue and we're down about three students from what was budgeted so the
045revenue shows a little bit short until the tuition rates are set by the state and then you know we'll smooth that difference out the audit is done I have a draft copy and next month I should be able to have copies to you from Hank but I did want to point out for food service that this is the first year in six years that was showing a positive balance now let's do of course to the extra amount that we contributed for our local share but that's good and finally most high school we have spent 27 million which is about 36 percent of our budget thank you thanks - any questions of Deb no thank you very much a 11-point no old business 11.1 review of 2019-20 board goals Jim do you want to lead us
046through that so I think that we continue to monitor the new construction project I was happy to hear that superintendent Patrick offered or suggest that there be a committee soon to start talking about some more of the interior decisions I invite everyone to try to be part of that students and committee members it's nice to see that we're move making progress on our communications efforts I thought the board packet report was great from Lindsey and I hope to see more communication in the future in terms of on all sorts of media's to help the public know the work we're doing here I think that we're working on goal three in terms of our work on mental health issues and how we're helping serve both students and teachers in the classroom the one thing on that
047is I um wondering if I could request do we have an update soon from the new position that we created the Social Work position in terms of just a kind of a feedback or an update at all about how that position has helps the student student body and the schools that she's working in it's something that might be interesting to read or get some input on and I think that we're you know working our way through the goal we're doing some great progress and we'll continue to report back on those thanks Jen any any questions no okay 11.2 we have second reading of three board policies and they are now action items we have policy so 11.2 a policy djh purchasing and contracting procurement do I have a motion to approve motion by Jen a
048second second by Megan all in favor any opposed 11.2 be policy IIb class size do I have a motion to adopt this policy we have a motion by Lou second by Alan all in favor any opposed no and 11 or 11.2 see i ke promotion retention and acceleration of students and that that one is revised from comments that were made at the at the meeting last month so do I have a motion to approve any Pope well motion by Allen second by bill any any comments any discussion if not Paul all in favor of adopting that policy any opposed okay thank you I'm gonna take I'm gonna take my prerogative here as as chair under Oh business I forgot to mention that we did have the inaugural meeting of the waste reduction committee earlier this
049no it was Monday of last week and we met and and it was primarily a organizational meeting but we we had both we had representation from all the buildings Tim and Dave Richards representing the administration and students and teachers from from each of the buildings and we had had a good meeting I'm really in this this was the proposal that was brought forward by Fisher Mitchell students for us to consider we had a good meeting I think I think the our task is to bring back a waste reduction plan for the board to consider by by June hopefully we'll get there everyone's committed the kids were great in the meeting and hopefully will move forward successfully so we'll we'll announce those meetings as well on our calendar for anyone who wants to attend and participate
050from the community okay 12-point Oh new business 12.1 personnel items to 0.1 we have a resignation yeah just a fYI is resignation of Wendy Connors administrative assistant at Moore's and would like to thank her for 11 years of service and her last day will be I think the third week in in January so we have that position advertised right now thanks Patrick 12.2 we do have a request for out of state out of country travel it is a field trip request for the Moors French class and they're heading up to Quebec City they say they say they are okay now see we have a motion by bill second by Lou all in favor any opposed all right 13-point oh this is our second public comment period and this is an opportunity to address the board
051on other issues the board as is our practice we take we take comments under consideration for sure it's not an opportunity for a detailed discussion but we we do take those take public comments at this point so does anyone want to address the board yep if you if you come on take the mic and just state your name [Music] my name is Kevin Bachmann I'm here to discuss the I guess it's a policy you guys have a private school students access to public school activities my issue with the policy is that I feel that it's discriminatory you get certain students I think it's poorly implemented I think the handling of the situation with my daughter it's just an awful awful situation the timing was bad I wasn't giving information on the policy or basically basically
052what happened was my daughter goes to Danvers got a Montessori School and her mother and I have to say that that's that's the best fit for her but we live in a rustic or a secluded bath we've been here for 20 plus years pay taxes in the RSU one for 20 plus years so she's now in sixth grade so we decided well maybe she can play on the middle school teams so I called the ad of Woolwich because they're the closest to us I called a soccer coach and she said sure yeah as long as she gets all the reforms and said great so she went try it out played the entire season all our criteria is completed all of our forms are completed with the ad and everything there's no mention of any policy
053against other students playing so after the season was over with she went to go play basketball she's like well I'll play basketball I made a bunch of good friends at Woolwich and everybody's playing basketball she's sick well I'll try out for basketball too I said sure go for it again no word about a policy however so she was already - she's been practicing and getting ready to play and at 2 o'clock p.m. the day before tryouts like an email from the principal saying that she was not allowed to attend tryouts she wouldn't be allowed to tryout at all because of some policy that was in place that said any student that doesn't attend Woolwich or bath middle school was not allowed to tryout so I spoke with the principal superintendent and I spoke with you
054Steven and I just I I couldn't really get a straight answer on why a tryout was not based on ability and skill and when I spoke with the basketball lady she she said that was the criteria when teams had to try out there were cuts that were gonna be made the basketball team I was under the assembly I was told that there were 18 girls trying out 12 would make the team and the way they choose the girls was based off of ability and knowledge of the game I said okay that's fine but for some reason hazel wasn't even allowed to tryout at all so and I said we've lived here the whole time and they said well she goes to she goes to a private school she's not allowed to it's because it's a
055capacity issue who said I said well that's the issue or not why did you let her play soccer the entire time again I just got a policy answer so I used to coach more soccer years ago three years the varsity soccer team I know a lot of coaches in the area you know a lot parents in the area no one has ever heard of this policy no kid that I have ever heard of has ever been told that they can't attend to tryout in fact I have a few say I talked to a few parents that actually have told us that there were kids from chop point one of would shoot from Dresden was actually made a baseball team and played over kids that went to school in the RSU one so again I've never
056heard of a policy that discriminates against a child based off of what school they go to so basically my question is I mean I've never heard of any other child being victim to this policy I'm wondering why hazel why now I just like to know the specific examples of other kids in this situation being denied a chance for a tryout to a sports team because again I haven't heard anything about that hazel did want to say a few words I could have her come on hi what happened was I was like really excited I know whatever and my friends were and then like the day before email and it wasn't I feel like it wouldn't be nice with the problem if I couldn't play because there friends who ever made me almost feel like I
057wasn't I don't know I wasn't good enough for ever which but I kind of wanted to try it see if I was so [Music] so again I just might I'm just hoping that maybe we can take a look at this policy I mean personally I'd like to see it just go away because I don't think it makes any sense in the policy says sports by competitive by nature are competitive even though I was told it wasn't about a competition and I don't think any kids should get preferential treatment over another kid especially if they're in the same school district regardless of where they go to school this includes kids who are home-schooled kids to go to any private schools just because you go to a certain school and they're in the same district doesn't mean
058that you should get preferential treatment playing sports thank you thanks Kevin thanks hazel in the back thanks yeah Todd thanks a lot Kevin thanks hazel for stepping up and telling us how you feel thank you it's what that means is any lunch because of light to try those wonderful presentation it's important to know thank you thanks you know I'm not sure the mic is could you just check to see the tongue just just flick it with your so I'm a ninth grader at Moores high school and I and as well as my peers are a little bit concerned that's an understatement about the situations at Morris high school there have been numerous occasions over the past several years even before I arrived at school this home where people who are gender non-conforming or transgender or
059anything that falls under LGBTQ are isolated from others and bullied and belittled and we feel that there is a refusal to address it teachers turn their heads when they hear certain things and they don't know how to properly address people who are struggling with being bullied because of this and the longer that you refuse to address something and the longer that you ignore an issue the worse it gets as I've seen my peers are a little older than me but I I know like the situation's only gotten worse from when they were freshmen to when I'm a freshman so I think that the school board seriously needs to take into account their education of LGBTQ people to their teachers because they really don't know how to handle these situations and so they seem too afraid
060to address it and so they they seem to turn a blind eye to what's actually going on in their classrooms right in front of them all of the situations I've had this year have taken place inside of a classroom while a teacher was if not present right nearby so we we've noticed that this is this is a problem that the school board needs to address and that teachers need to be rewired into thinking instead of oh that's a problem I'll just ignore it - how can I help my kids achieve success in a stable learning environment where they don't have to feel isolated from others hi I'm Grayson Murphy I'm a senior at Morris high school and I'm a member of the safe team as well as the civil-rights team at that school and for
061the past few years I've seen more and more underclassmen coming up to me telling me that they don't feel safe at school that they don't want to come to school because they've had situations that either made them uncomfortable or made them feel like they're in danger that they no longer feel that they want to come to school and you know being a senior I feel like I should be able to do something but then again who wants to talk to like I feel like you know freshman's don't really want to talk to me because I'm a scary senior so but I've seen like this increase even for myself as a senior like violence and harassment and not even just for like LGBTQ plus folk but also for like the girls at school like a major
062increase and I think that really needs to be addressed obviously something needs to be done that isn't being done I know that the school is doing great talking about it but I feel like something still isn't resonating within the students within the student body or even just the teachers as well and I'd really think that we need to talk about it more I'm Vivian I'm also a freshman at Morris and during class I overheard Lee talking about him being bullied and I started to get really concerned so I went to a teacher to talk about it and obviously things are being done but I feel like not enough is being done hi I'm Jen Harkins I brought them all here today to talk to you because I think it's a big issue and it's something
063that a lot of schools are facing right now as a mother of three future Morris graduates I have to say I'm horrified and outraged to learn of the bullying happening at Morris for nearly two hours I listened to a group of students talk about their experience passing on Boeing ranging from disrespectful language to full-blown crimes this has to stop something needs to change everyone has the right to feel safe in their school everyone has the right to be treated equally among their peers we're here to tell you that there needs to be kindness taught past grade school we're here to advocate for empathy something every human being needs to absorb and understand through seeing and doing I realize most of you are sitting here thinking to yourself oh boy here we go again look at
064us we all survived it that's right we survived but not all of us did some of us to this day still carry the emotional weight of our childhood bullies and effects those who we hold closest to us leaving behind a residue of doubt fear and depression and impacts our kids our relationships personal and working we are adults we're supposed to be the prop we're supposed to progress and build up from where our parents left off and yet it seems were the ones who are doing the most damage I hear of teachers looking the other way and speaking up to guidance counselors who say there's nothing they can do I hear of sports team coaches posting anti-trans propaganda on their social media maintaining a primeval set of beliefs that teachers teaches their athletes it's okay to
065be intolerant and I hear of a principal unable to help the kids under his roof stay safe from verbal abuse sexual harassment and physical assault the world is changing and we can no longer keep ignoring it so we're here to ask for your help don't ask what can we do to help you hi everyone my name's Mike Gately I'm one of the Scout masters for the troop in bath and I'm here to echo a lot of the concerns we're hearing back here I've been the trusted adult in that position for several years and this is the first time issues have been to a point where I've been asked to come in and speak I'll be honest I have about a hundred things I'd rather be doing here tonight and addressing these things this is not
066fun for me this is not something I'm bringing up lately this is something I bring you up because I'm concerned about the youth in our community as someone who has been accepted throughout all the communities I've I've been in growing up through here it's really concerning to hear that people who are a little different from a lot of other people may not be experiencing the same level of acceptance in the classroom or or in sports or outside of that how many people are a little surprised to hear all this tonight all right you don't have to raise your hands or anything but uh it's uh it's it was definitely a little surprising when I when I first heard this but we need to not be surprised anymore we need to we need to think to
067help first it's it's time to enact additional levels of assistance for kids who have not just been bullied but like like Jenny had mentioned there's there are concerns about crimes sexual harassment other things going on here which is just really not something that we we need to be allowing in our in our schools we need to be meeting the needs of our youth I'm here not because every kid has a trusted adult they can go home to or talk about I'm here because they don't have that in the schools all the time either apparently we have an incredible amount of opportunity in this community what we are doing with the Unified sports when I was here twelve years ago I would have never thought we'd be at this level of acceptance we are an amazing
068community an absolutely outstanding community that I'm very proud to be part of and I really want to make sure that kids youth everybody in between adults we need to make sure that we're we're inclusive of everybody in here and I think we need to have an additional level of not just bullying but also improvements with with what's happening with with this specific situation it's it's at a point where the outreach like miss Harkins was saying needs to be not just for the students but also for some of the other trusted adults in the community hearing it about sports persons and and other people is deeply concerning for me and and I really and I'm at a point where where I felt a need to speak up and I'm glad that there was a group of
069kids who persuaded me to finally do so thank you thank you everyone well thanks for bringing bringing this forward you should not in at any minute moment doubt the sincerity and commitment of this board to provide a safe learning environment for all the kids that are that are being educated in the RSU I mean that that's not that that shouldn't even be in question in your mind I think you're you're bring forward some comments that that perhaps as as you you ask people to give a show of hands that maybe some are hearing for the first time and and we will work with the with the administration I mean they're very they're very clear protocols and and and guidelines on on how issues related to bullying and I mean you've used some pretty strong words
070and describing what what well what you've what you've observed or have been told and I mean we have some pretty clear protocols and guidelines on how to on how to act on those situations and how they should be reported and acted on and we'll we'll have some conversations but don't don't for a minute question the the commitment of this board in this district to ensuring all students have a safe environment once they once they enter our buildings I'll be brief I sat on your side few years ago could you could you just give us your name absolutely MJ Warren 38 Webster Avenue like I said policy getting back to the Woolwich situation or the try out for any child policy was always Britain as a rule understanding a directive meaning well our policy was always
071meant to mean well and I think tonight we've seen unified and we've seen inclusive and we've seen all those words and we're getting away from that with the wiggle room in policy I don't know what the benchmark is what's the baseline for too many trying out is it 26 we all know there's a certain number of uniforms we're not saying that we're saying the ability to have every child in this district try out participate be part of something win or lose yet chosen get not denying a child and opportunity is not policy we wrote it we adopted it and then we have wiggle room we have to look at the wiggle room is the wiggle room good for the student I don't understand why a child would be denied does it take a longer to
072try out 30 35 and and apparently Woolwich thinks they have or Woolworths or Pittsburgh thinks they have a lot of students try now based on what you're saying they sign up for a 40 and pen show up policy was meant to be a good thing and with the wiggle room it doesn't it's not a child positive outcome so I think and I know you can't address it but it's always meant well and then we have discretion but we have to explain the discretion and I don't think we have too many kids but I'm gonna turn but I just wanted to mention that that we all know I think all you know people know what policy does but there wouldn't you tweak it you alter it and you make it fluid thank you Thanks any any
073other comments at this point no okay thanks for all of you taking the time to address the board thank you fourteen point Oh next meeting fourteen we're going to be meeting December 16th at the middle school at six o'clock and as I indicated we will be doing a workshop that that evening after our regular a regular board meeting I do want to make you know point out to everyone on the on the agenda there's a long list of holiday concerts and other activities in all our schools and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to attend some of those that's all I have to say okay do we have a motion to adjourn need a second okay give a motion by Lou Lou second by Bill all in favor any opposed no okay thank you Thanks thanks
074everyone you