001That's what You're going to tell me when we're good, Sam. Right. Okay. See, this is where all the administrators sit in the back. And I feel like if all of your kids sat in the back, you would make them all come up to the front. So, just saying. Good evening. Welcome to the RSU5 board of directors. It is Wednesday, February 11th, 2026. We are here at the Freeport High School Library. We have a full board, including our newest member, Lois uh Kilby Chzn Chesley. Sorry, I will get that right. Um she was appointed last night uh by the town uh the select board and quickly got herself sworn in so she could join us this evening. Thank you so much for that. Um all right, we will get started with the pledge of allegiance. Okay.
002Uh, so we're going to move on to the minutes. So, uh, do I have a motion for consideration and approval of the minutes from the January 28th, 2026 meeting as presented, barring any errors or omissions? Valerie and Chris. Thank you. All those in favor? Opposed? No. Okay. Um I Oh, and for those that were watching last time and I said I didn't know why we didn't have minutes and it it was because when we have these uh meetings week to week, there's not enough time to get the minutes done by the time the package goes out the next morning. So, thank you Jenny um for informing me. Uh adjustments to the agenda? No. Oh, can you ask something to the agenda? No. You can talk to me beforehand if we want to try to add
003something to the agenda. Um well, now I'm curious. Okay. Uh >> I will bring it up. >> Okay, perfect. I was I'm sure you can find a way to work in it. Um so, uh item six, good news and recognition. Uh, so are we having are you doing just are are you doing an actual update and then the strategic plan or you just doing them together? >> There's nothing really for me to update. Okay. About student stuff. So, I'm just going to do the slides if that's fine. >> Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So, our uh report from the the board student rep is actually a report out on the strategic plans portrait of a graduate belief statements and mission. and Maria, Kelly, and Cara are It's really just Maria. Okay, wonderful. That's I'm fine. Thank you.
004Okay. So, this is the strategic planning committee update. So, just a rundown of the committee. We have faculty, community, school board, students, and leadership. And what you're looking at here is the timeline. So, January and February of 2025, it was laying out the foundation and develing the timeline. Then you have seeking community input which was March and October of 2025. Drafting the portrait was September and November which was the time that I had joined the committee. And then we are finally in strategic planning. So then we have the community input. So questions one and two are the hopes and dreams which were made to develop the structure of of graduate and then questions three and four which which was what we're doing well and what we need to be working on which was developing for
005the strategic plan and there were surveys and focus groups for all those um so I'm just going to share some of the data from the um the first round of feedback. My name is Erica Walstrom. I work at Great Schools Partnership um and started last January working with the committee and the to help facilitate these conversations. So, what we have um is just some information about the survey and really what I think this data shows primarily is how it represents um the community and the different schools um that are being serviced in this district. So, we as Maria mentioned we had a survey there were 842 responses. The majority of those responses were from students um in part because we um gave the surveys to all middle school and high school students and sort of
006um a captive audience. Um they had an opportunity to fill them out. Um and so the rest of the surveys were parents, community members, um educators. The educators also participated in focus groups. Um so I think that represents a little bit of the the smaller number. They'd already provided their feedback in focus groups. Um alumni and administrators people check multiple roles. So for an example, a parent might also check themselves as a community member as well. So you can see numbers kind of duplicating. So these demographic um graphs that I'm going to be showing, we took the student body out um because we knew that that represented a cross-section of the schools because we had surveyed all of the students in um sixth through 12th grade. So, these demographics represent um the adult community, families,
007all of that group just to see if we had gotten a cross-section of the communities through various demographics. And I'm not going to go into too much detail. And again, it's just to stress that the survey and the focus groups really did a nice job of getting a distribution across the community. So, this was based on the different roles. Again, I mentioned educators were a part of the focus groups. So, um that's why that number is a little bit lower. This is based on schools. So, I've put the blue box um overlaying and that's the the enrollment um and the statistics based on um student uh data. So you can kind of do a comparison and see that the all of the schools were represented in the surveys. All of the three communities were represented.
008Um the other might be alumni or family members that are in different communities. This is the different programs. Only parents filled out this question. So if they answered that I am a parent then it would move them into this demographic. So is your child in one of these programs um and has nice correlation with um with the actual student demographics. This one is um the racial distribution. And so you might notice that um the white population seems higher. I'll just point out that the demographics that I've listed in the blue box is our student body, not your community body. And so there is actual more diversity in um the student body than there is in the community. We did like a little run and it was about 92% white um for the community at large.
009So that actually is a closer alignment than it appears at first. Still could have been better, but um pretty closely aligned. demographics. Uh we use a proxy question of um how worried are you about f food security. So in some ways um the economical disadvantage category might actually be a little bit more stringent might have capture a few more than how people might have answered this question. But again this one is a little bit lower than we might have hoped for. We also ran a series of focus groups um one at each of the different um communities um the different schools as well as the library on the weekend and we also offered a virtual one. So 72 community members participated in these various focus groups. Those were in person. They were conversations. They lasted
010about an hour each uh for each of them. And then this was drafting the portrait and the supporting documents. So for this we used feedback from questions one and two and then surveys and focus groups. So these are our pillars. So we had these shared out to the community. So they were intellectual curiosity, interpersonal competence, personal growth, community and global engagement, future readiness. So for this um this was kind of the second round of feedback that we got. And at the bottom right of the screen, you can see that if there was a two plus, you can it people thought that it fully reflected what the portrait of what their vision was for the portrait of graduate. Um, and if you look, the majority of the numbers are quite high. So 1.71 1.61. Um, so
011this is kind of another way of looking at that same data. Um the difference with this one is it shows um each of the different uh stakeholder groups and how they responded. And again what these graphs really show is how aligned people are in the community and about how positive they feel about the portrait that was initially drafted by um the strategic plan committee planning committee um based on the feedback. I'll just point out that this graph um the x axis it stops at 08. And so if it was the full uh line, what would happen is those uh y's and diamonds and triangles would be so tightly bound, you wouldn't be able to see them. So I just point that out to show that it actually looks more spread out than it actually is.
012So then this was our portrait of a graduate and we took feedback from the data and made tweaks to make these statements stronger. Um I'm not going to read all of these but you do have a copy of the portrait of a graduate in your packets. Um and these also have two rounds of feedback for in them. So personal growth, community and global engagement, future readiness. And then this was a visual the visuals and we kind of wanted to represent the natural features of our community, the ocean, the pine trees, things like that. This is the mission statement. It is to empower and equip every learner with skills, curiosity, character, and purpose to thrive and live fulfilling lives in an everchanging world. So then the we believe statements was my first meeting for the strategic
013plan that I went to um used responses from questions three and four to come up with these statements and these are sort of about what all members of the planning committee really viewed as the belief statements. So we had me and Ren who are the student representatives for this committee kind of be very involved in making these because they do affect students directly. Um and yet again use data and feedback for these. So that's where we are uh as of today and I feel like a huge amount of work from the planning committee, the strategic planning committee, um the community for sharing their um perspectives. And so now we take all of that feedback and all of that work and move forward into the strategic plan. Um the strategic plan is really the like how
014are you going to accomplish these visions that you have. So your portrait, your mission, your belief statements. These are those lofty like things that you're um striving towards. And the strategic plan says, okay, how are we going to do that? What are our objectives? What do we want our outcomes to be? And how are we going to know that we're achieving them and when we're achieving them? So monitoring kind of that progress. Um so the committee is going to be breaking up uh sounds so harsh, but we're going to be in little subcommittees um working on the different belief statements. So each belief statement becomes um one of the objectives in the strategic plan. As it as we flesh it out, we might combine some together if it makes sense. But that's kind of our
015starting point. Um and they'll be putting together um in these smaller groups the language for the objectives, the outcomes, the progress monitoring, and then coming back together as a full group um tuning it, getting feedback from one another um in order to kind of come up with that final plan which we plan to present in June. Again, just to reiterate what Maria already said, um question one and two were really at the heart of building your portrait of a graduate. Questions three and four, which is what are we doing really well as a district and where are our areas of growth that we want to lean into, that's the pieces of feedback that we're really going to be using to develop our strategic plan and to be thinking about. In addition to that, we're going
016to be looking at various sets of data. Um the faculty back in October already looked at attendance, graduation, NEIA, um the main integrated youth health survey. So kind of thinking about all of the the data that's out there that we know about the student body um and incorporating that into the plan. And then lastly, um faculty also looked at various white papers, research articles that were saying like what do we think young people moving into the future are going to need? what are the skills, the the the knowledge that they're going to need to be successful as graduates moving into the future. So, looking at that as well, I just wanted to share these are um the the top themes from questions three and four. So, again, question three, what are we doing really well
017as a district already? Um so you can see self-management, empathy, perspective taking, emotional regulation, um lots of great clubs and interest groups, critical thinking and problem solving, and a really inclusive welcoming school climate. So a culture and climate. So those are the things that from the feedback from the survey and the focus groups, those are the things that are standing out as real strengths for this district. Um the themes from question four, so what could we do better to prepare our students? Where is our growth edge? Um, emotional intelligence and community communication skills, character development, positive school climate and culture, which is interesting because you can see how things don't always great, but um, we can parse that out. Holistic student well-being, financial and p practical life skills, fostering student agency, field-based and community b
018community experiential learning, and curriculum relevance and streamlining. So just to pull the screen back uh the curtain back a little bit on how the committee is going to be working. As I said, we'll divide up into subcommittees. Each one will take one of those belief statements. So this is an example for the community and relationships. Um so the belief is we believe in belonging and strong relationships. Then that group will look at the feedback, the data um and the research and say okay what are some of the indicators? What do we what do we expect to see if we are making success, if we're making progress? Um what are the strategies that we want to employ in order to achieve that? What are the action steps that we need to take in order to achieve
019that? And so this will be kind of the template that each of those groups will put together as they design that strategic plan. That's it. So any questions from all of you? questions. I will start with a huge thank you. I know that is a lot boiled into a a pretty uh concise presentation. A lot of work done by a lot of people. So, thank you to the committee. Thank you to the people who participated in the surveys and the forums and the the feedback loops and it's it's a ton of work. Um and you know it's not done yet, right? >> This is where it gets fun. Um, I did have one question because, uh, you know, I'm thinking back to the strategic plan we had previously and kind of common objectives or themes
020that were in that one. And one thing that jumped out to me that I didn't see in any of the themes or the the I believe or objective section was around like around the facilities and around, >> you know, more concrete parts of of the district literally, I guess. um it did that not come up? Is that embedded it somewhere in here? How do do we address that or >> um so there's a couple of different options, but in one it's like if these are the the goals that we have, what are the facilities that we need to have in order to support that learning and those objectives. Um, and then another option would be to like have another additional section where we like reach out specifically to facilities people and the ones that would
021be addressing that and have a conversation and add those pieces. But yes, you're right like that piece this was much more about the the learning the object what we wanted our students to be able to achieve at the end. So, but part of that is what are the structures the facilities that we need in order to be able to get those goals. So, >> thank you. Karen. >> Yes. Thank you for all that work. Um I'm just kind of curious like how will some of these things be implemented into the school culture or into the day? You could speak on that. Um okay. Um well, I'll say first of all that I'm like really impressed with this district and how they've already really tried to incorporate faculty and getting their feedback. Um there's been multiple
022rounds where faculty have been a part of looking at the data, talking about the research. Um we're going to be coming back in March and sharing out where where we're at and getting their feedback again. And so I think part of that your question that you're you're asking is like how do you get people to actually engage in these documents so that it's not just something that like one person is the gatekeeper of or that it's a document that sits on a wall and nobody really like identifies with. And in part it's like having them be a part of the creation, the thought process, understanding where we are in that. Um and then and then ultimately it goes to to the district to the leadership that's here to say okay this is our strategic plan
023now. How are we going to do this? How are we going to keep keep people engaged moving forward? So does that answer your question? >> I think so. I guess I'm just wondering how this is going to be disseminated through our system here and really impact the students and how how that might work. >> I I can say a bit about that. So where where we are right now is sort of like the philosophical underpinnings of the plan and that's what you've seen and the next step is okay so these are the things we believe in and value. Now what are the actions we're going to turn them into? That's what the plan becomes. And to me, that plan isn't finished in June. It's it's a draft of what we think at that time. And
024we'll have a structure in place to keep following up on the things we said we were going to do and seeing if we're doing them. >> And you know, I imagine how they're implemented varies across districts. How we used the last plan we had was, you know, every the district as a whole and every school and in turn every administrator in in charge of those schools or those districts or those departments um when they came presented their goals for the year, they were tied to these are these are the highlevel objectives. These are the strategies we're undertaking now. These are the indicators to know if we're making success. So every every time we're looking at someone's goals, they should be tied to the strategic goal of the whole district, right? And it and then um
025and as it relates to the budget, right? If we are looking to add something or remove something or you know, like how does that stack up against our strategic plan, how does that move it forward or not move it forward at the at the pace that we'd like it to? Um so you know, how we choose to use it going forward, that's I guess up to us, but that is how we have used it in the past. Yeah, thank you so much again for everybody for uh creating this. It's amazing amount of work. Um my question is about the portrait of a graduate and I'm curious kind of what you all were kind of using as kind of a um a benchmark kind of current state um that this portrait is compared against. In other
026words, um, Maria's here and theoretically our earlier plan was partially intended to help educate Maria and sort of create this graduate and becoming. Um, so how is it different? Like what are we do? What are we looking to do? What kind of graduate are you looking to do now that is the attributes of which are a little different than what we were aiming for in the past? Um I think that that it's really to your point lots of communities will go through a portrait of a graduate process and come up with similar types of hopeful goals right we want well uh healthy people that can go out they have options they have agency um there's there's sort of like they have the knowledge but they also have those interpersonal skills as well um and so
027but what I think is important is to always have that iterative process with your community to make sure that it's still aligned and that you're still um matched with the the population and the people that you're serving. Um and so um I don't think you had a portrait before. Yeah. So so this is actually your first like this community's first portrait. Um and so it'll be interesting to see how how might that change right moving forward. um and there might not be major changes but there there might also be some based on uh you know advances in society and technology and our community and so forth. So having that process and having that opportunity and then the other thing I'll say which doesn't completely answer your question is a lot of people were like especially
028at the focus groups really appreciative of the opportunity to like have these conversations about what's happening in their schools. And so again, just opening that door and having that feedback back and forth is really important and valuable. >> Um, to kind of add on to your point, Erica, I definitely think that >> I I really did not know that this existed until Ren had emailed me about it, reaching out if I wanted to be a representative. And I really think that this strategic plan has so much student involvement and really values students opinions. I remember being at the we believe meetings and Miss Luchi asking me, "Oh, Maria, how do you feel about this?" And I definitely think that even if this if this is similar to something that you all have seen before, I
029definitely think that there is a lot of student involvement going into this and a lot of student care into this. I don't know if that answers your question, but just putting that out there. >> I It's interesting you say that because um I love that. I don't recall that necessarily being as big a piece the last time we went through this process. So, um you know, since that clearly is a priority for us in the district, good for us that we actually did it and involved it in the strategic plan uh process. I was curious about um the chart that you talked about blowing up with the different colors. And um I noticed that the constituency of student did not weigh in on those pillars or it was not provided to us. I was wondering
030if that was intentional or or kind of where they landed on that. >> Um, this was the second round of feedback, not the first round. And um, it took play, we did it December into January. And so it was opened up. We didn't take time out of school to have each of the students like respond like we did with the first round. And so it just there wasn't as big of a response from students. Okay. For that second round of feedback. >> Yeah. I was just curious kind of where they where they would have landed on >> what their chart would have looked like. >> Anna, >> I'm just curious. Thank you so much. Um I'm curious, how do you go how did you go through all the data to analyze and come up with
031emerging themes? Um I have a team and we have a director of um data and she uh like really heads that up. Um, we had like rolls and rolls of chart paper that were transcribed by a whole team of us, myself included. Um, and then you just kind of start like theming it. You just kind of pull out the common and like clump them all together. Um, and then so Brienne, um, she's the Whitmer, she is the director, she, um, put together kind of a summary, um, which included the the main themes and the percentages for each of those of, and then she also had ones that broke it down by stakeholders. Um, then she pulls out language so that you still get some of that qualitative data as well. So like when I say
032this theme, these are kind of some of the statements that were clumped into that piece. Um because there is there's so much rich data in there. That's for like the focus groups. Um with the the survey, it's much easier. There's a lot of like quantitative pieces because people are putting like a number behind it. Um but again with the open responses, you do a similar process. So So, do you need anything from us at this point or is this just informative from our perspective? >> I think we're Yeah, I think we're good. Um, we appreciate um just the time to be able to share with you and looking forward to coming back in June >> before. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> All right. So, uh, we are at item seven
033on our agenda, which is public comment. And when Erica is walking up, that usually means we have one. All right. Did my name fall down? All right. Um, Jonathan, is it Jonathan Bell? >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. So, you're good. Okay. >> All right. Well, then we will carry on. And we do have another one at the end. So if you decide you want to say something then >> I will. Thank you so much. >> Um all right. So we will move on to item eight. A report from the superintendent. >> I have a couple of resignations to report. Allison Gin, our BCBA has resigned. And although it's not written on your agenda, more recently, Paul Carnen, uh special ed teacher at Freeport Middle School has resigned. All right. And we don't have any administrator
034reports or board committee reports or policy review. All right. So, we will move on to item 12, unfinished business. Um, item one, start with superintendent's presentation of concept of district reconfiguration. That's a mouthful of a title. Okay. So, right off, I'm going to own that I have taken heat for the colors I've chosen to use for my slideshow. I'm told that it might not necessarily translate as beautifully up there as it does on my laptop, but I dug in my heels and I like these colors and is what we're going with >> and I feel good about it and that's what counts in this moment. >> Those are pow colors. >> They are. They are >> tiger. Panther. >> It's a panther. >> Durham is >> wrong. So before I launch in, and of course
035you you have a copy of this in front of you, I I feel I do need to start with a reminder of why we are here and it's because back in November when I brought you the difficult news that if I were to carry forward a status quo budget, it would be 10ish%. um you asked for tiers uh which we're talking about in an ongoing way, but you also asked for thoughts about how to make the budgets sustainable over the long term. So what I found having started here just this summer is that there have been conversations about that going on at the administrative level among the community members and there were already ideas that were out there being talked about. So what I I feel that I I want to be very conscious of
036my role here. My lane is to present you with options to consider. And what I'm asking tonight is these are the things I'm hearing talked about. Do you want them talked about more? Because um actually going down a formal rabbit hole as opposed to an informal rabbit hole takes a lot of time, energy, and work. So if you feel any of these ideas are worth exploring, we will gladly take that on. But if you see what's up here and think ew, I would just assume leave it alone. So up to you. I'm asking for guidance here. So I'm going to present to you in a way that I when I was a re teacher of research taught my students to be solutionary when I was a big fan of solutionary education which is present a
037menu of options and then freely discuss what makes these options either attractive or not attractive and put them in relationship to each other. So that's what I'm going to attempt to do tonight. So there are a number of lenses through which to view the entire sort of gestalt of what we're talking about. First, what I think triggered the conversation is the ongoing financial pressure that we're facing. And since I have the microphone and I get to editorialize for a minute, um I think it's important to name that these ongoing financial pressures are because of the inflationary environment in which we live and they are not the fault of anybody living here in RSU5 or working here in RSU5. They are tough times and costs for lots of things keep going up. So that is certainly
038a consideration. Another consideration that is very compelling too is what kinds of what is the district that we want to be in the future. What do we want to provide for kids in the future? So educational opportunity and equity of that opportunity across the district is a very important consideration. And then just at sort of a more granular level, we have this early childhood mandate which requires us to um assume responsibility for special education for three and four year olds. We have just recently chosen to join cohort three, which means that next year we're bringing on the four-year-olds and then the year after that the threes. And we have a good solution right now for the fours that we're taking next year. We still have a lot of figuring out to do for the threes
039for the year after that. So that fits in our long-term need in the category of long-term needs that we've got to contend with. So again, I am seeking your guidance here about what your overall direction you'd like to go in is. So the I think that this is a really important sort of ordering of priorities that among us uh on the administrative team figures pretty prominently the needs of kids should always come first. We have two things here. We've got budget and what's good for kids and families. Budget is important. I think what kids and families need is more important. So neither is unimportant but as I consider the whole picture I come back to what's best for kids and families as my primary consideration while holding both. So again the lenses to view these
040are the the the major sort of crosscutting philosophical issues that have come up as we have discussed this and when I say we I mean me and the people sitting back there largely and and you know probably mostly Mr. Pittton but whatever. So early childhood programming, we are required to serve all three and four year olds who have IEPs but by July 2027 unless there be to eliminate confusion about that. The state's mandate is that every district has to do that by July of 2028. But we've now joined cohort 3. So we are committed to doing it by 2027. That's year after next year. Um, another issue that is prominent in our discussions is that we have two middle schools in the DI district and they're both great, but they're not necessarily great in the
041same ways. So we the lens of middle school equity and the possibility of actually being more expansive with our middle school offerings, especially as we've had budget conversations and we're talking about tough choices and tradeoffs. The opportunity to switch from a retractive mindset to an expansive mindset is really appealing and to ensure that that is consistent for all kids in the district regardless of which town they live in. Um then we have the financial sustainability lens short-term versus long-term costs in an environment that is inflationary and who knows how long it will be continue to be inflationary. And then equally important to all of these is community identity and the connections in the towns. And I do want to stop there for a minute to just sort of talk a little bit about some experiences
042that I have had in my professional life before I came to this district. The two districts that I worked in previously both were facing the issue of small I mean very small tiny schools that were hard to keep going because of the economies of scale that they lacked and that is an issue that we are facing here and we have to talk about we have to put out in the open. It's happening across the state and it's happening across the country. So, first let me just sum up some of the major considerations for early childhood programming. So, we've made the choice to join cohort 3. That means next year we're bringing on the four-year-olds who have IEPs. And we are in a good we're in good shape to do that because we already have infrastructure
043for four-year-olds here. And the amount of kids that we'll be taking on next year is not so dramatic that we can't absorb them with the existing infrastructure that we have. That becomes tricky year after next when the three-year-olds come on because quite frankly we do not have a place to put them. We have not figured that out yet and I think it's very hard to figure out going on the way we are with our current facilities use. Um how are we going to distribute the services for early childhood across the district? And another conversation that should come up in all of this is whether we continue with the exclusively half-day prek model that we now have or should we offer some degree of full day prek. There's lots of in between. There's going all half
044day, keeping all half day, going all full day, having some half day and some full day. There's all kinds of a whole spectrum of how that could be offered. But if we're looking ahead, that should be part of the conversation. And my personal feeling, and I think others in the room would probably agree, even though most of my career was as a high school educator, I think this is the most important thing we have to do right now. The benefits that will happen for kids and families about doing early childhood correctly are an immediate payoff for the families who have those little kids. And all of the research suggests that particularly kids with needs, the earlier you intervene, the better the outcomes are. And districts who have already taken on this responsibility from CDS are
045already finding benefits. Benefits like dismissing kids from special education earlier because their needs have been met earlier. So I just think that's very important. So ne next we've talked a lot about middle school stuff um particularly having a congruent and consistent middle school experience for kids all across the district um to be able to provide equity for athletics and extracurriculars in that mix. And there is also I'm seeing that I have a capital B before I shouldn't have a capital B on the word before and I caught it before Caraka. So it makes me it makes me proud. Um the uh and Jenny Jenny you were supposed to go through this anyway. Um, there has been a lot of conversation about whether or not it really benefits kids to have an opportunity to integrate as
046a district before high school. And there is a strong opinion in the room among the administrative team that that is a benefit to kids. Right now, kids from Durham don't get to integrate into the district as a whole until they go to nth grade. and that is not necessarily the best scenario. So there are other considerations for middle level education that we could think about in the future. Um we could f we could build on the very strong um model of STEM education we have in this district and integrate CTE which is career technical education. there is the possibility to embed a teacher from region 10 into a middle school on their budget. Now, of course, we contribute to their budget, but um that is a model that I have seen in other districts and
047it's has a lot of benefits for kids. We've had conversations about world language in connection with the budget. Um, if we do something different with middle school, we may be able to make world language truly accessible and expanded in grades seven and eight. And I I want to take a moment to pause right there while I consider world language because we've talked about this in other contexts, but I think a dynamic of it that has not been fully fleshed out that we're going to have to keep talking about is that in um Freeport Middle School, we do something that I haven't seen another uh district do, a middle school do, which is to offer both science and STEM as core classes. and that what and that's fantastic, but knowing that there's only so many minutes
048in a day, that's a a core class added to this core classes that we don't have for electives. So, or unified arts and so that's a constraint on the schedule on the unified arts side that forces us to talk about choices. So, and also in a moving on to the next bullet, in a consolidated middle school, which is an idea where we'd be going, you'll see in future slides, there's greater opportunity for interdisciplinary teaching, which is frankly the best kind of teaching. So, this is just another aspect of the conversation. And then financial sustainability. So, we need to have an eye on the long term. We're right now contending with decisions that um are hard right now, but they only get harder if they're not made now. And so, we need to keep that in
049mind knowing that inflation has a magnified impact on deferred decisions. And there are efficiencies in consolidating programming rather than having it be dislocated across the district and and using our facilities in a more streamlined way. So again, this was the trigger I think that prompted you back in November to ask me to talk about long-term solutions. Um, and it is something we have to consider, but I think that the things on the previous two slides to me personally are more important. And then next something that we cannot underestimate which is the fact that feelings are as important as thoughts and and ideas and that is that community identity is very powerful and it's real and it should be honored. So each school in the district is an expression of its community's identity. They are dear
050to the people in those communities. people have connections and um important memories and historical relationships and all of that um is as valid as anything else in the conversation. So now I'm going to talk about three scenarios. The three scenarios are the ones that we have sort of talked about at the admin level. Scenario number one, steady on, keep on as we are. So this is the current district configuration of grade levels. And I probably don't need to review it for anybody on the board, but if there are members of the public watching. So in Durham, all kids grades preK through grade 8 are at Durham Community School. And then at 9th grade go to Freeport High School. For Freeport, preK to grade two are at Mor Street. Grades three to five are at Mass
051Landing. Grades six through eight are at Freeport Middle. And then grades 9 to 12 are at Freeport High School. And then for Powell, grades preK to five are at Poundell Elementary. Grades six and eight are at Freeport Middle. Grades 9 through 12 are at Freeport High School. So everybody comes together at the high school level. Freeport and Pal come together at the middle school level. Durham is the one that does not join till the high school level. So if we keep this model, we based on my best you know summary at the moment. Some things that we preserve. We preserve the sense of community and town identity which is important to a lot of people. The neighborhood schools remain as sources of town pride and identity as they have. We would still have early childhood
052in each town. Right now, each town has public pre-k. We have it at Powell. We have it at Durham. We have it at More Street. Half day. And in providing that, we're giving lots of kids a soft entry into public school in each town. And that m that mitigates transitions to kindergarten. And that has a lot of benefits. And in a time when we're talking about lots of potential changes, it is the least amount of change in the short term and that has value. So our facilities are used this way. We would not have to make a facilities investment to keep going in the way that we're going other than to keep maintaining our current facilities. I guess I should add add a caveat to that. We're going to keep going to where we're going
053and we're going to add early childhood which involves three-year-olds and that will involve some level of putting them somewhere and doing something with where we put them. Um, but we are adapted to this model. So again, I want to stress the intangibles are very important and that community sentiment has to be honored. So at the same time the limitations of the current configuration is that it's not very efficient um for early childhood in particular as we consider having to bring on and provide special education services for three-year-olds and foury olds. Um, as I've said already, we don't have a good plan or a good option at the moment for space for the three-year-olds. Um, but we could gain and we lose efficiencies by having the services spread out. We're having um, you know, there's some
054level of itinerant staff which is not terribly efficient. um we have a more limited o ability to offer full day programming for early childhood if we wanted to do that. If we look at the middle school situation, I would say both Freeport Middle School and Durham Community School are great schools, but again, they're not great in the same way and they're not equal. And um Durham has not does not have the same level of access to extracurriculars and athletics as Freeport Middle School. Um the academic offerings in the two schools are not the same. The STEM situation that I mentioned to you a minute ago is present for Freeport Middle School kids but not in Durham. Durham offers STEM but not at the same level. Um, presently Durham has Spanish but not French and there
055are other things. And we have talked we a lot about the dynamic of Durham students especially enter high school and they have not really been integrated with the other district kids until that moment. And just in terms of financial sustainability, the trajectory looks very difficult with the current model because we're operating multi-purpose facilities in an inflationary environment and in some ways we're duplicating staff and resources because of the multiple locations. we're paying mileage and and another aspect of it is that pound deer as it is just does not have efficiencies of scale because of its size and there's a disproportionate amount of cost associated with that. So here's the fundamental question for keeping things the way they are as I see it. Can we address the early childhood mandate and the middle school inequities and
056the financial pressures if we keep on in this way? Those are the three like pressure points at the moment that I see. Early childhood, middle school stuff and the financial pressure. They're pushing on each other. So, which direction do we go with that? Okay. So, alternatives. Why should we even consider alternatives? Why should a brand new superintendent come into a district and touch a third rail? Um, I Okay, if I hit pause for a moment, completely honestly with you, when I got that when you graciously offered me this job, I thought that is great. I'm going to come in there. I'm going to learn names. I'm gonna figure out where the bathrooms are. I'm going to just sort of like step in slow and sort of learn the lay of the land. And I that's
057just not the moment that the district is in. >> It's never our moment. >> No. So, I guess I'm I just believe me or don't believe me. This is not me coming in here wanting to be a cowboy. it is just because this is the conversation that I've walked into and what my intention is is to make it talkable. So, we've got to do something with early childhood whether we Well, clearly we want to because we decided to last week, right? So, we're doing it. Um the middle school issue is real. Um, I I don't think we do our kids justice if we don't talk about that and figure out a way forward that considers all the variables. The budget pressure is real. Um, again, I don't think anybody wants to be the brand new
058superintendent that comes into a district and says, "What do you want me to do with this budget that's going to be like $2 million more expensive than maybe you were counting on?" So we just we have to deal with it even if we have to have hard conversations. Um and we are perhaps the stars aligned in this way. We're doing a strategic plan. Um that's an opportunity to talk about where we are going. So this is a conversation starter. If you decide that it ends today, then it well it'll probably go on in the sidelines anyway, but they won't go on in a formal way. But once conversations start, you never know where they're going to go. So there could be other ideas that emerge after today. Anyway, scenario number two is to repurpose the
059pal school as an early childhood center. This would require shifting all around the district and I've tried to capture that here. Um, but it does not require us to build any new facilities and it is pretty manageable shifting. So if we did this, Powell would become a district-wide prek/prechool preschool center. It has enough space for that to happen. We could also locate a lot of the special education services for early childhood in that building colllocated together. That provokes the question, where do the Pel kids go? Well, the early childhood panel kids kids go to Panel. Then when they get to kindergarten and go through grade six, they go to Durham. What happens to Durham then? Is Durham not overcrowded? Well, no, because Durham's seventh and eighth grade kids are roughly equal in number to the
060countel grades K to six. So Durham's seventh and eighth would go to Freeport Middle. But wait, do we have enough space for those kids at at Freeport Middle? Well, we do if Freeport Middle becomes a district-wide seven and 8 grade school. Now, currently Freeport Middle has sixth grade. But if we shift sixth grade back to Mass Landing and have Mass Landing become grades four, five, six as opposed to 3, four, five. And then back that up to Mor Street where remembering that the prek has gone out to Powell. More street becomes kindergarten 1 2 3. There is space for all of this. And of course the high school remains the high school. So by consolidating that way and I should add how does this create the space for the three-year-olds that I've mentioned? Well, it's
061because we can there is enough space at Pel to do that and to a certain degree you can group three-year-olds with foury olds. And then that might provoke the question, well if you can do that why don't we just do that with the existing model? It's because it's very inefficient. I mean, we can do that, but that doesn't solve the problem of colllocating the services in a streamlined way. So, this scenario has some real benefits. It would really be a profound investment in early childhood. We would dedicate an entire building to it, an entire um really delightful building to it that is really well situated to do really cool things with outdoor play, play-based early childhood. Um consolidating the services, perhaps making it easier to have full day offerings to expand the outdoor play-based model
062with the three-year-olds. And it that is just a really good fit. And it also solves the issue of middle school integration. All the seventh and eighth graders in the district would be together in one building. They would have consistent offerings both academically and extracurricularly. Um they would get to all come together before 9th grade and establish a sense of you know being one district. So there are also financial considerations. I don't want to stand here and promise that this will save jillions of dollars, but it will likely save some money. Um, you know, you might think at first, well, we would be eliminating all of the teaching positions at Powell. That is not actually the case. um many of those people would go to the other schools where the kids would move, but there would
063be savings. Um having a single early childhood facility versus multiple sites is savings in and of itself. Um there are long-term operational efficiencies that are possible if you do this as opposed to keeping things the way they are. The big downside is that this is a significant significant impact to communities especially Powell and the Powell school is dearly loved and for good reason and we have to consider that it would also be a change in Dur for Durham. It would be Durham's kids um you know Durham's littles and Freeport's littles going out to Powell. But for Durham, their middle school kids would be coming into Freeport earlier than they do now. And that's a change that could be difficult. It would create a shared new identity. So those are just some at first blush of
064the factors to consider if we did that. And then the next scenario is a very interesting one that I have heard more than one person discuss and that was okay we could do a district-wide sixth grade at Powell Elementary School. So in this scenario, we kind of keep things as they are in more ways than in the previous one. But all the sixth graders go out to panel and have this one sort of like very philosophically different sixth grade experience than what we're currently doing. It would have to be philosophically different because all the specials and things, art, music, PE, etc. would have to be kind of folded into the experience. um probably focused on outdoors adventure education. Don't have that concept fully fleshed out yet, but people have talked about it. Um panel prek
065to 5 would um go to DCS. So the panel kids are still leaving Panel and going to Durham in this scenario, but they're coming back in sixth grade. And then Durham's sixth grade would go to Powell as everyone's sixth grade would. And seventh and eighth grade would go to Freeport Middle. So benefits to this, we could potentially have this really cool sixth grade year that is very different from anything that we're currently doing. Um, there seems potential for experiential education with an outdoor focus. It's right up against Bradbury Mountain. That's also a benefit if we put early childhood there. And it could create this interesting bridge year between elementary and middle school. And it could achieve that middle school integration factor even earlier than we talked about. The shortcomings that I saw are is that
066we don't really achieve the middle school efficiencies in the same way. Um the sixth grade program, you've got to think about all the things you have to have in a building to have a grade level there. So art, music, world language, life skills, special education, etc. We'd have to find a way to achieve that with sixth grade. It's not the same. You do have to think about those things for early childhood but not in the same way and we still have not achieved the maximum the best solution for early childhood if we do this and it's still a significant change for pal especially um new shared identity for grade for grades six through 8. So, this scenario has been talked about. Perhaps you can tell. I don't think this scenario is as viable as some
067of the others, but it has been talked about and it could be talked about more. So bringing us back to the broader view, we are living in a moment of complexity both with the budget and with this proposition, the budget for next year and for the vision for longer term. And I think what these moments are asking us to do is something that's very hard, which is to hold a lot of true things at the same time. And I think what we see in the world today is that when people are challenged to do that, they become reductive and they reduce it to rights and wrongs, um, anyone who's ever taken ethics courses, which I imagine some people in the room have, ethical dilemmas are actually never a right versus a wrong. That's a moral
068dilemma. An ethical dilemma is when you have a right versus a right. It is right on the one hand to preserve panel exactly the way it is because it's important. It is also right on the other hand to think about changing it because there could be possibilities there. It's how you balance those things and hold them both to be true while making a decision that is what makes it complex. So here's where I kind of wrap this up. I need to know where you'd like to go with this. Um, I hope nobody in any of the towns is ready to burn me an effigy right now for making this. I'm just trying to make it talkable. Um, what's most important to you in your decision- making? Do based on what you've seen here, are we
069justified in carrying forward this this conversation? I think I'll just stop there. It's really what it is. Where would you like to go from here? Lois. >> Yes. Yeah. Just so I am open to any of these. Let me start by saying that I would encourage everyone here to start at the end of Flying Point Road and pretend you are on a bus as a three-year-old and drive or perhaps have the bus take you from the end of Flying Point Road to Panel with stops along the way. My concern is that three year olds would be on the bus for perhaps an hour or more. It doesn't mean that it wouldn't work. It means that we have to consider, as you say, the child, not the dollar, not the parent. We have to consider what's
070going on with the child here. And a three or four year old, that's a long drive. That's Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Twice a day. my opinion. >> Yeah. No, it's um the the transportation piece is a is an important one. I think regardless or irregardless which one is it either >> regardless regardless of what early education early childhood we end up with how we handle three-year-olds getting them to school every day. Um and then you know these are also three-year-olds that may have particular needs. So, um, whether that's on a bus or not is probably it's probably not a bus. It's probably a van, but it the the point is still the same. Um, yeah, certainly um certainly something to think about because we do have a pretty um wide geography.
071I think actually Durham, the geography of Durham for the number of people is is pretty big. Not a lot of people. So, you can be pretty far from any of the schools. like yeah that that is true but I also want to point out I think people often think that panels in the middle of nowhere like hours away um it's from more street school about eight minutes to get to PES so I just want to point that out too takes me 10 minutes to get here I have to drive past the school >> it's not as far as people think it is >> I we we run across the same thing in in Durham people think we're you know you know past Turner and and hang a right and then you'll get to Durham. Um
072it's not it's not as far as you think. >> Second start of the right. >> Yes, exactly. Halfway on till morning or something. Um I I want to start with a a big thank you because I this is a brave thing to undertake. I mean we told you to but it is still brave. Um you know this is these are not easy conversations. Um, and I appreciate the care with which you laid out, you know, you didn't you didn't avoid the hard parts to just avoid them, right? You laid them all out like these are some of the benefits, these are some of the challenges we would face in any of these situations. Um, and I think, you know, the idea of keeping it about what is best for kids in our district, um, from
073a whole variety of perspectives of what's best, um, I think will will serve us well in this discussion. Um, but I feel like this is a really a really, um, sensitive but open way to start the conversation. Kelly. So it looks like part of the driver of you know thinking about reconfiguring is the early childhood space consideration. And so I would be curious to know if not pound um what does this look like for us in a way that is actually feasible that we can you know not be having to have resources in every school. It sounds like that could add up to a lot of positions and um >> I can answer a little bit of that right now and there are others in the back row who could answer it better than I
074can, but so you can under the state's mandate um for special kids for three-year-olds who have an IEP, they can be grouped with four year olds. So they could be brought in where we have four year olds. Um to the extent that we will have space, I don't know that we'll I don't know that we'll fully have the space with the existing facilities the way they're configured. Um there is also the option to push our services out to community providers. Um those community providers have to have a certain star rating from the state. Um not all the providers in the community have that. And when we discussed this with the early childhood task force, we run up against the inefficiency of like pushing our people. We're paying the mileage, which takes time to get out
075there. We're paying them to get out there. The setting in those community daycarees or providers may not be conducive to providing the services. So, it's possible, but it's not ideal. We there was a strong sentiment that it's better for those kids if we do it in our facility with our people. If I may have a moment of polyiana optimism, um I do think we have the opportunity with options two and three to kind of maybe celebrate that we're a district, a cohesive diff district. I know that I've heard in this community complaints that the high school is called Freeport and that it's all three of us. And so there's a possibility that all of our students would be enjoying the facilities at Powell in both options two and three and kind of make us more
076of a cohesive unit whereas now we're only joining at the high school. And so I do like that aspect of these proposals. I think it's nice to kind of reinforce that we are in fact one one unit. >> Thank you so much for this. I think this is really well put together and I really appreciate how you have made it talkable. So thank you for that. Um, and your question, what factors are most important in our decision- making? The first thing that came to my mind is where is the most like developmentally appropriate what is the most developmentally appropriate environment for students? Um, and it does sound like I do like the idea of an early childhood education center and and and space. My question is more around the middle school piece, too. And this
077is the first that I've heard that there have been that there's been a desire for the Durham's seventh and eighth graders to join earlier and that there's a that there might be a challenge in them integrating in ninth grade. And so I'd like to hear a little more about that. And um I'd like to hear more about that. Um, I I will start, but then I'm going to ask Will >> maybe to come on down. So, I can just tell you, come on down, Will. Um, when I first arrived here, that conversation was pretty strong and that sentiment was made really clear to me and people were asking me to somehow bring that out into the open. And I don't know that everybody feels that way, but enough people do that it should be talked
078about. Jen's teeing herself up behind her because she knows she's next. >> Uh, well, good evening. Oh, it's a little louder this week. Um, so just to circle back to your question, I don't think that there's necessarily um a response that says there's a this is not a conversation that has really necessary been aired publicly. What I would say is that over the years it is a conversation that has been discussed at administrative meetings over the last few years and um when Ray Grogan was here as principal at Freeport Middle School and had his own students at the high school and involved with sports teams, his own children I should say, he would bring up that how noticeable he felt like it still was for some of the Durham kids to sort of like hang
079in their groups of long-term relationships and friendships. those that were involved in sports or drama or music in other activities would kind of bond or merge in those ways. Um but for others, you know, they stayed with their kind of cohorts that they had and that um you know, you talk developmentally, it is easier to connect with people as an early adolescent, even though that's a tricky time, than as a ninth grader where um there's different social pressures and things that people are navigating. So it had been a conversation um with uh the last couple of years but never quite got beyond that piece of being conversations at the administrative level. So as such it's not been a topic where we have gone to community members or to families to say hey you know how
080would you feel about this? What would this look like? informally when we see um families because obviously as you might imagine we have some families who have been with the school um who have several children so they'll come back to pick up their younger ones and we check in hey how's so and so doing up at the high school and um I would say that pattern has held true for for those involved in specific sort of extracurricular um type activities there's a connection Um, for some of those who haven't, it's sometimes been a trickier um, uh, transition and they've sort of stayed within their their particular um, kind of cohorts. Um, so, you know, it is it has been in that in that vein. I can't say to you, oh, and there's all this background
081information behind it. Because equally, in the same way that Tom has sort of stressed that um, you know, we are very committed to making the prek experience the best it can be. And so that's sort of like our focus. We certainly don't want to um put doubts upon the model in which people are in. The um the piece I would say that goes along with that just in terms of the last couple of budget cycles that we've had conversations about it has been tricky where we've faced conversations specifically about FMS staffing and models and and schedules and offerings and Darham and as Tom said they're both great schools and they're great in different ways and I feel that there's been this desire and effort to um have shared and similar opportunities for kids. So when
082they come together in ninth grade, it's not possible in the models that we have um when we share uh unified arts teachers from prek through 8 compared to those who are focused specifically on early adolescence and the kind of experiences they can offer. Um, ever since the um, RSU5 came together, there was great efforts on behalf of Freeport Middle School and um, Craig Sickles was the AD at the time and it's been continued by Eric to offer some of the sports across both schools. It means that currently for football, Freeport Middle School football players will wait before they can commence practice so that Durham finishes school. um close to an hour later and we dismiss them a little bit early so they can be transported down uh to meet with their uh teammates. But those
083little facets are evident throughout where somebody's waiting, somebody's being slightly compromised. There's additional transportation. Um for some of the sports, they're just not possible. We don't have enough. We have kids who ski but not enough uh to run a separate ski team or ski program. um and then coming together at a high school level at that point you've kind of missed some of those opportunities to connect and to sort of grow those sort of skills. So there's a range of those sort of facets that exist in a perfect scenario. Um as you were just mentioning, you know, that notion of shifting from an RSU 5 to a district type of experience and district kind of thinking, um it holds a lot of appeal and potential. Um, but I can't say that we've had big community
084conversations about it because we haven't. You want to add anything to >> Good evening everybody. Jen Gul from the high school. Um, I think there's lots that I can add. Uh, I I wonder if there's questions too that you have. Um, I think in general, Will said a lot of the points that I would make that I think I have seen, this is my 11th year here, and I think over the time that I have been here, I've seen this real concerted effort to deliberately have our eighth graders getting to know each other sooner um than just when they're coming in on their first day of school. And I I I certainly think that that has helped, but that has come from realizing just what he's saying for our students who are not connected to
085a particular group or activity or or uh athletic team or our drama program or music. We we really need to be thoughtful in how are we helping them to create relationships. I also think that there is a lot to be said about going through with the same cohort of kids from grades K to 8. I have a my own child did something similar to that in a program in Portland. They're a little bit like friends and siblings. And so I think that there can be benefits to that. I do think that it's a real skill for kids to be able to walk into a classroom with kids that they've never met before and how are they working with those students? how are they forming friendships, relationships, and um that that takes effort for us to
086make sure that all of our students are doing that. Um and I think it's a different experience for the kids who have done multiple transitions to multiple classrooms versus being in a smaller program. I think um there's benefits to both, but I I certainly think um there's times where we have seen a difference with that. I don't know if there's questions that I can answer. I know academically that has been another area that we have tried to align the middle schools a little bit more in terms of um trying to ensure that regardless of which middle school they went through, they were kind of coming in with the same level of preparation for their academic classes. I I'm thinking specifically of math. Um h has that been enough? Do you I mean I I know
087it's been a concerted effort, but is it is it um is it showing up in results that that's working? Is it enough? >> I think that there Well, I think Will can speak to this as well. I think that um I would say particularly right before COVID that we were doing a lot more work vertical work 6 through 12. I think that there has been from my perspective and will can share that there's been a lot of collaboration across the two schools but logistically it's challenging just the things of um on early release days we tend to be building based because we would have to wait an hour for our teachers to meet with the Durham teachers which we did in this early release day but then it gives a shorter chunk of time. So
088the whole benefit of the early release is to have this larger chunk of time. And so in my mind, I think there are some logistical very real challenges of having the eighth grade teachers from the um DCS being able to meet consistently and frequently with the Freeport Middle School teachers because we have that challenge within our own building that sometimes if our teachers schedules don't match, we are really having to get creative about the time when they're able to collaborate, which makes a difference in alignment. you know, true alignment comes from when teachers have time for planning and it's consistent and frequent. Um, and I think, you know, again, Will can give more information about that, but I think that that certainly in my mind is still a challenge. >> Thank you. I'm not sure
089if you were asking specifically around sort of like academic comparisons, but certainly from curriculum delivery, um, we try to align programs. Um, and as we talked about before, there are some where like we don't match the amount of science and STEM that can be offered. We don't have that capacity of teaching. Um and uh but we do certainly with the math um and um the language arts also has similar programming uh approaches to it. So there that we try to align as best we can so that when children coming in they will have similar experiences to then build upon you know for the high school for freshman classes. >> Yeah. And that's I thought what that's what I thought your answer was going to be which is good right. I mean, I I think it's
090important to say that, you know, the the middle school experience that they're getting in German is is not substandard or subpar in any way. Um, but, you know, could we make it even better for everybody? I mean, that's a really interesting idea. >> Well, I think that's part of some of the pieces that Tom alluded to across any of the models. What we've been looking at is budget-wise, it's just really tricky when there's models of inefficiency. So, in a similar way, when there's a small elementary school, a small middle school is going to be constrained by opportunities it can offer. Um and so then when we talk about um ways to sort of solve you know challenges of that start to push upon inequities but then equally feel like does one place have to lose
091something in order to maintain status quo. Um, and I think that's again sort of like what Tom was alluding to is there opportunities to um, you know, whenever possible you want to be able to level up, not level down and that but financially leveling up in inefficient numbers, schools that have smaller numbers that make staffing inefficient, it's tricky. Um, you know, there's small pieces that really drive our schedule that people may or may not be aware of is that because we compete against middle schools with sports teams. Um, but we run on an elementary school schedule because of high school busing. Um, it means that our middle schoolers u at the end of the day we they will often have to leave school early because when we play an away game, we're playing against a
092middle school who have finished at 2:20 when we don't finish till 3:15. Um when we have home games, they play on our schedule, but it's impactful. Um it means that if we have shared staff with the middle school, which we do, we share a math teacher, that person runs on a Durham day, but we have to have we have to run our schedule around their afternoon um availability. And so all of a sudden, your school schedule gets locked in because we have a middle school and an elementary school schedule. And it's it those things become sort of log jams. So there there's small subtleties like that that um and I agree with you Michelle. I think it is important to really stress um we feel super fortunate. We have some outstanding middle school teachers as
093you know um and um who really do an excellent job and um and know the children really well. Um they loop with them. and they teach seventh and eighth grade both. Um, which is, you know, I've worked in straight middle schools where we've also looped, found it a really powerful model. Um, so I don't think we are necessarily compromising children, but we're really looking at what opportunities exist that also kind of meet our district needs for how do we grow efficiently and sustainably. So, >> for the for the record, my son really appreciated getting out early to go to soccer games. >> Yeah. He loved that he missed an hour and a half of school. >> Yeah. Well, that was right because he supported Manchester United. It had been another team we had to talk
094about it. >> Fair enough. >> Any other specific questions while we have Will and Jen right there or >> Okay. Uh Anna, just a quick um question about the scenario two and three. Would we have enough room at Freeport Middle School for it to be six through eight? No. >> So, six would go to Mass Landing. >> Six would go to In scenario two. >> Yeah. >> Six would go to Mass Landing. >> That's right. Durham, >> right? Durham would stay six. >> Durham would keep it sixth grade. >> Got it. Yes. Okay. and pound the panel K to five go to Durham and that K to six sorry because the six would have been going to Freeport Middle now they go to Durham and the offset is Durham's seventh and eighth >> go to
095Freeport Middle and it's prek goes to Powell >> and I guess the follow-up question is uh you said that the third scenario with the sixth grade having this experience year had also been talked about in the margins for a while. Um, is it just mostly is it because the sixth grade thinking like the bridge year between elementary and middle or like why why the sixth grade? >> Um, I think that that was what was primarily attractive about that idea. Um, and I could probably call Will back. Come on, Will. >> Okay, the cat's out of the bag. This was kind of a Will Pittton idea, >> but others really >> just walks out the door. I'm gonna end it now. >> Well, um in case anyone wanted another time, >> the um the reason this
096had come up um previously was that um we'd also looked at really in an ideal world six through eight would be together, right? And to be honest with you, we've brainstormed a variety of different thoughts. You know, how viable are modular buildings, modular buildings shortterm? How viable is a financial demand to expand a middle school? You know, and how long do those things wait? And then if they become, you know, you start talking facilities, is it middle school or is it more street? Is it is it regional middle uh elementary school? There's so many long-term conversations that could potentially delay a impactful decision. And and again, I think the important thing here is that I can't stress enough how we've tried to always as again I'm going to turn back to the beginning of Tom's
097presentation. The focus has always been like is there a way that we can have a really rich uh experience for students that doesn't compromise students whilst recognizing the need for a sustainable budget for the communities and um and that is what sort of like driven the kind of brainstorming and thinking. So without the capacity for a 6 through8 facility in the current model, we've also talked about what do you move people around? You put the six through eight school in Durham and you know what does that look like? But that unfortunately it doesn't leave enough other spaces for what we need. So um but you know I guess I would say that if it's any of these conversations as Tom said if there was an interest to move forward then at that point people dig
098deeper into what viability exists. But so the idea of sixth grade at Pano was um currently um our sixth graders go to um the 4 camp beginning of fifth grade. I think Mars landing students go in fifth grade um to camp and um I'm not sure what grade does FMS still do a camp please in the past. So there was a sense that like okay there's some common experiences children entering early adolescence um starting to navigate some of those pieces um in our sports leagues that our schools are a part of sports teams are for seventh and eighth grade. So it's not like sixth grade necessarily be compromised in that regard. They already have some camp experiences in different settings but through that same sense of bringing kids together and developing community. So the conversation
099was if the focus was upon bringing middle school kids together as early adolescence as opposed to ninth graders, do we like double down on that and do we take this sort of rich commitment to um wanting uh sort of science and STEM experiences? And in the previous strategic plan, one of the big features of that was that children are learning in uh having opportunities for experiential learning and um that you've got an amazing setting in Po uh relative to just it's the school setting relative to Bradbury Mountain and the park. Is that a place where you actually bring together all the children uh to get together to beginning their secondary school years six through 12 um in a way that then they go to camp as a cohort or camp experience is designed around that
100sort of cohort. You've got access to uh lots of sort of place-based learning opportunities right there in the park. um that we do we really emphasize that experiential year of building culture and community in in in a creative way for their learning that this sets them up as they then travel as seventh and eighth graders to um middle school in Freeport. So that was kind of the thinking behind it. Again, none of these things have really been unpacked thoroughly because of, you know, really to be able to just air the conversations and see if there's any desire to pursue them any greater. I'm not sure if that answers it in any way. >> Okay, >> I've got some more ideas if you want to hear them. >> Your time is is ticking down here between
101here and June. So, >> Karen, did you you look like you're about to hit your button. So I have a question about scenario two where that would be the early childhood center and I don't know how many classrooms are in panel currently but would that space be utilized fully with an early childhood center or how does that look? >> The consensus at the moment is that we would need the whole building for an early childhood center. I can say that on top of that, just sort of another level of this, it's not in the slideshow, but Peter Wagner and I have talked about being able to expand community programs offerings largely after school at Panel to try to maintain more of a sense of, you know, to keep it a vital place. Um, and there
102is an opportunity for that to happen out there. But we would I can't remember exactly how many classrooms there are in that building, but let's see. We've got one for each grade level. We have a library, music room, art room, STEM room. >> Seven. >> Plus four more. >> Yeah. >> 11. >> And then the gym. um >> that includes the specials and all the Yeah. >> And when we consider that we would need classroom space, but we would also need spaces for um services to be provided because this is largely driven by a special education commitment. Um we would definitely need all the space. Now with that said, another aspect that we haven't fully discussed is we may every district in the state is contending with what to do with early childhood. Some are
103better positioned than others with regard to facilities. those who have the greater challenges may look to contract with other districts to so and I have had conversations with other superintendents in neighboring districts who have said that if we had a center like that and had space they would have children to send to us to pay tuition. So, I don't want to overpromise on that, but that's definitely something that could manifest. >> May I ask then, um, do we have any numbers? I know there's nothing solid probably, but for next year, the year after is this, this proposal, I guess, is it not for fall of 26? It's for fall of 27, >> I would. Well, that would that would be great if that could happen then. Um, I mean, we have numbers of four year
104olds that are coming in next year, but that number, as Julie mentioned to me the other day, what we're experiencing now that we've joined cohort three, and I don't know if you want to talk about this, Julie, but it's sort of a now that we've built it, people know we've built it, and they're kind of coming out. >> We haven't even built it yet. >> We said we would. We >> Yeah. I think what we are realizing is is the numbers currently provided by CDS, they're not necessarily reliable. We ran our preK um screenings last Friday and we've already kind of identified five more children that will be referred and our early intervention team are part of those screenings. They have a really, you know, usually if they're unsure, we kind of just wait. So
105the fact that they're recommending that we move forwards, the likelihood of them qualifying is pretty high. Um two of whom, you know, have more needs than, you know, just an articulation thing. So um I think what panel I I don't think it's really been talked about but the potential of having an early childhood center is that we can start to talk about whether we want Currently we have half day prek which is um restrictive for some families who need full day care. Lots of families choose to have their children in two settings and it works really well and it and it has been great for many years. But I think if we were to move towards a full day, 4-day program, four-year-old program, we would see more, our numbers would be higher. So right now
106we have eight pre-k classrooms across our district. So that's half day. I would imagine once we if we were to move to a full day programming where we would probably fill another classroom and we have restrictions on prek. So, you know, when we talk class sizes at all the other grades, we can make those decisions, whereas we have restrictions on prek that are mandated by the state that we cap at 16. So, you know, it it like the the capacity shifts depending on what we're offering. Um, I had worked I'm like, you know, just sitting penciling the kind of things we would need in that setting. So if we're then thinking about the mandate is to provide special ed services for three-year-olds, but if we were to offer kind of three-year-old programming, if we had
107full day prek classrooms, let's say that moves to nine, and then we were like, maybe we should be offering half day three-year-old programming. Then we're looking at potentially four sessions, two classrooms that we need to do that. And then we've got a special ed classroom that we're already proposing that we're adding. So another space and then you're going to want I mean we're going you need a gym like all the movement kind of pieces that you would want as well as the outside um space. Um and then you've got your speech and your OT and you know our OT's are always fighting for space in my school particularly. They would love a big space to have lots of equipment. um you know that just the potential of what we could offer in that kind of
108environment would be is exciting in lots of ways but I I think without a doubt we would fill that space. >> Do you feel that the space would be too small eventually? Who knows? But there's lots of space to add on out there. So >> Okay. Thank you. just um kind of want to share my initial thoughts and I I think um one of the things that I have love about this district is um how how much we talk about equity and actually we don't just talk about it. We are an incredibly equitable district. Um, and I think that this proposal really um I think it it it makes our district just that much stronger because we this um we're giving if if we if we make these changes, we are giving our our students
109they're all on the same playing field. It's a kind of a level playing field for everybody. It it um it just makes our district more inclusive. Um, and I say this as a panel resident, um, who, so I'm kind of thinking of both sides of this. Um, any if we do decide to go forward with one of these, um, options, it will disproportionately affect panel. So, I just want to kind of say that, but um, I think in a in a lens of equity, it's kind of a no-brainer. I think it makes a lot of sense. >> Yeah. I would also just thank you, Tom, and the administrators for for putting this together and uh for getting this out in the open. And um I'm I think one of my reflections is just um I
110can understand all of the reasons why it hasn't been, but I just I do find myself saying like would have been great to have talked about this three years ago. Um which again is not a that's not a criticism of anyone. It's but more we know exactly where he was um because we looked into it. Uh, we had our people up there. Um, I think what I'm over here experiencing is sort of a sense of like, um, I have a, as my wife will attest to, um, I can shift into like a hyperrational mode, um, that kind of like is hard to budge me from. Um, and I'm over here trying to budge myself out of that mode, but I'm finding myself just like within that frame of really thinking about this in terms of
111the like how the pragmatic elements of this really add up. Um, the second uh scenario just seems like the I appreciated you saying all of the things about the it's not right versus wrong, it's right versus right, but I would say the the rights in um scenario 2 are just so strong. They're just so um uh again and I'm I will I'm totally owning that that is coming from a very rational place of just like a place of like where you put all of the pieces together um it makes sense in so many ways. Um so I just I I just want to say that and I think I think I would encourage us as a board to um urge you to continue to pursue that one. I'm not as keen on the third, though.
112It kind of I get like a little bit of um that one's giving a little bit of like old uh soul school vibes. Um where my wife went and and Lois's mom taught. Um and so the idea of like having that like sixth grade um experience does like that sort of that's very exciting. But like um so I guess it is knocking against my rationality but like the but the but again in keeping the like the the fact that we still have the distributed prek and all of those other pieces. Um so I would just encourage us to to pursue the second option. Um with a real eye toward I guess three things. One um can we push ourselves to do this by the fall of 27? Um and what would that look like? Um
113two, I think the the number of rational benefits or sort of pragmatic benefits becomes even stronger um if the financials um really kind of support that, right? If we can really see if we really can have an understanding of um what like what footing does that put us on um and uh can we see a real difference between status quo um or the status quo which is not status quo even though I'm not like I agree yes we can keep going with that but I guess the third thing is like to just understand if we were to stick with status quo what would have to change because something would have to change because we'd have to we'd probably build a new building just to be blunt. Like I don't think we're going to get too
114much farther um the way things are going without having to look at that as a question. So I don't really think that um the status quo is status quo. I think it's really saying what are some of the costs on there. So I think I would just encourage us to to I would um encourage us as a board to encourage you to look into that. Um, and also just I know the fall 27 seems like a little astonishing as an idea, but it's also like once we sort of have the idea um and once we start to recognize again the obligations that we would have um to the uh prek with the the three-year-olds. Again, I think it just there's so many things behind that that line up so powerfully. Yeah, I agree with Colin
115that you've made a pretty strong case that um one of these scenarios and scenario two I'd say seems the strongest is a really can be a really positive thing for our district in terms of the addressing the inequities as well as really gaining us some um financial efficiency. And my one question I guess is if we decide to move forward with kind of fleshing this out more and really um getting granular more granular about what that efficiency looks like, how do we h how like what does the plan to sort of get buy in from the community look like? Because that's the piece that I think is going to be kind of difficult. I don't fully know the answer to that yet, but I think that that's the next big like thing to figure out
116and it would need to be figured out this spring and it would start with what's on the agenda of our admin team about how can we now bring the community into this process to to hear its voice. We would need I don't I don't know what that looks like yet, but it would have to look like something. It would be a priority for us. That's where we would start. And it would probably start with getting more of these details so that we can present a strong case to them because at this point it's just ideas and sometimes feelings are stronger than ideas. >> I mean I want to return to the original point that um my intention actually was not to ne was to sort of let the scenarios speak for themselves. U it is
117no skin off my nose. what what you decide to do. I mean, it's your district. Um, but I felt a responsibility to have you hear what people are talking about and what we see at this point as costs and benefits of these different scenarios and to see if you want to run with any of them. Um, I think what I'm kind of hearing and I have, well, I should stop. I'm hearing some people say they like the idea of figuring out more of what scenario two involves. Um, and we can do that. One piece that I I forget who it was who asked the question. It was about like the numbers. Um, it's really hard to see very far because the kids haven't been born yet. Um, especially with three with threey olds. Um it
118a lot of those three-year-olds who would have a you know an issue that we would be responsible for and develop an IEP for they're really little. The parents are they're just developing it. It's sort of like it's very foggy and I don't know that that will ever dramatically change. Um, but I do think it's reasonable to conclude that if we have a facility and if we have services on on offer, people will access them now that aren't under the current CDS model. And that's work for us, but it's good for kids. Um >> um so I've this is this is going to be maybe some questions and maybe just some thoughts from me as as the other um panel board rep um with Malik, but I I really struggle with a lot of this. You
119you had mentioned that like you know you have two truths two two good things and um I do see the equity piece like like Malik had mentioned. Um I also do feel a lot of just being honest kind of protection of my own. Um you know as a kind of foundation on that I have a a second and third grader at Panel and they have more years at Panel and uh we we've really fallen in love with the school and and the staff that's there and and then the situation. But I I do I do also understand as I pull back of of a district-wide perspective. Um I I would say that there's a a couple kind of initial thoughts that come to my mind. One, um beyond the CDS transition, is there a reason
120that we have a rush for this? Um is there a reason that we are trying to do this by call it uh fall 27? Um or is the CDS transition really our reason for that? I think others in the back row feel free to speak up. I think that that's the biggest factor that gives us a timeline. Will the world come to an end if we don't achieve that by fall of 2027? It won't. Um I do feel I I have to acknowledge we don't have a good solution for the three-year-olds. >> And I don't think we will have a good solution for the three-year-olds without some kind of reconfiguration. So if we go past that fall of 2027, we'll have responsibility for three-y olds and no really good way to do it. >> Sure,
121that makes sense. >> So can can we do it? I mean, sure, we can make a million things work, but we would we would have a good way to do it. Um, yeah, I think that's the honest answer. So yeah, in thinking about that, um I know that I'm not the only one at Panel that has that connection to the school. Um and I know that that's really really strong and really pervasive in in Panel. Um so if this is something that we would end up going for, I think community input would be would be really necessary and I think community buyin would be honestly really hard. Um, not that I'm opposed to change, uh, but just just being honest with that that that is if if that's something that has kind of glossed over
122in your mind, it is not something that has glossed over in Panel's resident's minds. Um, so I also was in just kind of thinking about a couple different scenarios. Um, I know that Mor Street is potentially coming to the end of its life as a school. Um, it's an old school and so one of my questions is do we have the potential to because we need to maybe build this school there sometime in the future anyways build what we want instead of adapting what we have for um, you know, most of our most of our early childhood is is in Freeport. Um, so do we have a potential of of using that to reorganize that and make our childhood center actually there. Um because we're most likely going to have to put some investment into
123that school somehow soon. I I guess I don't I think another piece that we haven't really talked about today which I think will inform kind of where we go is the idea of the facility study. Like what do we have? What is its best use? Um, what potential do we have at those places? I mean, there are some places where there is room, right? Like we added the portable for Laugh and Learn at Mass Landing. I mean, there's there's space in Powell. There's space in Durham. I would say the one place there is no space other than potentially adding like a level is at the Mor Street School from when we've looked in the past. like you could add maybe a second level of part of it like you can see it the flat roof
124which I think we have been told could add maybe four classrooms right which is not nothing um I don't know if it would meet the need but I don't know what the answer to that is like um I don't know how close to the end of its life more street is or if it's at the point where it just needs a major overhaul. I don't know if there's space. Um I know it's really tight on every angle at Mor Street um to to go out. So maybe you can go up. Um >> I I can't answer that in like any kind of justifiable detail at the moment, >> but I can tell you what it makes me think as I I hear the question. >> The first is um More Street is an older building.
125It's still very functional. I I think probably I don't know how many years it has left. It's not collapsing. Um but it's not unsafe. It's not collapsing, but it's >> It's not new. So I think that I think that question about at some point at at some point within you know an amount of time we can think about that building will probably either need to be renovated or replaced. I think that's legit to say. Um the other problem that that does not solve though is the inequity of pal as a small school in the district with larger schools. And I I have this is playing out in RSU40 where I just left where Friendship Village School has 65 kids and it's a dearly beloved school in a charming, you know, arts and crafts building from
1261910 I think or something like that. And >> more street isn't that old. >> No. And it people love it and for good reason. It's just that it costs a lot per student. And when you have class sizes at more street and mass landing that are approaching the upper limits of the policy and you don't have the flexibility to do that in a smaller school, it's an equity conversation. And um that's a hard conversation, but it that would not solve that problem. Yeah, it's um I've struggled for a long time on what this district could or should look like um for a variety of reasons. I love the panel school. Like I couldn't imagine closing the panel school. Um, I what I really like about this, and I'm I'm sure I'm eating these words someday,
127like I actually appreciate this early childhood mandate coming because that's really forced us to think about things differently and really creates an amazing opportunity, I think, for that school that, you know, keeping a school under a hundred or around a 100 kids. Um, it it's I don't know how long it's financially viable to maintain that model. Um, but I love that this could really fully utilize that space in a way that seems like it aligns with what that building was originally meant as, right? Um, I I think about scenario three. Um, and I think about how small the bathrooms are in the panel and I'm like, I don't know, some sixth graders are pretty big. Um, I I just like things like that, right? Like it feels like it feels like a an elementary a
128small a small people school. I love this idea, but I totally understand the emotional connection to it, Chris. And I never want it to come across that I don't respect and fully fully empathize with that. Right. Um for me the the timing piece one I don't like having to do things twice. I'm already thinking about like if we're looking at this for the following year, do we need to rethink what we're looking at for next year so we're not reduplicating efforts? Um, I don't even know if that's that's too far ahead of myself, but um, you know, if we know this is kind of a path we're going to go and we can work really hard to get some, you know, get that buy in and and really communicate the need and the benefits and
129acknowledge the real feelings about it. Um, I'd rather get it done sooner because those equity pieces that we're talking about all the way across don't get any better by waiting. Um, you know, we might be able to meet the need of three-year-olds sort of in an intermediate way to postpone for a year, but >> it might be a little illustrative for me to talk about an experience I had not last year but the year before in RSU3, which is very analogous to this. So RSU3 is interior Waldo County. It's where I was the principal of Mount View High School. And I don't know if any of you know where interior Waldo County is, but if you've been to the common if you've been to the common ground fair, >> you've been there. Okay? So it's
130it's that area. Um that district has 11 towns and it's the second largest geographic district in the state. It's a third the size of Rhode Island. it >> is very small. >> Cullen with words of truth always. Um so and the the towns are, you know, it's Thornike, Montville, Unity is the largest town. Um >> the big city Monroe Brooks Liberty Waldo I'm missing some but it's very small towns and the configuration of that district when I was there which is not that long ago is that there was a big there still is a big brand new beautiful building called the complex and it houses Mount View Elementary, Mount View Middle and Mount View High School all in one big building and that building has 1100 kids in it and all sharing one really big
131cafeteria and trust me the scheduling of anything really revolves around when kids are in the cafeteria in that building. So that's where,00 of the district's roughly 1,400 kids go to school. The rest are in four little community schools that are elementary schools and that's um Monroe Elementary School, Troy Elementary School, um there's one in Brooks, the name of it escapes me, and um Walker School in Liberty. And what that district came up against was they did a facility study as I've proposed in next year's budget. And the facility study looks very deeply at every school's plant, physical plant, and the state of the infrastructure there, and the number of students there. And it projects out here's what you'll need to do to maintain this building, and here's what it's costing you per pupil in that
132building. And the simple math is just that the smaller schools spend a lot more money per building, which has it has value. And it the district may decide that's a cost worth bearing for very legitimate reasons. Where they came up against it is in Walker especially the boiler was about to go and the question was in this building that was built in 1903. It's a beautiful building right in downtown Liberty. Do we replace the boiler now or is that throwing good money after bad because the rest of it's like an old car eventually. So they had discussions about closing two of the four little schools because there was plenty more room in the complex for those kids to come. But that's a hard decision to make. And they did close two of those schools just
133this last year. They closed Walker School in Liberty and they closed um the school in Brooks. Both of which had they they just weren't sustainable they were going and now the town of Liberty is vote very well might decide to secede from the district. So these things are playing out across the state and the reasons why people would want to keep their community small schools are totally valid. They just come up against what it costs to do it. So, so to be very clear, we are not contemplating closing panel. We are contemplating repurposing panel. Right. So, >> it it's very different in that in in >> I I appreciate the the the analogy. Um >> but it is quite different in the sense that there will still be a small school with a similar number
134of students. >> Yeah. And it would be, you know, it would be Powell's kids. >> Right. Right. But the but the but the per student cost would be very similar to what the per student cost at Panel is right now. >> It's just >> that that's the case. We haven't we haven't studied. >> Of course. >> Um that's what the facility study would probably help us understand. >> Yeah. So I would appreciate um I'd love to see kind of our thoughts on on just how different that cost is. >> Yeah. >> And that be reflected in how the communities bear different cost. I I I forgot what it's called exactly, but >> cost sharing um as well because that that's also part of the question. >> Yeah. >> Um when it when it comes to
135those kind of costs, >> um I appreciate all the effort that's gone into this. It's really um helpful, especially the way that my brain works is um trying to hold a more sustainable picture at the same time that we're having the budget conversations that we're having. So, this has been really helpful to me to kind of um hold some of those choice points, I guess, with more um long-term vision. And um my my perspective is I like option two as well and think that we should investigate that. Um and I say that with also like respect and compassion for the feelings that would come with what that would mean for um different different places and different schools. But my reasoning for that is that I feel like if we keep the status quo, we sort
136of like hold on to these small beloved experiences and the inequities continue to grow across the schools. Um, and it's going to the way that it ties to the budget for me is I think that that's what we've been experiencing these last two years is we're trying to make we're trying to hold on to these special experiences and it comes at great cost. um you have to like trade essentially, you have to like have tradeoffs um if you want to keep something exactly the way that it is on a small scale. And so not only would we gain e equity um in the actual educational experience of all of our students, I kind of view it as it shifts the inequities to geographical travel, which is very different than inequities in educational experience. um and
137uh all towns and all schools have some benefit and also are experiencing some inequity in the geography right so um even Freeport which doesn't exist right now um and so I think it's it's a leveler playing field um with how the inequity exists um and how it gets spread out across the district So that's my two cents. >> Um I also really like scenario 2. I think one of the things I get most excited about and thinking about it, it sounds like a lot of people are here is um in the early childhood center. And the fact that with if we did something like this, we could actually think about full day prek is huge for working parents. Um and game changer really. Um, and also I think we keep talking about, oh, everchanging world,
138AI, what's going to happen, what better place to invest than an early childhood. Um, because the sooner we get kids to school and we're talking about having an outdoor environment for them, play-based, it just it really strikes a chord with me. So, uh, I'm hearing general consensus for option two. Um, does anyone feel very strongly that they want more deep dive into option three? Lois, >> so I'm not so I'm not sure if I understood the cost analysis yet. Did you say that there hasn't been one done or >> There hasn't been one yet. >> Okay. So, so I guess I I am open to change. I'm good with that because I've thought that for years that there needed to be something done differently. But I had never thought about Will's idea of putting sixth
139grade at panel. And I'm curious if you even have a sense of what the changes and costs would be to bring all the necessary academic and specialists and everybody into panel as opposed to bringing the special ed department and everybody in. if it's a childhood center, an early childhood center, >> we haven't fleshed that out. Um, and that's part of we we don't necessarily want to invest all that time and energy and if it's something the board just doesn't even like the concept of. So, what I think I can tell you fairly is that just as we've talked about it and definitely more than on the back of an envelope, we've had rich conversation about it, but not a lot of research into it yet. The sixth grade option doesn't feel as viable. Um, feels
140like a cool idea, but when you think about all of the things we need to do to make it actually work, it just doesn't feel as if it works that well. Um, early childhood feels like it could work very well. >> Yeah. Just one of the things that struck me as I was thinking about is all the experiences, the extracurriculars, the clubs, the sports that the sixth graders currently engage in at the current schools would be, I think, far more difficult to recreate if you had sixth grade off by itself. you know, they wouldn't it wouldn't be as easy for them to come over to FMS to >> join the after school club or, you know, it would just be an extra step. It'd be a little more difficult. >> Yeah. I mean, having not
141looked at the numbers, kind of just sort of visualizing it in my head and what would be required to your point to run all of those things because we'd still have to have special ed at the sixth grade, right? Like there's still kids in sixth grade who need special ed services and you know and the specialists and you know unless there's a way to run the program in such a way that the teachers are incorporating art and music and and all those things without having the I the you know right I I feel like that one I I like the the cool idea of it. Right. I was telling Tom, I listened to a podcast about like how sixth graders brains are like crazy and you know sitting in class is really hard and you
142know outdoor time and you know maybe throw them on a farm for a year is a better idea. Um which I'm not saying pound is a farm. Yeah, I know. They could grow things. We could sell it. It'd be great. Erica could cook it in the other schools. It'd be great. Um nobody wants to eat that. um you know like I like the idea of the experiential learning piece of it. I just think, you know, when we look at the components we're trying to solve for, right? Um, equity is one. I think it does create sort of a cool bringing together at that time. I don't think it solves for um early childhood. And honestly, I don't think it's necessarily a a benefit to that program in the financial stability. You know, sort of we're
143looking at those three things we're trying to solve for it. I think it does one kind of well and in a really cool way, but maybe not the other two as well. Um, so for for me it's two. Valerie, >> another thing I would like I know that we it was briefly mentioned that we were going to bring in Peter Wagner potentially to look at community services and what they could do at Panel. I also wonder if if that would be incorporated more with if we went with that model, we would also be transitioning those sixth graders back to MLS and current state is that um extracurriculars are handled at the middle school for those people. And so those students would now need extracurricular offerings at Mass Landing, which many of them truncate at fifth
144grade. So we would need to think about what is age appropriate um extracurriculars offerings that would then be pushed back to our elementary education level for for not mass not just mass landing but also the panel students metriculating at DCS as well. Do I know I know in Durham the sixth graders can only part like sports they can only participate if there's not enough seventh and eighth graders to make a team so they can like fill the team. I don't know how that works at FMS. Is it the same? >> It's the same but they do quite a few sixth graders do >> get to participate. Yeah. Okay. >> And there's numerous clubs and drama. Um I know that many of our sixth graders were in the drama production this year. So just a lot
145of things that >> right >> we don't want to create a gap. >> Exactly. >> Call. >> Yeah. I think I think two things just to Chris's earlier point about the sort of the the fall 27 rush. I think just as I was reflecting on that I think I think it does just go to for me to the um to the equity piece. Like if we if we're trying to achieve equity let's try to achieve it as quick as we can. Just just on that. I think that was where my enthusiasm was coming from. I think also if like if we're if we're truthtelling um I'm realizing as we're talking about this that since I joined the board um one of the sort of the whisperings um that happens off sort of offline um has
146been about whether or not um the panel school will be able to be kept um because of the the cost per pupil question. Um and that has been that has been in the community and that has been something that has been has been talked about. Again, it's not something that we have talked about directly in this room. Um but it is something talked about and I think what I'm experiencing um and maybe it's what's sort of balancing a little of my um uh sort of balancing something a little bit me. I'm like I think I'm sort of thrilled at the idea that we could keep the panel school. It wouldn't be keeping the panel school as what it is, but it would be integrating that school and all of and a lot of what makes
147it such an amazing school, integrating we'd be able to maintain that and integrate that into the the district. So, I think there was like a little part of me that was like kind of like a sigh of relief. um that that that again that sort of more whispered um uh question that goes to all of your sort of the the small schools um that that that shifts. So I think I'll just I'll just again own that knowing that again that change would be really hard and we need to have really hard conversations with folks and it's not um just a it's not just a rational question. It's really thinking about the whole mix of it. But um again, I just think we really owe it we owe it to our kids to to look really
148seriously um at that second option. A >> and as someone whose kids went all the way through um from Durham and kindergarten up through all the way through Freeport High School for one um I can say that the Durham school is absolutely incredible. The staff they have is there is incredible. they would meld with the with you know the the panels um staff and and kids um and they wouldn't they would be changing it would be different but I don't think they would be losing they would you know they would be going to a great place it's it's not you know a a step back right we're not we're not bringing it down um which I think is is huge um and for me my my goal is is the same as as Collins um
149around the sooner we can get to the equity the better. Um I love the Durham school. I I have looked at the sort of disparities in the middle school not necessarily from an educational perspective but more from an opportunity perspective and I was kind of sad for my kids that they didn't have some of those opportunities and mine are gone or through the middle school years anyway. So, um, so I I would love for more kids to have those opportunities, um, because they're incredible and and the sooner we can give that to them, in my mind, if we can do it in a thoughtful way that makes sense, I am on board. Okay. I I feel that I have to just I have to thank the team back there because this I mean I'm the
150one delivering this proposal but this is really coming about because some very very smart people who are very thoughtful have been thinking about this for a long time and this conversation was already somewhat framed by the time I got here and what I have found is that when it comes to both this proposal but also just the other side of this which is just next year's budget that dovetales with this. The amount of thought and consideration and pouring over data and considering every contingency that has happened on that team is staggering. Um, so I just I I want to take a moment to really recognize that because, you know, we we're talking about lots of very complex things and the board has really good great questions about all of them and um I'm, you know,
151more than happy to continue to come back with answers to those questions, but I need you to know they things are being talked about and considered very thoughtfully by the team back there and they really know what they're So, here we go. >> I feel like Lois has a question. Yes. Microphone. >> A loud voice. So, I don't usually use a microphone. Um I so some of you know that I was a teacher at Mass Landing School and at Mor Street for a while for before we had Mass Landing for 26 years. So I need to just ask this question perhaps of your team perhaps of you. Have staff been clued into this discussion at all? Okay, thank you. >> Yeah, so that is I mean that is a part of the buyin process, right?
152It's not just community members, it's also the staff and what does that look like and what supports do they need? And you know, >> it's not time to take it to the staff until the board decides they even want this to go. Now that I'm hearing a consensus okay so am I hearing moving forward with more uh research and d deep diving into option two >> just on that I think again it really would be helpful to as as much as as possible without undue um labor to like have that be against the benchmark of the like the not really status quo. Um because I think that's that's I think um it's not that like uh I mean option two has a lot going for it just on its own but it's also contextual within
153the other options. Um, and I think particularly around cost, I think if we can um if we can get some of that and if that starts to to look like um it seems like what it would look like um it seems again it just provides a a lot a lot of um a lot more support for that. I think I I have some really good marching orders and I don't know what the next steps look like yet, but we'll have to like we're going to have to huddle and think of that, but we'll we'll I will bring you the thinking as it as it manifests over the next couple of months. >> Okay. All right. Um what' you say? It dovetailed into the budget. Here you go. 12 A2 review of the superintendent's proposed budget.
154>> Is this you? >> Well, it's me, but I think that it's more discussion. Um, so at this point, I don't have another presentation for you. I have shared the three tiers that you asked for. I've explained um the reductions that you've seen are I do think this is an important framing. Those are the least what we that's not the royal we that really is the Wii in the room. What we consider to be the least disruptive way to get to each level. So, and again that I think that theme that you saw in the last slideshow of tensions and trade-offs every they're all choices that are a trade-off and our intention has been to look at the entire situation holistically and think about what is most important to preserve and where we where we
155keep the best. Um, so I think that's the framing that that is most important for me to stress to you. And now is the time for me to try to answer questions or give you the opportunity to discuss. >> I think we do have some new information from what we had last time. I see Kelly getting up. So, I just want to mention that the packets included with um in your purple folders and that are out for the public and are also posted on the website. Um there was there's a couple of updates. One of which is that we got um informed by region 10. uh they're still in their budget process, but their finance committee um moved forward with um presenting a proposal um to the full board on February 23rd, which involves a
1569.63% increase in our um annual assessment from region 10. So on page uh six in your packet um the fourth item down says CTE region 10 that had previously said zero because we didn't know and we had just built it in as a flat um rate. So we've added $29,637 for the region 10 um contribution. And then if you look over to page seven, that ultimately puts us um year-over-year up 2,9001,512, which represents a 6.53% year-over-year expenditure increase. The other um place that you will see that is on page eight. I have updated article three because that is where we actually have um appropriate the funds for region 10. Um, and then it and then it updated the bottom line there. And then the other important piece that's in your packet this time, um, because
157we did get the ED279s, um, and we had talked about it at the last meeting, but I hadn't had a chance to touch base with the superintendent and the team about that. Um, the, uh, first round of proposed tax impact um, is in your packet. It is based off of the superintendent's recommended tier 2. It's not like we see what tier one looks like and we see a tier three. What what's in your packet is representative of the uh reductions which are included in tier one and tier two because that's what the superintendent was recommending. So just some uh if we can kind of walk through it a little bit. The year-over-year number which we just talked about rep uh is that 6.53% again that's just expenses year-over-year the total. Um, and then we start
158kind of going down through the shared revenues. There are a few changes there because we've joined cohort 3. We will no longer be including um some of the expenses within the budget. Um, but we are will also not be billing CDS for the services that we are currently providing to these four-year-olds. Right now the model is um a portion of the the staff members time that is actually attributed to the the CDS four year olds that we're serving within our prek program currently we can turn around and um submit for reimbursement through a billing option. Um and so that previously we had been collecting about $79,000 a year. um and that we will not be billing for that because again the model is is quote unquote fully funded. Um and we that money is going
159to operate outside of the budget. Now um the other the the other change is we used to um budget for half of an employee that we supposedly shared with the town of Freeport. We were doing this when I was here before the position never got filled. So I took the expense out and I took the revenue out. So they're a net zero. But why continue to put a expense in and a revenue in for something that hasn't come to fruition in 15 years. So that has been removed. But so with that said, if we just kind of go back up to the shared revenues, they're down about 159,000 160,000 based upon those two items. um the shared state aid that is the the portion of subsidy that we get for belonging to GSEA the Greater
160Sebago Education Alliance. Um and then if you go down to that next box there where we have Durham Freeport and Panel that's the amount of subsidy that each community is actually in fact receiving through the ED279. So, if you um take the total increase of $815,513 and you net a slight reduction of $600 for the um the um regional service center contribution, that's you'll see that's the amount that our subsidy went up. So, about $814, a little over eight about 815,000. Um but with that said um we all know that in or you have to give money in order to get money according to the uh 8279. So there is a local required contribution um and that is based upon valuation and the mill rate set by the state um the state and so that
161you can see the math there regarding each community that's up about $353,2 or $3. Um, so if we take um the total operating expenses, subtract out any shared revenues, any state aid, the amount that Durham keeps for their local portion of the debt for the Durham Community School, and the amount of require local required contribution in order to get the sub subsidy. That leaves you line E, which is that $17 million number. That's the additional local monies that actually get pushed through the cost sharing formula which was set up forth in our agreement. Um and that breakdown is um just below that where it says additional local money is required. It multiplies the amount. It takes that 17 million multiplies it by the percentage applicable to each town to actually get what the additional local
162monies required are. With all of that said, if you turn to page 10, it then summarizes it by community to arrive at what the taxable the tax impact is to each community. So the model actually here it does show it takes your state valuation shows you the mill rate in order to get your required local amount that we saw um on the previous page and then it adds in the additional local monies that were required which is using that um formula of of cost sharing for Durham. It adds the local debt in because they as part of that uh regional agreement um they agreed to keep that debt which should be retiring in a couple years by the way. Um and then the amount of state aid. So if you take that the total DURM
163is responsible for is that 13,744. But if you remove the amount of state aid because that's actually the revenue portion, the taxable valuation uh the taxable amount um to Durham brings you to 7 um 752788. Um I'm not going to explain it all for Freeport um again, but Freeport I will just read it out loud. It brings Freeport to 25,646 259 and it brings panel to 4,44825. We'll just move out to the next column. The difference is the amount of taxation last year compared to the amount of taxation needed this year. And then the line below the difference column that you see for each community, I reached out to um each town to get their um mill rates for the 2526 year because as we all know taxes are set as of April 1 of
164the valuations are set as of April 1 of each year. Um and those are set by the communities themselves and then the assessments for taxes are actually done by each community. We to the individual taxpayers. We tax the town when we when you guys in June when the the uh budget gets approved, you sign tax assessment warrants and what we're doing is we're turning those over to the treasurer of the communities and they are then adding that in to your total tax bill. There's three components to your tax bill. the education component, the county component, and your municipal component. Um, so we only when we are looking at these numbers, while I'm looking at the total mill rate and total valuation, what we need to remember is that for Durham, it's a $169 on last
165year's mill rate. And um that represents about five a 5.4% 4% increase for the education portion of the tax bill only. Um there will also still be community taxes that the towns will have to consider and any municipal increases that the towns are considering on their own. So just to run down through there for Durm it's about um 5.4% increase on taxation for >> I'm sorry >> 5.04 04 sorry um >> point counts >> 3.51 and then for panel it's 5.27 and again these are all based upon all of the recommended reductions in level one and level two that the superintendent um is proposing to the board. So those are the ads that I have. Um, and with that, unless there are questions about this, I will go sit back down because I know there's
166other presentations. >> Questions for Kelly? Thank you, >> Chris. >> Oh, Chris. >> Oh, sorry. Um, so just to wrap my head around it, uh, the the percentage numbers for the towns are lower than the the total 6.53. That's because the state um >> it's because we're looking at it relative to your mill rate which is your assessed valuation. >> Yeah. And that includes your municipal budget and your county budget. So the we're saying our school budget expenditure to expenditure is 6.53. Right. >> But when we roll that through with the >> that's because our state our state allocation went up, right? >> Well, that's part of it. But it could also be even if our state subsidy didn't go up, the percentage could be less or more based on the valuation the state gives
167us um and how much we have to raise with the required state mill rate. And then because we're comparing the increase needed to cover the educational portion of your tax increase, but we're the denominator. >> Yes. Is uh is your total tax rate inclusive of >> your whole tax bill. Okay. Not just the education piece. >> How'd I do? >> Did great. >> Um I had a question. No, I forgot what it was. Oh, uh I remember um we c sort of flew through the shared revenue piece. Um the undesated fund balance usage >> is a very specific number. I assume that's made up of components. So the undesated uh fund balance piece um is reflective of step I would say phase two of the vehicle and energy audit replacement plan that the board discussed
168last year. Um we had talked about utilizing undesated fund balance to so incrementally step into um kind of a leveled amount of taxation impact. And so um we have we we typically carry about 900,000 running through there. And so this this year part of that plan because prices came in on the energy audit a little lower than what we needed u than what we had anticipated the amount uh the additional 219,978 um represents phase two of that incremental step in to the vehicle replace vehicle and equipment replacement plan and the energy audit that we're working on. >> Thank you. Um, and just for newer members of the board, what that undesated fund balance represents is essentially the savings account that we have over the years when we we make estimates, right, on what it's going
169to cost for teachers and staff and and supplies. And I mean obviously the teachers and the staff are we're pretty locked in on because we know we have a contract but we could have someone who leaves at the top of the scale and replace them with someone who is fresh out of college so there might be savings there or vice versa. Um so you know what actually comes in terms of you know expenditures we can't we can't pay out more than we approve in the prior year but if it comes in that there you know we didn't spend everything we allocated it essentially rolls into that undesated fund balance. Um so sort of tax dollars we have collected but not needed to spend in that year and that's over you know the whole life of
170the RSU that those are built. Um, and then so this undesated fund balance basically allows us to offset some of the so we don't have to collect every dollar of the 47269441 we're hoping to spend next year. We're saying well we're going to we're going to use a million dollars that we've already collected from the taxpayers to bring down how much we need to collect. If that makes sense. >> Lois like a minimum. >> Yeah. >> So, so it's uh it it varies. Uh it's depended year to year. Like in COVID years, it went way up because we got funds in from the state. Um the state actually sets a maximum that they'd like you to keep. Like they won't they don't want you to keep more than 5% of your >> again >> nine
171again. it it it the legislature moved it back to nine and it's actually over a three-year period. >> So the the average is it's 9% over three years. So if so say if you're above the the 9% threshold but you actually have a plan for use which is what we're doing here or in the past two years we've also add to to the capital reserve capital reserve accounts with the undesated plus we um established article reserves with the undesated accounts. um those actually are like planned uses of it. So would reduce that percent because right right now you're audit like we audit on June on June 30, right? Which by the way we should be getting that next week. I'm so excited about that. Um for last year so we can actually get our our
172definite number. Um but basically when as part of that audit process she'll um they will ultimately land at a number but one of the questions that um the auditor asks me is what have you committed right and because we've committed in this this year to use that 1 million88 so that subtracts out of that overall savings account that I have and then anything that I um the board voted to utilize for article reserves reserves or capital reserves, those are also considered committed. And so those would come out and then they assess whether or not you're under or over that 9% threshold. So it's varied over time. It was as low as 3% during COVID. People I mean people weren't spending money because they were afraid of what was going to happen and then we were
173getting funds. So it was way up. So they bumped it up to 9%. They brought it back down to 5%. Apparently they're back up to 9% again. They were proposing to come back down but >> Oh, they didn't >> they didn't like because it was a a phase down approach. >> Okay. >> Um but they did not phase down to that. They let they changed it. >> So as a board we haven't we haven't had a target number as the finance committee to say like we think we should keep this much in there. Um, I think Kelly has done a great time, great job in her previous time and her current time back here in the district helping us be thoughtful in the use of undesated fund balance. Right. We don't want to, you know,
174uh, uh, bring it all the way down. We we try not to use um there's kind of a chunk that rolls through each year because we don't want to run run up against not being able to to pay everything we want to pay during the year that we've we've thought if things come in a little bit more expensive. Um so we want to make sure that we're we're collecting enough so there's always a little bit more and we try to put that back through through this undesated fund balance, right? Um, but we don't want to spend sort of rainy day savings on ongoing operational things, right? like we might move it into the capital reserve to say like you know if something if a roof goes or a septic system perhaps somewhere um we would
175have funds allocated for that and we might access that for um you know a one-time use as opposed to using it to fund operational like positions etc into the future which are ongoing uses with a one-time funding source um because then we just create as Kelly would call it a financial cliff. Um >> and and the other thing which you'll hear about at the next meeting is the our um instead of building a contingency within the budget itself for those kind of emergencies, what we've done as a district is create the capital reserve. So we have um a true capital reserve, we have a tennis court reserve, we have a track and field reserve account, we have a fuel reserve account which we have not touched since its establishment. Um but then we also created
176what we called article reserves and it was a way to be prepared for emergency situations um and have authority to spend money with board approval um but not tax taxpayers for it. And a perfect example of um this is a special education student moves in that requires a service uh a speech language service or and our our um our specialists are at capacity. We could potentially use that money to either one hire staff with board approval or two to use a contracted service provider um to get us by um for until the next budget year. So, what we've kind of done as a board or the board kind of agreed to when I proposed the article reserves is that they're kind of a one-time funding source for emergencies. So, if the emergency still exists come
177the next budget cycle, we would then add that position into the budget. It also helps us address those kind of like one-year fluctuations where sometimes you might need a grade four teacher, but we can't loop somebody up because now grade three, you know, the grade three is big, the grade, you know, three moving to four is big, but two moving to three is big. So, you need to keep that teacher. It it allows us to address that, but then you know that the smaller class coming up might potentially be a little lower and you could like it it just helps us budget better and not tax for kind of one year only positions or and if it if it's tried and true and it's going to stay, then we're going to commit to putting it
178in the budget. >> So, it's using our savings account for that. Yeah. Kelly, >> do you remember your comment? >> Sorry. Yeah, but I guess one thing point to bring up is sort of do we have sort of a policy for how much we decide to take from undesated funds to offset our taxation? I'm sure it just depends on how much we have in there and what we have sort of to use it on in other areas. But >> so the largest part of the one thing I will say is no, we don't have a policy. So, regarding that, but what I will say, and I'll I'll get on my um financial close soap box that Michelle's talking about, um is the majority of our budget, right, are staff and personnel, and they're going to
179the need is typically going to continue for those staff and personnel. So, if you are quote unquote buying down the tax rate by utilizing your undesated fund balance and you do that in one year and you don't add back to that savings account, you don't necessarily have it the next year to use. So, you then create a financial cliff, right, where you don't have the revenue, so it automatically has to go to taxation. Um, and I think one of the things we've learned as a board is is our annual rollover number for our staff is the largest driver of our annual increases. Rightfully so, we need to pay our employees. We need to pay them well because that we expect high quality employees and that's what we aim to hire. Um, and but as a
180result of doing that, that is the largest driver of your budget. And so I often advise against um utilizing undesated fund balance to pay for salaries that are going to then be needed again. So like I said, the typical number is that 900,000 Kelly um that was rolling through. Um that increased over the time that I left um but it was it that's where it was when I got back. Um but now what we've been doing is we've stayed relatively flat with that because we feel like we can support that number. But the the uses that we're now moving forward with are to level off for so for the energy audit for example and the um the vehicle and equipment replacement. We're um those the energy audit is is a 17-year lease, but much like
181we did when we took on the debt service for the renovation of the high school, we used undesated fund balance over a 4-year period to actually incrementally push it on to the taxpayers. So, it was a million dollars, right? And instead of saying in one year we need to raise a million dollars because we're adding this debt service on. The first year I used 750 in tax um in in the savings account and put $250 on the taxpayer. The next year we used 500 and then it was 500 on the taxpayer. Then we went to 250. 750 was in the taxes and then we used done and then there was a million. So, it it's it's that way to not spike your budget for expenditures, which is exactly why we used it for the vehicle
182and equipment replacement and the energy audit, so that we could get those done without spikes in taxation to help with the inflationary environment we're in, but yet um not create any sort of cliff. Care I have a question that connects the talk of this budget year um to Tom's earlier presentation where you mentioned a secondary consideration um financial sustainability in an inflationary environment. And I'm wondering if you could just talk more about what an inflationary environment means if you're talking about more than just inflation. Does that does it mean more than that? To me, it it means at the surface level what we're paying for the things we buy, literally, whether it's oil, curriculum, materials, whatever. But it's also to return to Kelly's main point. It's to keep our salaries competitive, living in an area
183where a our people deserve to be paid well, and also if they're not, they'll go down the road where they will be paid well. And that's That's just a fact that we that we live with. It's driving up the cost of living for everybody. And it means that we have to make sure our employee employees have a wage that they deserve. just um just because as uh as Kelly mentioned, we have the information now from um of what the the region 10 finance committee is proposing to bring to the full uh region 10 board. Um I just wanted to kind of provide a little a few notes on that. I'm I'm on the finance committee for region 10. I think a couple of things. First just to note that um uh that uh region 10
184is facing the same inflationary environment uh that we are. Um also uh some of the increase that we see um here uh is due to the fact that is due to the contracts that we have signed. Um because region 10 um uh averages the three sending districts um in terms of their in terms of their salaries. Um so we are the decisions we make uh in terms of our employees impact that number. I also just want to just provide a few details on um we like uh uh Tom you did for us. Um uh director superintendent Shabbat uh gave the finance committee three um three budgets to sort of to look at and including the impact of that. um the sort of the um the uh the least change um at region 10 um was
185going to result uh north of a 14.75 um increase and that was um only with the reduction of a 1.5 um edtech um and a.5 uh EMT teacher. Um so that would have that was that was that was the um the least impact to uh educational environment the greatest impact in terms of the uh percentages um the scenario that we ended up uh recommending um adds uh adds a number of cuts to that. So I just want to sort of like again just to make clear that we we that this is as we are doing here they are doing there um in terms of really looking hard at this and I really want to um applaud um director superintendent Shabbad and his team for like really looking hard at this. Um so there's you know
186we we would be if we move forward with this it would be um cutting tuition for teacher support um teacher PD admin PD software um advertising so we would not be advertise the not be advertising the same as we would general supplies um instructional supplies and books and periodicals. So just again just to make clear that the um what we're balancing and also just in transparency um the the um the least impact of taxation um would have been a third uh that would have um uh required the cutting of the JMG program there. Um and I will just own that that was a that was a a bridge too far for me. I wasn't comfortable um at all with that. In addition, they would be cutting all of their field trips um and also uh
187student assessment. So again, that was just um so again, I just wanted to share those details to say that yes, uh we're um I think that percentage is a little higher um than we uh perhaps as a board would be would have been looking for um on the RSU5 side, but just to explain where that's coming from. And again, that hasn't been approved, but that uh is what we're going to be presenting. And um I always like to point out particularly as it relates to the region 10 side and how their funding works, right? So in our budget we have a line item of about 300 or 330 now is what's um proposed. So that it it's not insignificant, but so it's uh we are only paying that 9% increase on our contribution to to
188region 10. So that's about $29,000. That's the increase um for for for all the students that are attending region 10. Um the state funds the CTE directly similar to how we get subsidy they get direct funds from from the state and then um if the programs uh that they're running have a cost very similar to how we have you know shared um uh uh additional local monies in our budget. um if they have additional local monies in theirs that gets split up between the three sending districts based on the number of students each district sends as a percentage of the whole. So we used to send far more money to um to region 10 but we also got more money from the state for those kids. Now they send it directly to region 10 and
189we just fund sort of that delta. >> Yeah. Just also on that just for context, the um proposed the the total proposed budget for region 10 um with this scenario would be 4.7 million um in comparison with our uh more than that times 10. It's my thing. Other questions? Did we have other information requests from you that you had brought? >> There were some information requests at the end of the last meeting and I I can uh there are a few things I want to create further context around that are important just in the whole scheme of things. One was about you had a presentation from Pam and Bill about the middle school schedule and the new concept for that. And then there's there are naturally questions about that. So um we're prepared to talk
190in a little more detail about that. Um obviously what's difficult there are a number of things that are difficult to think about but the what it does for world language is particularly difficult. So, I think an angle that we haven't discussed this from yet, it's an overall lens is that Freeport Middle School um does something that I don't know of another middle school that does, which is that it offers STEM as a core class. when you offer STEM as a core and that's wonderful and one of the thing the lessons that um the team learned I mean I wasn't here but from last year's discussion is that STEM is very important there so for from the get-go the assumption was that should be preserved but when you consider we've been talking about money but actually
191the I what I would say the um greatest resource in schools is is time educational minutes in the day. When you add in an additional core class into a school day that has a finite number of minutes, it means that the other side of that, which is the the unified arts classes, the specials, there's less time to divvy up among those. And so that's a constraint that figures into the entire picture. So, um that is part of why it's hard to um figure a way to provide world language to every kid with two choices of world language. Um, some of the data that we can talk about more fully is that and Pam and Bill can probably do this well can definitely do it more granularly than I can but we've taken a look at
192under the existing model how many of our kids are getting a world language at all. And there's a substantial number of our kids who as we currently have this set up aren't getting any world language at all until they get to high school. Um, while the proposal that's on the table to consolidate with just Spanish looks like a retraction, it in fact gets more kids to have world language by the time they get to the high school by a lot. It's like the difference between roughly 60% and roughly 90% of kids getting to high school with some exposure to world language. Um and then you know I wasn't in a position to sort of say this last week because I had hadn't given this week's presentation but if we now look ahead to the possibility
193of consolidated middle schools that means bringing um Spanish from Durham into a consolidated middle school and having double the number of Spanish teachers there which really means it could be much more robust. So, there were were just some aspects of that that had not fully come out last week. Um, I see Valerie, your hand is up. Thanks. Sorry. Yeah. About the Spanish teacher, I just had um a question about students for whom I know we have a few uh that Spanish is actually their first language. Do we have a plan for those students? >> Haven't thought of that angle yet. That's a good point. >> They're gonna rock that class. >> They're gonna rock. >> We did uh I also did a look today at there was a question about I think it was your
194question Colin about um the impact of kids uh in the high school and what what you know how it would impact kids going forward to the high school. So, what I found, and I do have I could open the laptop and give you the numbers, but most by far the most kids who take either French or Spanish at Freeport Middle School, I don't have this data for Durham yet, but we're talking about Freeport Middle School. Most of them do not go on to level two in nth grade in either of those languages. Actually, what the data shows is that the greatest block of kids goes to Latin in ninth grade. And the next greatest block goes to year one in the language that they took. And then there's literally, I think, one kid per year
195who crosses over and decides, nope, I'm taking Spanish now or I'm taking French now and makes a switch. That data does not suggest that um making the change we've proposed would dramatically harm a French program at the high school. There's some more details about the SK. I don't know if you want to come on down, Pam and Bill, but um there are there was a there had been thought already given to how to make a plan work for Spanish next year based on the level of staffing we have for Spanish, which is a 6 position. That's a point that has been considered just didn't get talked about last week. Yeah, I mean well said Tommy. You kind of covered uh speaking a little bit about the data on the program at the middle school and
196the high school. Um we do have just the 6 position. Um uh the point6 Spanish works um with us being really mindful on constraints and being creative with the time. For example, relieving additional instructional and teacher responsibilities for that 6 educator um taking away things like BCS responsibilities, advisories or duties. uh with this model of the 6 foreign language teacher um although we recognize it's going to impact seventh grade because they will not be able to access a foreign language um it will be a little more robust for those eighth graders. Just saying um it would be really ideal if we could make that 6 a full-time educator because then we'd be able to offer that in the seventh grade. So just some food for thought for that. And so what I what I always
197come back to, I probably sound like a broken record. I just want to emphasize I don't think anybody here, certainly not me, feels that world language is unimportant. Um, if the overall context were different, this is not something we'd even be putting on the table. But when we looked at how do we get to the eight, seven, and six% tier that the board has asked for, our conversation was in each case, what's the least painful way overall to get to that level. And so that reduction feels like one we can manage in that way, >> right? And I certainly don't want it to come across um that we're slighting up the French program in any capacity. Um, so I just want to say that as well. >> I would love to see us have world
198language all the way down to prek. Um, we're not I not everybody agrees with me, but um, that's just that's a personal thing. We're just not there. U, another area. Well, I don't know any more questions for Pam before I go on with the other questions that responding to questions from last week. I just wanted to make sure I heard you right. So, if we have a full-time Spanish teacher, then seventh and eighth grade could all get Spanish. >> Yeah, we could offer like an introduction to Spanish at the seventh grade level and then build upon that in a more robust for eighth grade and then when they have the options at the high school, I mean, certainly they can pick the French to Spanish or the Latin, but then they have that strong skill
199set. Do you do you remember off the top of your head, Pam, or do you have it in front of you what was the the number of kids now who are getting a world language at all? >> We have combined right now 55% of the kids um getting a foreign language at Freeport Middle School. >> And what would it be if we made the change that we proposed? uh we could I would say just throwing an estimated number out there probably like 85%. And I say that because what could be driven with some kids not taking a foreign lage might be um IEP accommodations. Um so that would make that number down a little bit in different interventions. So that's why I wouldn't say the 100% because there would be some circumstances um that but
200with the percentage would certainly go up. Yeah, I guess I am intrigued about the idea of bumping that back up to one full-time employee and I'd like to see what that would do to our budget impact. >> It's been added to the list. Care. >> Well, I'm guess I'm I'm curious how so right now we have 1.6 between French and Spanish. and we're wanting to make a reduction somewhere. Is there would there be any what would it look like to have 0.5 French and 0.5 Spanish? >> Oh, we haven't I we could we could talk about that. We'd have to come back to you about >> what that would look like budgetarily, but also what it would look like logistically in the schedule. >> Right. I just also want to name um that I did
201a little math. 33% of K through eight students are at Durham and there is no French at Durham. Right. So I just want to name that as well. >> One thing I as I've sat with that for what 30 seconds Cara is it's hard to hire a halftime person and there are people out there who are certified in both Spanish and French. actually are. I know that the French teacher at the high school is one of them. I don't know if the French teacher at the middle school is one, but those people are kind of like unicorns. Um they're really otherwise you you're looking for a halftime of each and that's hard to find. Colin. >> Um, yeah. I mean, I think I think just on this point, um, again, knowing all of the knowing
202all of the pressures and appreciating all of the all of the work that, um, that you and Bill have done, particularly Pam, I think that I think I'll just own that. I think the the reduction of the world languages program is the is the aspect of the budget that is um of the proposal that is just like I just have the hardest time. um uh sitting with and I and I'll own that that is not uh that is not completely from that earlier rational self that I was that I was referencing. Um but uh I don't I don't know. I think um I don't really have much more to say about that right now. I think the I think the the idea that increasing to a one a full a full-time um for Spanish would
203allow for languages to be introduced in the seventh grade. I think that would be um I think that would be much much better. Um I' I would I think I'd just say personally that the only language in the eighth grade just doesn't um doesn't sit well with me personally. And that's no um again that's no disrespect to the the complexity of everything that you all were doing. Um it's just that uh again for whatever that is worth um that's just the the the piece I can't quite um get with and this is probably an obvious no based on the discussion we had last year but you know to Tom's point about the STEM piece I mean is that something that's not even on the table for discussion that we would consider so you know I
204just want to bringing it back to the that's a whole it's a whole another thing. I mean that's essentially what creates this choice, right? >> And and another aspect of it too. I was talking with a member of our team this morning or the or yesterday and you know I won't put that person's name on the table but there's also the issue of equity across the grades span and even with the reductions that are proposed the middle school have will have lower class sizes than the elementary schools do and when you have a hundred kids per grade and six specials and that means you end up with you PE classes with 13 kids in them. And that's very different when you go to the elementary schools. So that that's this I have to keep panning
205out to that big lens. Um, another area I don't unless we want to talk about world language some more that there is rich discussion around is for ESOL. Um, and that's a tough one too. Um, the number the numbers aren't tough. We have looked at for example what a schedule would look like with two teachers which is what I've proposed. Um it's a very workable schedule based on the numbers that we have. Um we would be well within the guidance that's supplied by the DOE if we were at that level. There actually is no statute that says what the level has to be either a state or federal statute. It's guidance from the DOE. And what I have worked with in previous districts where I was the over, you know, oversaw ESOL was similar configuration
206with multiple school buildings, a relatively low number of students who are identified as ML based on the overall district population. We really need an itinerant model because we our people need to be able to go where the kids are. And right now the kids are in the high school, the middle school, more street and mass landing. And um the building based model with three people is doing wonderful things, but it is more than we need in that area. And if I just pan back to again the big lens of everything else that we're trying to trade off to get to a a difficult place, that's where I have to make the recommendation to look at. So, some of the um we've gotten a variety of of emails to the board. Um there the way I
207read some of them is that we would not be compliant, >> but what I hear you saying is that's not the case. >> I would respectfully disagree with that statement. >> Okay. Yeah, Steph, >> I'm gonna go back just I have a lingering thought that's rattling around around world language that I just want to say. I think that this is like a perfect micro example of what we're talking about and option two. We're gonna we're having to make a decision where we're losing something that feels really good and really robust and like really good to some students and we're doing it in service of a decision that feels more equitable to the district as a whole. And so I think it's important to just name that, right? And like and we're talking about it happening
208because of another inequity which is STEM which Durham also doesn't have. And so I think it's just important to name that it's like these types of decisions hurt because they mean you don't get all of the things that you love and used to have in order to move towards something that's more equitable for everyone. So I just want to say that. But also going back to that when you were talking about Tom STEM and how there's six different things in UA, I know that there was a lot of discussion at the middle school level about the schedule. Was that a piece that seemed like that needed to change in terms >> the STEM piece >> in terms of the amount of offerings in United Arts, whether it's STEM or something else like consolidating some of
209them or switching it around? I mean, that wasn't really brought to us. >> I don't think so. Pam, do you Because I think STEM is usually a special, right? It's usually, right? Well, in most places it's a special >> like in Durham it is a special. It's not a core class. It's there but not to the same degree, >> right? So there is STEM but it's like you know the frequency of music or or library or media I guess in the middle school. If I try to turn on my long-term lens, long-term not meaning 10 years from now, meaning two or three years from now, um I actually am really excited about the possibility of in a consolidated district middle school having a robust CTE program and STEM is really part of that. Um I
210think we have a lot of opportunity to be able to to build on that vision. So I think having this is just me personally um maybe others would agree or not but that if we can bring all kids into that and build on it from there that that's a fantastic starting place. So I think a little while ago you mentioned that you wanted to consider in the future sometime embedding CTE at the middle school. Did I hear you say that >> with an embedded CTE teacher? >> Can you tell me if there are other districts around that do that? Yes. Yes. And is is it within region 10 or >> um I've actually talked to Sean Shabbat at region 10 about this idea. >> Um it's entirely viable. They would supply the teacher. And just
211so that we know what CTE means because I don't want to presume everybody does. It's career and technical education. It's both, you know, kind of like hands-on career technical skills that you might get in a maker space or and it's also often networking with community um community businesses and community artisans to bring them into the school to share their craft with kids. A place where I have seen that done. That's one it's just down the road from where I live in St. George. And that little school there has won national awards for their CTE program. And it's from age three through grade 8. And uh I have it I have a plan to actually bring a a team from our board members and administrators down out to visit that school to see it because they've
212also done early childhood there. They have the three-year-olds and foury olds in full day program. They were part of cohort one, I think. And they've done a fantastic job. It would be really worth us looking at. >> Yeah. I forgot about that part. I when I saw that I thought that was very interesting. >> Anna, I feel like I'm asking so many questions this meeting. Um what's happening? Uh is going back to ESOL. Uh it can we see some outline of what those numbers look like with the reductions proposed? >> Yeah, actually Erica has them. >> Good evening, Erica Mo, assistant superintendent. So yeah, I think there were two sorts of requests, a proposed schedule and then some comparisons. >> Yep. >> Which would you like first? >> Let's get the schedule. Okay. Yeah, might
213want to movement break. Okay. Um, I'm gonna make this bigger at the top and then I'll scroll down. Oh, maybe not that big. Let me stretch it out. Okay. Um, let me stretch this out as well. All right. So, you see a total count there in bold on column B at 43. I just want to call out that there was a student in the original account that I gave you last week who's not receiving services. So what um out of choice um what we um what has been calculated here um is our current case load that is being served and uh how we could operationalize with two staff members in our current case load. So, it's not speculating into next year as to like what our head, you know, our case load might be or
214what their levels are, where they fall, grade level or all of those things. Just kind of doing running the scenario with the headcount that we have right now um service uh in multilingual programs. So, at at Mor Street School, 13 kiddos, Masslanding 12, the middle school, Freeport Middle School four, and then uh Freeport High School 14. Right? So, if we had two teachers, we got teacher 1.0 and teacher 1.0 in column G over there. We've got them roughly on an AM and a PM schedule with roughly two groups at each each side of their day. um the duration that they sit with those groups can be elongated um according to needs and those needs the service needs are dictated by the level um where the student um the level of achievement the student has demonstrated
215on their most recent WEDA assessment which is the assessment we use we are we are required to apply annually for multilingual learners. So we gain a composite level and then we place our service um like um our our service design accordingly. There are other considerations um taken in to um uh to designing that where like what are the other services that the student has? What is the least restrictive way to provide those services? Um what makes the sense best sense in their day? So, if we were to just put together preK and Kdos for a quantity of six total students and then another group first and second grade seven, those are very reasonable group sizes. Um, very reasonable group sizes. And then in the PM side, um, that same person could travel over to Mass
216Landing School and provide two groups services to two groups of six. And just to say that those groups could be depending on score, grade level, other cohort criteria like just depends on what we what we um you know where the needs land. Um so then kind of similarly for that other 2.0 or sorry other 1.0 no individual. Um, we would have like an AM schedule that actually has space for flexibility to service any needs that come up over the course of the year or perhaps land in a different building that isn't already articulated on this schedule. Um, and then we have a PM schedule as well, potentially at the high school, keeping in mind that all of these blocks are movable. This is just like a simple way of explaining. So the high school could
217potentially be in the morning and the middle school in the afternoon, but we would we would work with their schedules to, you know, provide um least disruptive uh services that are um meeting the meeting the state's requirements um which are outlined in this brief like little infographic. Um kids who fall in levels um one to it was being considered. We had to see how that would play out. Um and so um yeah we did we did that work uh based on this year's numbers >> and it's not all one to one >> no >> they can be >> absolutely it's probably better and I just I before I I don't want to not pause and recognize there's been a a mountain of work done coming into this year by this team. Um, we worked as
218you may recall on like the Lao plan, the ILAPS, the materials, the, you know, I'm I just like just making a list. Um, you know, all of the um translation, interpretation, the identific identification um sort of firming up like there was so much work done um coming into this year. Um, I'd say we're even better positioned at this point to ensure that the services are um sustainable with with this number of um staff servicing our needs. Um, how does this change? I I know that you know we have 43 total students but >> the actual total number of students in the blocks is more than that right because some students are in more than one block. >> Yeah. So a block isn't necessarily an hour. It's just um so if we think about how many
219hours a staff member typically >> um works in in in direct instruction, >> it's it's bas it's kind of hard to to draw it all out, but like an AM period and a PM period. So this would be enough time to do >> like the two block scenario or the one block scenario. >> Yeah. And again, it's not it's not directly equivalent to an hour necessarily. I appreciate this work and I also um I think this group more than any other group especially with the lack of influx of new students for a variety of reasons um are really kind of working toward their own obsolescence in a way that the rest of the teachers aren't. And I think the achievement that they've they've done in in lessening the students who have a lot of need
220>> is remarkable and worth louding. And I really >> I think one of the reasons that I think we're so reticent and sad that this this cut may be necessary is is that this hard work is kind of their undoing. And I think that's why we're all so broken up about it. >> Yeah. Um, in the realm of intervention work, we're always trying to work ourselves out of a job. Um, we're hoping that the needs become um smaller and smaller um fewer and fewer. the yeah our staff have done a tremendous job um ser serving students in this area of need and it evidence over the years is that more and more of our students if we look at this kind of pathway and the DOE document more and more of our students are in
221the green and blue zone than in the red and orange zone. Um and we continue to like move kids along um towards exit which is that composite 4.5 score that we're shooting for. So it is indeed the case that we're we're we own the reduced me and then I think there was also a request for comparison. Would you like me to share that? Okay. Um, so I will, um, uh, I was able to toss out a survey statewide. So I was, I was also able to capture some of our traditional um, comparison districts that we have in our group. Um, there are a list of them. I there are seven total in that group. I was able to gather feedback from four of those seven. So, you're going to see that in the data as
222well as some other statewide schools. The data are anonymized because of the sensitive nature of this cohort, these these um service areas. So, um okay. Um, so for all the districts who responded, you can see the cohort ones at the top. ABCD, that's just letters instead of numbers. Um, and RSU5 is us. So, we've got RSU5 pulled out. And then you can see all other all the other responding districts down below our RSU5 um bar. So this is the multilingual population and the number of full-time equivalent English as um as an as a other language staff member. Right? So this is the comparison that I was able to gather. Oh, sorry. I can go. Is it okay to move on or are we good? Okay. Um, next, the ESOL staff. Um, and then any additional
223considerations with, um, edtech um, staff positions, FTE in those comparisons. This is multilingual students per staff member teacher because teachers it um edex cannot provide the direct service requirement they can do additional support >> this is current yes it's everybody's current it's worth noting that other districts are up against similar challenge challenges. That's the the qualitative feedback uh is not coming through in these data because it's it's equally challenging for other districts. And then just um this way of looking at things. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. So, so there's a district that has 52 to one. >> I mean, to Tom's point, there isn't necessarily a um standard for the ratio. >> I get that. >> One teacher for 52 kids. We don't want to be there. >> no, we don't want
224>> I I think the recommendation would be what are our typical class sizes and knowing that this is a this is a high needs you know group. So like what does that mean in terms of reasonable service? But we don't have that specific guidance from the state. Other questions on the ESOL? any other questions that we had hoped to get answers to tonight. >> There was one other sort of um grouping of questions for me around it at tier 2 what the impact of the reductions of the ad texts would be because most of the most of the reductions at tier 2 are ed general ed ad ed texts. So I wanted to share a little bit more about the reasoning of those um and it also dubtales with another angle which is um looking
225at administration as an area for potential reduction. So we have looked at I I didn't recommend any reductions in administration. We did talk about them. We did look at them. Um, at the central office level, RSU5 is actually pretty dramatically understaffed compared to most other districts in terms of the amount of clerical support that there is and also the number of administrative positions. Um, a good example is Brunswick has a chief academic officer in addition to an assistant superintendent. Um, the reason these two topics come together and they came together when we discussed them is that the general ed edte I can't pretend we wouldn't feel an impact from losing those positions. It's an impact that given every other possibility that we we tossed around seemed like the most manageable to get to the tier
226two. And the reason it's the most manageable is that we have recently added assistant principles in more street and mass landing. And I don't know if you remember, Lois, you weren't on the board last fall when the um all the buildings shared out their attendance data. The attendance data is is overwhelmingly positive, a huge improvement. Um, and also adding those positions has enabled assistant principles to step in in behavioral situations, RTI A and B. It's enabled them to manage sometimes complex, you know, behavior situations at school that then require a complex parent interaction after school. Um there are needs that we still haven't that I feel we need to lean into assistant principles even further with 504 assistance and management. Um and then another consideration is that you know we have five and a half
227open edtech positions in special ed where those people who are currently working in general ed wouldn't have to lose a job. we have a job open for them. So, that's just some of the reasoning behind why um those were that's where we landed largely to get to to tier 2. Um again, I can't pretend it won't have an impact because a those ed techs are really good and having the extra person there, it definitely helps, but of all the other impacts we could choose from, it's one we felt we could manage the best. Thank you Chris. Um so along that that ad tech theme um I think we had talked about it but trying to to understand if you if you had to let's say prioritize not cutting two of those edtech positions which would
228they be um one of the things I worry about is that yes I know we have special ed positions open um special ed tech positions open but that it's really a very different job and that we I I don't want to get our district into a situation where we we now have both open edtech positions, general ed tech and special ed tech positions um or open special ed tech special ed tech positions but we have lost some of those general ed tech positions. though. >> So, just to I'm going to answer your question, but just to make it clear that's not we didn't discuss that scenario as a team. Like we did not of the edtech positions that are listed in tier 2, we did not go further and rank them. And but if I
229have to answer that question without consulting with the team and you asked, I would keep the ones in the elementary schools. >> And then kind of on that is if if that's something we wanted to do as a board, how do we like kind of go about asking that? >> Well, I think that, you know, I don't you guys get to decide how you want to handle this, but I just want to um name that it's not our job to run the schools. It's our job to support the people whom we trust to run the schools. And this is one of these questions where I understand the the goodness and the like the wanting to make our schools the best that they can be and it feels like it brushes right up against um getting
230our fingers into something that's not our business. And so I just want to name that because it's I don't want to um I think inadvertently a question like that can send the message that we don't trust the people in this room. Um and I don't think that was your intention, Chris, at all. But I just want to name that there's this line that um is not well defined and I just want to that that going there makes me start to like feel uncomfortable about that line. For me personally, >> I I don't I appreciate that comment and you know, even in what I just said. I mean, that may create the impression that I just I don't care about the middle school as much, and that's just not the case. I I I don't want
231to create a sense of winners and losers and cherrypicking among the schools. If you if the board asked me to come up with a number that's between one tier and another, what I would really need to do is go back to the team and talk about, okay, what what do we do? And come back to you. I can tell you it would be what you're seeing in the tears is very to the nth degree thought out about as we go down what's the least painful thing to get there and you're seeing the reasoning already. >> Um I super appreciate that Stephanie. I I really hope that I I don't doesn't seem like I don't respect um respect that at all, but as a kind of counterpoint to that saying we want a 6% or 7%
232or an 8% tier is pretty arbitrary. Um and so that's kind of what I'm wrestling with in my mind of trying to understand that well but is this what we could do if we had just that little bit more but we needed to stay within that tier that that that specific number. So that's why we chose what we chose. Um, and again I that's kind of why I asked like how do we as a board do that because I don't want to be cherrypicking and and being like well I want this position and I want this position but not that position. And like I don't think that's what we we should be doing. Um so that's kind of why I I mentioned that. Um, I mean, like Tom said, it is the board's it is
233the board's prerogative to choose how we want to adopt our budget. Um my preference would be if we wanted them would be to put it to them to say like what would be and it might you know I guess from tier two it would they're all in tech position so one of them would be in that tech position but >> one of them was an interventionist >> right so it could be that it's you know um the the preference there um Yeah, the the the whole cherry-picking idea I don't love. I felt that was that was kind of where we devolved to last year. Um but um you know we could we could approach it however we like. Steph um and I didn't think that that's what you're doing, Chris, for the record, but um
234uh and thanks for your graciousness of my comment. Um, but I it's almost like the question that comes to me is what what do we need to be comfortable with a suggested percentage? And I don't know if I understand what we need as a board to become comfortable with a percentage. And so maybe that's how we could consider approaching it. Um, that's just an idea because it's sort of like otherwise it's like a chicken or the egg situation where we're like, I don't know if I like this percentage because I don't know if I like the things that would be required to get us to the this percentage, but we don't want to dictate the things that get us to the percentage. So, I think we need to ask ourselves like what would we need
235to be comfortable with saying this is the percentage that we're comfortable with. Isn't that what we were talking about a little bit last meeting when we were saying, and maybe that's just punting it down the road, but okay, hey Tom, like what would if we wanted something between seven and 8%. What would you what would it look like? And then he goes back and he he makes the position list, not us. And then from there, it's sort of like, okay, that's that much of an increase. like do we feel like that's worth it or go back to tier two >> and and that is how we have approached it in previous years. There have been sort of tiers of like this is this is what we definitely think we need. This is what we'd like
236to have. I mean and to be fair, this was sort of the inverse of what we're dealing with now. It was like additions, right? And you know the fun days where we could add things. Um but it was like you know this is what we have to have. this is what we, you know, we'd like to have and like, hey, if you're willing, this is what we, you know, um, and they were and they were prioritized in that level. So, you know, um, not to say that we never moved something out of its order, but typically it was like we sort of picked the level we were comfortable with, like where did we feel like we were comfortable from a from a budget perspective and to live within that the the ad admin's team's recommendation
237is like, okay, with that, this is what we would do with it. and it was less about the board picking specific ones and you know 13 years we've been all over the place on how we've dealt with the budget. Um but I mean that that has certainly been um a way we have a protocol we have used in the past too. I know for me as somebody who was an outsider famously last year and here now, um I think seeing a lot of these positions pop up that were also on the list last year, I know that if I were the person in that position, it would be gut-wrenching to have this happen to me year after year. And so I think for me to be comfortable with a cut, I would want to know
238that we're not perpetuating it again next year. we're not gonna be sitting in the same position next year saying, "Okay, well, we saved them last year, but this year we probably really mean it." I just I think that's the worst part of what happened last year that's happening this year is I think a lot of those same folks are in that same boat that they were in last year. And I can't even imagine it. And I know that this is bleak. I agree. Very bleak. I don't like it. None of us do. I'm pretty sure um I also don't want to put anybody through that again next year. And I think that was the whole point of meeting in November is what can we do to kind of stop the bleeding and really stop the
239bleeding, not just kind of bandage it up until next year and then hope it's healed. >> If if I may, sorry. I I really feel I want you all to know that the group of people sitting in the back row would not let me bring a proposal to you that we had not really talked about and believed could work and would be good. Um, and they I just need you to know that um m are there maybe holes in our thinking, things we haven't considered? Sure, we're human. Um, you know, and I think having our thinking probed as healthy and important, and I I would never want to be defensive about that. Um, but just just know there's not been a cavalier moment in any of these conversations. I have no doubt. >> Yeah, I
240I really appreciate that because I think that's where I'm going with my mind set is that I want to know that if we're going to make these cuts that we are not seriously compromising the the education that we're providing to our students, that we we still have ways to to meet their needs even if we cut these positions. And I'm hearing from Tom and from the educators back there that we feel that we can still meet their needs adequately and even more than adequately if we cut these edte positions. And so although you know I don't love the idea of of these people losing their positions um under the circumstances, I feel confident that you guys have done your homework and that you are you're you're ready to meet the needs even when we take
241these people out of our budget. So thank you. I'm sure someone's going to throw something at me, but um I mean I guess my other question is the way to preserve those positions is and and still stay at the same budget level is do we eliminate the positions we continue to not be able to fill the special ed edtech positions? Well, we have to provide the services by law, but presumably we are providing the services now or are we not? I mean, I'm I'm just trying to be creative here. You know, it's 10:15. I love new ideas. Uh >> um we So, we have discussed that. >> Um and you know, if I'm getting this wrong, somebody shoot me down. But I think I think it's really important that we preserve those positions because that
242is where our need really is the greatest. And even if the positions aren't filled, I think we have to name it and keep trying to meet that need in the way it should be met. >> Okay, Colin. >> I have so many thoughts, but I'm only going to give one. I think that um it would be really helpful to have a little bit of a clearer sense at the next meeting of um of again knowing that there's all sorts of of factors that could contribute to things. But um if we were to go with the current proposal of 6 whatever it is 53 um what is that like what does that do for us in the next budget cycle um versus um versus something higher than that. Um because I think that's uh I don't
243know. I mean, I think that um I think we've we we definitely have new factors that came in this year. Like I think you've definitely made that clear that there have been factors that have come in. Um but I think there were things that probably um the board could have seen uh coming down the pike um a bit more. And so I think that's I think I think having a clear sense of like is there really a functional difference between 6.53 and 7 in terms of like what we would face next year or we really talking about like um like we would we would need to go to the like disastrous one that you're talking about in order to like make next year a year in which we would not have to make these sorts
244of cuts. >> We are working on that. Um, and we'll definitely have it ready for you. >> Okay. Um, you know, I never want to cut you off when you when you want to talk about things, but we do have more budget meetings scheduled. You get two weeks off this time. Uh, we'll meet again on the 25th. I'm just cognizant of the time. Um, I think I think that tonight's conversation was good. I really appreciate the presentation about the the potential ways forward for the configuration. I think we had some clarity um at least I did on some of the questions on the budget. Um and as always it's to be continued. Um we have no new business. We have no personnel issues. Um we we are back to public comment. So he's like I'm
245out. Um all right. Well then I would take a motion to adjurnn. Valerie and Cara, thank you. All those in favor, no one votes no.