March 4, 2026 – School Board Workshop

001testing. We're good. All right, everybody. Welcome to our March business meeting. Um, call this meeting to order at 6:36 and we do have a quorum. Please join me for the pledge. Thank you for that. Upcoming meetings, we have March 11th will be personnel committee at 5:30 in the Dun School Library, followed by finance committee at 6:30, same location. Uh March 18th will be policy at 5:30 in the uh middle school cafeterium or will they be in the library? >> Will they just stay right through the same spot? >> I believe we're staying through in the same spot. >> Great. Um schoolboard workshop workshop at 6:30. We'll start from the middle school cafeterium. Um that will start with a tour of the middle school. And then on March 25th, uh, finance committee again in the at

0025:30 at the Dun School Library. Any um action relative to additions or adjustments to the agenda? Adam, >> yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Um, March 11th, that's personnel and facilities, >> correct? >> Or is it a >> No, you're correct. That is supposed to say facilities, not finance. Yes. >> Waiting for someone to say I'm wrong. I'm like, maybe this is a budget thing. Okay. >> I was looking at it thinking it didn't look right, but I couldn't quite. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. Nice catch. So, March 11th, personnel and facilities. March 25th will be finance. All right. Um were there any um anything on the agenda? No. Great. And uh comments from the audience? None. Oh, great. Moving into recognition, Dr. Turner. Okay. So, the main teacher of the year nominations

003are out and we actually had um five folks in our district nominated. um not all of them actually qualify, but we love that our community is so um proud of our staff, whether they actually are a teacher or not, that they took the time to do a nomination. So, we love that. Uh we celebrated them on our social media. But two in particular I wanted to share with you tonight because I actually was able to receive the nomination from the parent. Um and so and and I'm working on it on some of the other folks, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share that feedback from these parents with you. And I was smiling during the pledge of allegiance because one of them is about that. Uh so the first nomination is for Martha

004Gil who is uh one of our prek teachers at the Dun School. And this is from Anna Gagnen, a parent there. And she wrote in her nomination to um educate Maine, "Mrs. Gil helped my daughter gain the confidence to speak and taught her to respect the flag of the United States. On July 28th of last year, during a naturalization ceremony in Portland, they asked if someone from the audience would recite the Pledge of Allegiance in a room of more than 150 attendees from different nationalities. My daughter, who was only 5 years old at the time, stood up from her seat and without hesitation raised her hand to volunteer. She recited the Pledge of Allegiance perfectly, microphone in hand, showing complete respect throughout the ceremony. She left us all speechless. When they asked her why she

005did it, she answered, "Mrs. Gil taught me to respect the flag every day." What my daughter still doesn't understand is that Mrs. Gil also gave her the confidence to use her voice in front of a group of people which would intimidate many adults. Thank you, Mrs. Gil. And the other parent nomination we have is also from a uh also for a prek teacher, Mrs. Donahghue. This comes from Erica Roy. Uh and she shared that Mrs. Donahghue is an especially kind and compassionate person to not only her students but the parents of her students. She is truly engaging in the classroom and finds unique and exciting ways to teach. I've been lucky enough to see her in action during volunteer opportunities where she coordinates activities that parents can help assist with, such as gingerbread housem or

006a trip to the fire station. I have also seen her make remote school days a fun experience for my daughter. I cannot express enough how grateful I am for her being my daughter's very first teacher and being the one to start off her learning journey. My daughter started prek off being very shy and nervous to start school. And in a short time, she has blossomed into a happy child who loves learning thanks to the gentle support of Mrs. Donahghue. It's hard not to be excited about a lesson when Mrs. Donahghue is teaching because her enthusiasm is so magnetic and her lessons are so engaging. She's an extraordinary teacher who deserves recognition. So, we're very proud of them, needless to say, as well as all of our other nominations. And I just wanted to share a

007a quick snippet of like what that means now that they've been nominated. Um, to be eligible, you have to have been teaching for a minimum of five years, three of which have to have been in Maine. You have to hold a professional certificate in the position you're teaching for, which is generally a requirement anyway, but extra. Um, you need to be certified and in good standing, actively teaching at least 50% of your day, and you have to maintain that teaching position um throughout the selection process and your year um if you were to be selected. It's a super rigorous process. It starts in December and January where you have to be nominated. Um and then in February and March, teachers opt into the process or not. And to in order to opt into the process,

008they have to secure their principal endorsement and they have to complete an a rather lengthy application. Um then it goes into an independent county selection committee where they then pick a group of county teacher of the years. Um over the summer it goes up to a state panel where they narrow it down. Uh it then goes and and at each step of the way you're reviewing a portfolio, you're hosting um these committees in your school, you're doing interviews, they're coming to see you in your school. um but at the county level and then twice at the state level until next October the main teacher of the year is announced. The full directions for teachers on how to go through this process is nine pages long. So a teacher who chooses just to do the process

009of main teacher of the year is a huge commitment. Um so lots of folks are nominated. Some choose to move forward with the process and some don't. Um but we're working with them to make sure we can provide them the support they need should they decide to go forward. Hold on. I'll flip back to my last my second recognition. So, our second recognition of the night, we have a special guest with us. Uh, we wanted to take an opportunity to talk about Patriot Parents, which is the parent teacher organization um of our school district. And is it kind to say longtime president, ex, >> experienced president, >> seasoned president? Um Deb Carson is here with us tonight. Um Deb has been the the chief cheerleader organizer um all of the words for this nonprofit that

010does a ton of work um that benefits our schools and for our kids. And I wanted to um invite her here to share with the board. I know some of you are involved in the work, but a lot of you don't have an opportunity to do that anymore. And I wanted her to be able to share with the public the great work that the group does. >> Thank you so much. Can you hear me? Okay. Uh, good evening and thank you for having me here tonight. As Shanda said, my name is Deb Carson. I'm a parent of two students here at the high school and I have a student that graduated last year from the district and I am the current president. I think I've been the president for I came in around COVID, but

011I was in already in before that. Um, Patriot Parents, in case you don't know, is a nonprofit organization. Our purpose is to strengthen, enhance, and encourage the betterment of the educational and social environment of all of our students in the district. We work to provide curricular enrichment opportunities and programs beyond the scope that the district's annual budget can provide. In some cases, these are opportunities that arise during the year or programs the PTO decides to fund independently. Our board is not just made up of me. Clearly, we have a vice president, a treasurer, secretary, but the bulk of our board is really made up of our representatives that work with each of our schools. Each school has two representatives as well as we have project representatives like project graduation. And our newest group that joined

012is the arts boosters. Patriot parents representatives partner with the principles, the teachers, and the families to bring our mission to life. Each month we meet. We discuss the activities at our schools and across the district and our community looking to determine where the gaps are that we can fill. Being a nonprofit, we rely on fundraisers, volunteers, and donations to be able to accomplish our goals. And we appreciate all the families that have supported Patriot Parents through our many fundraisers like Art to Remember, our spirit wear, plant, seed, and wreath sales, volunteering, and supporting the many concession stands and math Olympics to name a few. We appreciate the community's participation in events like our turkey trot, the son social, the daughter's gala, bingo, and trivia nights. These aren't just events to raise funds, but they also

013help us to create spaces for our community to come together in support of our students. With the success of our fundraisers and our events, we're able to support the schools in some pretty amazing ways. The success of these fundraisers and events, as previously highlighted, we've been able to support our schools with staff appreciation. This goes not just to our teachers, but extends all the way to our bus drivers. We host holiday shops and winter craft days, field trips. We create bulletin boards to promote kindness across our schools amongst many other things. Bryant Pond fall outdoor experiences. We send all of our fourth graders away to Bryant Pond. This is at no expense to any of our students. And we recently have started to support the farm to table program at the Dun School for all

014of our prek students. We also host family dances like the friendship dance at Memorial School, the upcoming literacy shuffle which is a celebration dance at Russell. That's just a few things. We also stockpile all the supply closets for our staff, provide memorable and safe final celebration for our graduating class, which is our project graduation. And then we provide our scholarship opportunity for our graduating seniors. As you can see, we do remain committed to our goal of providing enrichment experiences to a cooperative relationship with parents, teachers, and administration. We're rewarded by the appreciation and pride that our students and faculty show for our district and the opportunities that are provided. We welcome anyone interested in getting involved to please reach out. And we thank you for your support over the years. And thank you for this

015time tonight. >> Deb, don't go anywhere. >> What was that? >> No. people may have questions for you. [laughter] >> Um, if folks did want to get involved or we wanted to put a link to it in our minutes and stuff like how do parents start participating in Patriot Parents? >> So, if you want to get involved, like I mentioned, there's a rep at every school. So, that's one way you can get involved. You can reach out to your principal or the information for the email is in any of the newsletters that come out. Additionally, we have social media pages that you can follow, whether it be Facebook or Instagram for all of our schools, and that's a great way to get involved. Uh we also have a sign up and we can send out

016email newsletters to you to let you know opportunities to volunteer or events that we might have coming up. >> What is a a cool thing you've done recently that people might be able to look at when they leave the building tonight? >> Well, when you leave tonight, if you've seen any of the hearts out in the hallways, those that is a project that we put out. Uh we worked with the principal here and all of our students and the community. Um we had over 200 responses of acts of kindness that came back to us and that's all the hearts that you see displayed across the building. It's pretty exciting. Um and next week I think you might be at the middle school. >> Well, I'm sure you might have to go to the bathroom when

017you're there and you can see what we've done over there as well. >> Um other questions? I was just going to put a plug in for Project Graduation. I was a volunteer at that uh last year. I don't know if we're going to do it at St. Joe's again or wherever we do it, but if you would like to have your heart filled up, uh go and volunteer at Project Graduation because the kids are amazing. It is just such a fun time. The kids are in the best mood and uh you just, you know, watching them play. It was like a bunch of fifth and sixth graders really. It was just so fun. So, >> it's pretty amazing. It's like the icing on the cake. It's why we do it all, right? Like to see

018them get all the way to graduation and to have that last celebration together. Um it's just amazing. >> And you can do like a shift, right? You can sign up for a amount of time. >> Yeah. >> I mean, if you can't handle the overnight, sure, you could just do a shift. >> I will be there overnight, but I thought maybe a board member or two would like to come do a shift, deal some uh hands of poker. Um Gary, >> I just I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you. Um any of us that have had kids come through the school department um have benefited hugely from your organization and our kids have benefited hugely, never mind what we've done. But uh I just I just know my son got a

019lot from the boosters on his trip through and I really appreciate it and I appreciate everything you've done. >> Thank you. And >> just I hope you're thanked often. I think a lot of people, part of the reason we wanted Deb to come tonight, um, is I think a lot of people see stuff that happen and we actually think the school did it when in fact it is one of the the Patriot parent organizations. I know that when I started working to have arts boosters, I said this the other night at performing arts night, I thought the athletic kids just got stuff the band kids didn't. Um, and I came to learn it's because there was a bunch of parents working really hard. You know, the school wasn't buying sweatshirts for these kids and not

020those kids. It was that they had this parent organization. Um, and that organization was incredibly helpful and welcoming to creating an arts arm. You know, the athletics boosters helped us. Deb and the Patriot parents helped us. So, um, I just think that they do a lot quietly without looking to say, "Oh, it was us that did that." Um, and >> that's actually how I got involved was I didn't realize what Patriot parents did. When my kids were in third grade, when my daughter was in third grade, and when she was preparing and excited to go to Bryant Pond, at the time, it was an overnight trip. That was pre-COVID. Um, and I was like, "How is the school able to afford to send all these kids there and it doesn't cost us anything? We don't

021have to send it like not even $5. Like, I don't get it." And that's when I came to find out Patriot Parents did it. And I was like, "How can they possibly do that?" Well, we have a lot of bake sales. >> Yeah. And what um does Bryant Pond, even for a day trip, run? Um well, so we're fortunate enough that um Bryant Pond is able to get some grants that help to supplement it. Um this year we're looking at probably spending close to $7,000 to spend our to send our fourth grade class >> to Bryant Pond. That's a lot of >> that doesn't include when they come in the fall. The four the third and fourth graders benefit from the fall treat from the fall when they come to the school rather than us

022sending them there. >> And what do your reps do? Um there's a model for teacher recognition that I think is nice to know about. >> Uh so we we try to make sure that we have recognition that goes on uh usually there's something that happens in the schools at least on a monthly basis and then we have our annual uh districtwide appreciation that's like a week-long where we have activities that go on every single day. >> Yeah. So uh if you want to see how a meeting is truly run, I invite you to attend one of Deb's uh board meetings. um they get a lot done. They're not messing around and it's a little scary. So, [laughter] um well done. Other questions about PTO or >> I just want to add on to to about

023the teacher appreciation piece is something that um Patriot Parents does and and I really credit this to to Deb um is it's not just the teachers. No, >> they come to central office. >> Dressed as snowmen. >> I do dress as a snowman sometimes. If you see me around town, I am a turkey. If you see me at the turkey trot as well, I I do have a closet of blowup costumes. >> She comes and entertains us just like the kid. But I think so many parent organizations when they're doing staff appreciation, they they go to the schools and and maybe they forget about the other adults in the in the district that are getting things done. And Patriot Parents doesn't. They come to central office, they go to the transportation center, they go to

024facilities and maintenance, they make sure that everybody is included and everyone is appreciated and that takes an extra effort above and beyond um that I think people maybe a lot of people don't. So, I just really am personally very appreciative of that. Um, and we wanted to say extra thanks to Deb in particular, even though we told her it was about Patriot Parents so that she'd come. Um, but it's a huge thanks to Deb because we know how much of her heart and soul she puts in it. We got you a small little gift. Um, and I also maybe heard it was your birthday recently also. So, happiest to you. >> And this is for you. >> Turn my mic off. [applause] Thank you, Deb. I see you taking that opportunity to scuttle off. So

025[laughter] that's allowable. That's okay. And now, uh, Jack. Oh, shoot. Yep. One more. Goodness gracious. Uh, okay. So, finally, we have um to celebrate this week, this month, uh a senior here at the high school, Jack Flity, um put a pencil drawing called inspection um into the Scholastics exhibit competition and won a gold key, which is um both highly competitive and very prestigious. Um so, a huge congratulations to Jack. Um, if anyone is interested in viewing that, it is actually on display at the Main College of Art and Design um through March 14th. So, you have a few more weeks to go catch it if you want to. Um, but a huge congratulations. Being a gold key winner um is a very big deal. So, we're super proud of Jack. >> Um, you actually um

026don't have to go all the way to the main college of art um though that would be a better way to see it. It is um there's a photo of it in this the most recent uh Patriot Express high school newsletter that you can see right on the high school website onto the right current issue. Zoom in and there's a picture of both Jack um and the piece and it's really impressive. It's a it's a really impressive um piece of work. So, >> all right, that concludes the best part of our meeting. >> Um, now old business. Um, I would hear a motion that we accept, as printed the minutes of the February 4th, 2026 regular business meeting. >> So, so moved. >> All right, we'll give Jim the second. >> We'll give Jim a

027second. >> Um, did anyone see anything in those uh minutes? All right, great. All in favor? Perfect. And uh now we will hear a budget process update. Uh so this we just want to take an opportunity in the agenda to um remind the board but also remind our public in general that we had kind of one of our first budget workshops on the 18th where the administrators um and directors came and talked about kind of what we're thinking about as we build our budget um for next year and have an opportunity to get feedback from the public as well as um the board about what um folks are thinking as we start to build it. Um so we come back on March 18th. Yep. I couldn't remember what today was. I panicked for a second.

028It was February 25th was our meeting. Um that was recorded and it is posted on our website as well as on the budget page. So you can get there in one click if you'd like to watch it. Um and then March 18th is when we'll come back to provide more information uh for folks who have questions based on what we talked about on the 18th. The list that we have right now as far as parking lot questions to address is some more information about buses and bus safety. We talked about kind of the flatnse buses and versus like what comes standard and that sort of thing. So, we'll make sure we have information on that. Um, talking more about summer school data and what that looks like. Um, we've had some questions around subgroup data

029for academics. We'll talk about and then a request to learn more about what our main school management fees are and what services come along with that. So, we wanted to give um the board an opportunity if they thought of any other parking lot questions they would like to share um today. And then also just a reminder that if you could get those to us sooner than later is always better. Um but by March 11th at the latest so that we can make sure we have time to prepare. >> Anyone have new thoughts or parking lot questions? They want to spare themselves an email. Sam, >> uh I've been thinking more about the summer school. Um, and I never had kids in summer school or grey wreck, but my impression is that they you pay for

030grey wreck, right? And when we have the summer school, there's kind of like a handoff from the summer school to the grey wreck, right? >> Correct. Is it a thing where we could ask families taking advantage of summer school to chip in or pay in a way that they do for grey wreck? I just as a way to subsidize it. I just try like I want it to happen. I just know that our budget environment is not great. It is outside of our sort of normal mandate. I'm not saying we answer the question now, but like do we even have a mechanism for doing that? You know, that kind of thing. Is it a possibility? It's just something I've been thinking about. >> Yeah. Yeah. And we've used a couple of different models um around

031that. Not necessarily to fund the program, but particularly because when we were doing some of the more I want to say recreational things like during um uh the PEP grant period, we were doing lots of summer like outdoor um education activities um that we were offering free at first. And what we found is that people would sign up and take a slot and we'd tell other kids no, but then the family wouldn't necessarily show up. So, we've also used the funding model from the aspect of like a little skin in the game, like if you have to pay, even if it's $5 to reserve your spot, that it just made people be a little more serious about it. Um, but I can add that to the scheme of things we can talk about um and

032bring back on the 11th on the 18th. >> Yeah, that's an interesting idea. And that it makes me also think about how part of the problem last year was even staffing summer school. And so as things fire up with Wreck I or is there a part an opportunity to partner with Wreck where you are paying to send your kids to camp or there's some significant scholarship options or such but part of that might be like a tutor you know an academic component um that might cost us or require fewer teachers to provide some academic support to more kids. I think kind of saying the same thing a different way or like is there a way to join with or monetize >> and you know if they qualify for free and reduced maybe it's a 20%

033reduction or 80% reduction whatever it happens to be but you know it just might be a way to continue the program without breaking the budget. I don't know. >> Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely add that others people already feeling really good about uh budget information ready to roll. Okay. Um so as Chandice uh said, you do still have I think close to a week to send um an email with any additional questions or thoughts you have. Um and then that will dictate our next um workshop. All right, we're turning the page already. Uh new business to consider our 2026 2027 school calendar. Do you want to um do a motion talk about do the motion first? Okay. So, I would hear a motion to um approve the 2026 2027 school calendar as presented with any

034modifications made in discussion. >> So, moved. >> Great. Uh so, in your packet is the draft school budget. I apologize that should have a watermark for draft across it. Um this is not decided upon. This is for your consideration tonight. Um, I added some information in the um, oh, okay, good. It does say draft in the lower lefthand corner. Sorry. Um, I had another version where it was bigger across the middle to make sure everyone knew that. But, um, so some I put this in the agenda packet, but just to kind of say it out loud, um, we have some amount of control over our school calendar, but that is limited by statute. Um there is a law on the books that says that all schools that say send to the same career and technical

035education center um have to have the same school calendar and cannot have have to have five or fewer dissimilar days. So that's a day that you know we're in school but someone else isn't. So like we have to coordinate the day we're starting school. We have to coordinate when we're having no student days. We have to coordinate when we're having teacher days to really minimize that number of days. So what I bring to you is been months of work in a group. Um because we are a paths ascending school, we actually have a very large group of people we have to work with. We have to work with Cape and Yarmouth and Falmouth and us and I'm not even remember the rest of the list. Um but we get on Zooms usually starting November, December

036and start hammering out um how this is going to look. So, um, as far as feedback, you know, from the the committee tonight, um, we we can have some level of input, keeping in mind that we we have less influence than we used to because we have to be in line with those other districts that send to this school uh to to the PAD school. Um, things that look different in this calendar than years past, uh, we are looking to start with four student days in the first week. It's because um the holiday in September is very late this year. Um so after much discussion uh the we have discussed doing staff days that week um of August 24th and having students start on Monday the 31st and uh Tuesday September 1st. So the the

037calendar dates are not terribly different than they were this current year. It's just that the holiday is a week later. So, it's a little bit different. >> They're actually later, right? The students are actually starting >> a little bit later. >> Later numbers wise. >> Yes. Exactly. >> Another change uh that we we played with um is we moved the early release to the last Wednesday we're in session each month. It used to be the the early release day is the third Wednesday except when it wasn't and it wasn't more often than it was in the calendar. So, we were kind of looking at our schedule again, you know, how those holiday weeks fall, you know, in February and April. Um, and we felt like the the last Friday kind of fit better in having

038a good flow of education for students, but then also good timing for our teachers to do, um, good strong work together. The other big change we've made, uh, a couple years ago, we adopted a strategy in March where we do two and a half days without students right in the middle. um that I would say didn't the concept was we take two of our P staff days and a half day um Wednesday and it gives two and a half solid days of staff to do work. It also gives a nice place for families to take a vacation because we have lots of families who like to take vacations in March when it's a little cheaper and it meant that they missed a lot of school. So we were trying to give families that option. um

039we found it was mixed results as far as um families using that opportunity. Um it didn't necessarily improve our attendance. It didn't hurt it any either. Um but it didn't necessarily improve it. And then um the feedback from teachers is they wanted to see their days spread out a little bit more. And then as we got into it with the other districts um it was creating additional dissimilar days. So, we have adjusted instead to have a teacher day in January that aligns with some of our other districts and then just one day in March on the 19th. Um, and in the collective barting agreement, we um do a meet and discuss on the calendar. So, this calendar has gone back and forth with the teachers union a couple of times. And then anytime we're asking

040teachers to start working before September 1st, because their contract is officially September 1st to August 31st, they do have to vote in favor of starting early before we could do that. And they did hold that vote and vote in favor of starting early. >> And then the last piece I would just draw Yep. >> Do you can we take questions on this before we talk about the storm day thing or do you think that will influence N? I think yes, let's do um questions on just the structural setup of these proposed I'm curious I I know I'm not pointing out something you haven't already seen a minute a decision on but where the Friday that Friday in August the 828 is not is off instead of starting student days or is that because it's tied

041to a holiday just noting that we go over a Monday into June >> yeah 14th instead of so the 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th are staff days. Y >> and then Friday no one comes and then students start on Monday the 31st and do four days. Um there was much debate among our path sending crew as to whether to have school on that day for exactly that reason, looking to try to get more days in so we don't have to go late in June. Um we got some pretty big push back from and not just not necessarily ours but like uh across our sending school some pretty big push back from the teacher groups. Um we have traditionally always not had school for that Friday. That is something people um plan and depend on. They also

042like having the first week with students not necessarily be five days. Um, having that sort of tiered approach where you have them for three or four days before you have them for 5 days gives them time to build up stamina stamina and frankly it gives the grown-ups time to build up stamina as well >> because last year they were they started that Wednesday Thursday correct >> everyone was home Friday and then a short we holiday on Monday >> we kind of crept into it >> and we're not choosing to do that this year because it's so far from Labor Day. >> Yes. Okay. So last year we did a three-day week, a four- day week, and then a five day week. What we're proposing this this year is to do a four- day week, a

043four- day week, and then a five day week. >> Got it. >> How have Well, actually, uh, I'll save that for the snow day conversation. Any other thoughts on the draft? Hunter? >> Okay. I [clears throat] just had a quick question on those. Two days before I call it winter break, >> um >> 21st and 22nd of December. >> Yes. Correct. Um you know, was that can you kind of clarify the reason sort of why we chose to have kids go to school those days because I know in 25 26 they had those two days off. Is this just because of >> timing? I'm thinking of like >> you know obviously being younger you know those first those two days right before break I'm not thinking about school whatsoever. I'm thinking about Christmas and you

044know two weeks off. So I didn't know if you know there was a strong reason as to why we did that because I you know >> neither are they thinking about school on June 15th >> that is I know that >> that becomes >> essentially we we have to look at getting every day we can in everywhere we can because as we get into June it it it really just gets hard to have school. Um the later in June we go the hotter it gets. We do not have air quality control here so climate control. So, um, it's really difficult. I, if I'm going to be completely honest with the public, felt we should have gone to school December 23rd. Also, my day, my as a half day, I thought it was brilliant. Um, my

045colleagues called me names, including Scrooge and Grinch, um, and told me where I could put that day. And so, I lost that battle. I I took my loss and walked away. I thought a two and a half day week would have been a great week. Um, you get a couple of days in, um, but then people still get a good break. So, I lost that battle. I'm okay with it. Clearly, I'm not cuz I'm still talking about it. Um, but generally speaking, if it's hitting that break where we're talking about one day, then we're going to take a longer break. If we're t if we can get in two, we're going to do two. Um, three or four or five become becomes much easier conversation. But, um, last year it was I want to say

046the 22nd was Monday. So, you we really could only get one day in that week in which case it it didn't make sense to come in for one day. Um, and so that's why we decided to do it that way. So, it all comes to like how those big holidays hit. Um, and kind of making the decision of when when can we get the most quality days possible in. >> And you're right, the 21st and 22nd maybe aren't the most high quality, but again, June 28th and 29th also not generally uh challenged to be a high quality learning day. >> Good. Okay. So now the um weather procedures portion. >> So part of um being allowed to do a remote day or a no school day, two-hour delay um is that the board has to

047vote to allow you to do it. So um I know there are a lot of communities around right now with how many storm days we've had that are saying, well, hey, how how come we can't do a remote day? I see these other districts doing it. If your board did not vote to allow that as part of your plan, you're not really allowed to do it without bringing your board back to vote on it. So that's why it's included with the school calendar and it's a really important part of our vote because if it gives us our options. Um so this describes the options a little bit um of what we do and why we do it. Uh it is unlike many of our neighbors. Um a lot of our neighbors generally take storm days

048and as the days get later and later into June then they start considering other options. Um, we have gotten into trouble with that. And I like to remind people of 2018, which was pre- remote days, but we had a particularly stormy year that year. Um, and that year we canled that Friday off before April break and then we brought kids in to school on a Saturday. That was rough. A bunch of people are nodding because you were here with your kids and it was rough. >> Was that a quality learning day? I'm not sure that was the most high quality learning day, but I give our adults and kids a lot of credit for pulling it together on an April Saturday and coming to school. Um, it also happened to us in 2024. Um, we

049took the we took the approach of of calling just some storm days in December and January when we probably didn't have to. We could have called a remote day and then we said, "Okay, now that we've had four, five, six, I can't remember how many there were storm days. Now we're going to call remote days." And then we had that big storm in April where it knocked out power and internet to our to our communities for three days. So we couldn't have a remote day. So we were in school until the last week of June. And those last three days of school, we had to have full half days, meaning kids here are getting out at 10:00 because it was over 100 degrees in the classroom and it was not safe to have them here.

050Um so that is why we believe in the model and I'm the one it's my decision but we as a team talk about this pretty deep. Um we believe in calling remote days um when we have power and internet so that then as you get into a hard winter like we've had this year um we're in a much better place. I know of schools around us um whose last day right now is June 22nd to the 24th >> range. Our last day right now is June 15th. Um, so it I we are in a much better spot than most other districts and I'm getting a lot of calls from area superintendents now saying, "Hey, how do you guys do this because we think we want to do it differently." So I know um we we

051receive feedback from families after two remote days, three remote days that remote days are hard. I understand. Um I totally get that. Um, but I would say like as we look at it in the scheme of things, it's a really important tool to have in our toolbox so that we make sure we're doing best for kids over the entirety of the calendar and not thinking about it in one day. The other thing that I would point out that we've added this year is the option for early dismissal. And it's not that we haven't necessarily had early dismissal as an option. We just haven't talked about it. And I thought it was important that we did talk about it. Um, and that's an option to call between one and three hours early to get students home

052prior or if there were an emergency. I will tell you early dismissal is about the last resort we as administrators would ever take. It feels easier at middle school, high school, they generally can take care of themselves. Um, at elementary school when you are sending children home one hour, two hour, three hours early when parents may even if it's the night before that you're able to tell them. I just get very nervous about young children being dropped off at homes where there are not adults there. So earlier early early dismissal for us would be a last resort option, but we still wanted to have it on here so that the board knew um in in a situation that it deemed appropriate to do that. We would possibly take that option. Um but it is probably

053my least favorite. I would I would personally more likely go remote day than say, "Yeah, let's bring them in and send them home a couple hours early." Unless we really knew we could do enough notice to really call every family and make sure that they knew. Okay. So, and I um I will give Dr. Turner some some credit here. this year we did have quite a few remote days and I remember you know calling her and saying uh I think the we're losing the crowd um I think a snow day would be nice and uh Dr. Turner was like no that's not the policy man um because um families can count on it. So when you hear a lot of speculation or this or that, it's like, well, if this, then that, you know, like

054if they can send iPads home, plan on the remote thing happening. And so as the kids are getting worked up or the parents are making noise, if we're consistent, it may not always be popular, but people know what to expect. And so to throw in randomly like, we think you're just getting annoyed, here's a snow day, then well, we can't really count on this holding. Um, and then conveniently, we got a real snow day. So that was nice. But um I do appreciate that it is consistent in that people can turn to each other and say look this is what's we know what's going to happen. So um and I do know quite a few folks who are going into uh school to the 23rd in the Portland area. So sad for them. Uh questions

055or thoughts? Lauren? Um I do appreciate the remote days but also do become concerned on the um meals for that. So can you speak to that? >> Yeah, great question. Thank you for asking that. So part of having remote days, you have to have a plan to provide meals. So anytime that we anticipate there may be a remote day, much as we send the iPads home with kids the night before, we also send them home with meals. Those meals are shelf stable. Um and so we know that then then they're available for families. families can sign up for that. Um, it's right on our website, most of the school websites, as well as our nutrition website. We also reach out to families we're worried about. Um, and so we make sure that those meals go

056home with children so that they have something to eat on the remote days. >> I was going to ask a similar [clears throat] question is what happens with meals on snow days? >> On snow days, um, we do not have meal packs. So, it has to be a school day for it to be a a food service reimburseable meal. >> Yeah. I think that's a huge recommendation for the remote day. >> Right. Right. I didn't think of that. So, we cannot send home food ahead of time in case of snow. We can only send it home ahead of time in case of a remote day because that's tied to the reimbursing. >> Correct. >> I mean, that's a I find that to be very motivating. >> Yeah, for sure. Now, we have our backpack programs

057and some of our other food insecurity programs where we can send food home with kids in that way um to sort of fill that gap. But as far as using our food service program, it has to be tied to valid school days. And then also being a valid school day is tied to being offering school meals. >> Got it. Uh, Adam and Gary, >> um, on the early dismissal days, if we were to call it like day of, is there a after school supervision option? >> Uh, yeah, it's usually the principal. >> Yeah, >> I I've done it a couple times uh where we've had emergency. I'm looking to Kathy because she's run a building for a long time. Yes. So, essentially, you we we have done this so rarely here that it's hard for

058me to say generally speaking, that's what this is what happens. But as we have done it, generally speaking, not only are we sending out the text call and email that you're used to, particularly at the younger level, teachers are calling every parent and giving a list to the principal to say, these are the parents I could not reach. Um, generally kids that we're putting on buses are okay if we say to the bus driver, hey, we haven't reached this. Please don't let them off unless you see an adult. Sometimes that kid ends up on a bus back to our our school. What happens much more often is pickups. Uh it's the pickups that we end up there. And frankly, um even with our early release schedule and we do lots of reminders, we always have

059one or two kids every early release that we have to make the call. I say because I was that parent one time where the school called and said, "Um, we have your daughter here." And I went, "Oh no, we forgot to send someone to pick her up." Um so I feel that to my bone. That happened when she was seven and she is 14 and still now brings it up at least once a week. Um, so it that does tend to be what happens. It tends to be we have it now. Um, usually they're hanging out with the secretary and the principal um until we can reach a family member. Would you add anything to that, Kathy? >> Yeah, I think it's also >> Thank you. I'm making her put her principal hat on. >>

060I think it's really important that sometimes it's a storm. So, we I think two years ago, um, there was this crazy windstorm and the trees were falling down and the roads were closing. So, we really had to get kids home in order to have our buses run as well. So, sometimes it's it's not always as predictable of like how bad the storm's going to be. Um, but we always care about the supervision. So, it's a team approach no matter what the day is. >> Uh, just wanted to couple of comments about um remote days and snow days. It's been a lot of press this spring about the use of snow days and what district's doing what. And I think it's interesting that some of the districts that are advocating for snow days and not remote

061days do not have onetoone devices. So they can't do remote days if they wanted to. Uh Lewon School District, Portland school district, they can't do a full remote day anyway because they don't have devices in kids' hands. So, it's a little disingenuous to have that conversation in um the other thing is the another thing that's done in districts is that you will have a snow day and extend your school day and then apply for a waiver. So, you don't have to have those days at the end of the year. So, not only did you have a snow day, but you have no educ no instructional day at the end of the year. So, you're giving up face-to-face instruction when you don't need to. I understand that for a lot of people a remote day is

062not as valuable as a face-to-face instructional day, but it's better than no day, which is what you get in a lot of districts when you have snow days intending to make them up and then you apply for a waiver and don't have them at all. Uh so I I like what we do. I like that we do it first. We limit the number of how many remote days we're going to have. We let people know ahead of time we're going to do three, four, whatever, and then we will have snow days. Um because we have lots of parents who think it's a great idea to have a snow day until June 16th when their kids are still in school and they're planning vacations >> or they're making their vacation plans might have find out we

063had a March storm and now we're having school for three or four days. We had a meeting tonight in in curriculum about uh truency and and absence and chronically absent kids. Well, you add three days to the end of the school year that then those kids don't come. Those are three days that go on our records as absences and they count towards our chronically absent population. Uh I just I think the way we do it makes a lot of sense and since we're technically able to, good for us. I think we ought to continue it. Yeah, I've got one last question, I guess. U maybe it's just for my edification, but when my wife was uh a school psychologist in Newport area, the and this was back uh n 2008, I guess, the superintendent would

064uh would not close school, would would uh would would have school so he could get uh uh lunch into the kids. Sometimes he'd even feed them early so he could get the check from the the federal government. Is that no longer a thing now because of the way we don't have free and reduced lunch now? Everybody we just is that that motivation because I mean that's what she's is that no longer exists. >> I'm not as familiar with that. What I would say is that we have a minimum student day count in the law and if we aren't going to make that and and there are definitions of what can count as a student day and feeding them lunch and those sorts of things are part of that and if you are not going to

065meet them that law you have to ask for a waiver from the department of education. I don't know of any districts that have been financially >> clear around that issue. >> They would get more federal dollars if they fed the kids if they sent if they sent the kids home before. thing I can think of is like we have greater participation in our meals on a day kids are here versus days we're sending the meals home in which case the reimbursement for our meals is higher on a day kids are here versus a day that they're remote is the only thing that I could think of that would be related >> maybe that idiocy died out 20 years ago. I hope so. >> Or it could just be that things changed. Yeah. >> Thank you.

066others. Good. All right. Um in Okay, great. Take a vote. >> Yes, we're going to take a vote on that. I feel like there's a thing. All in favor? Wonderful. All right. Next up is to hear a report on AI guidelines and um handbook information that is in the works. Perfect. Um thank you for giving me some time. So uh when I first started uh my first retreat with the administrative team in June, um I heard uh Chris Galasso talk about in technology, one of his goals was to um work on AI guidelines. Um, and so one of the first meetings that we had with our team, it came clear that it was little less about technology and a lot more about curriculum and instruction. And so I kind of started to take the lead

067um into that curriculum work. Um, so today I'm just going to kind of talk about what the process was on how we developed these guidelines. Um, you need to understand that this is still in the works. Um, we are still in the process. We are not done this year. So these aren't implemented yet. Um, that will be Okay. [laughter] Um that will be a next year uh piece. So right now we're just um publishing the the guidelines uh to the different stakeholders and asking for feedback. And so that's what we're going to ask of you tonight. Um so when we started um getting committee members, we wanted to make sure that we had prek12 uh staff. We have uh teachers and tech uh technology uh folks. and they all come with different perspectives. We have

068uh some people that have never used AI before. We have some that are pro-AI and we have some that are anti- AI. And so it was a really good um collection of people to help us get through um trying to get some safeguards of what we want to use um for our for our district. Um we used a four-step process. The first thing we did is learn a little bit about AI. um understand what it is, what it isn't, um and also understanding what it looks like in our district currently. Um we did a lot of research um and so I'll kind of go into that a little bit. We drafted um some guidelines that we presented to the curriculum committee, so I apologize for my four friends who are hearing it yet again. Um

069and now we're seeking feedback um from different stakeholders. So we're going to kind of go through um all those pieces. So the first one is what is AI? Um I think through this process we figured out how much AI is already in our lives. Um and we really talked about like what is the definition but ultimately it's um it's a machine that is mimicking human intelligence. And so it's really just looking at patterns and it's becoming more sophisticated in how it's looking at patterns because we're we're prompting it. Um, and so it's a machine learn thing and it's really trying to be sophisticated in problem solving. And why is this important? Well, we figured out by 2027 95% of the industries are going to have AI in some capacities. That's a huge piece for our

070students that are going into industries yet imagined, right? Um, so we just kind of want to talk about like it's evolving. Um, we looked at one of the programs last spring and it was a a different a completely different program even just this fall. So things are adapting um you know consumers are are are taking it in um and and developers are adjusting it and we need to do the same and kind of be mindful of that as we are the consumers um for our our students of what we're going to use or not use um in our schools. We talked a lot about the different types of AI. I think um when we first started this a lot of our committee members just thought like they went right to chat GPT right and that's

071kind of that open um open AI um but we talked about there's a lot of other AIs that are available for our students and for our staff um that are more the narrow piece um so for example like notebook LM um is also is in our Google suite so it's a um you know it's a Google approved uh site that actually uses our same data um security measures which is what technology was hoping for is that we're really paying attention to those um tech um safety measures. What Notebook LM did is in before it was this open um AI where it would get sources from everywhere. That was last spring. Just this fall Notebook LM made it so that you actually had to give the notebook or or the AI the sources to use and

072then it would manipulate. Why is that different? Well, for a student they may not know what sources if it was a big open one like Chad GPT it would just take any sources and then we have to figure out bias and what those research would be. Now with notebook LM a student can actually give or a teacher can say you're going to use these sources now you can make study cards or you can make a podcast or you can do an outline. So there's just more specific things that we can do and limit the sources, which also made people feel a little bit better about what we would do or not do with AI. So that just helped us understand that there are some things that are good about AI, but there's also some safeguards

073that we need to talk about. The next part for us was research, research, research. We did um we we had people that were researching um articles about what the use of it in schools. Um we talked about what we researched what other districts locally as well as uh nationally are using AI in the schools. We looked at policies that um that districts had. We looked at guidelines that people had. Um we looked at all the different things to figure out what was going to make sense for us. what is being said or done now and what does it make sense for us at MSAD15 that we feel really comfortable with um for our students during that time. Ironically um in October the DOE had a task force or Maine had an AI task force um

074and the DOE released it and it pretty much gave guidance of all the different industries. Um it's a 64-page document. Um you can Google it. Um there's about five pages uh of education. um our committee actually read the sources that the DOE and the task force used to create the educational um uh research and and and recommendations and nothing says like an English high school English teacher looking at resources and saying [laughter] kind of picking like what was the good uh pieces and parts. Um and at the same time the main department of ed is continuing to build um a toolkit for educators to use um you know and and for districts um to use AI in the schools. So we had all this information about what's going well in other schools um and and

075around the state and around the nation. And so now it was kind of like let's start crafting it for us like what do we feel comfortable with? When we started that it became good heated debate. Um, and we love heated debates. Um, so our technology folks, we're really focused on data privacy. So we have these pieces that it doesn't matter what app we use. Um, the technology folks will make sure that they have data privacy that we're not making sure that people are selling our students um, information. Um, so that was like a kind of a a lens that we wanted to pay attention to. We talked about transparency. We want to make sure that people know when we're using AI and when we're not using AI or when it's allowed and when it's not

076allowed. And then the other piece is accountability. We want to make sure that we are making sure learning is still learning and AI is not replacing that. Um, and so this was a lot about the students at first and then it started going about the staff and so we started talking about is this going to be a guideline or is this a policy but things were already changing from even the um September to December when we were building this um a lot of it came out this ethical um dilemma that we had and ultimately what we said was if it's good for students it's good for staff and I would say The biggest piece is is we talked a lot about process versus product. And so when we were talking with students, it was okay

077for students to get feedback or maybe generate ideas. Um maybe they put in their rubric and their um paper and they could get feedback against um the rubric and be be able to revise their draft. That's way better than a student who is doing it at the last minute, procrastinating, and just sending it in. They're already on a second draft before they give it to the teacher. So there are a lot of good conversations about process, but the end product is we don't want it to be AI generated. We don't want kids copying AI and just submitting it as their own. No different than we don't want anything Google, right? When Google came out, kids were copying and pasting and plagiarizing. So that was that integrity piece and the ethics. So we were okay with

078students using some pieces and parts depending on um what subject area. I know we have students right now um in math if they're struggling with a math problem they will use photomath which is AI they take a picture of it and it will give them the answers and all the steps of how to solve it we want to still be able to uh give access to that process the product is we want them to be submitting things that are their own. So if we we all agreed that that was okay, but then we looked at the staff, same thing. The process of you can use it to help um generate lesson plans or maybe guided notes or things like that, but the product of grading and giving feedback, we want it from the teachers. So

079it was kind of like what's good for students should be good for staff. A big a big piece of this is going to be the professional development next year talking about what's what's right and what's not um and how we're going to implement these guidelines. So what does the guidelines look like? First it starts with purpose. Um we tied it to our guiding principles which is similar to our curriculum guides now. Um we feel like that was tied in nicely um that way. We added some definition so everyone is using um the same terms and understanding the differences and then we developed a stoplight. So our lens was pre-K12 and I will say like our high school students are like when we're now getting feedback from students they're like we don't need a stoplight system

080but if they really think about it it's a pre-K12 our middle school students will um especially at the very beginning of there might be some pieces of the assignment that they can use in uh AI and some they can't. And so we need to kind of use this what what makes sense for everybody. So ultimately a teacher would then say in different pieces and parts of the assignment or the entire assignment in entirely they would use the green um yellow red. The green meaning AI can be used but with sighting. So there would be some um criteria. Yellow it needs to be with permission in specific ways and red it's off limits. So this doesn't force our teachers to use AI. It just gives them guidelines if they're going to choose it to be transparent

081with the students of when they can. The staff guidelines were to clarify um which AI tools that they can use um while safeguarding kind of the learning and again that ethics and also that product. We want teachers to be able to grade and do feedback. And so we're going to have to be really clear through our PD about what that looks like. um because there are some times where we might want to use AI for feedback in part of the process, but the end product when we're giving the grade, we want it to be the teacher. Um the student guidelines align similarly to some of the other um pieces that we have. Um academic integrity already aligns to uh academic dishonesty that's already existing in their u current handbooks. If there is a student that

082chooses to use AI to plagiarize, there's already um steps in place to for disciplinary um pieces. So, those will already align. In terms of AI approval, um we're not creating a new process for AI tools. Um our tech team already has a process. If if staff or students need an an app, there's already a process to get approved through tech to make sure we have that data security. Um as well as administration. Um, and and so this is something we're going to continue to learn. For example, we had an AI app that got approved and it looked good for one content area, but then when we started to look at it, another content area goes, whoa, whoa, kids can do this in my class because of this app in this class. Um, so we were

083allowing to to use it for that assignment and then we disabled it. So, we're learning too as things um develop and and grow. Our biggest piece will be professional development. Um Chris and I are developing a tech survey that will be going out to staff to kind of see how comfortable they are, what professional development they need. Um we're also asking feedback from our parents and our students like how are you using it, what are your fears, what do you want to know, what experiences you do want your kids to have with AI. Um so we'll be asking some of those specific questions to then build that um professional development next year. And the last piece of it is commitment. Um, as AI is developing, we need to be mindful that this is not a

084done deal. Just like these guidelines are right now, we're just going to try it. Next year, we have it on the docket to bring it back to curriculum to say here's the changes that we needed to make after we implemented that, after we um provided the professional development and it's been in use. So, our next steps, it's been um to schoolboard. Uh we we've interviewed uh specific students at uh the high school. we are working on in the next couple weeks for the middle school. Uh we have some planned meetings with our parents um in the preK4 world. Um and then we have that tech survey which I'm not I didn't put it on here because I'm not sure what's going to go out. It probably be March or April um to all our staff

085and then it will help us implement these guidelines um in their entirety with professional development. It will be added into the handbooks uh these guidelines specifically. We'll see the usage of the stop um stoplight um in certain grade spans and we'll bring it back to the curriculum committee for review um late spring next year. That's what I have. Any questions? >> Okay. Um before or to preface or as we launch uh discussion feedback questions, Gary as our um curriculum chair, do you have anything you want to sort of add or give contexts on? >> Can't hear you. >> I would just encourage people to actually read the guidelines. There's another document in addition to this PowerPoint um to see what the detail is that Kathy's talking about. Uh we've had that published now since a

086month ago when curriculum met and so if you haven't seen it, you need to see it and go over it. Um >> it is in our packet tonight in our discussion we're about to have. I am assuming everybody here at this table has read it. Right. >> I would hope, but I'm encouraging. >> But yeah, it's linked. It's linked in the uh agenda for tonight. >> All right. Questions um and feedback. >> This is a pretty big one, so I'll drop you a hint. I am looking to hear from everybody. >> Sam, you want to go? >> Are we going around the table or do you want to >> Oh, yeah. Here we go. We'll we'll come down this way, Sharon. >> Um, so I saw this in curriculum, so I kind of already gave

087my feedback. I know I'll just kind of repeat what I said then, which was I really liked the stoplight. Um, I thought it made it very easy. Um, while we talk about it a lot, right now I'm a high school. I have a middle schooler. These conversations are already happening. So having that, you know, sort of universal conversation about it, I think is really important. Um, and to have the symbol of like when it's allowed, when it might be used for some pieces and when it's absolutely not allowed, I thought was helpful. and thinking about like um also that this is just such a fastm moving topic um that having something like a these guidelines is going to be important and just um having it housed with curriculum so it can keep coming up every

088year potentially for review just because it's moving rapidly. Um just in addition to what I mentioned a minute ago, uh I did I am looking forward to the time when we're look talking about professional development and we start talking about guard rails and um how we're going to monitor and critique work uh both on the teacher side and the student side. I'm curious to see how that's going to work. Um, and the other piece is came up in curriculum and I'm I'm kind of waiting for more information on this piece is the idea that are we going to have a common tool? Um, there's so many tools out there and if we're going to do effect in my mind anyway, if we're going to do effective professional development, we've got to adopt something semi in

089common for faculty and students to use. Uh, I just don't know how you do professional development except in a very general sense. This is AI, this is how it works. But if you've got 17 different tools being used districtwide, how do you do effective professional development around a common curriculum? >> We do have some common apps now. So, for example, like PreK4 uses Seesaw to do a lot of communication with families. Um there is AI already built into Seesaw and so some staff have played around with that and some have not. So it probably will be a little different um by grades span because preK4 kids are not going to really be using AI. Um but I I guess another piece and I didn't mention this is there's going to have to be some teaching

090that's going to go along with this. So um like in our um specialist schedules or like our library um we're going to we teach digital citizenship. we're going to have to teach um AI pieces. So um there are already lessons and curriculum out there that we're starting to kind of look at and we're going to be using um media specialists and librarians um next year to kind of look at what that scope and sequence is. There are some apps that our staff already use. So like like I said in the Google suite there's some apps that are already being used Seesaw. So some of the ones we already have have AI in there. That's where we're going to start. So we're not necessarily going to be searching for new ones. um unless there's like specific

091ones. I can see like some science um teachers want, you know, using different ones, but they'll go through the app process. But in terms of our PD, we're going to use the ones that they're already familiar with and just build what does AI capacity already have. If you go on your Google right now, you have a top part that says Ash Gemini, right? Like you already have some um pieces. If you do Google Slides, there are already pieces of AI that can help you generate. So, we're just going to start with the apps that we already have and then we'll build from there. >> I really don't have much to add. It's a very fastmoving uh uh area and you know I guess any any plan just needs to be flexible of course which is

092you know no no great uh uh profound thing. So, >> you're up. Um it will be exciting to see how we can vet the um assets that AI can provide for say developing a lesson plan for staff but them still taking ownership of the product. Um it's it may seem fast moving. Um I was the first I was at the middle school. I was the first year that Maine did like the laptop initiative uh where we all got laptops and that was like a huge deal and then uh so there I mean there's resistance and there's a curve and everything but we now it's it's normal. So I think that's where we're headed there. There will be um you know a major market for um you know graduates or or students that can proficiently use

093AI and at the same time like own what it produces like with them or in collaboration with them. So it is it's definitely not something we want to just shut out of out of everything. Yeah. Um I just want to say thank you. I appreciate the work that you've put into this. Um it's very definitely um very timely and I can say you know when it's in industries it is in our industries every day that we are um using it to become more efficient um safer you name it. And that's um AI is is changing the way we do our work. So, um empowering our students as well as our teachers to to um be proactive in learning how to use it properly um and safely. I I appreciate that. So, that's what I have.

094Uh, I had the, uh, benefit of already getting to talk about it for an hour, so I might be a little a little sharper, but um, I do a couple of things that I'll repeat from the last meeting and then new. Um, it does, you know, we talked a lot about it being a good start and a ton of work having gone into this, but it didn't feel super transparent because it wasn't work that we have been involved in. and the talk about is this a policy, is this a procedure, is this a guideline and then like how much do we uh we engaged in or we have to say um and other things we've done like the uh cell phone which um I feel like we did a little more visibly and had students

095and parents in um and I'm not you know saying that's necessarily required but I think if we're going to bring out something that is done and then we're bringing it to the board for feedback or parents or students be clear with them or ourselves on like how much might this change or not change, you know, are we are we showing it to people because it's done and and we are saying we showed it to you or because we actually are looking to, you know, have wiggle room. Um, we talked about the lights being great. Um, and some feedback that it would be nice to see that firmer for the staff as well or some transparency if the students have limits, which they absolutely should. should students and parents know when and how teachers are are

096using it? Um, as well, um, I think the staff guidelines are great, but they read a little more aspirational than the, you know, so what what's the, you know, what's the actual functional policies or is that sort of yet to come? Um like a for example with the so a teacher wants to use a thing they would go to their admin and tech and technology to make sure right that we're not bringing in something >> yeah they they fill out a Google form a form >> um but then in terms of is this a good fit is it principle by principle are they making that decision in a vacuum does our curriculum director have input of like well actually that's like just a crap tool and I happen to know it but maybe this principle

097is like looks good you know like what happens sort of in real like when we put this stuff to work and maybe part of that is you have to put it to work you know to find out. Um and then just like this is just a picky functional thing but on the one that came to us today if we're not asking a committee to vote or a board to vote on something I don't I think we would just date it. I don't think we would put like curriculum committee reviewed because it really was presented to the curriculum committee. We made feedback. Nothing changed. We didn't vote on it. Um I just want to be careful if we're not signing off on a thing that we don't sign off on a thing. You know what I

098mean? >> Um that's just something that jumped out at me. Um but and you know I think that there is a lot of interest. I think we we had a parent email. um one parent email does not uh you know but usually I have zero parent emails so someone that we heard from anyone at all um I think we can probably um multiply that up to say this is probably a topic of of interest um and I just wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to like have engagement with folks be meaningful to the to the process Hunter Yeah, I want to go with the sort of complete opposite of that. Um, and I'm kind of towards the end of the curriculum committee side of things, so I don't want to repeat anything. Um, [clears throat]

099you know, I really liked it when we looked at it. Um, you know, I always think of my end goal and my end goal is that, you know, AI can be used as an ethical learning aid that strengthens our thinking, but it should not replace the, you know, critical thinking and the actual work that students are doing. And I think we're taking meaningful steps to sort of you know outline that especially with the stoplight um saying you know it's not doing the work for you um etc. And then you know I think throughout the guidelines themselves you know we there was a repeated emphasis that it's not replacing the learning uh not only within the student expectations but I think also in the staff and it sort of you know established a clear foundation you

100know they students are still expected to demonstrate their own understanding and you know it's not going to the staff isn't going to use it to grade you know we discussed that in curriculum of it can help, right? But I want, you know, when I put hours into something, I want to know that the teacher actually read that and gave their feedback versus they dumped it into, you know, I don't know any AI services, but besides chat GBT, but you know, sort of like that and it did the workout and spit out, yeah, that that was great. They answered the question versus, oh, you really dove into this question and you know, went deep on that. And um you know again the repeat on the the stop light I think it provides clarity um and sort

101of what is permitted what's not permitted um and it also allows flexibility right we're not saying no AI use or fully letting them completely use AI all together you know so I like that aspect of we're not banning AI but we're not accepting it um you know I think it's something that's we're still at the tip of the iceberg of in terms of AI like I think it's ever evolving. So you know us jumping ahead of this um you know when the curriculum committee we talked about all the work that's gone in behind the scenes and this is not something that we just sort of spat out. there's been a lot of input um a lot of people who have AI um experience and knowledge and sort of how it can be good and bad.

102Um personally I see the good and bad of AI. You know um my biggest thing with AI is that it can't tell the difference between um what's actually factual and what's not. just going to pull really quickly data and more than likely the first point it can find. Um, so I think we sort of covered that ground and I really liked, you know, our guidelines and think they're really strong. Um, I think using AI as a catchall term is really dangerous. Um, you know, there is a big difference between quote unquote AI that is essentially just a very fast search engine where it goes and searches a big database and gives you back the information, right? Like if I go to Google and I say, "Tell me how far it is from Omaha to Witchah."

103Some people consider that AI. I don't think that's AI. I think that's just a really fast search engine result. Um, you know, things that take uh manual tasks and add computer power to them to make them faster. I am generally in support, right? You go back to when I was a kid, I used to fill in the little bubbles for the test. My teacher would take the little bubble sheet, put it into the machine, and it would give me a grade. And that was the height of technology. really not that different than a lot of our AI technology actually right it is going and checking against a right answer and returning whether that is right or not I'm mostly fine with that um I do not see an ethical use case for generative AI don't

104think it can be ethically used uh the large language models and which is a AI uh service for creating music or you know the variety iety of AI services for b for creating videos. They were 100% trained on copyrighted material, including my own copyrighted material as a writer. Uh you can search the database, you can put your name into it. It tells you that yes indeed it did use some of your work. Um they just say, "Well, sorry. We wouldn't be able to have a business without violating copyright." And for whatever reason, society has decided that that's fine. Uh I find that to be ethically bankrupt and I object to it. I do not think generative AI should be used uh in our schools. I don't think there's an ethical use case for it. So

105I think those two things should be separated out. Um and I would find it highly problematic if any student in our uh schools uh were being asked to use generative AI as part of an assignment if they did not have a choice to object to it. Um I don't know that that is reflected in our guidelines that difference. I I would like to see more work uh defining how these tools might be categorized uh in terms of the sort of technology that they use. Um, and I think um, especially the use of generative AI is uh, I think it's fundamentally antihuman. Um, I think art making is at the core of our humanity. Um, and I think that art that is created by computers is not just ethically bankrupt, but intellectually bankrupt. Why would I

106care about art that was created by a computer? Um, it sort of sickens me. Um, and I think we as a school district ought to make it clear where our moral and ethical standards are in terms of our making. Um, I guess that's all I've got on that. >> Thank you, Sam. Teresa. >> Yep. Um, as Kathy said, we've seen this in curriculum, so I've had the pleasure of having it twice now. Um, I really do appreciate the work. As my colleagues have said, we didn't know how much time was spent on this until curriculum told us how many months and how many meetings. And so I really appreciate everyone's hard work in coming together and putting this together for us. I would encourage everybody to read it in the community just so they have

107better understanding of where we're at and why we're doing this. It is here. We do have to learn how to work with it. I really do appreciate Sam's comments that generative AI, yeah, it can be kind of tricky, but um we're really in the early stages of us utilizing it in the school district. We have a lot of more work to do, and I look forward to how this all comes together. I really do like the stoplight for faculty and students. I think, yeah, the high school kids might not like it, but it's just something we all recognize. So, I really like that that's in there. Um, I'm leerary of the grading side of things. I've heard just already that some teachers are using it to grade and I don't know if that's true or

108if that's just kids saying teachers are using it to grade their stuff. So, I would really not like that. I like the idea of as a tool, but it's not the end product as we discussed. So, yeah, we have a lot of work to do still, I think. But I really really appreciate everyone coming together and pulling this together for us. It's really valuable. >> All right. Thank you. Yeah, >> I have heard in my house um that certain teachers use AI to grade whether I believe that or not, but that has hap um that conversation has happened. How do you ensure that that doesn't happen with the staff? >> Well, right now our guidelines didn't exist, right? So we have not set any parameters for teachers to use it or not use it. Um

109and that's where the professional development comes in. Um you know in terms of I think the checking that's where administrators have an evaluation system on on on on their their teachers, right? They can see grade books. They can see um how those pieces are. The students talk to our administrators about what's happening and what's not. Um but again there's going to be this process of like we're going to have to check and adjust. We're going to continue to ask students like what is your experience? what are you using, what are you feeling, what are you seeing? Um, similar to to staff. So, I think the problem is right now it's kind of the wild wild west because we haven't had guidelines. So, once we get the um professional development next year and and have the

110expectations, I think we should see a difference and and more continuity. Um, I do appreciate your your comment Sam. Um we had a long conversation about like open AI is not appropriate at least for you know and even AI in general for prek8 but there isn't important pieces for us to teach about bias like if I put in you know I want to give me a image of a soccer ball it might give me a black and white soccer ball but I don't know if you have little girls in your house but when we were playing soccer when she was four ours was pink and purple and so there's some bias in that so we have some teaching that we have to do that is part of that AI part of the ethical piece from

111that prek8 to then figure out what is appropriate for 9 through 12 and we had a long conversation about that. Um but I don't think we're allowing every app to be used right where you're just going to start small and then grow it and that's our intent. I'd like to jump in on the grading piece too which I because I think I think that is again a very com I think we tend to boil that down to a black and white teacher shouldn't be using it to grade. Well, to Sam's point he made a second ago, children fill out bubbles and put in a machine. We've been use we've been using computers to grade things for many, many, many years. This is not new. Um, we don't have AP here, which is why I use

112this as an example, but um AP classroom has allows AP teachers to go in and pull questions from AP test to give kids practice tests that then get graded in the system. You know, get like you got number one wrong, you got number two right. So to say that there is no AI doing grading I I think is disingenuous because there has been a certain amount of automated grading that's been happening for decades. The place where we draw the line is that there has to be some sort of human input. So where where we have said like I can tell you this is not happening and if you think it is you need to report it to your administrator because we will follow up is this idea that a child would go on take a

113test it would be graded by not a human being and it goes into their um power school portal that then is averaged into their grade and that now is codified in their transcript forever and ever. um that is that's the part where that's the line right so you have you know because even with with AP classroom when you have those practice tests sometimes there's a mistake so when you have a teacher that then looks at their class and goes wow everyone got number four wrong what's up with that and then goes and looks oh because number four was not well done I think you know and then they can go and and fix it behind so there has to be I I think to say it's not ever used for grading I would I would

114push people a little bit to to think more deeply about that that's not a black or white issue. There's a lot of room in between, but to understand that at no time do we want someone who is not a professional instructor who is certified in what they are doing assigning children grades on their transcript that that go forward. So, I it's there's a lot of gray in between those two things. >> Um there's a lot of room in there. And so, I just would really challenge people to be thinking about um when they when their children say like, "Oh, you know, my my teacher's using AI. I had to do all of my grading." ask more questions about that. And if you do hear things that you think are concerning to, please ask the teacher,

115let the let the administration know because we are supporting our staff as they learn more about this and how to use these tools really well. Um, and that I think as Kathy just mentioned is a big focus on that is how do we help people use it ethically and responsibly and well to help our children learn and be ready for the world. Sam >> just to build on that I mean I think it's about um decision making that affects the lives of our students. U you know the very first IBM generated law of computer decision- making is that we can't allow computers to make decisions because we can't hold computers accountable. Right? So as soon as computers are making decisions that affect our children's lives, we don't have a way to hold that computer accountable,

116we need people to be making those decisions so those people can be held accountable and so that we have a way to redress grievances. Uh as soon as we outsource that to computers, we've just pulled a really crucial in my in my opinion uh piece out of the decision-making process. I think that's a useful useful lens. Um, and brings me around to a question I'm not to put you on the spot, Dr. Turner, but I'm now I'm trying to remember. I know we talked about why are we doing it this way versus that way? Do we need a policy? We don't need a policy. And what I'm remembering maybe incorrectly is it's so big. It's so nuanced. It's changing all the time. sort of to have a policy becomes just you know incredibly burdensome and

117it has to be changed all the time. Um but it does make me wonder in in this work are there small bits that are that we are hard and fast on that like there are some hard limits and they are this or they are simply put in you know for the everchanging what it looks like today reference the handbook. um is that something that we find that we need so that that there is some sort of you know trust or something we can point back to and not just say well they shouldn't be doing that. Well if there's anything that anyone shouldn't be doing you know do we have that in policy in simple form or or not but is that a conversation we keep on the table or maybe you can even remind me

118why we've already moved past that. Yeah. So, we do have policies on um student use of devices and staff use of devices. So, that's that hard and fast ethical lives in policy that we can say like these are things children and staff are allowed to do with their devices. These are things they are not allowed to do with their devices. Um that lives in policy. Those are things that aren't changing week to week, monthtomonth, um dayto day. When we first started down this road of artificial intelligence, um the Department of Education and others were really pushing us to have a policy for ex all the reasons you're talking about. The problem is those folks that got out in front and did a policy immediately found that they were in front of their board asking to

119have that policy edited every single month because as they learned more and as the AI is changing so quickly, um they were finding their policy was inadequate. um and those schools as well as the department of education and um legal counsel kind of dropped that recommendation and and in fact there is not a sample policy from MSMA or from Drummond Woodson because of that. They they have basically said to us that we they can't write one fast enough because it's constantly changing. So that's where the shift went to for them providing us the toolkit and recommending that um schools put in place a guideline, something that you put in the handbooks of the students, something you put in the handbooks of the staff that put those guard rails in place because those are things we

120can change and be responsive to as the school year goes on. So as we find, you know, we get to um Cathy's point about we we tried a piece of software and then as we were we found, oh gosh, it does this thing we didn't realize, we can shut it down real quick. same with, you know, sort of those guardrails we're putting around students and staff that as we're trying, we have the flexibility to be able to make changes. We hear from our community, we've heard from our board of like these are these are the ethical standards you'd like us to stick to, but the actual operations are in a guideline so that we can be fluid and responsive as time goes on and it becomes um something more set. I I think Adam made

121a great point about the MLTI project um and and and Kathy made a great point about Google. I remember in I was in college but um having you know getting yelled at by professors saying you can't copy and paste something you and I don't think it was googled I think it was Yahoo but um ask Jeeves or something but that as that becomes a tool that people just know how to I know see some of you laughed you know what I was talking about um that as it becomes a tool that that the ethical use of it becomes more um understandable and acceptable we may get to a place where there is a policy that makes sense and we can move forward with that um but at this time um all of the professionals are

122out there um recommending to us and what we're seeing in our work so far is that having a guideline is going to allow us to do this work the most responsibly at this point >> so that was just that reminded me of something that came up during our meeting was so um to not then lose sight of this where it is changing and we a policy doesn't really work at this point. So that was why it was sort of brought up like okay so this should be something that's probably coming up pretty regularly for curriculum. So um it doesn't get lost and not reviewed because as we've commented often it's changing. So that is why I'm sure it was in there that it's going back to a curriculum next year. Yeah, I think maybe a

123year is a long time. >> Yeah, I suspect you'll you'll get more updates in that. The other thing I want to draw the board's attention to, and I wished I had thought of it sooner, is that when um the curriculum committee received this um AI information, we also brought those technology related policies forward at the same time for review and we had some revisions recommended for those. We did not bring them to the board tonight because in that group of policies is the student use of cell phones policy. And in between when the curriculum committee approved it and when we um were ready to make this schoolboard agenda, we found that um there was some talk at the state level of potentially having legislation that would mandate that our policy would be different than what

124we have proposed going forward. So, we're kind of holding the approved policies right now. I talked with Sharon and Penny about it. We're just going to hold on to them for a couple of months um and see what happens in the legislature. If there is a bill that moves forward that dictates what that policy will look like, we'll have to change it again, bring it back to curriculum and and then come to the board to change. So, they did come with the policies as well as in the guidelines. So, people could sort of see both. Um, in hindsight, we should have let you know right off the bat that that is they came they're coming separately this time because we were anticipating we may have to change it depending on what happens at the legislature

125>> and we don't current they were just up. We don't currently have like massive fundamental issues with any of those policies. So, it's it's >> didn't seem >> like a big deal to wait. >> Um, I appreciate the discussion. I I think this is an important thing for us to keep talking about and to invite our you know whole learning community into. Um did anyone else want to say anything further? Final bit for now Sam >> just as a sort of point towards the sort of thing that I support. So uh people may have heard of the European Union's general data protection uh regulation the GDPR. Um, most people are annoyed by it because it means like you can't use some services uh from Europe because they don't want to uh they can't operate in

126the United States basically because the United States allows uh privacy issues that the European Union doesn't. One of the pieces of the GDPR is that everybody in the European Union has the right to object to being the subject to a decision based solely on automated processing. Right? So you in in order to have a decision about your life be subject to automated decision- making, you have to supply explicit consent, >> right? So you know that might be the sort of thing that I would like to see in a policy is that, you know, no kid is going to have an automated decision affect anything material in their life in our school district. Some, you know, along those lines. I think those are things that don't change really uh going forward and I think there is

127a way uh to set up ethical and moral guidepost through policy that are not technology based. They are you know based in our values as a community. >> All right. Thank you. Next. Uh thank you. Thanks Kathy. Kathy, >> we kind of devolved into our uh own thing and left you standing there. Um, all right. Committee reports, facilities. So, facilities met almost a month ago. Uh we covered parts of it in our last workshop, but uh we started off with a transportation update just as a refresh. Um the state is coming up with a committee to potentially recommend and also potentially fund some safety upgrades uh to the transportation buses. Um standby for more information on that. We also got a report on the GPS software, uh, routing software that we purchased, uh, and it's

128been going well. Um, also more to come on that. Uh, we received an update on our sidewalk grant project. Um, so this has been in the works since like before I was on the board. Um, basically we applied or the town applied for a grant to fund kind of a threepart project. uh staged around public safety. Um basically it's a stoplight on 26 uh an emergency access the sidewalk down Route 26 and sidewalks all the way up uh Libby Hill uh to the trail. Uh it's been a bit of a grind. Um right now we're [clears throat] still sort of in a holding pattern. The project has been broken into three parts and we are um waiting to prioritize or deprioritize different parts of the project. Um we signed a agreement with the town that

129the architects on the project could represent us both as it slowly moving through planning board. Um went over our project list update. The big one is our HVAC project which is mostly done. Uh the only outstanding thing are some punch list items at the middle school. Um also doing some uh potential fundraising on a new football scoreboard and have parts to fix the baseball uh softball scoreboard uh that'll start this spring. Then [clears throat] it went into policy. Um we kind of revisited our school facility use um fee structure and we basically ended on like a classification fee plus cost model. Um uh talked a little bit about the importance of doing an upfront quote uh if it's going to be on the expensive side. Um we then moved on to uh nutrition. Uh basically

130just put a pin in that. Uh the overarching message is uh take the needs of the departments and kind of superimpose it onto the bigger picture and strategic uh capital planning ideas. um got an update that we had already talked about about Russell school not quite meeting the SRRF uh qualifications by like a point and a half. Um we talked about some bigger strategic capital improvement plan planning and how we want to go about that. We uh basically t admin to come up with a few potential road maps uh that we're going to revisit um next week. Uh went over our capital reserves status. We moved a bunch of money out of our capital reserve into our uh budget this year. We're on track to spend that down. Um and we ended going into executive

131session to talk about um school safety and security >> questions for facilities. >> All right. Got a lot got a lot done at that meeting. >> That's why we moved it out of right before the business meeting. Um, finance committee does not have a link, but that's because we did everything together. >> Yeah. Anything else you want to say? It's still your time. >> I think everybody was there. >> I think they were. >> All right. Um, personnel. >> Um, I'm going to be the opposite of Adam. We went into three different executive sessions. So, nothing that I can report out on those, >> but yes, next time I can have something to report. >> We hope that you'll have something next time. [laughter] >> Um, and Gary and curriculum, did we do your meeting?

132>> Was that >> Did we repeat your meeting? >> Uh, no. We didn't actually get to the part we we spent the whole meeting on. We uh Kathy Martin brought the uh and the admin administrators brought an attendance overview to us tonight. >> Oh, the one that was >> it's in our packet. Um I already reported on the last meeting. So >> we met tonight. Um >> I encourage you to look at that. There's a lot of detail in there and a lot of lot of data about where uh chronic absenteeism, absenteeism, truency, there's some definition work in there on what makes it truent, what make as opposed to uh an absence. Um in general, our numbers are getting better. We have far fewer chronic absence. We have far far fewer uh truencies. Um I

133don't know if I should be surprised, but the the K to2 schools we have zero truencies. So I think that's you know some of those numbers are really great. Um so the numbers are in there as an overview. There's also a section on what they're doing for practice on how they're accomplishing improvement. So, it's it's worth the read. It's in the packet. Um, and that was pretty much all we talked about today. >> All right. Questions for curriculum >> policy? >> We did not meet. >> Perfect. All right, moving right along. Uh, so school board chair report. I meant to have this email pulled up, so please bear with me. Um, I wanted to give a brief update on the action that the board had authorized at our last business meeting to reach out to

134our legislators in the state and try to get some, you know, state our issue with finding a facilitator for the cost sharing work. Um, I did that. I shared um a copy of that with everybody since then. Um I did just get an update last week from Representative Arada. Um I will say that all of the um representatives did respond saying, "Sure, we'd love to help." Um I did not hear back directly from anyone at the Department of Education who was also copied on the email. Um, but Representative Arada was the representative who actually followed up and she did a fair amount of leg work. So, I I thanked her um in writing and and would love to thank her again tonight. Um, so after she um had a little limited luck reaching people by

135phone or email, she went physically directly to the Department of Education offices. Um so she really gave us some some time and got herself in front of um some folks there. So she did get a progress report um on efforts to add people to the facilitator list. Uh the state department has made requests for interested people to MSMA. Um so our uh school management association and members of the main association of school business officers they have put together the department has put together an actual application. So, so should someone, you know, say they're show interest, they have an application to provide and they are going to send out that application next week to, which should now be this week, all school units in Maine as a priority notice um and to the main municipal association

136and the previously stated organizations. So, um I uh was pleased to see that she's definitely been able to get some attention. Um, and I think unless folks have other opinions on the matter, this completely wraps up um, what should be our involvement at this point. So, as I have been reminded um, by uh, someone on the cost sharing committee, the school board does not have a role in here. Um, I couldn't agree more. Would love to stop working on it. So, um, the piece that we've been hung up on is Dr. Turner is tasked with finding a facilitator to the best of her ability and um she is our only employee. So, it's pretty um appropriate that she would keep us posted on that work. But at this point, we have uh in my opinion

137reached the end um of our due diligence on that. So, um until such time um I would certainly take feedback on that. Um my stance is until such time as the Department of Education produces a list of acceptable facilitators um our portion of this work is is done and um Dr. Turner's portion of this work is on hold thoughts questions that >> Sam I'm just uh glad that we saw some results from the actions that we took. That's the way it's supposed to work and I'm really pleased and thanks to Representative Verata for representing us. I appreciate her work today. It's great. >> Yep. >> All right. So, that um I think was all I have. Um just one more reminder if you had thoughts for the next budget workshop to get them out in

138writing to um Sam um and Dr. Turner in the next week and that will put together our workshop. Um, that's it for me. Okay. And my superintendent's report is fairly brief today. We have uh a new hire, Leticia Egan Dazzio, um, as a custodian at Russell School. Um, that pairs nicely with the next one, which is a resignation of Victor Gravis, who was our custodian at Russell School. We're very sad. Uh, and then Morgan Garrison, our permanent sub at the middle school, um, was super disappointed to have to move on. Uh, but we received that resignation as well. And also in super sad but excited for her news, um Lina Dexter, who is an edtech at Memorial School, has been there a long time, um has decided to retire at the end of this school

139year. So we will have the honor of um celebrating her at our year-end uh retirees, but she has made the decision to retire. We're excited for her and sad for us. >> All right, that's it. You got no no other juicy tidbits? I have no other. >> Okay, great. Um, so before we move into executive session, I >> uh nope, actually we just kidding. We have possible action to follow. So >> We will have to come back. Um, I would hear a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to 1 MRSA section 60D to discuss contract negotiations with possible action to follow. Second. >> Who do we invite? >> Oh, sorry. Um, and inviting in our appropriate admin superintendent and just superintendent >> and yes. >> So, we're moved. >> So, yes. >> So, moved.

140>> Second. >> Somebody did it. There's a million of them out there. Okay. Great. So, we'll do that at 8:26. We'll take a moment to get organized around how we're going to do that and we will be back. >> Go into the library. That was loud. >> Yeah. Good. All right. Welcome back. And I would uh hear a motion calling our executive session. >> I make the motion that we move to approve the contract uh negotiated with the teachers union for the years 2026 to 2029. >> Any discussion? All right. All in favor. Beautiful. And that concludes our business tonight. So we will adjourn at 8:51. Move to journ. Done.