February 25, 2026 – School Board Workshop

001If you live in Gray, then you would attend Russell Elementary School. And if you live in New Gloucester, you would attend Memorial School. We do have some exceptions to that occasionally, but generally speaking, uh, Gray students attend Russell and New Glasser students attend Memorial. That happens for grades K through two. And then all students throughout the district come back to Dun School for grade three and grade four. So regardless of what town you live in, you attend Dun School if you are in grade three or four. And then everyone comes to this campus uh for grades five through eight. You're at the middle school across the street and then you come over here to uh for your high school experience. At the board business meeting on February 4th, we talked about our enrollment history and

002projections. We just wanted to kind of remind folks of what that looked like. Um you can see more information about it by looking at the materials from that meeting. Uh but essentially as we're building our 2627 vision, we're basing it on anticipating about a 10-year steady enrollment. Uh our enrollment did decline over the last few years, but we kind of anticipate it to be steady for a while. We also uh went over a staffing report at that business meeting. Again, there is much more information in that packet if you're interested. Um the key point that we wanted to bring forward as part of tonight's vision uh is that in the last 13 years our student enrollment declined by about 10%. In that same period we our staff uh our staff declined by about 11%. So

003we have been right sizing our staff as our decline has been happening. Um so essentially we know that staffing levels are about appropriate and have been responsive to trends. We also wanted to share uh a reminder about the maintenance of effort which we discussed on January 28th and February 4th. I'd like to reiterate again, this is not a proposed budget. We have not built a proposed budget yet. Instead, we provide this frame of reference for the board and the community to better understand and put a framework around future budget proposals that you see. What this number is is if we made no changes for next year, no additions to what we do, no reductions to what we do, we opened the doors exactly as they are right now to the cost of education would be

004a little over 37 million, about a 6.7% increase. So with that background information, we're going to kick into our vision for next year's budget. I'm going to start with the super fun stuff so they don't have to say it over and over again because it's the things that impact everything. Uh the first is our contractual salary raises um increases. Essentially, our contracts have two sets of uh data that that move them. The first is what we refer to generally as cost of living. So that's that percent um increase that you see uh in salaries to adjust to uh the cost of living change over time. Our contracts then also include what we call step and lane increases. In the teachers contract, teachers as they get more education, they get rewarded for it. So as so

005if we have teachers that earn their master's degree or earn degrees higher than that or other uh similar education experiences and they go through the process in the contract, they can get a raise that way. And then additionally, we have what called what's called step increases, which are uh essentially awards for um uh experience, how long you've been in the district or how long you've worked in the industry. So, when we talk about contractual salary increases, we're talking about both of those things. Our benefits increases are across all of the areas, but health insurance tends to be what we talk about most. In that maintenance of equity number, we used 10%. Last year, our actual increase was 13%. We do not have an estimate from our health insurance carrier at this time. As soon we

006are always waiting. We we always hope it'll come out earlier than it does, but uh we're using 10% right now. We're hopeful that that will be that it won't be more than that. And then finally, um paid family medical leave. You've probably heard a lot about over the last few years. That's going to be coming into play. uh we were able to do some savings in our second round of budgeting last year because we went with a private company. Um and so by going private, we were we didn't have to start having those costs incurred until May. So May 1st, we will start having some of those costs incurred. And then September 1st, um the last group, which is our teacher contract group, comes online with paid family medical leave. So that will have to

007be in um our budget proposal for next year. So then moving on to generally what our goals are as we are looking to build next year's budget. Uh first we want to maintain programming. Uh the second is we want to improve our academic outcomes. And then the last two pieces is we'd like to see some investments in bus safety and continue the work that we've been doing to invest in our facilities. So as we talk more specifically about what that looks like, as Penny shared a moment ago, it's going to be divided into two parts. Our first section is instructional related and our second section is more related to operations. Uh there will be an opportunity for board comment and questions as well as public comment after each of these sections. We will take an

008intermission. Our food service staff have prepared some snacks and coffee and water for everyone. Um we'll take a little break before we come back. So this is the big debate, right? Last year we took we maybe waited too long to talk about articles. This year we don't want to talk about articles too soon. Um but they're also really important. So we decided to talk about the big ideas but also reference for you what articles we're talking about. So later on down the road when you're actually seeing proposals you can kind of see the through line. So you'll notice on all our slides we'll have a little text up at the top left corner as to what articles we're talking about will be influenced by the ideas that we share. Um, in this case for the

009instructional cost centers, we're talking about 1 through five, seven and 17. To get a little more specific about what our instructional what our goals are around our instructional cost centers. Um, again, we're back to maintaining programming, but to say a little bit more about our academics, we really want to accelerate those academic gains we've been seeing and that we shared with you in our data dashboard, as well as addressing some of those academic gaps, particularly in math and science um that again we shared with you in our um in our data dashboard presentation. So, moving into the details of that, I'm going to hand it over to Danny Blake, the principal of Russell Elementary School, who's going to share with you some information about our priorities around math achievement. >> Good evening everybody. Danny Blake,

010uh, principal of Russell School. Um, as Dr. Turner said, I'm going to talk a little bit about, uh, math achievement. uh at the K to2 uh level and is that a little better? >> Awesome. Um one of the things that I will differentiate is part of my conversation will be driven by the budget. Uh other parts will not. So I will make sure to differentiate as I'm walking uh walking you through that. The first thing I'll talk about is the update to K to2 math um from bridges two to bridges three. Um, in May of 2023, uh, Mrs. Hennessy, the principal of Memorial School, and I brought a proposal to the curriculum committee, uh, to adopt Bridges 2, uh, for our tier one instruction, uh, for mathematics. And during that conversation, a piece that we

011had talked about was the company was in the middle of making a transition from a second edition to a third edition. And one of the things we had to weigh was whether we adopted the second edition or were willing to wait the 18 months to get the third edition. And ultimately uh we decided that we really needed that tier one uh resource. And so we moved forward with uh the adoption of bridges 2. Um about a year later they came out with the third edition. Um we previewed to the curriculum committee at the time that we would be looking in the next couple of years to move to that third edition and so our upcoming budget proposal will include a proposal to move to bridges 3. Um currently we are in our third year of

012implementation and we are finding some really great success with the program. Um I know Kathy spent a lot of time talking through the data dashboard. One of the things that we are really proud of is that pre-implementation we were about 69% proficient on the spring NWA uh post um implementation over the last two years we've been able to bring that number up to 85% um which is really great uh initially in the first two years to see 15% increase um is making us feel really optimistic about implementation of that program. Uh so in the upcoming budget we are going to propose that we make that transition at a cost of about $33,000 between the two schools. Uh so that would be things like uh new curriculum resources, teacher guides, new assessments, um updated materials uh

013for a component called number corner which is embedded into the bridges curriculum. Um as well as some professional development that they would provide to help our staff make that transition from Bridges 2 to Bridges 3. Um this is also really timely because uh Dun School recently adopted Bridges 3 um because when they went through their curriculum review process um they are their staff came out saying this sounds like a really great program and they were able and eligible to get that third edition. So they have already made that transition uh for K to 2 to move to bridges 3. that would just ensure consistency from kindergarten to fourth grade which is something that we have not had for many years. Um looking at it um that would be the budgetary impact for math achievement but

014we also want to take a minute to highlight that math achievement is something that we are looking at from the K to2 lens. Uh and there is significant amounts of math work being done at the other levels. Um, as I just alluded to, Dun School is in its second year of implementation with Bridges 3. Uh, they are finding some good success. Um, they will not have any uh monitor monetary requests, but they will be spending some resources by way of teacher time and professional development to continue refining that implementation process over the next school year. Uh, at the middle school level, they have just adopted a program called into math. Um they are currently in their first year of implementation. Um that is going uh really well for them. Um and they would be uh

015looking to also spend a significant amount of staff time for refining their implementation at that level. Um another piece that we all are looking at is those transitional levels. So from second to third grade, making sure that we are easing that transition and setting our students up for success. That also is a focus at the middle school level. Uh there is currently uh collaboration happening between the fourth grade staff and the fifth grade staff. Again, as we're looking at moving from one program to another, making sure that there is some continuity and consistency uh in that transitional time. uh at the high school level uh they will spend uh time looking at and analyzing NOEA data and using that data to help guide instruction uh as well as using that tool as a student growth

016measure. Uh that will be a focus that they will work on in the upcoming year. Um and they also will look at that transitional um phase two. So looking at creating a rigorous continuum of math services from 8th grade all the way through uh 12th grade. Um and so those done school, middle school, high school, again not um monetary impacts to the budget, but significant amount of work by way of time and and resource to ensure that we are building and um working on that continuum of kindergarten through 12th grade u math achievement. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Kathy who will talk about science. So, I'm going to talk about science achievement. On February 4th, the board adopted um the new science standards. And tonight, the budget request that I'm going

017to talk about reflects the next steps of moving from adoption to strong implementation. So, our focus is increasing student achievement and focusing on those gaps and ensuring alignment from preK to 12. Um there are going to be three action steps that we'll work on next year. The first one will be implementing the updated K12 science curriculum to ensure that vertical alignment and consistency amongst grade levels that has no budgetary impact. The second we'll be proposing is piloting new instructional materials in grades 5 through 12. We heard from you about focusing on our MEA data and we want to make sure that this pilot um helps us um to evaluate highquality standards aligned resources that directly address those academic achievement gaps and making a larger we're going to pilot something about $4,000 before we make a

018larger investment. In third, we'll be looking to strengthen our hands-on science equipment and experiences in grades preK through four. Um, we currently use Mystery Science as our core resource. Um, to fully support this implementation, we're proposing the development of science kits that have consumable materials. So, there'll be approximately about $600 per grade level so that every classroom has the materials necessary to engage students in meaningful and inquirybased learning. So altogether this represents a targeted investment of approximately $7,000 to support this science implementation districtwide. Um this is a strategic request not simply for materials but to ensure that standards we adopt are translating into improved instruction and measurable gains in student achievement. Now to Amanda for summer school. Hi everybody. Uh I'm Amanda Hennessy, principal of Memorial School, and I'm here to talk to you about

019summer school, which is one of my favorite topics. Maybe not the favorite topic of every student, but mine for sure. Uh and I'm going to talk specifically about regular education, summer school. Um so about the last decade or so, we've had uh different um summer programs available for students. Currently, summer school does not sit in the maintenance of effort budget. So, this is not included in that number that Jandanda shared because we didn't have a program last summer. Um, however, um, if we were to fund this program either through grant monies, um, and some may become available um, for us to apply for in March. However, those um, the amount of funds that would be available is about a third of what we've seen in past years. So, um, might be a little more scarce

020than we are accustomed to. um or this is something that we could fund through um the regular budget, but but currently it doesn't sit in that maintenance of effort. Uh so what we would envision for summer school would be a program for incoming kindergarteners up through incoming eighth graders. Um we look at a five-week uh period of of summer programming uh that coincides with the extended schoolyear programming offered through um special education and we typically do a half-day program three or four days a week. um students would be invited for targeted instruction and intervention uh in literacy or math. And we also in the last few years have included some enrichment experiences uh to round out that experience um make the a little more compelling to attend um and also just provide uh students with

021um like science experience experiences such as this one when we had Sparks Arcs come to Memorial School. Um we would look to partner with G&G Wreck on wraparound care for families. So, if we had a half-day program in the past, they've been able to have a half-day program um so that working families could have their students attend our program. Um we have had some challenges with summer school in the past and one of them being funding the program. Uh sometimes transportation is complicated for us because we have to find drivers who are willing uh to work in the summer and the routes are a little wonky because they might be picking up kids from all kind of different neighborhoods than we usually do and we sometimes have difficulties with staffing um at certain school sites.

022So there are some challenges we would have to overcome to bring this programming forward. Uh but we wanted to make sure uh to talk to you about it as it is something um that we would love to support if possible. Um and I'm going to turn it over to Satie Greish to talk about high school PE health and athletics. Thank you. Um so for our high school PE health and athletics um we currently have fitness equipment that's approximately 15 years old and has definitely exceeded its expected lifespan. Last year alone u we spent about $2,800 on repairs to these equipments and maintenance. Um and as obviously as the age increases the cost will continue to increase. Um we're currently in need of five treadmills to be replaced. Um, so we're proposing a plan to replace

023two treadmills next school year, two treadmills the 2728 school year, and then another one in the 28-29 school year. Each treadmill is approximately $4,500. This phase plan ensures student safety while also spreading out the financial impact. Uh, as for the weight room, um, the weight room equipment is also aging again at the same rate and will require a full replacement within the next three to five years. Um we're currently in the process of exploring different funding options for that equipment. Um updating this equipment will help for obviously student safety. Um but also our athletic and our clubs both use the facility and our physical education curriculum as well. And I will turn this over to >> Yes. >> I I just wanted to add that um Nate Priest, our athletic director, sends his best. Um,

024we had the lovely problem, it's not a problem, that our, um, hockey co-op team made the playoffs and one of their playoff games is tonight. And as part of our co-op, we have to have an administrator present at the game. Um, so we worked with our administrative team and opted to send Nate to the hockey game and Sadi to do the presentation. Um, Nate Ozer, I don't know, but Nate sends his best. He would have been here to talk about it and and I'll be talking about a couple of his things later. Um, but he is with our hockey team that hopefully is doing really well. And now I'll hand it on to our last regular instruction topic. >> Okay. Um so I'm going to talk in regular instruction. So typically I'm under technology, but

025just to point out what's happening on this slide, we're just um we're going to be making a budget alignment change. Uh so several district uh software platforms reach my teach which is our district communication tool, powers school and powers school products which handle student information and NWA which is a district assessment tool is going to be moved from regular instruction to technology. Uh it's not an increase in spending. It is uh just simply aligns the budget with operational responsibility. Um instructional software decisions remain a team effort. So between building um leadership curriculum and technology that process will continue. Uh this is this is just an organizational shift and that's all I had to say about that and I will pass it over to Holly Ben. Good evening. I think most of you know my name

026is Holly Day. I'm the director of special services. I just have a couple of slides under special education to talk about. The first one is around sport staffing. Um, as you hopefully know, educational technicians are really the foundation of our schools. We cannot run our programs without them. We really can't run schools without our educational technicians. So, they're really important people that we want to keep involved. Um, right now, most of them work about a sixhour day, six and a half. So, it's 32 and a half hours a week. that makes it really difficult for them to be at school early enough to help with bus drop offs, to stay late enough to help with the um pickups because if you know in the elementary school the kids sometimes are arriving 40 minutes earlier than

027class is starting and and leaving 30 minutes later. So there really is a lot of coverage that needs to be there. Um we also want our educational technicians to have time to talk to their teachers to debrief about their day and to plan for the upcoming day and the current schedule doesn't allow that. So, we're really looking to increase edtech hours across the district so that all edte paid day and their halfhour unpaid lunch. So, they'd be in the school building seven and a half hours a day. This will also help greatly with retention um and recruitment. It's really hard to be um interviewing someone who's an hourly employee and they're suddenly going from a 40hour a week position to a 32.5 hour a week position on not a fabulous pay scale. um we really

028don't at 32 and a half hours a week they're not at a livable wage. Even at 35 hours a week they're probably not at a livable wage but we're getting closer and and we're making a step there. Um across the district to bring up both the ed special ed tax and the general ed ed tax which is a much smaller group than special ed. We're looking about 131,000 to make that change if we bring them all up to the seven hours paytoday. The second point on this slide is to cons consider restructuring some support staffing for self-contained classrooms. Um edte are level one, two, and three. And what we'd like to get to a point is where we have an edtech 3 in every um self-contained classroom. This will allow a little better flow. If

029a teacher has to step out to deal with the student, that edte is kind of next in charge, highest level, ready to take over the class. and vice versa. They might be the ones stepping out with the students so the teacher can continue on teaching the class. Kind of makes for a clearer chain of command for for all the staff in the building. Um, also if we're going to take the kids out in the community and the teachers out sick, we have to have at least an edtech 3 to be able to take kids out on a community outing. So this way we'd assure that we always had that coverage as well. Um, so to do that, that's about an $11,000 increase to make that change in our classrooms. Wrong way. Got it. Um, I

030always get the pleasure of talking about out of district placements and I have a hard time talking about this because this is such a wild card there. I cannot predict to you how many students when I stand here next year I'm going to have outplaced out of district. Um, so but it's also the biggest cost line in the special education budget. So it's a really important one for for people to understand. So, just wanted to share some information like this year we have three exiting the district. Exiting because um they have turned just about age 22 and they're aging out of the system. So, that's why they're leaving and we know they're leaving. Um we aren't currently anticipating any additional outplacements looking at our current census of children. But, as I've told you before, I

031think it was last year I had four students move in who were already outplaced. So, you just never know who's going to move into the district at any point and how those numbers will change. Um, and we are using local entitlement funds, which are additional federal funds we get to cover as much of those out of district costs as we can, but there still is an impact to the general budget. >> You get to talk about police? >> I do. Yes. >> And this is one of the times where I play the part of Nathan Priest. Um, and he is getting to watch our kids do really fun and wonderful things. And I'm talking about police presence at games. So, I definitely lost. I need to remind him of that. Um, so it's not a

032huge cost, but as we talk about other instruction around co-curricular and athletics, one of the things that has been coming up lately, um, is police presence at our athletic events. Um, we those costs are going up as are all costs um, in around. Uh, so what what the sheriff's department is is charging goes up a little bit every single year and we anticipate that is going to happen again. We are also finding that we have to cover more events than we have in the past due to an uptick in fan-based behaviors. Our administrators are present and they come out in large numbers to try to make sure that our children make the best choices possible at games. Our success rate with adults is much more challenging and that is where we have to invite law

033enforcement to be a part of that. um adult uh behaviors um and unfortunate choices at athletic events, children's athletic events is uh something that has a problem noted across the state as well as across the country. I'm here to tell you that Grey New Glouster is not immune to that. And we have found that um particularly this year, a specific example would be we have never felt the need to have police presence at middle school athletic events before. And this year we've had a number of incidents that were to the point that we did have to call to have law enforcement get involved. Um and now we we do are paying law enforcement to be at those games. So it in the end, you know, when we're looking at our budget for next year, it's

034probably a couple thousand dollars. It's not a huge amount when you're looking at the huge budget, but I thought it was really important to take this opportunity to say that those behaviors do have significant impacts and and this is one of those impacts. So um we work to make the most positive environment for our student athletes. Um, and we invite the community and the board to be a part of that as much as possible. The other thing that you may want to see under other instruction, but it doesn't actually go here, but I wanted to promise you we're going to talk about it. Um, are Nathan's promises around talking about outdoor bathrooms. So, stay tuned to the operations part of the presentation, and we will be talking about that. I'm now going to hand it

035back to Chris to talk about technology. I just love being up here at the podium. Just had to point that out. It's so much easier over there. Okay, so um I do have two things on this slide that I want to talk about um under technology for the upcoming budget proposal. So first is our required um our required wireless infrastructure replacement uh which is for our high school and our middle school. Uh this is for our access points that deliver us Wi-Fi. Um the current equipment will be at end of life uh at the end of June this school year. So they were in 2016 brand new. So now we've kind of reached that end of life point where we can no longer get support for those. Uh so this is a uh project that

036we need to address. Uh it's essential to maintain a reliable Wi-Fi for our staff and our students. Uh so fortunately we can leverage uh which will cover 60% of the costs for that. uh we're looking at a $389,000 project. So, -ate taking 60% out of that uh figure brings it down to 155,600 as a local share cost. Um and then second, as I alluded to before, is the software subscription uh shifts from regular instruction to technology. Again, these are not new ads. These are just shifts in the budget going from regular instruction to technology. So those will be the two things in technology for this upcoming year. This one feels a little awkward because it's not totally uh budget related, but we had um a request uh from the board to provide an additional written

037report as we have for other departments for our library media services department. So we completed that report for you. it is enclosed um in the support materials for this meeting. Um I would draw your attention essentially to the goal of that department which is helping our kids to build skills in research, writing, digital literacy, digital citizenship and literature appreciation. Um our staff primarily have a role in tier one instruction, meaning providing instruction to all students to build those skills. Um the piece I would add is to kind of preview what you all as a board will see at your meeting next week. I've lost track of what today is. Next week um at the board business meeting where we'll be talking about our artificial intelligence or AI guidelines. The library media department will have a

038big role in helping to um support student learning and staff learning but in particular student learning in this area as we look to build those guidelines out. Um, as far as uh budgetary processes, we've been reasonably happy with this department and at this time we don't intend to have any requested decreases or additions in this area other than just our maintenance of effort. And our final area for instruction is Miss Stephanie Haskins, our director of special education. Nope, you just She's like, that's not the job I want. Uh, director of adult education. uh and she's gonna talk about her goals in article 17. Hi, my name is Stephanie Hoskins. I'm the director of adult education. Um our goal this year is to maintain our current level of programming. Um but what's always tricky is there's

039always questions about funding that we don't have answered in a timely fashion, typically not before the vote. Um, a few of the things that are up um, in the air that we have questions about is we do now know that Apha has been approved um, and it's flatfunded. Um, so it's the same funding that we had last year or as a country. It's the same funding that was um, that was allotted last year. What we don't know is um, what the allocations are per state. Um, that's undetermined and not guaranteed to be what we got last year. Um there's a couple of things at the state level with subsidy. Um typically there's a line or not typically always there's been a line in the ED279 for students who are served by um by an adult

040education program who are still compulsory age and could be served by the high school. Um that line has been pulled out of the ED279 and may come to adult ed directly rather than living in the ED279. Um, there's also pending legislation that if the legislation passes, then it looks like that sub20 will go back into the ED279. There's a lot of things at play right now. The legislation was was brought forth by adult dead, but the um the number of revisions on it. It doesn't look anything like it looked um when it was brought by adult dead. So, I'm not sure what's going to happen there. Um postcoid workforce training dollars are dwindling. So, we're seeing that in um hospitals and um programs that used to want to offer two um MA classes a year

041are down to offering one a year. Um the same with CNA. Um and that's kind of as training dollars um dry up, the the qualifications to get training dollars are um drying up and so those are those are slowing down quite a bit. Um and what we really want is to um seek local funds to support um keeping the same program that we have this year next year. That's our goal. So I'll take the opportunity to remind folks that um adult education is one of those um different articles. It doesn't live in sort of the general fund budget. it does kind of live off on its own um with lots of funding categories with lots of influences. So um my basic answer on adult ed is stay tuned and there continue to be more questions

042and answers and every day Stephanie and I get up and check our email to see what today's interesting update will be. So that wraps up our instructional piece. Um a couple points I wanted to make. Um these are the things that we are currently thinking about. Not all of these things, while we wanted to share what what these specific things cost, not all of these things would necessarily be straight ads to a bottom line budget. Um, curriculum is an excellent example. I've talked to you for a number of years about wanting to get to a place where we are investing sort of a steady amount in updating our curriculum materials every single year. So, we invested in curriculum materials in the current year budget that we don't need to buy again next year. So, we

043would look to sort of repurpose some of those funds to make those investments. So, not everything we're talking about is a bottom line ad. Um, in lots of cases, we'll have offsetting decreases. Um, and in other cases, we won't. But before we continue our work and and build that budget and and bring forward, okay, these are the increases we're looking for. These are the decreases that we found. Uh, we wanted to take the opportunity to get some feedback. So, we are now in the portion of the day where I'll turn it back over to the board to share feedback um on this section of the proposal of the presentation. All right. Thank you. Um just thinking about what might be the most um organized way to tackle this. Um I think what I'd like to

044do is invite um questions, literally clarifying questions, not a debate or an opinion or whatever, but was there anything you heard about that you have a question about? and take them in order so we can either parking lot them or clear them out and then sort of get into a more philosophical discussion if that makes sense. Um any So I'm just going to stroll through them really quickly. Any questions? The first was instructional uh questions around the mathematic um or science instructional materials. Questions on those? Anybody? Okay. >> I I had a question. Oops. I'm sorry. Um, what was that cost of uh um going from bridges 2 to bridges three? I I didn't write that down. >> 33,000 for our friends at home. >> Okay. >> Yep. And for that's for K through 12

045at both schools. >> All schools. >> K to K to2 at Russell and Memorial. >> 33 the grand for K through 12. No, K through two. >> K through two. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Um any other ones on the materials? Okay. And then >> Oh, sorry. Uh yes, mine's kind of a general one is that before you the slide before the mathematical one is kind of instructional uh budget goals. You have uh accelerate academic gains. I think it the the uh presentation would be better received by the general public if it was kind of identified. Okay, where are we making gains? uh what are we doing in our in this budget to you know maintain those gains and but more importantly I think you know where are our gaps and what are we doing to

046address those gaps I mean uh uh the uh the this is a huge uh uh gender gap in achievement and you know how is that being addressed >> so things of that nature >> Jim I think this might be a good one for the open discussion portion okay >> I I I just doubt that they're prepared to address gender gap off of this slide. >> But I guess my my general question is that I think uh the you you you educating the students is the most important thing we do. You know, it's it's everything else is secondary and the general public wants to know. They hear that uh you know, academic achievement is is waning and if if that's not the case here, we need to make it clear. Same thing with uh absenteeism and

047um uh graduation rates and things like that. If we've got a good story to tell, we should make sure we tell it. If we don't, we need to kind of own it and do something to address it. >> I couldn't agree with you more, Jim. And that's why that entire topic gets its own night. So on January 17th, I can't read it. It's too small. That was the se No, it was the seventh. On January 7th, we spent our entire night just talking about what our academic gains and what our areas of interest are. We're now moving on to what we do about that. But I appreciate that feedback as we go into our public presentations about our actual budget presentations to make sure we include some of that information um to repeat it so

048that people who maybe weren't watching that night um see that. Yeah, I really appreciate that because I think, you know, just to hit a couple of highlights off the top of our head, we've seen great gains in our literacy, so reading and writing. Um, we've seen excellent gains in that area. We've seen some gains in math, but we'd like to see more. Science is an area of gap. And, and just to address the offhand, um, we did not present any gender gap. I know that, um, many of our, uh, national and regional colleagues maybe are seeing that. That is not something that's coming out of our data or it's something we would have brought to you, um, as part of our data presentation. So, it's not our experience at this time. Hunter Uh, I had

049some questions. I think I had three. I believe two of them were already technically answered. On slide 21, talking about police presence at games, >> Hunter, I'm going to take them in order. So, specifically, do you have questions about math or science materials? >> Oh, sorry. >> That's okay. Do you have questions about math or science materials? >> No. >> Okay, great. Anyone else have any direct specific questions about math or science materials? Great. Um, next is summer school. Um, I actually had a question about this. Do we know, so we didn't do summer school last year. Do we know how did that go? Do do we feel like there were consequences of that? Do we feel like it we didn't really notice? Were the families our families really missing it? like can you say

050more? I would say families are definitely missing it. Um sorry I went back to the slide earlier for folks. Um I would say families are definitely missing it. I think it's something they really appreciated um having that experience for their kids. Um we definitely heard that when we made the decision not to do that. Um as far we also heard from our staff. We had some staff who were super disappointed. It's something they've come to love. Uh what we heard from many more of our staff is that they actually really appreciated the break that they had. Um, and last summer we happened to get we didn't happen to get out. We did very well in the number of snow days or remote days we had. We got out the earliest perhaps we've gotten out in

051a very long time. Um, and so staff really had a good solid summer that they haven't had um they haven't felt they've experienced as much. So people talked about really feeling refreshed when they came back. Um, so that's what then makes thinking about going back to it a little bit more difficult. Um, we definitely I would say districtwide the data difference between not doing summer school in this year compared to the years past was not statistically significant enough that I would bring it up to you and show you the numbers. Um, the challenge with that is we have changed how we do summer programming so much every summer that it's a little difficult to say it had no impact. Um, but we do think it we do think there are ways where it's harder to

052measure, right? So, so that hard academic data, we did we didn't necessarily see a statistically significant difference in our fall numbers compared to fall numbers in the years past, but what we did hear from staff is some of that more anecdotal. So, something that's really uh been beneficial to us about the incoming kindergarten students having an opportunity to come in is they got a chance to get used to the school, get used to the routines of a classroom, and settle in in a way that they've never generally had to do before. Um, so having those types of opportunities, we definitely sort of heard from teachers that maybe it took a little longer than it had in the past because some of those kids that maybe would have had an opportunity to work through some of

053their challenges in the summer had to do that in the fall instead. So I would say it was definitely missed. Um, but our data at this point is more anecdotal than coming out in the hard academics. >> Thank you. Other questions about that, Sam? >> So sort of a follow on to that. Um, I think we started summer school in a targeted fashion maybe 10 years ago. >> 2015. >> Hey, look at that. That was close. >> Uh, and when we started it, it was we it was because we were trying to manage the transitions. We were seeing issues especially in third grade, fifth grade, and uh, freshman year. So we if I remember correctly we had that sort of coming into kindergarten and we would invite them in and at the time we got

054some data especially in the kindergarten level on uh I remember like the letter recognition had jumped from seven to 14 or you know I'm making up the numbers but there was a significant uh increase. I was wondering if we could maybe dig that up because I think that was, you know, sort of our first experience with that. Um, and just see because I am in support of, uh, you know, over the year I've been convinced that the summer slide is real and I think targeted spend in the summer saves us money long run, but the more data we can throw at that, the better. And I I remember that being pretty influential to the board when we started to invest this the first time around. I don't want to have to remake the wheel. It

055might be good to bubble that up at our next workshop. >> Yeah. And and we absolutely can do that. The um what will make that even easier is that up until now we have always used outside funding for our summer school programs and as part of that you have to do reports to say exactly the data that that Sam is talking about. So it would be very easy for us to pull a number of summers worth of uh when they came into us in the summer and and when they left us in the summer uh data that would we can bookmark that for the next workshop. >> Anyone else on summer school questions? >> Um yes in that data it would probably include um what is it 15 years ago you said? Um >> 2015

056is when we the first time we Okay. So, um perhaps the um um um the um daycare situation wasn't as it is today. So maybe there weren't any as many ascribing to it as they are today. And so maybe that would have some impact on what your numbers are going to say. So that uh the students are far more prepared coming into um kindergarten uh at this time because they're more you know they've already at daycare which is some of it is instructional. >> I'm not sure I would be able to bring data on that per se. >> No, but just keeping that in mind as you know. Yep. >> Okay. Uh questions about the high school health um athletic PE athletic equipment. Um anyone have questions? Was that yours, Hunter, or is that later?

057>> Okay. Questions on I I'm curious. Have we looked into or is it possible that this might be the kind of thing that would be um a good opportunity for a sponsorship? That would be what we are first looking into for our because originally we were talking about having looking at an ongoing replacement schedule for both the cardio equipment and the weight equipment. And as we've taken a step back to look at, you know, what we want to prioritize in the coming year, we're looking at maybe trying to get into a replacement cycle with our cardio equipment in particular because that is equipment that really should be replaced regularly. It gets worn out and needs to be replaced more regularly. um and that the wait room would maybe be a better opportunity to be looking

058for other ways to fund that. And that's why um in our proposal we put in that we pro likely won't have anything for the coming year budget in that area. We're going to sort of explore some other opportunities first such as potentially a partnership or a donation of some kind. >> I need a clarification on on the equipment that's being used. Is it used strictly for the students or is the any of the public able to use that equipment? it is used just for the students. There was a time I'm just confirming that that is still true. Um there was a time early uh in the grant when uh that we got that first funded it about 14 15 years ago um 13 14 years ago uh where the intention of all of this equipment

059we bought that and then some others was to also have the opportunity for the community to use that. Um the practicality of that gets more difficult as time goes on. So at this time we don't have the capacity to allow uh the community to use it. We use it primarily for our students both curricular and co-curricular. >> Great. Other questions on the gym equipment. All right. And then let's see. We have um we could group technology. Chris came up a couple times. Any questions? clarifying questions for Chris from the tech pieces. >> I >> go ahead. >> I do. Uh he mentioned the um any NWEA um what what part uh does tech what does technology have to do with that program? That's a testing program, correct? So, you know, explain that. I'm not sure

060what that's all about. >> The technology department manages all of the software that we use in our schools, one including our assessment software. So, um because and in particular because NWA is also our state testing system. Um, we have to do Chris's department is in charge of all the rostering, all of the pushing it to all of the devices, making sure it works correctly. On testing day, when there are problems, his team is there to make sure that it's working correctly. Does that answer that question? >> Okay, any other check questions? Sam, >> uh, this is a question I have had a CFO ask me when I have made a similar argument. Uh, you say that the wifi equipment is at its end of life. Does that mean it is not working? >> That one

061I'm gonna let him talk about. Are you okay? >> Uh, so no, it's it is still working. Uh so basically what happens is we no longer receive updates for that. We need to um and actually our subscription for managing the Wi-Fi will be coming for renewal as well. So it kind of puts us in a position where we need to update our subscription and at the same time look at purchasing devices that will you know move forward with the life cycle. So, we had a trajectory of about 10 years for like our access points and I'm trying to kind of follow suit with that. So, that's kind of where I am with that. >> So, to be more binary about the question, >> uh if we don't make the spend next year, will we be

062able to provide Wi-Fi throughout all the schools? So if we don't make the spend, I will have to ask for uh I will have to ask for subscription renewals. So I will have to kind of adjust uh where I am. Currently this project is out to -ate. So we do have people that are actually like we have vendors that are actually bidding on this project. So we're kind of in that process of evaluating bids. Um, we would have to do a fair bit of backtrack to backtracking to kind of make that work. Um, it would be tricky to because eventually I would need to come to the board and ask for that and because we're at a point where our rate funds have just been refreshed, it seemed like a good time to put that

063ask in, especially because these are at end of life. um rather than kind of push it down the road and you know have to do like a larger ask at a later time. So >> thank you question. >> Yes. Um >> I guess with the Wi-Fi I this is I don't know much about this stuff except that my personal experience with Wi-Fi. So my Wi-Fi was old, outdated. However, it was working and you know and every year, you know, the company um you know, I mean, I had no problems and they came in for something else and they happened to notice um that had an old Wi-Fi and so they says, "Well, why don't you just replace it?" I said, "Well, fine. You I don't have to pay for it, right?" No. >> So, I

064guess in that light, help me understand what's going on. So I think too and you know as standards kind of invol uh evolve and protocols evolve with our upgraded devices and as new things kind of move into the district we need to kind of expand capacity. We've taken on quite a bit more even in this year. So some examples being um you know the mechanical services air quality equipment. So that's all been added to our network. we have other various devices that are connecting to our network that we need to kind of make sure that we're kind of reaching capacity on. Um, and then ultimately the main goal is to not impact any kind of instruction. So our access points are hitting a pretty high capacity of connections at the same time too. Um, so

065we're we're just kind of looking for areas to improve. And again, with these being at end of life, my kind of goal with this is to find an area where we can improve. So both students and staff kind of see that performance improvement kind of in their instruction. So that's kind of where I'm going for that. That's not to say that, you know, we couldn't kind of coast along. Um, but, you know, at some point in time, we're going to start to notice kind of that that impact of the outdated technology. So, >> okay. >> All right, Gary. Um along with those if we're at end of life which means we're at the end of service we're at the end of warranty we're at the end of updates uh are we looking at potential let's

066say security issues and other things where devices as the world change the devices will not and they work fine for Wi-Fi but are they not going to work fine for un unseen issues >> right yeah and I think yeah that's a good point because that is something that we want to consider as we're kind of upgrading to make sure that are kind of our security is in compliance. Um we are kind of in an area where we're um we're wanting to improve that posture. Um like our our authentication to our access points or I'm sorry, our Wi-Fi. There's definitely some improvements that we could take advantage of if we were to kind of upgrade and get with a more current um you know access point. And we've we've heard a lot of different kind of

067good things as we're going through this bidding process about areas where we could improve that will have um you know a greater kind of give us a greater security posture um here in the school. So >> so it's it's way more than just the mechanics of the Wi-Fi still connected. >> Right. Right. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you for that. Um next let's see jumping around. No, we're good. Um, support, uh, special education support staff. Any questions about those pieces? Good. All right. Uh, police presence at games. Outrageous. Any questions about that, Hunter? Um, with on this one, is there a chance that we could, you know, sort of charge the main principles association for that extra in expense? You know, cuz I'm just thinking of >> they're the governing body.

068It's not it's not possible or anything like that. >> No, it's our responsibility to manage the behavior of our fans. So when we go to MPA events uh for example uh we were a number of us were at uh the girls basketball game earlier uh last week and um we have to have a certain number of administrators present if our children are playing even if it is completely MPA sponsored like the like the championship. So that is why Nate is not with us tonight because part of our contract in being a member of MPA is we have to provide that person to provide the fan coverage. So, um I appreciate MPA uh does a lot of great things for us. Uh but helping us manage our fan base is not necessarily one of them. >>

069Uh perhaps a better question. Can we charge the parents who are acting outrageously for the police presence? >> Any other uh clarifying questions on that? >> I'm in the same vein. Um, I would see I would seem it would seem that the offending parties would no longer be able to end any more games. I mean, that's the justification for bad behavior. There's no responsibility today for people. That's why people acting so crazy today because there's no responsibility, no no accountability. Can't we um instill that kind of um um situation at these games? If you act up and you get all excited and you're causing ruckus and you need please, you can't come back to any more games. You're banned from the games. >> It used to be when I went to school was like that.

070>> Yeah, it it still is. Um it still is. It's um it's it's always a challenge though, right? You we don't stand at the door with a list of pictures of the people who are banned. It it is somewhat dependent on the administrator there knowing who is not allowed in the games and preventing them from coming in the door. Um but yes, you when we have fans who make inappropriate decisions and we have to have them removed, kids or adults, they then are not, you know, they are removed um and they are not allowed back in that game and often they have consequences beyond that of not being allowed at additional games. Um if it was a situation where it was just one or two people and once you take care of those one or

071two people, you're all set, then we wouldn't have this problem, nor would the rest of the state, nor would the rest of the country. Um unfortunately, that's just not the reality we are experiencing at the moment. All right. >> Um, so is this do we charge the expense every time to our, you know, police presence or is it just part of their contract and that number is going up? Uh, you know, does that make sense? >> So, are you referring to our school resource officer contract? >> Yeah, like do we do we every Do do they get paid every single game that they attend and we're going to add that or is it part of their contract that for the year they attend the games and that line item will just be going up to

072cover more >> more. So are do you want to >> It's different. >> Is it subscription or alakart? >> It's alart alakart. >> It is alikart. So we and they have fourhour increments. So um for any event they have a four-hour minimum. Um, so we do request them whether it's prom, whether it's games, and that's in addition to the SRO contract. >> And it's not necessarily the SRO. It's us saying to the sheriff's, you know, can you >> can we pay for a shift? Basically, right. >> Right. And we have a wonderful group of administrators through Cumberland County. So, we're really trying to support one another where if it's an away game, for example, I've gone, Jay's gone to away games to help support our fan behavior and their administration's also coming here. So, hopefully

073that can reduce that cost as well. One last question. Is there a mechanism to charge the perk? Uh because I mean a taxpayer sitting at home on his own business going to have to pay for somebody can't >> So we actually have done a few we actually have done a few times where we've done a year no trespass to any MSAD15 property. Um so are there are times when in addition to potential law enforcement consequences um the adult has had consequences to all of our facilities and games as well. But I mean, can we levy a fine? Can we have a sign that says if you >> At this time, we do not have um legal avenues to do that. And we do not have board policy to do that. Is something we could uh

074I could consult with our legal team about to find out whether that there is a legal avenue for us to do that. Um but I am not aware of one at this time. >> Seems like a sign that says you're subject to fines would be attorney. We could experiment with some fun science, but I don't know that we have legal standing there. Um, but I like it. So, okay. I'm I love that. That was our most questions u slide. Um, questions about I think did we get there? Um, adult ed. Questions about adult ed. Okay. Sorry, Sam. I beg your pardon. >> So, for the the clarifying question, I know the answer is we don't know yet, but if it if they pulled it out of the ED279, what that would mean is that they

075would direct funds right from the state budget to the adult ed program. >> That is what they're telling us. And we have received some initial uh is the word I want to use estimates. Is that what they put in the I think it was estimate of what our allocation would be and that allocation is higher than what we have received from them through ED279 in the past. >> But there is no separate entity that is the adult education. It still just comes to our district, right? Um so it would it would come a little differently um we believe but we we don't really know at this point. We assume it will come um you know we get transfers as part of ED279. We assume it will come kind of separately from that but at the

076end of the day we're not we're just not really sure. And I think Stephanie if you want to speak to it a little bit in in what we've been talking to as we've been talking to like uh Stephanie's partners in the area and across the state. They don't know either and I think they were it was interesting to see they were surprised when our ED27 ED279s came out without that in it. Um the state adult ed people didn't know that was going to happen. So we're all learning together. >> Sure. >> I know it's all postulation but just it >> I'm just curious is there a different legal entity that would be receiving the funds or you know >> so it I from what I understand it would be the same way that we receive

077the subsidy. So we get subsidy from the state and that comes to our funding line. Um from what I understand it would be the same way. The difference is our subsidy is not based on numbers. Our subsidy is based on um the local share plus what we expend um sort of or our prior subsidy um and then based on what we expend we get sort of reimbursed for part of that but it has nothing to do with the number of students served. The sub20 is actually based on students served. Um, and so they've sort of simplified the the way they count it. Um, and then they get it's $2,000 per student and then that's how the estimate is. The other way I submit a report, Chanda approves it. There's not really clear guidance on how

078to count um what's happening. So we all try to work together as adult ed programs to be consistent, but literally asking the state, they're like they can't answer our questions. So there's a lot of bizarre nuances to the ED to the um the sub20 money. Um and if it goes this way, it will simplify a lot. >> Sure. >> Um and it will be based on straight up numbers which will help us a lot because we're not a large receiver of local funding. So not that I don't appreciate what we get. I totally do. But that we're just not one of the bigger ones. So um so that would help us because it's based on numbers, but that's really Right now it goes into the district pot and then like whatever number is there is

079then like the state is what like we pay 45%. Right? And or the state pays 45 we pay 55. So whatever numbers there we get the percentage of it >> um that the state reimburse. So I don't >> but it's unclear how they're going to handle it if they put that back in >> right. There was one reading of it that seemed to imply that we might have to kick in more local money because we'd only be getting like 2K per student like flat fee from the state, but you're saying it's probably >> the estimate that we got is more than we've ever gotten in the 279, >> right? >> And and it could be because other districts are counting it differently. So maybe there there may be I don't know. I haven't heard this

080yet, but there may be other districts whose amount was inflated. So when you actually pull from their main stars data, um just straight up numbers from the main stars data, the state is pulling that. Um maybe there are districts where theirs is reduced, but it was increased for I mean I haven't seen that amount in years, so it was increased for us. So >> yeah. Is that helpful? >> Yeah. >> Question. I was like, if that comes to my account, I'm so excited. >> So, I'm not clear. What are you asking? Are you asking that you need the board to uh be able to be able to remove that line from the ED279? >> It's not the What is the purpose of >> I think >> I'm missing the point. >> Okay. I think Sam

081was asking for clarification. It's not a decision that we make. It's a decision that's made at the state based on legislation that will be passed or not passed. And so he was asking for clarification on on that amount and and some of the questions that they had before >> with what they were going to do. >> No, I'm referring to what you uh what was originally said. Uh if we remove that line from the ED279. So I'm a physical Yeah. I'm looking and what do you mean? Do you do you need permission to remove it? you're going to remove it or the state isn't going to allow you to move it. >> So in the ED279 that was just published, yes, >> they took adult education out. So where in our ED27 there has been

082a number there every single year, this year it says zero. >> That is because what they have shared with us is their intention is to fund that differently. So, we will no longer get an allocation as part of E2 ED279 directed towards adult education and instead that funding will go straight into that program like it does through some other funding sources that we have. Um, so why we're sharing that with the board at this time is that our goal is to maintain our adult education programming, but how we do that as far as what funds come from where, we're not really sure yet. And we want you prepared for the fact that it might look a little different than it has in years past because these funds are moving around and it is going through

083the legislature as we speak. So, we are being as responsive as we can, but right now all of the many most of the questions you're asking, I know the ones Sam's been asking as we've had a few conversations about it are ones that we are asking as well and and our state partners are asking as well and and we have to wait for the legislature to do its work before we're going to know what to do with our budget. All right, that cleared that. Okay. Yeah, that helped. Thanks. >> Okay, so clarifying questions out of the way. Um, we're at the sort of board feedback uh portion. I'm just refreshing my own memory looking forward for folks. So, we will we're here tonight. We will have another budget workshop where there'll be parking lot questions

084from tonight um and some draft itemized increase um decreases. So um if folks could give feedback on this portion and also just with a mind towards are there things you would want to hear more about or that you would look to be able to speak to um in more detail at our next workshop before we get the draft budget. Um anyone we Fran let's start with you. >> Um right now the first one I have is um when we mentioned the cost of living earlier do you have an average that um for the cost of living um numbers that we're using. Does it come out can you use an average or is that not possible? It >> it's not entirely possible because we have so many different bargaining agreements. one of which is currently being

085collectively bargained and should be in front of you at next week's board meeting. >> Is this the part where we're discussing stuff or are we going to wait for another meeting? >> Nope. You can go right get right to it. We'll start with you >> and probably >> if you don't want to. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm going to try to phrase this um in a way that um um well, I'll get right to the point. Every year, usually we hear that programs, we buy programs to improve and then we say, well, we use them for a while and then we find that maybe there's something better out there. But the bottom line is when the kids are coming in, they K and all that, the test scores and all that, they seem to be

086in a much better position than by the time they get out of the school system. And so, um, I'm not quite sure swapping back and forth between math programs gets more confusing or what it does, but it's it's it's troublesome to me that, um, because that's the core of the science program. And, uh, it's the core for everything that the students really do. I'm wondering if um you know um because I we're not seeing the improvement that you know we're saying we're going to make improvement and we know this is going to help us make improvement and we might see a slight improvement. We should be at a point after all these years that the students are strong in specific areas. Not all school students are strong in every subject. Not all school districts are

087strong in every subject. But the basic subjects, they have to be um uh at least, you know, at a comfortable position and know the stuff. And so I I just have a hard time with that. And um you know, investing another $33,000 for that bridge program again, uh plus another 7,000 and in hopes. And it's it's never been that way in education. So now all of a sudden it it's hopefully this will make the solve the problem, but it's not. And so that's where I'm at. And so I thought I'd point that out there because um we do have to look at these budgets and um and as you know I'm proponent of making some cuts. So I'm not changing that at all my position. And so I just in light of that I just

088want to make that presentation and uh as we progress along this process that we start looking at areas that uh we need to build up but yes also maybe there's some areas we don't need to. So that's where I'm at. Are you start you made me go first? >> No >> never Fran. All right let's do the uh let's go down the line. Teresa thoughts feedback. How do you feel about that? I just appreciate, sorry I'm not on. I appreciate everyone's hard work and clarifications and I'm looking forward to the next part of the presentation as we go through this. That's it. That's all I got. >> Sam, uh, with this piece, um, the portion I think I'm grappling with the most is the summer school piece. Um because I think the summer school provides

089a really large positive impact to the community. Um you know just because school is out doesn't mean parents all of a sudden have ready and available daycare. U I think in terms of just general community continuity it is good for the kids to still have a place to go. I think we provide enrichment. I just don't know if it makes sense to make that spend, right? So, I think I'm just I'm grappling with the idea of, you know, is it the district's responsibility to provide that community continuity and, you know, a place for kids to go in the summer? Um, or, you know, can we really make the argument that this is sort of vital for uh meeting our goals as a district? I I think it probably can be both. Yes. I just think

090we want to make sure we make a good case for that. >> Hunter. >> Um, no, I don't have much to add just yet because I don't want to jump ahead of myself. Um, most of my questions have e either been answered through the presentation or through the followup. I I had some, you know, just some points that just remembering that this is just the sort of start of the budget stage um in this budget timeline, you know, these are not finalized numbers. Just making that part important. I don't want to, you know, beat a dead horse, but like just reiterating that aspect was my biggest thing right now. Um, you know, I I I really believe in our our mission, which was kind of what we're looking at as our driving factor in our

091budget as we move forward, you know, and I've I've seen that throughout this past year that it's it's a strong mission and it's working. I The biggest thing I did want to see, however, was, you know, as we move forward, could we like potentially add the age of each school? Not like how old the children are in each school, but the age of the infrastructure of each school. I think that kind of as we, you know, move down the line, especially just kind of jumping the gun here to my later points, but just looking at that and being like, "Wow, okay, those those are really old schools instead of, oh, that's a, you know, 10 20 year old school." Uh, it's a different thing, you know. Um, and yeah, again, just that this is a

092maintenance of effort budget. This is not a final representation. This is just to keep the doors open. And so I just wanted to kind of reiterate that. >> All right. Thanks. Um I I guess what I first want to say I I actually I really liked this presentation. I like the way it's set up. I feel like if um for those who are following along or are have been at all of our workshops, I think this follows pretty logically after spending on time on what were what happened last year, what was our performance, how you know um and then I feel like these are very tied to some of those pieces and um I appreciate that. I do um echo what Jim says. I think once we get to the the big public hearing, um

093making sure to pull in, you know, some of those pieces from along the way would tell um a better story. Um in terms of the individual bits, the edte, the thing that really jumps out at me that I'm hopeful for would be the edtech um staffing day. And I I this was something we did not pick up last year, but was on the table, right? Yes. Um, so for the the benefits that were already mentioned and then in addition to I'm I'm also imagining having more adults in the building more of the time also still you know frees up lead teachers to be planning and getting at some of these pieces um you know around academic performance. Um so I just I feel like that one is likely to have a big bang for the

094buck. um similar reaction to summer school as Sam. We've already let it go. Certainly not against bringing it back, but if we have to make tough decisions, you know, are we doing the best that we can in the days that we already are committed to having the kids at school? Um and I am definitely in support of making sure our technology is um strong and safe. And I would defer on wiser folks and I as to when that should happen. Um I think those are my first past thoughts. Lauren, um I do appreciate the the presentation and like how the information is laid out. I guess sort of piggybacking on the school um summer school is if you're able to provide some numbers on the students that you would expect to serve and I would

095assume that those numbers um in the reports that you've done in the previous years would have the numbers along with the costs um as well as any of the actual performance measures. Thank you. So, um I would echo the clarification on the summer school data. Um it's it would definitely be helpful if we're unclear if if we are going to get um partially funded. Um it would help make that decision a little easier maybe if we knew the timeline of knowing if we were going to receive the grant uh or funding. Um the mo or the maintenance of effort number that we got that is without any like emergencies or like boilers that catch on fire. So, uh, echoing what Hunter said, like a I don't know if if there's an increased maintenance budget for

096our aging facilities. It would be interesting to see if there's a what is the multiplier as things get progressively older. Um, like it it's not a 10% more every year. It's like 10, 12, 15, 20, 100. Um it would be neat to see that. Um uh some we don't have hard data yet surrounding um our big HVAC bond, but it would be helpful to see what that road map's going to look like and what are the data points that we're going to be tracking. >> Um >> I bet. >> Yeah. intermission. We'll learn more. >> All right. Um, >> yeah. Um, would love to hear more about outdoor bathrooms. Um, that's all I had for the topic. Yeah, it's pretty much all I had for instruction. >> Thank you, Adam. There we go. Um, thank

097you again, Chanda, for this presentation. Um, a lot of my questions are already answered coming to the end of the table. I feel like some of that will echo beyond me as well. Um, I do I would love to see summer school come back, having three little ones at home. Um, and I definitely saw a difference with my going back to school in the in the in September with readjusting and getting back into education. And I know one of my um three has definitely slid back in reading. Um as much as you want to encourage as a parent and and have help them through that in the summertime, it doesn't always work coming from the parent. So I feel like a teacher instruction um is way more beneficial. And even if we can't do a

098full five days, if it can be a three-day week, what can we do to get them in school some of the time would be helpful. Even if we couldn't do the whole program, something is better than nothing in my eyes. Um, I did have a question about the library. Not much was t discussed in that except for the the little slide that you did have. I thought there might be some increases with the AI coming into fruition and all of that. I thought that might have an impact, but if it doesn't, that's wonderful. Um, I just thought there would be some numbers there. >> There's a bigger report in the materials in the folder. Okay. Yeah. >> Um and then uh I look forward to the second half of the evening more than the first

099half. So, >> thank you. >> I've I've basically uh already mentioned my my concerns and comments on on the presentation. Uh and I think it's just you know transparency to make sure uh uh to we that we if we have a you know how we're addressing gaps and gains and whatnot because that's what my impression when I looked at this is you mentioned gaps and gains and then you just go right into programming and I never really see gaps and gains as is discussed and you know we don't want to have rumors on Instaface. So as Bill Bich would say >> thank you. Um, so I think we've covered summer school as a topic. Um, I was happy to see that we're um, the edtech come up again because I do remember that came up

100last year. Um, and I think it is an important um, area to look at. It looks like there could be a lot of benefits, but it is also very expensive. Um, but so I was happy to see that come up again. Um, but that's really all I have for this first part. Um, I I like I really like the presentation. I think it's working really well. I think this format works well, at least for me. Um, and I've seen it done multiple different ways over time, and this this feels like a a good informative way to do it. Um, not to beat uh summer school to death, >> but the majority of my questions were have been answered by others. But um as a former client of summer school as a young person um I

101personally had a lot of benefit from summer school a few times and I don't really care about the enrichment piece as much as I care about the academic piece. Uh I know that over time it's been a problem staffing it. Uh our own staff doesn't always I know they're paid additional. I know that it's not It's optional. They volunteer for it. We can't make anyone teach summer school. So, we're really subject to who wants to do it. And given that our pool is narrow, I would suggest we narrow the focus of summer school and keep the emphasis on academic and areas and maybe back to the idea of targeting and inviting a certain population to attend summer school and and benefit from it. Uh maybe that will help the success of the program. Maybe not.

102But I just think with limited resources and limited staffing that if we can target the use to the most benefit. That might help. Um, apart from that, um, I'm fine. I have some things for the next half, but I'm trying very hard not to leap ahead. So, I'm >> Okay. Wait. Well, we're all very excited to return. Um before we do have a snack and get um geared up to get excited about facilities, um this is uh a time where we'd love to invite some public comment. Um if folks have any input as community members in the um the instructional pieces that we've talked about so far, we'd love to have you come on down to the podium. Oh, thank you. My name is Deb Carson and thank you for the presentation tonight. I really

103appreciate it. I just had a couple of comments. Um, one on summer school. It would definitely be great to see the um, statistics on it. There's definitely a slide that happens and I think that summer school helps with that. I know some other states do implement other things to help with slide like summer reading programs and whatnot. Um so I don't know if we've looked at doing something like that to kind of cover that gap. Um the other thing on the technology I hope we're really serious about looking at that end of life. I think it's important to put the cost in without having security issues. If we get too far down the road it costs a lot more to fix things. And then um lastly on the sports thing, I'm gonna tell you parent

104problems happen at all ages. I oversee referees for our youth soccer program. We're constantly kicking out parents and coaches. It's a problem at all ages. It's not just at the high school. If you can solve it, let me know how you do it. That's it. >> Thank you. Anybody else? All right, you'll get another shot um if you're still here at the end. So, we will take Did you have a time in mind like for our our >> sending a new format to us? This has been a lot of guessing. Could someone pop their head onto Mia and to let her know? We are about ready. Uh our poor food service department keeps asking me what time and I kept going, I don't know. I don't know what how this is going to work. Um

105but I would say let's take 15 minutes. Does that sound okay? >> All right. So, we will be back. stretch your legs. Bathrooms are across the hall here if you need a facility. And then um uh we have coffee and water back here. And our food service staff should be out just in a minute with our snacks. >> All right. And we'll look to get the board resettled at about 7:15. >> All right. seats. It is not past time. It is 7:16. >> I said board members, head back to your seat. We will start at 7:18, which was exactly 15 minutes after we ended. Please help me. The crisp is amazing. get back at it with um our second piece on operational cost centers um which everyone's very excited about. So this will be article

1066 8 and 8 through 11. Did I buy you enough time to get situated? >> I forgot to switch to the intermission slide. I apologize. Uh now we are going to move into the operational cost center presentation. Um to kick this off, I have terrible news for you and everyone in the room. Um and that is you're going to have to listen to me. David is unable to be here tonight. Um his vacation travel plans over the break were impacted. We all know someone who got stuck. Now you also know someone else who got stuck. Um David would very much rather be here. he is uh continuing to try to find a way to get back home. So um he uh has been gracious enough with his time to make sure that we are well

107equipped to um share this part of the presentation and Jen is here as well as the rest of our team to kick in and hopefully be able to answer any questions. But if there are questions that we need him for, we do have workshops coming up. We'll make sure we capture those and bring them back to you. So much like our instructional goals, we have some operational goals to getting a little bit more specific. Uh first, we're looking to increase our operational efficiency. Um and then we're looking to improve our student safety experience particularly in transportation as well as making progress on our work in facilities. I'm going to start by talking about our increase in operational efficiency that is in um my office primarily and is related to our HR and payroll systems. Uh

108we currently use paper time cards for hourly employees. That takes a lot of time of all of our employees, of the secretaries who gather those forms and chase people down for them every week and then checking them and then they go to our principles who have to sign them, review them and check them and then they come to central office where they are reviewed and checked and sent back on occasion. Um it takes up a lot of time not just in central office but across the entire district. Um so we are interested in moving towards a digital time card system. Uh that would be uh so digital time card system. Um additionally we are looking at our hiring and onboarding paperwork. Again right now that is 100% paperbased. We do a few Google forms in

109there to try to try to help with like our admin team work as far as like putting in postings and that sort of thing. but it is a primarily paperbased system and it does not have to be that way. Um, so we're looking to really increase the efficiency and our ability to serve our staff and our public. Um, and as well as taking things off the plates of our folks who are student facing so they can focus on students and not on time cards and HR paperwork. Um, so in to increase that efficiency and service it would be about $25,000 in year one to do both things. uh we're sort of in a place of whether we're not sure whether both in one year is our best choice. Uh but we're evaluating it. It would

110be about 25,000 to do both as our initial cost. The recurring costs from there would then be about $14,000. Um but we are eyeing some other systems that we would then um no longer be using to kind of offset some of those costs. So, uh we will bring you more about that as the time gets closer. The other thing we're going to take the opportunity to review at this time, I can't be trusted with the clicky. Um, we had some questions about our legal fees a while ago and we had it on a board agenda where we had some really uh robust conversations and lost track of time. So, this was tabled from the January 21st meeting, but this um this area of expenses lives in article 6, which again is systems administration, the school

111board, and the superintendent's office. So we thought we'd take an opportunity to speak to that. Now I shared with you a very big picture overview of the types of things we spend with our legal representation. The first was around personnel. Uh this is generally specific to uh disciplinary measures and looking to let someone go or or fire someone. uh this is exclusively the superintendent. When you are at that level of discipline and or looking at someone letting go, you are dealing directly with me. Um and I sometimes need to speak with legal counsel about that. That's because we have collective bargaining agreements we need to make sure are upheld in any actions that we take. Additionally, teachers are one of the only I wouldn't just say teachers. It's a few it's a few jobs within

112education, but education is some of the only occupational areas that have laws that govern how you can discipline, hire, and fire them. And so oftentimes when we are looking to take disciplinary action on one of those roles that are covered by law, we need to to counsel with our legal team to make sure that we are in compliance with all of those laws um and decisions that have been made in the past so that our decisions are appropriate first of all, but second of all, they can't be turned over later. The second area we tend to spend uh with legal fees is in special education. This is generally specific to due process. our legal counsel represents us when we're in front of mediators um or uh in court if folks were to um ask for

113a review. Um essentially in the IEP process, there is protections in the law to allow families to request what's called due process, which is outside folks looking at that. We have to have legal representation whenever those processes happen. We also use our legal team um around Title N. we have a title n officer. Um, generally speaking, it's a parent or a staff member and they would make a request for an investigation to the title N officer and that's part of their job uh to identify any discriminatory practices or findings to to see if there have been any violations in that law. at times they need to uh conference with our legal team to make sure we understand that the specific situation and how it fits into the the nuances of law particularly given there's been

114so many changes in that law over the last five and 10 years. We also use them for our financial operations. Uh our legal team help us develop our warrants, our referendums, they facilitate our budget meeting. When we have bonds they help us with that process. Um, and then additionally, it's sort of financial operations, but um, they help us with our elections and our recounts. Um, so we had to have some legal representation when we did the ballot recount recently. So all of those expenses kind of fall in that same area. General operations, I sort of call it when I need help. Um my first call is usually to my colleagues or the main superintendent association to get guidance when we come up against problems that might be a question of policy or a question of

115law. Um sometimes their suggestion is yeah, you need to check with your legal counsel. Um so I wouldn't say that I call them regularly. I I do joke that uh I was not in the job long before I got a wellness call because they were used to hearing from our district more than they've heard from us since I took over. Um, so I I am I have been reflective of do I don't want to call them too much and unnecessarily, but I also want to make sure that I'm not putting the district um at any risk by not checking with them. So um thankfully I do have a great professional resources to help me navigate that. Um but they do help me around general operations. They also have a role in training and professional development.

116Um they provide regular professional development to keep us updated with law and policy changes. For example, every fall they hold a conference where we get together and they tell us all the legislation that happened in the last year that impacts us in the schools, what policies we might have to change, what practices we have to change. There have been years where that was a two-day long conference because there was so much to go over. The last couple of years it's been much better. Um but they provide quite a bit of professional development to school boards and to um superintendents and and central offices around um keeping updated with things that are new. They also provide regular training that we would provide to new staff. So every year they provide trainings um for new superintendent. They

117provide trainings for um how to run a 504 meeting, how to run an IEP, um those sorts of really specific legal processes that if we were to have a new staff person taking that on, we may opt to send them to this opportunity to learn that piece to make sure that they're in line with all of our legal requirements. We also sometimes have staff uh schoolboard members that will come. They do new schoolboard training, that sort of thing. And then finally, um, our legal our legal representation provides annual mandatory training videos. Um, that's in things like bloodborne pathogen, um, sexual harassment training, student confidentiality. Um, they put together uh, instructional videos in line with the most updated laws and we provide that training to our staff. So, our staff do that in a system in

118a digital system. online is usually stuff we do in the first couple of days of school um where they watch those videos, take a quiz. Um but that mandatory training is something else they help us out with. Finally, and this is a weird one, but if you ever are looking at the warrants, you'll see it on there is something called serving schools. If you have ever worked in a school in Maine or you've ever wanted to work in a school in Maine, you would know what serving schools is. And that is a website that where the vast majority of schools in the state post all of their um all of their jobs. And so uh that is owned by the school law group. Um and so we our HR department whenever we are posting positions

119they are putting those postings up and taking those postings down on the serving schools website. So you'll see that as an expense. It's a very small one in the scheme of our legal fees but it is one that is very different from all of the others. And it's essentially that this company also provides that platform for us to recruit staffing. Oops, sorry. All right. So, now we're going to transition to transportation, uh, which is its own article. Um, there are two major things that we're looking in transportation for next year. Um, we are hoping to continue the replacement plan that we discussed last year. We talked about replacing a couple of buses every year and getting to a place we are continually refreshing our fleet so that it ends up being a really standard cross

120uh standard cost in our budget year toyear and we don't see big swings up and down. Uh prior to kind of trying to have this approach, what would happen is we wouldn't purchase a bus for a number of years, then we'd purchase three, the budget would go up significantly. The next year we would purchase none, the budget would go down significantly. Um, and we were seeing just really big swings in our budget ask based on how many vehicles we are asking for. What we feel is a better approach is to be investing in one or two buses every single year so that we're constantly replacing our fleet. Um, we don't have to worry about it ever getting to the place of failure, but we're also being fiscally responsible and seeing um as steady a budget

121as possible. So, as we work towards that replacement cycle, that would be an added cost next year. We are proposing um that we would purchase two new buses. The other thing we're looking to uh to look at, the other thing we're talking about is uh bus safety. We shared quite a bit about this with the facilities committee uh last month. This month, what's today? It's all it's all mushing together. Uh but we talked about it with facilities. And there's a number of things we're looking at to increase our student safety experience on our buses. The first is routing software um and GPS's on all of our buses. Uh that would allow us to hopefully route more efficient and safe routes. Uh additionally, the GPS for buses will allow parents to see where where buses are

122on the route. Um by being able to see where a bus is, it means kids are waiting for a shorter period of time, sometimes out on on very busy roads. So instead of kids knowing that their bus stop was at a certain time and being out there 15 minutes before to potentially 15 minutes after, they'd be able to see where that bus is and not necessarily have to stand out there for quite as long. Um to invest in that, it would be about $29,000 to put that system in place. We're also looking at crossing arms. And so that is the arm that comes out um at the front of the school bus. You can kind of see it here. It essentially makes students go farther out from the bus to cross. It helps the bus

123driver see the student. Um, we don't have flat-nose buses like this. Ours have it out in front. So, if a child or frankly even an adult is standing right next to the bus, it's difficult to see it from where you're driving. That arm f forces them to go farther out. We have it on some of our buses, but not all. It would be about $19,000 to outfit the remaining buses. We're also looking at extended stop arms, which you can see here. We have had some of the really big steel ones. What we're looking at is a fiberglass or different material um arm that isn't quite as long, but it has LEDs all along it that extends into the other lane to try to get the attention of drivers coming the other direction and get them

124to stop. So, it sticks out further than the little stop sign um to help get people's attention. uh it would be about $12,000 to look at the extended stop arms for our buses. We're also looking at stop arm cameras. Uh one of the issues that we have are when cars pass a stopped bus, we don't have a lot of recourse. Um it is dependent then on the driver to catch a license plate on the fly. That's not really what I want our drivers focusing on. I want them focusing on our kids safety and the road. Um, but our cameras as they are on the buses don't necessarily catch it in that way. Um, having it on the stop arms would let us see a little bit more around the bus and we'd also be able

125to provide more information to law enforcement around folks who are choosing to pass stopped buses. Stop arm cameras would cost about $8,000 to outfit our fleet. We're also looking at anti-pinch sensors. That's something that has mentioned may be required for buses um moving forward. It is a sensor that if something gets pinched in the door, it would alert the driver. Um, we actually don't we don't have this on any of our buses. And we currently can't find any providers of this particular thing. So, I can't tell you what that's going to cost, but it is our understanding the state is going to provide more guidance around that and potentially even um a source for that as there is potentially some legislation going forward to require them on buses. So, they would we're thinking they would

126have to provide us with some help with that, but it's a little bit of a question mark for us at the moment. And then finally, we're looking at uh moving forward with a safety committee. It would be about $1,200 over the course of the year to pay for some extra hours for our drivers. The idea would be about once a month to have them come together around a table and tabletop different areas of safety. If we were to have incidents in our own district, we would be analyzing that. What can we learn from it? What can we do differently? We would be looking at accidents in other communities or across the nation. What happened? What can we learn from it? What can we do differently? Um analyzing our bus stops, giving feedback to myself to

127share with you around what are dangerous areas, what are problems, how can we be safer, but essentially to pay our drivers a little bit of extra, it would be voluntary to come and sit and and think about and plan for student safety. across all of these pieces. Um we have heard from the governor that they do wish to move forward some of these bus safety priorities either as requirements and or as opportunities. We may receive some outside funding to support some of this. So these are all the things we're thinking about right now. Uh we will wait to hear more about what other funding we might get before we start thinking about what we might want to prioritize in our proposal for next year. But this is sort of the full spectrum of what we're

128thinking about and interested in over the next couple of years. Moving into facilities and maintenance um as we have in uh all over in my household for sure. Our contracted services um are increasing. Uh that's things like our trash um our trash removal service. Um fees are going up everywhere. We are not immune to that here in G&G. So, we're certainly seeing some of those facilities and maintenance um increases going up. We're we're measuring that as we move forward in the next budget. And the bigger piece we're talking about is our continued investment in facilities improvements, specifically going back to last year's proposal. So, I want to just really stress this comes from April 2nd of 2025. So, if you look at that capital reserve number at 2.4 million, it is not 2.4 4 million

129anymore. You all um approved and the voters approved us using some of that money. So that number is lower now. I just wanted to remind folks of the proposal that we had made last year, which is a slow incremental increase in our local commitment to our facilities. Uh we anticipate that we are going to ask for support in continuing moving forward with this proposal to have more investment in our facilities um in the coming budget proposal. So, what does that look like for next year? Great question. Um, these are our initial investment thoughts. Oops, I went the wrong way. Down is forward. It's weird. Um, these are some initial thoughts we've had, but this is going to be very directly influenced by work of the facilities committee right now. Uh, to preview folks who may

130want to attend our next facilities meeting that I don't know the date for, but someone's going to look it up and tell me. Uh we are going to be continuing work on developing a long-term strategic capital investment plan. And so as part of that, we're looking at how do we invest and prioritize our facilities at elementary, our facilities at middle school and high school. What is it that we want to accomplish in the next 5, 10, 15, and 20 years? So there are some things here that sort of in influence some of that. So you'll notice um we have sort of two different juositions. one is looking into um planning for a consolidated elementary school. If that strategic plan comes out to say that that is something we want to explore, we would need to

131invest some funding in that. On the flip side, if out of that capital uh long-term planning comes out that we want to invest more in our uh neighborhood elementary schools, we would need to invest more in those replacements of tables and chairs and tiles and carpets and that sort of thing. So this is sort of like a off the back of the napkin list that will be deeply influenced by the work of that strategic facilities plan. Uh what were the other things I wanted to make sure I pointed out? So one of the things we wanted to point out that kind of go together and are related to the work that we've done to upgrade this space. If you were able to come see the musical this fall, you notice we did some lighting increases.

132We had some different seating. Um, and it actually felt like a theater when you came in and it was really, really nice. What is really challenging about that is we now have two different sets of individual chairs that occupy this space. Um, so something we hope to kind of prioritize investing would be to buy new cafeteria tables for next year. We've been talking about this for a long time, buying tables that have attached seating instead of what we currently use, which are these tables with the plastic seats um, separate. If we do that, the win-win that that allows us is it allows us to then use the nicer theater chairs for things like this meeting and just pushing these tables out of the way. And then we have a number of high school classrooms that

133need their seating upgraded. You may remember on our tour, we were in classrooms that had hard metal folding chairs as their primary seating. We could repurpose much of the seating in here to upgrade our classrooms. So, a lot of these things are related. And then finally, not to bury the lead, uh, but let's talk outdoor bathrooms. To do um the construction on an outdoor bathroom and kind of try to shave that off of the bond project um is extremely expensive. Um really shockingly and surprisingly expensive. We explored it as part of even as we're looking at trying to repurpose that portable building, how can we do so in a way that would allow us to then even if we don't build them now, have some septic capacity for outdoor bathrooms. They were like, you can't

134you can't do these two things together. So it was super disappointing. Um so as part of that long-term facilities planning, we still need to be thinking about a permanent solution. In the meantime, we may be looking to um prioritize in our facilities investments next year a temporary solution. The temporary solution would be a trailer system. Um a number of our area school districts do use them. Uh it is a trailer that has a tank of running water. So, it is a flushing toilet with a sink that has running water. Um you can get them with a number of different stalls. They're they're surprisingly nice. Um it costs about $50,000 to purchase one. Um and then after that it's about $3,000 per year ongoing costs. That's emptying it, filling it with the water, cleaning it, that

135sort of thing. Right now we're paying about 7 to$10,000 a year for the portaotties that we have. So, if we were to use some of these facilities funds andor capital funds to invest in purchasing um a trailer system for the upfront cost, the ongoing cost then would be less than we're paying now and the experience would be a significant upgrade. Um, I don't think any of us would represent this as the long-term uh, panacea solution to the bathrooms for our athletic facilities, but we do think this is something we need to consider investing in in the short term while we continue to discuss what we're going to do um, with the the bond project um, pieces. I'm really definitely afraid I'm going to forget something important being not my not where I was planning to.

136um present. Okay. So then we wanted to take a minute to talk about debt service. Um and this one is a little difficult to talk about. So indoor air quality um and those bonds impacts our maintenance of equity and our bottomline budget in a pretty significant way, but it's a challenge to propose that and present that in a way that makes a lot of sense. So, we've got a lot to talk about between here and our final um budget, but to be clear, we have an obligation to pay our debts. So, the question that will be at hand is how are we going to do that? Whether or not we pay them or not is not a choice at this point, but how we do that is a choice. So looking at next year, just

137to give you a frame of reference, the maintenance of effort that we presented to you, the 6.7% increase that includes all of those projected debt payments. So that is the current year's debt payments because we took on some in the current year and it's also what we the increase that will happen next year. So that 6.7 would cover all of the payments that we owe um under that debt service. If we were to not have that expense next year, that maintenance of effort number would have been 4.95%. So when you think about, again, keep in mind, maintenance of effort is just not changing anything, and that is not what we're proposing. Um, but if we were to just take the air quality bond payments out, that would have been 4.95%. to then kind of give

138you the in between point. Uh this year we used $275,000 of capital reserve to cover some of those indoor air quality payments. If we were to do that again, if we were to do that as part of the maintenance of effort number, that increase would have been 5.92%. Now, I share those figures with you so that you can see how we decide to pay for our indoor air quality payments significantly impacts what our expense budget looks like. And that's going to be a challenge that we have as we build our budget. Um so that will be an area that we will talk about at facilities, we will be talking about at finance, we will be talking about at um the board level, but to really think about how we want to invest the funds that

139we have and the funds that we're going to ask for in what that bottom line budget looks like. I don't have an answer or a proposal at this point. I'm just sharing with you the challenge and the data that I have as we're thinking about what this um budget might look like. Finally, we're going to talk about article 11, which is a weird one to talk about. We're going to talk about it anyway. And that is all other, which is nutrition services. So, I'll just take a pause as you probably can't hear us, but Mia, if you're in there, we love you and you're amazing and thank you for making us dessert late at night. Uh, we really appreciate it. So, and Wendy for organizing it and David for working so hard. Um, we are

140not looking to make a local investment in nutrition this year. We do have a fund a a balance in that program. Um we have received a letter from um from the nutrition program asking us to um spend down about $75,000 and the technical term is soon. Um essentially we have that balance uh because we had lots of opportunity for additional income during COVID while we also had lots of opportunities for additional um expense coverage. So, we were able to um lower down for a while there. We were asking for a local investment in nutrition services. We now haven't for a number of years, and we do have a balance of about $75,000. Um so, what we want to use that, we wanted to take this opportunity to share with you what our plans are for

141that balance. Um and we're looking to start uh being proactive in our replacement plan. Like we talked about with transportation, let's look at the regular replacement of our older equipment so that we aren't looking at huge expenses in one year when 10 things go wrong. Um and instead just be regularly updating and maintaining what we have. So for the f current program balance, we're looking to buy a dishwasher, replace our dishwasher here at the high school, um buy a steam table for the middle school. That's um a place where we keep food warm while we're serving it. get some uh get an updated oven and warming unit for Dun School as well as replacing two ovens and a steamer at Russell School. The total of that is about $78,000. But we're hoping we'll get a

142good deal that we can do it all. And that sums it up. So, I would bring it back to what I started tonight with, which is as we build our budget, our primary goals for our student experience is to maintain our programming, continue to invest in improving those academic outcomes, invest in bus safety, and invest in our facilities. And with that, I hand it back to you. >> All right. Thank you for all that information, particularly when you were not necessarily planning on delivering it. Um, appreciate that. Seeing as we're in the just all operational at this point and we're not asking various people to pop up and down, um, let's take clarifying questions on any of this before we give our feedback. So again, that would be a a direct question that might be

143able to be immediately answered on something you heard here that you want to have a followup on. Missy, >> question. >> Is your mic on? >> Can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Uh, three quick questions. Um, I assume the new buses would be flat nose. Are they all flat nose now? >> No. Do they cost more to have flatnse a bus? I'm unclear. I also have heard that it's difficult to get them. >> Oh, because they're probably safer without having that big nose in the front, not needing arms and such. >> I don't know that there is hard data to say that the flat nose is is it it is a different driving experience. Um, I know that it's you're getting you, and I say this just from having driven other

144vehicles that are similar, but also having worked with our drivers, um, as they experience different driving rodeos going way back, uh, to when I first consulted with the district. Um, you're in a situation where the wheels are behind you versus on a regular car, the wheels are in front of you. So, it's a very different driving experience. Um, I we can look into get some getting some updated information, but information from a while ago is you try not to have mixed fleets where you have to have drivers drive different buses because it is such a different skill set. >> Oh, but I also know that buses in general are difficult to get. >> It's a major maintenance difference also having a diesel pusher where you've got an engine in the back versus engine in the

145front. It's a whole different regimen as far as your mechanics are concerned. >> Okay. So, the new the two new ones will be a regular round nose. That is the intention. Yes. >> And I don't think you can get a pusher bus as a gas model. We've been experimenting with gas. >> Okay. >> I believe you. >> And then uh next question was the um in the industry that I work in um all the time uh the wedding land that I'm very familiar with the portable bathroom trailers. See them all the time. What's the lifespan on those? Do you know how long those last? I do not know the answer to that. No, he she didn't he didn't share with you either. I wish poor Nate could be here. He's very excited about the bathrooms.

146He actually would have been loved to be here to talk about it. >> And then would they I know this is probably too deep, but we're talking a two to four stall for the capacity of a game that would need it. We're not going to talk a small one that would need. >> No, the prices is for the bigger the price that I quoted to you is for the bigger stall one. >> The four to six stall. >> The six I believe >> the six and that's the 50,000. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'd love to know the lifespan because know how long we'd have them for and would we be able to sell it after and what would that sell price be down the road for facilities if we're going to do anything with the

147bond, what we'd get back from that. That's all. >> Okay, we can look into that. >> Oh, okay. If folks didn't hear that, that was uh he did send us the website that he's been looking at. um the one that he's kind of narrowed down to what he think would meet our needs best and it said 10 years wellmaintained um but could be up to 20. >> Okay. And then third small question the 611 is the debt we owe the 611,000 >> that's the additional that's coming on for next year >> that all in one year. >> Correct. >> Okay. That was my two questions. >> Great. Uh, other questions? >> Sharon, >> um, I just had a question about the new buses. Do any of them come with the newer safety equipment like standard?

148Like the crossing arm doesn't seem new, nor the extended stop arms. And I know some of our buses already have some of that stuff. So, does it anything come standard? I don't know that anything comes standard these days. We certainly can request having some of those pieces on them. And a couple of our buses did come with the extend arm on the front. None of have with the crossing arm on the front. None of them have come with the extended stop arms. That is an add-on generally speaking. Say that again. >> Just like a car. It's all about >> all the features, >> the trim package. >> We want it custom. >> Even the radio, we have to add the radio. I do remember John saying when he came to facilities last that there were

149a couple of features that came with our newer buses that were not an arm and maybe even the camera was better on them. that was on my list too that like is there a benefit additionally to keep moving forward because we're more standard features are the things we're trying to put on >> and we like to think I know dare to dream but I like to think that if things like anti-pinch sensors become statute that it's required that that would then become standard package on a bus >> so that was going to become >> that's not always a onetoone in our experience >> yes um >> but I continue to dare to dream >> as just a side note just am blown away by the number of cars that blow by buses. So, anything we

150can do, cameras, extended arms, I'm all for it. Jen reminded me that we purchase our buses through a master agreement through the state. So, the state negotiates um contracts with the companies that make the buses. Um so, we can provide that in kind we can kind of provide that input about what should be standard on that bus to that master agreement. At the end of the day, the dep if the state requires it, it'll go in the master agreement hopefully. But but sometimes there's a time delay. It's if we can't find anti-pinchinch sensors, can they find anti-pinch sensors? I got a lot of questions. >> Jim, >> yeah, I just wanted to clarify the consolidated elementary school planning. Is it the thought that the consolidation would be uh prek through 12 prek through 4 under

151one roof? >> So that's what the uh facilities committee is discussing is what should the goals for elementary be and one of the things we're talking about is should we consider a new build um for elementary uh be that prek through 4 prek through five we have to take on three and four year olds pretty soon should we be thinking about that? So that's exactly the conversation the facilities committee is having right now. Yeah, because preK through four based on our current um attendance is uh about 740 people. That's a pretty good size school. >> It would be a pretty big little little people. >> Yep. >> You are hitting on the pros and cons. We have started to to pull apart. Yeah, absolutely. There's reasons to do it and there's reasons not to do

152it and that's what the committee will be digging into. Uh, I did get um, thanks to Hunter, it is March 11th at 6:30. >> Thank you. March 11th, Hunter, nice >> at um, I assume done. >> I think it's a done school, right? >> Yeah. >> They're all looking at me like they they don't. >> Fran, do you have a question? >> Fair. >> I do. um on the uh legal fees on the training um the uh main school management you know provides training. Um how is the ones that the uh um is there duplication because the law firms are also providing training as well and um this has always been probably even on the town side you know um when they go through this and it's almost like a duplication. uh shouldn't we spend

153most of our time uh using MSMA for um all those things that you know and I see I get emails all the time from them all this stuff is going on in MSA MA so >> I think you know have there been any thought about decreasing our commitment to the law firms for that >> uh it's a great question Brandon I really appreciate it um we do also use main school management association as well as Maine superintendent, Maine State Superintendent Association, and Maine School Board Association um for our learning needs. There is also a charge for those trainings that is not terribly different from um our legal counsel. So, whoever we're paying, we're paying about the same amount. I would also say that those three organizations when they offer um professional development around the law,

154they hire Drummond Woodsome to present it. So generally or or the or one of the other law firms that generally speaking they work with Drummond uh Drummond Woodsome attorneys. So even when you're going to a main school management professional development maybe we're not writing the check to our legal council for that but it's the same uh group of people providing the information. >> Okay. >> Other operations questions. >> Just a clarifying question so we're all on the same page. The governor is currently proposing a bus safety chunk of cash in the supplemental budget that should be done by April. So that theoretically will be either available to us or not available to us before we have to vote. Right. >> That is my understanding. >> Okay. Just so we're all on the same page. That's

155what I think is going to happen. It's I I always get nervous when I am planning on the deadlines of the state uh or the state holding to deadlines. Um but I dare to hope that that yes, that should be the timeline. It should be part of the supplemental budget and then we would know more um as we get ready to propose our draft budgets. It's supposed to be on a timeline that works well for us. All right, other questions. >> Um, what are our fees to MSMA? I I don't think I've ever seen that. >> Uh, we can pull that information for you. >> That'd be good. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Any more? Uh, I also will remind folks that we do have um a couple of weeks to submit questions, too. So,

156if you go home and you're thinking about it or you're like, I want to hear more about this this fee or I want to hear more about summer school, um please continue to send emails in um I'll pass that on and that will all inform our workshop next month um as well. Okay, so let's uh feedback time. Let's start at this end so they can't say that these guys stole all your ideas. Gary, what do you think? >> Most of what I had for questions have been answered. Um, my only and I my other question is more more an assumption. I assume that we're prepping um a submission to the state on a school construction to at least get on a list in anticipation that we might want to do this. >> Answer that question.

157>> Since it's what, a fiveyear cycle? it >> it's a five to 10 year cycle and there's current legislation at play that may change all of that or there's current report at play that may result in legislation that could change that whole thing but at the end of the day if we don't have a plan whether that is to renovate our current buildings or to replace them we cannot be eligible for outside funding. So, we have to move forward with coming up with some sort of plan that we would want to put out to find additional funding and support for. >> And we still would have to invest time and money into making a plan. Like, we can't just call the state and say, "Put our name on the put us down for a school."

158>> We had this conversation >> several years ago and we missed a de we >> right >> we talked beyond the deadline to submit. So, now we're in a position of waiting another cycle to even get on a list. And so I just want to throw that out there that we need to be aware of that cycle. >> I think it's fair to say facilities has a very keen eye on that. >> That's why I said I was making an assumption that we were prepping that >> assumption correct. >> But apart from that, that's my only >> Sharon. >> Um, all my questions were answered. I was just going to say I really like the breakdown of showing the article because sometimes when we're in that big meeting, it all kind of gets lost. So

159I think having it right from the beginning saying like this is tied to article one, this is article 10, it's very helpful. So I would like to see that continue. >> Yeah. I just have a quick thing. Uh the district storage, I know in the uh uh tours we've had in the past, you see these uh uh shipping containers with the stuff just you can just imagine rusting to high heaven inside. Uh what's what's the you have any kind of thoughts what you the approach you'd like to go? >> Uh my first approach is to go through the things we're storing. >> Yeah. >> And decide whether we should be storing it all >> and maybe do some things with that. So um that that makes a lot of people uncomfortable and and sad. So

160um that's project number one. Uh but then additionally, yes. So, we have shipping containers and then we also have like a number of buildings out here. We've looked at on a couple of different tours um that are old and they're just starting to break down. It's where we keep our our sports equipment for, you know, the uh near the track we've got sheds that have all the uh track and field equipment in it and those are starting to, you know, rot out at the bottom a little bit. So, um looking at the district storage, it is a twofold process. The first is to see what we might be able to get rid of through our board policies of moving things on depending on uh whether it has value or not. uh then reutilize the spaces

161that we have more efficiently so that um for example uh sometimes we end up with specialized uh special education equipment like a student needs something specific. We purchase it for them. Um that school then that student moves on, that school stores it, and then a couple years later a school across town needs that equipment. We don't necessarily know that that equipment is sitting at another school unused, right? So because sometimes we're talking about like really small things. Um but small things add up. So can we have a way that we better inventory and store things in the spaces that we have and then additionally if we do have additional outdoor storage needs like we will always have outdoor storage needs here with our athletic facilities um upgrading those to newer uh less rotted >> structures.

162Thanks. >> Sorry I'm passionate about the storage so I got excited there. Um, I don't have anything else that the three that I had were answered and um, I love the second half. It's exciting and I look forward to a very busy facilities year. >> So around article six um, so when Dr. Turner slash admin staff um spend their day reallocating time and resources away from working on students, uh chasing down things like validation of a petition or uh coming up with a mediator for whatever and spending money on a budget recount answering like 9,000 foyer requests. Um those are expenses on our district and it seems like I know last year article six might have gone a little over and so some of these things are overflowing into our our general budget and we're

163asking you know our taxpayers to compensate for it at also the expense of not focusing on the children. So there may be a conversation to be had about what are the hard expense numbers around some of these non- studentent focused article six items and should we ask for more from the taxpayers to pay for all these things that we have our admin running around doing. Um uh also um we did just do a big bond project and I think it's gone well. Um it would be really nice to have some hard data points around what that bond has produced. even if it's we have reduced our CO2 levels in our classroom by X amount period like not like yeah well people have been less sick but it you know or however whatever um at least

164some good data around what it did accomplish not just like yeah we got the money spent the money everything works as advertised um uh going back to sorry around our transportation um all for the bus purchases. I think that that kind of, you know, not having to retrofit some buses to take the new safety features is great. Um, I think the the bigger picture there kind of including what our nutrition program is going after also is I think you know as a district we need to kind of take the picture of what we want our district to look like and maybe kind of overlay it onto what we think it should look like. So, do we want to show up to athletic events in three mismatch buses where one has an arm and or uh

165you know, do we want some kids to have all the safety features on their buses where some don't? So, it's um there's a message there and a picture there that I think we need to build uh build on. Um obviously the the GPS tracking system is great. Everyone I Everyone wants to know where their kids are all the time, but if you know if my kids were standing outside yesterday morning, I would love them not to be for an extra 10 minutes or or however whatever um transportation is a hot topic right now. So, it's it's good. I don't think we need to get super ex super excited until we get the recommendations from the state at the end of April. Um, and just like a a little thing about the outdoor bathrooms. Um, we

166just redid all of like the fee schedule surrounding use plus cost. If we had like Patriot soccer here, we're going to have to have like, you know, we would have to revisit that surrounding that. It would be that would be expensive. Um, and that's all I had. Um, excuse me. I have no clarifying questions, but um, just want to make the comment on um, I really do appreciate this presentation again, but article six, hearing about the increasing the operational efficiency that you're using the technology to do, you know, go to um, digital time card systems. I can imagine the amount of time spent um when those do have to be submitted as well as um becoming more techn um using technology on the HR side of things. That's that is very much needed. And then

167also just a um I'm glad that bus safety is getting the attention and fully support that. >> All right. Um I I know it's early um but I'll say it every chance I get. Um on the proposal around the um reminding us of last year's capital reserve um and and the debt debt service piece. Um I think where we have most recently stood with voters is a big expensive project was a pass. Um use some of those reserves, get creative, buy your own things. Um, but we also had an overwhelmingly easily passed commitment to do the air quality. So, um, for me, I think I'm going to keep pushing back on the idea that we should be paying for that project that the voters approved out of money that we could be spending on improving

168the facilities. Um, I know we'll spend more time on that. um agreed on improving efficiency where we can in in central office with things like uh time cards, paper time cards. That sounds that's horrifying. Um on the um projects, it's exciting to see. I think this does take some of the sting out of feeling like we weren't getting anywhere. Um, but to see the things like the new chairs and the improved use of space in here, um, I have absolutely promised my friend Stephen the custodian that I will always back uh, improving the tables in here. Um, you know, and just making it making it spaces that are both good for students but also efficient for our staff so that we can use their time wisely. Um, I also get excited about uh, storage. I

169will say the idea to go through storage and get rid of stuff um is one that has outlived now multiple superintendents. So if you can get in there and get folks to throw stuff out um if you can't reach me this summer, it's because I'm in a back room of Dun School's basement where there's no cell service and please send help. >> I you know I think it it's tough. We tell people to do more with less. we there is a scarcity mindset because that that's the reality of public schools. But when we keep stuff that clutters the space or that isn't useful or contributes to, you know, a sense of of decay or even uses precious real estate. Um I don't know if there's any other six sigma fans in here. I'm identifying myself

170as raised in a manufacturing household, but a little diddy growing up at our house is clean to inspect, inspect to detect, detect to perfect. So if you are cleaning everything all the time, you get rid of old trash and guess what? You make um room and find things that can be repaired. I know we have awesome facilities team who are always hearing like they did this, they did this in house, they did this in house. Um so I would like to see us expand that in in ways um you know like like going through our old stuff. Um, I think those are my early thoughts. Um, again, I appreciate the way this is presented. Hunter, what do you got? Were you going to talk about six sigma? >> I have no idea what that is.

171Um, >> it's okay. >> Uh, I don't Geez, I don't know where to I guess I'll start. You know, I think it was one of the first couple slides on our operational budget goals. I not a huge fan of the word want because it makes it sound personal and you can always take a word however you want. um you know, sort of talking with David through the idea behind the the verbiage was sort of the um you know, this year was to consider some of the items that were identified in question two that sort of failed and sort of um you know kind of spend money on some of those things that were identified in that question. um such as our new seating, right? Uh that was kind of a quote unquote want. Uh that

172was just my biggest thing, you know. I think the other thing I I really It's funny because I sit in facilities. So, I'm a really big advocate of these transportation, you know, improvements. I I don't think you can put a price on student safety. Um, I would be really happy to see the state pretty much, you know, support half of those increases. Um, I mean, we've seen the last year alone some very tragic, uh, incidents occur around buses, you know, and I think anything we can do to prevent those from happening, um, I honestly don't necessarily really care how much it they cost. Um, I think it's great. Um, and then the, you know, sort of my last two things. I guess I shouldn't have asked so my so many questions on the legal fees

173because you kind of covered all every single one of them. I mean, I'm glad I did so could be uh prepared. You know, that was going to be my biggest talking point. But, you know, sort of just talking about this, it's an idea of consolidation. It's not a, you know, confirmed. We haven't done anything. haven't said we're doing. It's just an idea out there and we're working on it. I'm a huge, you know, advocate of this. You know, I think that this is going to be a very long conversation. This is probably not something we will see a huge impact in this year's budget just because it's not going to, you know, we can't just build a new school next year. Um, takes a very very long long time. uh you know and just the

174fact that our schools are getting older and maintenance costs are going uh up and not down you know I think to take that in consideration and I I think it'd be a huge impact in our community I think you know families move to towns based on the schools is one of their bigger things and I think um you know that is also a big thing um but yeah just kind of an idea But I'm a huge advocate of it. That was pretty much it. >> Um, >> I hate to say things like this because it makes me sound like a bad person, but I do think there is a fallacy involved with safety and security there. We are never going to have no incidents. And one of the reasons that it makes news when these

175terrible things happen uh around buses is because it is so rare. Um we've you know there are just millions of school bus trips every year that are very safely conducted. There is no evidence that riding a bus is significantly safer now than it was 30 years ago despite all of the new safety improvements because generally bad things happen for super unpredictable and random reasons. And I do think it's dangerous to get into talk like you know we should spend whatever we need to spend to make people safe because there is no amount of money you can spend that will make us perfectly safe. uh human beings hurt themselves in weird and wonderful ways every single day that we can't predict. So I I hate to say that out loud, but at some point there is

176no matter how much you throw at security or safety, bad thing will happen. And it is incredibly safe to ride a school bus, much much safer than riding in your car with your parent on the way to school. That's 100% true. Um, but I do think the GPS is amazing customer service and I would 100% support that because I think it will be a major administrative uh lift from uh everybody who has to field phone calls. Where is my kid? I think that probably saves the $30,000 almost instantaneously. So, I think we should do that. Um, and you know, super big picture, I I think we should consolidate the schools. Um, and I think we should start it yesterday. >> I'm gonna pull the Everybody said what I was going to say because I really

177was going to say what Sharon said and Lauren also pretty much summed up what I was going to say. So, thank you. This presentation has really been great. I do love the way it's been presented in the articles just so we can relate back because this is my second goound through the process and I just feel like I'm learning a lot more and I'm more informed this year. >> All right. Thanks, Fran. >> So, I think my concern is around the consolidation. I think it's um um to say that we need it or don't need it would would be unfair. um conversation until we put together some numbers. Uh if it's we we have a lot of repairs to do on these buildings, we should have some professional opinion about the useful life, what's left

178of the use of these buildings. Starting with that, then we can start looking at, you know, um consolidation and uh what that would mean for the district. I think at this point to make major investments without that information into these buildings is unfair to the taxpayers. Um I think once they have, you know, if they have factuals um in front of them, they probably would be more apt to want to maybe invest in new knowing that there's going to be a wait list and it's going to be a time u um um before that happens and we can prepare as a district be ready to start absorbing or planning I should say not absorbing but planning what that would look like for the future. So, um I I feel like every time it's tono consolidation,

179it's like a tease, you know, and and I don't think that's fair. I really think we should start buckling down and let's get some real true numbers here and uh use for life and then uh go from there. And you know, um I think that would be professional thing for the board to do. Thank you. >> Great. I think we're in agreement on that. >> Total agreement. Yep. That is >> the actual work we're doing. Yep. >> Yep. Absolutely. Um okay. So that is our turn. And anybody left standing from the public who wants to say their piece, please step forward. Hello, my name is Meg Barheight. Um, I'm a mom. I live in Gray. Um, just generally speaking, I just want to share some gratitude for the preparation and the clarity of this presentation

180and just kind of listening and noting how thoughtfully this was put together. These are clearly very real priorities. I mean, we're looking at sort of baseline what we absolutely need. We're talking about potties and facilities here. Um, but we're also I can see the district being really mindful of what we can use. We're talking about tables. We can repurpose the chairs. I mean, I I just see a lot of thoughtfulness around spending and what we truly need to spend on. So, I just wanted to kind of call that out. And I really wanted to get up here to say GPS's for buses would be absolutely incredible. I'm sure all the parents in the room are like yes. But my family use that loses at minimum 20 minutes on either end of the bus route every

181day at maximum 30 to 40 minutes. So just think about the work time we could put back into the economy with that. You know, I just there's that would really change our family life. And I'm sure all of you who are out there waiting for the bus can agree. So, just a a little extra plug for that investment and thank you all so much for your time and your hard work. We appreciate it so much. >> Thank you. All right. And uh so we'll have parking lot items. I meant to ask at the beginning, Jen, have you been furiously typing for us? Okay, thank you. Great. Um, so questions, things we want to hear more about have been captured tonight. We'll have another opportunity to to come at that. I will remind you about this

182next week again at our meeting and say, "Hey, you have one more week to get us questions." Um, that will help us um, keep this conversation going next month. We're looking to have those questions from all of you by March 11th, but always the sooner the sooner we get them, the more thoughtful of an answer we can put together for you. Um, so I would just reiterate Penny's point of if you send those to Penny, we'll work on them. And then I think it's March 18th is when we're scheduled to come back to them. I'm going off the top of my head, so please don't listen to me. >> Okay, fine. >> And it's safe to assume questions asked tonight that we didn't know the answer to tonight are already preloaded >> pre-loaded into that

183parking lot. >> Do not have to repeat those. Okay, wonderful. That's it. 8:20. We're done. >> Thank you everyone.