2025-03-12 Board Meeting

001e e okay e good evening welcome to the rsu5 board of directors meeting it is Wednesday March 12th 2025 and we are here in the Freeport High School library uh we have a full board with the exception of uh Malik who is traveling for work so we will get started with the pledge okay so do I have a motion for consideration and approval of the minutes of the February 26 2025 meeting as presented barring any errors or omissions Kelly and Cheyenne thank you all those in favor great none opposed adjustments none this evening wonderful all right so we will move on to good news and recognition our report from our student rep Phoebe all right so number one can we just recognize that it's 6:30 and there's still some light in the sky so that's

002something I'm very excited about um and a humongous congrats to the FHS theater Department who got second place at the one act Festival this weekend so so exciting for them and we had 10 students who received individual Awards um for a whole amount of things from crew to cast to um I think set design like everyone did amazing and I watched the one act and it was so cool like I was tearing up I won't lie so also congrats to the Freeport Brunswick boys hockey team who received the mpa scholarship award sportsmanship award sorry the sportsmanship award um and last week we had spirit week and a really cool pep rally and we had students vers staff um basketball game Miss GCO was playing um I won't say who won was it Miss goo did

003she slam on you it's not important who want we have stuff to get to um so tomorrow students are going to meet and they're going to be discussing a FHS sailing team for maybe in the future so look forward to that um and finally I'm calling all community members ages 12 to 18 to come to the Community Library this Sunday to participate in filming for the main youth resiliency project um it's a really awesome project that a bunch of Freeport kids are participating in and um it's going to help youth voices be heard to inspire hope in students and adults from for across main so you can visit main resilience.org to learn more and sign up if you're interested um but I definitely recommend it's a great project run by some great people but that's

004all we're having fun we're chucking through till April break but we're doing good thank you and uh this year the one act was back to being student written right because I know that had been sort of the the um the history of that and then in the last few years with everything happening they had moved away from that and I was glad to see they're back to student written and second place I believe it's only because there wasn't somebody that was actively writing so as soon as somebody that wants to write and then they get assistance to do it so yeah incredible okay so we will move on to item seven on our agenda public comment uh so we asked if folks have um anything they would like to share we ask them to come

005up to the microphone um give us their name where they're from uh and keep their comments to three minutes um yeah so we will open that up if we have anybody you'd like to speak good evening thank you for your service I'm Daniel FR my spouse and I purchased a sheep pasture in 1983 and built a home in 1985 we continue residing at 38 shehawk Road in Freeport each Town must approve and then contribute to the school budget using tax revenue from the state of Maine and the citizens of three communities taking proactive measures will help the school budget process retain relative Independence I am on your side and I am on the side of taxpayers seeking tax relief working cooperatively we can lower the cost of health insurance and formalize a way to assure

006that only eligible dependants are are enrolled with assistance from an experienced underwriter we reviewed the medical claims that were provided thank you very much from 2022 through 2024 we concluded it is highly probable that approximately $2,400,000 could have been saved in the past three years while offering the same plans with the same providers this week I was asked to quote a price to provide services for 2 and a half th000 employees in the Madusa school system located just north of Anchorage Alaska they will pay approximately $50,000 a year to use the technology the same system I previously offered to rsu5 for free I respectfully request a meeting with either the board or at a regular meeting or with a subcommittee you appoint to review how these savings may be achieved I hope to hear from

007anyone representing rsu5 board soon thank you very much I made a copy I'm sorry I only made 10 copies and I didn't realize there were so many people you can just give it to Gan and she'll share them thank you thank you Daniel good evening board members I figured since I spent time actually crafting something today I might as well stand up and speak tonight um the following reflects my own personal observations from watching and attending board meetings over the last couple months could you just give us your name and where you're from I'm sorry I'm Charlie henal and I'm a Freeport resident um so anyway reflecting on my own personal observations I'd like to send a little sunshine your way and just uh I'd like to take this opportunity to compliment and Express gratitude

008to all of you for the individual and Collective commitments of time energy and effort you make to critically and thoroughly evaluate address and navigate the many difficult and challenging issues that come your way and require your attention I'd like also to commend you for the trans transparent at least how I perceive it the transparent receptive respectful and collaborative way you engage with teachers administrators staff coaches parents and other interested and invested stakeholders like myself to make the educational experience for rsu5 students as good as it possibly can be I hope you know that you are appreciated on a somewhat related note I'd also like to give a special shout out to board member Pillsbury for finding the time along with a number of other concerned Freeport residents to testify at last week's Judiciary Committee public

009Hearing in support of LD 537 legislation sponsored and introduced by representative Melanie Sachs the bill is titled and I quote an act to prohibit the doxing of a minor and to authorize a related civil action end quote in her short insightful and compelling probably hastily written statement Miss P Pillsbury and I hope I've got the pronoun right recited the rsu5 mission and asserted and I quote that all kids deserve to have a safe nurturing childhood free from trauma which can severely impact their ability to learn and grow into healthy adults end quote I printed M pillsbury's statement I have it with me I'm happy to leave it behind for anyone who might be interested in reading her thoughts on the bill uh all I can say is well done and uh one final note uh

010like the last board meeting the Judiciary Committee hearing ran from more than 4 hours and no one appeared to testify against or in opposition to representative Sachs Bill thank you for your time thank you Charlie any other public comments really short person friendly um my name is Valerie Williams and I'm a resident of Freeport uh I'm here because I had gotten wind of a proposal to cut Staffing in the next budget for Freeport Middle School I am a parent in this District uh I don't currently have a student at free Bart middle school but I will soon um the positions that I heard were be that were being considered were both science and support staff um as a professional scientist I won't say my employer but um science is extremely important to me and I

011think the co pandemic probably made us all realize how important science is to um I think we can all agree also that maybe our Science Education globally is not where it should be um and to cut such an important position at such an important age I think would be a huge Folly um Additionally the co pandemic really negatively impacted our children who were toddler and kindergarten age um because half of their lives were spent in a covid environment support staff I think is all the more important for these children because of the stunted um personal interactions that they had it's coming out in the school system I think support staff is more important now than ever and to even consider cutting it is is egregious um so I'm here personally not virtually to indicate and

012urge that these be reconsidered thank you thank you Valerie any other public comments okay so we will move on to item eight uh report from the superintendent one resignation fre Port High School office SEC secretary Lind linday Lopez and we wish her well um in her new Endeavors and that is all I have this evening okay quickest report on record uh we don't have any administrator uh reports um we do have board comments and committee reports because we pushed some of those from our last board meeting uh so we will open that up for board information exchange agenda requests thanks m Michelle um as you heard I did have the opportunity to testify recently on representative Sachs Bill to protect minors from doxing um I had emailed the board to see if we wanted to

013testify as a board but after conferring with Michelle because we didn't have the opportunity to discuss that in public we decided not to so in the future if there are bills like that that um I'll ask the board to weigh in on or something like that that I'll try to do that further in advance to make sure we can make time to do that so I just wanted to update folks and let you know why that happened yeah and um first of all thank you um for for doing it getting going up there and and testifying um I think it I think it was a function of that meeting being so long we didn't get a chance to to talk about that because we bumped this section of the agenda so I apologize that we

014didn't have a chance to talk about that um but uh I knew you would I knew you would represent well uh even if it was just of your yourself it sounds like it was great um and I'm just so happy to hear that there was four hours of testimony and all uh in support of the bill so that's great great news any other before we move to uh committee reports uh curriculum and program development you'll forgive me I don't know who the chair of that is anybody knows Okay so so who's going to do it all right Colin hello uh we had a committee meeting which was me and Cynthia uh about the the curriculum uh and it was mostly an update on some work that has been happening um and also kind of an

015outline of what is going to be coming down the pike in terms of um what CC what uh curriculum curricula are going to be um uh looked at the next couple of years um she had a nice uh not spreadsheet but she had a nice little uh table on that which I think we can pass along um to the board um but it was uh was nice to have that meeting and we're looking forward to the next one uh when Danielle uh can be there uh and she's apologizing off mic uh for not being there yeah I would be interested in seeing that that um chart so if if Cynthia can share that with us that' be great um and I'll just do a quick little shout out for Colin because I've heard from several

016people I think some emailed us some people who don't even know you in real life but they've just seen you on these meetings and they all would like to nominate you as the best board member ever um I know I know that would be important to you so I just wanted to share that lots of lots of good feedback on your on your uh I think it a lot of it stemmed from your um your statement about title line and the impacts and um you know obviously a very complex issue um and very helpful to not only the board but clearly the community who took the time to watch it so well done all right so we will move on to the finance committee updates okay so we have had a couple of meetings um

017I guess first I'm reporting on the one from uh January 22nd which basically was all just discussing the budget which we are now in the throws of and um then we had another one on February 26th um where we were still discussing the budget we just also got a um an audit update um and that okay um that we're expecting that the the audit will be um reviewed at our April Finance meeting and um yeah I guess that's it I'll take any questions if anybody has GNA apologize to Kelly because she asked me to send her a spreadsheet and it just occurred to me as you were reading the minutes that I didn't do that so I'll do that I promise oh I didn't call you out in that you would you like me to

018read that that Michelle was supposed to yeah I was supposed to do all right uh so we will move on to facilities and operations Kelly so the facilities and operations committee last met February 12th and since then all of this information has been shared publicly with the board by director of facilities Glen Glenn Reynolds but I will recap It Anyway the 25 projects updates uh was shared with us he updated the committee about the status of the progress of spa safe space rooms at Mass Land and Free Port middle which have been completed as well as outside lighting at Freeport Middle School the FY 26 capital projects um their budget Inc requested an increase of $30,000 to cover increasing cost of material materials and um Services proposed projects um he reviewed those with the committee

019and then has since outlined them for the board and just mentioned that projects below $155,000 um are funded through a different category the major maintenance category and that's about it wonderful thank you all right so then we will move on to 10 D which is the policy committee um so the policy committee had a meeting scheduled for um February 7th which uh we had to reschedule uh for this morning uh February 12th but um due to a um uh death in the family of a staff member we had to uh schedule reschedule that one as well so please stay tuned for that and our thoughts are with um our staff member and uh their family um but uh we will be looking um at that policy uh I'm sorry at that at that meeting which

020will be coming up in the next uh couple of weeks um at Joc um School uh volunteers um and IJ OA um I believe also taking a look at jlf though without my friend here can't go into further detail on that one but in a moment I'm going to talk about these second read things which are pretty exciting I feel like that's a moment carry on motion oh you want me to put the motion on the floor sure okay do I have a motion for consideration and approval of second read for the following policies EA student transportation services eaea student transportation employee requirements training and responsibilities and GCA supervision and evaluation of professional staff Beth Mora thank you uh so as Michelle said we're bringing these three um policies before you tonight for second read

021um you uh approved them at first read um we made no um uh changes Beyond uh some typos um and so they arrive on your desk unchanged okay any questions comments all right I will uh take a vote all those in favor none opposed wonderful thank you all right cruising through our agenda uh I feel like this is where it comes to a screeching halul uh item 12 unfinished business we'll start uh with a review of the 26 superintendent proposed budget for okay uh you have several documents in your packet and we also have them available for members of the public um one is the power PowerPoint presentation we have an updated proposed budget uh our handbook and then you have a lengthy document that has a has a Q&A so I'm going to start

022with a brief PowerPoint to ground Us in some of the work we've done and then we'll dive in deeper to um especially into that Q&A document which has information there's a a lot of information the board has requested as you help um to help you as you begin your your budget deliberations so if we look back about um the budget development for for FY 26 um as we've shared it this really began in August with our administrative team and we really took a systemic approach to the budget um looking at at our district as as a whole looking at our schools and looking at each department our priority was that we continue to provide that high quality of Education rsu5 that meets the needs of all our students and the other piece was to make

023sure we to to ensure fiscal responsibility as we all knew going in a into August as we've shared that this would be a very very difficult budget cycle I like to review for everyone the budget priorities that that are administrative team identified and some of the drivers for the increases first of all it was very important to all of us on our team that we maintain programming for our students students um we KN knowing that there were some um salary and benefit increas increases um knowing it was important to continue to fund PD and tuition reimbursement for our teachers and then we looked at those what are those staffing recommendations to make sure they're reflective of our enroll projected enrollment it was also our team's priority that we maintain Stu student supports so that's where

024you see some additional requests we have this year for the RTI at Tech at Durham a guidance counselor secretary additional hours at the high school and some summer programming at Durham pel and the high school which was previously funded in another way our other priority was support our infrastructure and make sure that we're providing a safe learning environment for our students and for our staff that's where we're looking we'll talk a little bit later on um this evening about our Capital project projects funding um the life safety bucket which there are lots of um Safety and Security upgrades that we're requesting and as well to maintain a healthy Fleet with our buses Vans trucks and ground and ground equipment the initial budget you received um back in January there have been some um this evening

025we're we're going to make some adjustments to those initial requests and we can go in a little bit deeper about those um there was initial proposal at Freeport Middle School to combine a 05 RTI Ela teacher and a05 RTI math teacher and make that into one RTI position it was budget neutral but it was shared with the board that proposal has been withdrawn by the Middle School um they want to have some more time to really take a deeper dive into um their RTI system and what that would look like so that although it was budget neutral I want you to know that that proposal um is no longer part of our our requests districtwide uh there was an initial proposal of a reduction of a full-time um teacher for our multilingual Learners uh at

026a cost of we remember we have a budget figure for all teachers 102,000 no no no one El there making 102,000 but it was that's with our salary benefits that's what we budget um and based on some analysis of information about student and working with my my team of Administrators um that I've changed that request from one FTE to a point5 FTE uh which would be $51,000 what when we look at the new dollar figures you have um I'm going to um proposing I we reduce um funding for one substitute custodian for $42,900 we found our staffing has improved which is such a different story from last year for us which is wonderful so we'll use that instead of we'll reduce that put that money towards that position um and then we'll have to add

027another 8,5 to come up with the rest of that money and we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get into our um Q&A uh you look here here's our proposed budget with those those slightly dig diff um different figures that we put in blue article one there's where that halftime teachers added back in so um those have been adjusted accordingly that figures up a bit and you go to article 9 facilities and maintenance that that's where we took out that sub custodian so that is decreased there so now um the overall total operating budget the different is now 5.72% so it's slightly different than before I think this is a really important visual for all of us to to look at when we're looking at um because I know some questions have

028been what what are those other areas that we might be able to reduce if you look at anything shaded it almost looks purple but it's the dark blue on the right inside um onto that light blue those are our people those are your your wages those are your benefits um knowing that that's that's the biggest area of our budget if you look across there are some other areas in that orange area that's where those are contractual things that we're obligated to pay so there's not much wiggle room there materials supplies that little teeny Green Piece of our budget that's only 3.2% that's where you could look for some wiggle room but if you go back and look at our initial request we have already reduced that by a um substantial amount of money moving on

029to the tiny slice of capital projects uh you look at debt Debt Service that's something we we've were obligated to pay and then there's this teeny little purple place that for all our other programs and there's more detailed information about each one of those buckets in your Q&A section but that just gives you some context when folks are asking what other areas might we look at so the revised requests you know our team believes it continues to provide a high quality education and it meets the needs of all of our students it reflects the budget priorities we identified and we believe believe is fiscally responsible which reflect our mission and vision so I'm going to switch gears a little bit to dig in deeper into our Q&A that was just sort of a High um

030high level overview and I'm going to direct you to some pages you received a copy of a Slimmer slim down Slimmer down version of this in your packet but there have been a couple of pages that have been updated and we've added others to reflect um the uh request to the board for other information that you had so if you turn in your hand the first page I'd like you to look at I'd like you to go to Pages five and six and those five and six are our counil special education students um and you're going to notice that there are decreases um in each each of the schools and each of the years and I want to tell you what happened with that data when our our data specialist pulled the data there were

031some students that were counted more than once and we didn't see it until after it was was published um and how that happened you okay you okay now you're okay so so how that happened um for example if a student um if there was a change they had a meeting and there there might have been a change in their their time time of service or there's a change in their disability every time something happened that's there was another entry in the data system so that's why they were counted more than once um we've gone back we've looked at that data so we know this is now corrected and no student has counted twice so that's that's the change in that but I did want to update you because the the board asked for that information

032if you go to page seven this was some this is a new document you didn't have before um this is the um information about our our current level of multilingual Learners and also the projective for next year and I know those numbers of students is correct I worked with our our our wonderful teaching team and made sure that that um we could confirm those were those all were correct um so you look um for we'll look at this year uh if you go to the bottom it will tell you by school and grade level as requested if you look at direct service there's a total of 49 we have 11 students being monitored and there's the Staffing current Staffing level so the high school has one FTE middle school and mass Landing has one FTE

033and then Durham Mo Street has one FTE and panel does not have any students for next year the direct service numbers um because we have some obviously we have some students that are graduating which is a celebr ation and we have a couple of students who are have found permanent housing and living in a different community so there will be um 41 direct service eight and eight monitor we get down to the Staffing and here's the change in the requests initially there was a request um thinking that the high school and the middle school could be covered by one FTE and the other schools by another FTE um so digging in deeply in this meeting with my principal team and really looking at the overall need of each child and knowing that that yes there

034are some students have who are duly identified meaning they're a multilingual learner they may also have an IEP and um our team's recommendation is that we keep an F A fulltime FTE at the high school part of that is um High School there's the complexity of what they're learning uh there certainly we're getting ready for what happens after college there may be um fast forms that they're they're they're we're trying to help them with um and today you know I learned also that there's we have a lot of kids doing senior projects this year which is awesome so there's just there's a a strong need to make sure we have an ft one FTE there looking at not just numbers but the need of the students um the recommendation by our team is that one

035FTE would cover the middle school Mass planning and Durham and then for the needs of the students at Mo Street at halftime FTE could take care of that so I think before my thought is to help the board and your in as we kind of Chunk some of these things together because I could go through it all and then we go back to questions I thought it might be nice if we just chunk out questions by sort of big chunks if that's okay so are there questions about this this portion at this time can certainly ask other ones later but I just want to make sure as we go through hi I'm not Malik um so um thank you for this uh and you said you worked with the administrators on the the Staffing levels

036as well as the team and I'll say the the teams or team is here tonight too and we met today and their their recommendation is a point8 I will tell the board theirs the point8 um instead of a0 five the um principles have looked at the all needs of of the kids and the schools and they're saying a0 five is what is needed okay thank you okay oh go ahead Kelly sorry yeah can you just do you have any insight as to what the differences between the kind of lines of thought between those two numbers and I think you know the the multilingual and looking at their lens as as their teacher their their what they see in their students and what the needs are and the work they do with families um and I

037and the principls are looking at the overall needs and I don't know if someone from the principal team they had anything to add that I missed a quick question on the logistics of covering three schools is that a challenge I think you know we'll say we have lots of people that do M it's always a challenge to do that yeah for sure do we have other we have other staff that cover I know we we split between two buildings a fair amount but do we have we doover our EIT right early intervention team does okay for example I heard special ed Service Providers our early intervention team okay cover more than one building well I knew more than one but I wasn't sure about three so or more some or more wow okay thank you

038is it okay Michelle if I just call on people you have to keep jumping back okay go ahead called thanks um uh just so uh it seems like the evaluation is that for I know this probably how is the evaluation made by the principles in terms of what kind of coverage is necessary for the students at their school I guess I'm just looking at the you know at at um uh FHS we have 15 direct service and one Monitor and that's 1.0 and then uh Mor Street School is is 12 and that's being covered by 0. five um I'm assuming that's not because they're physically smaller um so it doesn't take as much but I'm just curious I'm just curious how much is that how much is that really like oh we know there's this

039one uh child in kindergarten and we know that child's needs and it's not as it's not as great is it might be so it doesn't in other words warrant the large is that is that how you're doing the evaluation it's less about numbers that's a piece of it OB because if you had 20 more kids but it's about the the level is of of needs um and I don't know if if one of the principls want to just come and say how they evaluated that on their school would be helpful for the board um so I think a couple things come into place in other I'll speak to kind of the 35 span and and 68 as well cuz those students were at Mass Landing um previously one thing is what the model is so

040for K1 the focus is really on immersion right um in a kindergarten classroom that language immersion you're not pulling you wouldn't pull a student out of a Home Room setting for half the day to be taught in a one-on-one setting that would like be detrimental to their language acquisition so I think some of it is the age of the student and then the other piece is what is their current English acquisition um and content knowledge so you know for example an asylum seeking student is very different than some of our MLS who have lived in the United States for 5 years or who were educated consistently in another place right because they many of our asylon seeking students had interruptions to their education which impacted not just their English acquisition but also content area knowledge

041and so that's where you might see and I don't want to speak for for Jill but you might see like her role at the high school in supporting a student who's taking a chemistry class that is going to be loaded with specific vocabulary to that class is very different than a third grade writer who is writing an opinion essay on how you know mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best um there's there's a role for the support at all levels but we look like both at what is the model for that age and also what is the current acquisition of um skill for that student so for example right now most of our students receive a majority of their support pushed into the classroom because there are students we want to access to the

042grade level curriculum we're not working on like some of the discret language skills that we were working on two years ago and so that's the process is just looking at who those kids are like for example the four middle schoolers next year the two and six and two and 7eventh are kids who are um you have all scored like above a three point something I'm not I don't have it in front of me right now that are in the threes and fours on their um access testing and are accessing curriculum in the general regular Ed classroom with support and so that role looks different and so I think for us it was thinking about okay what does a schedule look like right and so for for Lynn for example like well I'll say it's Lynn

043who knows if it's Lynn but for that role across the three schools it might be that that staff member starts the day in Durham that student receives that first period of instruction and then is transitioning to Freeport Middle School for you you know um two fifths of the day and mass Landing for two fifs of the day or that a student you know sometimes especially because um GT is another place where we have teachers who work across multiple schools then sometimes we look at like maybe the service model isn't daily it's three or four times a week instead of instead of every day that's a lot easier in an elementary setting than it is in a middle or High School setting just because of the way the building schedules run so those are all the

044factors can can I just know the budget difference between 0.5 to 08 is it Kelly do you want to how about we she'll do the magic and we'll come back to is that okay she'll she's got her little anything else on that piece okay so we can go back and ask more questions as we go um now we can move to um I'd like to we're going to look at page 8 n and 10 and I'm going to speak briefly to that and then I'm going to ask Dr forer from Freeport Middle School to to come up and talk a little bit to more to the board um page eight uh the board asked us to come um with some total number of students currently receiving RTI um for Math and English and that those

045are those numbers reflected there on page nine we were asked for current level Staffing at the middle schools and we're looking really at those core areas knowing that we have other areas such as band and chorus um and health and PE and so forth but those are those core areas currently and then on page 10 um this does multiple things for you um this was looking at next year's um uh enrollment and looking at some scheduling option so they'll be there's an option one and option two um Dr for has worked with the teaching team at the the Middle School to look at that and then we were asked about how many teachers at each grade level and then what was the uh what would the class sizes be so that's what you see in

046those those blue boxes and I'll ask Dr forer to come out and talk a little bit more about these hi can you hear me yeah so we've been busy since we since I saw you last um I was able to meet with um the larger leadership team at our school really break down um some thinking about where we're at um moving forward with the budget and then also was able to meet with a scheduling committee so that was a quick turnaround for that work to happen um but it feels really good one of the outcomes of the leadership team was to come up with a survey like what are Freeport um middle schools scheduling values like what do we value as a group and getting the voice of our whole school because everyone's passionate about

047their content and so it was important for us to have a wider kind of feel of what do we stand for for what's important what's best for kids what are we strong at those kinds of things so that was last Monday this Monday we met as a scheduling committee um and to pull this together in the short amount of time just take it with a grain of salt so we're um we've identified the values some of the things that came across in that were um a consistent schedule which is interesting because we've sort of like prided ourselves on a couple of different ones at different grade levels but but I think people are ready to talk about consistency across the three so um that was one of the things that we're considering um another one

048is that Ela and math um are offered daily so that would mean that a block schedule where you would have an AM day sort of um flipping back and forth was sort of off the table so we had far more schedules that we were toying with and then pinned down a couple that you're seeing today um based on that survey the um the things that we did not get to just so when you're viewing this know advisory um BCS which is at the end of the day those things we didn't really dig into yet because what we wanted to talk about was the important pieces like science stem class sizes class um the times how long classes are and those kinds of things which are all factors when you start that foundational structural work building

049a schedule so when you look at the top option top option one um that shows keeping some of our uas the same so that's the unified Arts um and then looking at just looking at the number of students enrolled in six and seven as the larger cohorts and adding the fifth teacher there the you know con to this would be that in six and seven our Ela classes are like 24 25 and that was an area that our values committee our scheduling values committee said that's pushing the limits for us I that would be hard it also has grade eight wouldn't have a consistent stem teacher it would have the science but stem would be more of like a Flex Experience so we're trying to think creatively of ways that we could still have Flex

050activities so um FMS has frequently had what we call Flex feebe you probably remember we would have like longer core blocks where projects happen in the cafeteria and you might devote half your day to building cardboard boats or roller coasters or Bridges or all of these stem things so that was sort of the thought on option one of how we could integrate option two um if you look at that that um has five teachers at each of the grade levels and our core class numbers are much more in the range of what um we were hoping for the shift in that thinking is that we're going to look at unified arts in a different way so we've had two Wellness classes um we've talked about blending one of those into like more into one of

051the wellness classes and then some of the topics into science science so this is a science focused approach which um our building has said is one of our values we really value science and stem at FMS and this would Target that so it would be like think personal hygiene as more of the bacteria realm in science versus like the personal hygiene that you would get in that Wellness thinking so those are some of the things we're toying with pulling out standards we've started some of that work um we are not not set on the time so don't focus on that like it would not be a great way to do your day is to go in for 15 minutes have lunch and then come back for the second part so that part we haven't gotten

052to yet because we can still play around with like say advisory and BCS um some of the other things is just making sure we're honoring band and chorus and maybe getting creative as that as could be a sign up for a UA so that's why I say to turn this around in like the two days since we met we're not quite there but this felt like much more of a doable approach to what the values that emerged when we met um yeah any specific questions yeah so I see there's a difference of one teacher between these two schedules would that mean that basically we would not be eliminating a position if we were to focus on this option too or how would that the these are both um products of the the cuts that we

053talked about it's just a different way of thinking so the top option has one of the teachers within the UA rotation whereas the second option we're pulling a teacher from there to add in so it's five core teachers and then Plus UA in both scenarios we just don't know no the top so the top one in eighth is a four teacher team because it's the smaller cohort it's 90 but this is like that strange area so I've been talking with some of the other principles out about a hundred you you know five feels good when there's 90 or something that could be maybe before particularly if it's an upper grade these are numbers you'd have to watch whereas the second option has like 18s 20 19 that gives you some flexibility too if you had

054movein or something I guess I'm just not UND so one of the wellness teachers we are blending in on the second option okay so that's what where we pick up from four to five is we're taking a current UA teacher and moving them into right this rotation okay I think that that's what I thought I just clearly said it wrong um or I didn't pick it up sorry it's a lot it's a lot of moving Parts here um did so it seems like option b seems more workable um so what's the what's the downside to the option b plan here we're still going to have to figure out the unified Arts like it could be that um and could you tell me what your unified Arts are now yeah so they are they're in your

055list um so we have um jmg Spanish French art Wellness One Wellness 2 they're on the um I don't know what page you're in but the list of teachers the Staffing oh I see them thank you so one thing we've been thinking about is blending Wellness 2 into the other bits of either science Wellness One and how can we pick up standards through that okay and tapping into it would depend when our chorus teacher schedule Falls that could be a class band picking up another General music um so General music happens from our band teacher it could be that there's a media class so it's tapping into people so um that haven't always traditionally been part of the unified arts for all three grade levels okay the benefit of the did you say there is

056no media class there isn't currently but the the the schedule that we're talking about has six sections and so it would still give flexibility for time in the day to also provide like the other band opportunities and things because we could share those roles so those are things that we're still fishing out and what's a BCS band chus study hall band oh okay oh so that's they you pull like your whole band together your whole chorus together on specific days and so that's been something that both band and chorus have valued because it's an opportunity to bring larger groups of students together that wouldn't necessarily have common class times like if you had your whole like seven and eight band together or six seven and eight or chorus all together if you don't have a

057common time then we can't gather all those kids together without them missing a core block um I just have a question on the Staffing so on the page nine where you have it listed out we have um one full-time teacher for science social studies and stem under each grade currently what is that the same way it's going to look with losing I mean we're talking about removing a science teacher what would that look like for 25 26 so that was one of our values that we just said that we would always have like a science we would clearly always have science at every grade level but one of the values that also came out is that people are trying to prioritize stem at every grade level too so that's why some of these options are

058like particularly option two has a stem teacher at every grade level as well to get five okay so we currently how many science teachers currently at the middle school and we're reducing one but it's just a position so it's it's like that's I mean yeah so what they're looking to do on that last option is to shift teaching responsibilities so there would be that science teacher at every grade level shift some of the standards from health for example onto where where it would fit in the curriculum and they're working to do that so we'd still reduce an FTE but we'd have existing staff members we'd shift to science okay so there will be a seventh grade science yes that is full okay would this would this mean that there would be teachers that might have

059a more diverse portfolio of classes that they're teaching as opposed to being a dedicated Wellness teacher for example I guess I'm not sure what you mean I guess I'm just looking at I see that you're trying to move some of the standards into um from Wellness into science but PE I assume would not be eliminated that would still be taught by somebody right so in the past we've sometimes had Wellness we've called it Wellness because it's a blend of both health and PE and so some of it would be pulled in there if we went with that model um we've thought creatively too about how it could be part of a science as well part of our advisory part of guidance like some of those things are like the wellness um or the health standards

060could be personal communication it could be hygiene it could be so it's there's some broad ways that we can do that and for Science and stem like that second model you they would see those teachers every day that's actually an increase in the amount of time that they beginning those classes so there's more opportunity for blending in curriculum and Theory go ahead baby um so I was noticing for the um like the times there isn't like um any time between the classes and I guess maybe because the middle school has like the specific wings like is the turnover time usually pretty short because like for option two the classes are already 50 minutes if it takes kids you know five minutes to get there few more minutes minutes to settle in like that definitely would

061be concerning to have like not a lot of teaching time but I don't know yeah we um we don't build in transition times at middle um so it's sort of aligned with how Durham is doing there so their class times are similar maybe shorter um than this 50 um but around that time where we're still able to and like you say it's a wing so you might go from the you know one classroom to the next is like a one minute experience not even they're not trucking across the whole school like you guys are here no there's a few times in the day but in General on your phone thank you um I'm still a little bit confused sorry about moving like getting staff from other areas to teaching science so just to help me

062think through it like I'm imagining a Wellness teacher who was going to teach about hand washing hands or hygiene maybe one day they're than teaching science about microbes on your hands is that they would so we would like dissolve that health class and then prioritize stem and Science and rethink our uis and then embed that back into like either PE or talking about some of the standards that we're pulling from health and then it would be a science many of our teachers are like just generally certified so they're not certified in necessarily like wellness or one thing and so that stretch would be like exciting for them like it would be something that they would be digging into a new curriculum it wouldn't be somebody who's like specialized in that necessarily so we have teachers

063that have that CT that they can slide into other positions does that answer I think so so it's they would continue teaching science it wouldn't be like they were just going certain times okay I understand thank you I guess and from what I understand the people that teach science and are kind of like that's their even though they have certification to teach other things that the science teacher is going to teach science primarily it's it's not yeah they would be it would be named science we're just talking about making sure that we're not missing something so if you I just we would hate to lose Health like standards like those are things that we're we prioritize in our building too and so how can we be creative about hitting those things in other areas we

064haven't always had an alone health class we've sometimes embedded it in PE and so this is like a new way of thinking too like hey some of it could go to PE some of it could go to science like how can we hit these topics some of it might be advisory some of it you know ways that we can do that we're just starting this work so it's not like we have a definite for plan um but many of our teachers like I say they're not certified in one specific like science so they could teach multiple things and I think what might be helpful the board to think about um don't think of it as a reduction of a science teacher but think of it as a reduction of a one FTE teacher and what

065I'm hearing from the Middle School is there's going to be someone that's going to shift to teacher science would be passionate about that but in to cover the other standards they're going to move them around so it's not if you I think if we we Chang that the thought that it's a one FTE teacher not a science teacher that might be helpful for your thinking thank you Paige so then the one FTE and where that would specifically come from is that up in the air like it could be across multiple people like the multiple small pieces or oh it's the retirement but then okay so that was how reorganize like where people are going to be is sort of what we're playing with is like how can we move things around so it's I know

066it feels like it's science that's the cut but it's really like just a person within the mix of all of these people that can be teaching multiple things and so the work of the scheduling committee is like how do we prioritize things at free Port middle that are important science is important stem is is important all of the things are important but how can we be creative with this and make sure that students are getting everything they need and two gives us options of hitting all of those core things those core content areas with the number of teachers that would be appropriate for the class sizes that are targets for us we could stretch and keep wellness and that's option one um there may be other options that we start to dig into too once

067this committee meets again we're meeting in another week or so um but we're playing with this bottom one was one that we were like okay we're hitting some of our priorities here but we still have some work to do okay thank you go ahead baby um you mentioned and maybe I have this wrong but you mentioned like the wellness specifically kind of being like P pushed into like other classes and I was just just worry about like I think there's definitely some sensitive stuff that gets talked about in like the health class and the wellness class that I remember taking at the middle school so I guess I just wonder like will it still be able to be done whether it's in like the advisory or the BCS time or in like a science class

068where there's like a space for that where like it's not just like slipped into when you're talking about like microbes or something where it's like the space is like provided that it is like important stuff because this is like super duper important stuff for students to learn and that that's like being recognized maybe I hear you I um really important topics that happen in there um and that's what we're wrestling with too is making sure that we're doing that so we're using base this year which is we're piloting that um that's one method but there's lots of different methods we've used responsive classroom we've used lots of tools that teachers can you know create Community have these conversations and so that's still something that we're we didn't even get into advisory and BCS and what

069that the community that you build during those times the committee just didn't have time to do that work yet um but those would be things that we need to address I agree the um unified Arts teachers how many some of them say it's a full-time or a 6 and some don't say if it doesn't say is that assume a one FTE right so like there's one FTE of art one so there's two Wellness teachers right one band General music halftime chorus and then one jmg okay and does does option six kind of closely mirror how Durham is doing it now I don't know I'm I'm sorry option two NE next to grade six so does the you does the unified Change Daily or maybe that's so currently again we haven't gotten that far on the

070unified Arts how that might flow um yes well here we go with our schedules in sixth grade it's hex semester so six week that they have each thing um each class in seven and eight it's trimesters and it's an A and B day oh okay so they have two in a week and for a trimester and then they have another two the next trimester typically had like six okay okay well that's not true in in seven and eight they have a language or jmg on the opposite day so they typically rotate through like art Wellness One Wellness 2 and then um jmg or a language on the opposite day in seven and eight in six it's like they're experiencing different things so they have like a world cultures class a general music class they jmg

071they rotate through the six okay I think it's six maybe more am I not speaking to that right Sarah six I know this is where the schedules get wild I'm sorry I missed that did you say you hadn't gotten um far enough into the scheduling to decide if it would be like trimesters or hexers or what like be okay great and and that will depend on how we decide on the uas like if we're blending in different things if we can figure out if band could possibly be like a UA that you might like sign up for or chorus or if that teacher available during like those are things we're still fishing out thank you I had a question about the English teachers but I didn't want to I know Wills there I don't know

072if he was G to answer the question about the schedule or I was just curious if that is in terms of time content content levels similar in in the amount of time we have for each of those content levels content areas so it's similar in terms of class period time page and i' had spoken about that the difference is that uh fifth grade that fifth position which is here stem or stem Wellness is not that's not the case um for us so Wellness students get that in their quote unquote UA rotation because that one teacher does all grades our school so they have like 490 kids um so our student students get Wellness uh for about a little under six weeks per year so a seventh grader we get it for about six weeks an

073eighth grader and it's in a sort of week rotation so because the same you know that we have a 1.0 art for example and that is to cover all children all grades so that's how it's a little different in terms of what that content is um in seventh and eth grade for us jmg and Spanish live within that um five period day so okay so in Durham they're getting Spanish or jmg every day in Freeport they're getting stem every day right um but not again it so in next year it's slightly different but yes because to get to six we've had to make science and I be you pardon Spanish and JG large classes um just to accommodate bigger group okay a question it did yeah can I just ask Will a quick question on

074the do you guys at dorham have a BCS period like similarly or uh I'm not sure what the acronym stands for oh band chorus study hall okay um I wouldn't want to get it wrong um I'm like yes or no I'm not sure um the uh yes it believe me once you start we moving into sort of understanding schedule it gets really murky just because we have to all of us have to balance so many different things um so for us um yes ban and chorus uh we do have that at the end of the day uh not dissimilar um one of the challenges for our school is that our middle school kids our school runs on an elementary Tim table in terms of the beginning and end of day our Middle School sports teams

075play middle school schedules which means that um if it's a home game it's fine we can start whatever time we end school but for away games then ourant end up leaving before the end of the day because they're playing against schools that typically end around 220 when we end at 35 so that has to be locked in at the end of the day and children are sort of faced with do I do sport or do I do band or do I cor us and you know we try to accommodate them and flex them as much as we can um but there's quite a lot in that last period of the day because of that thank you okay um I'm going to just I'm going to try to say back to what I understand and maybe

076like a like a yes maybe or no like like so um we have a science teacher in the Middle School who is retiring thank you Michelle um uh we y'all are still proposing that we not hire uh a human being to replace that human being right thumbs up okay um currently in unified Arts there are 7.1 human beings uh who are teaching all those things my math is impeccable uh and so it seems like what you're saying oh sorry Spanish is 6 and chorus is 0. five so yeah okay yeah 7.1 got it 7.1 human beings uh somehow that's happening however that however that works uh but you're y'all are saying that you could teach unified arts in some magical combination with only 6.1 human beings okay so it is it's a it's a it's

077how do we make the schedule work so that these uh these unified Arts are still being delivered um without compromising the Integrity of the learning that needs to happen in those classes right okay so basically we are prioritizing science and stem over these unified arts in right now essentially that's one way that we're looking at this but you know we tapping into like a media studies class which we haven't particular we haven't offered before so that would be part of a unified possibly tapping more into a the band teacher or the course teacher to actually teach one of the core unified Arts whereas they've taught you know B has taught one General music class and then had the full band at the end of the day versus being part of that like full rotation through

078all three grades so those are options but this will primarily be achieved by farming out the stand standards and wellness to into other classes just to add that context so our librarian teaches class again all day all grade levels and for middle school students that is a uh multimedia class so that although it may be a shift it's a a practice that has been ongoing in District for a long time like wise our band chorus teacher teaches General music classes during the day so these are not there may be shifts but they're not uncommon with what existing practices are and um um sort of across the district so you know paig has certainly looked at and and sort of looked at and talked with us and also worked across both middle schools so it's quite

079experienced with what those programming things look like and how they can balance out so it's not quite a revolutionary as it may sound that's all back to B um regarding the Staffing reduction in English so that would still that proposed Staffing reduction would still be happening under this scheduling option is that correct yeah I mean it was the0 five the five yeah and then the yep um that that's within this within this okay yeah and currently my understanding was that there's some sections where there's some more um um instruction that's Specialized or maybe specific to allowing different Learners to access the instruction that's happening in some of those sections and with those kiddos being like incorporated into other English classes how will they still receive that specialized instruction so we're just getting into some of

080these talks um I mean the RTI position stting as to is driving our work now um we meet on Friday um during that um afternoon time as an RTI team to talk about our best practices we haven't always had that class like aimed that way it um each of the different so if you're looking at the Staffing lists all of these incremental little bits of teachers at Ela and math have been utilized in different ways on different years so sometimes it's been more of like um pushing students in a way like a cluster of students that we might be um you see there's like accelerated things those things have shifted throughout the years and so the you know we're talking about looking at having 18 or 19 kids we may be supporting that in a

081different way through RTI but having clusters of kids together um would shift and do we um do I'm I guess this might be impossible to track so if it is that's fine I'm just wondering about when we when we track when we do different approaches like this um tracking like the effectiveness of the kids having those supports and you know what's um what we're finding um yeah most effective in in getting them the support they need they don't have it in front of me I mean this year our RTI teacher in math is actually teaching like a class and that could happen you know in an LA model an Ela model too um it's not currently the way that the ELA RTI is happening but in the math RTI it is so and she's teaching

082um like a a cluster of students but it's not just all RTI so there's so many ways that you can hit these things um and it's just varied year toe um the how it's been impacted I'd have to look at scores and things across um thank you but these numbers of 19 20 and 18 take into account that reduction so all at or below our Target not our threshold our Target level right the second option yeah an option too that's yeah yeah I can certainly see where 25 might be a challenge 25 would be a challenge yeah um just going back to um The Adjustment requests um when we did the budget review I just want to make sure because I know there's been some changes that we're talking the same thing so we have

083um the reductions that were listed is one teacher equaling 75 Ela and 0.25 math and then the science teacher is equaling the one retirement and then the General Ed Tech has been unfilled so we've talked a lot about the science teacher that we're not going to you know potentially fill that um and that it works can you talk about with the reduction of the 75 Ela and the 0.25 math like what kind of um effect that would have so if you go up to option one or it's I'm saying up because it's on the screen but if you're looking at option one that's where that falls so it offset Ela classes so that's why the numbers now in like grade six and grade seven um are like 25 because they there used to be another

084section of ela in each of those so but it doesn't affect it in option two you're saying because no because we've split kids across more blocks of time okay so we used to rotate through five blocks now we're looking at six blocks and so there would be kids spared across that whereas before there was only four sections of ela I know this is like the math bits that are tricky I actually got that wrong on the first time I tried to build this and had to have like our whole committee was looking at the schedule and I like paage yeah that's not right okay got it let's that we're trying to get there too figure it all out so it yeah go ahead the the way that our schedule works now it rotated through um

085and that's what I talked about last time this would be consistently you know five six blocks per day okay and so when we're talking about um um a reduction in FTE so like a position reduction we are talking about here to teachers correct okay and I mean I guess it's just hard you know to to look at that and you know see that it's actual like I mean the science retirement somebody's retiring it's a little different um so all right thank you um it was really interesting to look at the count on 504 students and the special ed students over time that we got um and I was just looking at the updated sheet that shows the number of special ed students across the years and looking at like pretty significant jump from 2023 school

086year to this current school year and wondering how does that impact thinking about edex for like do you project the number for next year does that have anything to do when thinking about leaving the edtech position unfulfilled so the edtech positions that are proposed are gened at teexs are not special education at teexs so there are none of those that are reduced and uh you know my plea for people listening we are still hiring so those um those we're always hiring for we have many several openings right now this these are unfilled gen at attech so they don't work specifically with um to meet the IP goals for students and I the key there is unfilled these are unfilled the ones you the ones you see are un so this is similar to what we

087did last year with the bus drivers where we were carrying these positions and collecting taxes for positions that we couldn't fill and then rolling the funds and so we we cut it um so that we weren't collecting it but it didn't it didn't result in a reduction of a person because nobody was filling it anyway and I think the other thing to remember our priority is filling those special education ad Texs because those are um those are to fulfill students IEPs which and that is you know that is law that we that we fulfill their needs so that is that's our priority and these we've been unable to fill anyway so I think it's twofold in that now I'm kind of confused by counting the teachers so I just want to verify one more thing

088so if you look at the current Staffing on that page nine or whatever um I see the full-time one for each grade and then there's a 0.25 Ela for each one and then a025 math for sixth and seventh so is the 75 Ela those three 25 together you put yeah the point for for ELA it's the 0.25 at each grade level and then if you look at seventh grade there's a 0.25 math it's that one to make a hole so the 025 math at sixth grade would stay no that's part of to make the whole because we have one FTE total 75 Ela and 0.25 math when you add them up so I think that's where I was getting confused right because there's yeah that's too many 25s right four 425s to make a hole

089because you see but there's five right one two that there's a quarter of a five of them right but they're not like the 0.25 accelerated math that's staying you see those are staying but there's a 0.25 math in both sixth and seventh grade that's what I'm confused so that that makes a because that's really a0 five I think what's confusing this is what confusing the 02 the really um there's a teacher that's a 025 in one grade level a 025 that's the point 025 in another to make a 0 five okay but this is just how they're spread their work this is their work so we have one .25 right so we have five quarters and we're looking to reduce four quarters and we still have a quarter left so where does that last quarter

090[Music] go who's the last quarter so this a seventh grade ELA elaa there's one in Sixth and there's one in seventh the one in seventh is now the RTI teacher is teaching that one currently that 25 class so we went back and forth on that so I think that's um yep so the the second uh the middle 0.25 in the math line on seven is actually taught by the RTI math teacher okay so we're taking out the 0.25 elas in all three grades and the 0.25 math in sixth grade and everybody else four quarters four quarters but some of those people one of those people's like a half but but yes and I think one thing is that looking at the numbers that paage shared on option two that's with having all kids rolled into

091the staff the the Staffing without the retirement position and without those quarter of people in there and it still makes that that very doable class size okay and then just to make sure I understand now like Colin was saying you're taking the 7.1 from UA down to 6.1 and then that one f is going to be teaching science okay yes um I guess I'm just I'm trying to kind of wrap my head around how to um I mean y'all are doing a great dfor you're doing an amazing job doing all of this and presenting it so thank you so much um and Jean you're also doing good job as well so not um uh I'm trying to just figure out how to hold this in my head and also how I would communicate this to

092people in the community and also how people in the community would then know what they're voting for when they come to you know when it comes to voting for the budget um it seems like what we're saying uh is uh we can we can deliver the same quality in course of study at the middle school across 678 with two fewer teachers yes that's what they're saying that's so that's sort of our like that's our topic sentence um and also I think the other piece calling what paage pointed out on that option too is really keep the class sizes are very reasonable and you know I'll say we have Elementary class sizes that are larger than those you know that um so that's very doable for that as well because that's a piece I know people

093had concerns about that as well um but you know what that's what the the middle school is saying yes they can do quality education do some shifts in their schedule which they've worked really hard I know they still have details to work out on that um and also like you know it's important then we're meeting all the standards and they're saying where where where those shifts might be thank you so much I really appreciate all the hard work and the creative thinking that went into thinking about how the schedules could be different to to try to make the cuts these Cuts work and and um limit the impact on students and just deliver the same level of Education um that rsu5 is is proud to deliver um I guess I'm in I'm just in a

094place where I feel that um I can't support these cuts um I think that um at the middle school level we really need um to be adding more supports for kids and not less and I think that we've heard from our community um loud and clear on that and I think that I I realize and I take very seriously the impact to the taxpayers and I really do appreciate the um the shift in thinking on the esol position and the two R TI teachers um but I would I would just strongly um urge the board to to pursue a budget and and adopt a budget that retains these positions again and I'm so grateful for all your hard work um I would Echo what Mora said she took the words out of my mouth thank

095you so much for all the time you put into this and I I think it is I would also like to consider an option three which is to consider a a more bold budget that we could put for forward that would um prevent those reductions well option three would be what they do now so right yeah okay just make sure I understand what you're saying um I just maybe that's a question for Kelly I'm looking at the what the numbers would be for these um reductions I know what the teacher like the one full-time um teacher what we budget for but what would the edte position be budgeted that page 32 in your handout and since I've have the microphone while Kelly's pulling it up outside if you look at I'm on the top box

096the top the top box there you see the where the yellow line is there it says where everything there's a mechanic and then there's some unfilled attex where that line is right there see that's that's the C like that's where we're at right now that's yeah okay that's where we're at so then as you start looking down if you added an add Tech in that's where we be and then we we put in like these are teachers if you added in these are points parts of teachers these are 0.25 so it goes all the way down because we were asked to what if everything was added back and we were asked first look at the unfilled and then we were asked to go down and look at um what it would look like to add

097those those those pieces of positions back in so that's where it's at that's where you'd be at thank you yeah I mean I think I think I'm um I'm similarly inclined to think that that again the law loss of staff at that level is not um is not what I would like to see happen and I think but I think what again I think is hard right now is is knowing how hard you all have worked on that to make to make that happen and also how hard you have worked to very specifically meet the um to respond to the the the the um seemingly to respond to the the feedback that we've been getting from the community about the the valuing of the of Science and having and not um compromising science and stem

098um so that greatly appreciated um I think I guess just still where it is a little bit muddy for me is just that um because it's no it's because we just uh it's a more complicated story um it was an easier story to say we're going to we're going to lose a science teacher and then we're going to have to figure out the Sciences um that's an easier story to kind of hold in your head and to understand um then the story of losing to uh full-time equivalent staffs that's mostly going to affect unified Arts but maybe also art and math in some way that's just a little harder um it's just a little harder to kind of uh hold in my head and I think again not not unduly but I think it does

099it does really put the the pressure on um on Dr forer and the other folks there to like really make that work and like as she said and I appreciate the honesty like not quite sure how that's going to happen yet right and so it is it's it's reliant on um both the ability to to make that happen but also like to make that happen without bending time and space um in ways that it just won't Bend um so I guess I'm just sort of similarly kind of like um because that's a question mark it's it's also just even a little harder to kind of be like to know how to to know how to agree that that is a good cut um just thinking about putting forward a robust budget or whatever you know

100a really high budget I guess would um be the terms that I'm thinking um well or that we're talking about um I'm looking at page 20 and the taxation increase per town which I think somebody had requested specifically um and you know when we're thinking about putting forward um a robust budget I would encourage us to keep in mind um how that affects the different towns uh differently so just for example I'm looking at this chart and if you look at the $350,000 home in Durham with this proposed budget their taxes just for school alone go up $581 per year if you look at the same for Freeport they go up $189 per year and for pel is $43 per year so I think that it's very we have to be very careful um around

101putting forward a really high budget um I understand not wanting to make Cuts I understand that we all want what's best for these kids and we all have lived through covid we have all well me as a parent and I'm sure everybody that is a parent has had the effects of their kid and they know um so it's just something I would like everybody to keep in mind during our deliberations two quick things I just for clear I just want to make sure that for clarity um the um math and E the excuse me the the .25 math In Those portions of ela which make the fulltime I want to make sure the board knows that's not an RTI those P people don't teach those particular fractions there it's not RTI what the middle school

102is proposing is there would be some bigger those those kids would be folded into classes and the class sizes you see are what an option to I just want to make sure that it was um that it wasn't miscommunicated By Us in any way that those that that is an RTI position because it is those are not RTI positions that that were that the recomment reduction is and also I'm on page that was my next page in 20 that's with um what's been presented to you tonight um that's that those are those are the tax level School side with what we with before we started adding other things in just so we're clear um before we get sort of too deep into the deliberation piece do we want her to continue on through the yeah

103is that okay we go because we're we got we make a shift into we're going to talk the facility side a little bit now um let's see so so now moving let's move on to page starting at page 27 and I'm doing my very best to walk us through the Weeds on on some of this um so we were asked to because you remember we had a phase one um a phase system of the energy audit the things that were identified and we were asked by the board if we'd please come back and identify that what the cost was by school for those projects so we have done that on page 27 another thing for note for you all I have some good news is that um as you know we're working with EMC and

104they have had another vendor that came on so they they went in their their uh costs were adjusted and they're actually a little lower which is some good news so that's what you'll see some dollar differences that's based on what we received from EMC on page 28 you'll see those updated um there's updated pricing uh this is for our capital projects um life safety and vehicle replacement proposals and that's again in that energy audit bucket where there's some EMC gave us some updated pricing when we move on to page 29 we'll spend a little bit of time with this and we had an opportunity we had a joint meeting of facilities and finance tonight to look at um this page and we were looking at um if on the top section it says original option

105with the updated prices that's where um we were really looking at Tak using our proposal was to use the 2.4 in Con in our um undesignated fund balance to finish all those projects which would be cameras door access phones paging AED door Replacements fire access devices and then we had some contingency in there so that was our original proposal but there have been um some folks in the board have reached out and said they're concerned not knowing what's um there's some concerns about Federal funding what might happen um and how can we make sure that we've put the district in a good place so we came uh looked at what the alternative option might be so we can still get these things done um so what you see there that we've we've after meeting with

106the Joint Committee we've had a had a um a couple of thoughts on this um in terms of the AED that that Golden Rod color we're going to complete that this fiscal year we're going to find that money because all our ads aeds they they have well outlived their life and we can't even get replacement pads and so forth so our proposal is to take that out and take care of that this year uh we're looking at the other areas there's about that leaves of the of the $2.4 million what we're what we're proposing is that we put some money in our Reserve account article one to cover salaries and benefits of employees who are covered under title funds um those are be those are folks that are working in general education article two that's

107where we have some special education it teexs we're proposing to put some funds there as well because we want to spend down that 2.4 what's left of that 2.4 which we want to spend down to get to the right threshold for this the 5% for the state we're going to say let's put the rest into C capital and of these projects we propose moving door Replacements and fire access devices into the energy audit so those two items will move into that let's complete projects this year and then we wouldn't actually start paying for it until the next fiscal year so there'd be no money in the budget this year so that way we'd get those things done right right away those other items cameras doors phones and paging are thought is um let's move the

108um phones and paging let's utilize funds in our local Capital the local budget to complete that we'll have to bump up the money we have in there a little bit it's 475,000 we'll bump it up a few thousand dollars and the cameras IND door access let's put that let's have those projects live in the um in our Reserve account in your capital reserve account and let's just pause on those we'll have the money there let's pause on those let's see see what happens um in terms of federal funding and so forth let's take just take a pause to see if that flushes itself out um so that we can get all these projects done so that's sort of the thought of that that I know we have U members of both of those committees here

109that can certainly jump in um with their thoughts and so excuse me just to make it clear the things that were going to be used with the capital reserve accounts would be also pushed kind of K right the things that the things in the local so the things that you have a list um of things we were going to do projects this year we'll we'll we we're not going to do those under local we're going to do the phones and the paging under the local budget and those other items will pay for out of the reserve accounts when the dust settles a little bit so there'll be money there to do it but the priority is to get um door Replacements fire access devices phones and paging done right away with this year and this

110would allow us to do that yeah so instead of moving 2.4 into the capital reserve and using it to fund all of those projects right out of the capital reserve we would take a million dollars um and roughly a million dollars right uh and move that into the article one and article two uh reserves for um sort of as protection for those funds that we typically would be getting from the federal government if we don't so we would have access to those so we aren't um we aren't putting those those positions at risk uh and then the remainder of that 2.4 would go into the capital reserve and we would use um we would use I I think and obviously this is a full-board discussion but I think the sort of consensus from the board

111was the cameras and the door access we would probably do those immediately um directly out of the um out of the reserve account to get them done um and then so that is just over um that's about 565,000 565,000 of that 1.4 that we would be moving in and then the remainder would stay in there um until we could have a better sense of what's going on with the rest of our funding and and sort of just the world The World At Large um and if we're comfortable then we can use those funds to do the other stuff we had planned on for our Capital our Capital funds for this year which we've sort of surl with the phones and the paging um so we would have the access to it if we needed it

112to it would move it out of undesignated fund balance and get us in compliance with the state around our maximum amount um so we wouldn't put any subsidy at risk while we know that historically if they have not dinged people for having too much um it's a different worlds and people look for things to to pick apart so to try and stay in compliance with that threshold of 5% this would get us in compliance with that we could do the priority projects um that we want to do um and then if a year from now we feel really good and we've still got however much left in that capital reserve um because we we this this proposal does assume we move a million dollars more into that phase one energy audit which is debt right

113so there is interest associated with that um as opposed of just paying for it out of the undesignated fund balance so that's that's the tradeoff to sort of maintain some security and keep it more in in the savings account and not spend it all down um but if a year from now everything is sort of return returned to normal and we feel um comfortable we could always use those funds out of the capital reserve to pay down for phase two so we don't have to borrow as much on phase two right so we borrowed a little bit more than we planned this year but we could borrow less next year if we're in a feeling in a more comfortable position is that a fair representation all the thank you that was a really um really

114helpful explanation and um I really appreciate all the thought that went into this and I think it's great um for the article one and article two funds that would go into reserves does then that mean those would be there if we need them and then in the next budget if we decided we wanted to spend them in different articles we would just move those around again is that our next opportunity to do that yeah um so Kelly was going to find out exactly what the mechanism is if something's in a reserve account designated for one area we presume it would require a vote of some sort of the public because it requires a vote to put it in um but so presumably it would require a vote to move it somewhere else um were you

115talking about the Articles or the reserve account I was talking about the million dollar the Articles yeah the million doll the articles I think we're moving into the like if we move that undesignated fund into article one and article two if that's not those are reserves it's into the reserves for article one reserve and article two Reserve CU we don't know if we're going to need it yeah yeah yeah okay all right sorry I just want to make sure um so we're trying to fure F out the mechanism to do that um I mean we could fund something out of the reserve in in an upcoming year if we wanted to if we didn't need it there anymore or we could vote to move it somewhere else okay and um no making it up we

116need to contact to find out if that if you can move between Reserve accounts right yeah our guess is it's it's a vote of the voters it's like a a warrant article similar to getting it into the well get clarity we're going to get clarity Kelly wants me to stop talking before I make things up that's on our to-do list to get clarity great thank you and I had another question on the um the things that would be done immediately Michelle I thought I heard you say that the cameras and the door access would be prioritized is that I'm just looking at the sheet and then then the phones and paging are those are those flip-flopped this was their proposal before we messed it all up and changed it all up in the committee meeting

117before today um so really I think what we had come up with was a way to fund all of these items in the upcoming school year oh okay so um so the blue ones will actually be funded out of the local Capital um the 475 plus a little bit to get to these two numbers um that we have in the in the regular budget the purple will be funded by us moving it into the capital reserve um very similar to how we we're going to do the whole 2.4 before um before the last month or so um and then the yellow the light yellow will get funded through the phase one um lease purchase and then for what we the projects we were going to do out of local we're going to make sure there's

118enough money in your reserve account and that's what those we can take a we'll take a pause on because then we can you know we'll look and see where we can get those done but instead of what we have planned in local we're going to do the um the the the phones and that would be the phones and paging will be done in the local budget instead of through this other mechanism yeah because I think originally the purple the cameras and the door AIS were going to be used the following year for the local funds um and the committee felt like the sort of Life Safety piece of that maybe warranted did warrant moving it and getting it all done this year okay but I believe that the phones and paging are the top priority

119of those all right was that yeah yeah well I don't know if you prioritized between blue and yellow but yeah yellow was yellow was the that was our priority because it's the envelope of of your buildings and then blue a second and then the cameras in ping I missed that up second um I think of those four lines the blue was more important yeah could you just remind me what the projects were that were on the schedule for that won't be happening yes I can I'm sure I have it somewhere in I can actually is it on the facilities sheet it's on a separate sheet that we just had yeah that one um no not that one um hold on a second let me grab I have to grab my other F un I mean

120I can't Poss I have the list right here was going to be remove a wall in the music room bathroom floor in Mor Street school Mass uh see add a heat pump to the teacher's room in Mass Landing roof replacement in FMS and roof replacement over one section of the gem and FHS got it no so just it's okay if I continue um just looking at these I'm wondering specifically about the the one that says a urine problem is concerning to me and then I will what page are you on oh oh the stuff that's that on the current list okay sorry there's just a couple of things on here that I'm just wondering if so it seems like I can certainly see why these would be a lower priority than the other things that

121you've prioritized that totally makes sense to me but I was just wondering a couple of about a couple of them um like the roof the roof as well yeah so that's why we put money in the that Reser capital reserve account and we say oh my gosh that roof isn't going to last then we can do it sooner than later that's the nice thing about we we we could we would if we had to do it we'd have the money to do it okay so if it became an urgent problem where this heat pump in the teachers room and the teachers were really close we got to pull the trigger to get it done okay and then deal with that I said it right this problem P the plug pull the plug pull the trigger

122to get it done okay other questions that on on this I know there's just a there's a lot of information to dig there's just tons to digest um I think what's help would be helpful um for our your next deliberation if you could give some direction to me and to Kelly what You' like us to come back back with um so that we could prepare for that you mean like in terms of I mean is is or is there other or is there other information you need or anything else you would like us to prepare for that specifically for Life Safety or just anything in in G budget in general we we'll tidy up the life safety so let's clear out what we're going to do is we're going to pull um wages and benefits

123and so we can tell you exactly what you have to push into those to reserve accounts and what we'd push into Capital we'll have that all for you but is there any anything else that you would like us to prepare for you I think that'll probably come from the conversation that we're having whether we we come up on a roadblock of information I mean unless someone has something out of the gate they know they want in addition to what first of all I want to thank you for the Q&A this is a ton of information um which we haven't always historically had so thank you for all that is anything else anyone knows out of the gate they want do you want to Kelly do you want to talk a little bit about that back

124page I know you talked a little bit about it um or did people get a sense of yeah um is there any way that that we could just quickly go down um on this back page and just identify what corresponds to what um because there are four full-time equivalent teachers and I'm having a hard time holding them all in my head and just to sort of and then if if is that or is there another document that has that and I just am missing missing so I think it's in the other one in the handbook yeah there is the listing uh actually um oh I have the you want the list of the positions Colin is that what you were asking for okay so um so there are for um so there's um we have

125um for for full-time teachers is um Durham grade three Durham grade five Mo Street um kindergarten Mo Street grade one your districtwide was the multilingual educator that we've changed a request to the0 five um you have a science teacher at the middle school and then we have um pieces of parts of the 0.25 is um math at the middle school 0.25 is English at the middle school 0 five5 is English at the middle school we have a 0.5 Spanish at the high school and 05 Ela at the high school those are those are your teachers so they are actually on the screen um for those at home um it was within the original PowerPoint that was done by the superintendent um where we listed them specifically so um I'll just toggle back over to um

126the sheet we're actually talking about um and really um I H we we went through many reiterations of how to organize this um because it's being a PDF it's it's not you know obviously it's not like a morgage board where we can say well we want this and we want that and and so um we we ended up um at least fulfilling the request of show us where we are with the unfilled positions right so um if we walk through the the first um five five lines that you see there um the mechanic position is currently held by our interim Transportation director as well as bus driving position so um there are he holds three hats at this at this time so we have opted to not fund the mechanic position for the next year

127um and then there are four unfilled educational technicians and so that yellow line that light yellow line that you see run across those are the positions that do not currently have a staff member filling them um and then if we continue on WE otherwise in that we grouped them right so then we go into if we do the additional educational technician who's serving as the bench subub um then that would be an additional in the third column $48,600 um I probably should have mentioned this the total reduction column kind of shows you where we're at so if we were to say right now we're only considering the unfilled positions um we would be um looking at a year-over-year difference uh in expenditures 3,1 19269 and it would be a total reduction um of $281,200 it

128would put us at 7.67 % year-over-year on the expenditure side and then if you flow it through the taxation model it would be a 99.69% increase on taxation so then and that's the whole District not broken up by town so we know that is some be higher than that and some would be lower than that right that is just the summary sheet that you look at this is not broken out by Town um so if you continue on um again as I mentioned the their grouped by category so there the last educational technician is listed there um and then we just went into one FTE teacher blocks then we went into the 0. five values and then the fractionals the 0.25s so um and what it basically does is it shows you incre incrementally by

129position FTE and amount um where we arrived at the superintendent's proposed budget that you're considering that is on the table for consideration um so right now because we made that shift to reflect the 0.5 multilingual teacher or esol it's called many different things and I can never catch up on which one is the right one at the time um so we made that um number reflective uh of the adding the0 five back in and then making a reduction on that the custodial sub funds um the custodial subf funds are recognized in the pink line where it says all administrative requests without Staffing reductions because although yes substitutes are staff they're not part they weren't part of the proposal for um that we typically consider when we're talking about adding or removing staff um it's usually

130part of our TurnKey number when there's any increase in in the amounts that substitutes make or whatever that becomes part of what we what I like to call our proforma budget budget and it's our TurnKey budget that rolls um which is what the pain number is um moving uh so if we getting back down to the superintendent we're currently sitting at 5.72 um and then a 7.21 mixed taxation increase we'll call it that moving down a little further which is when I I had originally created this um and then had to add the the rows above but basically I had created it to say if we wanted to get to a particular year-over-year percentage what additional number would we be looking to find to make reductions with so I'll just grab the first you know

131kind of light orange color that's there for a 5% year-over-year increase on expenditures you that would you would need to make in addition to what has already been proposed by the superintendent you would need to make another $299,000 worth of cuts that 5% on year-over-year increases would then um looks like we didn't I didn't fix that problem a little problem over here does it little problem on that side it does not go down um so I will fix that and give you get you a revised version but you can see that it's going to go up from 7.21 not make the negative. 27 um we've that's the problem with changing it on the Fly the day of the meeting um so but okay so we'll just step down if you go I got and then

132I did them in 0.25 increments um just because it seemed to be like an easier um kind of situation to look at um so that I instead of just going like 5 4 3 2 1 I had originally wanted to give more options um but we will get the year-over-year taxation column fixed um moving forward sorry about that does that make sense to everybody okay thank you it's just a it's a busy page so I want to make sure everyone understood it busy okay so uh so we've gone through we've gone through um the updated information on the Q&A which is extremely helpful um we have our our proposed budget um uh um handbook that has a variety of information as as well so uh I know I kind of put the breaks on the

133deliberations a little bit just so we could get through that um the facilities piece but um would invite folks to reopen that conversation if they wanted to um forgive me sorry if this is if this is clearly articulated somewhere else but I guess I'm trying to think of is there a way that we're explaining to ourselves um uh what the budget drivers are have we have we articulated that to ourselves in terms I mean I I think I I'm asking that because I think I can I'm very focused right now on on cuts and the proposed cuts um and I think I'm not holding in my head quite as well a sense of like um uh why we're why we're asking for the 5.72 like what's really driving that and what and sort of why

134we deserve or why we're asking that I know again I know that the we can talk about in terms of capital projects Transportation but is there another way that again kind of a simple way that we're explaining that I mean I guess for me if I wanted to see what the biggest drivers for our budget are I would look there was a chart in here I feel like I might be the wrong one no um yes that one what page is that page um for me this is uh very indicative of of what we're dealing with I mean wages and benefits are 82% of our total budget and I don't know the exact percentage of our our folks that are covered by our two um contracts but it is the majority of our staff so

135those are kind of fixed numbers right so wages and benefits and those are are negotiated previously in Prior years um and so that I think for me that drives in our our handbook page seven that you know if we were to maintain and just roll forward everybody we had it's $3,366 th000 more than what we paid this year I mean that's the driver and you know to to use Jean's example there's not enough paper clips and paper to to make up that so you know then we have to look at um you know and I appreciate nutrition and I appreciate Adult Ed looking at their budgets very closely and saying hey we don't we don't need as much as we've historically gotten I mean it's not huge dollars but every dollar helps um so I

136appreciate that um but you know if you look at the if you look at the pages uh page seven I mean all of those numbers are relatively small with the exception of that top number which is Wages you know salaries and benefits um so really the the way we have to move that is through people um you know I think I think think our administrative team is um very thoughtful and um careful to to bring to us um reductions um and I think they do it in a way where they they feel like we can deliver on our mission um and still and still you know potentially be a little bit more efficient um I'm honestly surprised that they were a ble to come up with an option that keeps the class levels at or

137below our Target for the middle school and still cut two full-time possessions I mean there's less than 300 kids at the high school and we have three full-time stem teachers which is fantastic but if we want to talk about Equity we have one stem teacher teaching nearly 500 kids at Durham and we have three stem teachers teaching 290 kids at free Port middle and I don't want to take away their time and I love that they came up with a solution first of all I want to thank Paige for doing the work to say what is important to us what do we want to guard with our lives what do what are we willing to to make you know sacrifices for and I love that they came up with a solution that continued to prioritize

138science at every grade level and every day and stem in the same way um that's the the kids in durm don't have that opportunity and not to say that they should or they shouldn't I I'm not going to weigh in on that I'm going to trust that will has talked to their staff and what's important to them and what can they make work um so I am having a hard time saying okay to these other cuts at these other levels and saying that when we C when they can stay within the the parameters we've set for them that they can't cut those two positions and I feel for the people in the positions I feel for all the parents who have reached out and said we don't want to cut supports right now um I

139I I feel that but I also feel you know a 10% tax increase if we don't change something and that's just not that's not palatable that's beyond bold in my personal opinion so that's where I'm at with it I guess just a followup on the on my question which is that I guess I if we're if we're treating M maintenance of Staffing level as a budget driver to me that kind of like makes that term uh meaningless um because if we're sort of if uh because I mean I don't know whether we Kelly if we have these this information or not but I'm assuming that we're not going forward um planning to cut uh eight full-time equivalent positions every year going forward in order to keep us at a healthy level and to have that

140not be a budget driver but so is it is it really only this year because of the renegotiated contracts and and we're not going to have this need next year um or are we going to be having the same conversation next year and saying that um and saying that you know we can't Main M our staffing levels because that just makes the it makes the increase too damn High I mean I think there's a way to say that we are as lean as we can be and I feel more comfortable with an increase when we have said that I don't think we're at that point where we can't deliver on our mission with with fewer staff um and I really rely on our administrators to tell us that um you know what can they do

141when when do they have to say you know what we need every single every one of these to to do what you've asked us to do um and it's a good point and it's kind of you know when we have been adding we have been in a very lucky position over the past several years in a growing District um where we've had more kids and that has helped us continue to keep our our staffing levels higher than maybe they would have been had we been in a dropping enrollment since scenario um we are now sort of leveled and maybe going down a little bit so these are harder conversations right if we look at the board meetings for other districts in the past few years they have been facing this for for some time um

142so yeah I mean it's a good point that what is our what is our level of of comfort with this going forward and it's kind of why when we've been adding positions in the last few years I'm like just remember guys this is a a big contract we're we're approving and this just limits our ability to do things in future years and here we are um yeah just to Gan your question earlier I I don't know um whether this is a number that can be asked for but you know just as you project out to the 26 27 year what what just with Staffing maintenance what would we be looking at in terms of increases um or is it is there is there effectively none if like if we make these cuts um the way

143that the contracts are structured are we not going to have to pay any more money I don't I would think that's not the case that is not the case because that's not that is not how our contract works you see what I was doing there I was U that was a was a rhetorical uh move um because I think I don't know I think that's I think that's an important thing for us to look at if if we're uh if we if we're if we're setting ourself if I don't want to make a false promise to ourselves or to our to our um taxpayers or to our kids that we're sort like um can we with a straight face say like we make these we make these eight cuts and like and we're good going

144forward um or just like from a very basic numbers game is that not going to look that way I think if we believe that and we know that these contracts do go up in the coming years and that we are going to be facing this issue of increasing um budgets in the coming years then we should be considering that even more carefully when we look at these Cuts because if we don't make these cuts that issue is going to only be more severe in the coming budget years yeah right very true right yeah Beth genius took it right out of my mouth I'm literally just looking at the page and thinking about this and part of part of the difficulty is that we have a loss of subsidy so we had more subsidy last year

145and we had you know and with a decrease in that I mean it's 26,990 basically um that we lost with that so you know it and that's obviously that could go down even more I mean there's so many things that we just don't know yeah I mean I I certainly couldn't say with a straight face that this is the only cut we would ever make from now until eternity if we made these um I don't know um you know I I I think one of the other questions you know and you provided us with some categories of different areas but like is there other if we feel like teachers are off the table for cuts right um then is there another way to get there what's what's our administrator line look like are we willing

146to to say well we're going to keep teachers but we're going to look at administrative line item I don't know I think that's why I'm asking about that number going forward because it seems like if we if we if we have that to take into consideration if we say sort of like we we sort of we or we have some scenarios to know like all right we keep our um the the eight full-time equivalent staff which just a note I don't think anybody yet has said that's what they're proposing we keep all eight of those positions um uh but if we had a sense of like all right if we kept all those eight positions we kept those eight positions what would it what would the increase look like next year if we didn't what

147would the increase look like so then we just have a little bit more of an honest sense of saying like all right um uh we're just we we are kind of in a corner we're in a corner on on on this and we're we're it's always going to be you know 6.5% just on Staffing to and then to your point then it seems like we're then need to be looking at some larger some larger questions some larger questions of um of facilities of administration right it's like uh like I would rather have that conversation um now uh and be a little bit more informed about it than to um make a call now hoping that somehow it will all work out next year oh I don't have any faith in that it all working out

148I think it's a lot of work we're going to do from now until then and we're going to continue to do till the end of time right this is never easy work the budget is never an easy process you know I I'm I feel more comfortable coming to our voters with a you know 5% increase as opposed to a 9% increase um just in terms of you know straight face and you know I think this chart here can do exactly what you're saying right so if we only cut you know four of the eight teachers then we're looking at 6.75 right or 57 right like you can kind of play those games and look and see what it looks like relative to you know the proposal um and and or if we want to go

149to the bottom of the page and say you know 5.72 is too much we need to cut more well how much do we need to cut if we think you know 4% is the number we need another 700 Grand yeah no I get that I think again I think what I'm what I'm specifically asking Jean is like the 20 27 or the 2728 numbers on Staffing like what would that be looking like um I have a feeling Kelly could do that you it's math it's impossible you could just plug in the next that that's typically like a week and a half of my July yeah it's not something that I'm going to be able to do okay for the next meeting um because literally in you know you have to because you're not applying a

150straight percentage because the contracts everyone has the majority of people have steps built in in addition to those people that aren't maxed out at the top of the scale so not only do they get the percentage that we agreed that the scale would grow by each year they're also getting their step and so I literally have to take every staff member and step them and then reapply the the the um wage scales to them so like like I said that was like a week a week and a half to do it for every staff member in the district for me in in this this past July to prepare what we're looking at today so I mean is it is it like the weighted average step of our staff which I know you can do right

151um and the weighted average increase could I mean to give us a rough number of what we're looking at as long as I'm not held to it when it comes to next year that you say at this meeting you all said I mean that will be Colin but that would that will not that will not be me and again I really appreciate that I'm not trying to I'm honestly not trying to create labor I think it's just I just feel like um this has like to Michelle's point this has brought up this this question and we're we're like we're now paying the piper in terms of like making of making hires and and doing things with subsidies in the past and now we have to kind of reckon with that and I don't want to

152do that on a oneyear time scale that just doesn't seem smart um and so again I'm not I'm not trying to produce labor and again anybody can tell me stop talking um but I just I don't know I just think I I think it's um I can't with a straight face say like we're going to make these cuts and um probably will be okay going forward like I just I don't know I just I'm having a hard time with that I think we're we're talking straight face tests here um I appreciate that we've been given reports that that we could still deliver on our mission I'm concerned about at what expense um at what expense to the staff and the pressures that are put on them to make up for those cuts um concern about

153the expense of the the children and and remembering that what we're trying to do is what's in the best interest of the children and be I understand also to be fiscally responsible but but our our our priority is is what's best for the students um and when I say when I when I'm suggesting a bold budget I'm not suggesting keeping all of these positions to be clear so and thank you for for bringing that up col um I I would like to see what the percent year-over-year [Music] um and Taxation would be if we were to not keep all of these positions but keep the ones that we've talked the most about so the Middle School positions in particular and to be clear it's not because I live in Freeport and would maybe have a

154lower increase in my taxes or that my children go to that school I understand my my role on the school board is not with that in mind um if we were to keep those positions because that is what we've heard the most about and that's what's been the hardest to be creative around um I would I'd like to um know what those percentages would be and and I think that it is seeing that the students needs have increased over the years and that state subsidy has gone down I I hear Colin's concern that this is something we're going to have to address every year and how are we going to do it while keeping while still meeting the students needs because I I don't think the students needs are going down I also don't think

155that the uh schools are not already operating on a in a lean way yeah it's a challenge y um I'm not sure if if um what that included Cara the your request so I just would say I would like to see um what it would look like including the Middle School the two Middle School positions um that are spread across multiple people as well as the8 um esol instead of five um retaining those so we're we're okay cutting positions at all the other schools except for fre Port metal I would rather not to I guess I I'm I'm a little hesitant to I don't know what can I speak to that yeah because I have been sitting here thinking that that you know we haven't asked a lot of questions about the cuts at the

156other schools um and why is that and I think that we've heard from folks in our community more about the cuts at Freeport Middle School we've heard from several parents in our community who have told us they're concerned about their children's needs being met at the school um and I do have concerns more about that school and our ability to continue to deliver services to those students at the level that we all strive for in rsu5 as opposed to the other ones where they feel um more Justified now I know if we're looking at straight class sizes like that's I can see like why would we have different class sizes at this school and and not cut and cut those positions and not at this other school but I also think we've had a situation

157in past budgets where there's been um in the elementary schools where there's been those bubbles of like there's a higher class this year there's a lower class count this year we've taken a position away here or there those are votes that I've made before and that I feel comfortable with making those decisions and I think to Cara's point in the in the Middle School Changing so many things it being driven and it being driven by cutting those two positions rather than like what is the best and I know and don't get me wrong I know that you're always always looking through this lens and I so appreciate it so I know that you're also still looking at it and by you I mean administrators in terms of how can we still meet the needs of

158the kids and what should the schedule be but I don't want all of those jumping through hoops and all of those changes to be driven by cutting two positions I want it us to be instead looking at it in a different way and I just don't feel confident that um the kids at the middle school already um are getting the supports that they need and that's why I specifically have a pro based on information we've gotten from our community members and that's why I specifically have a problem with cutting those positions so 2.3 positions and what what is that look what does that flow through right because two the two and then the three from 0.5 to 08 yeah and I was saying the three because that was I know the difference between the admin

159and the and the staff right had yeah the eso yeah um I think there are folks that are smarter at just sort of thinking about how these um how we ask for these different how we arrive at a percentage um year-over-year and then the Taxation and then the impact on the towns um I guess I'm just curious um what was our what was it last year or year-over-year was it 6.48 I think it was six4 correct um I guess I'm just sort of curious um what it would look like to try to hit that um in terms of we're still we would still be making cuts um we would um we know what it's like to ask um to ask the taxpayers for that um granted time changes and employment changes and what have you

160um but I don't know I guess I'm just I I'm curious I mean like just looking at this chart that uh would seem like if we cut um basically four FTE teachers equivalent we would get ourselves back in that kind of range um and I guess is there something I'm missing in terms of the in terms of The Logical way of thinking about that um because I think I guess that's the way I think about it in terms of the straight face test is saying like uh we asked we asked you all for this increase last year um we made an argument why uh there were I believe there were sort of there were more additions than there were like subtractions last year um and here we're saying hey we need to make some cuts

161um but uh we think we can still get it by maintaining that same increase I mean is there something I don't know other than not wanting to ask for as much is there something I'm missing on that yeah so Dr fornier gave us a presentation that would said we believe we can have all of the classes that we've had for the Middle School this year with class sizes of 20 students which is very reasonable I guess what I would like to know is um what they believe they might have to sacrifice in terms of maybe teaching content or anything else if we did lose those two teachers okay she wrote it down so um because Beth is either a packrat or very organized she pulled out last year's paper um so last year the expenditure

162increase was was 6.48 versus 5.72 currently proposed the tax impact on the three towns last year was um on the mill was 6.7 uh for Durham 4.61 for free port and 6.11 for um for pel this year proposed 7.64 4.05 and 6.74 okay um I'm interested to hear if folks are generally supportive of the adjustment in the capital plan um I will note that there was no recommended change to the uh the vehicle replacement plan that would remain the same um and that would um I I think the feeling was that that needs to happen we need to get on that schedule um and we have a bunch of vehicles that need to be replaced um and we don't want to be at a point where we're forced to make those decisions in the moment

163it's better to to plan for those so that was uh felt to be um critical enough to um put that keep that in there um but I just wanted to um see if people had any of questions or what their thoughts were on sort of the shifting of that recommendation from the last meeting to today Beth who was in the meeting thinks it's a great idea I guess I'll weigh in because I I um feel like you and I were like sort of wondering about that Federal impact so I'm of the mind that that's a good idea um and I thought that that proposal was great okay um I'm just trying to think of other other adjustments um that from the last time to this time to see if folks had any other comments or

164questions or um I guess I was just thinking of the changes in the proposal for the elll teacher or the es esol teacher sorry that there's just changes and I mean I think most of us would be supportive of that and considering but I don't know whether the 0 five or point8 is something that might need to be discussed I guess yeah I guess it would be nice if we had a little bit more clarity about the reasons for the difference between the um administrator proposal and the esol teacher proposal um I I think Emily articulated well what the administrative team was looking looking at and I know the the esol then and they're here that they were looking at um one of the one of the factors was thinking about the travel time and

165the the other Factor was um their thoughts on the needs that more Street School um for the0 five that was that was their thoughts I'm looking at Jill she's shaking her head I want to make sure I got those those Salient points right um those were um they were looking at needs the administrators were looking at at needs of kids but the administrative team um was confident that it could be done with with a two and a half and part was that adding the Durham on Durham the one and there of you look at the numbers there's only one there is one student there adding that on to the middle school Mass Landing group um and then the reductions really at um Mo Street to 0.5 CU what does more Street have now I have

166to get my chart out again let's see hold on so it's right here beginning of your packet so there it is thank you thank you there we are right here to 12 right okay and right now one a full-time position covers the one at Durham and the 13 at more Street correct and so we're saying that 0 five could do 12 at more Street and look at Julie Julie's confident that that one would look that's based on her feedback what she knows about this do you want to say anything about that Julie um yeah I just want to kind of clarify when I think about those 12 students that we'll have next year prek there's a lot of push in and a lot of the work done in prek is similar to the work of

167Lang is language development um so a lot of that work is happening during the regular classroom time um so those of those seven first graders a number of them are dual identified and have pretty self-contained specializ programming um so there's like a team greater than just esol needs um I think what we potentially lose is um Lana currently in her role does a lot of family liaz on that I think we recognize that we our administrative team would have to take back like that would be our responsibility um but I think in terms of instructional time part-time would serve those 12 students really well and if you think about um our RTI teachers they carry case loads of about that flux between anywhere between like 20 and 28 and so in a support role where

168you can do small groups it seems like a halftime would would suffice um I get I I'm curious I'm curious about um the the Durham piece um and sort of the time of how that work and maybe you know maybe you don't um like how much time is spent in Durham I'm just thinking like travel and between multiple buildings and yeah I mean typ I I don't know how much instructional time that student gets but typically um at least one morning if not two mornings a week uh Lana starts her day there and then comes later to Mo street so I mean we all know how long it takes to drive from free poort term so that's kind of a p but I wouldn't I mean will your student doesn't get any more than half

169an hour in any one time right okay other questions on that piece so I'm hearing that the point three that we will not be that we would potentially not be including in the budget is primarily that family liaison role which then would be absorbed into admin is that a fair way of thinking about it so Julie has 4.7 FTE jobs um what else what else do folks want to discuss tonight versus kind of think on and bring back to our next so just as a reminder where the where the um wrong packet all this information but all I'm doing is flipping my packets around and mixing them up uh the budget timeline just for the board's information and the folks listening um so we're on the 12th which is deliberations our next board meeting is

170next Wednesday night uh here and um we will continue our deliberations and we will also include a public input on the budget section of the agenda where folks can come and give their feedback ask questions about the budget um proposal before the board deliberates um and then on the 26th uh so ideally uh what they like is for us to come out of next week's meeting with our number which we would then adopt on the 26th yes um so really sort of the next meeting we we can continue to discuss and and make adjustments if we choose to on the 26th but in a perfect world which we know this is um we would basically come down to uh our general consensus on um what that number is at the next board meeting uh the

17126th will also have a public input uh component of the budget or of the discussion and then um and then the board would adopt on the at the meeting um on the 26th so two weeks from today Anna um someone had mentioned that you know we hadn't really heard much from the Durham Community which is the other school not report that's proposing cuts and I just wanted to hear from others who've been on the board for a significant time is that just they don't come out as much because we have the meetings in Freeport or um I I guess I'm just wondering are we not hearing from them because they don't disagree or because they don't know what's going on or they're not driving to Freeport or you know I just want to be wary

172of like yes we've heard a lot about the Freeport Middle School and some other topics but you know we can't take that as face value of like that's the only concerns so uh I don't necessarily think it's because the meetings are here um I think that the the live stream really makes it accessible to everybody I think people like next door to the high school sometimes just watch it because it's easier to do it in your pjs than come here um so which I think is great um historically this is completely anecdotal um we always we often hear from free Port metal the most on Cuts or additions or um I would say that is a that is historically consistent um I don't know why that is why it's more free Port middle than Mass

173Landing or Mo Street or even the high school I guess we do hear from the high school some I'm I'm thinking back to um positions that um got added on the floor at the annual budget meeting that was a Freeport Middle School position um yeah I mean they're they're um motivated so I um I I don't I don't want take it to mean that the other communities or the other impacted School communities don't care about the the um about the changes um nor do I think that they're all completely unaware um any more unaware than I'm sure there's people in freeo who have no idea what's happening with the budgets um so I I really can't I can't speak to it I didn't want to suggest that at all but I guess I'm just wondering

174like is there a way for the next to get community input that like we're making sure we're reaching yeah people that we haven't heard from yeah I don't know it's a good question I mean just at a very basic level that's I think Anna speaking and now me speaking directly to the camera saying if you're out there Durham folks um you know we'd love to we'd love to hear that because I think that is I think that is a concern and um I guess I guess I have sort of a a question related to that um I've been sort of just trying to go back and and this is both memory which is fallible and anecdotal which is fallible um but I'm sort of I'm thinking back on my four years um on the board

175and I don't recall ever having a direct conversation about questions of um as a board I don't remember us ever having a conversation about Equity um but in terms of a additional additions of Staff or Cuts in staff between the towns um and I guess I'm just curious uh perhaps from folks who've been serving on the board longer um for any sort of any advice on that because I sort of I I heard in your in your uh reaction to an earlier comment Michelle a sort of a sense of like um well if we're going to quote unquote save a position at Freeport middle um I had a little bit of a sense that a feeling that that was inequitable right it sort of um um and I'm sens and I'm and I'm I'm sensitive

176to that like I think I'm I'm wanting to take that seriously it goes to Anna's Point as well right um but I guess how are we supposed to think about that I mean I think I um I do live in Freeport um we when we had the we had the um uh what do we call it the sharing what is it called what are we sharing the cost sharing the C sharing the we what are we sharing cookies the cookies are really good uh they're better in uh Durham um and we say that on mic all the time um we had that c sharing conversation and it was a difficult conversation in terms of like trying to think about like how do we how do we balance this right and we like successfully had that

177conversation and I think like through that conversation I think that board which is mostly represented here tonight um I think uh we were having a pretty clear conversation about like we're each of us is here representing all of the students in all of the the in all of the towns and all of the schools so I am just not used to thinking about um additions or subtractions of Staff or resources in terms of an equity between towns and if that's something that I should be thinking about I would appreciate any advice on how to do that uh yes so I I I just want to bring us back to when when I started the presentation um the slideshow and I said we really looked at this systemically and that is super important to our administrative

178team um and it's clear from I've read the correspondence it's clear you you've heard from one you know from one group but our team was really clear that we need to look at the district and I won't even say towns I'll say by schools um looking at um you know I'll just I'm looking at those Elementary numbers and you know I I was an elementary teacher myself for 16 years um and I think if you look historically our elementary schools have taken or grade levels have taken kind of a hit for that and I think even I think it was last year at Moore Street when we had a a staff member that um was unable to return and I think what were the 20 classes of 26 Julie um and and they made it

179work and so I think we just have to you know remember that our um as you do deliberations what the team brought forward was what we felt we do we do look at it at lens of equity as well that it's all of us it's a district it's all kids it's not some kids and we thought it it was really difficult and cuts are difficult and it's hard because positions are people there are faces behind that and we recognize that um but I know um I I have a great respect for our team and and I don't think anyone would be recommending a reduction if it hadn't been well thought out through them by them um and that we would still be able to meet the needs of all all kids so I say our

180team we we do and that's why when you see you'll see something at all we at all areas those reductions um and you look at we it was interesting looking at other you talk about like what are those other those paper clips and pencils if you look at the amount of money and supplies we cut we took those all out because we we value the people that that work for us yeah and and I guess I I'll apologize if I made it sound more Town driven and less School driven um you know I I guess I was looking at for a similar grade span what what were we able to accomplish and um and I put a lot of faith in our administrators um and that could be another reason that we don't hear I

181mean and I think um I think Emily said earlier it's a little easier to shift in the Elementary grades right and um and will has done that forever you know like well this grade's a little smaller so we move this one and we take this CL and so um you know just sort of the the faith in the ability to um if they didn't think they could do it they wouldn't make the recommendation that that's how I view it um so you know my concern was by doing this can we still live within the parameters we have set which is our class-size policy um which we as a board felt was important um and not required but we did set it um and I guess I fall back to you know having the faith that

182from a district when they create this budget and I think this is something that's actually really important in this district is they don't do it by school they do it by like what are the biggest needs it's not like well I need something I don't care what you need my need's important because it's mine um you know I think they've always done a nice job of trying to spread that out and my intention was not to say well you can't cut one for keep put add one back here if you don't add one back there it was more around can we deliver the services um and what we've said we're going to do and I believe our administrators when they say they can yeah and I appreciate that in apologies if I if I misread

183that I think I think again what I'm trying to cross-pollinate is the fact that we were having that conversation we're talking about Staffing we're talking about resources per school and then um we have to shift into a different mindset and think about the difference in taxation rate between towns and I I feel like those are related um and um I don't know I think I feel like they're related so I um but I don't know I mean maybe maybe that's not maybe that's not the way to think about it I mean I think um I guess to follow the the logic on why I was asking that question originally I was sort of saying all right like is the um if we were to retain the the Freeport Middle School positions um but not the

184others um does that make it even harder um to uh ask of the Durham and panel uh are you suppos Durham because pel is going going to freeor middle um do it make it harder to ask um for that um and again I don't think that's wrong to to consider that I just I just I don't know how to consider that did you say desider I thought you said that did I did I say D no I wasn't sure if you're doing the opposite of cons em said I didn't say I don't how to desider it like not consider it if you didn't you should have I think it's a word yeah she got it off her iPad got the source on there um okay so where folks feeling are it is 9:18 we have

185used a lot of time this evening talking about these things uh I think Gan has a list of a few more pieces of information that we would like to have um I I think not that I'm necessarily advocating for this but it is is a a way you know to consider other Alternatives and I I mentioned to Jean um you know when we were talking about the administrative level we have in the last two years as added two full-time administrative positions in the district as assistant um principles at the two um elementary schools is there a way to make that work with one you know could they could they split an AP across the two schools I don't know if that's workable I don't know if it's feasible um I mean I'm sure it's it's

186not ideally palatable but if we want to prioritize positions and still try to you know get a budget that we can um pass and and feel comfortable with um and I totally recognize some people have a different level of comfort with what's an acceptable budget I I respect that um but it just feels like it's a question we we could ask it's relatively new yeah where on the uh pie chart does Administration fall are they just included in the wages and benefits contractual it's wages and benefits it's everybody okay so if we wanted to see if we wanted to see admin we do have them by they are in a separate article right well different article number I don't know what page I'm on I I'll I will make it easier um if in the

187Q&A document if you look at page 22 so close there's a breakdown of each one of the categories and so wages that we have educator educational technicians we have administrators Outreach coordinator athletic trainer support staff I might have anticipated the question so um just some historical knowledge this isn't my first rodeo with Michelle right um so just so you know it's it's 2,381 1831 for the wages and then obviously if you go down to the benefits 640,000 667 for admin um so we just need to add those two components together right because when we consider people we have to consider wages and benefits what's considered support staff support staff would be all other hourly staff that is not an educational technician they're your bus drivers your custodians your office secretaries your administrative secretaries the central

188office staff not myself because I would be considered administrator but we have AP payroll um SEC you know support secretaries so and so 24 actual includes the new AP at more Street and 25 adopted includes the new AP in uh Mass Landing so 23 would have been the last year without either of those correct okay correct for certain if we were to even consider that kind of cut I would want to hear back from the administrators about whether that's something that is going to impact students in a significant way yeah I mean it's a it's a question of you know if there have to be Cuts where where are they made right are they made closest to the student are they made farthest from the student um I am I am sensitive to um potentially

189the tendency for from some districts um to avoid all sort of Building Maintenance and and upkeep of their because what what does Kelly say buildings can't send you an email uh they can't advocate for themselves but people can um and and it is important right it's an important you know it is one of strategic pillars um but uh you know where where should those cuts be made um I don't know I don't know what the right answer is and I imagine it's a it's a mixture of places everyone feel done for the night phoe are resounding yes okay if I could find my agenda I would tell you if there's anything else on it but I don't know where it is oh yes we have Personnel um okay so we have no new business uh

190we do have one item 14 do I have a motion for consideration and approval to employ a director of Transportation you might have seen this agenda item and had a panic on who on this um as you know um Jerry Jeremy Arsenal is serving as our interim director at this moment in time and I couldn't be more pleased um to put his name forward to be our permanent director um so we would make him permanent director right now and he would continue on with us and I can't thank Jeremy enough for all he all he does um to keep our buses going our vans going and everything else um and also he's just a a um a really good human being and a a an invaluable part of our team so I'm very grateful for

191Jeremy's willingness to to step up being our full-time director questions he already said yes right yeah okay I'm just making sure you weren't still had to butter him up um okay so we have a motion we have a second we will take a vote all those in favor great none opposed thank you uh Jean and thank you Jeremy I saw him over there he just slid into the corner so all right uh so now we are up to item 15 which is public comment same rules apply as the last time if we have any folks who would like to speak um up to the mic first uh where uh your name and where you're from in three minutes no one I give folks a quick they're supposed to take seven seconds right you're supposed to

192give a 7c break for folks to decide okay then I shall take a motion to adjourn Mara and Cara thank you all those in favor have a great